“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Long pause at 9:54.) Ideas of using considerable caution have been with him for that matter before the sessions began, when he recognized his own energy, the ease with which he could encounter people. As for example when he acted as a salesperson years ago, sometimes gathering small groups at the street corners in Florida. He learned to fear his own energy to some extent—or rather, he believed that he must be very cautious in its use. Those habits were there, again, before the sessions began, and they have their basis in the church’s concepts of the sinful nature of the basic self.

Again, that belief in the need for control is rooted in the earlier concepts of the Sinful Self (long pause)—concepts that have come to the fore in current contemporary world events with the new attention being given to religious cults and religions. Current events can trigger such reactions, therefore. Ruburt has told himself that such feelings were beneath him, but often the feelings themselves went underground. Those feelings were nearly incomprehensible to you, so that it was difficult for you to see how they could even be taken seriously.

(10:22.) It was in Mass Events and God of Jane that the usual concept of the Sinful Self was most directly and vigorously addressed, and in which the value of individual impulses was stressed with consistent vigor. Ruburt has been dealing with that material since then. (Pause.) Many people in your society and others are dealing precisely with the same issues, though in different contexts.

You are in the process of changing your definitions of yourselves as creatures, and each person is in one way or another involved. The idea of the Sinful Self has served as a large portion of that definition for centuries, bringing with it innumerable difficulties, of course. As Ruburt frees himself from that idea, as he must and can, the need for such unnecessary cautionary behavior will dissipate by itself.

If you consider the self as good, you feel free to express it and its abilities. Some of Ruburt’s ideas along those lines were highly reinforced by his mother as well as by the church, and later in its way by the very pronouncements of science.

Since Ruburt’s work involved him most directly in an examination of the self and in the unknown reaches of the psyche, then his experiences led him into a conflict with the idea of the Sinful Self. One of the main points of his work, and mine, is the definition of the well-intentioned self, of course. Ruburt was to some extent afraid to accept that concept fully—therefore he has been unable to utilize it fully in his mistaken belief that he must maintain a largely critical stance.

The material I gave this evening should help him see the reason for the problems behind the symptoms. (Pause.) It is humiliating to realize that you consider yourself as a Sinful Self, potentially evil, and to encounter the feelings themselves (intently)—so Ruburt has shoved them underground.

He thought that he was such a bad person that he drove his parents apart, perhaps caused his mother’s illness, perhaps his grandmother’s death—for which his mother did indeed several times blame him—and that the classical idea of the Sinful Self was individually interpreted in that manner in Ruburt’s personal early life.

His mother told him he ruined everyone he touched. Those experiences were relatively unfortunate enough, but they were a part of the early life of someone who later finds themselves embarked upon in the study of the very nature of the self, so that they led him to believe that strong cautionary methods must be used. Period.

(“This Sinful Self thing is liable to turn into the primary cause behind the whole business,” I said to Jane. “Imagine—atonement, self-punishment for things learned more than 40 years ago. Incredible.”