“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

The political arena was the practical working realm in which those ideals were to find fruition. Hitler’s idea of good was hardly inclusive, therefore, and any actions, however atrocious, were justified.

How did Hitler’s initially wishy-washy undefined ideals of nationalistic goodness turn into such a world catastrophe? The steps were the ones mentioned earlier (in a number of sessions in Part 3), as those involved with any cult. Hitler’s daydreams became more and more grandiose, and in their light, the plight of his country seemed worsened with each day’s events. He counted its humiliations over and over in his mind, until his mind became an almost completely closed environment, in which only certain ideas were allowed entry.

(Pause at 10:00.) Both reacted as groups, rather than as individuals, generally speaking now. For all of their idealisms, both basically believed in a pessimistic view of the self. It was because Hitler was so convinced of the existence of evil in the individual psyche, that he set up all of his rules and regulations to build up and preserve “Aryan purity.” The Jews’ idea was also a dark one, in which their own rules and regulations were set to preserve the soul’s purity against the forces of evil. And while in the Jewish books [of The Old Testament] Jehovah now and then came through with great majesty to save his chosen people, he also allowed them to suffer great indignities over long periods of time, seeming to save them only at the last moment — and this time, so it seemed, he did not save them at all. What happened?

(Long pause.) Despite himself, and despite his followers, Hitler brought to flower (long pause) a very important idea, and one that changed your history. (Pause.) All of the most morbid of nationalistic fantasies that had been growing for centuries, all of the most grandiose celebrations of war as a nation’s inalienable right to seek domination, focused finally in Hitler’s Germany.

The nation served as an example of what could happen in any country if the most fanatical nationalism was allowed to go unchecked, if the ideas of right were aligned with might, if any nation was justified in contemplating the destruction of others.

(10:27.) At what expense is “the good” to be achieved — and whose idea of the good is to be the criterion? Man’s pursuit of the good, to some extent now, fathered the Inquisition and the Salem witch hunts. Politically, many today believe that Russia is “the enemy,” and that therefore any means may be taken to destroy that country. Some people within the United States believe fervently that “the establishment” is rotten to the core, and that any means is justified to destroy it. Some people believe that homosexuals and lesbians are “evil,” that somehow they lack the true qualities of humanness [and therefore need not be treated with normal respect]. These are all value judgments involving your ideas of the good.

(10:41. Now Seth came through with a little information for Jane and me, then ended the session at 10:45 P.M. “When the session started I had no idea at all that he was going to talk about Hitler and Germany,” Jane said. “None at all. But I did know he was going to go into the good and the bad.”

(The scientist Seth referred to is a professor of physics Jane heard from early last month. He’d posed some intriguing questions about Seth’s ideas of the “true” nature of the universe, and in the nonbook session for April 30 [the 849th], Seth had given a few paragraphs of material in a partial answer.)