“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(9:46.) Many viruses are vital to physical existence, and in your terms there are gradations of activity, so that only under certain conditions do viruses turn into, say, what you think of as deadly ones. The healthiest body contains within it many so-called deadly viruses in what you may call (underlined) an inactive form — inactive from your viewpoint, in that they are not causing disease. They are, however, helping to maintain the body’s overall balance. In a way (underlined) in each body, the species settles upon a known status quo, and yet experiments creatively at many levels with cellular alterations, chromosomal variations, so that of course each body is unique. There are kinds of gradations, say, in the lines and kinds of disease. Certain diseases can actually strengthen the body from a prior weaker state, by calling upon the body’s full defenses. Under certain conditions, some so-called disease states could insure the species’ survival.

At the minute levels — microscopic levels — there are always some biological experiments being carried out, in a creative effort to give the species as much leeway as possible for effective action. Your body is changed biologically by your thoughts.

(Long pause at 10:01.) Your culture has its biological effect upon the species. I am not speaking of obvious connections in a derogatory manner, such as pollution and so forth. If you were thinking in old terms of evolution, then I would be saying that your cultures and civilizations actually alter the chromosomal messages. Your thoughts affect your cells, again, and they can change what are thought of as hereditary factors. Give us a moment… Your imaginations are intimately connected with your diseases, just as your imaginations are so important in all other areas of your lives. You form your being by imaginatively considering such-and-such a possibility, and your thoughts affect your body in that regard. In a way, illness is a tool used on behalf of life, for people have given it social, economic, psychological, and religious connotations. It becomes another area of activity and of expression.

It “sings” with the quality of its own life. It cooperates with other cells. It affiliates itself with the body of which it is part, but in a way it lends itself to that formation. (Pause.) The dreams of the species are highly important to its survival — not just because dreaming is a biological necessity, but because in dreams the species is immersed in deeper levels of creativity, so that those actions, inventions, ideas that will be needed in the future will appear in their proper times and places. In the old terms of evolution. I am saying that man’s evolutionary progress was also dependent upon his dreams.

(She paused. Then: “I seem to get things that are different toward the ends of books, like where one is leading into the next one. Take the idea of the book Seth mentioned on therapy and value fulfillment, and so forth, and what you said today about body consciousness. Everything’s related.”

(See the brief references to the therapy of value fulfillment in the opening notes for Session 862, with its Note 1. Today I’d mentioned to Jane how I remembered Seth’s saying — perhaps a couple of years ago — that still untouched in his material is the whole question of the body consciousness, and its role in health and many other fields. Seth had indicated that he had available a vast amount of material on the body consciousness, and that he could give it to us at any time. I’ve been curious about the subject ever since.