“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

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.

In your terms, early man felt his body to be a living, independent extension of the earth itself, and of the land. His head, to him, was like space or the sky. His feet were like moving roots. He believed that his feelings were like the world’s winds that swept through his body. To him, his spirit was inside his skin. Blood flowed through him with refreshing life, as water flowed through the rivers, refreshing the land. In your terms of course he had a heart and liver, but those terms are still arbitrary.

Early man related to his insides, then, symbolically in a way that is now quite outside of your comprehension. He knew he needed rain and sun and food as the land did. He felt so at one with the land, he and his body, that “a conscious knowledge of it,” it in your terms not only would have inhibited his identification with nature, but his agility within it.

Such a knowledge as you suggest in actuality would not have added to his comprehension of his body, for he comprehended it very well. It would not have added to his health for example either, for he listened to his body so acutely that natural healings followed as he sought from nature what his body needed. Perhaps a more recent example would help. There have been articles (in the newspapers) about people dying of broken hearts after long periods of time, when hearts were simply regarded as mechanical pumps. No man’s knowledge will alone save him from heart failure, or heart difficulties, if such knowledge is not backed up by comprehensions of an entirely different order.

Early man, “stupidly” knowing nothing of the body’s organs, did not feel that particular kind of disorientation. Man has an inherent knowledge of his body. On some occasions specific knowledge of the various parts leads him to forget other issues, and leads to a mechanistic approach.

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.

Give us a moment.... As to Ruburt: the relationships between his bodily parts are being corrected. I am not speaking of stance here, but of those invisible relationships mentioned earlier, for he felt earlier as if he were literally a self divided, so that one part shouted discipline, and one shouted spontaneity. One shouted go ahead, one shouted slow down, be cautious, and these feelings of separateness were reflected in the body.

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.

The entire posture required a tightening, however, of all muscles, including eye muscles. The body is letting down. You can, and you have, helped him by reminding him that this is safe, that the body’s protection and his own lies precisely in the body’s agility and quick response.

You have changed your own beliefs. This is reflected in your household, but you did not have Ruburt’s backlog, so to speak. Your table (pointing) is an excellent idea. The further changes in his position will take place far easier. Reinforce that idea of safety, and comfort him, as you have.

If he feels that he has not done enough that day before his nap, he then compares himself to those who come home from work around five, after “putting in a good day.” If he has worked enough in his terms the comparison is not so bothersome. Beside this, there is sometimes a feeling of isolation, since you nap separately, and at times he has felt that to be a rejection—not in deep terms, but important enough so that that feeling is combined with the first one mentioned.

Also, he uses his energy differently than you, and needs to eat oftener. Coffee cake is no answer. Either he may be hungry and take his nap, or he may eat coffee cake for example that initially supplies energy that quickly depletes itself—just about the time his nap is finished.

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.

Noises outside the bedroom, of neighborhood activity, sometimes add to this, making him think he should be out in the world in a more gregarious, competitive manner, so he feels more isolated from other people and the community also at such times, as a result of the Darwinian concepts mentioned in our last session. If all of these issues click in one day, then his mood is more severe, but usually one or two operate.

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.