“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Jane was back from the store at 8:55. She said she didn’t know what kind of a session we would have, yet by 8:58 she reported that she could “feel him.” The session actually began at 9:02, and without the board.)

His discipline is improving and has improved this life, especially since the ending of the adolescent period. His smoking, dear Joseph, is indulged in for entirely different reasons than those reasons which impelled you to smoke, and the habit is difficult for him to break, though he is breaking it and he has made strides that are important during the past year.

His smoking represents the tail end of a characteristic greediness that besieged him in past lives, with smoking this time as a remnant. The greediness in the past involved many more areas. It included a strong appetite toward stuffing himself with food and drink, and an overall greediness of appetite, even of intellectual and emotional greediness which he has largely overcome.

Ruburt even has a latent gluttonous desire for rich foods that he has conquered. Nevertheless although the cigarette habit satisfies these basic old habits, he will be able to let it go. He is a gobbler, that is all. A gobbler of ideas, of emotions, of atmosphere, in some ways a veritable sponge soaking up whatever he can, but he has learned discipline and he is learning a certain amount of patience, which is difficult for him.

There is also here connected only with his present personality an ego image of the writer with a cigarette. In this case the cigarette represents independence and even individuality, and even female emancipation. So it is all bound up together in a rather mazelike web. I hope that when Ruburt understands this it will make the situation easier for him.

As I said it also has to do with a panicky gobbling up of air as if he could never get enough. As a child at one time he died from suffocation, and this also has its bearings here in the present, the panicky gulping of air being a mechanism of subconscious memory. I do hope that this helps him.

The panic itself will not be as severe as Ruburt faces it and realizes the connection with a gulping of air. I know about the book on autohypnosis, and believe that this will be a big help to Ruburt along these lines, as it will enable him to bypass many of the ego’s objections. This habit for various reasons then is deeply rooted, and seemed to be a harmless answer to a number of past and present needs and problems.

His circumstances of birth made it difficult for him to overindulge in the rich things of life, although his present mother used rich foods as compensation for other things, and this example opened Ruburt’s eyes and actually started him on the road to self-discipline.

There has been here a willingness to experience, to experiment and to give as well as a ferocious capacity to take in. The trouble in the past has been a lack of discretion and self-discipline. He was always a pleasure-loving personality however and avoided anything unpleasant. His early circumstances in this life were chosen by him as a needed experience. In other lives he was able to exist without too much adversity and this time he chose troublesome and truly tragic circumstances as a needed challenge.

His temper when aroused was very great however and he retaliated instantly. He had never known hatred however. This time he has had to deal with it in a most intimate manner. The old stormy temper is now seen in Ruburt’s deep grudges. The personality of Ruburt’s mother was not close to him in any other life. The circumstances of birth were chosen at the last minute on his part and was made for two reasons.

There is a very practical reason for a reverence for all life, and very practical reasons why man must learn certain facts that up to this point he has considered impractical. He has usually managed to separate his ethical conceptions from his daily business life, but this shall be increasingly difficult for him to manage.

Incidentally Ruburt always felt a strong bond with every living thing, and even as a man was not cruel. He was only a Christian once, the last time, and otherwise was paganistic but always in ways that enabled him to feel close to the earth. This is of course one of the main reasons for his particular reaction with the starling incident, and this quality has been a saving one in the past.