“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

You do not see yourselves as human beings in a quite human environment, but against some perfect yardstick, and this applies for you (to me) also. Ruburt blooms like a flower in his classes simply because everyone thinks he is quite wonderful, and he responds.

You rarely discussed together future plans. He took this to mean you had none. At times he simply wears his body out, and it requires additional rest, but he takes this as a sign of sloth and laziness. Some change within a stable framework is really your answer, with adequate and emotional communication.

Many of the fears have been trivial but he would not discuss them. One worry then would automatically be associated with a pile of other buried worries, and an ordinary unpleasant stimuli could evoke the whole works. A gray day becomes therefore a symbol that the sunny inner self is clouded, and he feared he could not change himself any more than he could the weather.

(9:30. The record will show that this is the first personal session for us since December 14, 1970, and is only the second I have sat in on since that date. Jane has had ESP class sessions in the interim however, but our private activity had deteriorated to practically zero. I had demanded yesterday that we have this session.

(I felt good when this session began, yet began to feel anger as it progressed. Part of this was probably defensive. I think also the anger partly stemmed from hearing the same things over again in some instances—that is, that we had made so little progress seemingly in dealing with vital points. But the expression of fears was very beneficial, we thought, and surprisingly this was new for both of us.

If I were telling this to someone else you would think it was excellent advice and wonder why it was not taken to heart. Ruburt needs somewhat more change within a definite framework than you do, but you also need to refresh your own energies. Concentration upon the problem to such an extent does not allow the inner self the freedom to help you solve it, and a condition arises where you expect the worst and bring it therefore about.

The simple measures of going out for example allow a breakup of stimuli, a freer give and take of emotional moods. The conscious mind is fascinated and the inner self free then to act constructively. Encouraging Ruburt to discuss his fears is important, but there is no one reason behind this. Consciousness is not that simple.

(9:50. I had quite a few questions to ask, but since my anger had still been building up I now did not write them down, or Seth’s answers—which were very good, incidentally. I was deeply irritated and frustrated. A sharp exchange with Seth followed, and I ended up furious—which I suppose was a good way to blow off steam. Seth insisted that the answers re Jane’s symptoms, and my own contributing attitudes, had already been given in past sessions, but were not being followed.

When he felt unwanted, this was also his reaction. Initially there would be no outward change of behavior except for a compensatory additional noisiness of faked gaiety and singing. For some time the organism could take this, and as situations changed the spontaneous self would once again emerge. With a changing physical situation necessitating agile manipulation, the physical stimulations came so quickly that the pattern did not have a chance to jell. It did not become a normal pattern of behavior, but one that was now and then adopted.

Now running away from problems, literally in space, had always been his answer to everything. One day he could run away from his mother, and he did. One day he could leave Walt, and he did. But he loved you deeply, and there was no place he could run to, nor from the problems presented by your parents.

Now he adjusted very well to these, but an inner portion of his self, you see, is thoroughly outraged, considering all parents enemies from whom one should and must legitimately run. Intellectually, he understood that changes had to be made in his attitude, and he tried to treat your family kindly, and consciously to make up to his mother by being nice to yours.

From that situation be could not or would not run, but in his mind he saw the two of you running free of all of them. He gave little expression to his feelings toward your mother, in a mad rush to get to the respectable and responsible attitude he thought he should have.

He adopted the symptoms partially out of example, both from his mother and from your own illness. He has made gains, but he had not made gains as far as fears were concerned at all. Some, with aggressions. He was not consciously aware enough of the fears, he had shoved them so far underground.

(“No, I believe that. But I get very mad at the way other thoughts interfere with good or healthy constructions. I probably mean that I get mad at the way old habits, bad ones, interfere, or come first. I know what I mean here, but I’m not putting it very well.”)

Having to do with his condition—that he will not get better, for example. But all of the feelings mentioned tonight, and the unexpressed fears, add up to a formless anxiety that can give him a feeling of hopelessness, and that is extremely important.

The personality attempts to protect itself from them, for the reasons given, but the psychic energy behind them will leap up and attach itself to events. Because the fears are not accepted individually they have a collective charge, which when properly triggered evokes the feeling of hopelessness.

Tam, for example, is simply in a different position now, with more to do. He is confident Ruburt will produce a good book, and while busy attempts to keep in touch with him. He has written Ruburt for example more than Ruburt has written to him. But with Ruburt’s mind, it had to be more an all or nothing affair.