“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

You two have largely worked alone, and your work goals involve of course the development of personality characteristics that must apply to artistic work. You are aware of the fact that a great painting can still be great despite depicting, say, acts of violence that are “bad.” In a certain fashion you began to apply the “wrong kind” of moral judgments. I will try to explain, though you may, Joseph, at first, disagree.

The material that came from “Unknown” today—you disagreed with the type of lettering, if I understand properly. Now, that is legitimate as an artistic judgment—but it is illegitimate as a moral judgment. There is nothing wrong or inferior about the people at Prentice, who made the “improper” artistic decision. It is not immoral or wrong not to have excellent artistic judgment. The people involved are in an art department. They are individuals, doing their best to develop their abilities and their lives—but your indignation was moral in narrow terms, rather than in quite acceptable artistic ones. You do this often.

Ruburt does it when he reads poor material. He immediately makes a moral judgment against a poet whose material is artistically poor. The person involved may indeed have difficulty artistically in expression, and an artistic revulsion can then be quite acceptable, but not a moral one.

Now you have even made—both of you, now—the same kind of moral, or I should say immoral, judgments about Ruburt’s condition, which with your joint perfectionism is doubly appalling. You see it as morally wrong, not simply a physically poor condition, but a morally reprehensible one, reflecting upon Ruburt’s integrity, his knowledge, his understanding.

(8:52.) You judge the world, but in far more rigorous terms morally than either of you really realize. Your beliefs exist in the present. I will always go into back material, or the past when you request it, for it is important that you understand I am never evasive in that regard. But the overly conscientious selves are not separate versions of you, really. The division is one I use to make certain points.