“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

This is an unbending conscious pose of the ego, and not to be confused with the lithe subconscious detachment which is actually warm, flexible and expansive. That is, it can contain within it many elements, acknowledge them but be not affected by bad or negative suggestions or elements.

In some ways it is even a deeper thing. The analogy may not be a perfect one, far from it, but it is as if your breath were to be suddenly cut off. In a manner this somewhat approximates pain for a tree.

The tree is also innerly aware of its environment to an astonishing degree. It maintains contact awareness and the ability to manipulate itself in two completely different worlds, so to speak, one in which it meets little resistance growing upward, and one composed of much heavier elements into which it must grow downward. Man needs artificial methods for example to operate effectively on land or in water, but the so-called unconscious tree manages very nicely in two worlds as diverse certainly as land and water, and makes himself a part of each. I am speaking now of a tree as a “he” for reasons that I will go into in a further discussion.

The awareness of plant life lies along these lines. In a deep trance there is oblivion afterward, that is the subject though fully aware of what is going on while in deep trance, can remember nothing of it afterward. The awareness of plant life is also like the awareness of a subject in deep trance. Except for the suggestion and stimulus received by regular natural forces on your plane, the plant life does not bestir itself in other directions. But like the subject in trance, our plant is aware. Its other abilities lie unused for the time and latent, but they are present.

The awareness is focused along certain lines. The energy is likewise focused. Much of the ability again is suspended as for a subject in a trance, but consciousness is present. Your hybrid plants merely demonstrate this susceptibility to new suggestion which your plant, like your susceptible trance subject, will gladly follow. I will have more to say along this road of thought, but am detoured for just a moment as to which fork to follow.

(Break at 9:43. Jane felt that Seth wanted to go on, but had so many points of departure to choose from that he couldn’t decide which to pursue first.”I can feel him buzzing around,” she said just before she resumed dictating at 9:50.)

A tree knows a human being also. Not only for example by the weight of a boy upon its branches, but by the vibrations in the air as adults pass, which hit the tree’s trunk at varying distances, and even by such things as voices. You must remember my earlier remarks about mental enzymes, and my remark that color can sometimes be heard and sight be seen.

They deal with finer distinctions than you know now, being somewhat of the nature of your body’s ability to sense another person’s aggression. As your body senses temperature changes so it also senses the psychic charge not only of other human beings but also, believe it or not, of animals, and to a lesser extent it senses the psychic charge of plants and vegetative matter. Your tree builds up a composite of sensations of this sort, sensing not the physical dimensions of a material object, whatever it is, but the vital psychic formation within and about it.

Man’s ego causes him to interpret everything else in the light of himself. He loses very much in this manner. The ego is definitely an advancement, but it can be compared to the bark of the tree in many ways. The bark of the tree is flexible, extremely vibrant, and grows with the growth beneath. It is a tree’s contact with the outer world, the tree’s interpreter, and to some degree the tree’s companion.

It is the physical materialization of the inner self, but it is not meant to snuff out the inner self. If for example our tree bark grew fearful of the stormy weather and began to harden itself against the elements, in a well-meaning but distorted protective spirit, then the tree would die. The sunlight and so forth could never penetrate. The sap could not move upward for the trunk would solidify through and through, trying all the while to protect, and killing the tree with its obsessive kindness.

This is what the ego does when it reacts too violently to purely physical data on your plane. As a result it stiffens and you have, my well-meaning friend, the cold detachment with which you have faced the world. I do not want to digress here. I have certain points in mind for this evening. Nevertheless lest Ruburt thinks he is getting off scot-free, let me remind him that the tree’s bark is quite necessary, cannot be dispensed with—but I will get into that and into Ruburt at a later time.

The idea of dissociation could be likened to the slight distance between the bark and the inside of the tree. Here we do not have a rigid bark, as you should not have a rigid ego. We have instead a flexible bark, changing with the elements, protecting the inner tree or the inner self, but flexible, opening up or closing in rhythmic motion. The bark is so to speak outside our tree; and there is a small space between the inner tree and the bark. This small space is our dissociation.

The inner tree continues to grow because the bark is flexible. Man lets his ego face the outer world as does the tree bark, and this is its purpose. Nevertheless the inner self, like the inner tree, must have room to expand. The tree bark makes allowances for good weather (here Jane pounded the table) though bad weather is repulsive to the bark. Nevertheless the bark makes whatever adjustments are necessary and is flexible. Forgive me if this is a trite analogy, I almost hate to say it, but it bends with the wind. It does not bend when there is no wind. Nor does it solidify, stopping the flow of sap to the treetop for fear the dumb tree, not knowing what it was up to, would bump its head against the sky.

For instance, this experience in psychic phenomena would seem to be simply an enjoyable, enlightening, but purely impractical happening. If you were as ego bound as you were last year, you would not have had either the time nor energy nor even the inclination for it. It would not have seemed practical.

Nevertheless it may prove extremely practical in terms of that beloved financial god. If so, and I believe you will find this the case, it is because you did not block it. You may very well find in the future that a good deal of your income is derived in this fashion. But it will not be the main benefit by any means.

Excellent art will triumph always, because it speaks clearly. But in the lifetime of many artists it must compete with personal vibrations, if you’ll forgive the word, of the artist himself.

When you start out by trying to be practical in cold terms you rarely succeed, because you close yourself away from what does not seem to be practical in your terms. But your terms are not the only terms that apply. The inner self, and I will make these differentiations for you clearly either now or later, the inner self is nourished by many springs. To cut off one is a danger. To cut off many is disastrous, and prevents any sort of practicality, since half of your abilities will not be used.

The confident inner self will let the ego manipulate in the physical world, but will not allow it to become fiercely overprotective. Your work contains the strength of your inner self in many ways. Your particular ego’s function is to show this work to the world as you know it. I hesitate, and I mean this, to offer practical advice to one who tries to be so practical. But my dear Joseph, there is no true practicality in smothering your abilities by working in a position where you cannot use your abilities. You will not be paid for abilities you cannot use, since I know you must think in financial terms. Your ego’s job is to help you trade your true abilities for your daily bread.

A job which prevents you from using these abilities is at best a compromise and at worst a soul-stunting experience. At the present time you both are maintaining your physical status very well. If you are worried about social status, I am afraid I am not much help, but I will say this: Things will get better because you allowed yourself to expand. Fear always contracts.

(Break at 11:13. Jane was tiring by now, and also smoking too much. During break we discussed our experiences in Florida a few years ago. We spent some months at Marathon, in the Keys, with Jane’s father. Driving back to Pennsylvania we passed through Miami. Jane wanted to stay there and I liked the idea, but since I had only thirty dollars I was afraid to chance a strange city with so little, and we headed north to my parents’ home in Pennsylvania. Jane resumed dictating at 11:20.)

Had you stayed in Miami your crazy Ruburt would have pointed out an apartment house in a fair section of the city, but rather far from the ocean, I believe something like Dunlop Street, where you would have found an apartment.

She would have talked the landlord into taking one week’s rent instead of two months’ rent in advance. There is a supermarket three blocks away where she would have gotten a job that would have lasted seven months. At the end of this time you would have had a job in an advertising firm. You would have gotten by very well. You would not have stayed at the advertising firm over eighteen months. However Jane would have worked in an art gallery—this experience was ahead of her, not foreordained but ahead of her in any case. You would have ended up in the same gallery.

Your impulse at the time was the same as Jane’s, if you remember, but you were afraid of the practical aspects. Your parents would have visited you last year, and be strongly tempted to settle in a small town northeast of Miami, where your father would be amazed at the opportunities in his own business. Things have changed. Free will constantly operates. I will not attempt to give you definite so-called practical advice now, but you can learn from this and the paths will be clear.

Ruburt sensed the growing explosion with your parents, sensed the frigid growth of your ego, and impulsively had to do something. Had you not left at all circumstances would have been far worse in any case, and your parents might have suffered another, but this time fatal, accident. Ruburt of course did not know this in practical terms but he knew it nevertheless.

It was for this reason that Jane was antagonistic to Mr. Burrell from the beginning, and filled with panic. What set her off was not the disappointment over the teaching job, which fell through, but the sequence of events, such as Mr. Burrell’s advances and her subconscious knowledge of her father’s nature.

(Jane finally became unable to eat breakfast before going to work. She had cramps, and then her thyroid gland began to act up. I had never met her employer, but gradually understood that he had made advances by innuendo. I told Jane to stay home and went to the store and quit her job for her; by chance the manager was not there at the time.

Had you stayed in Miami you would have been ahead of the game, but you are still ahead of the game by getting out. Whenever Ruburt, or Jane, puts up such a fight against you there is good reason. Because Ruburt is trying to learn gentleness this time and because he is a woman strongly attached to you, his respect for you is boundless and in most cases he will give in to what he considers your superior judgment. When despite this the present Jane puts on a strong emotional guise it is because the intuitions push her to this extreme.

You would have had difficulty also had you stayed in Sayre on returning from Florida. You cannot allow these things to inhibit your spirit, but your mother cannot understand a man who does not have what she considers the ordinary social responsibilities.

If you remember, at one time when you had just arrived from Florida she convinced her landlady to give you an apartment with no money down. This was another opportunity out that would have avoided the nearby association with your parents, but was not taken.

By this time Ruburt-Jane was so confused that he would have taken the radio position in Elmira, and here again this would have been an error. In fact Joseph, and I do not say this to make you feel better but because it is the truth, you literally saved her life.

She would have taken a private plane to Minneapolis. The plane would have crashed, and she would not have survived. So if you think of opportunities missed think also of tragedies avoided, because but for you she would have taken the job to get out of Sayre. I wanted to bring all these points up this evening so that you will see that while you did not always take the best course, you had the sense between you to avoid the worst ones.

He is indeed much like you, but without your artistic talent and without your overly developed protective mechanism. His liking for the planning of houses will grow, and will compensate him for your artistic talents, which he has always envied.

Dick, being so much younger, saw no reason why he should be able to compete. He identified with you and loved you. His wife is a great help to him, but so far he has not fully developed his intellectual capacities, for many reasons, and he has a tendency to blame her for it. Outside of your mother who left her mark very strongly on you, you have been the dominant active psychic member of your family, exerting very strong influence on all.

Inheritance is extremely potent in this case. Your father represents a most tragic example of impulse frozen into inactivity, and practicality which was never practical but molded him into immobility, his powers so encased by fear that he could not manipulate in the physical environment at all.

(Break at 12:20. We were both tired. Jane’s voice was hoarse. This was our longest session, and I thought she might be losing her voice. But she wanted to continue for a little while. Resume at 12:29.)

When I said that you saved Ruburt’s life I meant it quite literally. In a sense, Ruburt saved your parents’ lives by insisting that you leave Sayre when you did. Any other mistakes you both may have made are more than made up for because of this. Jane’s father is still in danger of losing his life violently, but if he survives the next five years he will die a natural death, before 70 I believe. (67).

I began this session with a desire to discuss vegetative and plant life. To me, you see, there is no unlife, as you usually consider rocks and pebbles. However I felt this a good time to go into personal background as the session continued. I promise to get back to more philosophical matters, but I did want you to know the dangers and tragedies you have managed to avert, since I also told you of the opportunities that you had missed.

I am with you whenever you are able to permit it. Incidentally, your purring cat is very pleased with his home. You have large hearts, certainly large enough to let at least part of the world in. I would apologize for the lengthy session, but I know you will benefit very much.