“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Pause.) Very few people really act, again, from an evil intent. Any unfortunate situations in the fields of medicine, science, or religion result not from any determined effort to sabotage the “idea,” but instead happen because men often believe that any means is justified in the pursuit of the ideal.

You will often condone quite reprehensible acts if you think they were committed for the sake of a greater good. You have a tendency to look for outright evil, to think in terms of “the powers of good and evil,” and I am quite sure that many of my readers are convinced of evil’s force. Evil does not exist in those terms, and that is why so many seemingly idealistic people can be partners in quite reprehensible actions, while telling themselves that such acts are justified, since they are methods toward a good end.

(Long pause at 9:32.) That is why fanatics feel justified in their (underlined) actions. When you indulge in such black-and-white thinking, you treat your ideals shabbily. Each act that is not in keeping with that ideal begins to unravel the ideal at its very core. As I have stated [several times], if you feel unworthy, or powerless to act, and if you are idealistic, you may begin to feel that the ideal exists so far in the future that it is necessary to take steps you might not otherwise take to achieve it. And when this happens, the ideal is always eroded. If you want to be a true practicing idealist, then each step that you take along the way must be worthy of your goal.