“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.”

Overall, whether or not you are conscious of it — for some of you are, and some of you are not — your lives do have a certain psychological shape. That shape is formed by your decisions. You make decisions as the result of feeling impulses to do this or that, to perform in one manner or another, in response to both private considerations and in regard to demands seemingly placed upon you by others. In the vast arena of those numberless probabilities open to you, you do of course have some guidelines. Otherwise you would always be in a state of indecision. Your personal impulses provide those guidelines by showing you how best to use probabilities so that you fulfill your own potential to greatest advantage — and [in] so doing, provide constructive help to the society at large.

Are laws made to protect man from the self as it is generally outlined by Freud and Darwin? Man had laws, however, far earlier. Are laws made then to protect man from his “sinful nature”? (Pause.) If you were all “perfect beings,” would you need laws at all? Do laws define what is unacceptable, or do they hint of some perhaps undifferentiated, barely sensed, more positive issues? Are laws an attempt to limit impulses? Do they represent society’s mass definitions of what behavior is acceptable and what is not?

(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.