“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

A grudging indulgence is perhaps worse than none however. At this time the plan is excellent, to offset the tight discipline that Ruburt attempted to force upon all other elements of the personality. He has been depriving it physically, in a misguided attempt to force it into the ego’s idea of spirituality.

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.

You can understand then some of the conflict here. That is one of the reasons that he seeks what you call offbeat positions, but he has made progress in this line, and should continue to do so. At one time only a freelance selling position, you see, would have been an acceptable compromise.

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.

Any spontaneity became suspect however, except artistic spontaneity. For various reasons, not necessary in this discussion, the tendency was carried over with Ruburt’s first husband. At the same time through adolescence the quality of the ego had not sufficiently shown its true character as yet. The spontaneity did erupt in constant nervous behavior, and erratic behavior. He was constantly told to slow down, to use discipline, and this reinforced the fear that what he was, was fearful, powerful, evil, and best hidden.

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.

Now occasionally the ego has risen up in our sessions, but to no alarming degree. On the few occasions when the symptoms were mentioned and a particular time given, this was a rather pathetic attempt on the part of the ego to make use of the sessions.

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.