“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

You may laugh with some disdain when I mention, for example, that in some other societies, both today and in the past (pause) a gentleman proved his moral worth and value by not working. Now that idea is no more ludicrous than the idea you have, for both attempt to prove personal merit through the manipulation of money and status.

I made a few comments about supply and demand recently, but there are far deeper issues. Unless negative beliefs stand in your way, then creative ideas that you contribute to the work will automatically take care of your needs, and it is truly idiotic to want to substitute that good fortune for such parochial concepts like the male as breadwinner, or the male performing in a given definable fashion.

(Pause.) Most men’s abilities are prosaic enough and conventional enough so that their value can be ascertained—or worked out by labor unions (amused). If all a man can do to “prove his value” is to put a bolt in a car, or drive a truck, or even teach a class, then he is very careful that that contribution be noticed, and that a definite value be given it. You cannot estimate the value of ideas or of creativity in that fashion.

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.

Your body tries to enjoy those privileges that appear as the result of the creative abilities you are using. It enjoys good meals, a comfortable bed. It gets quite upset when a part of you thinks that it should be doing something else to make a livelihood. These ideas to some extent even inhibit natural plans rising in your mind, notes of your own that would automatically lead to a book of your own—because you pursue yourself.

You should do a book of your own if you want to, because you want to —not because of the money that might be involved. Some part of you still thinks there is something wrong with money unless you can show precisely where it came from—or people might think you a crook, or a gigolo living off your wife. You must learn to dismiss such ideas as the rubbish that they are. Your body is in the right place at the right time—and (louder) I can see that I was in the right place at the right time for our chat.

Now: beliefs—that is correct. I do not want to overemphasize this point, so do not overemphasize it yourself—but the idea is that you sometimes become angry at your own “unconscious creative abilities.” I put that in quotes because you equate creative abilities as largely unconscious. You think, then, that if you were not so creative you could have a proper niche for yourself, and therefore you tense a portion of the body that seems to be connected to the unconscious side of the self, and chose the groin, which connects old beliefs about males to the beliefs about creativity.

(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.

(“It’s vague now: Americans not trusting creative thought unless it applies specifically to practical considerations.... nothing new there; I guess I’ve just forgotten it.... There was the idea that true creative work is the springboard for the more usual kind.... and something about vocations being distrusted in this country....