“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

In dreams you often personify portions of the self. And meet them as if for the first time. Your Mrs. Patterson represents your own love for your fellow men and fellow women (with gentle emphasis), and expresses a deep compassion for the situation of your species at this time.

Your mental world is full of ideas and feelings that surge toward actualization. You have a need to express your self—and I am repeating the word “express” quite purposefully (with a smile). You must feel that you are a self, and that you can express that self in the world that you know.

In such situations you are taught that the self you have is not only flawed, but a facade—a fake self that cannot be trusted, and whose expression must be largely denied. You are told to give up the self to the leader of the group—the guru, the master, the father, the authority by whatever name.

Such systems distort the very nature of idealism by placing the ideal in such an exalted position that it can never be attained, for by giving up the self you have you are to attain instead a wholly pure, wholly loving, idealized, spiritual self. This self will love each other fellow being without reservations, distinctions, or judgment. This self is to miraculously appear as the old self is annihilated. The “annihilation” is accomplished by turning the will over to the authority. To act contrary to your own wishes or inclinations is considered a virtue. You are told not to make decisions, and to give yourself completely to the system of the cult.

The fundamentalist Christian groups, for all of their fanaticism, at least offer some kind of temporary relief for their believers; they are “saved” through prayer and good works. Many other sects, however, offer no such comfort, as for example the Guyana group. The concentration upon self-betrayal and worldly corruption offers no escape. Expression becomes meaningless under such conditions, not trusting the structure of the self, then the self’s expression is denied. It is feared. Yet the new self never comes—not the promised, overly idealized self that feels a godly love without distinctions. And all good works appear meaningless in the terribly exaggerated picture painted of social and world events.

(Pause.) The concentration upon self-righteousness and evidence of corruption leads to its own fulfillment, and in that dark light the expression of the good appears powerless.

Such people can love no one. All must be pretense. You are given your powers of decision for a reason. You are given the self that you know for a reason. Through fulfilling that self, through following your natural inclinations and desires, you will discover a spiritual and psychic fulfillment. You will expand yourself.