“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Pause.) You can think in terms of experiments. You may try this or that. You may run from one religion to another, or from religion to science, or vice versa. This is true in a way that was impossible for the masses of the people in medieval times. The improved methods of communication alone mean that you are everywhere surrounded by varying theories, cultures, cults, and schools. In some important areas this means that the mechanics of experience are actually becoming more apparent, for they are no longer hidden beneath one belief system.

A person could neither be proud of personal achievement nor blamed for failure, since in large measure his characteristics, potentials, and lacks were seen as the result of chance, heredity, and of unconscious mechanisms over which he seemingly had little control. The devil went underground, figuratively speaking, so that many of his mischievous qualities and devious characteristics were assigned to the unconscious. Man was seen as divided against himself — a conscious figurehead, resting uneasily above the mighty haunches of unconscious beastliness. He believed himself to be programmed by his heredity and early environment, so that it seemed he must be forever unaware of his own true motives.⁴