“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Long pause at 9:41.) Your religions have been largely patterned from such self-disapproving bases. The thrust of your civilizations has been concerned with manipulating nature. Your latest snowstorm is an excellent example. Not only of nature’s power and its effects upon civilization, but it also provides you with a very small hint of the other side of the picture, for man despite himself has not lost entirely that identification with the elements. People still feel a part of nature’s power. Storms often, oddly enough it seems, bring out a feeling of adventuresomeness and neighborliness, because people are united—not against nature, as they may think, but by it. The good skier feels a part of the snowy hill, yet most skiers feel that the hill must be conquered. When you take a walk, you usually think of walking through nature, not realizing that you are a part of the scene through which you walk. The loss of a real, sensed, appreciated identification with nature has been largely responsible, however, for man’s attitude that self-disapproval is somehow a virtue.

When you look for “what is wrong,” you are feeding self-disapproval. When you are looking for the reasons behind a condition, that is different. The two attitudes, while they may seem similar, are really quite opposite in their intent and effect. Ruburt recognized self-disapproval today (after her nap). He saw that the feeling itself was the culprit. He disapproved of himself because of his condition, or so he thought, and he has felt that way often. The self-disapproval causes the condition, however, and not the other way around. This got through to him.

You spoke of the pendulum (at last break). Again, labels are somewhat implicated, for you each thought you worked well with the pendulum, but that Ruburt did not. It can be used most effectively and in the past at times Ruburt used it well, particularly with your help—largely because he believed it necessary. Make sure you do not look for what is wrong, however, but for reasons behind behavior.