“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.

There is great leeway here. Some people, remember, are only peripherally involved with concepts or ideas. Ruburt has always been highly fascinated by both. Children want to “be good.” They look for approval. It is quite true that later they seek independence also. And shrug aside many early beliefs. The Sinful Self identification is a particularly unfortunate one, for to “be good” means that the child must consider itself bad or sinful.

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.

The Sinful Self was given some hope, then.

There were all kinds of aids available: indulgences, litanies, rosaries and so forth. When Ruburt left that system intellectually some of the old bonding power remained, the emotional glue, but he no longer believed in the indulgences, the sacraments and so forth, so the Sinful Self was left fairly isolated, still believing to some extent that to “be good” it must be bad, but without the releases of guilt once provided by churchly help and belief.

(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.

Beside this, people were reading our books, so to the Sinful Self Ruburt was leading those people astray (deliberately). Here you have a rather intense situation. (A one-minute pause.) Give us a moment.... The natural self operates within a state of grace, by whatever name, a state that allows for spontaneity, and implies self-trust. Most religious concepts, unfortunately, regardless of the original intentions behind them, end up by dividing man from his own sense of grace—his sense of rightness within the universe, and the individual will do almost anything to gain back that sense, for it is highly vital.

(9:00.) His Sinful Self therefore tried to restate its position in order to right the situation, but its reasoning, again, was that a sense of grace was dependent upon the prior admission of a sinful reality. You have a divided self, of course, in that regard, operationally speaking, and this happens often in your society. The result is repression of one kind or another. The material I gave last night gives valuable information as to how to communicate with that portion of the personality, and bring it up to date, for example.

Give us a moment.... (Long pause.).... Once such material is out in the open all of the portions of the personality can work together. Until then you have parts operating at the very least without a sense of unity. (Long pause.) The Sinful Self was, again, formed in childhood. It can be comforted. It can be told now what it yearned to be told then—that it was indeed good, and not bad or evil, that it could indeed use its curiosity without the threat of abandonment, and that it could trust its own creativity and love of play.

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.

You are beginning to approach it. The Sinful Self does not identify as well with the creative abilities, for it does not trust them. In that regard a light hand is the best policy, but the changeover is approaching.