“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

([Florence:] “Because I am afraid to know.”)

Because you are not ready to know. I am not telling you this, as Ruburt would say, to put you down. You are far too intelligent not to realize, basically, what you are doing. I just want you to realize that I am intelligent enough to know what you are doing also. I did not say you were doing nothing. A small something to keep your finger in.

One small note. In some respects these pulsations represent what happens in some of your flying saucer incidents, for you do not often have a vehicle such as the vehicle that you perceive, or think that you perceive. Now I am speaking of only certain cases. In these cases you have visitors from other areas of actuality, other realities.

I am pleased because you are thinking yourselves this evening, and that is what I want you to do. Ideas have no reality unless you yourselves make them your own. Make friends of them or enemies of them. Fight with them or love them, but use them and experience them and meet them not only with your intellect but with your feelings.

You can, indeed, but do not deny the part of you that wanted to wring the other man’s neck. But you were so frightened of the thought that you immediately inhibited it. Now let us consider that thought and why were you so terrified of it. You were terrified of it because you are terrified of the idea that evil is more powerful than good, and that one stray violent thought of yours was more important and more powerful than the vitality of good. I am using your terms now. Now, say the following happened, at least you were aware of the thought, but say, in your terms, you progressed to the point where you were no longer aware of the feeling.

Now three weeks later we have another encounter and our poor ignorant workman falls asleep again at his chore and our good minister comes by and he looks and he sees the idle one upon the floor snoozing and he thinks, I would like to kick you in the you know where, but he thinks, oh no, I cannot think such an unChristian thought and violence is wrong, so before he even admits to himself what he feels and hiding from himself any acknowledgment of aggression. Instead, he bends down and says, my good man, et cetera, may you live long and hearty and God bless your life and then he pats himself on the back and thinks, I am growing more spiritual day by day. In the meantime, the muscles have contracted ten times because they could not be put into activity before, as the thought behind them was denied.

([Joel:] “Yes, what I am trying to get at is how I should have had, though in this hypothetical case, these feeling without trying to repress them and going through this.”)

(To Joel) Now you certainly understand that I am doing the same thing with you, in a different way, as I do with my very dear friend over here (Florence) in another way, so do not be offended. And I do not want any of you, you see, to use these ideas as superficial bandages to put over your bleeding psyches because these ideas can, on occasion, be used in a superficial manner.

I do not define bad and when I use the term, hopefully, I am using it according to your own inferior definition. Now you have some idea in your head that good is gentle and bad is violent and that no violence can be good and this is because in your mind, violence and destruction are the same thing. Now by this analogy, you see, the soft voice is the holy voice and the loud voice is the wicked voice and the firm step is the bad voice and the soft step is the good voice and a strong desire is the bad desire and a weak one the good one so that you become afraid of projecting ideas outward or desires outward, for in the back of your mind you think that what is powerful is evil and what is weak is good and must be protected and coddled and prayed for and begged for.

Instead, I am telling you that the universe is a good universe. That it knows its own vitality and that vitality is within you. You can encourage it freely. It does not need to be coddled. Your own nature is a good nature and you can trust it. Because something is difficult does not mean it is good.

Because I knew why you had come here, and I knew your wife would come here also, and I am not saying there is no free will. I am simply making a statement that is in the realm of probabilities.

It does, indeed, in your terms, but that knowledge is also available to you. Now we cannot cover one topic in an evening clearly, much less 101 topics. I am not Scheherazade nor am I a handy father image or a handy granddaddy image. In reference, however, to one remark you made earlier, you have always been involved strongly in what you would call religious endeavors in almost all lives. Those lives that were not involved with religious endeavors were religiously involved in the opposite endeavors, in your terms, and we will go into that later. The holy soul turned inside out is some fleshpot, let’s put it that way, but you have always been involved with questions concerning good and evil and you had two existences in two civilizations in Egypt. And in one of these your friend over here (Daniel) was involved. Now, I cannot go into that reincarnation this evening, it is too late, and you would not benefit from it for you are not ready, either of you. It is not a fascinating story to be told for your edification and enjoyment so I hope you will enjoy it when it comes, but it will help when you can understand it.

I am much more concerned, however, with your reaction to the material that Ruburt read this evening and with all of your reactions to it. Now if it seems to any of you that one class member is monopolizing a session, then remember what I have said earlier. The questions that are spoken here by one are the unspoken questions of many, and so it has seemed to many of you that you were in some way from your birth tinged by evil. And in one of your particular past lives you not only believed this but taught it, and you believed it heartily.

Now I am going to bid you a fond good evening.

I do not think much of those terms either. Think in terms of creativity. Your last try was horrendous. And (very loud voice) I will not tell you this is creative violence. Now, the very sound of my voice, as our dear friend knows, assaults the silence of the room and yet it is creative. And the vitality that sweeps through this form assaults the silence and yet it is creative. And that is what I want you to understand. Good, in your terms, can be as noisy as I can be noisy. And guilt can be a very silent and quiet and passive and gentle thing indeed. And that is what I want you to understand. And now, after having said good evening many times, out of the goodness of my heart, for I am not weary, I bid you once again a blessed and violent good evening.