“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Here Jane’s voice began to deepen and grow a bit louder. Jane knows rather little about my family history. Seth is correct in stating that my father’s older brother, my Uncle Jay, who is also dead, was connected with Ella in this life; he was very protective toward her, and after he died eight years ago his wife continued to watch over Ella.

(I have a few boyhood memories of Ella’s retarded son, also named Jay. He has been institutionalized for many years, and I do not believe Ella and her husband Wilbur saw him for a number of years prior to their deaths.)

The child was extremely gentle in his way, and in his way he is still a gentle child. We are speaking honestly here, and so I will say that she would herself have preferred to dwell in such a dreamlike state herself. She was never a part of her century or her time, and she tried to protect her offspring according to her own limits, by seeing to it that his escape would be a more definite one than her own.

She would not admit the fear, but would change the fear to pride, saying to herself that the world was evil, and she would therefore have little to do with it. And so she did not. She was not a foolish woman. She loved her husband most deeply. She and he shared a quite mystical love of nature and of animals. They would harm no one.

(As stated before, Jane met Ella twice, both times rather briefly some years ago, and has no idea how much she remembers of the visits subconsciously. Jane met Ella’s husband Wilbur once; he died a few years ago. I remember Wilbur as a small gentle man who was a tailor and who smoked strong cigars. He had a white mustache and a gravel voice. I recall that the family accused him of drinking heavily and of not taking care of Ella, although I recall no objective evidence of this. I always liked Wilbur. After his death Ella was moved to a nursing home.

Your father feels this way also. But he is bitter against it, and wants what it has to offer despite himself. She did not care. She was deeply attached to the other brother. She collected buttons and string and papers, even as she collected animals. To her the buttons almost seemed to have consciousness, and when she was alone she would take out her boxes of buttons and hold some in her hands, and remember the garments to which they belonged, and when she had worn them, and how the weather had been; and she lived in a present that was deeply colored by the past.

Her husband did resent this, and he would eye her when she sat thus, but he did not say a thing. She had saved the buttons from his garments also, and she would say, “Do you remember when you wore this suit, and where we were, and what we did?”

Originally, she collected the buttons to help him in his business. His family was large and scattered. He took great pains in his work, but he was also frightened; and the world confused him and he chattered, again like a squirrel. But they were very free in their own way, and your father’s family never forgave them for this freedom.

Your father wanted it but would not pay the price for it. Your mother would never think of it as freedom, but as slavery, so she had no use for either of them. She never understood the desire for freedom from worldly concerns that is part of your father’s nature, and of all your natures. It was because your father was not willing to pay the price that he was attracted to your mother, although other elements also entered in here.

For part of him was determined to gain worldly success, and he was always caught between wanting freedom, but he would not pay the price, or wanting worldly success for which he was not willing to pay the price. So that part of him that wanted success was attracted to your mother, who also wanted the same thing, and he spoke to her with that part of himself only. So in the beginning she did not know about this other part of him.

He did not tell her because he knew she would have had no part of him. So when she discovered this other part of him she felt betrayed. To some extent she was, since she had been honest with him. Then when she discovered that he was not willing or able to go either way, or pay either price, she was enraged and embittered, and did not think of him as a man. So she hated this sister of his and thought: was this, this squalor, what he wanted? And she looked at Jay and was envious, and hated him for being the sort of man she wanted and did not get.

For your father was a great pretender in those early days; a dude and even a braggart, and he hid the part of himself that was aloof and sensitive, and wanted freedom. So he could be successful in no direction, for he did not know who he was.

Your mother still remembers the early days of her marriage, when she thought that she and your father would ultimately, beyond doubt, gain riches and success. She saw herself as the beautiful grand lady. She saw your father as her squire, and none of it happened. The man that she married had not told her the truth about his inner self, this itch he had for freedom from worldly concerns.

She did not have that sort of sensitivity, but she was more honest than he.

To some extent he projects his understandable but regrettable bitterness upon her, and then imagines that she aims it at Ruburt. The mother indeed has no great love for the daughter. There is a deep rage inside the mother. To some extent it is directed toward Ruburt, but Ruburt does have protection, the protection of his own love of all living things.

He would do his mother no harm, and for this reason she can do him no harm. The desire and the intent to do violence almost inevitably brings forth violence.

There are definite reasons for this. The reasons have been known and forgotten, but the very practical facts remain. If Ruburt would indeed do his mother harm if the opportunity presented itself, then he would indeed be in danger of harm. He is not capable of hurting anyone deliberately, even someone he dislikes bitterly.

His own fear is somewhat a danger. It is much less than it was, and your relationship has done much to better that situation. I will at some time say more. Ruburt’s love for you, his ability to love in general, is his protection. So he has nothing to fear.

(We were discussing a short list of mixed questions I had drawn up to ask Seth when the opportunity presented itself, when Seth came through again. He came through, I believe, because I expressed disappointment that he hadn’t mentioned my two recent sensations of physical enlargement. See the notes on pages 177-78.