“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

They exerted force because he was not consciously aware of them, nor ready to face them in those terms. Some of this will go a good way in explaining portions of his behavior. If you have questions ask when I have finished.

He felt, as a child now, that he had no rights. Nothing was his by rights. Anything could be taken from him at any time. While he lived in one house, still the home itself was always in jeopardy. His mother frequently told him that she would keep him only if he was good, that only Marie’s good graces kept the child from going to an asylum. The mother’s affections were not the child’s by right, but dependent upon how well the child cared or performed.

Only poetry seemed Ruburt’s by right. In the convent home, as you know, letters were censored, and only positive statements got through the censor. The child feared punishment there by giving voice to any complaint. Ruburt grew up then without daring to ask for anything. Welfare, who gave, always threatened to take away. They were a threat as well as a sustenance. The college scholarship was not Ruburt’s by right, but could also be taken away.

To a large extent in even small things therefore, he felt he had no rights per se, no right to ask you for example for anything. Remember early tales he tells about feeling guilty for buying a lipstick. Before tonight’s session he mentioned that the class wine was gone. He meant obviously that it must be replaced, but would never directly ask you to do so, feeling he had no right.

This explains much of his behavior in terms of spending money at the store, and so forth. (Pause.) Give us time… He did not feel that any love was his by right, yours or anyone else’s: therefore he did not feel worthy of it, and in the face of any difficulty between you he suspected it, thought then that you no longer loved him.

To voice any dissatisfaction to you verbally was highly difficult, for you could then take away your love and affection, as his mother did, for she would not stand, in Ruburt’s eyes, for such voiced aggression. He had to be quiet therefore to preserve your love.

The backed-up feelings helped bring about the rigidity over a period of time. He was operating to a large degree according to the code long set down by his grandfather: be quiet, do not argue, be aloof, and above all never raise your voice.

If you did not object, it meant you did not care for the sessions. In the psychic realm therefore he dared not voice any feelings that you did not voice. The unvoiced fear always was that you would abandon him because he had no rights.

Your going to the store for him without asking proves that you love him. He would never ask you to do anything for him, for he felt he had no right to do so, or to your love. He needed a strong excuse therefore in order to ask you to do anything. One excuse was that he could not do it himself.

He was afraid that you did not love and cherish him for himself, and too embarrassed, rigid and proud to continue seeking assurances from you, as he used to do.

The symptoms also served to punish you for making him go to such extremes, because physically they obviously hampered the expression of that love. He is possessive and jealous, and gave you his entire loyalty. He was afraid you would flee as your father fled. He would not (in quotes) “humiliate himself” to his way of thinking by crying after you, hammering at your door. He transferred the entire dilemma to the physical realm.

Now part of this was quite unrealistic, based on old ideas of his, part of it from the interaction of your natures. Our sessions are extremely legitimate, from what you would call a psychic viewpoint—you are reaching dimensions very seldom reached. They also served psychological purposes of course.

Though this was true, the writing self for the first time began to question itself, its achievements, and the new field it had entered. It had never questioned itself before. This brought forth some conflicts, for the writing self had been Ruburt’s justification of your love. He had a right to it because he was a writer, not because he was himself.

When he began to doubt the writing self in this new alliance with the psychic, then the framework became shaky. Some of this was a creative psychic and artistic endeavor that had to be worked through, whether or not it shook the foundations, you see.

The writing self knew it needed something to write about, and greater maturity if it were to fulfill its abilities, and here again the psychic development fulfilled a need. The writing self was led to examine its own substance; since Ruburt felt your love was dependent on the outcome, this brought about certain difficulties.

He was afraid shortly before our sessions began that you had largely lost your love for him, and he began frantically to initiate methods of insuring it. The sessions were on the one hand a gift to you, by which means your health could be restored. He felt your physical withdrawal strongly during your illness previously, felt on several occasions physically attracted to other men, and became terrified. Walt did not want him physically, but he did not love Walt. He feared you were turning away from him in those terms. He was frightened that his sexual appetite would attract him to others and betray him, so he closed the door on it as best he could.

There was also the idea of channeling that energy into our sessions, this of course at a deeply unconscious level. Instead he felt that you latched upon the sessions so that they came before he did personally—that you demanded performance there in sessions, while not in bed. In an odd way he felt that you used them against him, in other words—this during the time of tests, in that area.

He did not feel they had served that particular purpose, yet he felt the sessions too legitimate to drop then, and the psychic work too fascinating to disown. They seemed not to have brought you closer together however, to him. Precisely at the time the strong symptoms began, the ESP book was slated for publication. You had received the cover, and the writing self was facing its own conflicts also: was the psychic work its natural fulfillment, or a disastrous side trip? The two of you were not communicating well. He did not feel you were proud enough of that book. He was afraid it did not justify your love. His symptoms then began.

This unconscious knowledge frightened him. He was afraid it meant that the sessions were just (underlined) a fraudulent method of manipulating you, and hence not legitimate. This of course was not the case.

Any money he made was always simply a way of winning your approval, in the terms that you wanted. He had many good ideas that he felt you would have been against that would have worked out very well, but he was afraid of going against you.

Now you were drawn to him because you sensed precisely that deep love of his, and needed it to add to your own vitality and substance. If you were ever tempted, particularly in earlier times, to isolate yourself to an unhealthy degree, Ruburt was precisely your insurance. You counted on him to call you back, to insist. You counted on that remedy. He was also your own insurance against being swallowed by your own parents, and he saved you from that possibility, which was present.

When Ruburt felt his other efforts did not insure what he wanted, he became highly frustrated and frightened. He alternately retreated from you in hurt bewilderment, railed at you silently, and still felt that what he wanted was not in your nature to give, and for that reason also he had no right to ask it.

He felt guilty then at asking you to change your mode of behavior, and felt you would construe this to mean he was grasping and wanted all of you and meant to allow you no freedom; which again, was not the case.

No one had loved him at all, however. If getting sick insured him a certain amount of your affection and notice, brought about gallant behavior, then he was willing to pay the price.

Now this early summer he improved, and to a large degree, for several reasons. His defiance was finally aroused, a sense of personal worth rushed to the surface, a sense of independence, the feeling “Well if you wanted to leave him go ahead,” all of which released some pressure. Besides this during your vacation you spent a lot of time and attention on him.

(11:06. I thought the session was excellent.)