“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

You each believe that shortcomings themselves are reassuring. You have not gone so far from the norm after all (amused)—you are as human as anyone else. Far be it from you to put others to shame, or hurt their feelings, either of you. Each of you therefore maintain your “hassles” stubbornly, so that you can say to others “We have our problems—it is very difficult for us.”

You inhibit your own painting so that others will not feel inferior by contrast. This is a joint framework you have chosen for the display of extraordinary ability. You parcel out your energy in small doses. You constantly reinforce the framework. You did this with your parents—afraid of seeming better than they, almost ashamed of your ability lest it shame your father by contrast, disciplining yourself over much.

There is no natural reason for children to feel a sense of shame concerning any bodily part. [...] Each child should be told that his body, or her body, is a precious private possession, however, so that it is easy to build up a desirable feeling of bodily privacy, without any hint of shame or guilt.

[...] She said she’d felt ashamed of the panic at times, and agreed with me that if the shame was used to possibly suppress the panic, it — the panic — would last longer.

(I’ll have to admit I was surprised when my wife said she felt shame at the panic. [...]

[...] And the secret when it is said, you see, releases that energy, particularly as you begin to understand that in that past there was nothing shameful. [...] That other incidents of which I know are not, in those terms, my dear Lady of Florence, shameful. [...]

[...] He enjoyed the thought of mediums defying organized religions, and of women in such a position putting scientific establishment investigators to shame. [...]

[...] The ideas of shame are simply new versions of old religious concepts, or of scientific ones: if there is something physically wrong with you, it is either a sign of inner sin or of incompetency in terms of survival of the fittest. [...]

[...] He was in a fashion frightened of the ideas of masculinity he grew up with—ideas he felt he did not embody, and he projected those upon his sons so that in a fashion they overawed him, or put him to shame. [...]

I have little to say otherwise, except that your own attitudes have changed for the better, for you took your strengths for granted, for once (re AP’s visit), and did not concentrate upon those areas that you once felt were so shameful. For Ruburt’s condition is not shameful by any means—yet both of you felt that it was.

[...] You are born into belief systems as you are born into physical centuries, and part of the entire picture is the freedom of interpreting the experiences of life in multitudinous fashions (all intently). The meaning, nature, dignity or shame of suffering will be interpreted according to your systems of belief. [...]

[...] In a species geared above all to the survival of the fittest, and the competition among species, then any touch of suffering or pain, or thoughts of death, become dishonorable, biologically shameful, cowardly, nearly insane. [...]

[...] Obviously, then, a mass physical event implies an inner system of communications of proportions that would put your technological communications to shame.

When you find yourselves therefore noticing more and more the inequalities, the disasters and the shames that come within your sphere of perception, you add to their existence. [...]

Once those old beliefs are understood for what they are, they will no longer be considered as shameful in themselves, nor humiliating, or as attitudes to be accused of (long pause, one of many), but as a personality’s way of still preserving old beliefs, whatever their nature, for the feeling of safety that they still implied. [...]

[...] Many cease creating their bodies and die at a young age for a great variety of reasons, of course, but some die because they believe that old age is shameful and that only a young body can be beautiful.

Now: because of your background you also feel that there is something slightly shameful about going abroad in the day, when a man should be taken up with dutiful work. [...]

(I told Jane about the three deleted sessions for January 1980 that I’d read this morning while doing a note for Dreams—how good they were, on the body consciousness and related subjects like healing, and what a shame it is that the material sits there unread and unpublished.

Coupled with our reservations about the uncertain state of the art concerning nuclear power, Jane and I deeply mourn the shameful fact that for some 30 years now our country’s government and industry have neglected to develop safe methods for the transportation and permanent storage of radioactive waste materials; some of these will remain highly toxic for hundreds of thousands of years, and thus pose potential threats to many many generations. [...]

Your joint ideas of the ideal, its expression, and feared closure, was in the past also largely responsible for your joint embarrassment over Ruburt’s physical condition, your joint shame over his appearance.

[...] Yet it was now apparent that Jane felt a sense of blame, even shame; at the start of the deeper trance state she told me she felt I was mad at her all the time because I had worked full time at Artistic, etc; I tried to counter this by pointing out to her the benefits we had both obtained from this.

[...] It is only that your own perspective closes out much of its vast reality, for the dreaming intellect can put your computers to shame. [...]

[...] I wish you all, therefore, a hearty good evening, and remember that the dead have a vitality that would put you to shame and allow your own parents to smile when they visit you. [...]

[...] For if Seth is only a psychological model filled out by my unconscious trance material, then he certainly puts our usual concepts of personality to shame, and by implication shows that we ourselves have a long way to go if we are to use our full potential.