“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

The wry neck enabled Ruburt to identify with his mother, and therefore avoid such punishment. At the same time, the wry neck itself inflicted a punishment in place of the imagined and feared greater punishment which Ruburt felt his mother intended, the imagined punishment being a basic and infantile terror of being pulled back into the womb.

Since Ruburt’s mother had often spoken most vehemently of Ruburt’s birth being a source of disease, that is her arthritis, and pain, subconsciously Ruburt feared on a basic level that his mother wished to punish him for causing her such pain.

[...] Church—at a very creative level—or the feeling, use the creative ability to bring about punishment, illness or whatever. [...] (Also I’d lately seen a show on Jack the Ripper and I think the women were so convinced of their “evil” ways at those levels that they broadcast their need for punishment.) Finally awaken—sleep off and on but sore. [...]

In a simultaneous time, punishment makes no sense. The punishment as an event, and the event for which you were being punished, exist at once; and since there is no past, present and future, you could just as well say that the punishment came first.

Now: Artificial guilt is still highly creative in its way, an offshoot made in man’s image as his conscious mind began to consider and play upon the natural innocent guilt that originally implied no punishment.

[...] But in the terms used there is no karma to be paid off as punishment unless you believe that there are crimes for which you must pay (as indicated in the 614th session in Chapter Two).

[...] With your theories of guilt and punishment you often imagine that you are hampered in this existence by guilts collected in the last life — or worse, accumulated through the centuries.

[...] Therefore, you may be punished in this life for errors you have committed in a past one, or you may actually be making up for a mistake made thousands of years ago. [...]

I must remind you once more that all time happens simultaneously, so the confused belief about punishment now, in retaliation for past action would actually be meaningless, since in simultaneous time all actions would be occurring at once.

(Long pause.) You may have overall reasons for a particular illness, however, that have nothing to do with crime or punishment, but may instead involve an extraordinary sense of curiosity, and the desire for experience that is somewhat unconventional — usually not sought for — exotic, or in certain terms even grotesque.

[...] I am well aware that strong elements of your civilization are built upon ideas of guilt and punishment. [...] It is running quite wild now — not despite your ideas of guilt and punishment, but largely because of them. [...]

(10:35.) The idea of punishment, the belief in it, also enters in. You do what you decided to do anyway — have the session — but by punishing yourself with your own personal interpretation.

Hinged to this is the belief that this felt lack of communication is wrong, and that for anything wrong you should be punished. [...]

[...] Now your quite conscious interpretation of an apt kind of self-punishment was a lack of hand motion. [...]

[...] Crime after death is not punished. There is no crime to be punished, but between those last two statements lies a world of understanding, and knowledge that must be attained. And punishment enters in between those two statements as the individual takes the consequence for the action and the intent.

By the time he realizes the truth of the second statement, neither crime nor punishment affect him.

[...] Can the state punish you for a sin? It certainly can punish you for a crime. [...]

[...] Are laws made to protect life, to protect property, to establish order, to punish transgressors? [...]

He has no reason (long pause) to feel guilty, or to punish himself for his mother’s situation. [...]

He has no such crime, or crimes, to repent of, or to punish himself for. [...]

There is, therefore, in those regards, no cause for self-punishment or penance (crying), or turmoil. [...]

(Punishment. [...] I think punishment is almost certainly involved. [...]

[...] If he succeeds he must pay, for if he does not pay, if he does not willingly submit to his own punishment, then there is eternal damnation.

[...] To have the disease, or punishment, and still not have it, to satisfy both demands.

[...] He believes also that he must therefore accept any disability and discomfort because it is just punishment. [...]

[...] When he succeeds he punishes himself. [...]

[...] Because so many individuals have been taught that power or energy is wrong, destructive, or sinful, and therefore to be punished.

[...] Many end up punishing themselves for any behavior they consider dependent or unmanly. [...]

You were guiltily aware of this, and punish yourself by refusing to allow yourself to make money with good paintings now. [...]

To paint paintings for joy was an act of defiance against your mother, and so you have punished yourself in several ways; by being overly concerned with their quality, insisting upon perfection, and by not making strong efforts to sell them or to work for recognition in that field.

Not allowing yourself to make money through paintings also allowed you to punish yourself for what you considered this act of defiance. [...]

[...] The purpose is always knowledge and development, rather than punishment, self-punishment. [...]

[...] The basic idea of karma is not punishment. [...]

[...] That question, often asked unconsciously — if not consciously — brings you back to beliefs in punishment that have nothing to do with the concept of natural guilt, but with those distortions placed upon it. [...] He tried to rise above the idea-systems of those times, yet even he had to use them, and so the connotations of sin and punishment distorted the message given.

[...] Therefore you punished the hand. [...]

[...] Yet because you are an artist above all, you also punished yourself for your envy with the faltering hand, so that the hand expressed two needs.

[...] The itch therefore became the punishment for the envy that it expressed. [...]

[...] He also felt guilty however at being taken care of, for the stiff neck was also therefore a punishment. [...]

Because of the beliefs of religion, the child expected God to show his power through some disastrous act by which sinners would be punished. [...]

The conventionally religious will be certain that the earthquake is a punishment for sin. [...]

[...] Crucifixions were normal punishments. [...]

People in such societies often suffer from malnourishment, frequent beatings, an excessive use of the enema, and often indulge in physical punishment. [...]

[...] If you believe that the body is somehow evil, you may punish it by nearly starving to death, even though your diet might be considered normal by usual standards. [...]

Your religious ideas have often told you that deformities at birth were the result of the parents’ sins cast upon the children, or that another kind of punishment was involved in terms of “karma.” [...]

[...] It is not a psychological arena composed of crime and punishment. [...]

[...] There was ordinary retaliation, in that he was punished through word attacks, and through such corporal punishment as the invalid could give. [...] As any child does, the child at times wished for the parent’s death, and here we see the mother acting out her own death in order to punish the child.

The child took all this as the punishment for violence. [...]

[...] One of them is that she may have associated punishment with physical motion — this idea stemming from her days at the Catholic home, where the youngsters were made to kneel for long periods of time as punishment for various “wrongs.” [...]