“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

The anima, therefore, is an important safeguard, preventing the male from over-identifying with whatever cultural male characteristics have been imposed upon him through present background, environment, and education. The anima serves not only as a personal but as a mass-civilizing influence, mellowing strongly aggressive tendencies and serving also as a bridge both in communicating with women in a family relationship, and in communication also as it is applied through the arts and verbalization.

Again, however, this represents the male lives with which the self has been involved — the young boy, the priest, the aggressive “jungle man,” and the wise old man. These are types, representing generally and symbolically past male lives lived by present women. Women, therefore, can learn much about their reincarnational past as men, through studying those dreams in which these types appear, or in which they themselves appear as men.

The same applies to a male when he over-identifies with what he believes to be male characteristics, for whatever reason. The anima or woman within will rouse him to make compensating actions, causing an upsurge of intuitive abilities, bringing a creative element to offset aggressiveness.

Ideally, left alone, these operations would result in a balance individually and en masse, where aggressiveness was always used creatively, as indeed it can and should be.