“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Now: even as a young person, Ruburt was the type of person who was considered out of place, rebellious, or even slightly dangerous in any Roman Catholic congregation—particularly in the time of his own youth.

(Leaning back on the couch, eyes closed:) When Ruburt was a church member, however, the church itself was there, easily identified. To some extent later, even when it was a worthy opponent, Ruburt could see where his own ideas fit in or did not. There was only so much leeway granted, so much questioning allowed—for beyond a certain point of course the entire dogmatic structure would fall apart.

Most people were too emotionally dependent upon the entire organization to let it go. (Long pause.) By the time Ruburt left the church, he thought that it had also lost its emotional pull upon him. He felt free, and he immediately leapt toward what you can generally think of as the scientific viewpoint.

[Ray] Bradbury’s stories, for example, are actually tales of a religious moralist. When you fear that man will most certainly destroy himself through his misuse of technologies, then you are expressing the same feeling in different form expressed by the religious attitude—only religion’s devils are turned into technological devices. So Ruburt’s belief in the Sinful Self went underground in those years.

The church can excommunicate you. Science in its position of authority can mock those who disagree with it. Ruburt’s basic beliefs of the Sinful Self were formed in childhood, individually interpreted through his own experience, given strong emotional validity in other words, and emotional charge.

(Long pause.) “The church” was not a hypothetical entity, but was encountered through Ruburt’s experience with the priests who visited, their effect upon his life and his poetry, and with the entire fabric of a young intense daily life. If the church became upset with what Ruburt wrote or read, then Father Ryan burned one of his books, or argued with his poetry, for example, so all of that was living emotional content.

Ruburt’s creative abilities still had those classical models, yet because of his mind’s originality and his natural intuitive nature; those creative abilities were also fueled by unofficial information: he was always to some extent in strong connection with the knowledge possessed by his natural person—and that knowledge kept seeking expression. Its expression directly contradicted first religious then scientific precepts. It kept seeking a larger framework for its own fulfillment and expression, of course, and at the same time it seemed to Ruburt it brought about further dissension. It made him more of a rebel.

(9:34.) Through the last few years religious fundamentalism has begun to grow, bringing to the forefront in exaggerated form many of the old beliefs with which Ruburt thought he had dispensed so neatly. Science, if it bothered, might label him a fool, but fundamental religion could label him as evil, or claim his work was inspired by the devil in Christian terms, and so the old beliefs in the Sinful Self or evil self were activated.

Religion, having in certain terms created the entire concept, had then to create the idea of redemption to rectify it. Ruburt has not been able to utilize the natural grace of the basic self because of those beliefs in their sinful nature. Those feelings were the ones that he experienced this morning—the fear that the self’s very expression was somehow wrong, since the self itself was intrinsically flawed. Your own lovemaking the other evening, and your renewed expressions of affection, helped initiate the entire experience, by letting Ruburt feel safe enough to be aware of and experience those sensations. Of course they reflect upon the body. They seek expression. It is not that they are so fearful in themselves, but the effort to repress them gives them additional charge.

I want to emphasize again the poor reputation held by both science and religion concerning unofficial knowledge, an attitude clearly put forth in many tales and legends, from Adam and Eve to Pandora’s box to the Frankenstein monster. Ruburt felt he was someone who was bound to have access to such information. You did extremely well in helping him with the day’s events. End of session, unless you have a question.