“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

A few remarks. (Humorously:) When you are picketed (in NYC) by fanatics, you must be doing something right.

I have said I have no human rancor. I understand that fanatics, for example, have their place. And it would help if you tried to look at human behavior sometimes from a slightly more expansive view (chiding).

Fanatics certainly serve a purpose, and actually they help maintain overall equilibrium of society by serving as examples to others, who often have some of the same beliefs but are of a less explosive nature.

By going to extremes fanatics point out to others the virtue of more moderate ways, and their actions actually make others with the same kind of persuasion evaluate their own beliefs. I realize the impracticality of asking anyone in physical life to bear no human rancor. It is futile. On the other hand, when you look at your fellows, try to see them as they are in all respects—as you would, say, a group of individual animals. Do not always compare them against any ideals—ideals superimposed by you, or anyone, upon others.

As each species of flower has its place in the natural world, so, in terms of this analogy at least, the fool and the scholar, the fanatic, the timid, the weary and the exuberant, the greedy—all of these also have their place.

Give us a moment... The fanatic is usually also a person whose vitality is blocked in important ways—yet he manages often to summon great energy, so that even in his denunciations he shows many people who are more timid the demonstration of personal exuberance and energy, however misdirected.

Though the fanatic may make much noise in the world, he is actually isolated from all of the world’s ideas except his own. Anything else is seen as a threat. He does not allow the development of his concepts or beliefs, for example. They stop at one particular point—and at that point he wages his battle against reality.

The varying and various fanatical groups, such as, for example, the anti-homosexual Florida contingent, are in a way quite natural and necessary in your country. They serve as focus points for others who have the same ideas but are afraid to really face them or admit their beliefs. A former Miss America does it for them.

I mention this so often because, again, I do not want either of you to become self-righteous, for such an attitude narrows any road. The fanatic becomes engrossed in one overall issue. To a lesser degree those who become too concerned with the world’s shortcomings can begin to see nothing but a one-sided one.