“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

First be aware of the reality of your feelings. As you become more aware of your beliefs over a period of time, you will see how they bring forth certain feelings automatically. A man who is sure of himself is not angry at every slight done him, nor does he carry grudges. A man who fears for his own worth, however, is furious under such conditions. The free flow of your emotions will always lead you back to your conscious beliefs if you do not impede them.

(9:54. Jane’s trance had been excellent, her delivery fast considering my writing speed. Seth’s material, especially that given around 9:34, was quite apropos in light of an amusing incident involving Jane shortly before the session. Idly, it seemed, she had picked a book from one of our shelves. It turned out to be a self-help treatise written by a prominent medical man. Leafing through it, Jane became so angered at the poor suggestions it contained that she threw it across the room.

To a large extent, a highly involved series of symbolic actions are carried out long before any battle takes place, if it does finally. The display of the aggressive behavior, however, far more frequently prevents an actual combat situation. Man has highly charged contradictory attitudes about aggression, and his beliefs about it cause many of his mass and private problems.

Let us take a very simple example involving a kind and good man in a fairly ordinary environment within your society. (Pause.) He has been taught that it is manly to be aggressive, but he believes that this means fighting. As an adult, he frowns upon fighting. He cannot hit his boss, though he may want to. At the same time his church may tell him to turn the other cheek when he is upset, and to be kind, gentle and understanding.

His society teaches him that such qualities are feminine. He spends his life trying to hide what he thinks of as aggressive — violent — behavior, and trying to be understanding and kind instead. The stereotype is of course unrealistic, having to do with distorted concepts concerning the male and the female, but here we will merely consider the aspects of aggressiveness. Because he is trying to be so understanding our man inhibits the expression of many of the normal irritations that would serve as a natural system of communication between, say, his superior and himself at work, or perhaps with the members of his family at home.

When a man or a woman always smiles at you, the smile can be like a mask. You do not know whether or not you are communicating with such a person. The sound of the voice, again, follows its own patterns, and natural aggression should and will color it at times.

Each person has his own built-in energy and protection. You accept only those ideas and thoughts that fit in with your own system of beliefs, and even then there are various safeguards. No man dies unless he wants to die, and for a much better reason than that you may want him to.