“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

The symptoms were also meant to frighten Ruburt, to shock him, to shake him up, and then hopefully do him some good, as he saw how it was to have someone around all the time who did not feel very well.

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.

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.

(“I never wanted to ignore him.”

Now. Give us some time on this, and remember we have not given that particular material in that way before. (True.) He felt that you ignored him when you became ill—that you were growing so morose that you felt life meaningless. Then the sessions came (in 1963), and he felt they had saved you both.

They also served to see to it that the two of you spent more time together. Then he felt that all he meant to you was contained in the sessions, that as a woman and a wife you found him far less fascinating. Other background information you have been given, and this is background for what is coming.

It was during your illness that he began to watch your face for a hint of your mood and feelings—a tendency he has relinquished only lately. The physical signs of improvement have been most beneficial to him, forcing him to recognize that betterment is not only possible but has occurred.

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.

Now give us a moment. It seemed to him lately that you did not want to dance when he felt at his best, and you wanted him to when he felt less well. Both of you have been making adjustments since our last two sessions, and in a way Ruburt’s knees represented the same kind of problem as your symptoms—matters brought to the head, and yet not acted upon.

A draft took him little time. The nonfiction involves him in projects that are of longer duration, and he is handling them very well. He was used to more frequent creative challenges, lesser ones in a way, rather than long-term projects, and he was not capable in the past of the planning for example that is now a part of his creative endeavors.

As a result however he does feel the lack of more frequent, fresh, completely different inspirational material. This can be satisfied through the poetry. Short-term challenges of any kind that are at all practical are excellent to break up for him the longer-term purpose of his book.

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.

A concerted effort should be made, either to have him face the issue and solve it, or to avoid it completely. He thought of getting up at four again. What he does is not nearly as important, obviously, as his feelings toward it—and he has highly negative feelings that cause him symptoms when he does not get up and believes he should. I will cover this much more thoroughly however.

—and then on weekends, when you do not have to go to work, he feels bad when you have to see him.