“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

I now want to put the Sinful Self material in a larger spectrum. Ideally, infants “bond” with their parents, particularly with the mother but with the father also—and then they “bond” with the general ideas of their society. This offers the sense of safety and security in which the youngster can then feel free and curious enough to explore its world and the nature of reality.

(Long pause at 8:15.) With some people (long pause), such bindings are so secure that in one way or another they provide an overall, fairly permanent inner and outer framework. The people within that framework will stray only so far from conventional beliefs. (Long pause.) They still enjoy—relatively—a good deal of freedom, however, of a sideways extension, so to speak, or in a horizontal manner, as excellent athletes, perhaps. Ruburt’s relationship with his mother left much to be desired. The bonding did not secure him that important and vital sense of safety, and to some extent or another he felt at least threatened by abandonment. The bonding to cultural beliefs of religion (long pause) was very strong to make up for that initial lack. The strength of such binding elements, again, varies through a lifetime, and the binding to the parents’ beliefs of course helps strengthen social structure. In a curious fashion, however, that circle of safety provides each individual with the freedom and curiosity to go ahead and test independent theories and situations—so it also serves the purposes of creativity and knowledge, and even allows for the acquisition of new knowledge that was not in the original belief structures.

The point at which such a situation happens is of course internal, and it may or may not have anything to do with the quality of material, but with its nature. Each society—or each system of knowledge, for that matter—has its own taboos built in, and most of these imply abandonment by the community. A firm bonding with the parent ideally implies however that the child will not be abandoned, despite for example parental anger at any given time. Now remember that Ruburt’s mother used words like “I hereby disown you,” or “You are hereby disinherited,” or “I consider you no longer my daughter.” Such a situation increased Ruburt’s sense of not being safe, of course, and yet also reinforced feelings of independence, for he did not have to feel as dependent upon Marie as he might otherwise.

The old attitude kept reinforcing the idea of self-disapproval, accusation, period. What is wanted is another matrix or support from which the personality can assimilate still newer knowledge, and continue to develop—generally speaking—with a sense of relative freedom.