“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Consciousness is not basically built upon those precepts of good and evil that so presently concern you. [...] This does not mean that in your system, and in some others, these problems do not exist and that good is not preferable to the evil. It simply means that the soul knows that good and evil are but different manifestations of a far greater reality.

Now: Good evening.

(“Good evening, Seth.”)

[...] (Quietly:) Your attitudes toward sleep, dreams, or any alterations of consciousness are all colored to some extent then by beliefs concerning good and evil in your Western society. These emerge from the old Puritan work ethic: “The devil finds evil work for idle hands.”

[...] Such ideas are mirrored in your society in innumerable fashions, and in areas in which values of good and evil are not apparent. Active sports are considered good, however, but often contrasted to passive intuitive activities which are then seen as bad.

[...] Yet beneath, the inner self is quite aware of the great thrusting creativity that occurs in dreams, and realizes that the source of individual energy has nothing to do with such superficial concepts as the nature of good and evil.

[...] Your ideas of good and evil as applied to health and illness are highly important, for instance. [...]

[...] Often white is considered pure, and black impure, white good and black evil.

Good evening.

[...] In basic terms they are no more good or evil than the wind is. I say this because you usually imagine that if something is good, there must be a countering force that is evil. [...] In greater terms these forces are good. [...]

[...] There are, then, “spirits” of all natural things — but unfortunately, even when you consider such possibilities you project your own religious ideas of good and evil upon them. [...]

Good evening.

[...] He convinced that portion that the old beliefs about good and evil, self-destruction, and the existence of the Catholic devil, were not valid. [...]

[...] She talked him out of his nuclear-arms policies, and out of the devil — and evil — idea. [...]

[...] I rubbed Jane’s right temple at her request, and got a good reaction when I pulled my finger away finally: “I feel so light — it’s great. [...]

[...] As James said in Ruburt’s book,¹ “The universe is of good intent.” It is automatically predisposed, again, toward the creation of “good” events. I put the word “good” in quotes for now because of your misconceptions about the nature of good and evil, which we will discuss somewhat later.²

2. Jane and I are really looking forward to Seth’s material on man’s “misconceptions about the nature of good and evil.” [...]

[...] He is very active now on other levels, and is putting our material to good use. A fond good evening.

Now: Your beliefs about what is desirable and what is not, what is good and what is evil, cannot be divorced from the condition of your body. Your own ideas of values can help you achieve good health or bring about disease, can bring into your experience success or failure, happiness or sadness. [...] You will have definite ideas about what success or failure means, or what good or evil is.

[...] If you think, “Aha, then from now on I will only think good thoughts — and therefore be healthy, and inhibit my ‘bad’ thoughts, or do anything at all with them but think them,” then in your own way you are doing what Augustus did. He began by believing that some of his thoughts were so evil that they must somehow be made nonexistent. [...]

HEALTH, GOOD AND BAD THOUGHTS, AND THE BIRTH OF “DEMONS”

[...] It does not bother thinking in your terms of good and evil. [...]

While this may seem like the sheerest Pollyanna, nevertheless there is no evil in basic terms. This does not mean that you do not meet with effects that appear evil, but as you each move individually through the dimensions of your own consciousness, you will understand that all seeming opposites are other faces of the one supreme drive toward creativity.

Now: Good evening.

(Eddie Albert calls again today telling me he just finished Speaks, asking about world problems, starvation, good and evil, etc. [...]

(Long pause at 9:25.) Some other civilizations have believed that illness was sent by demons or evil spirits, and that the world was full of good and bad spirits, invisible, intermixed with the elements of nature itself, and that man had to walk a careful line lest he upset the more dangerous or mischievous of those entities. In man’s history there have been all kinds of incantations, meant to mollify the evil spirits that man believed were real in fact and in religious truth.

[...] Tonight’s material, however, adds to our understanding of subjects like free will and choosing, good and evil, sickness and health, and reflects upon many questions people have asked us over the years.

(Whispering:) Good evening.

Man is of good intent. When you see evil everywhere in man’s intent — in your own actions and those of others — then you set yourself up against your own existence, and that of your kind. [...] You will not see man’s good intent, or you will do so ironically — for in comparison with your ideals, good in the world appears to be so minute as to be a mockery.

The people who died were idealists — perfectionists of exaggerated quality, whose very desire for the good was tainted and distorted by those beliefs just mentioned. For those beliefs must gradually shut out perception of good from experience.³

Good evening.

[...] It takes a while to understand who and what you are, and while you are learning it is often very handy to have someone else tell you and say you are this and so, you can do this and this and this and this is good and this is bad, as you indeed tell children. And so you do not have to ask yourself questions and you do not, yourself, have to probe the nature of good and evil because you accept what has been told you. [...]

[...] You were like a child with a new toy, and how could it be as good as you supposed and where was the hidden blemish, and so you have been looking for the hidden blemish. [...]

[...] Until you can honor and love yourselves you cannot honor nor love anything else or anyone else, and as long as you see yourselves as guilty, then you will see guilt in every other person you look at, and you will see evil in the nature of reality. [...]

[...] Your ideas of good and evil affect not only your behavior with others, but your activity in a community and in the world at large.

If life is seen as good in this system of belief, then youth is viewed as the crowning glory, from which summit there is no further journey except descent. The old are not granted characteristics of wisdom, but feared as evil, bad, undesirable or frightening. [...]

Good evening.

[...] The mother had an absolute terror of cats, and considered them the personification of evil. [...] She was extremely unbalanced, the mother, emotionally, and considered her husband’s mother, who was a foolishly naive, good-natured and innocent thing, as a personification of evil.

[...] Her pace was good.)

Good evening.

(To Nadine.) It often occurs that those who have strong healing abilities focus upon illness and sickness and are obsessed with it in the same way that many ministers, given to thoughts of good and God, are obsessed with the idea of the devil and evil. [...] If you will forgive me, it is somewhat like a woman with very earthly desires, but strong abilities in that line, who rigorously refuses to use them and dwells instead on thoughts of their evil, holding them back simply because she realizes they are so strong. [...]

[...] Now, I am going to drink some of this, though it is not good brandy. It is good wine, but it is not good brandy. [...]

Now I bid you all good evening, and I bid a particular good evening to an old friend who has not been here in some time. [...]

[...] When you think in terms of possession, you are thinking again in antiquated terms of good and evil. [...]

[...] If you believe that abortion is evil and have one—it will be an evil. It is not basically evil, but that makes little difference to you if you believe that it is. [...]

[...] Now I am joking because I never could miss a good joke, so do not take that seriously. [...]

(“In this book, Seth leads the reader beyond conventional ideas of good and evil to a new framework of understanding. [...]

If you believe that hate is wrong and evil, and then find yourself hating someone, you may try to inhibit the emotion or turn it against yourself — raging against yourself rather than another. [...]

[...] All natural aggressive elements were denied in their natures, and any evidence of momentary hatred was considered evil and wrong. [...]

Ideas of good and evil are exaggerated, cut off from each other. [...]

What protection, then, but to effectively project these outside of the self — impulses of good as well as evil — and hence effectively block organized action?

(Whispering once again to start:) Good evening.

Forget ideas of good and evil for our discussion. For one thing, men who perform seemingly evil acts but who believe those acts to be right and justified, can be carried along in relative safety for some time before their errors catch up with them, because the power of their own self-approval is so strong.

Now, good evening.

(“Good evening. [...]

[...] One emotion is not good and another one evil.

Now give us a good long moment. [...]