“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

I mention this particularly because of his panic reactions last week at the gallery. You may include this material or not in the records, as you choose. He fears authority. This fear of authority is one of the reasons for his admirable independence of mind and spirit.

It is also the reason for many of his problems in the past, and to a much lesser degree in the present. His mother, representing authority to him as a child, was frightening, threatening, sometimes cruel, and capricious. The child took literally the mother’s statements that though a cripple, she could walk at night, would turn on the gas jets, and so forth.

The child emotionally was almost paralyzed with terror, hence the thyroid condition, hence also the child’s quick motions, fast, frightened responses that were desperate defense mechanisms. The new director is a figure of authority, and insists in fact upon being considered in such a light.

At once our Ruburt is like a porcupine, feeling trapped and prickling all over, eyes glaring, and attitude more prickly than a porcupine’s quills. The fact that Ruburt considers the man an ass, helped, because Ruburt could then justify his own conditioned reflex toward authority; and keep in mind other material I have given you concerning Ruburt and the gallery.

Privately, your director can see no reason why anyone who is educated cannot spell properly, but he has bent over backward not to give this impression. Out of pure perversity Ruburt has refused to learn how to spell. If authority says spell a word one way, Ruburt defiantly spells it another.

At the same time he chooses words as the basis for his art. Here he gets back at authority. He communicates to the authoritative world at large original, excellent, sharp and concisive ideas, through words that are consistently misspelled.

He, Ruburt, definitely thinks it would be. He can be extremely unbending, but I believe that this session will help matters considerably. I am speaking now of the situation as it exists in the present. Ruburt was jealous for his own authority at the gallery. He did not want to accept full responsibility for the gallery, and yet he wanted definite responsibility along definite, limited lines.

He starts fighting for position and authority, for which under ordinary circumstances he couldn’t care less. This is confusing to those who work with him. This is not to say that he does not have grievances, or that he is not worth more money, but he wants more money for prestige reasons, rather than practical ones.

It might even help Ruburt to see the director when he was not in a position of authority that he felt honor bound to uphold. I did not mean to take the whole session up with private matter. Nevertheless it is well that this material came through.