“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

[...] Now his face, as you conceive of it in your own subconscious, is the voice and the face of unreasoning punishment that can be lowered upon you without warning—the unpredictable punishment for crimes that you cannot remember having committed. [...]

[...] If he does not get an idea tomorrow he has the excuse, anticipated, of being ill, and this also serves as a punishment. He will punish himself on any day that he does not put in his allotted hours in what he considers a constructive manner.

It is ridiculous for him to so punish himself, and does not help matters, as his joyous spontaneity is so important in his working habits.

Suicides, as a class, for example, do not have any particular “punishment” meted out to them, nor is their condition any worse a priori. [...]

Even a belief in a time of judgment is a useful framework in many instances, for while there is no punishment meted out in your terms, the individual is then prepared for some kind of spiritual examination and evaluation.

[...] After death it will release you from the belief in demons and hell, and enforced punishment. [...]

[...] You were trying to force yourself and yet punish yourself. [...] You were trying to punish yourself for not making more money as an artist, since you still felt her old demands.

[...] He was punished. [...]

[...] Also since earlier conditions taught it that such knowledge could bring punishment. [...]

In the past some religious groups have also promoted beliefs that illness is a sign of God’s punishment, or vengeance for sins committed against his “goodness.”

For years, literally, it was hammered into Ruburt’s subconscious that he was not worthy of any kind of success, and that he would be punished for his treatment of his mother.

[...] And this became the feared punishment.

[...] To some extent capital punishment is the act of a fanatical society: The taking of the murderer’s life does not bring back the victim’s, and it does not prevent other men from [committing] such crimes. I am aware that the death penalty often seems to be a practical solution — and indeed many murderers want to die, and are caught because of their need for punishment. [...]

[...] Often people exercise over-zealously to punish their bodies, or to force the body to respond at its best, since they do not trust it to do otherwise.

[...] To some degree Ruburt believed that artists and writers, pioneers, or revolutionary thinkers, were somehow punished—despised even—for their genius; ostracized. [...]

[...] There are many variations on the same thing that the artist, the revolutionary thinker, the genius, would be punished by his fellow men, or even be betrayed by his own abilities. [...]

[...] The question was how these could be related to the world, how people would interpret or misinterpret, or how he would be regarded—for he took it for granted that anyone offering revolutionary ideas would be punished or ostracized.

Illness was suffered, was sent by God to purge the soul, to cleanse the body, to punish the sinner, or simply to teach man his place by keeping him from the sins of pride. [...]

[...] It is about as factual as the “fact” that God sends illness as punishment, or that illness is the unwanted gift of mischievous demons.

[...] The church’s concepts at least gave suffering a kind of dignity: It did (underlined) come from God—an unwelcome gift, perhaps—but after all it was punishment handed out from a firm father for a child’s own good.

[...] They may be threatened by some undeniable danger, until finally in one way or another they seek out their own punishment once again — wondering all the time why they are so frequently besieged by poor health or disease.

[...] This was not merely some self-punishing situation. [...]

[...] So excommunication was the punishment or damnation.... [...]

[...] The painting does not bring in money, so to punish yourself you do not enjoy it sufficiently—but concentrate upon the distractions instead. You do your financial part with the books, but you still tie in your social identity with your painting, and to some extent you still feel that that social identity is dependent upon the money your “art” should produce, so you punish yourself by not enjoying your painting time. [...]

[...] 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. [...]

[...] You do not communicate with an individual man; you communicate with your idea of what this man is, this man with the godlike qualities that can bring both joy and punishment.

[...] You feel that you must be successful or he will punish you, that you must be perfect; therefore you become panic stricken at any sense of failure within you, and you overexaggerate your failings so that you came here tonight to me as if you were two and a half years old. [...]

[...] It’s not an idea of punishment, it’s an idea of further spiritual development. [...]

In this life, or rather before incarnating in it, the personality then chose to purposely minimize the intellectual area; not, now, to punish himself, but to understand in and through an exaggerated form, the experience of those far less mentally gifted than himself.

[...] Instead of having your mother say “He hit me in the chest,” and in order to punish yourself through your identification with your father, instead you translated the words to “He has a spot on his lungs,” therefore punishing symbolically both your father and yourself for the violence.

[...] The dream also allowed you to see ahead of time beyond the surface of the situation which did arrive on Sunday, and you were much easier on your father Sunday because the dream tipped you off as to the tactics that your mother would use on one level, and also allowed you to punish yourself and your father symbolically rather than actually, for a violent tendency which is now apparent in him toward her, but is not as readily apparent, but repressed, in yourself.

[...] However, as you do not blame, as you do not morally blame the wind for the tumultuous hurricane, and as you do not punish the wind, so you must somehow manage to understand that a wrongdoer, in your eyes, is no more or less to blame than this. [...]

If all men could learn to love, in terms of which I have spoken, then there would be no need for any kind of punishment within your field, and the word would vanish from your vocabulary. [...]

[...] A feeling of self-approval is absolutely necessary for any true sense of well-being; it is not (underlined) virtuous in any way to put yourself down, or to punish yourself, because you do not feel you have lived up to your best behavior at any given time.