Mike's commentary · The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events, Chapter 10

The "Introduction" and "Key Points" of this chapter were summarized by an AI editor based on the main text below; they are not words spoken by Mike during his lectures. The main text comes from Mike's commentary, and the blockquotes are Seth's original words (the portions Mike read aloud).

Introduction

This chapter revolves around "idealists who put ideals into practice": ideals themselves may be good, but if the means do not match the ideal, the ideal will collapse from its core. The text criticizes the practice in science, medicine, and economics of using lofty goals to justify harmful means, as well as the phenomenon of treating competition and survival of the fittest as ideals; it emphasizes that evil is only distortion, and that the essence of life and nature is a cooperative adventure. The latter half discusses how death gives life, how viruses protect life, and how illness and abnormal births have a creative, evolutionary-experiment side.

Key Points of This Chapter

• When pursuing an ideal, every step of the means must be worthy of the ideal; no lofty goal can justify improper means.
• Evil itself has no power; it is only a distortion, and a black-and-white attitude will erode ideals.
• Life and nature are not the result of competition, but a cooperative adventure; human existence depends on cooperation among species, not on survival of the fittest or zero-sum competition.
• Death gives life; viruses are not killers, but are invited to protect life at their own level.
• Abnormal births and certain diseases represent possible versions of humanity or evolutionary experiments; disease has a creative basis.

Main Text

The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events, Part Four. Seth gave Part Four the title: The Practicing Idealist. We have finished studying this book, and this is the last part, and also the last chapter. How should each of us, in society and in the group world, go about realizing, carrying out, and putting into practice? Seth gave a very good and precise positioning, which we call the practicing idealist.

Session 868

Chapter 10: The Good, the Better, and the Best, Value Fulfillment Versus Competition

Let us look at the first part of Chapter 10, which is Session 868. This session began on Wednesday, July 25, 1979, at 9:15 in the evening. Rob began by saying that, once again, Jane felt very uncomfortable because of this extremely humid night. This was not the first time for Jane; Jane rather disliked this kind of damp, muggy summer.

Then Seth said with humor:

Part Four: The Practicing Idealist. A new chapter, Chapter 10: The Good, the Better, and the Best, Value Fulfillment Versus Competition. (Session 868)

He went on to say:

Most readers of this book, in one way or another, can be considered idealists by themselves or by others.

This is true. You yourself, including others, will consider you an idealist. But in this book, we have obviously shown you several pictures of social and political phenomena that are far from ideal. I say again, I have shown you several pictures that are not so ideal.

We have tried to sketch out for you many beliefs that undermine your soundness as an individual, as a private person, and that contribute to the very definite problems currently prevalent in the world of the masses.

I pointed out many of your negative beliefs, including personal ones, including the collective negative beliefs that you as individuals have formed. These negative beliefs have formed a very definite problem in the mass world of your present world. Our current problems are all influenced by those negative beliefs.

Then Seth said:

Once again, very few people really act from an evil starting point. It cannot be said that there are none, but such people are very, very few.

Any unfortunate situations in medical science and in religion are not the result of any determined intention to destroy the ideal. On the contrary, it is indeed because people often believe that in the process of pursuing an ideal, any means can be justified.

He did not want to do bad things. Such an erroneous core belief led to this: after you have finished studying this book, in mass events, you should at least understand one principle: the means cannot justify the goal. This is the most basic point. No matter how lofty your goal is, for all humanity, for the entire universe, whatever the goal, it cannot allow you to rationalize your means when you are doing wrong, when you are doing bad things. This is a basic principle you should uphold.

The Distortions of Science and Medicine

In this society of yours, when science seems to betray you, it is because its means are not worthy of its imagery. Even its means are wrong, not that the intention of science is wrong, and the means are so unworthy of its intention, and so contrary to one of the main purposes of science, that those means themselves almost amount to an unrecognized, latent anti-science attitude embedded within.

This is what Seth said. So-called science, because its purpose is not bad, but its means are wrong, and as a result it gets led into something that appears to wear the cloak of science but is essentially anti-science. Why is it called anti-science? It only studies certain things and does not study other things, and in order to say that science can make human development better, it can afford to sacrifice certain costs. These are some of the main problems with our existing science.

The same also applies to medicine. Originally medicine wanted to save human lives, and within this noble purpose, its means often lead to experiments that are not noble.

It refers to animal experiments, to the point that lives are destroyed in order to save more lives. In order to save more lives, many small animals used in experiments are destroyed. On the surface, this kind of means sometimes appears regrettable, but necessary. We humans say there is no other way, it is necessary. We research drugs, research vaccines, research these things, so we have to do experiments on animals. Otherwise, could we do experiments on humans? So it seems these things are very necessary, appear very necessary, although very regrettable. Some people say we are also very regretful, but there is no other way. This is the view of many people.

But its deeper implications far exceed any temporary benefits.

Are there benefits? Of course there are benefits. By doing animal experiments this way, you can save a lot of research and development time. But he says this implication, this behavior of experimenting on animals and killing other lives in order to save human lives, implies something very bad. What bad thing? It is that through this kind of means, people cannot see the sacredness of life, and begin to treat life with contempt. That is, if you do not respect the lives of other beings, you will not respect human life either. You say I do not respect the life of a mouse, but I very much respect human life. At first you will be like that, but slowly and gradually, you have made a very good start, and given a very bad implication.

The adverse influence this implication brings to you far exceeds the benefits you gain through animal experiments.

Why? Because you humans begin to not respect the sacredness of life. In short, if you do not respect the sacredness of the lives of other species, then you do not respect the sacredness of your own life either. You often condone behaviors that should be condemned, such as this behavior of experimenting on animals. If you think they are doing it for a greater good, then you condone it. Because they can develop new drugs, bring us health, and reduce human deaths. So under this great premise, the harming of small animals that should have been condemned is not condemned, because it seems there is a better, greater good contained within it.

The Myth of Good and Evil

Seth said again:

You have a tendency to look for the obvious evil, to think in terms of the forces of good and evil.

We usually talk about human morality all the time, talking about good and evil every day, but when evil is actually being done, you do not condemn it either.

Again, I am fairly certain that many of my readers are convinced of the power of evil.

Many of the readers here certainly believe in the power of evil. Evil is very powerful, evil is a very great force, the dark evil forces are extremely strong, and they dare not struggle against the forces of evil.

Evil does not exist in that way. Evil itself has no power; it is only a distortion.

You must remember this: evil itself has no power. You think evil has power, but evil does not exist in the form of power. And that is why so many people who seem to be idealists will participate in highly reprehensible behavior. Many idealists, so many people who seem to be idealists -- are they really idealists? No. And then they will participate in highly reprehensible behavior. While struggling for a greater good, they can do some small bad things. These people are actually pseudo-idealists, not true idealists. At the same time they tell themselves:

At the same time they tell themselves that such behavior is justified, because it is a means to a better end.

For the sake of a better end, they stop at nothing. That is why fanatics feel their behavior can be justified. Fanatics think the same way you do. As long as it is for an ideal they consider noble, they can do many, many bad things, including those terrorists -- they all share the same idea. When you are immersed in this kind of black-and-white thinking, you are doing a great disservice to your ideal. Be sure to remember this sentence from Seth: when you hate evil as your enemy and seem to draw a clear line between good and evil, you have actually already done a great disservice to your ideal. Every act that does not conform to that ideal begins to dissolve the ideal at its core.

The Idealist's Pitfall

Let me explain this briefly, because many people may not understand. He says you hate evil as your enemy, as if you are clear about right and wrong, clear about good and evil, and you do not tolerate sand in your eyes. This is good, that is bad, and so on. Then in actual practice, your ideals encounter many real challenges in reality. These real things often do not match your ideals. At this point you begin to condemn, and at the same time you see the cruelty of reality and the gulf and gap between reality and your ideals, and you begin to waver in the core of your ideals. You begin to feel that the ideal is too distant, too hard to achieve, because reality is so cruel. So the more black-and-white you are, the more disappointed you become with reality, and the more easily your ideals are dismantled.

Seth says:

As I have said several times, if you feel worthless or powerless to act, and if you are idealistic, then you may begin to feel that the ideal exists so far in the future that you must take steps you might not otherwise have taken to achieve it.

You will feel that the ideal is so distant, and reality is so pressing. In order to realize the ideal, or realize it more quickly, we must hurry and take action, doing things you would not normally do. These actions then take on an extreme quality, a fanatical quality. And when this happens, the ideal is always eroded. When you feel you are struggling for your ideal, or defending it, and you are doing very fierce, extreme actions in order to defend a great ideal of yours, you are actually eroding your ideal. Why? Because these actions and behaviors may already have violated the reasonableness of the means. They are no longer reasonable. They have infringed on other people's interests, or even hurt others. But you feel that for the sake of a higher ideal, it is worth it. So when this kind of thing happens to you, you are eroding your own ideal.

What does Seth want you to do? He wants you to be a true idealist who practices what you preach. Then every step you take along the way must be worthy of your ideal, your goal. What Seth means is that in practice you should not be impatient or restless, but move firmly toward the ideal. Start from the place where you work, from your family, from your colleagues, from your social relationships, from the people around you, from the things around you, and work toward your ideal, starting from concrete things. Every step in this process must be worthy of your ideal, and must not conflict with your ideal. For example, if your ideal is to live in a world where everyone is loving, but in reality you discover unloving behavior, you cannot treat those who behave in unloving ways in a very fierce, very brutal, or very extreme manner. Your understanding is, I am doing this to defend my ideal, but this kind of behavior is actually wrong. You can defend your ideal, but you cannot advance your ideal by hurting others or by influencing others in extreme ways. You can have other methods and approaches, but violence is never one of our options. This must be remembered. Seth has always wanted to emphasize this point: pursuing ideals is good, but do not use violent means.

Darwinism and Economic Competition

Seth then talks about the ideals of the nation:

In your country, the free enterprise system is based on a strange source. It is founded on the democratic belief that every individual has the right to pursue a worthwhile and equal life.

He is talking about the American enterprise system, which is very egalitarian and free, and it is built upon this strange source, built upon the democratic belief in an equal life. In a social atmosphere where everyone is equal, the freedom of enterprise is also guaranteed.

But it also became connected with Darwin's concept of the survival of the fittest.

This seems good on the surface, but then it became connected with Darwin's concept of the survival of the fittest. What concept is that? It is the idea that if every individual and every enterprise just looks out for itself, that is the best outcome. If you act for yourself, it is equivalent to making a contribution to the whole of society. This is Darwin's theory of the survival of the fittest¹, and it is also a basic core belief in Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations². Thus it also became connected with the belief that every individual must pursue his own good at the expense of others. He feels that if you pursue your own good, you will inevitably affect others, because the wealth of society is only so much; if you make money, others may be affected. The market is only so big; if your market share increases, others' market share will automatically decrease. What you have been imagining is a zero-sum game, and zero-sum means that if you have more, he has less.

And it is also connected with the very erroneous belief that all members of any given species compete with one another, and that each species further competes with every other species.

Your enterprises, speaking from the enterprise system back to the phenomena of culture and civilization. Your enterprises were originally very good, built upon the social foundation of equality, equality for all, and freedom and democracy. But somehow your enterprises came to believe in Darwin's theory of the survival of the fittest. So in the business world, we often say that the marketplace is like a battlefield, or talk about the Wolf of Wall Street; depictions of the business world are always like the smoke of war, with competition to the death. It is the same between enterprises. Seth says these beliefs are all erroneous. You even believe that every species is in a competitive relationship with every other species, that each species must seek its own greatest chance of survival and must compete with other species for resources.

Seth says:

The law of supply and demand is based on an erroneous concept that believes in the basically greedy nature of man, which is not very good.

Supply and demand is a basic law in economics. Where there is supply and demand, where there is demand there will be supply; if I need to buy shoes, there will be people who produce shoes. This is a basic core belief in economics. Many people do not question this and think there is no problem with it. But Seth says that the premise of this core law is based on what? It is based on the premise that everyone is greedy, that everyone wants to possess more goods and materials.

In the past, you treated the land of your country as if, since your species was the most fit to survive, you had the right to survive at the expense of all other species.

He is referring to the historical fact of the mass slaughter of the indigenous Indian peoples when America was first entered from the European continent³. What he means is that when you first arrived, you felt that your species, that is, the European whites who came at that time, felt that you were a race more suited to, more in command of modern civilization, more suited to survive in this environment, and you felt that those inferior races should be wiped out. So you showed them no mercy. This is a dark chapter in American history, truly a dark chapter. This is also why Hitler later had similar ideas: since my nation is relatively superior, then for the sake of the development of all humanity, killing off these backward peoples is actually a good thing. That is what he thought, and that is also what those who entered the American continent at that time thought.

The Nation's Ideals and Means

Seth said:

The ideals of this nation, in the past and present, are the best.

America's ideals are essentially the best. What ideals? That every individual has the right to pursue an equal and worthwhile existence with dignity. That is a good thing. But then, Seth shifts tone:

The means have encouraged the deterioration of that ideal.

We wanted to achieve this best ideal, but the means were not noble at all. The means were base, brutal, and not fit to be brought to the table. Seth gives an example:

And most unfortunately, a common interpretation of Darwin's principles was transferred to the economic arena.

Now the Indians have been killed off by you, and the remaining ones are protected, just like animals. But not only on the level of the colonial scramble for territory back then, you also came to believe in the same principle in economics. Darwin's principle is survival of the fittest, and it was transferred onto the image of human beings as political animals. You transferred survival of the fittest into economics, into politics.

Then Seth paused for a moment, and what follows is all spoken in an earnest tone:

Religion and science alike deny true consciousness to other races. And when man speaks of the sanctity of life, in his more expansive moods, he speaks of human life, he speaks only of human life.

Your religion and science both do not acknowledge that other species have true consciousness. For example, you do not acknowledge that a cat has true consciousness, and you do not acknowledge that a white mouse has true consciousness. You think they are all lower animals and creatures. So when you humans are in a good mood, what does a good mood mean? It means when two peoples are not slaughtering each other, when two religions are not slaughtering each other, when two nations are not slaughtering each other. In such a good mood, in a more expansive mood, he will say that our human life is sacred and inviolable, and that whether you are opposed to me or hold opposite political views, you should be respected. That is what people say when they are happy. But he says it goes no further than that. You give the sanctity of life only to human beings, and nothing else. The lives of others are not sacred, not worthy of respect.

Seth said:

You are not in competition with other species, nor are you in any natural competition with your own kind. You need not compete with other species, and you need not compete with your own kind.

This is like Cao Zhi's poem, born from the same root, why rush to harm each other⁴. But in our human society, from the moment you are born, when you have just entered kindergarten, parents tell you not to lose at the starting line. Who are you competing with? With your own kind, with other children who are the same age as you. You might say, well, I am noble, I do not compete with them, I compete with myself. When you compete with yourself, is that not also a form of competition? This competitive mindset is wrong. You must remember, this mindset itself is wrong. But since ancient times, you have been educated this way, believing it is right. Competition is right, and those who do not compete are fools. The smarter I am, the earlier I should compete. So from the time the child is still in the mother's womb, all kinds of competition based on prenatal education have already begun, and even earlier, during the period of preparing for pregnancy, preparations have already started. This competition keeps starting earlier and earlier.

Nature Is Not the Result of Competition

The world of nature is also not at all the result of competition among the various species. This nature you see today, this world of blooming flowers and lush greenery, where all things flourish and teem with vitality, is not the result of competition. What Darwin told you is all wrong. He only observed something that is not even the surface of it. He just used his own little brain and assumed it was the result of competition. It simply is not.

Again, if things were like that, if there were competition among the various species, competition means you die and I live, either you have it or I have it. If that were the case, you would not have any world at all. Your world would not even exist.

If the world were a relationship of competition, that is how it would be. So from now on, when other people tell you about competition, that this is a competitive society, spreading this kind of fear and anxiety everywhere, you can just talk back to them directly. No need to be polite. They can be that way themselves, but do not let it affect you.

Your physical existence as human beings is because of the biological existence of an unparalleled cooperation between your species and all other species.

The existence of you human beings depends on the unparalleled cooperation between other species and all species, and only then did human existence come about. And on this deeper level, from a deeper perspective, it is because of a cellular alliance that exists among the cells of all species that we human beings are able to live safely, securely, and very happily on this earth, within this natural world. Without this cross-species cellular alliance, human beings could not exist either.

Value Fulfillment and the Cooperation of Units of Consciousness

Seth says:

Value fulfillment is a psychological and physical propensity that exists within every unit of consciousness.

Every conscious thing tends toward value fulfillment, whether on the psychological or the physical level — that is, whether on the spiritual or the material level, every conscious individual has an orientation toward value fulfillment.

And it is in such a way that it pushes toward greater fulfillment, so that their individual fulfillment also enhances the best possible development of every other such unit of consciousness.

Each individual's value fulfillment also contributes to the whole, and also promotes the best development of the whole. This propensity operates under and within the physical framework, and we basically find it very hard to see. This kind of cross-species mutual cooperation, and the push of every conscious individual toward a common, greater value fulfillment, is generally invisible to us, because under the physical framework, on our material level, we cannot see it. It is something on the spiritual level, or something that transcends our conscious level.

Then he says:

This cooperation also operates above it.

You cannot see it, but there is also something you can feel, and above it you can also see it. Value fulfillment gives all units of consciousness within your physical world a cooperative essence. Below it, you cannot see how they cooperate, how they communicate, how they collaborate — you cannot see it. Above it, what you can see is a cooperative essence among all things, and you can feel it.

Competition Taken as an Ideal

When you believe in competition, then competition becomes not only real but also an ideal. If you believe in it, your belief is a belief in competition, and then, for your world, competition is not only real but has also become an ideal of yours. Is it your ideal? Of course it is your ideal. You want your child to get into a better university, an Ivy League school anywhere in the world; if the child does not go abroad, then Tsinghua or Peking University, or some 985 or 211 school, and so on. Haven't you been treating competition as your ideal goal since childhood?

Seth says:

Children are passively made to compete with one another.

This is very typical now. Doesn't all the anxiety of today's parents come from this? Competition, they must compete. The children don't even understand what is going on, yet from an early age this belief in competition has been instilled into their minds.

In the impulse for new performance to surpass old performance, children naturally compete with themselves.

He says children do not need this kind of competition. Within their own lives, children have a kind of self-competition awareness: their new performance will surpass their old performance, and this is an instinctive impulse. So you see, when a child plays with things, whether playing with sand or mud, he will only do better and better. Although the progress is not that fast, he will not do worse and worse. This is him competing with himself; you do not need to manage him.

But at all levels of activity, competition is promoted as an ideal.

But in your human society, at every level competition is mentioned as one of your ultimate ideals. It is as if you must look at others to know how you are doing. You do not look at yourself; you look at others, at how others are doing, because you must guard against competition and prevent others from surpassing you. And when you are taught not to trust your own abilities, then of course you excessively need other people's opinions.

Why look at others? Because you do not trust yourself; you need to get affirmation from others. You have no confidence in yourself and no sense of your own ability, so you need certification from a prestigious university. Only the certification of a prestigious university, the diploma, seems to put a label on you, proving that you are an excellent student, because you have no confidence. Why do some very outstanding people drop out of college and go home? Because they simply do not need that thing. They do not need others to recognize them; deep in their hearts they clearly know who they are and know where their abilities lie. They do not need a university's affirmation, nor do they need recognition from some institution, nor do they need any awards from others; they do not need it. Only when a person lacks self-confidence does he need the affirmation of others, a school to give him an award, or to receive some kind of something or other.

Playful Competition and Deadly Competition

Seth added:

Obviously I am not speaking of any playful competition.

Seth said he is not saying that no competition at all is wanted. This kind of playful competition, normal competition, is very good, for example the Olympic Games, and so on, this kind of playful competition is all needed. Playing games certainly requires competition. Again, he is not saying this kind of competition is bad.

I am speaking of a determined, fierce, desperate, sometimes almost deadly kind of competition.

He said what he is talking about is this kind of competition that can really cost people their lives, in which a person's value is also determined by how many people he excludes. In this kind of competition, what determines a person's value? It is determined by how high a position he occupies, whether he can rise above others and become the dragon among men, that is, by pushing others out and trampling them underfoot. If only he himself remains, then of course that is best. This belief in competition has also been carried into economics, politics, medicine, science, and even religion.

I would therefore like to emphasize again the fact that life is indeed a cooperative adventure.

Seth emphasized again that life is a cooperative adventure. And all the steps taken toward the ideal must themselves also be life-promoting. That is, all the steps we take toward the ideal must promote our life, not destroy life. Life and life are an adventure of mutual cooperation. Adventure means there are challenges and excitement, which is very normal. But in essence, all the steps toward the ideal are promoting to our life, not destructive, damaging, or eroding.

Seasons and Personal Reactions

All right, the dictation ends here, and the session ends here. Then he discusses his dream. Then Rob says, "I don't want to leave yet, can I ask you a question?" Seth says yes. You see Rob asking him this question, sometimes I really feel anxious for them. After Seth had talked about such a great matter for humanity, Rob suddenly asked: why is Jane so sensitive to summer weather? Actually he had asked this question many times before, this was not the first time, and Seth had told him before, but he asked again. I don't know whether he did it to show that he loved his wife more, or whether he saw Jane was so irritable that he couldn't stand it either.

Seth said:

I have said before that Ruburt thinks of summer as a time for vacations and the enjoyment of beautiful leisure activities.

He feels that summer should be for vacation, it's too uncomfortable, his work goes very badly in summer, and maybe he is afraid this will lead to his own slackness, dissipation, laziness. He longs for those cooler hours to arrive, and so they become important. Those cooler hours become very important. The more he wants them to come, the more important he feels they are. He originally wanted to rest, he was uncomfortable in summer, and he wanted a vacation, but he was afraid that vacation meant being too lazy, which didn't match his beliefs. How conflicted he was.

People often react to the seasons in personal ways.

Each person's way of reacting to the seasons is personally different, using certain elements to push themselves forward or to stay stuck. Each person reacts to the seasons differently; some are pushed forward, some just stay still and do nothing. Using these sessions as his sounding board, you can see that Ruburt reacts differently in summer and winter.

No season is just itself; a season necessarily exists in relationship to all the people within its boundaries.

When we talk about seasons, there is no pure season, no season without personal feeling. This season necessarily exists within the people it contains and their relationships, and it necessarily carries personal emotion within it. And Ruburt thoroughly enjoys summer, and uses the cooler hours as a contrast. What he means is that Ruburt wants to enjoy summer, but he has no way to take a vacation, so he longs for cool weather that would let him feel, in summer, the same feeling as being on vacation. He uses it as a contrast.

Session 869

This session is very short. Seth said it was a short session added to your material on illness. He said:

All biological organisms know that physical life depends upon a constant transformation of consciousness and form.

What this means is that all living, biological organisms -- not only living things, including cells and such -- they all understand a most basic principle: the existence of physical life depends upon consciousness and form, that is, upon a constant transformation of matter. In other words, if you want to maintain the existence of physical life, you must carry out a transformation between consciousness and matter.

Seth then emphasized that this is a literal statement, not a metaphor:

Death gives life.

I am not speaking metaphorically; I mean it literally, it really is so. Death is what gives life. This biological knowledge is also intimately acknowledged at the microscopic level:

Even your cells know that their death is necessary for the continuation of your physical form.

They have to die. If cells did not die, they would become cancer cells. So when a cell reaches a certain lifespan, it absolutely must die; otherwise you cannot go on living.

The Conscious System of Thought

But it is only to our conscious system of thought -- that is, the part of the thought system we can be aware of, since we cannot feel the unconscious part -- that this whole orientation seems strange and unfamiliar. Within our human cognition, within our human conscious system, we find this idea so strange: how can death give life? Birth is what gives life; death is what takes life away.

Seth says that cells, microorganisms, the microscopic world, animals, and other living beings all know this truth; only human beings do not know it on the conscious level. But human beings do know it on the unconscious level.

Most people, to a greater or lesser degree, can sense before they die a desire to die, a desire that they usually do not consciously acknowledge.

I do have firsthand experience of this. When my father had cancer, in his final days, when he woke up from a long sleep he would often ask one question: how come I have not died yet? Because for him at that time, being alive was also a kind of suffering. In the late stages of cancer, painkillers such as Demerol and morphine have to be administered, and these painkillers have a hypnotic effect. He would often wake up and look around, and he was not glad that he was still alive; he would say: why have I not left yet? If he could just pass away directly in the course of that sleep, what a good thing that would be.

So what Seth says here is not spoken casually; it really is the case. Generally, for a period before death, and not too long a period, a person has this desire to die. If you have had a family member pass away, you may have sensed this to a greater or lesser degree as well.

Pain Is Also the Result of Belief

Seth said that the desire for death is one thing, and this feeling of pain is also the result of your beliefs — because you think you should feel pain, so you feel a great deal of pain. Therefore, some diseases that are indeed accompanied by tremendous suffering do not necessarily have to be that way. Many illnesses in the end involve extreme suffering, especially some late-stage cancers, and in fact there is no need for it to be that way, because it is your belief about the feeling of pain that creates the result.

Obviously, I mean that lethal viruses do not consider themselves killers.

Viruses do not consider themselves killers. They no more consider themselves killers than a cat does when it swallows a mouse. Does a cat think of itself as a killer? It does not. When a lion catches a sheep and eats it, does it think it is a killer? It does not; to it, this is the most natural thing in the world. That mouse may die, and as a result of the virus something may also die — a bacterium, a cell may die — but the meaning assigned to this kind of event is also the result of belief. The underlying basis of this event is also the result of belief: that is, this cell or this mouse wanted to die.

The Role of Viruses

In the larger field of activity of psyche and biology:

Viruses also, with their innate abilities, protect life at their own level.

This was covered earlier, so I won't repeat it here. Without viruses, human beings could not live. In their mission, in their innate gifts, viruses exist to protect life; they do not exist to take life or destroy life.

To a greater or lesser degree, they are always invited.

Here it says "to a greater or lesser degree" -- the degree varies. Whether a person is infected by a virus or catches an infection -- remember this sentence -- he is always invited, and here the word "always" is added in front. So now you know what viruses are about: they are invited. Seth is afraid you don't know, afraid you won't admit it, so he says it again: always invited. Important things should be said three times; he said it twice.

In response to a larger rhythm of those experiences. That is, what particular experience do you want to obtain -- for example, you want to die, that is an experience; or you want to catch a certain coronavirus and feel what it is like, these are all experiences you want. It is in response to the larger rhythm brought by that experience, in which physical life depends upon the constant transformation of consciousness and form. He emphasizes again that our physical life, that is, our bodily life, depends upon the constant transformation of consciousness and form in order to sustain the existence of the physical body. So when matter disappears, it is actually undergoing transformation with consciousness; it has not truly disappeared. In a certain sense, it has become consciousness.

This is content from one of my recent books. Seth did not know at the time that this content would be added to this book.

The Experimental Nature of Death

Next Seth says:

The stage of death is also a part of the life cycle. I have mentioned before that, in terms of this evolution as you understand it, experimentation...

Your death, actually, is sometimes the result of the body's cells not doing their experiments well. The body's cells are always experimenting, and sometimes they may not do it well, and you just die, you pass away. This is also a possibility; this is a kind of experiment.

Leathery-Skin Disease

Seth mentioned a kind of disease:

You recently read about a disease in which the skin becomes leather-like after exposure to polyoxygen. In this astonishing development, the human body is attempting to form a leather-like skin. If this experiment were to continue, it would have enough elasticity to allow the existence of pores and freedom of normal movement, yet in a jungle environment it would be tough enough to protect itself from the bites of many even more dangerous insects and snakes.

He said you read in a magazine about a disease called leather disease, which is scleroderma, where the skin becomes hard like stone, like tree bark. He said this disease is the human body experimenting on itself -- if this experiment were to continue, then from skin like tree bark or leather, our hair could grow out, our pores could grow out, just like normal skin, only thicker and harder. It would also have the metabolic functions of skin, and with pores it would be soft enough -- because if it were too hard, you would be stuck inside a shell and unable to move -- but it would also be thick enough that in the jungle or in nature, ordinary mosquito bites and insect stings, and movement through the environment, would not cause cuts and scratches from small leaves and branches.

This is an experiment your body is conducting. Do you understand Seth's theory? Some of your diseases are the body experimenting on itself. If you look at it from the perspective of Darwinian evolution, your evolution is not yet complete; you are still in the process of evolving, and new variations will always emerge. Many of these experiments will appear in the form of disease at a certain stage, because that condition is clearly not a normal physical state -- if you are experimenting, of course it is not normal; if it were normal, it would not be called an experiment. So it is also a kind of creativity. To a certain degree, cancer also represents a kind of evolutionary experiment.

The Repository of Alternatives in Evolution

But all of these examples have escaped your attention. You do not think of them as experiments, because you believe that so-called evolution is already finished -- that evolution has now come to a stop. Actually, Seth says, evolution has not stopped.

Your own species has some variants -- do we humans have some variants? There are all kinds of special children who are different from others from birth, such as albinos. From the animals' point of view, these human variants are diseased members of the animal species.

So Seth wants to broaden one of your ideas:

Within the whole plan of nature, and on all levels -- even social and economic levels -- disease always has its own creative basis.

Behind disease there is still a certain creativity; creativity is its foundation.

At birth, any kind of abnormality always represents a possible version of the species itself.

Any infant that is abnormal at birth -- abnormal according to our understanding -- is actually one of the possible versions of humanity. And these possible versions are preserved in the gene pool:

To provide an endless repository of alternatives.

What is meant by a repository of alternatives? It means that when the environment changes, or when there are special environmental changes, these human variants, these mutations in the gene pool -- the things we consider abnormal -- can come forth. They are stored there; they exist in our gene pool, and only occasionally does one emerge now. When there is some need, it will appear as an alternative.

For example, suppose one day in this world, for some reason -- say a certain virus kills only men and not women -- all men might become extinct within a year or two. Would humanity then die out? No. At that point, women would automatically give rise to an alternative variant or change, and some women would automatically grow within their bodies the kind of organ that can self-fertilize and produce sperm, so that she could impregnate herself. This is not nonsense; Seth discussed this issue in The Nature of the Psyche: we humans have this ability, we just never use it. It is a repository of alternatives.

Children with Mongolism

Seth mentioned:

The so-called Mongoloid children are a reminder of a purely emotional transmission and inheritance in human beings, beyond the anticipation of achievement.

I don't yet know what Mongoloid children means; it might be a special kind of illness they have, and I can look it up later. Actually, it is Down syndrome, just a different name. He said these children may belong to a kind of repository of substitutes, and they are different from normal people. For that reason, they often appear more in industrialized civilizations -- they probably appear more in industrial civilizations, and may be fewer in non-industrialized places.

Preview of the Next Book

In our next book, we will try to make man aware of the true nature of himself as a species, existing independently of his belief systems.

In the next book, one question we will explore is this: outside of one's own belief system -- that is, outside of one's own cognitive system -- what is the true nature of the human species? Seth says, I hope to show the source of the human being within an inner environment of existence -- that is, to let you see where a person comes from within our inner spiritual environment, the world of the psyche, or the world of consciousness. It is not discussed from the standpoint of your physical human being, but from the standpoint of your inner human being.

And to emphasize the importance of dreams in this evolutionary progress, and the importance of dreams as a major source of man's most creative achievements.

This was actually discussed in the previous session: the importance of dreams to humanity, not only in being able to generate language, but also in having very great importance.

Rob's Notes

The session ended here, with Jane closing the course at 9:56. Jane laughed and said she really did not know how Seth got those things out of her. For the past five weeks, Jane had been fascinated by the ideas for Seth's next book, and she could already foresee that Jane was going to write the next book, but she said it would be related to The Way Toward Health. Now Seth seemed to have settled on the official title for that book, called Dreams, "Evolution," and Value Fulfillment; when translating, rendering "evolution" as "演化" is fine, it does not matter, it is one word in English. This is Seth's next book, but in between we will add the book The "Unknown" Reality.

Second note, Rob mentioned the disease Seth spoke of, the one where the skin becomes like bark or leather, called onchocerciasis. It is caused by a parasitic filarial worm spread after being bitten by black flies⁵. When Seth briefly mentioned it, he did not mention that, besides producing the horrifying leathery skin, filariasis can also cause blindness in both eyes, which is why it is commonly called river blindness⁶. The most severely affected patients appear to be centered in West Africa, where millions of people are infected⁷. Four centuries ago, it was brought to the Western Hemisphere by Black slaves⁸, and now it can be found in certain areas of Mexico and in southern Brazil⁹. The disease is not fatal, but the percentage of vision loss varies by region; in some areas it is high, in others low.

Rob's Question

Rob said, but we want to get from Seth material on river blindness -- that is, this experimental, evolutionary material that causes the eyes to go blind, because we don't understand how such a debilitating condition could really lead to anything better.

What he meant was: Seth, didn't you say that all illnesses are a state in which humans are conducting experiments? Aren't experiments meant to lead to better evolution? Then why would there be symptoms that cause people to go blind?

But I think Rob misunderstood something here. Seth said that human evolution and development are not yet complete, but Seth did not say that all these experiments are good, or that all these experiments are successful. Rob understood it as if these experiments were all beneficial to people, which was his own misunderstanding.

Rob gave himself a way out: perhaps in this particular biological experiment, blindness represented an evolutionary dead end -- perhaps the very fact of blindness proved that evolution had taken a wrong turn. He wanted to find time for Seth to explain again why this illness causes blindness.

Rob said that Seth did indeed seem to have enough material on the evolutionary aspects of illness to write a book. In his own words, if the three of us could find the time to get that material, the idea that this illness is a form of evolution or an experiment could be written into a book on its own, and it would be fascinating, because it would elaborate on the inner causes of various illnesses.

The whole idea of this kind of biological experiment made the two of them very curious. We are so accustomed to thinking of illness as illness -- those ordinary, utterly ordinary illnesses, what kind of biological experiments are they really? For example, colds, fevers, and so on -- what kind of experiments are those? To what extent do they go? Are they really a kind of biological experiment? What driving forces are involved? This was a question the two of them had always been curious about.

注释与核实

1. According to Mike's original words, it was "Darwin's theory of survival of the fittest"; upon verification, it should be "The phrase 'survival of the fittest' was not coined by Darwin but by Herbert Spencer in The Principles of Biology (1864); Darwin adopted it as a synonym for 'natural selection' only from the fifth edition of On the Origin of Species in 1869." (Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Survival of the Fittest," https://www.britannica.com/science/survival-of-the-fittest) ↩

2. Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, "The Wealth of Nations | Summary, Themes, Significance, & Facts" (https://www.britannica.com/money/the-Wealth-of-Nations) ↩

3. Source: U.S. National Park Service, "Sand Creek Massacre" (https://www.nps.gov/sand/learn/historyculture/massacre.htm?hc_location=ufi) ↩

4. According to Mike's original words, it was "Born from the same root, why rush to harm each other"; upon verification, it should be "The correct wording is 'Born from the same root, why rush to harm each other,' from the traditionally attributed Cao Zhi's 'Seven Steps Poem' (its true authorship remains disputed)." (Source: Wikipedia, "Seven Steps Poem," https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hans/%E4%B8%83%E6%AD%A5%E8%AF%97) ↩

5. Source: World Health Organization, "Onchocerciasis," 2025 (https://www.who.int/en/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/onchocerciasis) ↩

6. According to Mike's original words, it was "Filariasis can also cause blindness in both eyes, hence it is commonly called river blindness"; upon verification, it should be "Onchocerciasis can cause visual impairment and even permanent blindness, also known as river blindness; 'river blindness' is not a common name for all filarial diseases." (Source: World Health Organization, "Onchocerciasis," 2025, https://www.who.int/zh/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/onchocerciasis) ↩

7. Source: Center for Global Development, "Case 7: Controlling Onchocerciasis in Sub-Saharan Africa" (https://www.cgdev.org/page/case-7-controlling-onchocerciasis-sub-saharan-africa) ↩

8. Source: Lammie et al., "Eliminating Lymphatic Filariasis, Onchocerciasis, and Schistosomiasis from the Americas: Breaking a Historical Legacy of Slavery," PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases (https://journals.plos.org/plosntds/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pntd.0000071) ↩

9. This claim could not be verified. ↩