“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

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 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.

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.

The anima, therefore, is an important safeguard, preventing the male from over-identifying with whatever cultural male characteristics have been imposed upon him through present background, environment, and education. The anima serves not only as a personal but as a mass-civilizing influence, mellowing strongly aggressive tendencies and serving also as a bridge both in communicating with women in a family relationship, and in communication also as it is applied through the arts and verbalization.

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. When you think of a scientist, the majority of you will think of a male, an intellectual, an “objective” thinker who takes great pains not to be emotional, or to identify with the subject being examined or studied.

[...] Societies and organizations of church and state are seen as male. 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. [...]

What you think of as (underlined) male ego-oriented characteristics are simply those human attributes that the species encouraged, brought into the foreground, and stressed. [...] You thus have a very polarized male-female concept.

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 the framework of this discussion only, you have a male’s universe. It is a universe endowed with male characteristics as these appear in the male-female orientations of your history. The universe seems to have no meaning because the male “intellect” alone cannot discern meaning, since it must take nothing for granted. [...]

(Pause.) You must understand, I know, that the terms “male” and “female” here are being used as they are generally understood, and have nothing to do with the basic characteristics of either sex. In those terms, the male-oriented intellect wants to order the universe, name its parts, and so forth. [...] You have in your history then a male god of power and vengeance, who killed your enemies for you. [...] The male god is a god of power. [...]

[...] God is supposed to be male. [...] The angels are male. [...] The story says that Eve tempted the male, having him eat of the tree of good and evil, or the tree of knowledge. [...]

The trance itself had feminine connotations, though he conveniently forgot [several excellent male mediums]. And yet at the same time he was afraid of exerting power, for fear it would be thought that he was usurping male prerogatives.

(10:54.) The child is simply the male child. [...] The male child does not possess an identity so focused upon its maleness. [...] They simply do not focus upon their maleness or femaleness in the way that is supposed.

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.

The mother also provides the same kind of information to a male offspring. [...] Over the generations, then, certain characteristics appear to be quite naturally male or female, and these will vary to some extent according to the civilizations and world conditions. [...]

In the framework of this discussion, now, only, you have a male’s universe. It is a universe endowed with male characteristics as these appear in the male-female orientations of your history. The universe seems to have no meaning because the male “intellect” alone cannot discern meaning, since it must take nothing for granted. [...]

In those terms, the male-oriented intellect wants to order the universe, name its parts, and so forth. [...] You have in your history then a male god of power and vengeance, who killed your enemies for you. [...] The male god is a god of power. [...]

[...] God is supposed to be male. [...] The angels are male. [...] The story says that Eve tempted the male, having him eat of the tree of good and evil, or the tree of knowledge. [...]

Now: you are creative, but you are a male—and one part of you considered creativity a feminine-like characteristic. [...] You would not take your art to the marketplace after you left commercial work, because then, in a manner of speaking now, understand, you considered that the act of a prostitute, for your “feminine feelings” that you felt produced the painting would then be sold for the sake of “the male’s role as provider and bringer of power.”

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.

[...] It seems to you that the female always tended to the offspring, for example, nursing them, that she was forced to remain close to home while the male fought off enemies or hunted for food. The ranging male, therefore, appears to have been much more curious and aggressive. [...]

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. [...]

[...] It is believed that males are naturally promiscuous, aroused by sexual stimuli almost completely divorced from any complementary “deeper” response. The male, then, is thought to want sex whether or not he has any love response to the woman in question — or sometimes to desire her precisely because he does not love her. [...]

The expression of sexuality is considered male, while the expression of love is not considered manly. To some extent or another, then, the male feels forced to divide the expression of his love from the expression of his sexuality. [...]

One small note: A male with growths of any kind — kidney stones or ulcers, for example — has tendencies he considers feminine, and therefore “dependent,” of which he is ashamed. [...] In ulcers the stomach becomes the womb — bloodied, giving birth to sores — his interpretation of a male’s “grotesque” attempt to express feminine characteristics.

[...] Your schools further continue the process, however, so that the areas of curiosity and learning become separated for males and females. The “she” within the male does indeed represent portions of his personality that are being unexpressed — not because of any natural predominance of mental or emotional characteristics over others, but because of artificial specializations. The same applies to the “male” within the female. [...]

[...] 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.

[...] Males ruled both (they still do), and yet those leading religious organizations at least recognized their intuitive base. They constantly tried to manipulate religion’s substructure in the same acceptable male ways that government leaders always use to inhibit and use the emotions.

The sexual schism begins when the male child is taught to identify exclusively with the father image, and the female child with the mother image — for here you have a guilt insidiously incorporated into the growth process.

In your mind making money is a male characteristic, and subconsciously a male prerogative. [...]

[...] Now in your paintings, many of them, you merge the male and female characteristics—the feminine compassion and intuition often appearing as it does here in a male face.

[...] Whenever you show the so-called feminine qualities of insight or compassion, you show them as appearing in the male profile, where they are seen opaquely and not faced full on. You feel they need the male discipline to give them a suitable framework, and to define them. [...]

[...] He relied upon the intellectual abilities therefore as the stronger, because in his own background he believed the male to have the greater strength.

[...] Her own past male lives will help her relate to you as her son. [...] These feelings are sometimes due to the fact that the male son causes an activation of the animus in her, with a resulting charge of aggressive feelings.

[...] 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.

[...] The same is true of the woman’s projection of the animus upon male relatives and friends. [...]

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

Now this also overshadows your relationship with the males to whom you have come in contact. [...] This is because you see the male in terms inspired in you when you were a child. You were terrified of the male, your father. [...] These qualities you attempt to project into the male that you meet. [...] At the same time, you hope and pray subconsciously that the man will disappoint you because this male in your mind has godlike qualities that attract you; on the other, you see him as all powerful and as one who gives out punishment and one who is unreasoning and cruel because you felt that your father was cruel. [...] For to do so is to place yourself in a humble position and a frightening position underneath the male figure. [...] Because you were a male in past lives, you resented this all the more strongly. [...]

Now, you have, if you will forgive me, consistently chosen those males within whom you sensed feminine qualities. [...] You felt that the feminine qualities within the male forespoke of a gentle nature, that would protect you from the overall male violence of which you were afraid and which you exaggerated, because of early impressions. [...]

You have been afraid that the male would hurt you cruelly—and on purpose, and at the same time, you have endowed him with godlike qualities, and, therefore, demanded more than any man could possibly deliver. [...] Therefore, you find it difficult to communicate verbally with a male.

[...] After three lives as a male, you have indeed acclimated yourself very well. [...] I sense you yelling to yourself when you see a male in strong action or performance, I sense you yelling to yourself—I can do that better than you can for I have done it before—again this is reflected in the way you drive your car.

[...] The male figure however represented the fact that he believes that strong muscular motion is a male characteristic, and not one that he feels belongs to mentally oriented males. In this life he never sought tall, strongly developed, muscular, large-boned males out, but avoided them. [...]

[...] 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. [...]

[...] At one point Ruburt saw the ape still male, and then a portion of himself sitting at the library table, for in your position it is the animal instincts themselves that propel you to search for answers, to write books, to explore in your particular way. [...]

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

He never served, truly, as a male image for you or your brothers. [...] This is why you trust the male qualities in Ruburt; why Richard chose a family in which he married where the males have been dominant, and why Loren chose for a wife a woman with more vitality than he.

[...] Your father has been twice a male, successively. [...] Your mother has been a female now twice in a row, and is ill at ease, and will do much better as a male. [...]

Your brother Richard, and Loren also, are undergoing necessary experience as males. Loren in particular, in spite of past male lives, is strongly feminine, and your sister-in-law is undergoing her first female incarnation.

You have the impulse to think of the male as disciplined, yet the raw male elements are unthinkingly aggressive, and the raw female elements are indiscriminately creative.

[...] 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 seeming dominance of the male in earthkind is merely because the aggressiveness of male personalities makes itself known quicker, and often with a vehemence. [...]

[...] He has been a male three times. [...]

The slightest deviation is looked upon with dismay, so that personal identity and worth are completely tied into identification with femaleness or maleness. [...] A male who does not feel himself fully male, therefore, does not trust his identity as a person. [...]

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. [...]

They also rise partially whenever you think of yourself as a male first or primarily, and then as an individual. You are an individual first of all and a male secondarily. You could be an individual male or female, but (louder) you could be neither if you were not an individual first of all—and that individual, again, happens to have an unconventionality of mind and ability most needed in your time and space. [...]

[...] To some extent you felt you had to prove your worth as a conventional male, in—if you will forgive me—the narrowest of parochial terms, though you were possessed of abilities that were considered conventionally male only if they could be suitably laundered: art turned into commercial work, and other creative abilities, such as your writing, that at one time could have turned into several fields—the writing of Westerns, even. You felt the ordinary male accomplishments in terms of sports, which brought instant approval, yet you did not choose that road. [...]

To be a good male in that family’s eyes, it seemed you had to be the less an artist or the less a thinker. [...]

[...] If he succeeded as a writer, it seemed he was less the loyal wife, and sometimes in the past—the distant past—you felt the same when you tried to be “the male provider,” and take a job to satisfy that narrow role. [...]

[...] You thought of your father in many ways as feminine—passive, and of your mother—in many ways, now—as aggressive and male, though she was emotional. [...] So if he gives in to an impulse to cry then he feels he forces you to behave in a stereotyped male way—in a role you have rejected, and rightly so.

[...] In a male crying is considered the worst kind of behavior. [...]

[...] There are rather severe difficulties involving the male. (Meaning Brian.) They are psychological problems, and there is an identification on the part of the questioner (Pat) this evening, an identification of a strong nature with the male. [...]

[...] The male is passive and of a submissive mind, and given to an obsession with overconsideration for security. [...]

Telepathically you were aware of the full nature of the male’s relationship with his mother. [...]

You would not be happy with the male, and you intuitively realize this. [...]

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. [...] We also don’t want to become involved with rewriting Seth’s material: We’re sure that when he produces passages cast in the male gender, his intentions are anything but prejudiced in favor of that sex.

[...] 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. [...]

5. See Note 3 for Session 679, concerning Seth’s male name for Jane (Ruburt), and his comments that “Sex, regardless of all your fleshy tales, is a psychic phenomenon …”

Such a male will seek sex with prostitutes, or with women he considers beneath him. [...] In many cases these people will be great sportsmen, follow conventionalized male pursuits, and perhaps express contempt for the arts or any interest considered remotely feminine.

[...] Women with such beliefs and conflicts often wind up having hysterectomies, performed incidentally by male doctors, who hold the very same beliefs.

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.