“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Give us a moment.... He fears for the gullibility of people, and is rightly appalled at their superstitions, as indeed you are, Joseph. In his case, however, much of this had to do with quite normal reactions—not voiced or expressed. When in the beginning you were cautious, and worried about his overdoing it, or going into trance at the drop of a hat, he relied upon you in that way. When your enthusiasm grew, and your trust in his abilities, then he felt that to voice any fears at all in your eyes meant that he did not trust his abilities himself.

When he saw that he could become a personality, and how willingly others would follow, he became aware of a new kind of responsibility. Your earlier experiments were private. No one was following in your footsteps. Give us a moment.... He also began to see two poles in society—one highly conventional, closed, in which he would appear as a charlatan; and another, yearning but gullible, willing to believe anything if only it offered hope, in which his activities would be misinterpreted, and to him, fraudulent.

This required manipulations most difficult for any personality, and a constant system of checks and balances. The intellectual doubters could identify with his doubts, and yet be inspired by his freedom. Those who were led by their hopes into gullibility could relate to his experiences—yet he would pull them back to “sanity” by his doubts. At the same time he would be expressing the unreconciled portions of his own nature.

[...] He fears for the gullibility of people, and is rightly appalled at their superstitions — as you are, Joseph (as Seth calls me). [...]

(Seth continued:) He also began to see two poles in society one highly conventional and closed, in which he would appear as a charlatan; and another, yearning but gullible, willing to believe anything if only it offered hope, in which his activities would be misinterpreted, and to him [would be] fraudulent … There was a middle ground that he would have to make for himself … to make a bridge to those intellectuals who doubted, and yet maintain some freedom and spontaneity in order to reach those at the other end. [...]

I have no objection, except that we must not deal with the gullible or skeptical. The gullible can do us more harm than the skeptical.

We must not deal with the overly gullible or skeptical. [...]

[...] With the gullible I cannot deal. [...]

[...] I prefer this to gullibility. Your friend is caught between charming gullibility and self-conscious, sardonic refusal to accept many things. [...]

[...] They are not stupid and they are not gullible. You are not stupid nor gullible. [...]

You are not so gullible, nor am I, to suppose that those who do not want to accept evidence will ever accept the strongest evidence imaginable. [...]

They also have to do with the idiotic and gullible attitudes of those who have been involved with many notorious seance cases. [...]

The guests of the other evening were most advantageous, their attitudes objective; not gullible people, nor on the other hand were they the type who will not admit the results of their own experience. [...]

The letter re-aroused several states of feeling: time taken for “Unknown” 2, for one thing, but also Ruburt was struck by the gullibility of the correspondents, who were saying in effect that they could not lead their lives properly unless Ruburt could deliver the material. [...]

[...] Jane and I were therefore pleasantly surprised to learn that Bill and Ida had read some of the material; and while not hostile to it, they still expressed a healthy skepticism—an attitude Jane and I much prefer to any gullible, overenthusiastic belief blindly undertaken.

[...] Because I once inhabited physical matter, as you all do now, does not mean that I am now some esoteric, occult creature of dim spiritualistic rather doubtful origins, who manages to invade gullible and neurotic consciousness.

—of a gullible, pseudomystical type of temperament. [...]

[...] I do not want gullible ninnies, however I certainly would enjoy being taken at my word occasionally. [...]

(3. Appendix 10 [for Session 692], on Jane’s efforts to make a “middle ground” between the extremes of society’s reactions to her psychic abilities: rejection by the conventionally closed-minded at one end, and gullible acceptance at the other.