“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Think of the slides shown today (by Loren) of postcard Tunkhannock, Pennsylvania, USA, home of conventional, American, Protestant values. I am (underlined) generalizing here to make a point: a largely postcard land, in which social clichés pass for communication, in which social ceremonies take the place of private communications—a land in which beliefs must be like landmarks, unchanging, utterly dependable, always there to be used for touchstones lest the puritanical Protestant stray from worthy goals. A land in which things must be judged thus-and-so, a land in which people disappear as much as possible into established family and social roles, where the lines are clearly marked.

Not to work at an ordinary job, or at a clearly defined occupation, has always had a tint of European decadence to Americans—and that is to some extent the result of the early Protestants’ attitude toward the wealthy, robed gentlemen of the late medieval, Roman Catholic Church.

You are afraid you will be thought of as a gentleman of leisure—at the worst a moral crime most certainly in light of the beliefs that originated at the time the Protestants first abandoned the Roman Catholic Church.

I want to rid you of any lingering misconceptions, but you still have a lingering belief that your old ideas about money and the male have some kind of high moral value. (Louder:) The Protestants have always thought that artists were decadent, that contemplation was dangerous, and that leisure was a crime. (With continuing amusement:) To enjoy your work was suspect—and if you enjoy unconventionality of mind, some leisure in which to contemplate the world about you, then it is about time that you dismissed such parochial concepts, and realized that there is no moral rectitude given them.

There is a long history connected with such American Puritan beliefs about morality, having to do with the fact that medieval priests were sometimes licentious, and opulent. They did not work in the field (except for the poor monks), and the Protestants determined, for example, that their ministers would have families, work with the people, and be too busy for licentious leisure activities.

(Long pause.) In the past eras of history, as you know, artists had patrons, but your society has not learned to deal with its creative people. It underpays them, ignores them, or extravagantly overpays them. They never fit that Protestant work ethic, and the very idea of a creative mind has not fit in—so far, at least—with the overall patterns of the society in terms of religion or science.

(“I started to get some material from Seth right after breakfast. I felt as if it were being gently inserted into my mind and that for some reason I became aware of it. It’s as if this often happens, material being inserted and then “stacked up” or stored there for, say, the next session. For a few minutes, five or more, I was aware of quite a bit of material on work, and the Protestant mainstream [as separate from, say, Emerson or James or Thoreau, even]. Thought I’d write it down and told Rob some of it. Now though, I just remember the subject matter more or less; now I’m not even sure of that [and it’s only about ten minutes after I told Rob what I’d picked up].