“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

We do not have too many comments but one I am bound to make. You are here to develop abilities. You did not lose any status by adapting physical existence. There is an interpretation to the meaning of the fall, in Biblical terms, and on another occasion I will tell you what it is but do not expect the philosophy that tells you automatically that by becoming human you have degraded yourselves. This is another story fully as destructive as that of original sin, simply put in different terms.

Existence within this system involves creation indeed and creation involves development and new dimensions. Consciousness opened up new dimensions of activity, development and awareness. Physical existence became fact. There is no degradation involved. Anyone who tells you this is telling you that automatically by being human you are to some extent damned, even though the terms of salvation are open and available and such is not the case. The excerpts from the book that Ruburt read from in class earlier this evening were highly distorted but they were less damaging, the excerpts read in particular, than the excerpts you just described.

Human existence, again, represents growth and development and the birth of consciousness into a different and new dimension of activity. You did not fall down a tunnel of degradation from which you must then rise. This is unfortunately one of the main distortions that have come down through the centuries and that is the only point I felt strongly enough that I should interfere with your fine rendition.

Many men look forward to having sons, while at the same time they revere marriage as a necessary part of respectable family life, and also feel that marriage is somehow degrading — particularly to a male — and that the sex act itself is only justified if it brings him an heir.

[...] In a strange fashion, he may even feel that it is wrong to have sex with his own wife, believing that the sex act so degrades the both of them. [...]

[...] All philosophies that stress the idea of the body’s impurity or degradation should also be seen as detrimental to bodily and spiritual integrity. [...]

Often he wanted you to approach him in intimate terms, but felt unworthy because of his condition, and because he felt that you found it distasteful, and even degrading. [...]

[...] And there wasn’t any thought of degradation.”)

[...] The Freudian, Darwinian dictates quite emphatically degrade man’s capacity for “greatness,” for heroic action in those terms, and greatly devalue the entire meaning connected with an individual self. [...]

[...] Negative, distrustful, fearful, or degrading attitudes toward anyone work against the self and against the individuals involved. [...]

[...] You may believe that the soul “descends” into the body, and therefore that the body is lower, inferior, and a degraded version of “what you really are.” [...]

2. When I come across material that puts down the physical body, I sometimes try to counter such negative projections by turning to one of the technological accomplishments of our “degraded” species: I study photographs of minute portions of the human body, taken with a scanning electron microscope. [...]

[...] In both cases, the jobs were considered marks of degradation. [...]

[...] The Bible, for example, says that man is put in dominion over the animals, and it seems as if upgrading the consciousnesses of animals must somehow degrade your own. [...]

[...] You consider tears “degrading.” [...]

[...] There is nothing degrading in tears. [...]

[...] Or you will find yourself envying those who have more, degrading the value of money perhaps, and saying that those who have it are unhappy, or at best spiritually poor.

[...] They were considered cowardly, unadult, unreasonable, degrading, and both of you considered them in that light. [...]

If it seems to you that the soul is degraded by its alliance with the flesh then you will not be able to enjoy your own sense of grace, for you will not consider it possible. [...]

Now, it is also true that in some of its aspects religion has glorified suffering, elevated it to [be] one of the prime virtues—and it has degraded it at other times, seeing the ill as possessed by devils, or seeing the insane as less than human. [...]

[...] As a vehicle of the soul it is automatically degraded, tinged.

[...] Many individuals die young, for example, because they believe so strongly that old age represents a degradation of the spirit and an insult to the body. [...]

Nebene, while thankful to Jane, quickly let other aspects enter in once you had safely decided upon painting rather than comics, which were to him degrading. [...]

[...] You cannot expect yourselves to act rationally or altruistically in any consistent manner if you believe that you are automatically degraded, or that your nature is so flawed that such performance is uncharacteristic.

[...] Keeps me from wasting my time with housework; think it’s degrading for R. as a male to do chores so much so the symptoms give us both an excuse; also gives him an excuse for not knowing for sure what he wants to do, paint or whatever, he can blame it on lack of concentration because of me.

Christ uses parables that were applicable then (as described in all four of the Gospels). He used priests as symbols of authority (Matthew 21:23–27). He turned water into wine (John 2:1–11), yet many who consider themselves quite holy ignore Christ at the wedding feast and think any alcoholic beverage degrading.