“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Good evening.

(“Good evening, Seth.”)

I said before that no man acts out of the desire to be evil, but has always justified to himself his actions precisely by his own “good” intent. If envy is felt it is not acknowledged. The religious area in general, from time immemorial, has dealt intensely and sometimes one-mindedly with “the good ideal.” That ideal, however, different in one area than in another, was usually self-righteously applied with a vengeance and fanatical zest, so that all things outside it were seen as evil.

The more narrow and strict your conceptions of the good become, the larger and more threatening the “powers of evil” seem to grow.

This applies regardless of the guises that such narrowness might take. In such concepts any natural goodness, or natural intent in man becomes not only invisible psychologically to the fanatic, but man’s natural nature appears as a direct threat to the ideal projected by dogma of any kind.

I will have a brief session because of the week’s circumstances—but also because I want each of you, by our next regular session, to reread the material thus far. That is just as important, for I do not want it to fade into the background of your attention. You can learn to reinforce each other’s courage, good nature, and optimism. You can help each other by reminding the other at various times to return to the moment’s prime data.

“Unknown” Reality will do very well. I am pleased with it. Your own abilities, on your part (to me), outweighed the considerable negative projections. Now when you act, as when at various times you encountered Prentice with definite complaints, or requests, there you were making a positive response to a specific condition, with good results.

Now I bid you a fond good evening. And when I get you set, we will go on to our book, and any other philosophical material you are interested in. End of session.