Mike's commentary · The Nature of Personal Reality, Chapter 7

The "Reading Guide" and "Chapter Highlights" in 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 block quotes are Seth's original words (the portions Mike read aloud).

Introduction

This chapter points out that people often separate thought from the body, mistakenly believing that thought is purely mental and resides in the brain. The body is the living concretization of thought, the psyche made flesh; atoms, molecules, cells, and organs each have their own consciousness and cooperate to form the body's gestalt, with the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. Thoughts are compared to viruses and electromagnetic cells, capable of influencing the body and reality. The body possesses innate wisdom, self-maintenance, and precognitive ability; the soul is not outside nature, and the physical body and the soul are originally one.

Key Points of This Chapter

• There is no boundary between thought and the physical body; the body is the living materialization of thought, the psyche made flesh.
• Atoms, molecules, cells, and organs each have their own consciousness, cooperating to form the bodily gestalt, where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
• Thoughts, like viruses and electromagnetic cells, are alive and responsive, capable of influencing the body and the entire system of reality.
• The body possesses innate wisdom, self-maintenance, healing, and precognitive abilities, operating according to its own blueprint and correcting deviations.
• The soul is not outside of nature; the physical body and the soul are originally one, and existence before and after death is just as natural as present life.

Main Text

Going Too Far, Drawing Boundaries Where None Exist

Seth says Chapter Seven, The Body of Flesh, that is the title of Chapter Seven.

People often go too far, forgetting that thoughts have their own vitality and liveliness. Such people draw boundaries where none exist.

When you hear him say this, you may not yet know what he means. What he actually means is that we go too far. What does "going too far" mean? It means we think our thoughts are a purely spiritual existence, that they have no very direct relationship with our physical body, that they are not a material existence. We separate spirit and matter too cleanly, and that is what he means here by "going too far."

Then he says, they forget that thoughts have their own vitality and liveliness. Vitality and liveliness — these should be adjectives that apply to matter, to the physical body. He applies them to thoughts to tell you that thoughts actually have a material side.

He says such people draw boundaries where none exist. This is a mistake we ordinary people commonly make. These people who have "gone too far" often draw boundaries themselves where there are no boundaries. They regard thoughts as entirely spiritual things, and separate them from their ideas about their own bodies. They think thoughts live in their heads — this is what we usually think, that our thoughts live in our heads.

For example, who would imagine a thought living in your elbow, your knee, or your toes? We often say, "Are you thinking with your knees?" This is often a joke, meaning that this person does not use their brain when thinking. But it is a joke. Yet how would you know that your thoughts do not actually live in your elbow, your knee, or your toes?

Seth points out here that generally speaking, we believe thoughts have little to do with the body of flesh. The body is substantial, material — our physical body is material — while thoughts are not, thoughts are not material.

Those who are devoted to reason often unnecessarily separate the world of thought from the world of the body.

This is unnecessary, be sure to remember. Separating the world of thought from the world of the body is unnecessary, because they are one and the same in the first place.

Although the body is indeed the living materialization of thoughts, these thoughts at the same time truly form an active, responsive, living body.

Our body is the living materialization of thoughts, a product of materialization; and at the same time, these thoughts truly form a physical body, and this body is active, responsive, and living.

But the body is not merely a tool to be used, nor merely a vehicle for the psyche. It is the psyche made flesh.

Be sure to remember that he says a "but" here. We cannot treat the body merely as a tool to be used; it is not a tool, not merely a vehicle for the psyche. It is the psyche made flesh — remember this sentence. Here he is referring to the body; the body is the psyche made flesh. This physical body of yours, this body you think of as material, is actually just a psyche that has become flesh. Treat this physical body as a psyche, as a spiritual being, and do not treat it merely as a hundred-plus pounds of flesh.

Your conscious beliefs greatly influence its health.

You impose your thoughts upon it, and your conscious beliefs greatly influence the health of the body.

But the body is composed of living, responsive atoms and molecules, and these atoms and molecules have their own consciousness of living in matter. They possess an impetus that makes them want to survive within the framework of their own nature.

We feel that the body is material, a tool, as if it were a product, a by-product formed by our thoughts, and yet it itself seems to have no soul. He says you have misunderstood; this is you drawing boundaries where none exist; this is an error in your understanding. This body of yours is a living manifestation of spirit, a living soul, a living psyche. Just treat your body this way, and by no means regard it merely as a physical body.

But the body is composed of living, responsive atoms and molecules, and these atoms and molecules have their own consciousness of living in matter. They possess an impetus, a primal impetus, that makes them want to survive within the framework of their own nature. These molecules and atoms have an instinctive impetus to survive within the framework of their own nature. They have their own consciousness, their own thoughts.

They form cells, and these molecules and cells in turn form organs. The organs possess the joint consciousness of every cell within them, and in their own way, the organs sense their own identity.

Cells form organs. The organs possess a joint consciousness, and in their own way, the organs sense their own identity. The organs have their own identity, their own awareness — the heart knows it is the heart, the lungs know they are the lungs. They know the responsibility they should bear within the wholeness of the entire body; they know what their role is. The organs themselves have awareness, just as you have awareness of yourself.

The organs have their purposes, and as a whole they provide functions within this organism.

Each organ bears a function, and they operate as a whole — the liver operates as a whole liver, providing functions within our body.

This cooperation of consciousness continues.

The joint consciousness of cells forms an organ, and the organ then possesses a joint consciousness with its own recognition of identity. Then our organs continue to join together, and when all the organs join together, there is a recognition of your identity and essence. This cooperation of consciousness continues; the joint consciousness continues to cooperate, and this gives you a vital body consciousness.

This body consciousness strives to maintain its own balance and health.

This is instinctive, just as your organs also maintain their own health and maintain their own balance. Where does this instinctive primal quality come from? Go back to the most primal state — molecules and atoms want to live in their most natural, most confident state. Their natural framework is health, is balance; this is what they originally are. Therefore they strive to maintain their own balance and health, and this is instinctive. It requires no work from you; they accomplish it naturally on their own.

The Living Gestalt

So, the body, this thing, should not be viewed as some kind of metaphysical result, but should be seen as a living gestalt of flesh and blood.

At this point Seth's wording gets a bit tricky. The body, this thing, should not be viewed as some kind of metaphysical result -- here we may not understand what he means. What he means is that what we call the body is not a purely theoretical, dead thing that can be studied. It is indeed a living gestalt.

There is a concept here we need to explain. The so-called gestalt is a philosophical concept, and primarily also a psychological concept. It refers to a whole made up of various parts. For example, a person -- a person's body is made up of many organs. Organs have their own consciousness, organs have their own ideas, and the consciousness of these organs combines to form a human body, and we call this human body a kind of gestalt. The overall consciousness of this gestalt is greater than the sum of all these organ consciousnesses. The precise definition of a gestalt is: it is made up of some parts, but the sum of these parts is less than the gestalt that is finally completed -- that is, one plus one is greater than two, definitely greater than two.

In other words, you are made up of some organs, but the body consciousness or overall consciousness that you form is definitely greater than the sum of the consciousness of each organ. You have things that these individual organs do not have. Just as an organ is made up of cells, and cells all have their own consciousness, but the collective joint consciousness of this organ is greater than the sum of these cell consciousnesses. This thing is called a gestalt.

In other words, your body is composed of other living beings.

These atoms, molecules, cells, organs, various systems -- these are all living beings. The word "beings" he uses means that they themselves are all independent individuals. But these individuals form the gestalt of your whole human body. After this gestalt is formed, your human body gestalt is greater than the sum of its parts. Your consciousness, your thoughts, the overall attributes of your body, are more than all the molecules, atoms, cells, and organs that make up this body added together.

This produces a miraculous phenomenon. It is not what our traditional theory says -- "you are made up of certain things, so you are just these things added together" -- no. When they are added together, a change occurs, and the interaction between them becomes greater than the sum of the parts.

This concept of the gestalt is a concept frequently used throughout the universe. For example, each of our reincarnations is a personality fragment, and these personality fragments make up the existence of our entity. But our entity itself is greater than the sum of all the personality fragments added together. Just as All That Is is made up of many smaller entities, but All That Is is far greater than them, and this cannot be understood through language.

Although you organize living material, it has its own right to exist and to fulfill itself.

It is you who organizes it; all this living material is organized by you. Your body is the product of your beliefs, as was already discussed earlier. Besides this physical body, you also have another invisible body, and your physical body leaps out from that invisible body, emerges from it, materializes from it, manifests from it -- however you understand it, that is the meaning. All of these are organized by you, but the fact that you organize them does not mean they are rigid, fixed things, like parts you produce for a robot. No. They have their own right to exist and to fulfill themselves. Do you remember that? They have this right.

You are not a soul imprisoned in lifeless clay.

He emphasizes this here. You did not build a set of parts and then install your soul into it. The fact may be exactly the opposite -- your physical body is wrapped inside the soul. If one day you have this inner ability, and you can open the inner senses to feel it, you will feel that your entire body is wrapped in a layer of energy. Whether you call this energy your soul, or your inner self, or a projection of part of your entity -- whatever you call it, these names are not important, the terminology is not important. You must remember that you are wrapped inside a mass of energy, rather than your soul being in some particular place inside your body. It is in your entire body, both outside and inside, wrapping you within it. Your body is immersed in it.

So your body is alive, and the soul is also alive, and the two of them are one. You should never separate your soul and your body and say "this is the soul, this is the spiritual world, this is my body, this is my material need." Do not do that. When we explain and understand, we can speak of them separately -- we say how my body is, how my soul is -- but you must remember that in essence they are one, different forms of expression of the same thing. Just like water: there is steam, there is ice, there is liquid, with different forms, but its essence is still water.

After you leave it, this "you" is simply your consciousness. It does not immediately decay; it decomposes at its own rate, no longer dominated by you.

After you die, your body is no longer under your control. The life of its atoms, molecules, and cells is transferred into other living natural forms. Your body begins to decompose, returning to the life of atoms, molecules, and cells. Note that he uses the word "life" -- we think atoms and molecules have no life, and only cells have life. But think about it: how can some lifeless things combine to form a living thing? Is that not miraculous? So these lives are translated into other living natural forms.

Your perception is only that which you are aware of. Even atoms and molecules have their own refined vision, appreciating their environment in their own way.

Atoms and molecules have their own vision, appreciating their environment in their own way -- this is something you cannot perceive.

The same force that moves your heart also forms your body.

You must highlight this part. You will often feel a kind of inexplicable stirring after you are emotionally moved, or after you are touched, or when you are joined with your inner self. That state of being moved, that emotional state -- he says that the force that moves your psyche is the same force that forms your body. Your body is formed by this very force. Is he not being very clear?

The energy that forms your thoughts is no different from the energy that grows a flower or heals your burned finger.

They are all one kind of energy. In your mind you have your thoughts, your imagination, the energy of your ideas and thinking -- to put it simply, the energy of your thoughts is the same as the energy that grows a flower from the earth or heals your burned finger. There is no difference.

The soul does not exist alone outside of nature.

You must remember this. The soul is not something outside the natural world, not something projected from a higher dimension into our three-dimensional world. It is not what you think: our soul exists in a higher dimension, and then is thrown into the three-dimensional world to experience and to train, with this place being a testing ground, a place of practice. It is not like that.

The soul is a product of nature itself. Nature is the soul made flesh, or whatever you materialize it as.

The soul is not something that comes from outside; it is naturally produced by the natural world. In other words, the natural world is the embodiment of the soul, just as the existence of your physical body is the embodiment of your soul, and the existence of nature is also the embodiment of the soul. When you understand it this way, you will know that our natural world is actually just like our body, tightly wrapped by the soul. Nature is immersed within the soul; without this soul there would be no nature, only its form of expression is different.

Expressed in us humans, it means each of us has a living life, a living physical body. Expressed in a flower, where does the primal vitality of the flower's blooming come from? Where is the life force of all things in the natural world expressed? The life of trees, the life of grass, the life of those small animals, and even our bacteria and viruses all have life -- where do they come from? Then you understand that all these things are one, and the nature behind them is all one thing. We have no essential difference from all things; our physical body, our soul, our thoughts, are exactly the same as nature, just different forms of expression. No matter what you materialize it as -- what matter it becomes, what form it becomes -- nature is an embodiment of the soul.

This whole long passage is actually trying to tell you this one sentence: the physical body and the soul are equally spiritual. You think your physical body is material, but its essence is spiritual, it is a psychic existence; conversely, your soul is also natural, as real as the nature you feel. This sentence is the key point of this entire section, of this entire Chapter Seven -- I will emphasize it again: your body, the part you think is physical, is spiritual. Every part of your body has spirituality, and the whole also has spirituality; the soul at the same time exists as naturally as the physical body, and is part of nature.

The two of them are simply the same, just different forms of expression.

In your terms, the body is the living soul. Now the soul can live in many forms -- physical, material, and nonphysical. But when you are physical, your body is the living soul.

The soul can live in material forms of existence, and can also have nonmaterial forms of existence. When it exists in material form, its form of existence is our body. Our body is a material image of the soul, a materialized expression.

The body constantly heals itself, which means the soul in the flesh heals itself.

You must unify the body and the soul -- one material, one spiritual -- and recognize that their essence is the same. Your body constantly heals itself, keeping itself in a very good state, a balanced state, a healthy state, just as your soul constantly heals itself.

Your body is often closer to the soul than your mind is, because it grows automatically like a flower, trusting its own nature.

What is the mind? The mind is your thinking, the thoughts in our head, the so-called rational things, the logical thinking ability in our brain. The body is often closer to the soul than the mind is. Why? It grows automatically like a flower, trusting its own nature -- what is the nature of the body? It is the soul.

It grows naturally like a flower. When you were very young, before you had the ability to think, did your body not still grow very well? Did it not grow even better than when you were conscious? When we always think that this body needs us to take care of it with our intellect, are we not thinking wrongly? When you were a little baby, you had no thoughts, no logical thinking ability, no ego consciousness, yet your body took very good care of itself. So why do you assume that after you grow up, you need to consciously take care of your body? Why do you not believe it can take care of itself, and that it definitely needs your participation? Is your wisdom definitely greater than its own? Regarding your understanding of your body, do you understand more, or does your body itself understand more? You are treating your body as a dead thing. It does not need your care; the body will take care of itself.

Session 631

Viruses of the Mind

This section is relatively short, so we will cover it together with the next one. The next section is Session 631, December 18, 1972. Think about it: by then it was only a week until Christmas. Seth said that earlier that evening, they had spent time trimming the Christmas tree. Jane and Rob were getting ready for Christmas, putting up little colored lights and so on. He described the state of the session at that time, but we will skip that.

Seth went on to say:

Physical life is precious for many reasons.

Physical life is our material life. Many people ask: our soul is so powerful, our entity is so formidable, so why do we still have to come back to this material world, why do we have to start from the most basic survival, from having enough to eat? Why is it like this? Seth says there are many reasons, not just one. One of them is:

The body reacts so sensitively to thought, and yet it is so very resilient. There are certain inherent guidelines, so that the body consciousness itself on the one hand sometimes reflects your negative image, but it will also automatically struggle against them.

There are many reasons we exist in this three-dimensional world, and here he only talks about this one. This chapter is about your body of flesh and blood, and he is talking about what the essence of your body of flesh and blood is. The previous section already covered the essence, and here he elaborates further. One of the reasons we need to have our bodies and need to have the material world is that our physical body reacts very sensitively to thought. We come to experience this kind of control over the body, to see how the body responds. But the body itself is very resilient, and it is not rigid. It is not the case that whatever you say, it just does it, like a puppet or a robot.

Speaking of this, he says: why are the robots we humans build never natural enough? Because they lack this resilience, this autonomy. A robot can only act according to instructions, and it will absolutely never do anything beyond those instructions. It can have some of its own judgment, some artificial intelligence, some predictive and autonomous features, but all of this autonomy falls within the predictable range of its algorithms. Human beings themselves, however, have extremely strong resilience.

There are certain inherent guidelines. Remember, these are inherent. We are born with this kind of guideline. What kind of guideline? Our body itself is a conscious existence. On the one hand, it constantly reflects your negative image, sometimes reflecting your negative emotions, but at other times it will also automatically struggle against them, struggle against your negative emotions.

In the earlier chapters, he said that your belief system can have a substantial effect on your body, and he told you to get rid of negative emotions and negative beliefs because they have a bad effect on your body. But here he begins to say that although your negative beliefs can affect your body, the body has a set of mechanisms for automatically struggling against them.

Many people ask: why do some people have such strong survival ability? For example, some people suffer from very serious mental illness, including depression and many other illnesses, yet their bodies can still function very well for many years. Even if they themselves do not take extreme actions, if they have no suicidal tendencies and do not end their own lives, their bodily functions still operate very well. But we all know that at such times their belief system is actually very negative. They feel that life is completely bleak, that living is meaningless, worthless, and without motivation, and they do not know what they are living for. Under such circumstances, their bodily functions still operate very well. Although there may be some effects, and they may develop some illnesses, some people are actually not much affected at all.

You will understand that it is not the case that the negative emotions or negative things you imagine immediately have a fatal effect on the body. They do not. It takes a very long time. Why? Here he tells you: because we humans are born with these inherent guidelines, with a capacity for error correction and course correction. Because your body itself is conscious, when you throw these negative things at it, it will automatically struggle against them.

You always live within a natural framework. Your thoughts themselves are as natural as, say, your hair.

We live in a natural state, just like nature itself. Nature has its own very good capacity for error correction, recovery, course correction, and also the ability to maintain its own balance. Our thoughts themselves are as natural as hair.

I will use an analogy that you may find strange.

Here Seth used a very interesting analogy. And this analogy, in the present state of things, in this state where the virus is still raging all over the world today, is extremely valuable, meaningful, and profound.

I compare your thoughts to viruses. For they are alive, always present, and responsive.

Take viruses, for example. Viruses are alive, and thoughts are also alive, always present, and responsive. What does "always present" mean? Viruses can never be eradicated. Viruses will always exist in this world. They existed before human beings were born, and even if humanity one day goes extinct, viruses will still exist. Thoughts also exist forever. It is the same principle.

Viruses are responsive. Viruses are not dead; they are alive, vividly alive, even though by their nature they seem dead. A virus is just a segment of DNA or RNA, a code of life, wrapped in a layer of protein, and some also have a lipid outer shell outside the protein. Inside, some contain RNA, which is single-stranded; some contain DNA, which is double-stranded. RNA and DNA themselves are proteins, wrapped in a membrane, and that is all this existence is.

And viruses have their own activity. If you are interested in this, he will talk about it later. If you are interested in the relationship between the current virus and the pandemic, you can watch another video of mine, a four-part series on how Seth discusses viruses. Viruses have their own social existence. Just like our human society, they have their own consciousness, their own society, their own group consciousness. It is very interesting.

At least physically speaking, thoughts are propelled by chemicals.

In practical terms, our thoughts are propelled by chemicals. This must be acknowledged. Thoughts can exist independently of matter, but within our bodies, while we exist in our physicalized bodies, they need chemicals to propel them, propelled by hormones, by neurotransmitters.

Regarding this part, we have another introduction about where human thought actually comes from. How does thought come from the higher-dimensional world, from the perspective of an entity, into our physical brain, and form the personality of each of us? There is a dedicated introduction to this. I will briefly mention it without going into detail.

Inside the human brain there is something called the pineal gland. The wise people of ancient times discovered the pineal gland long ago. The pineal gland secretes three substances: one is called DMT, dimethyltryptamine¹; one is serotonin; and one is melatonin, and of course there are some other substances as well. The main one that plays the key role is the first one, DMT.

Your pineal gland secretes a certain amount of DMT, and its concentration in your blood and brain differs, just as if the frequency of your brain differed. The brain is like a radio, and through DMT it adjusts its frequency. Once it adjusts to a certain frequency, it can receive thoughts coming from a higher dimension, just like a receiver. And your higher self, what we would call your entity or your soul, is the source of thought. Your brain receives the thought through the action of the pineal gland. The brain is only responsible for receiving; it is a physical, materialized existence. Here the propulsion by chemical substances comes into play, so when Seth says "thoughts are propelled by chemicals," there is a basis for it. He is not just making it up.

After the thought is received, it is sent to your conscious mind. The conscious mind then begins to act, adding its own perception to the received information and turning it into a kind of feeling of its own. You then feel that this is your own idea, your own feeling, your own experience.

There is a video by Bashar that explains this part very thoroughly. Bashar describes our higher self, whether you call it the soul or the higher self, as a conceiver. He is the one who conceives how all of this is to be realized. Your brain is a receiver. The conceiver sends his thoughts and ideas through the pineal gland in your brain to adjust the state. To give a vivid example of what the pineal gland adjusts, it is somewhat like the thermostat in the water tank of a car engine. When the engine temperature gets very high, the thermostat opens a little wider to let more water into the engine to cool it down. It is a regulating valve.

In other words, your pineal gland is adjusting whether you see the visible world or the invisible world, how much you see of the spiritual world versus the material plane. To put it more bluntly, it determines the ratio of information you receive from the inner senses versus the outer senses. For example, 80 percent is information from the material world and 20 percent is information from the inner senses. I am just giving a vivid example. Your pineal gland is something like that.

This is a chemical adjustment. After receiving, the conception of your higher self allows your brain, under the control of the pineal gland, to become a receiver. The frequency is adjusted through chemical substances, the combination of DMT plus serotonin and melatonin. Your brain then becomes a kind of electromagnetic receiving device, receiving different frequencies, and different thoughts come in. At this point your conscious mind begins to feel them. The feeling of the conscious mind is the perceiver.

So these three are one: the higher self is the conceiver, the physical brain is the receiver, and your conscious mind is the perceiver.

Your thoughts travel through the body of the universe just as viruses travel through the physical form of your reality.

Thoughts exist in the universe. They do not only exist within our physical bodies. I already explained that they come down from the higher self. Thought transcends material existence, and it exists and operates within our material world and our universe. If you think of the universe as a body, and think of our thoughts as viruses, then thoughts moving through the universe is the same principle as viruses moving through our bodies. This is its characteristic: alive, and responsive in itself.

You will notice that Seth's imagination is extremely expansive. He uses viruses as an analogy for our thoughts.

Thoughts interact with the body and become part of it. Some viruses have great therapeutic value. The physical body will often withdraw its barriers against these viruses, knowing that they will counteract another virus that is not so beneficial at that particular time.

Many viruses are not all bad; many viruses have therapeutic value. The physical body will often withdraw its barriers against these viruses, because it knows that these viruses will counteract another virus that is not so beneficial to the body at that time. Our physical body will often let one kind of virus in, so that it can resist another kind of virus that is currently harmful to the body.

So whether a virus is harmful or beneficial to your body depends on your state at the time, just as whether a thought is beneficial or harmful to you depends on your state at the time. For example, some beliefs you had in childhood were helpful to you at that time, but after you grow up they are no longer helpful, and may even be harmful.

Let me give a real example. Say there was a little girl whose mother was extremely strict with her. This little girl was very beautiful from a young age, like a mixed-race doll. Her mother was extremely protective of her, especially afraid that little boys or bad kids would lead her astray. Her mother would escort her to and from school every day, and controlled her much more strictly than the other children. She was not allowed to go out and play, and so on. Under this intense control from her mother, this little girl developed serious psychological problems. She closed herself off from everyone, did not believe or trust anyone, and had no friends. Over time, she formed a kind of psychological suggestion that going out to play was not much fun anyway.

In short, during her childhood, under this kind of upbringing from her mother, she formed a psychological defense mechanism. This psychological defense mechanism was useful to her at the time, including her coldness toward her mother and toward her family. Because if she had not shut her mother out, if she had not treated her mother like an enemy, then in her young and tender mind, the harm her mother was doing to her at that age would have been unbearable. So she used this method to shut them all out, and she even shut her mother out as well. You can imagine who else could possibly remain in her heart. This belief was helpful in that childhood environment, but once she grew up and entered society, it became extremely harmful, hindering her from integrating into society and from having normal communication and interaction with other people.

I use this example to tell you that our thoughts are like viruses. Sometimes they are useful, and once that environment has passed, they become harmful. Just like viruses, whether they are good or bad is constantly changing.

The so-called harmful viruses are always within you.

This relates to a four-part video I made a while ago about Seth's views on viruses. Someone left a comment below saying, "I actually study viruses. After watching your video on Seth's theory of viruses, I found it so remarkable that I specifically went and looked up the dates in the Seth material. The last part of the Seth material is from 1984, yet many of his theories were stated in the 1970s and 1960s. 1984 is already thirty-six years ago. At that time, humanity's understanding of viruses was completely different from now. Our understanding of viruses in recent years is completely consistent with many of Seth's views." He said he did not know how Seth could have known that viruses have this kind of characteristic.

For example, scientists have now discovered a problem: throughout the entire human DNA, on the chromosomes, there are many segments of lethal viral gene fragments. A virus is just a gene fragment, just a segment of RNA or DNA. Within our very long DNA segments, there are many groups that are fragments of lethal viruses. If you cut out one of these segments and isolate it, it is a lethal virus. These lethal viruses have switches on them, and when these switches are turned on, certain things can be activated. But how they are activated, they do not know. They do not understand why they are activated. They also do not know why these viral fragments exist in the human body.

Traditional scientists believe that these are traces left behind from humanity's long struggle against viruses. But they cannot produce a very effective theory for this, because it cannot be verified in experiments with other animals either. This is not the same thing as antibodies. Everyone, do not misunderstand this as antibodies. These are not antibodies. These are things that exist within our DNA segments themselves, not antibodies that we produce. They are two different concepts.

Furthermore, scientists have also discovered through research that these viruses, at different periods and under different states of human life, play a very important role in the constitution of human life, in the transformation of life, and in the completion of very special processes of life. When these viruses play what kind of role, when they become beneficial viruses for the human body, and when they bring about transformation in humans, they do not understand, and they do not know why. But they have discovered that there are large numbers of viral bodies existing within the human body, and these viruses are right there inside us.

What Seth is saying here was said on December 18, 1972, which is now forty-eight years ago.

The so-called harmful viruses are always within you, and only a very few of them are dangerous to you. Though you always carry within you the slightest traces of the most deadly viruses, the viruses themselves go through transformations of which doctors have no suspicion whatsoever.

Viruses undergo transformation. One kind of virus can change into another kind, just like Transformers. We know that viruses mutate, and this is the principle. If one kind of virus disappears, we often say that a certain virus no longer exists in human society, like the smallpox virus, and then we discover another kind of virus. We have never suspected that the first kind changed into the second kind. We think it is something new.

Let me give an example. This is not a fact; I am only giving an example. Is the novel coronavirus currently circulating possibly a mutation of the SARS virus from back then? This is only my personal wild guess and speculation, with no theoretical basis whatsoever. I am just trying to help you understand Seth's point. After the SARS virus raged for a period in 2003², for about half a year or so, it suddenly disappeared without anyone knowing how. To this day, human society still does not understand why the SARS virus suddenly vanished. But could this novel coronavirus be a variant of that SARS virus that disappeared back then? In other words, could it be that the SARS virus simply became the current novel coronavirus? We are only offering a conjecture.

Seth says that viruses change from one kind into another, and we simply have no idea.

Yet through certain quite natural alterations, this is indeed the case. So viruses can be beneficial or deadly, according to the conditions, the state, and the needs of the body at any given time.

Viruses can be beneficial, and they can also be deadly. Depending on your conditions, your state, and your needs, they are different at any given moment.

You do know that one disease can often cure another.

Sometimes when we get one illness, it actually cures another illness. This is quite normal. We humans do not know why. Folk wisdom says that every time a child has a fever, the child gets smarter. We will not dwell on that, but in reality this sometimes does happen. You get one illness, but it cures another illness.

A person may go from one serious illness through a series of seemingly unrelated, less serious illnesses.

Within the usual context of Western learning, with the introduction of modern medicine and modern chemical pharmaceuticals, you are to some extent in a dilemma.

The body knows how to handle natural medicines that come directly from the earth.

Our body itself is a product of nature, and it knows how to handle medicines from the natural world. We often say that within five steps of a deadly poison there must be an antidote. The ancients also said this: if you eat something poisonous, the antidote may be right next to it. Over thousands of years of civilization, Chinese herbal medicine has played an indelible role in the development of Chinese civilization. The human body knows how to process these natural herbal medicines, whether you grind them, boil them, powder them, steam them, or use any of the various preparation methods.

But a large variety of artificially created drugs provides an unfamiliar food to the body's innate structure.

The chemical drugs synthesized in our chemistry labs provide the body with an unfamiliar food. This may trigger strong defense mechanisms. Once this drug is ingested, it is not something from the natural world; it is a chemical product, and the human body instinctively mounts a strong defense mechanism. This is the reason drugs themselves bring side effects. Many Western medicines list their side effects, and these side effects are actually the result of a strong defense mechanism.

These defensive attempts are directed against the drugs rather than against the disease itself.

This defense is directed against the drug, not against the disease itself. What it defends against is not the illness, but the drug.

Such a situation means that you must use another drug to counteract the one just given to you.

A very typical example of this is in the injection of antibiotics. Penicillin still requires a skin test to this day, because some people are allergic to penicillin. For people who are allergic to penicillin, if a shot of penicillin is administered, very often there is not even time to rescue them; they die immediately. Every year many people die from penicillin allergies.

Why do they die? It is because of their reaction to the drug itself. Penicillin is essentially non-toxic, and for the vast majority of people it is a very good antibiotic, capable of killing bacteria in our bodies, a broad-spectrum antibacterial drug. But for certain people, they simply cannot receive penicillin; one shot and they will die. That is why, to this day, a skin test must be done before penicillin is injected anywhere in the world³. Without a skin test, penicillin cannot be administered, because it can cost lives.

As long as you believe in the medical structure that has evolved in the Western world, I do not suggest that you not see a doctor, or that you not take the medicine.

Because your body has been using these drugs since birth. From the moment we are born, as anyone with children at home knows, as soon as the baby comes out of the mother's body, before it is even carried out of the delivery room, it receives several vaccines. On the very first day of life, it receives many vaccines. Even while you were still inside your mother's womb, your mother was already taking these drugs, so you were already receiving these drugs during the fetal period. We have already been conditioned to be adapted to these drugs, so these drugs are still effective for us.

There are quite a few casualties, he said, like the allergic reactions I just mentioned, or other medication situations we do not know about, where some drugs are truly fatal for some people. But this is still a system that you have chosen.

Our human concepts form our reality. In other words, we believe this medicine works, and this is the belief of many people. If you believe it, then that belief is your reality, and it really does work. So when you are sick, you still need to see a doctor, because you believe in it. If I said you could get better without seeing a doctor, then you would think I am a fraud or a cult leader. This is the current state of our human society, and we must acknowledge this current state. This is a typical case of belief creating reality, and we cannot deny it.

No one dies who has not made the decision to die. And no disease is accepted blindly.

Your death is always decided by yourself. No disease is accepted blindly, meaning that your illnesses are all brought on by yourself. But this is not a conscious "bringing on by yourself"; it is "brought on" by your inner belief system.

In simple terms, your thoughts can be regarded as invisible viruses.

He spent a long time talking about viruses earlier, but what he really wants to tell you is that our thoughts are like viruses. He talked about viruses along the way, because this chapter is about the body.

Carriers, like sparks, that set off reactions not only within our bodies, but also within the entire system that you know, the physical system.

Thoughts are like viruses, like carriers, like sparks. They can not only affect your body, but also affect your surrounding environment and the world around you. Within the entire system that you know, that is, what we call the physical system, the material environment, the three-dimensional world, they set off reactions.

Your thoughts are as natural as the cells within your body, and just as real. They interact with each other, just as viruses do.

Your thoughts are just like the cells in your body; they are both material, and just as real. A single virus cannot kill you; it takes a group of viruses reaching a certain quantity.

While you are in this reality, there is no boundary between the psyche and the body.

When we are in this material reality, there is no boundary between the spirit, the psyche, and the body. Why are all these spiritual studies called "body-mind-spirit" studies? Body-mind-spirit means the body, the mind, and the spirit. They themselves have no boundaries. If you think there are boundaries, then you do not yet have sufficient understanding of the spirituality of the body, or of the material reality of thought.

I have said that thoughts are as natural as any part of the body. They are as much a part of nature as feelings are.

Thoughts are as natural as any part of your body, just like the feeling we have of being able to sense the existence of the natural world. They are the same.

But if you set up an arbitrary division, considering thoughts as mental and separate from physical things, then your body may reflect your existence more truly than your thoughts do.

If you insist on making a distinction, treating thought as purely mental and treating the body only as the body, then I tell you: your body is closer to your soul than your thoughts are. He is saying the same thing over and over again.

In the body's spontaneous functioning, you see the soul flowing with ease. This characteristic of moving with the natural self is an indication of the soul's inner freedom.

The body has spontaneity, self-balancing, self-healing, and self-recovery abilities. You see the soul flowing with ease. Energy is flowing, the soul is flowing, and your body automatically recovers. The "natural self" is this self that is inherently natural. The easy flow of the soul follows along naturally. This characteristic is an important indicator of the soul's inner freedom. Whether your soul is free depends on whether it can flow with ease and move with the natural self.

It also points to an innate sense of direction.

What is an innate sense of direction? It is the direction in which you are innately meant to develop. If you relax, and do not let your thoughts interfere too much, and let your soul take the lead, this natural flow of the soul will point out the direction for you, the natural sense of direction of your original self, of your true nature.

Nature Includes the Soul

All parts of the physical body are versions of the soul's reality in the flesh. Just as all regions of the outer universe are a mirror image, an inner universe.

The various parts of your body are the various versions of the soul's reality in the flesh. Just as the outer universe is a mirror image of its various regions -- reflecting the outer world back as an inner universe, you could also call it a projection, same idea.

The latter is just as alive as the outer world, and just as changeable.

The latter refers to this inner world. The inner world is just as alive, natural, and changeable as the outer world.

Physical phenomena are only part of what is called nature.

What we call physical phenomena -- material existence, scientific laws, the things of the material world studied within the scope of physics and science -- the things we can see and touch -- these are only one part of nature. And those other parts you do not know about, all realities are natural. You only perceive the material part, and those non-material parts are just as natural as the material part you see.

In your terms, probabilities are extensions and variations of the principle of growth.

Probabilities refer to the world of probabilities, the probable you, probable existence. In Seth Speaks there is a section specifically on probabilities; you can think of it as parallel universes, if that makes it easier to understand. Seth uses the term "probabilities"; some Taiwanese translations render it as "likelihood." Whether you call it probability or likelihood, it means the same thing -- things that could happen, that have not happened in this world of yours, but that have already happened in another world.

This existence of multidimensional space-time, this existence of probabilities, is itself a natural law of nature; it is an extension and variation of your natural growth.

This growth is clearly visible in the reality of your daily lives.

This principle of growth is obvious in our reality -- within our particular field of reality, the material world, our senses can observe the manifestation of nature: a seed planted in the ground grows into a sprout, blossoms into a flower, bears fruit.

But in the same way, other completely natural manifestations of that principle also exist.

Remember this: "other" is the key here. In this natural world of ours, seeds sprout and people grow naturally -- that is nature in this world of ours. But this principle of nature exists in the same way in other worlds; it is just that in those worlds we have no awareness of them and cannot see them.

Some can only be glimpsed by you in distorted form, because there are other natural conditions you cannot perceive. Probabilities impel you to take part in a rich process of psychological growth.

Why must probabilities exist? Many people do not understand. It is simple: when you play a game, do you not want to walk through all the possibilities? This time you take this storyline, next time you take that storyline; whichever line you take, you have to walk through all the possibilities before you can say you have truly played the game through. In other words, how can you represent your complete personality? Do you not have to experience all the possibilities in life before you can say that the you who has finished experiencing them is the complete personality?

For example, in this life you chose to marry Zhang San and not Li Si; that is one storyline. But you have the possibility of marrying Li Si, only you did not choose it in this life. In a world of probabilities, you did marry Li Si, and in that world you are experiencing the feeling of being married to Li Si. As a complete you, looking from a higher dimension at this fragment personality of your current reincarnation, do you not have to finish experiencing both marrying Zhang San and marrying Li Si before you can say you have experienced everything in this life? Otherwise it is incomplete, not rich, rather singular, not comprehensive, and cannot fully represent all possible outcomes and all your experiences.

So this is the value and meaning of the existence of probabilities -- they impel you to take part in a rich process of psychological growth, rather than the development of a single storyline. You are simultaneous; all the plots, all the branching structures are being experienced at the same time. But as one person, you can only experience one storyline; the other storylines you cannot experience. You can occasionally cross over and get a taste of them, but essentially you cannot experience them.

They exist, but cannot be observed. Any kind of existence takes place within the context of nature.

Parallel worlds and parallel space-times exist right here in our present world; those possibilities you think did not happen are happening all around you, only you cannot perceive them, cannot observe them.

Nature includes the soul.

Everything is within the context of nature -- the soul itself is also a probable existence. That is why you have so many parallel space-times. It is just that your definition of nature is too narrow. We define material existence that we can see and touch as nature, and we consider all things we cannot see or touch as non-existent -- it is our definition that is too narrow, not that the world is actually this way.

Being alive after death is natural.

You die, but you are still alive; this is natural. Your thoughts are still alive, your consciousness is still alive, your soul is still alive; this is natural. Returning the body to the earth, and then forming another body, is also natural. Your thoughts being as alive, swift, and responsive as a virus is also natural. Your having probable selves and reincarnational existence is also natural. All of this is as natural as a flower blooming. It is only the narrowness of our perception that limits it; in fact they are all around us, happening simultaneously in this very moment.

When you think of thoughts as mental and apart from nature, then you will feel yourself apart from nature itself.

Our thoughts themselves are also material, as real as nature. If you insist on treating thoughts as purely mental, forcibly separated from the material world, then you are separating yourself from nature. All of our current scientific theories are built on this foundation: thoughts are an existence of the mental world, non-material. But is it possible to think this way? Are you not a product of nature? People live on the earth; how can you say you are separate from nature? And where would you be separated? You turn around and use a product of nature to look back and observe nature, and you still want to study the principles of its operation and the truth within -- do you think this direction of research is correct? Is it even possible?

When you imagine that life after death is unnatural, then you will feel cut off, isolated, and bewildered.

You feel you do not know why you came to this world, do not know why you were dropped into this world, and when you die everything is extinguished like a lamp going out -- then what did you come for?

You must try to understand that in nature there are different kinds of nature.

You will find that the American journal Nature⁴ -- the journal that now publishes all the most advanced scientific papers -- its name was chosen with great foresight, truly great foresight. Scientists all over the world take pride in publishing papers in Nature.

In nature there are many different kinds of nature, and this material world we now consider is only one of them.

Your physical life, your humanity, in your terms, depends upon a time when you are not human.

The essence of our physical life, or the foundation of our humanity, depends upon our existence at the time when we are not human.

You must realize that in that context, nonexistence is just as natural as physical existence.

Within your understanding of nature, what you consider non-existent -- that "nonexistence" of no life after death -- is just as natural as the existence of life as you think of it.

Your existence before birth and after death is just as normal a phenomenon as your present life.

Your existence before your life began, and after your life ends, is just as normal a phenomenon as your present life existence.

The content of this session is very important. This beginning of the chapter gives us a deeper understanding of the entire human physical life and what kind of law nature follows.

Before the Session

Monday, January 15, 1973. We continue with the second part of our reading of Chapter 7 of The Nature of Personal Reality, that is, Session 632 of the book. This session came almost a month after the previous one -- this month happened to be the time when all the American holidays are concentrated, the equivalent of our Spring Festival. During this period Seth basically did not dictate this book, though he did make some brief appearances and had some exchanges with us, but they had nothing to do with the book itself.

During this month we had a series of wonderfully warm days. The holidays were over, and the Christmas tree had already been taken away.

Jane's work in channeling had led to a steady increase in letters from readers -- not a huge number yet, but their speed in replying had gradually fallen behind. They basically replied to every letter, so although the letters had not piled up to the point of being unanswerable, the steady increase was already weighing on them.

When Seth saw this problem of theirs, he made a suggestion. He said:

I will dictate a letter myself.

That is, Seth, in Seth's own name, would write one letter to all those who had written in, and then Jane could print multiple copies of this letter, attach it to each reply, and add a brief personal response. That way they would not spend too much time on replies, nor would they feel guilty. You can see the extent of Seth's thoughtfulness -- he even thought of details like this.

He said, add this personal note -- attach this letter, and add a personal note as well. He later wrote this letter, which appears later in the book. We will not talk about that for now.

Session 632

The Death and Replacement of Cells

Seth continues:

As you know, the atoms that compose your cells, and the cells themselves, are constantly dying and being replaced.

Here he uses two words: "dying" and "being replaced." You need to remember this: atoms — basically within our lifetime, or within the span of years we can observe, you cannot see an atom die, because the lifespan of an atom is extremely long. A neutron or a proton has a lifespan of roughly 10 to the 24th power years⁵ — that is a 10 followed by 24 zeros; only after that many years will it die. So the death of neutrons and protons basically cannot be compared with a human lifespan at all.

So basically, the atoms that compose our cells are replaced, not dying. But cells can die; they die constantly. The materials that make up our internal organs, our organs, change, yet they always maintain their shape — this is very strange. The heart is always the heart; its shape, function, and role have not changed at all, just as they were before. But we know that in fact these cells die every day.

So how can it maintain its original shape? How does it know what the original shape was? How does it know what the heart should look like? How do the newly born cells acquire these things? This session is mainly about this.

The identity does not change.

The identity does not change. Likewise, amid all the births and deaths of which your conscious self is unaware — that is, amid the births and deaths you cannot perceive — your identity is safe and unaffected, and the awareness of your identity is also unaffected. Just as the cells within our organs live and die, your organs are also unaffected, remaining very stable and safe. As an identity, the births and deaths of cells occurring within you likewise do not affect you.

All of its memories are retained.

All of their experience, all the memory of their experience, is retained — be sure to remember this. Every cell remembers its past.

Even though all of its parts have been and are being replaced.

All of its parts are being replaced — because after it dies, a new cell comes to take its place.

Two Levels of Memory

So just as your cells have their memory, in the same way, the conscious mind also has a more obvious kind of memory.

Since cells have memory, then of course our conscious mind has an even more obvious memory.

Your conscious thoughts are like a trigger.

It is like a trigger. Our conscious thoughts—keep this in mind, it is conscious thoughts; the unconscious cannot trigger it—it is like a trigger being pulled, and then it activates both kinds of memory, triggers both of them. Which two kinds of memory? One is the memory of your cells, of the flesh, the underlying memory within the cells; the other is the memory within the conscious mind. Both of these memories will be activated by your conscious thoughts, triggered by them.

So this shows how important our every arising thought is—because it activates these two memories, one the memory of the flesh, the other the memory within consciousness.

Within your physical existence, every pleasurable, expansive, traumatic, or tragic "past" event is indelibly written.

"Past" is in quotation marks, because it is past relative to our human time. Our indelible memories exist within the flesh, and every one of our cells records them—whether joyful, expansive, or sorrowful, traumatic, they are all remembered.

In your terms, this is the material you work with.

The memories since the conception of your physical body are our working material. Why do we keep these memories? Because we need to use them as the basis for judging our experience. When we encounter the same or a similar experience, we immediately find something similar from memory, and we know what to do. We do not need to sit down and carefully analyze and deliberate over every single matter—because if you have encountered something similar in your past experience, you only need to call up the memory, and you will draw on past experience and know that this kind of thing should be handled this way.

This is the function of experience, and this is also our working material. This is how our life works—we are composed of memory. If all our memories were wiped away, that would actually be a very terrifying thing.

But you should know that what Seth must emphasize here is this: your memory is of two kinds—one is the memory within the flesh, and the other is the memory within the conscious mind. Both kinds of memory are present.

Within your memory there is a structure of the most complex organization and association.

Here he talks about memory—memory is very complex, and up to now human research on memory is still limited and not comprehensive. How humans associate has already yielded some preliminary results, but it still cannot be said to have reached a truly ultimate conclusion.

It exists at once in the depths of your cellular structure and at the highest levels of your conscious activity.

One is at the lowest end, and one is at the highest end. It exists at once in the deepest part of your cellular structure and at the highest level of your conscious activity—this is a very crucial point.

But generally we can only remember the things in consciousness; the things in the cells are very hard for us to perceive. We often speak of cellular memory, of muscle memory—when we do certain activities, for example, once you have learned to ride a bicycle, no matter how many years pass you will not forget; for example, some people drive very well, and driving is a muscle memory involving an overall process of eye-hand-foot coordination, bodily coordination, and judgment of the perceptual system. Some people find learning to drive very difficult, while others find it very easy—this is a very interesting matter.

Thoughts Are Living Electromagnetic Cells

Seth says:

Earlier I once compared your thoughts to viruses.

That was in the previous session. Now:

Now think of them as living electromagnetic cells.

Think of a thought as an active, living electromagnetic cell.

They differ from the cells of your body only in the nature of their materialization.

The difference between them and your body's cells is this: your body's cells are materialized, while it is electromagnetic. Electromagnetism is also a form of material expression. Can we deny the existence of electromagnetic waves? Impossible — the cell phone signals you use, WiFi, wireless internet access, the communication between you and the base station all use electromagnetic signals. Electromagnetic signals are exactly the same as the material existence we can see and touch. Electromagnetism is a form of material existence, electromagnetic signals are a form of material existence — this you must understand. The television you watch, the songs you listen to, your wireless earphones, your Bluetooth earphones, all work wirelessly.

Cells Are Miniature Brains in Concrete Form

Seth says:

Your thoughts direct the overall mechanism of your body's cells, even though you are not aware of how those cells operate.

That work is unconscious. You must remember: the body directs the cells unconsciously; you cannot be aware of how the cells operate.

Each cell of the physical body can be said to be a miniature brain in concrete form.

Every cell is a little brain.

Possessing its secret and private experience.

Its individual experience -- each cell has its own experience, as well as all the memories of its relationships with other cells. Cells are all little brains; they have their own memory, and they can remember their own private experience, plus all the memories of their interactions with other cells.

In your terms, each cell is born with a picture of the body's entire history, including past, present, and future, and it operates according to that picture.

Here it is said in terms we humans can understand -- you must remember, much of what Seth says is expressed in terms we can understand. So when you see something beginning with "in your terms," what follows is basically a metaphor, or a figurative explanation, rather than the actual reality itself. Whenever it says "in your terms," you need to be careful: it is only drawing an analogy.

Never go and ask: why did Seth say it one way earlier, and then another way later? Sometimes he is describing a real state of actual reality, and sometimes it is an analogy. When he speaks of something truly profound, it is genuinely very difficult for us humans to understand.

The Body's Prophetic Mechanism

Let's look at how he explains this analogy. If you can understand the following clearly, that would be quite good:

Each cell is born with this unified and complete picture of the entire history of the body.

This includes the past, the present, and the future -- past, present, and future are one complete picture. You might ask: why would a cell have a picture of the future? It should only have the past or the present, and that would be understandable. Why does it have a complete picture of the entire history of the body, and why does it operate according to this picture? This is hard to understand. Let's read on.

This picture is ever-changing.

It is constantly changing, it is fluid.

The body's consciousness instantly notices changes in a single cell.

The body's overall consciousness -- that is, the joint consciousness of all the cells, the collective consciousness -- can notice changes in a single cell. That is quite remarkable.

It also perceives the future results.

This is also quite remarkable -- it can know the future results.

The body uses this information and all the other data of the body itself to make a prophecy.

The body uses this information -- the predicted future results obtained by the cells, along with data from all the other parts -- and fuses all this data together to make a prophecy about the future.

This bodily prophecy is then evaluated, and on more levels than I can explain.

This evaluation is carried out on many levels -- if you think of the body as having many layers, it really does have many layers: there is the cellular layer, the organ layer, the circulatory layer, the conscious layer, the deep conscious layer, and so on. So Seth says this has already gone beyond what he can explain.

This is a very complex process, not like what we imagine where a single meeting decides everything. He said earlier that our cells operate according to a picture of the body's overall past, present, and future -- that was an analogy -- and below he is telling you how this analogy actually works. When you hear the explanation of how it actually works, you will think: wow, it really is hard to understand. It is still easier to understand the one below -- you just imagine that every cell has a blueprint, and it works according to this blueprint, and this blueprint contains the past, the present, and also the future. That way it is easier to understand.

The Invisible Stage

Seth continues to explain:

This picture is briefly enacted on that invisible stage where the body and the psyche meet.

This picture is also briefly enacted -- on that invisible stage where the body and the psyche meet, it acts out what the future will look like. Of course this stage is not a place -- it is not some location in the brain or a physical location, but rather an inner state of gestalt consciousness.

This gestalt of the psyche -- as discussed earlier, the cells of your body have cellular consciousness, the organs have organ consciousness, the consciousness of the cells forms the overall consciousness of an organ, and the consciousness of all the organs forms the consciousness of your own being. This consciousness of your own being is what he calls gestalt consciousness. This consciousness is greater than the sum of the individual organs, and also greater than the sum of all the cellular consciousnesses that make up the consciousness of those organs -- it has more comprehensive, more abundant information, an effect of 1+1>2.

At this level of the gestalt consciousness of the whole individual, in a certain state, it is as if the future direction and state of development of this person is rehearsed in advance -- as if a prophecy, or a rehearsal, has been made for the overall gestalt of this person. This is not a level we can perceive.

This state comes from some kind of interaction deep within the body, an electromagnetic structure, formed at the bodily level.

This effect comes from some kind of interaction deep within the body, and this electromagnetic structure is generated at this level.

It is created through a certain kind of neural activation.

This neural activation:

can be said to skip over normal patterns and thereby form images.

The structures of the nerves and their endings are responsible for capturing pictures.

And when all those pictures are gathered together and used, the larger picture of the body's condition can take shape.

What does this mean? This gestalt rehearsal of the future is formed at a deep level of the body, and once formed, your electromagnetic structure is generated at that deep level of the body. How is it generated? He does not say -- perhaps he is no longer able to explain it. We only need to know that an electromagnetic structure is generated. This electromagnetic structure is created through neural activation -- and this neural activation, he says, is a way of skipping over normal patterns and thereby forming images.

The way we normally form images is through a system within the visual nervous system of the brain; everything we see is processed by this system. But this thing skips over the normal process of forming images in the brain -- so in your mind, you do not have a concept, you do not have an image; it skips over that, so you have no sense of pictures, and you do not know what it is.

He will say later that it is not actually a picture either; he is only using an example to describe it as a picture, but in essence it is not a picture. Let us first understand it in terms of a picture, because a picture is easier to understand.

He says that your nerves and the endings of your nerves are responsible for taking photographs, for gathering pictures -- capturing the image from their own perspective, from their tiny range of vision. They gather together all the images of all the cells of the whole body, and when all of them are collected together, the panoramic picture of your body emerges. And each cell is not only about the present -- it also has a complete picture of the past, present, and future. Each cell sends its complete picture of the past, present, and future to a place in your body where everything is summed up, a place of gathering -- which is the place of your gestalt consciousness. The gestalt consciousness gathers all the information together, and thus has an overall, larger picture of the condition of your entire person.

This is his explanation of our body's ability to predict the future.

Encrypted Information

Seth continued:

These are not images as you think of them.

But they are indeed extremely coded information.

That is, coded information, like encrypted information. This encrypted information:

is impressed upon it electromagnetically.

You see how complex he is -- how precise and complex this physical body of ours is. It is impressed electromagnetically, and to the naked eye it does not look like images, but rather like dense, encrypted computer programs.

In any case, they can only be perceived by the body.

It can only be perceived by the body -- this encrypted electromagnetic information is not an image, but it can only be perceived by the body.

This program is far more advanced than any program you know of.

This whole mechanism. So:

The body does indeed take precognitive photographs of its future condition.

It is as if your body takes precognitive photographs of the body's future condition, as if it projects the body's state at that time into the future.

How Cells Grow According to the Blueprint

In this passage he explains: why we humans develop, how we grow, how we got here — why you grow from a child all the way to adulthood, why you become the way you are now, how your cells know that you are supposed to become this way, how tens of trillions of cells finally come together to form a you, and how this whole process is accomplished. He puts it very clearly here — it is all according to a future blueprint. If you think of it as building you, then it is countless cells building you according to a future blueprint. Cells can be born and die, but they are all produced according to the same mold, the same blueprint, so you end up with the way you are now — your identity, your sense of the physical body, your sense of self do not change, and that is why you can still feel that you are still yourself.

This chapter is about "The Flesh and Blood Body," and he insists on making this matter clear to you: how your cells work.

Once you see what is in here, you will realize how miraculous and how wondrous the human body is. Our current medicine, using current medical theories and methods to study it, is so laughable and so naive — basically it has not even touched the door of the human body yet, has not even touched the basic principles of how the human body works. It is simply laughable to the extreme.

Seth often pauses in this last passage, because he is searching for the right words — he himself does not know how to describe this process. This thing is very miraculous, and it is not the same as what you think. Most of us generally believe that what we will look like in the future is determined by genetic genes, plus a whole pile of other theories, the external environment, and so on. Seth has already explained this very thoroughly.

Two Comparisons

Seth says:

So this predictive picture is then compared with two points.

Why does it generate this predictive picture? This predictive picture is useful. It wants to compare this predictive picture with two points.

First, it is compared with the person's ideal standard of health for the body, checked against its greatest fulfillment.

Compare this predictive picture of the future body with the ideal standard of health for the human body. Every person's body has an ideal state -- this ideal standard of health is different for each person, not one-size-fits-all. It is not that humanity has a common standard saying "the human health standard is like this" -- no. The so-called health standard is the greatest fulfillment of your body, the best state your body can reach, when all the indicators have reached their highest, that is your ideal state.

Then it is checked against the body image that the conscious self has transmitted to it.

The second step is to compare it with your conscious expectations for your own future. The future picture mentioned earlier is unconscious -- your body gestalt has formed a future picture, and that picture is unknown to you. It has already skipped the step of image generation, and it is not an image itself, just an encrypted code. But we have expectations for ourselves -- you feel that you will become something in the future, what you can become in the future. These three pictures: one is your most ideal state, one is your conscious expectation for your own future, and one is what you will actually become in the future.

It makes an overall comparison of these three pictures and finds the correlations among them. Just think how complex and subtle this is, completely beyond what ordinary people can imagine.

In an organizational structure that would make the most advanced technology envious, communication leaps back and forth with great rapidity, and whenever necessary, the body will make any changes needed to bring these two images and the body's present condition into alignment.

In an organizational structure that the most advanced technology would envy -- this structure is extremely complex, extremely advanced -- communication leaps back and forth with great rapidity among these three images. One is what you will become in the future, one is what you imagine you will become in the future, and one is the best you can become in the future. It compares back and forth among these three, communicates back and forth, leaps back and forth. It uses the word "leaps."

This mechanism is indescribable -- Seth does not explain here how this mechanism operates, because this mechanism seems to be beyond the scope of current human cognition. But you only need to know how it works; the working principle is too complex. While leaping back and forth among these, whenever it feels it is necessary, it makes the body produce any changes -- as soon as it is needed, it makes the changes -- so as to bring these two images and the body's present condition into alignment: to keep your most ideal state and your conscious image of your own future consistent with the present image of the body. This is how it constantly adjusts.

Break

Seth said, "You may take a break." At this point Jane said Seth was letting us pause, really just to rest for a bit, because he still had a whole pile of prepared material waiting there. I thought he might talk about the book we bought last week -- Experimental Summaries of Biological Rhythms in Animals and Humans⁶. We had not finished reading it yet, but we already had questions about some of its conclusions, and we felt Seth had been continually offering greater insight into such rhythms.

The Body's Natural Balance

Seth continues:

To some extent there is an inherent, natural balance.

Be sure to remember, there is an inherent, natural balance. He says:

The body is so responsive to conscious thought that it has an inborn self-maintaining system and a guiding image of its own fulfillment.

The body has a self-maintaining system, one that can maintain itself -- like that Human Robot User Manual we talked about a while back, where one part is that it has a self-correcting ability, a self-maintaining system. If you were going to develop a robot, you would also set up such a system -- you cannot have someone issuing commands to it all day long; it should have a self-maintaining ability.

And a guiding image of its own fulfillment. This self-correcting ability in humans is extremely strong; it will find the right direction on its own. As long as you do not give it too much negative interference and influence, just let go and let it do its thing, and it will take very good care of itself. Has he not already said it here -- it is inborn. You have to trust it.

The Example of the Burn at Age Four

For instance, say you suffered a serious injury when you were four years old:

Say, for example, that an accident occurred at 3:20 in the afternoon.

It was snowing that day, and your mother was roasting a turkey. Imagine that one of your hands was severely burned.

Say that by the time you are twenty-seven, all the tissue in that hand has already been replaced several times over.

Twenty-three years have passed, and all your cells and tissues have already been replaced several times over.

The identity within each present cell still remembers that injury.

This is very subtle -- the present cells still remember the injury, yet the present cells are no longer the cells of that time. The cells of that time have already been replaced many times over. This is not a memory in your brain -- what Seth is talking about in this passage is cellular memory. It is not that your brain remembers that you were burned at age four, but rather that your cells still remember being burned when they were young.

There is one phrase here where I think Seth used a very important word -- in that sentence, he must have meant "before" that day, not after. Why? Because at the cellular level there is no concept of time -- because it knows its past, present, and future. Your cells are far more capable than you are; they know their own past, present, and future. So he says:

At the same hour of every afternoon before or after that day.

At the same hour of every afternoon -- because cells have this kind of precognitive ability.

Countless other events happened to you.

At the same hour of every afternoon, countless other events happened to you.

The memory contained within the cells of your hand would dazzle your conscious mind.

What you contain in memory far exceeds what your conscious mind can grasp -- far too much.

Remember, however, that the cells within your hand at age twenty-seven are literally not the same cells that experienced that event.

Yet in some underground organization of feeling, the evidence of those countless past afternoon experiences of stimulus and response has long been buried, but still exists.

Those stimuli and responses will still exist. This is the key point: your overall cellular memory does not die along with the death of the cells, as you might think -- it does not.

Some of those memories are bound to be replayed, and to affect what you call your present experience at age twenty-seven.

Some of those buried but still existing stimuli and responses are bound to be replayed, and when you are experiencing your present experience at age twenty-seven, they will still affect you.

Your Conscious Thoughts Control the Selection

So what determines which ones get played? Seth says:

Your conscious thoughts and habits control which of them will be merged into the present great vortex.

This is the key point: your conscious thoughts and habits determine which of those already buried but still existing stimuli and experiences get merged into your current perceptual system, your sensory system.

You consciously send out the signal to react, not the other way around.

What he means is this: it is not that you feel pain, or feel the back of your hand burned, and only then it stimulates you. Rather, those memories of being burned exist deep in your cellular memory -- they are waiting to be summoned by you. It is not that a stimulus comes first and then you have a corresponding reaction; it is that you want that kind of stimulus, you want that kind of feeling, and so you summon it forth. "Not the other way around" means this.

So past events, unless they are summoned by the conscious expectations and thoughts in your mind, will not invade you like this.

If you do not summon it, it will not invade your present reality, because it is already something in the past. But the moment you summon it, it comes in -- you want it, and it comes in.

Those unconscious memories will be activated according to your present beliefs.

Those things you have already forgotten -- maybe you do not even remember being scalded once when you were four years old -- but according to your present beliefs, if your beliefs need it, they will mobilize it.

When your thoughts activate pleasant bodily sensations and physical events, you will be replenished and renewed.

When your thoughts activate pleasant bodily sensations and physical events, when you mobilize those events, you will be reinforced -- this pleasant feeling and this physical event will be reinforced, replenished and renewed.

But when you bring unpleasant physical encounters into your sensations, you will feel depressed.

When you bring unpleasant experiences in, it is certainly uncomfortable. What he means is: do not keep thinking about bad things.

Of course, sometimes both are quite helpful -- bad things can sometimes be helpful too. For example, conscious awareness of danger: when we catch the scent of danger, we will summon all the information for handling and dealing with this kind of situation, all the information will come, and the body can find a way from its vast storehouse of vivid memories to deal with the danger immediately.

But you cannot keep doing this. Frequently entertaining these unpleasant thoughts puts the body into a state of unreal turmoil -- you are always worrying: what if I get sick in the future, what if my body feels unwell, what about the future, and so on. You always keep yourself in a bad feeling, and this state will cause your body to always be in turmoil, facing danger and difficulty. It is normal for this state to appear occasionally, but you cannot keep letting your body stay in this state -- the body will feel unwell, and will get sick.

Then you force it to concretize that state of turmoil, to face all kinds of external risks, whether famine, chaos of war, or other dangers.

You go and reactivate these old patterns, and it will force you into that painful pattern you once experienced.

The Body Knows Death and Rebirth

Seth says:

The physical body is quite aware of facts that escape your conscious level.

Some facts that we are not aware of, it is quite aware of.

It knows that it constantly dies and is reborn.

It knows that it constantly dies and is reborn—cells are continually renewed and replaced, yet it remains itself; it dies and is reborn and is still itself.

We use the words death and rebirth because you understand the meanings of these terms, but your body does not understand them.

The body does not know what birth is or what death is—although the body is always itself, it is also in a constant coming and going. When one cell dies, it does not feel diminished, because it is still in the process of forming a new cell.

For a moment, think of your body as one large cell that exists in the present.

This is an analogy. Seth says:

You, or the larger you, have many bodies. When one body dies and is reborn, it becomes another body, yet you, this larger you, retain the memory of your own identity, just as the smallest cell in your present body does.

We have used this example before: if you think of your present life as the life of one cell—from birth to death, this whole life is the process of one cell going from birth to death. A cell's lifespan may be only a few hours or a few days—suppose this cell's lifespan is 21 days, and suppose your life from birth to death is only 21 days, then you would be an existence of the same nature as this cell. After you die, you will change into another form, take on another body, and come back again.

Cells live and die, and from the perspective of a single cell there seems to be birth and death, but for the whole body, you cannot say that when a cell dies, you die. The birth and death of cells has no effect on the existence of you as this body. Likewise, your births and deaths in this three-dimensional world have no real effect on that larger existence of yours—your entity, your soul. It is immortal; you are the one who lives and dies. Just as for a cell, your body is immortal, while the cell with its brief lifespan comes and goes.

Here it gives this example again, to help you once more understand the relationship between your body and its cells, and the relationship between you and your entity.

It can also explain the body's idea of itself.

The body sees itself this way—as a whole, it knows it will die—this "will die" refers to our physical death, the death of the flesh—just as it knows that certain parts of it are dying now, but it is also aware of the future "emergence into immortality."

"Emergence into immortality" means becoming an immortal, becoming a transcendent being—he used this term—knowing that in the future it will become a deathless state, returning to the state of the soul.

So within this structure, it protects and maintains its own stability and survival.

Within this larger framework, it maintains its own stability and survival. This is your body. Your body operates this way; it is clearer than you, it understands more than you.

Have you noticed what the most interesting thing about the whole world is? Everything understands—your body understands, your cells understand, your subconscious understands, your inner self understands—it seems that only one you is the most confused one. So now, if we get this most confused you to understand, wouldn't the whole thing be resolved?

Where Body and Soul Meet

Seth says:

At the level of your existence, there is a common meeting place.

Within the entire existence of your whole entity, there is a level — you can understand it as a kind of space-time or a kind of world — at that level there is a common meeting place, where all the various levels intersect.

There, the body consciousness and the higher consciousness that originates from your own being merge together.

That is where your soul and your flesh meet.

At once within time and outside of time.

It has already transcended the existence of space-time — your body consciousness and the consciousness of your higher self, of your entity, the two blend together there, merge together.

You Have Backup

Seth says:

Because you are conscious of existence, you form your material reality through conscious thought.

He knows that when he says that, he is repeating himself again and again -- that is, the very statement: your beliefs form your reality, repeated once more.

But you must be reminded.

He does not mind the trouble, saying this everywhere -- your ears are calloused from hearing it, and he is still saying it. But he says:

You are not at the mercy of unconscious events. You have the body's innate wisdom as your backup.

You are not a person without backing, without support. What is behind you? You have the body's innate wisdom as your backup -- your body does possess innate wisdom. He has already explained earlier how your body's innate wisdom operates.

When you understand how the body operates, you will find it so miraculous, so exquisitely refined. Think again: the little experience, the little knowledge, the little wisdom, the little logical reasoning ability you have gained in the three-dimensional world -- do you still have the nerve to use it to solve the problems of your body? Would it not be better to hand it over to your inner self to handle? Through his description you will come to know: in the midst of this, should you not help it play a positive, constructive role, rather than always dredging up those negative things?

You are not at the mercy of such unconscious events -- what we usually call "impermanence," being at the mercy of chance occurrences -- we live amid a string of accidents, never knowing from one day to the next what will happen. That is what we tend to think. But he says that is not actually so: you do not live in a world of chance, nor in a world that seems to have no regularity, where you do not know what tomorrow will be like. In fact, your future has long since been set -- it is right there in your cells, right there in your body. It has long known what you will become in the future.

So you are not isolated and helpless. You have powerful backup -- your powerful backup is the innate wisdom of your body itself. It will always try to correct your mistakes. It will always correct the mistakes you are inclined to make.

These suggestions will come in countless ways.

The ways it corrects your mistakes are countless -- not, as you might imagine, by sending you a notice, a text message, or a WeChat reminder, or by some inner voice telling you -- it is not like that.

Some will be quite physical, in your terms of thinking, and others will come through other methods.

For example, the body itself may begin to crave certain foods, or fresh air, or exercise. These are simple examples.

We often have this example. Mothers who have given birth all know: during pregnancy you will suddenly crave a certain food, and it is almost uncontrollable. The craving for that food claws at your heart and liver; the desire cannot be suppressed -- this is a typical case of the body needing that thing. Or you may feel very stuffy and need to get to some state where you can breathe; or you simply cannot stand staying at home and need to go out and move around, to exercise -- these are all suggestions your body gives you, helping you correct your mistakes.

You may have dreams that urge you to act in such-and-such a direction, or that point out where you should make corrections.

Such dreams often bring about changes in behavior. Because in the morning you cannot remember them -- you forget what you experienced in the dream -- but you will find that you have changed some behaviors, some habits. For example, some people may suddenly stop smoking, and they do not even know why. They simply no longer like cigarettes, no longer need them.

But you might say: can I tell my dream to give me a clear instruction, exactly how I should change, rather than that kind of unconscious change? At such times you can make a request of your dream -- you can say, can you point out a precise direction for me -- and then you will receive such a dream.

If you ask on the one hand, and on the other do not believe in the healing nature of dreams, you will block any such activity.

You will not receive this information. In such cases, you are not honest enough about the conscious content -- you often say, "I want to have a dream that helps me," but you do not believe you can have such a dream. In your heart you actually do not believe it -- you think, how could that be possible? That is just wishful thinking! Because you think it is impossible, you will not receive it.

The Flesh and Blood Body Is Yours

Seth says:

In all cases, when you are most concerned about your health, there will be several directions for you to choose from.

When you begin to take your health seriously, there will be many directions for you to choose from—you can do it this way, you can do it that way. You can make it healthy, make it better and better, or you can make it worse and worse. It is entirely up to you to decide.

This flesh and blood body is yours.

What it means is: you decide to make it better, or you decide to make it worse.

It is the materialization of your soul.

You must remember this—your physical body is the materialization of your soul. Through your body, the soul will provide you with the answers you need—so when you ask the soul, it is the same as asking your body: What do you need? How can you become better? It will tell you.

A Preview of the Next Chapter

Seth said:

In the next chapter we will begin to discuss those methods that can be used to restore and heal the body.

He also tells you how to restore and heal the body.

They will help you awaken from the physical form those memories and experiences that are most beneficial to you. For the best results, you must remember that ideas are just as alive as the cells in your hand.

Ideas are just like the cells in your hand -- they are living, material existences -- you must believe in the power of this idea and the existence of this idea. He will tell you about that in that chapter.

This chapter ends. Seth said this was a transitional chapter, and we could take a break and then begin the next chapter, or we could ask for some private material. Since time was already running short -- by this point it was 10:40 -- they said, well then, let us have some private material.

Commentary

During the break, Jane received some information from Seth about what would be coming in Chapter Eight -- for example, that when a person activates certain good thoughts in one lifetime, they will attract similar experiences from the personality that is reincarnating. This is a very meaningful idea, and also a comforting one. Jane was already able to perceive what Seth was going to say -- her channeling ability was already very strong by this point; before Seth even spoke, she could already perceive it.

I don't recall Seth ever expressing this idea in this way before -- what he meant was that in Chapter Eight, he was supposed to say: when you want to use good thoughts to activate the health of your own body, you can draw on experiences from your past lives to help you, attracting those experiences of bodily health to help you.

But a later supplementary note says: as things developed, it was not until Chapter Ten that Seth began to discuss this topic. Chapters Eight and Nine did not address it; they covered other matters.

There is another very important note further on. When Jane read the first page of this session in the typed manuscript of the book -- this is a note Rob added later. Jane said:

It seems I may have twisted the point about atoms dying. I guess I shouldn't have said it that way.

This passage is very important. You should understand that when Seth transmits material, he necessarily has to pass through the filter of Jane's own beliefs. So in this part, Jane discovered that she had twisted it -- she suddenly realized that what Seth originally wanted to say was not this. She was correcting that passage at the very beginning of the session -- the part about the atoms of cells being replaced.

She said she shouldn't have said it that way, and that Seth certainly had much more to say on that point. She recalled that what Seth had wanted to say at the time was:

Matter cannot be created or destroyed, and the particles radiated out by the departing atoms, as far as I know, did not die, although they may evolve.

But this passage is no longer important -- Seth can no longer add what he had wanted to say at the time, because this is just something Jane wrote down from her own memory. What he means is: Seth said at the time that atoms actually cannot be created or destroyed, and atoms do not die. The molecules and atoms that make up your cells -- when the cells die, those atoms leave, but they do not die. Instead, they radiate out a kind of particle -- a particle that carries out certain information and certain cellular memories. New cells then receive these particles and take that information back in.

This is Jane's recollection after the fact, without a precise, expanded explanation. Seth may have had more to say at the time, but that moment has passed.

Rob's understanding of this matter drew on the first law of thermodynamics⁷ -- the law of conservation of energy and conservation of matter -- to explain it. According to our current view, one can only say that this one is destroyed and that one is created -- things cannot disappear without cause; one thing happens and another is destroyed. This passage is actually not important; he was only using a so-called law of physics to interpret this concept -- but what Seth wanted to say went far beyond the concept itself.

Ever since Seth mentioned the death of atoms and molecules in Session 625, we have been particularly interested in this material, but we did not ask for more details, because this topic involves physics to some extent within the scope of this book. For example, in physics everyone knows that the proton is a fundamental particle within the atomic nucleus -- the nucleus contains protons and neutrons -- and its lifespan is extraordinarily long, 10 to the 24th power years.

After Seth finished The Nature of Personal Reality, we planned to ask him to reconcile the differences between the materials of our world and the root assumptions and basic agreements of his own reality. Rob actually wanted Seth to discuss: the basic assumptions of our three-dimensional world, our Earth world, our physical world -- for example, time is a basic assumption, space-time is a basic assumption, the lifespan of the proton is a basic assumption -- he wanted him to compare these with the reality space in which Seth lives. For example, the fifth-dimensional or twelfth-dimensional space in which Seth lives -- in their reality they also have their own basic agreements, and he wanted him to compare these.

In my impression, it seems Seth never discussed this topic again.

Meanwhile, in those days Jane and I were reading that physicists had begun to question those rigid laws, such as the immutability applied to thermodynamics and causality -- saying that their results were either erroneous or in need of revision. Physicists were also constantly reflecting on whether those rigid laws themselves might be wrong and in need of revision. I won't expand on this part, because it involves a lot of physics.

If you are interested, you can look at the notes that follow, but I don't think they are particularly significant.

All right, that brings Chapter Seven to a close. In the next session we will begin the first part of Chapter Eight.

---

注释与核实

1. Source: U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Office of Diversion Control, "N,N-Dimethyltryptamine (DMT)" (https://www.deadiversion.usdoj.gov/drug_chem_info/dmt.pdf) ↩

2. Source: World Health Organization, "Summary of probable SARS cases with onset of illness from 1 November 2002 to 31 July 2003" (https://www.who.int/publications/m/item/summary-of-probable-sars-cases-with-onset-of-illness-from-1-november-2002-to-31-july-2003) ↩

3. This claim could not be verified. ↩

4. According to Mike's original words, it was "the American magazine Nature"; upon verification, it should be "Nature is a British scientific journal, first published in London in 1869, not an American magazine." (Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Nature | British periodical," https://www.britannica.com/topic/Nature-British-periodical) ↩

5. According to Mike's original words, "the lifetime of a neutron or a proton is about 10 to the 24th power years"; upon verification, it should be "the mean lifetime of a free neutron is about 878 seconds (about 15 minutes), while proton decay has never been observed and experimental lower limits on its lifetime are already on the order of 10^29–10^34 years; neither is 10 to the 24th power years." (Source: Particle Data Group, "Review of Particle Physics," baryon summary table, https://pdg.lbl.gov/2024/tables/rpp2024-sum-baryons.pdf) ↩

6. This claim could not be verified. ↩

7. Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, "First law of thermodynamics | Definition & Facts" (https://www.britannica.com/science/first-law-of-thermodynamics) ↩