“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

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.

Topside, those people see themselves as a tiny group crying in the wilderness, unrecognized, unheeded, prophets to whom no one will listen. To some extent the murderer in whom they are so interested (Son of Sam) sees himself in the same light. These are pseudo-intellectuals all, murderer included—people with some abilities, however, but pretenders to crowns. They are seeking for a positive cause to rally about, but their beliefs and self-deceptions make this impossible.

Your approach has been the correct one. Here is something objective that signifies what Ruburt once thought of as the threatening world. Fanatics differ from other people obviously only in degree. They are extreme versions.

The world is composed of individuals. It is therefore unrealistic to expect, say, wholesale criticism—or, for that matter, wholesale praise. It is a give-and-take world. In those terms, now, there is an open forum, and within it you make your own reality. No one is going to mistake Ruburt for a fanatic, or a psychic nut, or whatever. He can see through this experience how such people behave. He cannot remotely be considered in that framework—except by fanatics, who are already within it.

(9:57.) The world is not leaping to listen to those people. In a news-hungry city, they will remain without headlines. Quality is respected more than you realize. If you try to retire from the world in whatever fashion, then it is easy to exaggerate such threats, while never encountering one, or giving yourself the opportunity of easily conquering it.

When ideals are set more or less artificially, greatly divorced from man’s nature, he cannot begin to live up to them. Usually these are, for one thing, too narrow and sterile. The ensuing guilt is the power that turns such a person into a fanatic. I hope to teach you a tolerance for others, for this will ensure the greatest development of your own abilities, and will also give you a more realistic view of the world.

At your level it is perfectly all right if you want to call those people nincompoops or asses. In those terms they deserve it. It is not all right to imagine that their kind speaks for the hostile world, or that they represent the views of many people. I am speaking now of this particular group. The homosexual episode mentioned the other day does represent a considerable number of people, in one way, for it shows them their own ideas, but exaggerated.

Nerves are stimulated so that the areas of the body become more alive and responsive to energies that can be overlooked in the face of cultural or secondary events. Few threats are directly physical in comparison with all of the imagined or actual social or cultural ones. The body is usually not fighting for its life. If secondary threats are concentrated upon, however, the body dares not relax. The reflexology greatly awakens the body, and is beginning to dissolve the physical armor.

(10:42.) Give us a moment.... I am hopefully leading you along a road, and I believe that you have each examined your beliefs more lately than you have in some time. Ruburt’s condition is definitely reversible. That fact follows all of the other information I have ever given you philosophically. Your individual and joint feelings about threat have to one extent or another made Ruburt believe that he needed that protection.