“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

The experience of your species involves a certain kind of consciousness development, highly vital. (Pause.) This necessitated a certain kind of specialization, a certain “long-term” identification with form. Cellular structure maintains brilliant effectiveness in the body’s present reality, but knows itself free of it. Man’s particular kind of consciousness fiercely identified with the body. This was a necessity to focus energy toward physical manipulation. To some important extent the same applies to the animals. The cell might gladly “die,” but the specifically oriented man-and-animal consciousness would not so willingly let go.

Give us a moment … In the body certain cells “kill” others, and in so doing the body’s living integrity is maintained. The cells do each other that service (with gestures). In the exterior world certain animals “kill” others. You had for centuries, then, speaking in your limited terms, a situation in which men and animals were both hunters and prey. In those misty eras⁷ — from your standpoint — these activities were carried on with the deepest, most sacred comprehension. Again, the slain animal knew that it would “later” look out through its slayer’s eyes⁸ — attaining a newer, different kind of consciousness. The man, the slayer, understood the great sense of harmony that existed even in the slaying, and knew that in turn the physical material of his body would be used by the earth to replenish the vegetable and animal kingdoms.