“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

You certainly frightened our rabbit Ruburt this evening. He is far more timid in his relations with the outside world than even you perhaps suppose.

I will not go into this deeply this evening, except to say that he was thoroughly shocked. In many ways he is indeed a creature of habit, and he feels comparatively safe at the gallery and hates to give up a retreat which has helped financially, certainly. Where his writing is not concerned, and when he relates himself to the world at large, he is timid, fearful, and without the confidence that his inner knowledge of his own worth should certainly give him.

He is confident of his basic worth as an individual, as a writer, and even finally as a wife in relationship to you. But when he relates to the world at large, his first unfortunate reaction is a panic that is derived from psychological and emotional heritage, environmental as he picked up his mother’s distrust of the outside.

The appearance of confidence, the engaging social self, is indeed a cover-up, adopted to give him time to acclimate to new circumstances of this sort. As you well know, he lived in close supervision with his mother, and until his late, very late adolescence his whole life was literally spent within the confines of fifteen blocks, except for very short excursions.

He was certainly encouraged, and by his mother, to pursue the ways of inward intellectual freedoms, up to a point; but he was early inculcated with the expectation that the outside world meant danger at the least, and tragedy more probably.

Later circumstances forced him outward, and yet whenever circumstances permit as far as business relationships are concerned, and situations, he will stay where he is.

Your suggestions this evening were good ones. He is actually more frightened by business relationships than you are, to say the least, even granting that his training is not as specific. As he begins to understand these issues he will expand, as he should in these directions.

This material and other such personal material should be taken as extra bonuses as far as our sessions are concerned. They are more beneficial than you know now. His rather hilarious performance in an unaccustomed social gathering is caused by this fear, and the spectacular aggressive behavior represents an attempt to strike before he is struck.

Selling door to door had to him the subjective advantage in that he was master of the situation, and was indeed the invader. The hapless householder was on the defensive. This will no longer work, and I suggest he not consider it. In his own way he had been brooding. He would like some prestige in terms of position and financial benefit, that earlier did not concern him.

Ruburt might benefit from sketching, as he planned. You, Joseph, might find it most beneficial to sketch for future paintings. Sensuous pleasure will do you both much good during your vacation, a sensuous and psychic immersion into the patterns of nature will refresh you both.

I mentioned earlier that he is more in need of a vacation than you are, as last year the situation was reversed. His need is not as pressing as yours was then, but it is pressing nevertheless. Physical activity will be good. Any creative physical improvements in the apartment will help. He has attempted much more fully than ever to meet what he considers his responsibilities than ever before willingly, and can use an exuberance. Exuberance to him indeed is a safety valve, and all in all an excellent one when kept within bounds.

Expectation on his part of the house to some degree at least provided this. His tendency, both for undisciplined reactions and for habitual discipline, seem contradictory, but represent merely counterbalances in his nature. He could, conceivably, act with no discipline, but he could also conceivably deny himself any freedom at all, and hide within schedule and habit.