“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

A man showed himself a man, say, by getting paid every Friday night, coming home after a stop at the pub with coins jingling in his pocket, to give his wife the house money for the week. I do not want to hurt your feelings—but your particular beliefs about a male and money are in their way quite parochial, and you must understand that as far as money is concerned, also, those beliefs have little moral value—moral value.

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.

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.

They scorned all decoration, and considered art sinful. Poverty was worthy, and proof of morality. In your country, this was coupled, however, with the growth of economic individualism, Darwinism, and so forth.