“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Now I want you all to know, and it will please you no end, that you have an authority present, for I was a pope in 300 AD. I was not a very good pope.

However, there is something that you should know. Because you are physically oriented, you early got it into your heads that goodness must have a place in the physical universe and evil must have a place within it. And so you set up for yourselves the division of Heaven and Hell. In one story or another, it has existed far back into the annals of your time. Now give us a moment.

As I have tried to explain to you, the rigorous concepts of good and evil are themselves highly distorted, and when you find such a dilemma where goodness is one thing and evil another, and both contrary and separate, then you automatically separate them in your minds and in your feelings and in your fantasies. You do not seem at this point able to realize that what you call evil works for what you call good, or that both are a part of energy, and that you are using energy to form your reality, both now and after this life. This is because you deal with effects physically, as you see them. And until you divest yourself of such psychological behavior, it will always seem to you that good and evil are opposites, and you will treat them as such in your feelings and in your concepts and in your myths.

([Ron L:] “Is it ever justified to do evil for the sake of good?”)

([Ron:] “In other words, in this reality we are faced with decisions in this context, is it true that our decisions can be only constructive and good or destructive and evil?”)

([Ron. :] “Well, I have a question that I know I’m going to form after I read the script, and that is that your response was that my question was only meaningful in the terms that I use. So for you, how do you conceive of good and evil in your own reality?”)

There is no destruction and there is no evil. But while you believe that there is, then you must act accordingly. While you believe that to murder a man is to destroy his consciousness forever, then you cannot murder, and in your terms it is an evil.

([Ron:] “Well then I have to disagree with you. I think that even in the way we look at it now that there is destruction, which is evil...”)

(To Theodore.) Active peace in your direction over there and be glad that you aroused the sort of response in our friend here (Brady) that you did. It was good for both of you.

(To Ron) I egg—listen to me—I egg you on. It is good for you and good for the class and very good for this one over here (Florence), because you ask questions that she is already thinking of, and for some reason she has suddenly grown timid about her questions. Now, continue.

([Ron:] “I was just saying that no evil can be justified on the basis of the greater good.”

Not. (Pause) I do not like your term. Now. Any such intervention would only occur on the part of a personality who was, for the present time, physical. As indeed mentioned last week, the villain in a religious drama would be a creative figure. But he would exist historically in your time and not, for example, be a ghost whispering in the night. There are no creatures whispering evil in your ear.

(During break, Ron got into a discussion with Brady about good and evil and forces involved.)

No! There are no forces outside of yourselves that in your terms cause you to do evil. Unfortunately, what you think of as good and evil reside within yourselves, and you cannot blame an evil force for the destruction that runs rampant across the earth. Again, in your terms, these are your problems, and no god or devil put them upon you, and there is no one to blame but yourselves. On the other hand, for the seasons and the idiot flower (looks at Joel H.), you have yourselves to thank. You are learning how to use the creative energy of which you are a part, and you are indeed quite isolated, so you cannot do much harm, in your terms. And so that the evil that you think you do is an illusion. And so that for the millions that you think you slay, you slay not one. And so that despite you and your concepts of value, creativity always emerges triumphant, and those that are killed in one war come back to fight against war the next time, and hopefully, you teach yourselves some lessons. And if you destroy your planet, you will have others to work with, and those that were destroyed are not destroyed. You are in a training system. The mistakes in the long run, and in your terms, will not count, but they are very real to you at this time.

Now. For a while I was not in Rome, but held my religious call elsewhere. I wrote two Church laws. It should all go to show you that some good ends up from everything. I died of trouble with my stomach because I was such a glutton. My name was not Clement (to Theodore), though Clement is a lovely name. I was originally called Protonius. Now give me a moment. The last name is not nearly so clear, and this is not my papal name, but my, if you will forgive the term, common name. Meglemanius. The third. From a small village. Unless I summon the self that I was at that time, the memories for details are not that clear. But as I now recall them, without directly checking on our friend the pope, who has, you must understand, gone his own way, I am coming as close as I can. We did not have as many guards at that time, but we had many stolen paintings and jewels of great merit. Now some of these jewels, as well as the money, went for expeditions that you do not realize were adopted at that time, having to do with commerce and ships sent through Africa, and this interest had to do with my later life when I was involved with the oregano. My sniffing goes back for centuries.

We had not yet begun the strong insistence upon indulgences (looks at Brady), so I did not have that extra cash that indulgences would bring in. (To Theodore) I believed and did not believe, as you earlier believed and did not believe, and did a good job of hiding from myself what I believed and what I did not believe. And the higher one gets in power, the harder it is to hide such things from one’s self.