“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

The Christ figure represents the exaggerated, idealized version of the inner self that the individual feels incapable of living up to. He feels he is being crucified by his own abilities. He may—or of course she may—on other occasions receive messages from the devil, or demons, which on their part represent the person’s feelings about the physical self that seems to be so evil and contradictory in contrast to the idealistic image. Again, there is great variety of behavior here.

Jehovah and the Christian version of God brought about a direct conflict between the so-called forces of good and the so-called forces of evil by largely cutting out all of the intermediary gods, and therefore destroying the subtle psychological give-and-take that occurred between them—among them—and polarizing man’s own view of his inner psychological reality.

The next natural step would be to reassimilate those portions of the self, to acknowledge their ancient origins and abilities, to return them so that they form a new coating, as it were, or a new version of selfhood. It is as if (pause) man could not understand his own potentials unless he projected them outward into a godhead, where he could see them in a kind of isolated pure form, recognize them for what they are, and then accept them—the potentials—as a part of his own psychological reality (all very intently). As a species, however, you have not taken the last step. Your idea of the devil represents the same kind of process, except that it stands for your idea of evil or darkness, or abilities that you are afraid of. They also stand for elements of your own potential. I am not speaking of evil possibilities, but that man must realize that he is responsible for his acts, whether they are called good or evil.

You make your own reality, Man’s “evil” exists because of his misunderstanding of his own ideals, because of the gap that seems to exist between the ideal and its actualization. Evil actions, in other words, are the result of ignorance and misunderstanding. Evil is not a force in itself.