“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(As we waited for the session to begin Jane abruptly received a block of impressions from Seth. They concerned the opposing uses of personal power by two individuals whom we’d encountered within the last week: the woman lawyer who had interrupted the session last Wednesday evening, and who is so afraid of her power; and the young classical guitarist who had visited us last night, and who revels in the positive use of his power. The impressions are for use in either “Unknown” Reality, Jane said, or in Psychic Politics.⁵ She grinned: “Thanks, Seth.” Then she launched into the session before I could finish these notes. I came back to them at first break.)

Sometimes you act as though one ability contradicts another. You think “I cannot be a good parent and a sexual partner to my mate at the same time.” To those who feel this way a definite contradiction seems implied. A woman might feel that the qualities of a mother almost stand in opposition to those of an exuberant sex mate. A man might imagine that fatherhood meant providing an excellent home and income. He might think that “aggressiveness,”⁶ competition, and emotional aloofness were required to perform that role. These would be considered in opposition to the qualities of love, understanding, and emotional support “required” of a husband. In actuality, of course, no such contradictions apply. In the same way, however, you often seem to feel that your identity is dependent upon a certain highly specific role, until other qualities quite your own seem threatening. They almost seem to be unselflike.⁷

From the outside, for instance, it might seem as if a young person dies because in one way or another he or she is dissatisfied with life itself. Certainly it is usually taken for granted that suicides are afraid of life. However, suicides and would-be suicides often have such a great literal lust for life that they constantly put it into jeopardy, so that they can experience what it is in heightened form. The same applies to many who follow dangerous professions. It is fashionable to suppose that these people have a death wish. Instead, many of them have an intensified life wish, so to speak. Certainly it seems destructive to others. To those people, however, the additional excitement is worth the risk. The risk, in fact, gives them an intensified version of life.⁹

This is obviously not the case with all suicides¹⁰ or would-be suicides, or all risk-takers. But those elements are there. A person who dies at 17 may have experienced much greater dimensions of living, in your terms, than someone who lives to be 82. Such people are not as unaware of those choices as it seems.

Take a hypothetical young woman named Mary, who is partial to the kinds of experiences just mentioned. Temperamentally, she seeks out crisis situations. She may initiate suicide attempts. On the other hand she may entertain no such ideas, but be murdered at the age of 17.

(Forcefully:) We are certainly not condoning the murderer — but no slayer kills someone who does not want to die, either.

For those who may be puzzled by Seth’s reference to “pendulums,” I’ll quote a paragraph of my own for the 619th session at 10:01, in Chapter 4 of Personal Reality: