“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Now: it may seem to most people that an exuberant, always-vital, energetic, healthy body would indeed be one of the greatest gifts of all—a body that never worried or showed signs of any disorder, a body that went ahead on its own, so to speak, propelled by feelings of strength and vigor. This certainly sounds like a fine ideal. Yet I tell you that in such a body you would finally feel like a prisoner, for your moods and reflections, your feelings and your thoughts, would find no responsive mirror in your flesh.

(A note for the record: I tried to use the pendulum to help me fathom the reasons for my illness—but with very little success. It’s one of the very few times the pendulum didn’t help. Even at the time I felt I wasn’t asking the right questions; sometimes the answers received were contradictory. But mainly, with hindsight I can see that I hadn’t asked the right questions to begin with. It didn’t occur to me that I needed a break.)

In the world as you know it, it is quite natural to feel sad, or even despondent at times. These are portions of the emotional reality that are native to your kind. These are not negative states on their own, any more than twilight is less natural than dawn. They are not even unpleasant states on their own. It is natural, then, to feel depressed at times. No one constant emotional state is meant to prevail. There are gradations and nuances of feeling and sensation that sweep through your own experience, the result of quite natural variations. Your overall beliefs, however, can be so exaggerated in a negative manner that finally some people accept as valid the most negative picture of the world.

I said that the body’s resiliency is far more important than any other consideration. You live in a cultural world. I cannot make decisions for you, based upon your social mores. Ruburt can save the majority of his teeth. Now in certain terms that would be considerable—that is, an achievement. In certain times people lost their teeth, when they did, as Ruburt has, and in a natural fashion. They simply dropped out of your head. The unlucky ones had to have them pulled, by the most torturous of processes. Lucky ones like Ruburt went on chomping merrily with the teeth that were kept, and with the gums between that became quite adequate for the necessary procedures.

Ruburt is not going to be satisfied with such a state, however, nor would you, for in your society it does not work that way. You are concerned with cosmetics. Ideally, Ruburt can regenerate the gums overnight. Practically, the gums are being regenerated, as the rest of his body definitely is. If he does not have his teeth out, he will probably lose two more that are very loose—but not for one or two years. By that time the rest of the teeth will be solid enough to stay in his head, and be operative. One tooth is in the back and probably would not bother him, since no one can see it anyhow. The other would be noticeable. That is your answer—

Your visitor believes that these children who can also move objects (and who work with AP) are unique, and a new breed—but any children of past generations who realized that such feats were possible, and desirable, could do the same thing. Your point about the footraces is well taken in that context—the mile run. (I’d explained to Jane the psychological barrier that had existed for so many years about the impossibility of a human running the mile in four minutes. But once one man had done it, many, many others have in recent years.)