“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

The earlier group of symptoms resulted from several causes. First of all they were in a way, a way of handling a situation. You were not sure that it was safe to communicate spontaneously or easily—emotionally or sexually, with Ruburt following the two personal sessions. (The two deleted sessions of November 30 & December 2.) The cold effectively kept you from physical contact.

For other material, now: again, some of this will sound simple and apparent. He has a rich emotional nature, and he responds emotionally. Programs, his weekly programs for example, are often a benefit to him, if they are not too extensive, because they give him a short-range challenge which he enjoys.

His attempt to have you encourage him up and down and running, is a not-too-well disguised attempt for further emotional involvement on your part. He would be as upset as you over a smothering closeness. However often he simply feels lonely—not necessarily for your physical presence, for you are often in the house, but for emotional recognition that you are apt to forget about.

You are apt to forget about it simply because in your childhood home you had to work for emotional isolation.

Once someone gets through your surface restrictive tendencies, obvious ones, then your spontaneity flows to the surface. Once someone gets through Ruburt’s open spontaneous characteristics they are apt to wonder what happened, because he will often not let them get any further. (A very acute pair of points.) Hence the fact that his students remain students as a rule, and not personal friends. As you know, those who get through all the way find a bedrock loyalty. But the spontaneous emotional character warms up, brightens, and refreshes what can be a morose inner self at times. Therefore your emotional response to him is important for that reason.

You have not been able to ignore him since he had his symptoms. You might be angry at him, in which case there was a definite emotional response, or disgusted; he thought in the past, the dim past, disgusted enough to leave him—but you could not ignore him.

The knees seemed all the more obvious by contrast, and to some extent then he focused upon them. He sees the two of you together, doing your own thing, but emotionally in rich interaction. This is what he wants.

He has mixed feelings about you and his book. On the one hand he would like you to read it as he goes along, and at times he envisions enthusiastic discussions about it. He thinks you have emotionally closed off from it since you never ask him about it. On the other hand he fears your disapproval and criticism, and thinks you will look for flaws, and so he lets matters stand there.

The knees are a symbol of the problems of course still remaining. He enjoyed your massaging them, but he did not want to ask you to do so, for he saw it as a sign of emotional giving on your part that must be spontaneous, and not asked for or demanded.

(I agree with this data. I would add however that for me to be asked occasionally would not be a sign that I was emotionally far away. I expect to be asked, I suppose, when I do forget. I forget without attaching any significance to the forgetting.)

Now. Several other points that we will elaborate on later. In his books he is facing challenges he did not face earlier. Before, a book was a novel. He wrote it through, and that was the end of it. It was all intuitive, emotional and fictional. He did not need to deal with details, the same kind of organization and overall planning.

Now the ramblings about in your apartment in their own way often serve this end. The emotional quality of furniture appeals to him, and without knowing it the emotional qualities of space do also.

The morning situation can be handled from any of numerous standpoints, but they should be emotional standpoints. He can imagine himself up ahead of you, as he thought of, surprising you with your breakfast already prepared. That is one solution. It would help if you kissed him in the morning, and made some emotional supportive gesture that also encouraged him to get up.