“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Long pause.) Many other people were making that same leap at that time in your society. He was far from any scientist, of course. He did poorly in science in college, for that matter, for if his mind was too scientific for religious dogma, it was too creative and emotional for conventional scientific thought.

Even later, as he began writing science fiction, that writing fell under the then less envious label of science fantasy (underlined), which was not considered as pure in science-fiction circles.

(Long pause at 9:02.) The Sinful Self shows itself in a period of transition from its religious to scientific format in science fiction or fantasy in particular, where you can almost trace the translation of religion’s self, tainted by original sin, to the Darwinian and Freudian concepts of the flawed self, bound to destruction one way or another, propelled by the unbridled unconscious or evolutionary defect.

(Long pause at 9:13.) The use of the Frankenstein monster and so forth in television dramas, and the merging of strong destructive tendencies intermixed with the psychic abilities in current psychic horror stories, shows again the potent mixture of religion’s Sinful Self and science’s flawed self. To some extent, though in a different fashion, both fear the emergence of new knowledge, since new knowledge is apt to upset either framework entirely.

Science, of course, insists it searches for such knowledge, while at the same time narrowing its acceptable field of definitions so that it effectively blocks any information that does not agree with its own precepts. (Pause.) Both science and religion, generally speaking, provide certain services, which again generally speaking can be withheld to those who rebel against such authorities.

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.

It took some time before such a framework began to develop—a kind of double one—represented by my work and by his own—an excellent accomplishment, of course. Also an accomplishment that clearly stood out as a direct challenge to religion and science, that not only contradicted their theories but offered an alternate framework through which reality could be experienced.

(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.

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.