“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Fanatics certainly serve a purpose, and actually they help maintain overall equilibrium of society by serving as examples to others, who often have some of the same beliefs but are of a less explosive nature.

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.

Though the fanatic may make much noise in the world, he is actually isolated from all of the world’s ideas except his own. Anything else is seen as a threat. He does not allow the development of his concepts or beliefs, for example. They stop at one particular point—and at that point he wages his battle against reality.

The varying and various fanatical groups, such as, for example, the anti-homosexual Florida contingent, are in a way quite natural and necessary in your country. They serve as focus points for others who have the same ideas but are afraid to really face them or admit their beliefs. A former Miss America does it for them.

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.

They depend upon conventional authorities for relief. Ruburt was working beyond such authority, and yet his own sense of safety and value had not grown sufficiently so that he could depend upon his own newer beliefs, either. To that extent he carried a double burden, or accepted a double challenge. The entire condition, regardless, was caused by tension of a steady nature. Its original beginnings were in the head area. That is where the tension began.

Give us a moment.... You were correct: the people that are most affected are the young people. Many of them, beginning professions in a few years, will start with far better beliefs than in the past. It does little good in certain terms to affect the current power structure (somewhat humorously)—but instead to anticipate the future makers of the world.

The important point, however, is that if you are not honest with your own feelings and beliefs, then you feel victimized by the society who will not buy your books. You feel more apart from it. Ruburt imagines himself more isolated, and at the same time threatened. You are always better off building bridges to others, in whatever way is natural to you.

I understand that you can feel annoyed by guests. You should not realistically feel threatened by them. You can feel irritated, angry at times even—but if you feel threatened, your feelings are based upon beliefs of an overexaggerated kind. It is simply a matter of discrimination.