“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

The President at the time, and through all of his life before (pause), was at heart a stern, repressed idealist of a rather conventionally religious kind. He believed in an idealized good, while believing most firmly and simultaneously that man was fatally flawed (loudly), filled with evil, more naturally given to bad rather than good intent. He believed in the absolute necessity of power, while convinced at the same time that he did not possess it; and further, he believed that in the most basic terms the individual was powerless to alter the devastating march of evil and corruption that he saw within the country, and in all the other countries of the world. No matter how much power he achieved, it seemed to him that others had more — other people, other groups, other countries — but their power he saw as evil. For while he believed in the existence of an idealized good, he felt that the wicked were powerful and the good were weak and without vigor.

(Pause.) No one is as fanatical, and no one can be more cruel, than the self-righteous. It is very easy for such persons “to become [religiously] converted” after such episodes (as Watergate), lining themselves up once more on the side of good, searching for “the power of fellowship,” turning to church rather than government, hearing in one way or another the voice of God.

Beneath all of the frustrations and upsets we may feel at their surface manifestations, Jane and I are caught up in the deeper meanings of events like those at Jonestown and TMI, for they represent great challenges that our species has set for itself, through this century and beyond. Science and religion must ultimately be reconciled if we are to progress. These challenges aren’t just national, of course, but worldwide: The scientific rationale embodied in TMI runs headlong into the western world’s reliance upon energy supplies — mainly oil — from nations that are largely religiously oriented, and that profess all kinds of antipathy for social orders other than their own. In our lifetimes Jane and I look forward to our species at least making a start at grappling with such large areas of its own activity as science and religion. We must come to terms with those challenges we’ve created — and are creating.