“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

In the initial stages of Ruburt’s withdrawals, the exaggerated chatter also served to fool him, you see, as well as others. He would become all the more animated. He recognized some of these characteristics in your Jesuit friend. (Bill Gallagher.) They frightened him and were at least somewhat responsible in helping shake him loose. (Last week.) Do you follow me?

Your discussion this evening, and events since our session have been to the point, and beneficial. Particularly your comments concerning Ruburt’s behavior with the first husband. When the two of you have had any personal difficulties then Ruburt became twice as angry and fearful about your parents. At one time he equated you with Walt in his dreams. The dreams were meant to show him he was repeating a pattern of behavior.

He could not handle his mother’s fear. As a child it terrified him and made him feel inadequate. He dared not feel it as deeply as he actually did; therefore fears in himself were also not to be faced. He was ashamed to look to anyone for help. He is afraid to ask for help because he was ashamed that his mother had to ask him, a child, for help, and often he hated her for doing so.

Ruburt’s deep love for you shocked him out of that pattern for some time, but he also idealized you to such an extent that some difficulties were bound to arise. Behind any ordinary disagreement you might voice, any normal protest, he felt there was a great charge. He was so afraid to voice protest himself that he felt you must be driven by great inner forces before you would dare voice any protest to him.

He therefore drastically overemphasized your attitudes and moods during your illness. The feeling that you did not need him began to grow out of normal bounds in Florida. Lately the apartment seemed frightening to him because he felt like a rat in a maze, reacting to the same stimuli in the same way, without knowing the reason and without the introduction of any change.

The apathy was caused when he simply decided to bring things to an end. Stopping the normal activities he had to some extent insisted upon allowed him to become aware to some degree of the subjective feelings that had been beneath all of his activities. He was face to face with them and with the natural end product if they were continued.

He greatly exaggerated their power, you see, in that regard. He then projected many of these attitudes upon you. If he accused himself then he would see accusation in your remarks or attitudes toward him.

He felt you were ashamed of his background and did not want him to discuss it. (Pause.) Give us time. (Pause.) When he goes to see your father he feels guilty because he is not seeing his mother, who is also in a home. He feels that your mother is gloating, having gotten rid of the father, and he is afraid of your family home for fear it might trap you both. He did not want any of your belongings or yours in it.

He is particularly susceptible along the lines of his work because he felt from childhood that his ability was the only thing that made him lovable at all in his mother’s eyes, and that his entire worth as a human being was dependent upon how he made out as a writer.

It was the only thing that set him apart under welfare conditions, the mark of distinction that got him to college by the skin of his teeth, and it was, he felt, what made you love him. Therefore if you had criticisms about his work, if you did not like it, you would not love him.

The financial matter was added to this when he began to sell books. Not only did his book have to be good, you see, but financially successful since you loved him for his talents mainly, and the two were combined. With the financial elements added, then to retain your love his books must also sell well.

When Rebellers was published your attitude was a poor one, but it was drastically received by our friend, who could not understand it and felt then and there that you no longer loved him as you had. Because he felt you loved him for his talent alone, then his books became also gifts to you beside their meaning for himself. But not only gifts as much as reassurances, you see. “I still have my talent. I am using it, so you can love me.”

All of this has been unconscious on his part. He has not been that aware of it. He felt then that he had no one to turn to or to help him. He was also afraid that his fears about physical reality now and in the future were so drastic that you would also be terrified, and that together you could not solve the problems. He was terrified of doing anything that might make you ill, and determined to bear any worries or problems alone.

To give expression to a need for help, or to show a need for comfort would be seen as weaknesses in your eyes. You felt that other people were weak, indecisive, stupid, ridden by fears. This is his interpretation of your feelings. To admit a need for comfort or to admit fears would put him, in your eyes, in the same category as all these others.

We are going to end the session shortly. He feared he was going beyond your reach, and he could have in a very real manner. This idea alone terrified him. He feared that on your own you would not make the effort to pull him back, and yet he would not ask you to do so. To show that he still has some reachable foibles, you still aroused a spark of his old enthusiasm earlier this evening when you suggested that his place (our apartment) still did have possibilities if your eyes were opened to them. So pursue that.