“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

A few remarks. (Humorously:) When you are picketed (in NYC) by fanatics, you must be doing something right.

By going to extremes fanatics point out to others the virtue of more moderate ways, and their actions actually make others with the same kind of persuasion evaluate their own beliefs. I realize the impracticality of asking anyone in physical life to bear no human rancor. It is futile. On the other hand, when you look at your fellows, try to see them as they are in all respects—as you would, say, a group of individual animals. Do not always compare them against any ideals—ideals superimposed by you, or anyone, upon others.

People act as they do for their own reasons, yet each person also is to one extent or another an example of certain kinds of characteristics.

(Since I liked him—Michael— as we talked, I sat on the front steps for a few minutes with him. Our neighbor Marian came by, looking for her dog; she stopped to talk to us. By then over half an hour had passed. I gave up on the session. Jane laughed inside the house. We invited our guest in for a beer. He was from Port Arthur, Texas. He was quite intelligent, a musician who had written an “opera,” he told us. Like a number of our other recent callers, he was traveling around the country, seemingly free of all ties, doing odd jobs on occasion, but living on little money. In a way I envied them. Michael had no place to stay, regardless of the weather.

(He stayed until about 12:20 AM, then left, bound for where?.... Jane said the next day that we should have offered him shelter, but I didn’t feel any compulsion to do so. I did think that practically all of our unannounced visitors were young people because the Seth material attracted them much more easily than older generations. I thought it a good sign, actually, since these young people would one day be playing roles in society; at least, I thought, they’d have been exposed to what we thought were good ideas in their formative years.

If you want our books in toto to sell far better, you have only to send out such messages, and imagine them doing so.

I suggest that first of all you ask yourselves what you really want, and what you really believe. (Amused:) I will tell you what you want, my dear friend: you want the books to sell very well, and the message to go out clearly to all. As long as you are not bothered, as long as you do not have to mix with fools—the same fools who compose the various psychological, scientific, or medical societies—the same fools whom you sometimes say do not bother contacting you as long as the Enquirer, that rag, does not annoy you for interviews, and as long as people are not personally affected enough to bother you in any immediate fashion.

It is beside the point to become angry at those who buy the Seth books and not Ruburt’s. Those people do the best they can. Their understanding goes so far at this time. Some of them will go into Ruburt’s books. I said it was beside the point—but beyond that it is somewhat self-defeating. They need encouragement. They act, of course, from their own reasons. Yet your attitudes jointly can telepathically tempt them to Ruburt’s books—or help reinforce their own reluctance.

I am in my way rather pragmatic about the world. I do not expect all people to be wise. I do expect all people to be different, to display abilities and characteristics of a highly diverse nature, and to be highly creative. They try to be creative.

I mention this so often because, again, I do not want either of you to become self-righteous, for such an attitude narrows any road. The fanatic becomes engrossed in one overall issue. To a lesser degree those who become too concerned with the world’s shortcomings can begin to see nothing but a one-sided one.

If you worry about probable future threats, you lose some of that natural safety. If you do that as a matter of course, you not only lose the safety, but project threat into the future. Sometimes in extreme cases no threatful situations are even necessary. To some extent or another, with the beliefs of your society, people react in just that fashion, and have physical ailments or mental anxieties of one kind or another.

(To me:) For all of your complaints, if you will forgive me, you have exactly what you want from Prentice. They are distant from you. You do not want them breathing down your neck. You might find yourselves amazingly uncomfortable, despite what you think your reaction would be, if Prentice suddenly began initiating publicity campaigns, ad campaigns.

Give us a moment.... Your feelings about the books will only change as your joint feelings about the world and your fellows change—so then there will be no problem. Do you follow me?