“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Jane was having some difficulty assuming a trance state. She said she was picking up negative and fearful emotions from me. My emotional condition at the was a mixture of embarrassment for I was about to be exposed; guilt that I was imposing on a friend, for I want to give to friends, not take from them; an utter fear that Seth was about to smash my hopes with the truth. It took concentrated effort on Jane’s part to break through my emotional barrier and assume a trance state.)

(Seth’s voice was deeper when the session began again.)

([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.

Now, you have, if you will forgive me, consistently chosen those males within whom you sensed feminine qualities. And this was to protect you. You felt that the feminine qualities within the male forespoke of a gentle nature, that would protect you from the overall male violence of which you were afraid and which you exaggerated, because of early impressions. When you understand this material I have given you this evening, it will help you and you should read it often. Bringing this out in the open will automatically help you to rid yourself of these fears. They will not automatically disappear overnight, but they will begin to diminish. It is your idea to use this toy this evening and not mine, so I am not going to worry about my remarks being recorded for posterity. This is your worry.

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.

There was some incident when you were four, I believe, with a boy of your own age or approximately your own age. I am not too clear here, but he hurt you, physically, I believe. Now he hit you with a stick or something of that shape. The symbolism here is obvious. There seems to have been a male teacher in your background also.

([Pat:]I had a crush on Mr. Finfrock for three years, grades 7 to 9. All the girls had a crush on him. But the other girls weren’t afraid of him. I was. He knew I had a crush on him; he knew that most girls did. He flirted with us. The other girls flirted back. I’d just stand there shy, scared, and in a dream. Sometimes he’d hold our hands; or if we were in the supply room, shut the door so that we’d be alone and then hold my hand and tease me. Now, thinking back on it, he was rather cruel to do that. I never was interested in boys my own age. I just “loved” Mr. Finfrock. And I was too afraid of him to even speak to him.)

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.)

(I am very, very impatient with clumsy people who can’t open jars or push cars or hammer nails. I always end up opening jars, etc… And, of course, there is no doubt in my mind that I can do it. And I do do it. In fact, I can’t let others carry heavy suitcases, etc., because I feel that it is too heavy for them—but not for me. I used to get impatient with Freddy, my roommate, because she was lousy at pushing cars. I’d always have to push our cars out of the snow.)

([Jane:] “Now see, he’s coming through much stronger than he used to, and it takes me longer to learn how to manage the transition. And I can’t remember hardly anything at all that he said this time, except that he was trying very hard to make his point clear. What did he say about Dick Reed, that’s what I want to know. I remember that. I knew that he was telling Pat something but I couldn’t eavesdrop.”

([Rob:] “I thought what he said about Dick was very perceptive.”

([Pat:] “He said that all the poems were used to avoid communication, which is something I sensed, anyhow, which is something that I kept trying to get around. In an effort to communicate, I was blocking communication. I’ve never seen Seth in such a good mood. Every time I’ve seen him, he’s always been bawling someone out.”

([Jane:] “Was that all he said about Dick?”

… He is afraid of any contacts that would … It seems here that there is a certain thing that he fears will happen to him if he involves himself in any relationship that would result in a family group. There is something here particularly with him… an intense loyalty from a past life having to do with his parents. There was a situation involving the three of them and he abandoned them in a way that he interpreted as a betrayal. The relationship between them then was different than it is now. He will not leave them now for he feels that he abandoned them in the past. In this past of which I speak there was a physical difficulty suffered after he abandoned them; and if he leaves them now, he is afraid that this physical difficulty will return. The main problem in his case stems from this particular immediate past life. We are trying to focus in on this.

(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.

([Rob:] “May we have a break, Seth.” Tape was running out.)

([Jane:] “Yes, but there was something else.”

([Jane:] “That’s it. He took off on that because it was of interest. Suddenly we were off on something that was hard to get to.”

([Pat:] “I changed it from WILL to CAN because the situation might be WILL HE, NO: CAN HE, YES. And I wanted to know if there was at least a possibility.”

Now, ordinary adult responsibilities, you see, would take him away from these two individuals and so he has taken steps to see that he is not involved. Give us a moment. He is more bound to one of these persons than the other for one was a younger brother. He was extremely religious in his past life and the love of music connected with the church is reflected here. His name was strange, I am not too clear on this. The family name in the past: Achman. (Pat learned that Dick’s family has an Ackerman branch in June 1968.) The first portion like oxtagon.

He did voluntarily choose to be born as a son in this existence. Now he rationalizes on a conscious level his reasons for remaining home. You said earlier that around the school there was the expression he “loves them and leaves them”. You see, a very cruel interpretation and a very literal interpretation of his action in a past life, this coming through in an entirely different situation in this life. He is, of course, aware subconsciously of this and acts in such a way for he feels more honest. Through his actions in this life he is trying to make an honest statement about actions in the past. There is, of course, no punishment involved. His secrecy also is a direct result of these past existences, for once he spoke too much and betrayed too much, so now he remains secretive about matters that he considers important. The two brothers never did hold him responsible, however. They understood the situation. They knew that the girl had been terrified and spoke only out of fear and did not mean to betray them. In this life, then, the parents do not mean to hold him. They are not subconsciously trying to chain him; they are not subconsciously trying to bind him. He has chosen to act in this particular manner. He would be much freer if he’d realize that the brothers do not hold him responsible. And the betrayal, while a betrayal, was understandable, and that he spoke out of fear and did not intend to betray. If you will forgive me, I do not think we should use time in the session with your question about your friend’s poetry. It is not important in comparison to other information, nor is it important to the man’s development, nor to your own. Now I know that you speak of me highly; and if I wore a hat, I would tip it to you. You are helping other people and you will continue to do so. Now that you have some insight into the reasons for certain difficulties, you can begin to do something about them. Your problem is not with your Mr. Reed. Your problem is to rid yourself of the image that you have that you project upon him. You will not see him thoroughly until you do so; and in carrying this image with you, you see, you do not see the possibilities in many individuals whom you have already met. For you could not see through this image. When you read or listen to tonight’s session, you will see that I have given you some insight into your own overreactions. Now these cause the variation in your moods. You may ask me questions.

Now, Ruburt wants me to help him with voice control. You are so used to the image that you have projected outward that you are uncomfortable when you try to face a situation nakedly without the image. You project the image on one specific individual so strongly. You also project it in any of your relationships, as a rule, with men who are older than yourself. You do not want to or had not wanted to face even a transient relationship with a man because you did not then have time, you see, to project this image in any dependable manner. There was also a gap when you would have to face the individual as he was. This made you uncomfortable and defiant because it forced you, however briefly, to meet another individual eye to eye. It goes without saying that you could not see whatever good qualities there were in any man you knew casually. You did not have time to project the image upon him, and you were afraid to see clearly without it. Practice in such relationships would allow you to get used to an environment without this image. If not giant steps, baby steps, each such encounter being a small exercise in seeing another male individual without your image glasses on.

([Pat:] “I had thought of that before. I knew that I should have taken advantage of the opportunities to meet people. I knew that I was probably attracting these opportunities to me because subconsciously I knew the exercises would be healthful.”)