“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Ideas of authority as represented by Ed were obviously involved. Jane actually reacted better to some of the things he said than I did, to her credit, but I’m sure we can do much better. Half the problem is that we don’t see the people often enough to begin with. Even after all this time, then, we can still be caught unprepared.

Academic people do like structures, and to some extent mass learning experiences of course require them. At certain times universities are avant-garde, and in other periods of history they are instead highly conservative. Contacts with so-called authorities are good for both of you, so that you can see that such authorities are simply people. You expect more of them than you do others, because you are still blinded by the ideas of authority.

You can best help in such situations by treating each person as an individual. Do not expect too much. To expect too much is to grant authority a basic authority that it does not possess.

Again, you both intended this. You knew it would be difficult. You began before our sessions even, in your private lives before you met. Many individuals come into a world for the purpose of changing it for the better, and there is no more efficient way of doing that than by the promotion of ideas—for no exterior altered circumstances can ever be applied from without unless the inner foundations have been laid.

Ruburt dislikes authority. He lived under the authority of Welfare, as well as the church. That dislike was to serve as an impetus, as it did, but the adult should see—the adult Ruburt—that there is no authority in those terms. There is nothing to fight in those terms. The authorities are simply people doing their best to preserve a status quo—with which many are already dissatisfied. Their authority becomes a trap for them, for to preserve it they must keep themselves in ignorance.