“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Now Joseph (pause), neither of you should overlook the fact that in one way or another, and regardless of the psychic development, such a crisis point (Jane’s symptoms) would have appeared in Ruburt’s life as a result of personal characteristics, present-life background, and past-life characteristics.

The crisis would have developed on the condition that Ruburt tried to use and develop his spontaneous and intuitive abilities on an adult basis. The cleavage between discipline and spontaneity had long existed; given the all-or-nothing attitude of the personality, there was bound to be a swing, a complete swing from one to the other until the personality learned to combine the two and become more thoroughly integrated.

His necessary job was to combine the two, for in him the intuitions and intellect are both strong. To use his abilities fully both had to operate smoothly and simultaneously, and give each other freedom and elbow room. Old fears would make him gyrate, panic-stricken, from one method of operation to the other.

His abilities, to be used fully, would inevitably have led him to such a crisis point, or better to such a challenge. Any work of art of his, not an apprentice work, would have led him to the same point. Poetry is the exception, for here the necessary integration happened early in his career.

The poetry was not seen as threatening to the disciplined self. Any work of fiction in which his abilities were at all fulfilled would have brought him to this point, and any endeavor such as the psychic work, which was adopted. In other words, for the personality to use its abilities fully that challenge would have had to be faced in every instance but the poetry.

The crisis would have occurred according to the circumstances and a variety of probabilities, but many of these led in that direction, you see.

It would have been a mistake of the most tragic order, however, to shy away from the full development of abilities. Otherwise there would have been an extremely rigorous personality, with intuition very strong but firmly held at bay; or a highly disorganized spontaneous personality frittering away its energies without direction.

This would have occurred however on the introduction of any strong spontaneous action. The World as Idea Construction came to him, beside its extrasensory origin, subconsciously, with an exploding effect to save him, because he had so put the lid upon his creative activities after Rebellers, that he had effectively blocked the intuitive self.

Of course you played a part. He felt relatively free in his spontaneity in the beginning with you, for he granted you super-human abilities, relying upon what he thought to be almost absolute strength and stability. He did not have to reason, for you would reason for you both.

You therefore would protect him from the results of his own spontaneity, carried too far, for he never thought in terms of a spontaneity tempered by self-discipline. In Florida he saw his father as the epitome of unreason and uncontrolled spontaneity, which had actually become a hodgepodge of unrelated emotional acts, and he felt you then deserting him symbolically.

Here, when you became ill, he saw you were not omnipotent. You could not basically protect him from himself. You had been his in a basic manner, and he saw that you, his director, did not know where to turn. The hidden and bedrock, latent, strong conscientious self then rose up and took over control, and would not give the spontaneous self then back any of the reins.

But without the challenge and the conflict the personality would have had little chance to develop its potential, particularly in terms of understanding. Your own relationship would indeed have deteriorated to some degree. The spontaneity of Ruburt’s nature otherwise would have nearly dried up, and you as well as Ruburt would have sorely missed it. This brings us nearly to the present.

As complete integration takes place the body will be restored to normal. If the process seems slow, you can be assured that it is a legitimate and steady integration, for nothing but a complete integration would suffice if the personality is to achieve its potential.

If the personality settled for less, then, true, the conflict would not have arisen. The conflict would have arisen however in whatever field the personality chose, except for the poetry. Even in that area however it is highly dubious that full potential could be reached.

One word. I do not see any tragic circumstances surrounding the sister of Ruburt’s student (Shirley Bickford), of the kind told to Ruburt. (Pause.) A change of environment would be good, not in an overly permissive atmosphere but one in which some personal freedom is tempered with the expectation of definite achievement of some kind. (Pause.) Any sort of a school meeting that requirement would suffice.