“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Religious, scientific, medical, and cultural communications stress the existence of danger, minimize the purpose of the species or of any individual member of it, or see mankind as the one erratic, half-insane member of an otherwise orderly realm of nature. Any or all of the above beliefs are held by various systems of thought. All of these, however, strain the individual’s biological sense of integrity, reinforce ideas of danger, and shrink the area of psychological safety that is necessary to maintain the quality possible in life. The body’s defense systems become confused to varying degrees.

A species that senses a lack of this quality can in one way or another destroy its offspring — not because they could not survive otherwise, but because the quality of that survival would bring about vast suffering, for example, so distorting the nature of life as to almost make a mockery of it. Each species seeks for the development of its abilities and capacities in a framework in which safety is a medium for action. Danger in that context exists under certain conditions clearly known to the animals, clearly defined: The prey is known, for example, as is the hunter. But even the natural prey of another animal does not fear the “hunter” when the hunter animal is full of belly, nor will the hunter then attack.

During their lifetimes animals in their natural state enjoy their vigor and accept their worth. They regulate their own births — and their own deaths. The quality of their lives is such that their abilities are challenged. They enjoy contrasts: that between rest and motion, heat and cold, being in direct contact with natural phenomena that everywhere quickens their experience. They will migrate if necessary to seek conditions more auspicious. They are aware of approaching natural disasters, and when possible will leave such areas. They will protect their own, and according to circumstances and conditions they will tend their own wounded. Even in contests between young and old males for control of a group, under natural conditions the loser is seldom killed. Dangers are pinpointed clearly so that bodily reactions are concise.

They were these; that the entire world and its organization was kept together by certain stories or one in particular—like the Catholic Church’s; that it was dangerous beyond all knowing to look through the stories or examine them or to look for the truth and that all kinds of taboos existed to keep us from doing this, since.... [...] To seek truth was the most dangerous of well intentioned behavior then.... [...]

[...] A psychological force who wanted me to understand the danger of such a course, and when I went back to sleep somehow the entire thing would happen again.... [...]

(We discussed Seth’s reference on page 85 to Jane fearing that others might actually look upon her as dangerous because of her abilities. [...] There’s something about his simple statement, though, that is intriguing—that others, in addition to considering that Jane was antireligious, say, would also think of her as dangerous.)

You have been taught for centuries in one way or another that repression, generally speaking, now, was all in all a natural, good, social and moral requirement, that expression was dangerous and must be harnessed and channeled because it was believed so thoroughly that man’s natural capacities led him toward destructive rather than positive behavior. [...]

[...] If you did not believe that energy was more naturally dangerous than beneficial, you would not have any difficulties at all concerning issues like nuclear bombs.

[...] He has tried expressing those abilities while feeling he needed all kinds of safeguards, both because he partially shared the belief that energy was dangerous, and because he also feared that other people would react to him in that fashion.

If you are safely ensconced in a comfortable room, in no present danger, your senses should accurately convey that information. [...] It should be an easy enough accomplishment to look around you and see that you are in no danger.

[...] The signals to the body are very contradictory, so that after a while, if such conditions continue, you can no longer tell whether you are in actual danger or imagined danger. [...]

[...] You are not able to differentiate between the physically safe present situation, and the imagined, which is perhaps unsafe, calling forth the alarms of danger.

Your body then might say you are safe, and your senses show you that no danger is present — yet you have begun to rely so upon secondary experience that you do not trust your creature reactions.

[...] The sea is dangerous if you are in the middle of the ocean without a boat. [...]

[...] You would not help anyone by jumping off of the liner to see whether or not the ocean was in fact dangerous without a boat. [...]

When you have your stomach difficulties you insist, however, upon looking overboard and saying “Those waves are dangerous and threatening,” while forgetting momentarily that you are indeed quite safe aboard your craft. [...]

[...] In case of any severe dangers the consciousness will be pulled back, but this is highly dangerous.

[...] The names help physicians to categorize and treat, but the names are also dangerous when they are used as labels.

[...] By labeling a group of symptoms you add to their idea of permanence, and give a name to certain aspects of bodily activity, distinguishing them from other activities and therefore giving them rather dangerous focus. [...]

[...] To concentrate upon the term however is dangerous, for it gives a specific identity or implies a state of permanence to a group of varying and impermanent symptoms.

[...] When an animal is playing dead it knows when the immediate danger is over. [...] Then, however, he stops to make sure that the danger is past, and to make certain it is safe to go ahead. [...]

The body is amazingly quick to act upon environmental cues of a physical nature, but your world also involves cultural activity and “dangers” that are not immediately biologically perceivable. [...]

[...] While the animal may encounter danger, it does not feel that its world is not safe. [...]

Many people believe that it is dangerous to make themselves known, to express their own ideas or abilities. [...]

[...] If such a person begins to succeed, then he or she is forcibly reminded of the equally dominant need for lack of success — for again, the person believes that self-expression is necessary and desirable while also being highly dangerous, and thus to be avoided.

[...] Another person might express the same dilemma through the body itself, so that “getting ahead” was equated with physical mobility — so that it seemed that physical mobility, while so desired, was still highly dangerous.

If chemical alteration were made in Augustus Two he would return to the Augustus One personality, but the change would be artificial — not permanent, and possibly quite dangerous.

[...] But at the same time the dangers and difficulties would make such a cure relatively impossible.

[...] Any search into the mind becomes frightening and dangerous, since it might lead to further such “invasion.”

Foremost, connected with the distortions about creativity and expression, is the belief that knowledge itself is dangerous, evil, and bound to lead to disaster. [...]

[...] There are also people, then, with an intense thirst for knowledge who believe that knowledge is indeed good and beneficial, while on the other hand they believe just as fervently that knowledge is forbidden and dangerous.

[...] It did not even, except superficially, represent a dangerous lapse or relapse on your part, into those truly dangerous and quite disastrous negative battles of thoughts, which eventually in any individual can and often do lead the integrated self into annihilation.

[...] This is the danger for which you must be alerted.

[...] However he correctly, if subconsciously, interpreted your attitude toward the publishing house as being basically dangerous to you. [...]

[...] And because such negativism is a psychic problem to you, it was potentially dangerous.

[...] Ruburt is in no danger (pause) of blindness, or any other dangerous condition. [...]

“There is no danger of dissociation grabbing hold of him like some black vague and furry monster, carrying him away to the nether-lands of hysteria, schizophrenia, or insanity. [...] Withdrawal into dissociation as a hiding place from the world could be dangerous, and many have fallen prey here. [...]

[...] His intentions were of the best, but I suppose that I must now feel obligated—and I do—to go into the matter of mental and emotional stability and any dangers to such stability that might be involved here.

“As far as Ruburt is concerned, there is no danger. [...]

[...] He emphasized the importance of suggestion and the dangers of self-pity. [...]

[...] You ran into the invisible danger points and reacted in the old ways.

[...] When you urged him onward then he felt that he might be on dangerous ground, for you had been counted upon in the personal area to stop spontaneity, emotionally and sexually.

One more sentence: this arrangement automatically sets up artificial barriers between spontaneity and discipline, and colorations that were sexual in nature, leading to deductions such as: spontaneity was dangerous, obviously, since it needed such controls. [...]

[...] Because of your fears, both of you had your eyes out instead for the danger points.

The clothing sent by his mother has been somewhat dangerous to him because his feelings, given above, automatically extracted from them the negative feelings of his mother toward him, while blocking out the constructive and loving ones.

[...] Ruburt recognized this as a particular danger point and managed to break away here. [...]

[...] You were in no danger within it, for you had never existed in it. [...]

[...] Another person says something I’ve forgotten to the idea that… the ocean water or sky, … were dangerous or maybe that it was lightening, but I dismiss this, stand in the bathtub and the water is great, hot and soapy. [...]

[...] In this way there is little danger that problems will arise.

There is not any great matter of danger, only that you could fall into blunders. [...]

[...] Whenever you find yourself in any potentially dangerous dream situation during a projection, immediately terminate the dream. [...]

There is very little danger that Ruburt’s ego would be suppressed. [...] The danger is that the subconscious be suppressed, and this is the only real time that Ruburt runs into difficulty.

[...] In this case, however, the subconscious recognized the danger and symbolically expressed through the organism, the ego’s intent. [...]

(Long pause at 3:20.) Again, people who have such views of the inner self usually project the same ideas upon nature at large, so that the natural world appears equally mysterious, dangerous, and threatening.

In political terms such persons also look for strong authoritative groups or governments, stress law and order above justice or equality, and tend to see the poorer, less advantaged members of society as impulse-ridden, dangerous, and always ready for revolution. [...]

[...] On the one hand, you have a culture that publicly points out as common the often exaggerated dangers that can occur with drugs, and on the other holds out drugs as a method of therapy. Here the dangers become something like initiation rites, in which loss of life must be faced before full acceptance into the community can be established. [...]

One is the cancer drive literature, and television “public service” announcements, in which the seven danger signals of cancer are given. [...]

[...] The suggestion that smoking will give you cancer is far more dangerous than the physical effects of smoking, and can give cancer to who people who might otherwise not be so affected (very intently).