“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.

If possible next weekend, air your clothing upon the line. Ruburt should brush his animals; all of this for its symbolic meaning, but symbolism reinforced on the sense data level.

The ideas initiated this evening are good ones. Dinners out, and so forth. In fact, they are excellent. Both of you lean toward self-denial, sometimes too acutely. Ruburt will react against this more often than you, being born under his particular birthmark.

He did not feed it properly. He denied it full satisfaction in your personal relationship. He tried to make it thin enough to disappear. He tried to douse his normally vital animal spirits, and now the body and the animal spirits do need some such extra attention.

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 feels, actually, an overly severe sense of responsibility to support himself, and not be as his mother was, a financial burden. At the same time however there is this determination to make his financial way through writing, and so far he has been caught between.

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.

Now. Friday, his two books came. They had not been paid for as yet, and he had lost some money earlier. On the way to work he found some sweaters he wanted. To some degree he felt guilty, wanting the sweaters when he had already lost money, and when they were obviously meant to replace the sweaters of his mother.

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 impetus behind the compulsive activity was fear, and the fear was directed against the mother. The compulsive behavior was also intermixed with religious connotations, the crucifix and rosary being part of the objects used at times. The desire to move furniture at times represents an attempt to break highly ritualized behavior on his part, and is constructive. When it becomes frantic of course it is a sign that the technique is not working.

He often projected these onto his mother, so that she became the symbol of all evil, at various times in any case. This regardless of the harmful qualities of her own nature, the mother’s.

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.

Now all of this should be taken with other material that I have given you, for all these reasons clicked together at the time. His book was a good one and he was proud of it. But because he felt at this time unworthy, for the reasons given, then he must punish himself for its success, artistically speaking. I can tell you that our work and the stability of our sessions has been of great aid in keeping the symptoms under some control. Had this happened before our sessions the difficulty would literally have been most severe, with other bad physical symptoms.

I would suggest that you both in summertime indulge in physical activity in the yard—quick activity of a game variety. The fact that Ruburt begins to remember his dreams shows that the inner self is being allowed more freedom, and it responds to physical touch, pampering, denial, as the case may be.

Some extra care as you plan then will also serve to liven the spirits of the spontaneous self. Ruburt’s particular personality can also find refreshment at his job; as the earlier, still somewhat lingering but largely vanishing sensitivity vanishes, it can be a source of refreshment. It is less symbolic in a negative manner, you see, than it was. While he insisted upon this rigorous discipline for himself, he was caught between trying to inflict it upon the children, and by his natural tendency to enter into their spontaneous ways. This largely contributing to the difficulties after work, as a result of the tension.

This should vanish, and is as he regains his own spontaneity. You may take a break or end the session as you prefer.

Ruburt’s mother is part of an entity, and he should remember this. He does not have arthritis, although he has been mimicking the symptoms, and could in time hypnotize himself into believing he did have the disease, though this is highly improbable given his own constitution. The spontaneous self happens to be basically more powerful and far more sensible than the ego, and would never stand for this development. It would doubtless cause some sort of an explosion however, in order to prevent any such occurrence.