“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

This time and particularly since adolescence ended he was able to let go the other types of greediness, letting the cigarette take place of all the rest. There is here also what I may call a sort of air panic, an insatiable taking in of air that the nervous puffing of a cigarette sometimes satisfies, even a basis in claustrophobia where the personality feels it is not getting enough air or is closed in.

Ruburt even has a latent gluttonous desire for rich foods that he has conquered. Nevertheless although the cigarette habit satisfies these basic old habits, he will be able to let it go. He is a gobbler, that is all. A gobbler of ideas, of emotions, of atmosphere, in some ways a veritable sponge soaking up whatever he can, but he has learned discipline and he is learning a certain amount of patience, which is difficult for him.

There is also here connected only with his present personality an ego image of the writer with a cigarette. In this case the cigarette represents independence and even individuality, and even female emancipation. So it is all bound up together in a rather mazelike web. I hope that when Ruburt understands this it will make the situation easier for him.

The personality here has been giving as a rule but also took in all it could. I hope that this also answers some questions that you might have had, Joseph, along these lines.

This “gluttony,” and you may put that in quotes, actually represented a terrific capacity for all kinds of consumption, and the consumption of knowledge was no exception. An impatience was also important, and the capacity also showed itself in an ability for psychic knowledge and a thirst in all matters pertaining to intellect, emotions and the physical.

There are whole areas of material here that we have not discussed so that this is spotty, but we will go into it more deeply. There are no laws to force personalities to use all their abilities. A personality will not choose unfavorable circumstances of rebirth until he himself sees that necessary discipline can be achieved in no other manner. Therefore extremely hot and extremely cold countries go largely undeveloped. But once development begins to occur it is swift.

The problems that a country must work out merely represent the problems set by the personality inhabitants for themselves, and the country is merely the framework of such activities. There is a close bond between reincarnational cycles and earthly historical periods that we will discuss later. Sometimes though not always personalities who need a certain experience will be born into a particular country or race. I have been somewhat avoiding this whole issue since delicate balances are interconnected, and the question of the Jews is one that must bother all men.

Killing except for self-protection will be paid for. The idea of killing is what is at fault. If you agree with the killing of birds for example, you wind up with the killing of men. You will all be taught the sacredness of all life, and in the most practical way.

There is a very practical reason for a reverence for all life, and very practical reasons why man must learn certain facts that up to this point he has considered impractical. He has usually managed to separate his ethical conceptions from his daily business life, but this shall be increasingly difficult for him to manage.

Until you learn reverence for all living things you will continue to slaughter each other. Again, this does not involve punishment in any sense of the word, but the idea of killing permissiveness is not discriminating. Once you allow yourselves to kill you will kill any living thing. In future lives this involves the race in further adjustments.

It will enable you to act and to help without blaming them for shortcomings, since these shortcomings may actually have been chosen by them for reasons of compensation. I do not want this session to run too long, however the reverence for life is so important that I wanted to underline it, and also to emphasize that it includes all life and man himself.

I haven’t had the opportunity to use my sense of humor lately but it is still here as you will discover. This is one of those nights when I dislike saying goodbye for now, but I will. And Ruburt please heed my advice, all of it.

All nuisances meet with the same end.

In all, four dead birds