“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Now: in those terms, and in the terms of this discussion, specifically, all assassins are paid assassins hired by the victims. Again, in the terms of this discussion, many murderers are overwhelmed by a sense of guilt, and the murderous act pinpoints the reason for the guilt—so the victim pays the murderer by giving a clear-cut, unassailable reason for a monstrous guilt that was before formless, and even more frightening, since it seemed to have no particular base, but an overwhelming vitality.

It was, as I believe Ruburt has mentioned, a result of deep contemplation on your part about the bookstore murder, but in a larger context, involving probabilities, murderers, victims, and the beliefs involved.

Now all of those issues, in one way or another appeared in your dream, where for the sake of understanding you became the victim. You then discovered that you were still “alive”—as of course the murdered victim does.

The men were all united—that is, they agreed to the circumstances. No one was trying to run away, and in a way the murderer was performing a service. Any violence or hatred serves a purpose beyond itself, so that man in a way often performs services of which he is not consciously aware.

There are close psychological connections in all cases—psychological web-works, and psychic recognitions that bring together the slayer and his victim, and these are known to the inner self. The stature and meaning behind the victim adds to the horrible nature of the act, and of course this is the point.

Without these murders the nation would not know what was wrong with itself. The murders are symptoms, but without symptoms the patient will not realize that anything is wrong with the inner self.

[...] Obviously serious consequences result from these particular recent murders.

The point would not be nearly as clearly made, you see, were the victim a man giving himself to crime. [...]

[...] They live their lives as if they are indeed limited in experience not only to a brief lifetime, but a lifetime in which they are the victims of their chemistry — accidental members of a blighted species that is murderous to its very core.

For example: Many of you believe in the basis of Freudian psychology — that the son naturally wants to displace the father in his mother’s attentions, and that beneath the son’s love for his father, there rages the murderous intent to kill. [...]

[...] If any of you do (underlined) still believe in the Freudian or Darwinian selves, then you will be leery about impulses to examine your own consciousness, afraid of what murderous debris might be uncovered. [...]

[...] And if a crime is to be assigned in humanity’s terms, often the victim is as guilty as the murderer, in basic terms, in terms of guilt that no court can weigh.

You see perhaps havoc within the physical field, and this is indeed to be faced and dealt with, and set straight, as aid is given to the victims of a hurricane. [...]

[...] There are those who murder, and there are those who seek to be slain.

[...] To some extent capital punishment is the act of a fanatical society: The taking of the murderer’s life does not bring back the victim’s, and it does not prevent other men from [committing] such crimes. I am aware that the death penalty often seems to be a practical solution — and indeed many murderers want to die, and are caught because of their need for punishment. [...]

He picks, or she picks, victims as intuitively as the victim seeks out the slayer. [...] Or she might narrowly miss being murdered when a bullet from the killer’s gun hits the person next to her. On an entirely different level and in a different way, she might have no such experiences but be a writer of murder mysteries, or a nurse in surgery. [...]

[...] On the other hand she may entertain no such ideas, but be murdered at the age of 17.

(Forcefully:) We are certainly not condoning the murderer — but no slayer kills someone who does not want to die, either.

[...] His murderer was in turn a victim. Jane said the reference to suicide doesn’t fit Ruby, murderer of the president’s assassin, unless he in turn dies by his own hand.

Into the victim’s mask,

[...] He who kills must learn what killing is by being the victim. [...]

[...] As I have told you again, and time and time again: Basically there is no such thing as murder, for consciousness continues. [...]

[...] The murderer is somewhere the victim, and the other way around — and again, in your terms of space and time.