“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Then I shall continue. First of all, may I congratulate you for doing something that you do not realize you have done. You did have some help, it is true, from Ruburt, but in the main you did this on your own. Do you have any idea of what I am speaking?

That indeed was very good, quite excellent—but it is not what I am referring to.

Now—now you are on the correct issue. It was an accomplishment because you started from scratch, so to speak. Consciously the whole affair annoyed you no end. You saw it as a grumpy old machine, with its best days finished. But you put to excellent use the advice which I gave you, concerning the importance of psychological reactions.

When the trouble initially began, the most recent trouble, you were generally disgusted with the car, and your disgust led to the difficulties. Not in any nebulous symbolic manner, but in very literal terms.

(A week or so ago I forgot to buy gasoline, and this led to a situation that could have been dangerous. When Jane and I were on our way to the home of the Gallaghers, who live on top of a steep and long hill outside Elmira, the car lost power, then stalled out on the hill. It was after dark, the road was slippery with snow; I had to back down the hill while Jane lighted the way with a flashlight, until I found a driveway. I did not realize I had run low on gas at the time, for the car started as we coasted down hill. We arrived home safely but the car would not start up again.

(Jane and I walked to a nearby station for gasoline but the car still wouldn’t start; consequently the garage had to tow the car in for repairs. Seth’s information on the oil warning light is also apparently correct, for when the garage checked the oil level it was quite low. I usually make a point of watching this closely, and it is interesting to speculate as to how I failed to see the warning light go on, since it is situated on the dash in front of me. I had the oil checked immediately after I became aware that the warning light was on. Nor had Jane noticed it on.

Now you can do, that is any individual can do, and does, the same with the physical body. If his reactions cause a generalized overall poor condition, this is much more difficult to treat. But if this energy can be put into a specific form, one pimple, one pain, one ulcer, at least the problem is recognized, localized, and can be treated with somewhat less difficulty.

There was no need for your garageman to think, then, that the trouble had not been noticed, for when he examined the car last the overall condition was poor. But there was no specific physical or localized trouble. I thought that you would find this rather interesting.

(Jane smiled again. I did find it interesting, especially when I contemplated trying to explain it to our service manager at the garage, who is a personal friend of ours, but does not know about these sessions.)

I have much more material on inverted time to give you, but there is a personal matter that I would like to discuss.

Your attitude toward your faithful old car is not based upon the reasons you ascribe it to. An automobile means one thing to you and one thing to Ruburt. Obviously your backgrounds have much to do with this, but I do not believe that you realize what I am about to tell you.

Now your situation is not only entirely different but contrary, for to you a car represents, because of your father, an image on one hand of perfection. Your father insisted, because of his work with batteries, upon perfection. An old car hardly represents this image.

Your father would like to kick at old cars, for he felt that they defied him since they worked improperly. More than this however, both of your parents still feel that a car is a symbol of social status, and you grew up with this. When your cars were new you felt at one with them. But an old car brings back the old struggles between your parents, and it is precisely here that subconsciously you and Ruburt do not agree. He gladly settles on an old car—anything that moves will do. But to you the old car has not meant freedom, but imperfection.

This is not the adventurous spirit they told you of, and you heard every word. On the other hand you do have a rather deeply felt feeling for mechanical objects. This has some connection with your position in the service. But the conscious reasons that you have for being annoyed with your automobile, these reasons are rationalizations to hide the deeper causes.

(Break again at 9:51. Jane said she realized of course that she enjoyed having a car, any kind of car, available. But she hadn’t particularly associated this with the reasons Seth ascribed to a need for mobility. Nor had she made any great connection with the idea of her father being a traveling man. My idea was that Seth had mentioned these things briefly in much earlier sessions.

(Jane now told me that while speaking last time, she received a message from Seth to the effect that from now on she wasn’t to smoke during tests, because of the distraction involved. She didn’t have to pause while giving the regular material to get this message, but seemed to receive it on another level simultaneously with the material she gave voice to. She had been smoking so far during the session.

You are doing very well, much better than you think, generally speaking. Reactions which you would have accepted as natural in the past, you now accept as being unfavorable, as they are. But the recognition, you see, causes you at times to think you are not making progress when indeed you are. You expect more of yourself now, and you are getting more.

We work in our tests almost as one organism, as a gestalt, and you also have a part here Joseph. We were certainly specific with this last test, but there must be freedom first.

We shall end up not only with excellent results on a fairly predictable basis, but your records will form an excellent document that shows how these abilities are used and translated into practical terms.

You may if you like have a session in which you ask me any personal questions that come to mind. I was holding the material concerning your car for such an occasion, but decided this evening that it was important enough to you to take up a regular session.