3 results for (book:ur2 AND session:724 AND stemmed:reason)
“What would a Roman soldier be doing up there?, I wondered. For below, on the flat ground outside the wall, were the hordes4 of the Roman army. I don’t know whether they were preparing for an attack, or had some other reason to be assembled there. I saw only a forest of helmets and spears pointing upward, with light glinting dully on metal here and there. I write ‘saw,’ yet it would be just as accurate to note that I sensed these figures. They were turned toward the soldier on the tower.
“My own defiance is a peaceful one having to do with ideas. I see my two Romans physically undergoing an exploration of the opposite sides of rebellion or subversion, within the context of a much closer, more oppressive military authority: For whatever reasons, the Roman officer is turned upon and thrown into the Mediterranean to drown (as described in Note 1 for the 715th session)7; my Roman soldier, a man of lesser rank, has evidently betrayed his sworn position of trust, and is caught in authority’s vice. I think all of this could be counterpart action, all right, personified by two selves living in the same narrow time period, in close proximity in the same geographical area of the Middle East.8
“Assuming that my internal data about those three lives are reasonably correct, it may be, as Jane said recently, that the psyche is so incredibly rich that anything is possible. Is that true? (Humorously:) I’ll have a hell of a time with my list of chronological lives (which I have yet to work on, by the way) if I start turning up a whole group of them in one historical period. What if I happen to list half of the Roman army? I need to know more — lots more.”
For another thing, what was my nameless Roman self doing on that tower? I didn’t “see” the reasons and actions leading to his presence there, and I doubt if I ever will. In my reference works I read accounts describing how Pontius Pilate, the Procurator (or governor) of Judea from approximately A.D. 26 to A.D. 36, had organized hunts for members of the Zealots, the Jewish political-religious sect that had consistently rebelled against the rule of the Roman Empire. This is the correct general time period for my visions, I think, and I felt a surge of thrilling sensations as I learned about certain subversive Zealot activities. Then I “picked up” that my soldier-self was killed by his countrymen because he’d traitorously sought to warn Zealot leaders of a planned search of the lower city of Jerusalem by Roman troops. My thrills deepened considerably — and those feelings of rightness were what I settled for; I could carry my wonderings no further, nor did I want to.