“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

[...] The man who has believed that he was evil may now see the world, or persons of another faith or political affiliation, as evil instead. [...]

[...] (Pause.) Dineen heartily believes in good and evil; so, being convinced that she was at the mercy of demoniacal forces, she began to pray. As Ruburt pointed out, however, the prayers themselves were merely a weak surrender to the idea that evil is so powerful. [...]

[...] She had been told by different “psychics” that she would be a psychic teacher, and various words and techniques had been given her to ward off the “evil” influence.

[...] You equate violence with evil. Now, when I speak to you, I do not equate violence with evil anymore than I equate a summer storm which is violent with evil. [...]

[...] You were terrified of it because you are terrified of the idea that evil is more powerful than good, and that one stray violent thought of yours was more important and more powerful than the vitality of good. [...]

[...] Now by this analogy, you see, the soft voice is the holy voice and the loud voice is the wicked voice and the firm step is the bad voice and the soft step is the good voice and a strong desire is the bad desire and a weak one the good one so that you become afraid of projecting ideas outward or desires outward, for in the back of your mind you think that what is powerful is evil and what is weak is good and must be protected and coddled and prayed for and begged for. [...]

[...] He believed in an idealized good, while believing most firmly and simultaneously that man was fatally flawed (loudly), filled with evil, more naturally given to bad rather than good intent. He believed in the absolute necessity of power, while convinced at the same time that he did not possess it; and further, he believed that in the most basic terms the individual was powerless to alter the devastating march of evil and corruption that he saw within the country, and in all the other countries of the world. No matter how much power he achieved, it seemed to him that others had more — other people, other groups, other countries — but their power he saw as evil. [...]

Before we end this particular section of the book, dealing with frightened people, idealism, and interpretations of good and evil, there is another instance that I would like to mention. [...]

He was as paranoid as any poor deluded man or woman is who feels, without evidence, that he or she is being pursued by creatures from space, earthly or terrestrial enemies, or evil psychic powers. [...]

[...] It was because Hitler was so convinced of the existence of evil in the individual psyche, that he set up all of his rules and regulations to build up and preserve “Aryan purity.” The Jews’ idea was also a dark one, in which their own rules and regulations were set to preserve the soul’s purity against the forces of evil. [...]

[...] “The evil must be plucked out.” [...]

[...] Some people believe that homosexuals and lesbians are “evil,” that somehow they lack the true qualities of humanness [and therefore need not be treated with normal respect]. [...]

(As we were eating lunch today Jane said she thought Seth would discuss the question of good and evil, re our conversation on those subjects the other day. [...] Once I’d written it down, I saw that its subject matter fit in very well with the idea of good and evil, and told Jane I hoped Seth would use it in any discussion of his own.

You have been considering the nature of good and evil, and in your dream you presented yourself with a capsule demonstration. [...]

[...] They bring pain, sorrow, or illness to the self or to others, and they are often called evil acts. [...]

[...] Are you actually saying that he feels that his mother and father both thought of him as evil—that now he thinks he’s that evil?”)

[...] I was glad I’d asked the second question in particular—at first I’d found it hard to believe that Jane thought of herself as evil for any reason, parents or whatever. Not that we hadn’t known from earlier material and our own conscious experiences that her mother especially had often exerted an unhealthy pressure upon the daughter—but I’d been taken back to realize that Seth was actually saying that Jane had considered herself evil.

[...] (Pause.) It is humiliating to realize that you consider yourself as a Sinful Self, potentially evil, and to encounter the feelings themselves (intently)—so Ruburt has shoved them underground. [...]

[...] You are terrified of the idea that evil is more powerful than good, that one stray violent thought of yours was more important and powerful than the vitality of good. [...]

[...] You become afraid of projecting ideas or desires outward, for in the back of your mind you think that what is powerful is evil.

You have always been involved with questions concerning good and evil, and you had two existences in two civilizations in Egypt. [...]

[...] You may feel quite virtuous, for example, in hating evil, or what seems to you to be evil; but if you find yourself concentrating upon either hatred or evil you are creating it. [...]

[...] If you think the world is evil, you will meet with events that seem evil. [...]

[...] As mentioned earlier, good and evil effects are basically illusions. [...] I am not saying that a good end justifies what you would consider an evil action. While you still accept the effects of good and evil, then you had better choose the good.

[...] Your conception of good and evil results in large part from the kind of consciousness you have presently adopted. [...]

In your terms, the ideas of good and evil help you recognize the sacredness of existence, the responsibility of consciousness. [...]

Consciousness is not basically built upon those precepts of good and evil that so presently concern you. [...] This does not mean that in your system, and in some others, these problems do not exist and that good is not preferable to the evil. It simply means that the soul knows that good and evil are but different manifestations of a far greater reality.

[...] (Quietly:) Your attitudes toward sleep, dreams, or any alterations of consciousness are all colored to some extent then by beliefs concerning good and evil in your Western society. These emerge from the old Puritan work ethic: “The devil finds evil work for idle hands.”

[...] Such ideas are mirrored in your society in innumerable fashions, and in areas in which values of good and evil are not apparent. [...]

[...] Yet beneath, the inner self is quite aware of the great thrusting creativity that occurs in dreams, and realizes that the source of individual energy has nothing to do with such superficial concepts as the nature of good and evil.

I said before that no man acts out of the desire to be evil, but has always justified to himself his actions precisely by his own “good” intent. [...] That ideal, however, different in one area than in another, was usually self-righteously applied with a vengeance and fanatical zest, so that all things outside it were seen as evil.

The more narrow and strict your conceptions of the good become, the larger and more threatening the “powers of evil” seem to grow.

You think of viruses as evil, spreading perhaps from country to country, to “invade” scores of physical mechanisms. [...] The old ideas of voodooism recognized some of these concepts, but complicated and distorted them with fears of evil, psychic invasion, psychic killing, and so forth. [...]

[...] (Also I’d lately seen a show on Jack the Ripper and I think the women were so convinced of their “evil” ways at those levels that they broadcast their need for punishment.) Finally awaken—sleep off and on but sore. [...]

[...] Your ideas of good and evil as applied to health and illness are highly important, for instance. [...]

[...] Often white is considered pure, and black impure, white good and black evil.

This distorted picture depicts a species of sinners innately driven by evil, sometimes demonic, forces. [...]

[...] Those with the beliefs just mentioned often think of sexuality as bestial, evil, and even humiliating.

[...] In basic terms they are no more good or evil than the wind is. I say this because you usually imagine that if something is good, there must be a countering force that is evil. [...]

[...] There are, then, “spirits” of all natural things — but unfortunately, even when you consider such possibilities you project your own religious ideas of good and evil upon them. [...]

[...] If you believe that the body is somehow evil, you may punish it by nearly starving to death, even though your diet might be considered normal by usual standards. [...] If you believe that the body is evil, the purest health-food diet will or may do you little good at all, while if you have a healthy desire and respect for your physical body, a diet of TV dinners, and even of fast foods, may well keep you healthy and nourished.

[...] She talked him out of his nuclear-arms policies, and out of the devil — and evil — idea. [...]

[...] He convinced that portion that the old beliefs about good and evil, self-destruction, and the existence of the Catholic devil, were not valid. [...]

One animal chasing and killing its prey serves the greater purpose of preserving the balance of nature, whether or not the animal is aware of this — and again, the animal’s intent is not evil. [...] You may deeply regret the havoc worked, knowing that neither the storm nor the earthquake is evil. [...]

You realize that a tiger, following its nature, is not evil. [...]

[...] I am aware of that — and yet the destructive storms worked by mankind ultimately cannot be said to be any more evil than the earthquake. [...]