“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Give us a moment, please. (Pause.) Now. When the overly conscientious self and the spontaneous self are working well together there are no difficulties, and Ruburt has the full use of his remarkable energy, and it is well focused.

It is only when a schism develops that the overly conscientious self becomes quite unreasoning in its demands and expectations. The spontaneous self then becomes defiant, and at times purposely needles the portion of the personality it believes would hold it back.

The overly conscientious self defines good in rather narrow terms, and no effort has been made to reeducate it, or very little. Ruburt as a child was highly mystical, and also overly conscientious and overdemanding of himself, and afraid of his own spontaneity and natural appetites.

The church at that point united the personality however, both parts of the personality agreeing on the definition of good. The spontaneous self was the first to break away, and forcibly. It was at the time strong and powerful enough to have its way, and it did not have experience enough behind it. Now a whole new uniting principle has been realized by the spontaneous self, but little attempt was made to enlarge the definitions of good on the part of the overly conscientious self.

Some of the very attitudes considered good by the spontaneous self were diametrically opposed to the ideas of good held by the overly conscientious self. Writing had always united the personality. The direction of the writing changed, and this further seemed to threaten basic held inner beliefs of the overly conscientious self.

What Ruburt believes to be his intellectual skepticism is the voice of the overly conscientious self in quite limited Catholic terms.

The overly conscientious self is afraid of emotion and display, and hence quite terrified of any ideas of communicating with survival personalities. The word God embarrasses it beyond measure, simply because the word no longer means what the overly conscientious self was taught to believe what it meant. It was not the Catholic God. It fears the taking of false gods, you see.

The overly conscientious self is also deeply emotional, though in Ruburt it often hides under the guise of intellectualism. In one way the spontaneous self used the church as long as it could, as an outlet for its own rich emotional extension. The overly conscientious self fears to use the word of God, or the word God. Ruburt thinks this is because he is afraid of being made to feel a fool. In actuality the overly conscientious self has not been educated, and is deeply terrified that Ruburt is taking false gods.

The whole personality knows quite well that the spirit survives and that the personality is capable of communicating with such spirits. To the overly conscientious self however this is not Catholic nor legitimate. At the same time the whole personality is deeply committed and has always been, to such a psychic examination of existence. Even the overly conscientious self is engrossed despite itself.

At night the two portions have been squabbling, in an attempt to make their peace, hence his discomfort. (In sleeping.) His performance last evening showed however a greater participation of the overly conscientious self in the psychic work, showing itself as authority and confidence. It is not of itself limiting in our work by any means, but there has been constant and deep misunderstanding that came to a head last winter, was somewhat resolved, but still continued. As a result Ruburt very seldom relaxed physically, and this has been largely the cause of his symptoms. The muscles fought each other.

He denied himself release in the sex act. The overly conscientious self tried to call a halt to pleasure until the issue was settled. The spontaneous self fought back bitterly. Both sides brought to bear emotional issues from the past that served to illustrate or strengthen their own position, so that Ruburt was pulled willy-nilly.

Aspects from the past were grossly exaggerated, and any normal sensitivity highly intensified by one portion of the personality or the other. Little surprise that he became relatively immobile. The supra-conscious self tried, but the overly conscientious self deepened a preliminary distrust for me, and would not allow me to speak out clearly.

You became an unwilling ally of the overly conscientious self in almost every issue faced by you and Ruburt. This affected the spontaneity of our sessions, and serves to explain the intense emotional climate that pervaded concerning both Fell and the issue of going to work. (F. Fell, Jane’s publisher.)

Ruburt liked jobs where he was outside and free. The spontaneous self enjoyed them. The overly conscientious self demanded that this was not work enough. It did not pay penance enough for the fact that you were working at Artistic. This, combined with your attitude that he take a normal job, almost literally paralyzed him, for your voice was added, in his mind you see, reinforcing the rigid attitude of the overly conscientious self. It deeply distrusted the spontaneity allowed in such jobs.

The nursery school, in a basement, made him feel imprisoned. The substitute teaching pleased the spontaneous self by its very unpredictability and change of location. The overly conscientious self resented it for the same reasons; and again your voice was unwittingly added in Ruburt’s mind.

The desire for punishment led him to contemplate doing the program, but under a guise to fool the spontaneous self. Here very fortunately you refused to be an ally of the overly conscientious self, and half the pressure was relieved from Ruburt. He was free enough to resist. (The Alan Burke TV show in NYC in August, 1967.)

Now. The overly conscientious self has always seen itself in male terms because of the God concept, of the God being male.

The spontaneous self has seen itself in female terms. When Ruburt imagines that he does not like women therefore, this is the reason. I believe the personality is now coming to terms with itself. Spontaneously the personality always felt at one with All That Is. While he was in the church the overly conscientious self agreed with the terms. Later it became more and more confused.

This deprived Ruburt of the deeply-rooted sense of inner natural unity when he began to rationalize this or examine it intellectually; he already questioned it, and the questioning was on the part of the overly conscientious self. Progress is being made since our first session on this subject. (The 367th Session for October 1, 1967.)

(I had written out a list of questions that Jane read over before the session. Some of them were answered tonight in Seth’s own way.)