“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Another question I’d meant to ask but forgot to list, had to do with our failure to do certain things, regardless of how often Seth mentioned them: viz.—using the hot towels, trying for the library, etc. Seth does go into those questions tonight.)

Perhaps primarily the answer lies in the necessity that man recognize the spontaneous source of his being. I will come back to that. More than that, however, your question of course reflects your cultural beliefs and assumptions, and so you do not realize that in some ways such conscious knowledge of the body’s workings might limit rather than expand concepts and experience of the body and the self.

I assume that by your question you mean, why does not man understand how his heart works? I confess that I do not quite know how to explain what I mean. In all the terms of common sense, of course our body is composed of organs—heart, liver, and so forth, and I mention them at times. You must understand, however, that the very terms are arbitrary to a certain extent.

If you understand that people can die of broken hearts, however, in symbolic terms, then practically you may be able to use that knowledge. There have been many concepts of the body. You can deal as effectively with the body by regarding it in entirely different terms than you do.

Native cultures, believing that the courage or fleetness of an eaten animal became part of the hunter’s mental and physical acquisition, handled the body in entirely different terms, and did very well. You can say that you have a brain and heart and liver and appendix, and so forth, and muscles and bones, and insist that all of these work in a certain fashion, as of course they do. Cutting the body open will show those organs. You can say with equal validity that the body holds a man’s ghost, that it is filled also with the organs of all the animals a man has consumed—that one man has the heart of a lion, and in that framework that is true.

I cannot explain this at all adequately. All I hope to do is to show you the assumptions behind your questions. And that is important.

(10:00.) Physicians, perhaps, can be used as an example of men who do have a conscious knowledge of the body’s workings. They should indeed then be the healthiest of men. Obviously this is not the case. Man must be free to experience the body as he wishes, and to be aware of its spontaneous order.

Medically much can be done in your framework to alter bodily parts. The body is not just a physical entity, however, nor is its working completely the result of the condition of all of its parts. People in seemingly good health, for example, all parts functioning normally as far as you know, medically, can suddenly die, or become ill, while no reason can be found. Such cases can occur, among other reasons, because of relationships between or among bodily parts that in your terms do not have a physical status.

Give us a moment.... There are for example pressures that do not show, strained relationships between, say, organs that are not apparent medically. These can best be symbolically stated, and would always represent states of mind or feeling. They affect bodily behavior, however, and bodily experience, and are far more important to health in basic terms.

The body is given mechanistic qualities. The heart is a pump, for example, but everywhere there are examples where people act in an entirely different fashion. Medical men are taught that certain muscles or organs do thus and so. People who should have died ten years ago by such prognoses, still live, while others who it seems should have lived, died.

Man has a knowledge of his body. This need have nothing to do with detailed information about its parts. Each man feels his relationship with his body. Your belief structures have clouded the practical use of that knowledge, however.

There have been considerable changes even since our last session, and I hope you have noted them. Feelings and emotion caused tensions under certain conditions that are not necessarily physically apparent, but that change the body. In your terms the body grows in time. So do beliefs. Ruburt is completely changing emotional and intellectual beliefs of long standing. His poor mobility did not exist alone, but reached back to an archaeology, say, of beliefs that affected his sinuses, jaw pressure, and so forth.

Give us a moment.... On occasion then he feels isolated, guilty, and is in a period of depleted energy. This state, added to his physical condition, is responsible for his feelings. They often fade after eating—in fact, they usually do, or after a friendly comment from you, or whatever.

You have not done so yet, and that means something also. The same applies to the hot towels, and to the extent to which you are willing, even in small ways, to alter your way of life, to achieve desired ends. It means something that you do not make love more often, also, and I am not necessarily referring to hours of rollicking passion, either, but to an allotted time to the simple pleasure of body and mind together, and to a kind of communication that is important for its own sake.

I mention some things again and again, so you do not have to go back to old sessions, though you should occasionally. Then let Ruburt encourage his spontaneity. He will find himself writing well—inspired, with time for new work and typing manuscripts, with periods of relaxation and ambition.