“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Before the session I mentioned the question I kept in mind for Seth, concerning what the Sinful Self may have learned since this last series of sessions was started. [...] I wanted to know the Sinful Self’s attitudes toward the fact that it had rendered Jane literally helpless as far as her survival was concerned; she couldn’t take care of herself physically without the aid of others, I said, so this obviously implied that the Sinful Self was creating its own demise also. [...]

[...] He feels caught between that image of expected super-competence and the image of the Sinful Self, which feels competent of doing very little. The Sinful Self and the superself are alike unrealistic. [...]

The Sinful Self in the past has felt even more sinful, or example, in comparison to the unrealistic expectations set upon the self by the super-images. [...]

[...] It is important that Ruburt define what is expected of the practical self, and what falls outside of its realm. [...]

[...] They end up neatly summarized in the concept of the Sinful Self—a self so sinful that its own body had to be hidden from itself while it washed (all intently). [...]

[...] Another portion of the self seemed to be initiating an entirely different system of reality, in complete opposition to that early background, and the Sinful Self was bound to react with some alarm. [...]

[...] The Sinful Self then became very alert: how could it trust its own works, if it were so indelibly tainted? [...]

[...] To some extent he thought of that as punishment, of course, of being abandoned, forced to take charity as well, and the home reinforced all of the Catholic beliefs, particularly stressing the sinfulness of the body. [...] There was no distinction made: to be sinful was of course to be a sinner, and in that home there was no time to foster any kind of independence—the children had to follow strict schedules, toe the mark. [...]

(Long pause at 8:00.) In a manner of speaking, the Sinful Self created the superhuman self-image that demanded so much, and it encased Ruburt’s body as if in concrete. [...]

(We were very encouraged by two points especially that Seth had mentioned this evening: that Jane’s thyroid had repaired itself before—which event now could free her from dependence upon medication—and that the Sinful Self’s superhuman image had “cracked and crumbled in the hospital experience.” [...]

[...] The body finally became so desperate to free itself of that rigid Sinful-Self superhuman image that it took itself into the hospital for a month—even if it did almost die in order to get itself in there. [...]

(I also had to wonder what Jane’s “Sinful Self” would have to say now, in comparison to the material Jane had received from it beginning in June 1981. [...]

[...] I said that I wanted information on the present status and beliefs of her sinful self, for comparison with its earlier stances in life. [...] Actually, I regard the attitudes and beliefs of her sinful self as the key to Jane’s recovery, since better attitudes there will leave her free to automatically restore mobility, both physically and psychologically. [...]

I will give you more on the sinful self (long pause), and I myself like to have our material smoothly flowing in your directions, so that the sinful self material will naturally come when it is most naturally meant and needed. [...]

[...] They also probably answer some of my questions about the role her sinful self may be playing these days.

[...] I mentioned in a fairly mild way some of the questions I had for Seth, saying I didn’t want to pass judgment too quickly on a given concept or idea like the Sinful Self. “My feelings toward the Sinful Self aren’t very friendly,” I said, “but I don’t want to be too hostile or I might create other problems....” [...]

(Long pause at 8:42.) The Sinful Self is of course put upon, turned into what it is. [...]

[...] The main issue, again, is to reassure that one important portion of Ruburt’s personality that the self is not sinful, not bad or evil, and to show it the limited nature of the framework that so defined it. [...]

[...] A small segment this evening on television gave you a picture of the confused activity that can take place in exaggerated situations—the segment dealing with the abused children, for there you have parents reacting in the worst possible way to the religious dictums as interpreted by “Sinful Selves.” [...]

She learned of the concept of sin through her intense early involvement with the Roman Catholic church. It’s easy to see how, in Jane’s case at least, the church’s teachings about sin began to grow as the innocent child started protecting her spontaneous natural mysticism—that prime attribute she’d chosen for exploration in this life. I don’t think her “sinful self” could have risen to such prominence without feeding upon those repressions, clamping down more and more within the psyche as the years passed, continuing its misguided but “well-meaning attempt to protect the creative self … to keep a hand of caution on its course lest the centuries of men’s belief in sin carried a true weight that I shared but could not comprehend.” And so, of couse, the sinful self’s own overreactions, although carried out without “malice,” became themselves a portion of Jane’s long-range learning challenges this time.

[...] (That session is presented in the essay for April 16.) Any decision Jane makes about altering the deeply set beliefs involved in her condition will require the cooperation of a number of portions of her psyche, including her sinful self, and it appears that at this time neither of us is ready to try achieving that kind of overall effect. [...] Ironically, Jane’s sinful self is one of the main creators of and participants in her illness syndrome, so any beneficial changes she can bring about will first call for a major shift in the attitude of that very stubborn portion of her psyche. [...]

[...] The anger I’d felt at Jane and myself when she began recording her sinful-self material (see the essay for April 16) has long since dissipated. [...]

[...] I plan to work with the rest of that sinful-self material….”

(During lunch I’d asked Jane if she thought Seth might want to comment on the sinful self, and its material. [...] I thought the sinful self had to be cooperating in our endeavors, and I wondered whether there might be some scrap of new information it possessed that could help us. [...]

The sinful-self data does not apply now, and I am seeking to present the necessary material that is most pertinent and vital. [...]

I now want to put the Sinful Self material in a larger spectrum. [...]

The Sinful Self material represents those ideas that were strong element in the original belief structural of a cultural nature, to which Ruburt was “bonded.” [...]

[...] Seth’s use of “matrix” above reminded me that before the session Jane had mentioned that he wanted to discuss her Sinful Self material in a new sort of matrix.)

[...] The ideas presented by the so-called Sinful Self represent several layers of activity, then, that should be understood as represented. [...]

Then just before session time, I mentioned my question about her sinful self’s reactions to our efforts to help her in recent weeks. We have yet to see the kind of physical response we want, and I wanted to know if we’d prompted her sinful self to step up its attempts to keep her “under control.” I explained that I think Seth’s and our own endeavors on her behalf had been negated each time because we’d alerted her sinful self’s fears—making it try harder to protect her according to its own very restrictive orientation.

4. (Seth at 9:07:) “Your earlier comment (about Jane’s sinful self) is pertinent. Remember, again, that the sinful-self designation is a method of identifying certain attitudes. [...]

[...] I reminded her that when I refer to her sinful self, I only mean certain groups of ideas that we’ve personified for convenience’s sake.)

“You do not perceive the consciousness within the self. [...]

Instead of promoting the idea of man’s inner worth, it has taught people to distrust the inner self and its manifestations. Most churches preach a dogma that stresses concepts of the sinful self, and sees man as a creature contaminated by original sin even before birth.

Amid such a conglomeration of negative suppositions, the idea of a good and innocent inner self seems almost scandalous. To encourage expression of that self appears foolhardy, for it seems only too clear that if the lid of consciousness were opened, so to speak, all kinds of inner demons and enraged impulses would rush forth.

[...] Unfortunately such concepts are also reflected in fields of psychology, particularly in Freudianism — where, say, slips of the tongue may betray the self’s hidden, nefarious true desires.

The unconscious is understood to be a garbage heap of undesirable impulses, long ago discarded by civilization, while again much religious theory projects the image of the hidden self that must be kept in bounds by good work, prayer, and penance.

[...] I wanted to know what her sinful self thought about what it was doing to her body, if it cared, if it even understood that it’s protective actions threatened its own existence. Or was her death the ultimate goal of the sinful self? [...] I told Jane it would be a joke if those portions of the self we’re blaming for her condition, really are the truest, most simple and honest portions after all, and that their roles in bringing about her natural death were being subverted by our conscious-mind meddling and interference. [...]

[...] I think this means that her sinful self, or whatever, has once again clamped down. [...] The great question, then, is why those portions of the self would — and do — continue their terribly destructive ways, even to the point of bringing about their own death — for if allowed to, I think, death would be the end result, the final step along their chosen path.

[...] The Sinful Self, so-called, now, is only too willing to accept such responsibility, for it believes to some extent that such responsibility is a kind of penance for its own shortcomings. [...]

(Long pause at 9:22.) Now nothing is all that simple, so there would be changes in his attitudes: He would tell himself, for example, that television or whatever would fritter away his time, or at other occasions other fears would rise so that the Sinful Self would think “Suppose such activity succeeded only too well, leading whole groups of people away from established systems of belief?” (Long pause.) There seemed to be little resolution. [...]

It shows a change of belief —being willing to bring the body physical pleasure instead of the Sinful Self’s idea of, say, penance or atonement. [...]

[...] He was also afraid that spontaneously he might want to do such things after all, as if his spontaneous self would work against his better interests. [...]

[...] A very significant sentence:) The entire structure of fears, of course, is based upon a belief in the sinful self and the sinful nature of the self’s expression. [...]

Behind such ideas is of course the central point of Christianity, or one of the central points at least, that earthly man is a sinful creature. He is given to sin. [...]

[...] Those fears, however, have been pertinent, since they stood between old beliefs and new ones—that is, they prevented him from taking full advantage of his newer knowledge, and of the abilities and good intent of the spontaneous self. [...]

[...] No need to go into details here, but it ended up with Jane asking me to get the notebook of sinful-self material. [...]

Last night, at Rob’s suggestion, I looked over my notebook of sinful-self stuff with related material, hoping of course that it might trigger some important impetus or clue that would give me insight into my own position. [...]

[...] So Dr. Kardon’s visit was behind Robby’s suggestion that I look at my own sinful-self material, and I intuitively felt that the time was probably right. [...]

I plan of course to work with the rest of that sinful-self material. [...]

(Both of us have been curious as to how the material in Monday night’s session fits in with that on the Sinful Self, which Jane still hasn’t typed except for the first five pages. I’m somewhat handicapped because I don’t have the Sinful Self material to compare anything to, but I’m sure there are many connections between the two. [...]

[...] “It’s the sort of thing I think is rooted in Sinful-Self stuff, on both of our parts—you’re not going to feel guilty about the gifts of nature unless those feelings have a pretty strong base in the psyche, somewhere.... [...]

I cherished Jane’s ending for her poem, for in it she’d reaffirmed at least the possibility of her self healing itself. [...] hope was tempered even as my fear lessened, for she hadn’t mentioned outright the integration of a more understanding sinful self into her psyche. [...]

[...] The sinful-self material is doing its work, opening the necessary doorways of desire and intent. [...] The innocent self is being uncovered.

[...] In the first of the two he remarked that “Ruburt is still dealing with spin-off material following or resulting from his sinful-self data….” [...]

[...] (I’ve shown in Dreams that many of her physical symptoms have resulted from conflicts between those spontaneous urges, and entrenched beliefs that revolve around her sinful self and tell her that such activity is wrong.)

(Seth discussed generalized sinful-self material in only one of the five private sessions Jane has held since she came through with the 931st session for Dreams three weeks ago.¹ In some respects lately she’s felt a bit more at ease.²

[...] Involved here also is Jane’s sinful self and “its” attitude concerning the requests she receives to go public through radio and television interviews, lectures, records, tapes, and so forth. [...]

[...] Of that last total, she devoted 13 sessions to material on the magical approach to reality, and 27 to the subject of the sinful self. [...]

[...] anyhow, he did a terrific session then on the Sinful Self.... [...]

[...] The statements of the Sinful Self show him clearly the reasons why he was afraid of pursuing the unknown, and afraid therefore of using his own natural abilities freely and safely. [...]

[...] To that degree and in the light of this discussion, you end up with what I will call —and have in the past called—the overly conscientious self, which attempts to deal with the attitudes of the Sinful Self by checking and double-checking all the time, by being, in other words, overly conscientious: is Ruburt dealing with “the truth,” and so forth? That kind of question is endlessly considered by the conscientious self. [...]

[...] The material on the Sinful Self and so forth gives some insight into the nature of the problem. That is, it gives expression to the portion of the self that holds attitudes that are behind the difficulty. [...]

[...] “What’s the matter,” I asked her after supper tonight, “do you feel guilty because you think you deserted your mother?” I explained that I felt self-punishment, a feeling of unworthiness, self-doubt and mistrust must lie at the root of her symptoms—that she felt she must pay a price for each success, like the publishing of a book. [...]

Our material does not work by providing bandages, but by providing an overall aura of creativity that in itself generates self-healing and self-understanding—and that is how other people are helped. [...]