“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

In Mass Events, along with TMI Seth had discussed the tragedy of Jonestown—where in November 1978 over 900 Americans had died [by murder or suicide] for a religious cause in faraway Guyana, South America. Last night I realized that in these notes for Dreams I also wanted to refer to the religious revolution in Iran while reminding the reader of the events in Jonestown. For to me, and to Jane also, I’m sure, Three Mile Island and Jonestown-Iran represent powerful extremes or directions in large-scale human behavior: certain aspects of religion and science seemingly at opposite poles of the human psyche, as it were.

Within the context of Islamic culture, law is intrinsically religious law; there is no real separation of state and church unless by force. Iran seethes. Many hundreds have died in bitter internal factional disputes. Under the clergy this year several hundred others have already been executed as Islamic law is enforced, and thousands more are to die. Last February some 70 Americans were taken hostage when a mob of Marxist-led Iranian fedayeen [or sacrificers] overran the United States embassy in Iran’s capital, Tehran. The captives were quickly freed by secular negotiators loyal to the Iranian clergy, but certainly that kind of virulent anti-Americanism can happen again. Our citizens began a large-scale evacuation of Iran by air, as did those of several other Western countries. The official and unofficial call has gone out from millions of Iranian throats to purge the country of all Western thought….

(Long pause at 9:26.) There is, beneath it all, an important unity, a sense of communion, as one portion of earth’s living consciousness dies to insure the continued life of all nature. That natural sacrament, however, turns into something else entirely when the gift is so misunderstood, and when the donor is treated so poorly….