“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(On September 27, Jane woke up after her nap with a batch of material in mind on: Private Revelation, and the Voice of God, or Divine Dialogues, which she wrote down. The material filled three pages, and Seth leads off tonight’s session with material relative to it. Jane wasn’t sure why she came up with the material, since she hadn’t been thinking about such things, nor had we discussed anything relative to it recently. It sounded like good material for a chapter in a book—perhaps something new is cooking?)

“Revelation, Obedience, and Objectivity”—that is the heading for this evening’s discussion.

Now Ruburt’s paper was largely correct, in that Christianity in general, and the Catholic Church in particular, has not only frowned on revelation, but in the past tried with the utmost effort to strike it down. This was largely out of self-interest, and the many Protestant faiths are a proof of the fragmentation that results when man is given some freedom to interpret his relationship with God himself.

That freedom, however, of course has been highly limited in nature, for the dogma of Christianity still largely held. There were, however, other reasons also—to do the church some small justice (amused). If God could tell a man to slay a son, and if private revelation were granted validity, then “divinely inspired crimes” might not only be legion, but might also take man’s energies away from accepted Godly pursuits—like fighting the infidels or heretics at home (all louder).

You could not have a cohesive society based upon the validity of private revelation, when you believed in a God who was so bloodthirsty, and who demanded such proofs of obedience.

The church could not trust revelations, lest new orders might come to contradict the old ones, to upset the spiritual status quo, and hence the social organization that developed about it; or that might revive old tenets once a part of Christianity but later dropped—such as a belief in reincarnation.

For centuries, priests of one kind or another have been put in charge of “reading God’s messages,” and interpreting them to the rest of mankind, just as in later times the scientists have been put in the position of interpreting man’s own world to him—in terms quite as esoteric as those of any religion. So science and revelation seem far apart indeed, for the revelation usually insists upon obedience to a vision that is privately received, and offers as a rule but poor evidence. No questions are allowed. Science on the other hand, constantly questions, and is so objectively occupied that the subjective world is entirely beyond its realm.

In the past, because of your God concepts, private revelations were indeed highly unwieldy. No common sense was applied to them. They were untinged by objectivity. They justified any act. This applied not only privately, however, but to the mass-accepted revelations of all religions, that could justify righteous wars for God’s sake, or justify murder in the name of peace.

You have had a schism, in which reason and emotion seemed to be opposites. Revelation and reason seemed to be enemies. Yet as the approach of the scientific age appeared, before its blossoming, so new tendencies are now showing that do indeed signal a new era, in which the emotions and intellect are no longer regarded as opposing tendencies in man.

Revelations will be encouraged, and yet they will not be put above the common-sense wisdom that insists upon tolerance and justice. Man has indeed forgotten how to interpret his revelations—but more importantly, he has forgotten how to receive them, and then how to perfect them in reason’s light.