“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

You will have to let me handle this in my own way—the matter of your symptoms and Ruburt’s knees, but for a starter we will begin with you. The pain in your side was a reaction against the first group of symptoms—they gave you a pain in the side. You were angry at yourself for not feeling well.

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.

Now it was on the one hand feigned behavior, but the symptoms had to be bothersome enough or they would not have served their purpose. To some extent verbal communication was also minimized. Your “condition” effectively kept Ruburt from making any demands, or from putting any verbal pressure upon you, for he rushed of course to your support.

You felt to some extent that you had fallen down in taking advantage of the sessions, that you were not putting into practice certain behavior there suggested. (True.) There were of course other reasons also. The question you asked in our sessions was in your mind symbolic of a lack of communication still between you and Ruburt, at deeper levels. (The question about the Claire TV show.)

There was also, even then, in the back of your mind the feeling that personally you could use the sessions for information in which you were highly interested, and you suspected that Ruburt would not share the feeling, or would even unconsciously block it.

Now. Woven in all of this was the communication issue, and to some extent the symptoms served another allied and complementary purpose. You thought you might be able to understand something of Ruburt’s problem, and you were willing to take a day or two out to feel badly.

(This I did not suspect.) Another point. You also felt that the symptoms would take Ruburt’s mind off of his own for a change, and also let you see how, if or when your reactions to other people were changed or altered because of your indisposition. (They were.)

Beside this you thought sometimes that Ruburt thought of nothing but himself, and you were saying “Look at me, I am no superman,” and so actually you were looking for communications that it seemed you did not want in the early part of the cycle.

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.

Now. We will take a hop, skip and jump to Ruburt.

Your personality structures simply respond at times of course to different stimuli. Both of you can learn to modify these characteristics, but understanding them is basic. Ruburt responds, generally, to people. One reason of course for the classes, and their success. But behind Ruburt’s outgoing characteristics you run into some rather restrictive ones that are more on the surface, generally speaking, in your personality.

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.

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.