“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Ego in its own way senses these particular potentialities also; merely senses them as say a dog might sniff danger, and it directs its efforts to block them. A frightened dog takes very careful handling, or you may lose a hand and gain very little.

It happened so quickly that Ruburt’s old dog of an ego was taken by surprise almost completely, and the whole affair might have been successful, as far as its purpose being achieved, had not a quick preliminary sensation caused the ego to rouse from its pleasant doze.

The sensation occurred mere seconds before the outward rush, but provided just enough of a dim warning to the ego. The ego could not prevent the outward rush. It did not react in time. The warning was not therefore sufficient from the ego’s standpoint. It yelped and pulled the escaping inner self back by its imaginary coattails.

Quietly but firmly, without antagonizing the ego further, Ruburt quieted it down by the suggestion of safety and slow motion; as you suspected the slow motion suggestion and/or coupled with the cautionary warning, was interpreted rather expertly, that is slyly, by the subconscious, which then waited a good interval of several hours before trying again.

In the meantime, that is for the remaining half-hour, it experimented with preliminary acclimating and familiarizing sensations, with which the ego, somewhat conditioned and convinced of the benefit of these experiments, could find nothing really objectionable.

As a rule Ruburt’s ego will jealously guard its interests. When he feels it shout at him it is good to lessen the pace during the rest of the session, as he attempted to do. The wording of any suggestions is very important, however. The phrase, “I will progress safely”, is an excellent one to use, since it allows for continuation and progress balanced by safety.

The word slow, or slowly, is not good in this connotation, since of itself it does not necessarily suggest safety, but a mere neutral and temporary putting off. So far Ruburt is doing well, and will learn as he progresses how to operate inner acceleration and flow, or rush of energy, so that he is comfortable. And the ego, through experience, will learn that the inner self will always return safely. And it would be most unjust, and needlessly cruel, not to give the ego this necessary reassurance; and also the inner self should manage to communicate to the ego its gratitude for the ego’s protective concern.

For the present Ruburt’s ego will exert balancing resistance, like an anchor perhaps, or a weight. However the inner self has also tasted new freedom, so there will be a brief jolting while the relationships and forces work themselves out to achieve a new, integrated balance.

We will either cut our friend down as to allotted time per day for a while, or we will not have him experiment alone in the apartment. Any difficulties would be caused by a temporary impasse of ego and inner self, which should clear itself up. I do not foresee difficulty.

The personal emotions and memories loosened, freed him; but the journey was necessarily destined by the particular emotions that powered it, and the destination was one, incidentally, familiar to the ego, and to some extent at least one to which both ego and subconscious were nostalgically connected.

It was therefore along the lines of a preliminary test flight, and one to which the ego would not therefore object. This incident today was vastly more complicated, though it did not completely come off.

The ego is now somewhat in the confidence of the whole self, therefore we have more to contend with. We are no longer tricking the ego, which it would ultimately and sometimes almost disastrously resent, but taking it into the confidence of the whole self, so that it will allow departure from the physical image, as a mother can finally be convinced that it is safe for a son or daughter to go out alone.

This analogy is not a very good one however, since the child does eventually leave the parent, but it is a true one because the inner self does indeed leave the physical image with which the ego is so concerned, when it passes beyond the physical field.