“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Pause.) The Roman Catholic Church seized upon art, inserted its own strong symbolism, provided art with a recognizable religious, social, and political value. (Pause.) It became, however, a supercharged symbol itself of churchly opulence, and this applies also, for example, in the past to architecture. What good were ornate cathedrals, replete with carved angels, saints, and gargoyles, gleaming with glazed colorful windows, when the people lived in hovels and labored in the fields? So the buildings in America were to be prim and proper, undecorated, when the country was established. Even clothes began to become less colorful, as for example in the Puritan’s straight garb.

The peasant was poor because he was basically brutish as a result of his parentage. The gentleman was accomplished because a certain refinement came into his blood because of his royal—or nearly—parentage. The ownership of land of itself provided not only built-in social status, but an entire built-in world of privileged beliefs. A man of property, whether he be a scoundrel or a fool, was first and foremost a man of worth.

(Pause.) The founders of the country were still largely men of property, however, and of culture—the signers of your constitution, so they were also careful to provide leeway for the existence of slaves, who, not being considered fully human, need not be granted the rights of the constitution (with irony). They left suitable loopholes there.

I do not know if I am expressing this clearly. Ruburt tried in the family to express independence, to show that he was (underlined) a writer, and at the same time he tried to express dependence, to show that he was a good wife, and this applied to many social relationships as well. If he succeeded as a writer, it seemed he was less the loyal wife, and sometimes in the past—the distant past—you felt the same when you tried to be “the male provider,” and take a job to satisfy that narrow role.