“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Once again now, Jane was quite relaxed. She had been most of the day, and by supper time she’d even thought of skipping the session. The situation wasn’t without its humorous aspects, however, for Seth himself seemed eager to go: As we sat for the session Jane said she was getting material from him on several topics. “Over there — to my left — he’s talking about the limitations of our kind of personality. That is, why would we say we’re limited if we didn’t feel there was more to begin than we usually think there is?” It was another of those ideas that are quite obvious, once mentioned. Jane was also picking up on Seth’s dictation for tonight. “But I don’t care what he talks about,” she said, “as long as he starts out with something and keeps me going.”

(Pause.) You live surrounded by impulses. You must make innumerable decisions in your lives — must choose careers, mates, cities of residence. Experience can help you make decisions, but you make decisions long before you have years of experience behind you.

(Long pause.) Those natural impulses, followed, will automatically lead to political and social organizations that become both tools for individual development and implements for the fulfillment of the society. Impulses then would follow easily, in a smooth motion, from private action to social import. When you are taught to block your impulses, and to distrust them, then your organizations become clogged. You are left with vague idealized feelings of wanting to change the world for the better, for example — but you are denied the personal power of your own impulses that would otherwise help direct that idealism by developing your personal abilities. You are left with an undefined, persisting, even tormenting desire to do good, to change events, but without having any means at your disposal to do so. This leads to lingering frustration, and if your ideals are strong the situation can cause you to feel quite desperate.

Most criminals act out of a sense of despair. Many have high ideals, but ideals that have never been trusted or acted upon. They feel powerless, so that many strike out in self-righteous anger or vengeance against a world that they see as cynical, greedy, perverted. They have concentrated upon the great gaps that seem to exist between their ideals of what man should be, and their ideas of what man is.

I do not want to romanticize criminals, or justify their actions. I do want to point out that few crimes are committed for “evil’s sake,” but in a distorted response to the failure of the actualization of a sensed ideal.

(10:32 P.M. Jane’s delivery had often been fast and impassioned, even with the indicated pauses. She’s begun to slow up toward session’s end, though. “There’s more there, but I got so I couldn’t get it,” she said, referring to her very relaxed state, which she still enjoyed. “But I feel this generalized material, then Seth zeros in on it specifically. I think that the session tonight was one of those concentrated ones, where you get a lot in a short time….” I told her she’d done well.)