“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

[...] In a way he was rewarded for conventional thought, and punished for unconventional thought. [...]

[...] Some people take portions of themselves, again, as hostages, restraining such portions with the idea of punishing them for imagined wrongs, or for actions not understood. [...]

[...] You accepted, for example, the penances and so forth because as a child, given the idea of guilt, you wondered what punishment would befall you. [...]

If someone is caught in a natural disaster, the following questions might be asked: “Am I being punished by God, and for what reason? [...]

That analogy will help you at least intuitively understand the existence of situations such as suffering, and poverty, that otherwise seem to have no adequate explanations (as Jane and I were discussing today). I hope also to account for behavior on the part of nature that certainly seems to imply the survival of the fittest in a tooth-and-claw fashion, or the punishing acts of a vengeful God on the one hand and the triumph of an evil force on the other.

[...] When the sessions began, Jane was especially bothered by what she called the trite and popular ideas about reincarnation, mixed up as they were with ideas of good and evil, punishment, etc.

[...] In the home, the Catholic asylum, he was often punished for noncomformity. [...]

(I told Jane that the other day the pendulum had told me I hurt the rib as self-punishment because of my resentment of the visit of Tom D’Orio and friends. [...]

[...] He is ashamed because at one level he begrudges the food you eat, so he will not eat to punish himself.

[...] Only those still bound up in ideas of crime and punishment would be attracted to that kind of religious drama, and find within it deep echoes of their own subjective feelings.

All in all, those results are considered by the Sinful Self, now, as regrettable but necessary, as perhaps the use of overly severe discipline, or the use of punishment “for the personality’s own good”—all of which makes perfect sense within the belief structure of the Sinful Self and the larger philosophical structure of Christianity itself. [...]

He also punishes himself rather unkindly, with sore muscles, incidentally. [...]

[...] Christ well knew that that statement was indeed true, but men who condemned themselves, who considered themselves sinners, would not know what to ask for, except punishment to relieve their guilt. [...]

Before children are acquainted with conventional ideas of guilt and punishment, they realize that it is easier to bring about good events, through wishing, than it is to bring about unhappy ones. [...]

[...] To some extent he thought of that as punishment, of course, of being abandoned, forced to take charity as well, and the home reinforced all of the Catholic beliefs, particularly stressing the sinfulness of the body. [...]

[...] “What’s the matter,” I asked her after supper tonight, “do you feel guilty because you think you deserted your mother?” I explained that I felt self-punishment, a feeling of unworthiness, self-doubt and mistrust must lie at the root of her symptoms—that she felt she must pay a price for each success, like the publishing of a book. [...]

[...] It is not correct, therefore, to suppose that your actions in this life are caused by a previous existence, or that you are being punished in this life for crimes in a past one. [...]

[...] (Pause.) Personalities strongly (underlined) given to the need for self-punishment will consistently misinterpret such information, or any information.

[...] To progress is supposedly to ascend, while the horror of religious punishment, hell, is seen at the bottom of all things.

Are you gluttons for punishment?