“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(11:19.) Such communities have few poets, few artists, and fewer mediums. Tunkhannock is actually an idealized version of that kind of community. In those terms (underlined) it is for Loren a step up from, say, Sayre, whose history is richer even in “lower class” origins. Sayre, however, generally now, represented the poorer man’s version of that American ideal, and it was from there that many of your beliefs and those of your brothers had their origins.

(Pause.) I do not want to give you a big head, but your wit and your abilities simply place you in another area of activity, for which you should be grateful. Do not be overly parochial or nationalistic in your views. There is a great history of masculinity that expressed itself through the development of thought, quiet meditation—and I do not necessarily mean of the mystical kind—of communion of the mind with nature.

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.