“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

He is terrified of vulnerability because of his mother’s condition when he was a child. Many of his early poems clearly showed a desire to dissociate himself from the warm spontaneous self, and to hide in a nonfeeling uncaring safety. He envied you what he thought of as your coolness, and in trying to emulate it at times he only used it as an excuse to continue this old pattern of withdrawal.

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.

To ask you for help therefore was to put himself in the position of his mother, and plead helplessness. This has been mentioned before but it is a good point, that retaliation against his mother was felt to be impossible, for she would then have an attack for which Ruburt felt responsible. This brought on greater feelings of guilt over any protest.

(In an emotional way Jane also expressed some fears about her mother. She caught herself not wanting to admit these, but we talked it out. My mother also entered the conversation, etc. Jane did express herself with emotion. Resume at 10:23.)

Now. Geographically he feels between his mother and yours, and has always been somewhat uneasy over living in this state. (New York.)

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.

You understand that the weight problem is also a symptom that will clear up as the fears are released. The fear of dentists has to do with an episode when he was in college, and the dentist came to visit his mother. He has consciously forgotten the details. His mother often said that her condition might have been the result of bad teeth also, and the two are connected in his mind.

The weight is also related to his grandfather, and an identification with the grandfather, who was very thin, and who left Ruburt’s mother, living alone. The same characteristics go along with the identification—the refusal to argue, the fear of argument, of overt protest, and of silent protest; fasting as a method of protest.

Ruburt also has feelings about food, as you know—eating with strangers or with people he does not like. All of these enter in. His mother ate too much, and this is a way of asserting his independence from her. She was very fond of food, and Ruburt now pretends to dismiss it. This did not occur earlier, but only when the fears brought additional charge. He often cast you as the accuser, and therefore felt he could not communicate. You had something to do with this in the past. Later the course was set, and when you withdrew your faulty attitudes, he went on the same course.

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.

The physical effects in Saratoga at your last trip (summer 1970) were caused by guilt, Ruburt feeling that he was so close and would not visit his mother. Now take your break. One point: These attitudes and feelings must not remain simply a part of a session. They must be discussed by both of you with emotional interplay allowed for, emotional release.