“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(10:05.) As I said, there are all ranges of suffering, and I am beginning this discussion, which I will continue now and then in between regular book dictation, in a very general manner. In times past in particular, though the custom is not dead, men purged themselves, wore ashes and beat themselves with chains, or went hungry or otherwise deprived themselves. They suffered, in other words, for religion’s sake. It was not just that they believed suffering was good for the soul—a statement which can or cannot be true, incidentally, and I will go into that later—but they understood something else: The body will only take so much suffering when it releases consciousness. So they hoped to achieve religious ecstasy.

I’ll also endorse Seth’s statement that children “are often quite aware of willing themselves sick to get out of difficult situations.” I remember very well doing that on certain occasions—usually to avoid some school activity—and that even then I was surprised because my parents didn’t catch on to what I was up to. (Getting well after the danger period had passed was no problem!)