“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Now, you fear that I am about to leap down your throat and I can assure you I will not do so. Now your feelings toward me before this session have very much to do with other attitudes that are very important to you and very ingrained. Some of these are obvious and have to do with this life only; others have to do with past lives. Now you have been terrified of your father from the time you were an infant. And before the session began, You thought of me as an old, but wise and extremely powerful male adult, as you thought of your father when you were a child.

([Pat:]I had been terrified of my father for the first 19 years of my life. Indeed, I never saw my father as a person but rather as a dark shadow with a club. My father had a temper that was aimed at us children and at my mother. [Yet my father is a very loving person. I know that now. We are very close, now. I love my father deeply. He has mellowed in his attitude toward my youngest sister, also.] We got spanked when we misbehaved, which is something I’ve always been ashamed to admit to others. I didn’t want my friends to know my father spanked us. I wanted my family to be a happy one. I was always afraid to bring friends home for fear my mother and father might argue and embarrass me. Also, I didn’t think my dad wanted us to bring friends home.

(Yet, my father was very intelligent and had a good job and held many responsible positions in the community. Others looked to him for guidance. I had felt my dad was very intelligent.)

Now this also overshadows your relationship with the males to whom you have come in contact. For you have been, on the one hand, terrified of them, and on the other hand wanted a normal relationship. Give me a moment here —on the one hand you desire more from a relationship with a man than you have any right to expect. No human being could ever deliver what you expect a man to deliver in a relationship. This is because you see the male in terms inspired in you when you were a child. You were terrified of the male, your father. On the other hand, you felt that he did contain wisdom, truth, almost godlike qualities. These qualities you attempt to project into the male that you meet. At the same time you are also terrified because of this background. No man can possibly be as godlike as your inner conception. Therefore, each man is bound to disappoint you. At the same time, you hope and pray subconsciously that the man will disappoint you because this male in your mind has godlike qualities that attract you; on the other, you see him as all powerful and as one who gives out punishment and one who is unreasoning and cruel because you felt that your father was cruel. You are afraid, so to speak, to come under a man’s thumb for this reason, to come under his domination. For to do so is to place yourself in a humble position and a frightening position underneath the male figure. Your terror as a child gave you an inner idea of reality and family group whereby you saw yourself completely powerless and helpless under the domination of this father figure. He was the source of all and yet he could at the same time take all away. And you felt, at the same time, that he would indeed do so. Because you were a male in past lives, you resented this all the more strongly. Give us a moment.

You need help and you have asked for it. Therefore, I will give you what information I have. Now, there was an afternoon, I believe when you were nearly three. Your father was home in the afternoon. They were in the bedroom, your mother and your father. You were taking a nap. Your parents were in the act of making love. You awoke. Your mother cried out. This is far from an unusual occurrence; it happens frequently. You interpreted her cry as one of helplessness and frustration and your father had hurt her. You came into the room; your father jumped up and chased you away.

You have been afraid that the male would hurt you cruelly—and on purpose, and at the same time, you have endowed him with godlike qualities, and, therefore, demanded more than any man could possibly deliver. I am sure that you realize that when you drive your car, you see yourself in a masculine role, as one of power and strength and one in which you consider yourself invulnerable. Now you are not invulnerable in that car. The reason that you feel invulnerable is that you are subconsciously identifying with this godlike figure and it could lead you into difficulty. Now you have on occasion been cruel to men you have known rather purposely, intending to hurt them before you could be hurt. When you have settled yourself upon a particular man, you see, it becomes a matter of principle with you that you get him. Oh, it does indeed. On the one hand, you want him, on the other hand, as you had to escape from your father, you must also escape from the man and so you are caught in a dilemma. You want him. On the other hand, you must feel that you have independence from him. There was never any communication between you and your father. Therefore, you find it difficult to communicate verbally with a male.

([Pat:] My father and I never spoke in a close communication. I was always afraid to talk to him about anything. I could never open my heart to my father. He wasn’t like a person; more like a club.)

Again this is reflected in the way you drive your car. Now, the difficulties arising from your relationship with your father also gave you other beneficial effects. This feeling is somewhat responsible for your success as a teacher, for example. For you are then in authority, and you would, if you could, drive your students as you drive your car and force them to go 85 miles a minute. You are easier on them than you are on yourself, however, and you make an excellent teacher. In the back of your mind, however, you are always saying—see Daddy, I am doing something well—for this father of yours in your mind is always behind your shoulder watching you and judging you; now this is your attitude that I am describing. You feel that you must be successful or he will punish you, that you must be perfect; therefore you become panic stricken at any sense of failure within you, and you overexaggerate your failings so that you came here tonight to me as if you were two and a half years old. You would not have been at all surprised had Ruburt (Jane) jumped up grabbed a ruler and banged your fingers. Now, a step further, therefore, is that you expect rejection on the part of the male for this reason. Now this only applies to men who are older than you. You are perfectly happy and content with younger males. Give me a moment here.

Now, you overreact in a relationship with a male. You are overanxious. You are afraid of making a wrong step. You watch gestures. You constantly explore a face for a sign that you have made an error. You constantly explore an expression for a sign that you are being rejected and this is directly related to your early relationship with your father. For then a slip met with instant retaliation. There is an emotional charge connected, therefore, with any rejection. And as you tried as a child to think ahead of your father to see what he might be angry at, so you do the same thing now in a relationship with a male to whom you are attracted. I will incidentally give you time later to ask questions. I do not promise to answer them, but I promise you the opportunity to ask them. Now, a moment…

This desire to please your father, to attain perfection has also led you to seek knowledge. It has also given you the drive to develop. It has given you an innate, an intuitive feel toward inner reality. Now do not cry or sniffle. I am not your father giving you an arithmetic lesson. We do not have the time tonight to go into your father’s background which is highly interesting from several viewpoints and has something to do with his attitude toward his daughters. We do not have time to go into too much background on your Dick literature.

Give us a moment. Now, he is afraid of physical contact because he fears plunging wholeheartedly into physical existence and this is his way of holding off. He does not want to accept the ordinary responsibilities of adulthood and has not left his father’s home.

(Long pause.) He was a woman. His present mother and father were both brothers…the American Revolutionary period, the same geographical area as now. His brothers were involved, it would seem, as spies. Your Mr. Reed as their sister told where they were and broke under pressure and fear. Concord… a cellar beneath an old inn… stone walls, floor partially dirt. Your Mr. Reed, then the sister, was hiding with the brothers here. She went outside for provisions. She was captured and gave the hiding place and could not then return to warn her brothers. She felt then that she had abandoned them and betrayed them. There was something done then to her right leg. A relative was responsible for an injury inflicted on her right leg connected with a horse.