“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Now: Any intrusion of other beliefs here will be considered threatening. Both racial problems and religious dissension will be rationalized from the standpoint of these beliefs. Some of my readers may consider themselves quite enlightened, believing, for example, in reincarnation as a series of consecutive lives. However, they may then use that concept to justify their belief in the inferiority of other races. They may say that since an individual chose his or her problems in this life — deciding for instance to be born black, or poor, or both — that karma is being worked out; therefore such issues should not be adjusted through a change of law or custom. Period.

If life is seen as good in this system of belief, then youth is viewed as the crowning glory, from which summit there is no further journey except descent. The old are not granted characteristics of wisdom, but feared as evil, bad, undesirable or frightening. To these people senility seems a natural, inevitable end to life.

The individual, when it is time then, begins to see beyond temporal life, to open up dimensions of awareness that in your terms he or she could not afford while involved in the intense physical focus of normal adult life. Unfortunately the personality has no system of beliefs, as a rule, to support such an expansion. The natural therapies, both physical and mental, are denied. Drugs are often used as depressants, clouding the clarity of what seems to be distorted vision. This is one of the most creative, valuable aspects of your lives. Instead the old are made to feel useless in your society. Often of course they share this value judgment, and their experience within your communities has in no way prepared them to face subjective experience.

(Jane and I have had some preparation for the information, at least on emotional levels. My father died in February, 1971, after spending three years in a county “home.” Diagnosis: senility. For much of that time he had been under varying degrees of sedation. In light of tonight’s material, I couldn’t help feeling that he’d lost part of his natural heritage — whether he had decided upon that course himself, whether it had been imposed upon him, or both. Seth, I thought, would say that my father chose all the circumstances of his life, and that such a deprivation in old age was a probable result that materialized physically. But while agreeing, I could still wish it had been otherwise….