“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(3. During a conversation Jane and I had wondered why the members of the human species were so woefully ignorant of the internal structure of their own bodies. Not that we wanted or needed conscious control—but why didn’t we have the conscious visual knowledge of the workings of our various bodily parts, be they heart, liver, or whatnot?

Now: in answer to, in partial answer to, your question concerning conscious knowledge of the body’s workings, I have several things to say.

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.

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.

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.

(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.

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.

(10:18.) Give us a moment.... You have categorized by part, certainly it seems, the great part of emerging knowledge, when in your terms taboos were broken and medical men were allowed to dissect corpses, to see what was before hidden. Yet again, men who felt they had the fleetness of the gazelle, the heart of the lion, or whatever, did not need literal knowledge in your terms. It is quite correct to say that your body is composed of everything you have consumed, also—each bird, animal, and plant—that those qualities form your flesh, ever change their form.

A conscious knowledge of the eye’s working will not necessarily give you better vision. To a certain extent that system, while it has its advantages, is also limited and differently slanted in certain directions that can at least at times mitigate against the body’s health and well-being.

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.

(10:47.) Now: making love encourages feelings both of safety and spontaneity. It decreases the feeling of isolation, it promotes spiritual and physical ease, it encourages communication. It is a boon whether or not you know what hormones are stimulated, or have a conscious detailed knowledge of its effects.