“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Now I did mention to Jane perhaps the overriding question I have, and have often puzzled about: the intensity of her personality’s response to the idea of the Sinful Self. Though, as I said, I didn’t think of her Sinful Self as something entirely separate from other portions of her personality, but as a part of them. Why didn’t the “Sinful Self” get the message that it’s gone too far, and back off at least somewhat so that the whole personality had room to breathe—to begin physical recovery, in other words? Its actions, as they are, are clearly self-defeating. There are many fascinating but serious questions here. Jane agreed.

Right there, the child is presented with a quandary, of course. (Pause.) Children and adults also need self-respect. The church itself, again, had an elaborate system within which the Sinful Self could be at least momentarily redeemed, sins confessed and so forth—so within that system the pressures set up by the entire concept were at least momentarily lessened through such releases.

(Long pause at 8:46.) Give us a moment.... Science provided no such releases, of course, for it looked upon all such values to begin with as meaningless, including the entire concept of the soul. For some time there was no direct challenge, however, made to the Sinful Self once Ruburt left the church. His creative abilities were growing and developing, his concepts enlarging, but he was for some time so convinced of science’s viewpoint that the ideas of the Sinful Self were looked upon as unworthy and superstitious. He was allied with rationalism instead. Many issues therefore remained unresolved, lying there unchallenged. When his creative abilities found contemporary scientific thought also too narrow, however, and his natural intuitions had led him toward a new framework—one that, again, introduced values having to do with the nature of consciousness, or soul—then the new ideas began to conflict directly with the old buried ones, particularly those that had to do with the conflicts between creative expression, the church, and “forbidden knowledge.” To go ahead creatively, forming new versions of a spiritual reality, to state that man and his impulses were good, brought him finally into direct conflict with the old beliefs of the Sinful Self, whose value system was based upon the idea that the self was indeed sinful, not to be trusted.

The Sinful Self is “an artificial psychological construct”—thrust upon the natural self to some degree, and at one time it objected thoroughly against such conditioning, so with communication it will be glad to let those old beliefs go —as long as the entire affair is not allowed to go underground, of course.

The creative abilities will instantly begin a new attempt to reconcile the entire affair, given a freer hand than before.