“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

The male will often dream of himself, therefore, as a female. The particular way in which he does so, can tell him much about his own reincarnational background in which he operated as a female. Maleness and femaleness are obviously not opposites, but merging tendencies. The priestess, the mother, the young witch, the wife, and the old wise woman — these general types are archetypes, simply because they are “root elements” representing, symbolically, the various kinds of so-called female qualities and the various kinds of female lives that have been lived by males.

As I mentioned earlier, each person lives both male and female lives. As a rule, conscious memory of these is not retained. To prevent an overidentification of the individual with his present sex, within the male there resides an inner personification of femaleness. This personification of femaleness in the male is the true meaning of what Jung called the “anima.”

The anima in the male is, therefore, the psychic memory and identification of all the previous female existences in which the inner self has been involved. It contains within it the knowledge of the present male’s past female histories, and the intuitive understanding of all the female qualities with which the personality is innately endowed.

Love and devotion are largely seen as female characteristics. [...] It is not so much that the male and the female be considered equal as it is that the male and female elements in each person should be released and expressed. [...]

When you view the animal kingdom, you also do so through your specialized sexual beliefs, studying the behavior of the male and female, looking for patterns of aggressiveness, territorial jealousy, passivity, mothering instincts, or whatever. [...] To some degree, the so-called mothering instinct belongs to male and female alike in any species that can be so designated. [...]

In your present framework, because of the male-female specialization — the male orientation, the implication that the ego is male while the psyche is female — you force upon yourselves great divisions in which operationally the intellect seems separate from the intuitions, and you set up a situation in which opposites seem to apply where there are none. [...]

The psyche is not male or female. [...] In the same manner, aggression is usually understood to be violent assertive action, male-oriented, while female elements are identified in terms of the nurturing principle.

Physically speaking, you would have no males or females unless first you had individuals. [...] The particular kind of focus that you have is responsible for the great significance you place upon male and female. [...]

The psyche is male and female, female and male; but when I say this I realize that you put your own definitions upon those terms to begin with.

Your psychological tests show you only the current picture of males and females, brought up from infancy with particular sexual beliefs. [...] The male seems to perform better at mathematical tasks, and so-called logical mental activity, while the female performs better in a social context, in value development and personal relationships. The male shows up better in the sciences, while the female is considered intuitional.

Give us a moment… In your terms, again, the psyche contains what you would consider male and female characteristics, while not being male or female itself.

[...] They feel forced to imitate what they think the natural male or female is like, and on occasion end up with ludicrous caricatures. These caricatures infuriate those so imitated — because they carry such hints of truth, and point out so cleverly the exaggerations of maleness or femaleness that many heterosexuals have clamped upon in their own natures.

(In ESP class for April 16, a student asked Seth to comment on “the differences between the male and female [human beings] as we understand them.” [...]

All time is simultaneous (Seth told the members of class), and so you are male and female at once.

In all religions, those that you did not officially adopt in your society, what you would think of as the female religions predominated. [...]

[...] Some females will identify in the dream with the bull. In dreams many females will have what you would call male reactions. Some males in dreams will have what you would call female reactions. [...]

[...] You are not only male or female as you know, but both, with one temporarily predominating. Almost (underlined) without exception, there are male and female lives either in your past or future. [...]

As in many cases an old man will appear womanish, so a personality reincarnated steadily as a male will develop strong and overlycompensated-for female characteristics, as is the case with Loren in this existence. The very fact that the personality evades a female reincarnation is evidence of an already developed fear. The personality of Loren, you see, is basically female despite the fact that he has never had a female reincarnation. [...]

There is also much here to be explained, since your conception of male and female is greatly distorted. [...] They have actually very little to do with what you consider male and female, and for now we can mention them briefly in terms of arrival and departure.

[...] Ruburt picked up the feeling of femaleness very strongly here.

[...] Your schools further continue the process, however, so that the areas of curiosity and learning become separated for males and females. [...] The same applies to the “male” within the female. [...]

(Long pause at 11:07.) Heresy was considered female and subversive because it could threaten to destroy the frameworks set about the acceptable expression of religious fervor. The female elements in the Church were always considered suspect, and in the early times of Christianity there was some concern lest the Virgin become a goddess. [...]

[...] Again, the male who was intuitive or artistically gifted in certain ways often therefore considered himself homosexual, whether or not he was, because his emotional and mental characteristics seem to fit the female rather than the male sex.

The projection of the man’s anima, or hidden female self, upon [his] relations is quite natural, and allows him not only to understand them better but to relate with the other female existences of his own. [...]

[...] In simple terms the whole self contains male and female characteristics, finely tuned together, blended so that true identity can then arise — for it cannot, when one group of characteristics must be emphasized over the other group, as it must be during your present physical existence.

[...] There may be a series of male or female existences, unbroken. [...]

The male-female, female-male orientation is not nearly as separate as it appears to be in your present experience. [...]

[...] For that reason the species — and not the male alone — placed so many taboos about female behavior and sexuality. In “subduing” its own female elements, the species tried to gain some psychological distance from the great natural source from which it was, for its own reasons, trying to emerge.

The slightest deviation is looked upon with dismay, so that personal identity and worth are completely tied into identification with femaleness or maleness. [...]

[...] The overall impression of the 3 existing personalities is nevertheless female, for the reasons that I have explained. Sex, regardless of all your fleshy tales, is a psychic phenomenon, merely certain qualities which you called male and female. [...] When I say as I have that the overall entity is neither male or female, and yet refer to various entities such as Joseph and Ruburt, which are definitely male names, I merely mean that in the overall essence the entity refers or identifies itself more with male characteristics, or so-called male characteristics, than with the female.

An excess of male lives will turn a personality sour in a feminine manner, without the inner understanding and compassion that is usually associated with the female sex. In like manner consistent female personalities will turn harsh without the inner strength usually associated with the male sex. For this reason most entities live lives as male and female.

[...] The basis however is very strongly female, since without the giving quality the aggressiveness would be but a stationary closed fist, incapable of motion and incapable of unfolding into other lives, as it must. The aggressiveness is a thrust for life and action against inertia, but without the acquiescence of the female quality, life would not open.

[...] At the same time the ape male and female represents the sexual quality of the earth, male and female being simply other versions of each other. This automatically helps resolve certain conflicts Ruburt had involving male-female identifications. In other terms the past was altered, in that Ruburt now experienced the yearned-for mother love that was warm in its animal female understanding, supportive and strong enough to easily bear a child’s small ragings and hatreds.

The other images—the two people—male and female, were taller than Ruburt is. [...]

The woman, not seen that clearly, nevertheless represented the female version possible. [...]

[...] If only stereotyped ideas of female-male relationships operated, however, there would be no bond or stimulus great enough to forge one family to another. [...] Competition between females would be too severe. [...]

[...] Even in the animal kingdom, for example, males do not fight to the death over the females when they are in their natural state.

[...] If the “battle of the sexes” were as prevalent as supposed, and as natural and ferocious, then there literally would be no cooperation between males and females for any purpose. [...]

Every so often Jane hears from a female reader who wants to know why Seth often uses the male gender in his books, especially in passages like those in tonight’s 696th session. [...] In the English language we often don’t have the right word, one meaning male and female equally, with which to represent the species. [...]

[...] That affiliation is a mixture of ‘female’ and ‘male’ elements that are complementary, not opposing. [...] Male and female also represent psychic and biological faces and a sexual stance. [...]

[...] Linguistically this leaves the female out in the cold — and in more ways than one — for the masculine intent is clear.

[...] This also has something to do with your private lives, for the feminine portions of that nature can quite easily be frightened into not showing themselves through the monthly function—that is so utterly spontaneous, so mysterious to the intellect, and the one main sign by which the female monthly shows her difference from the male.

[...] You can come closer to the ideal identity that gives greater rein within one individual to both male and female characteristics.

[...] You also identified your creativity with female characteristics or abilities, symbolically speaking, and this has something to do with your distrust of making money with your art.

[...] “Two males and two females, I believe.” The four people indicated in the photo—see page 168—are female. [...]

Two male and two females, I believe.

(“Can you say anything about the two females?”)

[...] He will adopt the female role, which is more natural to his personality, and be more at ease with creative functions at the spontaneous level. Your mother has been a female now twice in a row, and is ill at ease, and will do much better as a male. [...]

[...] Loren in particular, in spite of past male lives, is strongly feminine, and your sister-in-law is undergoing her first female incarnation.

Far be it from me to give either Ruburt or yourself swelled heads, but in your cases we see the male and female aspects well-balanced, one of the reasons why this is your last incarnation. [...]

Male 2 Female 1.

(“In which life was I a female?”)

(“What was my female name?”)

When you look at the animal kingdom, you suppose that the male chooses blindly, led by “dumb” instinct, so that in overall terms one female will do as well as any other. When you discover that a certain chemical or scent will attract a certain male insect, for example, you take it for granted that that element is alone responsible for drawing the male to the female. [...]

[...] In terms of your definitions, then, it is quite natural for some people to behave as males sexually and as females psychologically. [...]

[...] This would be sad enough if you did not often use such distorted data to further define the nature of male and female behavior.

[...] A woman in connection with your wife, an aunt or female relative, who will or has recently come up with an idea that is jarring or will be jarring to you. [...]

([John:] “This western connection and a female relative of my wife’s. Do you have anything else on this?”)

[...] I am not certain, a female child. [...]