“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Pause at 10:02.) Since love and sex are equated, obvious conflicts arise. Mother love is the only category that is considered wholesome, and therefore nonsexual under most conditions. A father can feel very guilty about his love for his children, for he has been conditioned to believe that love is expressed only through sex, or else it is unmanly, while sex with one’s children is taboo.

Dictation. The so-called battle of the sexes, with its ramifications, is not “natural” — nor, in that context, is fighting between members of the same sex. Even in the animal kingdom, for example, males do not fight to the death over the females when they are in their natural state.

Instead, you have put love into very definite categories, so that its existence is right only under the most limited conditions. Love goes underground, but springs up in distorted forms and exaggerated tendencies. You have followed this course for different reasons at different times. Neither sex is to blame. Instead your sexual situation is simply another reflection of the state of your consciousness. As a species, presently at least in the Western world, you equate sex and love. You imagine that sexual expression is the only one natural to love. Love, in other words, must it seems express itself exclusively through the exploration (humorously and deeper), in one way or another, of the beloved’s sexual portions.

This is hardly the only limitation placed upon love’s expression, however. There are innumerable books written with instructions, each proclaiming the said methods to be the proper ones. Certain kinds of orgasm are “the best.” Love’s expression is furthermore permitted only between members of the opposite sex. Generally speaking, these individuals must be more or less of the same age. There are other taboos, involving racial restrictions, or cultural, social, and economic ones. If this were not enough, large segments of the population believe that sex is wrong to begin with — a spiritual debasement, allowed by God only so that the species can continue.

You have tried to divide mental and emotional characteristics between the two sexes, forcing a stereotyped behavior. 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.

[...] Those other-sex existences are present to the psyche unconsciously. [...] In so specifically identifying with your sex, therefore, you also inhibit memories that might limit or destroy that identification.

[...] An affectionate caress or kiss between members of the same sex is generally not considered proper. [...]

Generally speaking, there will be a specific overall sexual orientation of a biological nature, but the mental and emotional human characteristics are simply not meted out according to sex. [...]

[...] 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. In such cases, sex becomes not an expression of love, but an expression of derision or scorn.

Since you feel that sex is the only proper method of love’s expression, and yet also believe that sex and love are divided, you are in a quandary. [...]

[...] There are always individual variations that must be taken into consideration, but often such a person feels a martyr to his or her sex, imprisoned by it and unable to escape. [...]

[...] The male in particular has been taught to separate love and sex, so that a schizophrenic condition results that tears apart his psyche — in operational terms — as he lives his life.

Such a male will seek sex with prostitutes, or with women he considers beneath him. In a strange fashion, he may even feel that it is wrong to have sex with his own wife, believing that the sex act so degrades the both of them. [...]

These attitudes are intensified where the female sex is concerned. [...]

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.

There are, however, no rules dictating the sexual development in varying incarnations, except that experience with both sexes must be taken on, and the various characteristics developed. [...] Some, for example, find it far easier to develop as one sex or the other, and will need more opportunities for experience as the sex with which they experience difficulty.

The animus and the anima become even more important in these instances when a series of one-sex lives are chosen. [...]

The two-sex division was adopted, separating and balancing these most necessary but seemingly opposing tendencies. [...]

There is also a natural tension, then, between sexes that is based on far deeper causes than physical ones. [...]

[...] Animals have close friendships, with or without sexual expression, with members of the same sex. Love and devotion are not the prerogatives of one sex or one species.

[...] You will discover an identity, a psychological and psychic identity, that is in your terms male and female, one in which those abilities of each sex are magnified, released, and expressed. They may not be so released in normal life, but you will meet the greater dimensions of your own reality, and at least in the dream state catch a glimpse of the self that transcends a one-sex orientation.

[...] But I am speaking of releasing within each individual the great human characteristics and abilities that are often denied expression because they are assigned to the opposite sex.

[...] In terms of sex, you insist upon a picture that shows you a growth into a sexual identity, a clear focus, and then in old age a falling away of clear sexual identification into “sexual disorder.” [...]

Play then at another game, and pretend that you are of the opposite sex. Do this after an encounter in which the conventions of sex have played a part. Ask yourself how many of your current beliefs would be different if your sex was. [...]

Dictation: In their play children often imaginatively interchange their sexes. The young selfhood is freer in its identification, and as yet has not been taught to identify its own personality with its sex exclusively.

[...] Men remember “manly” dreams — generally speaking, now — while women in the same manner remember dreams that they believe suit their sex according to their beliefs.

[...] After this, you are individuals of a specific sex, biologically speaking. [...] Hands and feet are obviously equipment belonging to both sexes, however. [...]

(10:00.) Except for the fact that males could not bear children, the abilities of the sexes were interchangeable. [...]

If your individuality was programmed by your biological sex, then it would be literally impossible for you to perform any action that was not sexually programmed. [...]

[...] Your individuality gives meaning to your sex, and not the other way around.

[...] To prevent an overidentification of the individual with his present sex, within the male there resides an inner personification of femaleness. [...]

[...] However, the women do not need to be reminded of their femaleness, but again, so that they do not overidentify with their present sex, there is what Jung called the “animus,” or the hidden male within the woman.

Through the anima and the animus, so-called, present personalities are able to draw upon the knowledge and intuitions and background that was derived from past existences as the opposite sex. [...]

Now: The animus and the anima are, of course, highly charged psychically, but the origin of this psychic charge and the inner fascination are the result of a quite legitimate inner identification with these personified other-sex characteristics.

(3:20.) One portion may believe that sex is natural and good, while the other portion believes vehemently that sex is evil and depraved. [...] Joe A may be an excellent husband, bread-winner, and father, a church-goer who believes in the beauty and goodness of sex. Joe B may hold the opposite viewpoint most intently — that sex is at least evil, perhaps sent by the devil, and below or beneath the dignity of a good man.

Your sex life—and I have told you this countless times—is important. Your emotional (underlined) sex life, as last night shows; when you let down with each other and really show your feelings.

Sexual freedom, then, does not involve an enforced promiscuity in which young people, for example, are made to feel unnatural if their encounters with the other sex do not lead to bed.

[...] Over a period of time, however, the expression of sex will follow the inclinations of the heart. [...]

The so-called war of the sexes originates in the artificial divisions that you have placed about the nature of the self. [...]

You, as teacher in this love relationship now, can count oddly enough on the passivity of his nature, and play on this, for then assured, reassured, the super-conscientious self can allow the spontaneous self to emerge in the sex relationship.

[...] This was a biological activity he felt he could safely suspend, and in doing so avoid further conflict, the conflict caused by enjoyment in sex, when he did not feel worthy of being loved.

[...] A submerged mixture of mysticism and sex.

[...] Sex changes, for example, are necessary. Some individuals alternate their sex in each (succeeding) life. [...]

Abilities cannot be developed following a one-sex line. [...]

[...] Try to be honest with yourselves as to those early experiences in which you forced yourselves to behave differently than you were, because adults told you that you must … You had better understand the beautiful, unique quality of your own individuality lest you project upon the other sex — whichever sex you are — those abilities and qualities that you are afraid are your own, or project upon them those abilities and qualities that you wish you possessed and fear you do not.

[...] A tolerant attitude, an exuberance and freedom, so that the best qualities of each sex can be harmoniously blended while the personality still retains its necessary overall one-sex identification physically.

[...] As noted much of this has to do with the fact that in your last reincarnation both the masculine and the feminine aspects of personality are to be as fully experienced as possible, while the overall present one-sex identification is to be maintained.

[...] Otherwise identity is smothered to a large degree beneath a strictly oriented one-sex identification, with other characteristics masked and denied expression.

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, though this may seem strange, one-sexed personality pattern is not the best as far as incarnations are concerned.

[...] Sex, regardless of all your fleshy tales, is a psychic phenomenon, merely certain qualities which you called male and female. [...]

In both cases the sexes are denied any true communication, and an extremely artificial framework is maintained, in which the sexes literally become strangers to each other. [...]

(Pause.) Your dreams involving worries about sexuality actually represented, of course, worries about your worth as a contributing person, your sex and work being thus equated. [...]

[...] When we got up this morning I told Jane that I’d had a dream that we’d been participating in group sex at a party, but that I couldn’t recall anything more than that. [...]

[...] Some of your interpretations were legitimate, based upon his attitudes, but many more were the innermost doubts that you have not faced as to who you were, and deep questions involving the nature of your person as it is related to your particular sex in this life.

[...] You were using the war connection however as a symbol for battle between the sexes.

(To Carl:) From your own parents you also have some false premises, having to do with sex. [...]