“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Now you have even made—both of you, now—the same kind of moral, or I should say immoral, judgments about Ruburt’s condition, which with your joint perfectionism is doubly appalling. You see it as morally wrong, not simply a physically poor condition, but a morally reprehensible one, reflecting upon Ruburt’s integrity, his knowledge, his understanding.

The material that came from “Unknown” today—you disagreed with the type of lettering, if I understand properly. Now, that is legitimate as an artistic judgment—but it is illegitimate as a moral judgment. There is nothing wrong or inferior about the people at Prentice, who made the “improper” artistic decision. It is not immoral or wrong not to have excellent artistic judgment. The people involved are in an art department. They are individuals, doing their best to develop their abilities and their lives—but your indignation was moral in narrow terms, rather than in quite acceptable artistic ones. You do this often.

Ruburt does it when he reads poor material. He immediately makes a moral judgment against a poet whose material is artistically poor. The person involved may indeed have difficulty artistically in expression, and an artistic revulsion can then be quite acceptable, but not a moral one.

You two have largely worked alone, and your work goals involve of course the development of personality characteristics that must apply to artistic work. You are aware of the fact that a great painting can still be great despite depicting, say, acts of violence that are “bad.” In a certain fashion you began to apply the “wrong kind” of moral judgments. I will try to explain, though you may, Joseph, at first, disagree.

You may believe that wealth is a result of a moral virtue, and comes from “God’s” direct benevolence. As a result, poverty becomes evidence of a lack of morality. [...]

[...] If you consider illness as a kind of moral stigma, then you will simply add an unneeded quality to any condition of ill health.

[...] The same kind of moral value judgment can be placed in almost any area of human activity, and will of course have social repercussions. [...]

In all such cases, however, blanket moral judgments are being applied that involve feelings of guilt in which individual experience is forgotten.

[...] I do not want to hurt your feelings—but your particular beliefs about a male and money are in their way quite parochial, and you must understand that as far as money is concerned, also, those beliefs have little moral value—moral value. [...]

I want to rid you of any lingering misconceptions, but you still have a lingering belief that your old ideas about money and the male have some kind of high moral value. [...] (With continuing amusement:) To enjoy your work was suspect—and if you enjoy unconventionality of mind, some leisure in which to contemplate the world about you, then it is about time that you dismissed such parochial concepts, and realized that there is no moral rectitude given them. [...]

You may laugh with some disdain when I mention, for example, that in some other societies, both today and in the past (pause) a gentleman proved his moral worth and value by not working. [...]

You are afraid you will be thought of as a gentleman of leisure—at the worst a moral crime most certainly in light of the beliefs that originated at the time the Protestants first abandoned the Roman Catholic Church. [...]

[...] I am (pause) permitted to speak because the super conscientious self is aware of, and convinced of, my moral standing, you see. [...]

[...] But also moral encouragement can be given in dreams.

(“But these moral encouragements could conflict with the spontaneous self, even in dreams?”)

[...] It is a moral principle to him, but also applies privately. It involves not being fleshy in voluptuous terms, a kind of esthetic discipline that morally disapproves of others. [...]

[...] Both of you enjoy a sense of moral superiority in the presence of your brothers’ families, that they eat so heartily while you refrain. [...]

[...] It has been said that only men have a moral sense, that only men have free will—if indeed free will is possible at all. The word “moral” has endless connotations, of course. Yet animals have their own “morality,” their own codes of honor, their own impeccable senses of balance with all other creatures. [...]

2. Free will is the philosophical doctrine that the individual has the freedom to choose, without coercion, some actions consistent with his or her particular morals and ideals. [...]

([Ron:] “Is there such a thing as a moral decision for someone who exists in the next plane of existence?”)

There are always moral decisions. [...]

([Ron:] “What system of values do you use to choose in your moral decisions?”)

Dictation: The simple diagrams merely represent some general belief systems from the standpoint of “moral values.” [...]

Many believe — using the first diagram — that it is “good” and morally superior to be Christian, white, wealthy and in excellent health. [...]

[...] Here, though, wealth and a white skin are not only bad, but obvious symptoms of moral deterioration. [...]

[...] Within your field, within your moral field, you must indeed strike out against that which appears evil to you.

[...] However, as you do not blame, as you do not morally blame the wind for the tumultuous hurricane, and as you do not punish the wind, so you must somehow manage to understand that a wrongdoer, in your eyes, is no more or less to blame than this. [...]

[...] We will have much more to say concerning what you may call moral problems, but such discussions will always be tied in with reality as it exists.

[...] You interpret that statement, however, in social and moral terms. [...] It is not morally wrong at any given time to want the opposite, or overall to prefer mental to physical activity—nor, overall, is that preference unhealthy.

When Ruburt does not go out, however, it is never a simple issue of the body’s condition at any given time, but a moral dilemma in which, basically you see, you are misinterpreting events. [...]

[...] They can be better equated with colors—some dark, some light, but all in all beyond such classifications as morality.

[...] So then his creative endeavors not only had to bring in money, but they had to be good, moral, responsible, for they were becoming part of a body of work.

There was a tie-in, and it’s that the Christ drama happened as a result of man’s dream, at least, of achieving brotherhood — a quiet, secure sense of consciousness, and a morality that would sustain him in the physical world.

[...] Man’s fears of not achieving brotherhood, of not achieving a secure state of consciousness, or a workable morality, result in his dreams of destruction, however they are expressed. [...]

I do not mean to pass any moral judgment upon such activities. [...]

[...] This is a great moral and political accomplishment on Jackson’s part, especially after President Reagan hadn’t wanted him to go to Syria.

[...] Daydreaming and even mild alterations of consciousness take on moral connotations. [...]

The dreamer, whatever his age, job or family background, is considered most suspect, for it seems that he doesn’t even have a craft to excuse his moral laziness. [...]

[...] Try to realize that even in your terms there have been multitudinous cultures upon the face of the earth, each one defining for all time, with great moral rectitude, the roles of men and women. [...]

[...] You can often follow social mores quite easily, when you realize they are mores (intently), and not moral pronouncements—and that is all. [...]

[...] You cannot say, and should not, place moral connotations in such situations. [...]

That “well-balanced life” might well be considered a slow death to our risk seeker, and no moral judgment can be placed on such behavior.

[...] Unfortunately, weight is attacked as ‘bad’ or ‘evil’; symbolic moral judgments enter the act. [...]

[...] In it the actors and actresses will take the parts of beliefs — of fleshed beliefs — and the morality play, so to speak, will deal with the nature of beliefs and how they are enacted through the centuries as well as through the hours. [...]

There was a tie-in, and it’s that the Christ drama happened as a result of man’s dream, at least, of achieving brotherhood—a quiet, secure sense of consciousness, and a morality that would sustain him in the physical world.

[...] Man’s fears of not achieving brotherhood, of not achieving a secure state of consciousness, or a workable morality, result in his dreams of destruction, however they are expressed, and indeed, the present physical event as it exists now at the energy plant in Harrisburg can easily be likened to—and is—a warning dream to change man’s actions.