“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Since giving the 848th session for Mass Events, on April 11, Seth has devoted three sessions to personal affairs that Jane and I have let go for a long time. Then he gave over last Monday night’s “regular” 849th session to subjects he’s not dealing with in this book.

(Jane held the session later than usual this evening because at 9:00 we began watching the first half hour of a made-for-television movie that was aired on one of the major networks. Today — just in time — we’d received a letter from a young lady who played a supporting role in the film. We saw her in several scenes, and Jane will be writing to her.

Give us a moment… Let us look at the many forms idealism can take. Sometimes it is difficult to identify idealists, because they wear such pessimistic clothing that all you can see are the patterns of a sardonic nature, or of irony. On the other hand, many who speak most glowingly, in the most idealistic fashions, underneath are filled with the darkest aspects of pessimism and despair. If you are idealists, and if you feel relatively powerless in the world at the same time, and if your idealism is general and grandiose, unrelated to any practical plans for its expression, then you can find yourself in difficulties indeed. Here are a few specific examples of what I mean.

He cited many instances of nefarious acts committed for money’s sake. A lively discussion resulted, but no countering opinion could enter this man’s mind. Roger, let us call him, is an idealist at heart, but he believes that the individual has little power in the world, and so he did not pursue his personal idealism in the events of his own life. “Everyone is a slave to the system.” That is his line of belief. He took a routine job in a local business and stayed with it for over 20 years, all of the time hating to go to work, or saying that he did, and at the same time refusing to try other areas of activity that were open to him — because he was afraid to try.

(10:14.) Fanatics are inverted idealists. Usually they are vague grandiose dreamers, whose plans almost completely ignore the full dimensions of normal living. They are unfulfilled idealists who are not content to express idealism in steps, one at a time, or indeed to wait for the practical workings of active expression. They demand immediate action. They want to make the world over in their own images (louder). They cannot bear the expression of tolerance or opposing ideas. They are the most self-righteous of the self-righteous, and they will sacrifice almost anything — their own lives or the lives of others. They will justify almost any crime for the pursuit of those ends.

In the meantime, he looks with horror and disgust at the older men who have worked there for years, “getting drunk on Saturday nights, thinking only of the narrow world of their families,” and he is determined that the same thing will not happen to him. He has been “called down” several times for “things that everyone else does,” though he protests that no one else is caught. His mood was despondent. At the same time he did not consider trying to go to college, to get a scholarship or whatever, to better his knowledge in the field of his choice. He doesn’t want to leave town, which is the place of his birth, to find a better job; nor does it occur to him to try and understand better the experiences of his fellow workers. He doesn’t believe that he can change the world by beginning where he is, and yet he is afraid to count upon his own abilities by giving them a practical form of expression.

(Jane’s delivery had been good, almost driving, throughout the session; just about as fast as I could write most of the time. “I’m so glad to get back on the book,” she said. “I know I’ve done it with every Seth book — wondering what he’ll talk about, how he’ll handle this or that…. I remember those examples about the idealists, and the new commandment he gave. I didn’t have any of that in mind before the session — but at my table tonight I did get some things from him that he never mentioned….”)

Small amounts of radiation are still leaking from the plant, and Pennsylvania and federal health agencies have announced long-range studies of its effects upon the human and animal populations living nearby. At the same time, Jane and I hear and read conflicting and confusing reports on the whole business at TMI. True or false, we wonder: There never was any danger that the bubble of radioactive hydrogen gas in the core of the disabled reactor would explode; there never was any danger of a meltdown of the core’s uranium fuel; an act of sabotage against the reactor’s primary cooling system set in motion the whole chain of unfortunate events, with their national and worldwide repercussions….