Jane Roberts

Without exception, all of the horrors connected with Christianity’s name came from following the letter rather than the spirit of the law, or by insistence upon literal interpretations -- while the spiritual, imaginative concepts beneath were ignored.

There is no such thing as a chance encounter. No death occurs by chance, nor any birth. In the creative atmosphere of Framework 2, intents are known. In a manner of speaking, no act is private.

You usually think . . . that your feelings about a given event are primarily reactions to the event itself. It seldom occurs to you that the feelings themselves might be primary, and that the particular event was somehow a response to your emotions, rather than the other way around... You are... literally hypnotized into believing that your feelings arise in response to events. Your feelings, however, cause the events you perceive. Secondarily, you do of course then react to those events.

If you believe in the sinfulness of the world, for instance, then you will search out from normal sense data those facts that confirm your belief. But beyond that, at other levels you also organize your mental world in such a way that attracts to yourself events that - again - will confirm your beliefs.

The species is in a state of transition, one of many. This one began, generally speaking, when the species tried to step apart from nature in order to develop the unique kind of consciousness that is presently your own. That consciousness is not a finished product, however, but one meant to change, [to] evolve and develop. Certain artificial divisions were made along the way that must now be dispensed with. You must return, wiser creatures, to the nature that spawned you - not only as loving caretakers but as partners with the other species of the earth. You must discover once again the spirituality of your biological heritage.

Your impulses are your closest communication with your inner self, because in the waking state they are the spontaneous urgings towards action, rising from that deep inner knowledge of yourself that you have in dreams.

Framework 2 is not neutral, but automatically inclined toward what we will here term good or constructive developments. It is a growth medium. Constructive or positive feelings or thoughts are more easily materialized than negative ones, because they are in keeping with Framework 2’s characteristics.

You cannot love someone you do not know -- not unless you water down the definition of love so much that it becomes meaningless.

In dreams you are so 'dumb' that you believe there is a commerce between the living and the dead. You are so 'irrational' as to imagine that you sometimes speak to parents who are dead. You are so 'unrealistic' that it seems to you that you visit old houses, long ago torn down, or that you travel in exotic foreign cities that you have actually never visited. In dreams you are so 'insane' you do not feel yourself locked in a closet of time and space, but feel instead as if all infinity but waited your beckoning.

A mind is a psychic pattern through which you interpret and form reality. You have physical limbs that you can see. You have minds that are invisible. Each one can organize reality in a different fashion. Each one deals with its own kind of knowledge. These minds all work together to keep you alive through the physical structure of the brain. When you use all of these minds, then and only then do you become fully aware of your surroundings: You perceive reality more clearly than you do now, more sharply, brilliantly and concisely. At the same time, however, you comprehend it directly.

Those involved in such disasters - the survivors - often use such larger-than-life circumstances in order to participate in affairs that seem to have greater import than those possessed by previous humdrum existences. They seek the excitement, whatever its consequences. They become a part of history to whatever extent. For once their private lives are identified with a greater source - and from it many derive new strength and vitality. Social barriers are dropped, economic positions forgotten. The range of private emotions is given greater, fuller, sweep.

In larger terms, it is as natural for a man to love a man, and for a woman to love a woman, as it is to show love for the opposite sex. For that matter, it is more natural to be bisexual.