“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

So should man’s ego be. When man’s ego turns instead into a shell, when instead of interpreting outside conditions it reacts too violently against them, then it hardens, becomes an imprisoning form that begins to snuff out important data, and to keep enlarging information from the inner self. The purpose of the ego is protective. It is also a device to enable the inner self to inhabit the physical plane. It is in other words a camouflage.

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.

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.

We come again to the problem of practicality, and at the risk of repeating myself let me say that in the past Ruburt’s seeming impracticality has been more practical than your intellectual practicality. This is merely because you have not trusted your ego’s ability to offer adequate protection. You have forced it into anxiety so that it overcompensates trying to protect you, and ends up half choking you to death.

I would suggest that you keep up a closer correspondence with your younger brother on a personal basis, and I suggest this rather strongly. I would also suggest that you visit your younger brother much more frequently than you have in the past, and indeed that you do not let more than two months go by before you visit him for a weekend. Unlike you and Loren, he does not have a strongly developed ego core to protect him. He is somewhat like a snail without a shell, and could benefit strongly by your affection, shown in a more practical manner.

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.