“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

This has to do with the attack made on Ruburt by your domestic cat. Several issues are involved: Ruburt’s own mood at the time, for one thing. Now. The cat senses both of your moods immediately. It is psychically very close to you both. Being a house cat, it is closed in with you. As a rule you both radiate strong constructive energy. For a short period of time, Ruburt turned his creative energy, as he knows, I believe, inward rather than outward, knotted it up, misdirected it, did not focus it properly, and turned it into destructive energy.

Now. Ruburt would not turn any destructive energy loose upon you, my dear friend, for he loves you too deeply. He is too mature now to turn such destructive energy inward in a strong manner, against his own organism. He would not willfully turn such energy loose even upon an animal.

Usually his aggressive feelings are automatically sublimated into his work. He grapples with ideas and with words. The destructive energy however found no outlet. It therefore took the point of least resistance, and he quite subconsciously of course projected it upon his pet. It was not that he actually focused the energy purposely upon the cat, merely that the cat’s spongelike psychic nature received it full force.

Now, the other smaller episodes involving Ruburt and the cat alone have always occurred during the same process, only when lesser emotional crises were involved. You were quite right in saying that Ruburt fears violence. This is one of the keynotes of his personality, and rather obviously this has to do with his early life and his mother.

There is much more here. However he began his creative life very early as an outlet, you see, for aggressive and violent feelings. As an infant and a young child he had a strong temper, which terrified him, and he indulged in childish tantrums. Children know much more than they are given credit for.

The child even then realized that violence and aggression was somehow connected with his mother’s illness. He also, that is Ruburt also, felt the violence that is a part of his father’s personality. Suddenly the tantrums ceased. He held them back in pure terror of the consequences, for suddenly the violent-tempered mother was immobile. He feared the same fate. The father had completely disappeared. To the child the father simply vanished from the face of the earth, an equally fearful fate.

She did express this violence, and again with fury, through verbal attacks to which Ruburt was extremely sensitive. But Ruburt did not even dare to express his violence verbally, because of the parent-child relationship. Added to this was the fact that the child loved the parent much more strongly, you see, than the parent ever loved the child.

Ruburt knew this well. He has since grown to like all animals but at the moment of the attack, you see, the cat instantly became this personification of evil to him, and again his primary concern was to flee. There was never an instant in the whole affair when he thought of striking back.

He does not see his mother because he imagines subconsciously that he is protecting her from his own violence against her, lest after all these years it might erupt. Now this is ridiculous. This restrained violence has been excellently used for creative purposes.

When this builds up and enough small legitimate injustices are borne, docilely, then we have an explosion of a sorts. Everyone else you see has a right to gripe, he feels subconsciously, but he cannot. He is terrified to do so. When he manages to do so he is jubilant out of all proportion. His swearing you see allows him leeway.

All of this needs to be said, you see. You are both learning at a rather amazing rate. In the past you turned some repressed violence inward against yourself. Ruburt’s selling jobs were very practical for a time, for they allowed him to release aggressive feelings. You become angry when you think, rightly, that Ruburt is too docile in his dealings, but this is because you are angry at your own lack of power as a child to retaliate against the atmosphere of violence that you sensed in the child’s home.

You are also angry at Ruburt’s docility because it reminds you of your father’s lack of aggression in his business dealings. When all this is out in the open as it is now, you will find that both of you can deal much more effectively with the outside business world, and you will not be hampered as you both have been.

Subconsciously he feels that you are saying shut up, and this angers, humiliates and bewilders him. He struggles against such disclosures to begin with. Instead you see methods can be used to direct the emotions in other channels. You can get him to talk about other matters by asking for example about what he has written for the day. The subject chosen by you must be one in which he is immensely interested however. He will understand that you are merely trying to redirect him, and will not feel that you are restraining his freedom to say what he wants to say. He will understand what you are doing, but that is all right. He knows the emotional situation with your mother, and will not object.

Now I will leave you both, and I hope you will see that I have done you both a service, for this is my intention. The storm with Ruburt has passed, and you have both learned much because of it. It is a minor storm indeed, compared to what would have occurred some years earlier. He does not move furniture as erratically as he did, and is learning despite this to use his energies constructively.

I repeat: Ruburt should make a daily habit of his exercises. If you have any questions I will answer them. Otherwise we shall close our session.

There is a man who wears a hat in his office who will be connected with one of these books. It is a characteristic of his. He is perhaps 46, but he is definitely between 46 and 56. (Pause.) There is a G  connected with him.