“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Whispering:) Good evening.

(“Good evening, Seth.”)

(Pause.) Perhaps an analogy will help. An actor throwing himself or herself into a role, even momentarily lost in the part, is still alive and functioning as himself or herself in a context that is larger than the play. The character in the play is seemingly alive (creatively) for the play’s duration, perception being limited to that framework, yet to play that role the actor draws upon the experience of his own life. He brings to bear his own understanding, compassion, artistry, and if he is a good actor, or if she is, then when the play is over the actor is a better person for having played the role.

(“Okay, Seth. No questions. That was very good.”)

I bid you a fond good evening.

(“Thank you. Good night.”)

Through the centuries philosophical and religious thinkers have created numerous complicated variations of ideas involving free will and determinism, so that neither thesis is as simple as it first appears to be. Man related the concept of free will long ago to the question of whether he could deliberately choose evil, for example. He still does. And he still struggles with questions about his freedom before God’s omnipotence and foreknowledge, and whether those qualities cause events, or can cause them, and whether they involve predestination. Opposing determinism is the idea that man has always fought for his personal responsibility—that instead of being controlled entirely by his heritage, he’s capable of forming new syntheses of thought and action based upon the complicated patterns of his own history.