“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

It would be of help along these lines for Ruburt to scrub his rug, as for him rugs have a certain significance in this respect, and particularly air the bedding. As long as you understand the reason behind these actions, you see, you will not overestimate them.

The reasons for this misguided activity have been given to some extent. He became determined not to pamper himself, but he never did pamper himself to any great extent. He would not buy clothes that you could afford, but wore others given to him by others, as if he did not feel he deserved his own.

He is willing to compromise by taking various jobs, but here there are other influences also. His grandfather strongly influenced him, and to the grandfather only a man who worked for himself was independent. Only in his last ill year did he work for others. He had his own businesses, but he barely scraped by with them you see.

He was offered a ride home and cashed his check. This deprived him of an opportunity to change his mind and buy the sweaters then. He also felt guilty because of your neck difficulties. He was angry at the route the driver took, and not able to say so. The story told by the driver upset early sexual feelings, and all of this together caused his difficulties. Later that evening the torture discussion, you see—this frightened him because his withheld anger and aggression found the talk most satisfying, and Ruburt then and there fought desperately to deny this. The symptoms begun earlier in the afternoon, then intensified.

The compulsive behavior gave him a safe circle in which to operate, but it was a small circle. It was meant to keep harmful influences out, but it was also meant to keep harmful influences in.

Now, he tried to block off subconscious feelings concerning his mother because he could not afford, he felt, to react to them, and there was little avenue for expression of his aggressive feelings toward her. She knew this and mocked him, daring him to kill her physically.

In some ways, quite understandable. Old guilts held regularly in normal balance concerning his mother then leapt upward. The adult wondered then, had he misjudged the mother? Was not the mother at last sending him presents? To punish himself he attempted to give himself his mother’s symptoms, to put the shoe on the other foot, so to speak, almost in a religiouslike atonement.

Ruburt correctly interpreted the evening symptoms that sometimes occur. There is some identification with the mother here, based on highly falsified data; if he becomes the mother, then the mother cannot hurt him. And in all such identifications, there is the feeling that by becoming that which one fears, there is safety. This is obviously wrong and dangerous.

The going up is reassuring, you see. Now he may if he prefers, and this is not original with me, imagine a circle of psychic safety about him, through which only constructive suggestions and influences can pass.