“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Ida’s brother, Louie, had also been following the material somewhat more thoroughly, and he visited the four of us at Bill’s home Saturday night. Louie has had more experience than Jane or I with ESP activities; and when in the course of conversation the question of Jane giving a session arose, Jane and I were somewhat surprised, not anticipating this, and did nothing to push agreement to such an idea. However, when we finally became convinced that a session was quite welcome to Ida, Bill and Louie, if only out of curiosity, Jane and I agreed to try to hold one.

The impediment, beginning in this life, 1507, represented a time when he did not speak out, and he should have, for a man’s life was at stake. He did not speak out because of fear, and now when he wishes most to speak out he cannot.

This can be remedied. A sense of guilt carried throughout one lifetime is somewhat understandable. A sense of guilt enduring psychologically since the 1500’s is indeed carrying conscience just a bit too far. He has more than made up for the original offense, which was indeed understandable under the circumstances.

—was thought to be the disloyal member. He denied it; but when they decided that another innocent man was the culprit, a man whom he knew to be innocent, then to save his own life he let them think the innocent man was the betrayer.

He has paid time and time again for this. No one asked that you pay. He was then, even then, conscientious, and therefore fourfold bothered more than most by his own betrayal. In his immediately past life he plagued himself through a useless arm; right arm, you see, so he could not point out again. This time the self-adopted defect is less, a mere annoyance.

But such a mere annoyance becomes indeed a form of torture. There is no longer any need for this. In other ways, through constructive action, he has more than made his way.

You should know, and Ruburt should certainly know, that you form your own physical image in a most actual and practical manner, with all its defects, for your own reasons. And so has he.

The realization that he has more than made up for the initial betrayal should result, if he takes the information to heart, in a lessening of symptoms that should result, again, in their disappearance.

And, he knows the man whom he once so betrayed. In this life he knows him, and he—

—he has been kind to him, and he has given up much for this man whom he once, out of fear, betrayed.

It is indeed a basic anxiety and fear. The personality can express himself very well. In the 1500’s he was eloquent, and it is precisely because this eloquence, so persuasive, so smooth-tongued, caused his superiors at that time to believe the accusations against the innocent man, that he now fears to use an eloquence, because he once let it run away with him.

His present desire for expression will certainly not change. It is therefore the fear of expression that must be erased. Nor can this erasure occur without the realization by this personality that he can indeed trust himself. For both the fear and the anxiety is based simply upon a resulting distrust of his ability to handle eloquence or verbal expression.

Since I will not give a session simply to give a session, and because I will not let Ruburt parade me as part of his precious subconscious, I will indeed here speak for myself, but in terms that will help another and for the benefit of that other. And despite our anxious Ruburt’s furious attempts to block me, I will indeed say that the person who was once betrayed by the personality involved was the present father of the personality, and he knows it—

—subconsciously, and subconsciously the father knows. And why else would he demand from a son that which no father has a right to demand? He, the father, subconsciously knew and remembered this betrayal, and he would see to it that the present personality paid, and paid in full.

He has taken at least as much as he gave, and there were sly and secret ways in which the father repaid him. Yet here we have further conflict, because indeed the present father loves the present son. It is not the son that he would wound. It is the man that son once was.

So, as the father pays back his old betrayer, he hurts the son without knowing why. He cannot understand his own cruelty toward him, or the acts which he is impelled to perform. Nor can the son, loving the father, understand either the father’s cruelty or his own sense of gratification received from the cruelties. He, with his remorseless conscience, welcomes the cruelties, for they make him feel as if he is doing penance, and for what?

For an offense that has been paid for in full. And each cruelty committed by the father hurts the father more, for he is bewildered by the unkindness of his own actions toward the son, toward whom his conscious feelings are indeed fraternal. And again—

—he knows this, and he knows that by enduring the small acts of cruelty he gains two ends.

One, he attempts to convince himself of something that is indeed a fact. He has nothing else to do penance for. By enduring the literally endless small cruelties he does needless penance, but at the same time he strikes back by causing the father hours of remorse. In all relationships these intertwining effects exert, many times, most unpleasant effects.

The personality left, to return. He returned to reassure himself that he had indeed paid this subconscious debt, as indeed he had. But here again conditioning took over, and the old ways and the old responses.

(I believe this passage refers to the fact that Louie had returned to Rochester from California a few months ago. At the moment Louie is living with his parents, not being married, and is working in his father’s place of business. Louie had also remarked that his speech impediment had not bothered him as much while he lived in California, as it does currently.)

Everything becomes plain. Such and such happened to me at the age of five or six, and ever after have I acted thus and so. So it is with Ruburt’s eyes. The panic reaction, which is true, the fear of seeing reality as it was when he was a child; but this indeed is only a symptom of a symptom, and not an origin.

The incident, and I will mention it but consciously it will mean nothing, the incident represented the individual’s final success after many failures to bring forth circumstances that would then allow, or seem to cause, the peculiar set of symptoms that he felt necessary in order to repay old debts.

Saturday afternoon he was five, not six, and for unforeseen reasons left alone for a mere ten minutes in a large house, circumstances being such that only for a brief time no one was present. He played with a large ball, and the actual incident was so simple and uncomplicated that under ordinary circumstances it would have resulted in no such results.

The time, 3 PM. He went out to the kitchen, where the ball after he played with it finally rolled. A portion of a stove had been left on; and though there was no danger of fire, the child was afraid of fire. But this was not the cause of his sudden terror.

The fact remains that the child did try to scream. At the same time a door close by slammed abruptly. Unused to being alone, the child reacted in the first place vehemently to the unaccustomed isolation. He ran to the stove, touched it, and as he burned but only slightly his right hand, the door slammed nearby very loudly.

This time when the child tried to scream he could not. The sound of the door was associated with the burn in his mind. When in a few moments his mother returned he tried to explain why he cried, for she had heard the first cries, and he stuttered.

He stuttered because the pain from the small burn through subconscious association became, for the first time in this existence, penance for the barely remembered past offense. Now. The stuttering did not, as is believed, begin continuously to show itself, but from then on it began to show itself more and more as the child experienced those necessary and trivial wounds that every child must indeed endure.

There is a subconscious domination of father over son, always an implied, always an insidious circle of reaction leading to reaction. It is not strictly necessary that the personality here involved change his environment drastically, if he can understand the circumstances that underlay the relationship between himself and the father.

If this is realized then the personality will not feel smothered. As it is, how can he dare express himself in the presence particularly of a man whom he feels he once betrayed? And when he speaks to him in syllables, he does not speak clearly. He does not owe the father any more than a normal filial devotion. He does not owe the father any more than that, and to seek the father’s pleasure superficially, or to try to please the father in fields where he has no interest, will not lead either to personal development or success, and will not help the father in any way.

Communication is a field in which the personality will be extremely successful, for through electronics there is communication, and he can use his latent eloquence which now has no outlet, in this field. And may I here add that his interest in psychic phenomena is precisely caused by this need to communicate.

Indeed, it seems to me that I have given someone else, and a friend of yours, this same advice, quote: “Live alone.” The personality, if he stays in this location, should find a dwelling place where he will be unsmothered.

His actual predicament is one where what he wishes, he feels will hurt others. And yet through living at home while helping the father, on the one hand, in the establishment, at the same time on unconscious levels by his very presence he says “I am not doing what I want to do, and you are to blame.”

None of this, or very little, is conscious. The love that does exist between father and son can best be maintained and nurtured when the son stands alone, and lets the father know that he has the strength to do so. For the sacrifices unconsciously asked by the father, the father regrets, and the sacrifices made by the son, the son regrets.

He does not believe that a houseguest should behave in any such manner, but then I am not a houseguest. And I will indeed close the session, with no more p.s.’s, and with my most sincere wishes for you all. I will not however give you a shorter session Monday, since I consider that I have done a favor, and I do not owe you another.