“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Reactions will therefore appear to be intensified. Nevertheless this intensification is a pretense that one part of the self plays upon the other part, for the very intensity of the emotional reaction on the part of the ego to even small stimuli, allows the ego to say to itself “I feel deeply, therefore I know the depths of myself.” And this sham allows the ego to continue denying those inner emotions in an effort to maintain its permanence.

I now suggest your break, and I do myself indeed enjoy your pleasant summer evening. I would like to make it plain here, however, that on a surface psychological level, the personality plunges into activity, and it is for the present this portion of the personality with whom we must deal. Nevertheless, beneath there is a denial of involvement, and a strong desire for permanency, both of which are repressed, and the stronger the efforts put forth by the ego to repress these tendencies, then these tendencies will explode with inadequate stimuli. There will be an overaction on the part of the ego to compensate for the refusal to accept involvement on deeper levels.

When the ego becomes so rigid, it immediately begins an insidious attempt to block off stimuli, to limit the reaches of perception, to enclose itself in what it considers a safe world.

It begins to reject stimuli, because stimuli must be reacted to, and it rejects action because action must be reacted to. Therefore it chooses areas of rejection. The areas it chooses to reject are determined by characteristics that are unique to the particular ego.