“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(At 8:40 PM. Jane left for the corner grocery to get a pack of cigarettes. Actually she had to hurry for the store is several blocks away. It was also raining. Once again Jane had been trying to give up cigarettes; this time the struggle lasted but a day or so, and ended in tears after supper this evening. It appeared to be a panic reaction of some kind, and had happened before.

His smoking represents the tail end of a characteristic greediness that besieged him in past lives, with smoking this time as a remnant. The greediness in the past involved many more areas. It included a strong appetite toward stuffing himself with food and drink, and an overall greediness of appetite, even of intellectual and emotional greediness which he has largely overcome.

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.

As I said it also has to do with a panicky gobbling up of air as if he could never get enough. As a child at one time he died from suffocation, and this also has its bearings here in the present, the panicky gulping of air being a mechanism of subconscious memory. I do hope that this helps him.

In the present personality we have abilities developed in past lives, and ability to paint for example that should be made more use of now. What you call Ruburt’s sales ability is also a result of past experiences, and certain other latent abilities such as a facility with growing plants. He was at one time an excellent farmer.

There has been here a willingness to experience, to experiment and to give as well as a ferocious capacity to take in. The trouble in the past has been a lack of discretion and self-discipline. He was always a pleasure-loving personality however and avoided anything unpleasant. His early circumstances in this life were chosen by him as a needed experience. In other lives he was able to exist without too much adversity and this time he chose troublesome and truly tragic circumstances as a needed challenge.

His temper when aroused was very great however and he retaliated instantly. He had never known hatred however. This time he has had to deal with it in a most intimate manner. The old stormy temper is now seen in Ruburt’s deep grudges. The personality of Ruburt’s mother was not close to him in any other life. The circumstances of birth were chosen at the last minute on his part and was made for two reasons.

One, the personality of the mother offered needed experience for Ruburt; and two, the paganistic personality of the father was in some degree like his own past personalities though in a much more vague and watered-down way. A miscarriage later on the part of Ruburt’s mother represented an entity who changed his mind so to speak. He was at one time a brother. Ruburt’s present shape is something he has been working for. He was often tall, hardy and stout.

Ruburt’s miscarriage was a result of something else entirely. This time you are both on your last reincarnation cycle on your plane, and as a rule no personality fragments are left behind.

What you would call the wisdom of instinct is not then so sure. There have been however a few periods in mankind’s history when this happened en masse. It just worked out that way that a large majority of personalities finished their cycles more or less at one time.

(“When was the last time this happened?”)

There were other personalities of course who were fairly developed but these were resting. The world so to speak got back on its feet when these personalities reappeared centuries later; and by this time new personalities who had taken the place of those whose cycles were completed also began to use and show their abilities.

By the end of the 10th century the first group of personalities completed their cycle. It took the period of time from then until the late 1600’s for any valid readjustment to take place, and by the middle 17th century you began to get bursts of beneficial activities and new thrusts of knowledge.

On your plane the hunter and the prey system is at this time a necessary one but it will not always be this way. A time will come when you will not have to kill in order to exist, and the balance of nature will take care of itself. This time is sooner on the way than you think. In your country, if there is peace, you will see its beginning in your lifetimes.

(According to a relative of Miss Callahan’s that Jane saw this morning, March 6, yesterday Miss Callahan talked quite coherently of the “lovely walks” she had been taking lately with her two brothers, both of whom are dead. At the same time the relative did not seem to feel that Miss Callahan recognized her, or at least not fully.)

As your sinuses begin to clear up you will not experience the nervous ability to gulp air or to smoke, at least to such a degree. You want to take smoke and air into your lungs. You want to fill them because at one time you could not, and the sinus trouble is directly related to this nervous gulping of air. A more relaxed attitude will reduce the quick breathing and the tightening of the sinuses that results from not relaxing.

Incidentally Ruburt always felt a strong bond with every living thing, and even as a man was not cruel. He was only a Christian once, the last time, and otherwise was paganistic but always in ways that enabled him to feel close to the earth. This is of course one of the main reasons for his particular reaction with the starling incident, and this quality has been a saving one in the past.