“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

It chose an environment where hardship would automatically teach a certain discipline, and yet one in which the psychic nature of the circumstances would also permit intuitive creative growth. In fact the controls were applied precisely in proportion to the intuitive gifts. The purpose was to set up a situation in which both strong facets of the personality could emerge; the intellectual, reasoning, rather practical and controlling aspects, hand in hand with the highly volatile creative spontaneous portions.

The religious element in one way or another has always been a strong one. It has at one time or another in various lives been on the side of the strongly disciplined portions, in which case it was greatly given to dogma, and concerned with cultural problems of punishment and law; or followed the intuitive side, in which it emerged as mediumship, and high mysticism.

The psychic development was one of the main issues of importance he had been waiting for, and several circumstances had to be met first. He had to be in fairly dependable circumstances, fairly permanent surroundings. There had to be a strong need to propel the development, as impetus. These were met.

Unfortunately several episodes frightened him enough so that he felt again the need for controls. Now here is one nice little point. Ruburt’s mother, as mentioned earlier, had often told him that if he kept on as he was going he would lose his mind; and contacts with psychologists, when he feels they are testing him, brings up this old issue.

The long series of Instream tests were involved here, and yet they were also necessary, since the issue had to be met and faced in one manner or another.

Now I was not able to give you any information, particularly at that time, but this did have something to do with my rather vehement recording, which I hoped would have the effect of discouraging Dr. Instream. I could not however shield Ruburt in all of his activities in any case. He would have to face the problem, and if it was circumvented in one way it could have returned at a later date.

The symptoms initially were clamped on in panic. One or two poor test results frightened him. This of course added to the other issues. The purpose however was two-fold again, the development of an environment in which controls would be there: the symptoms taking the place in this case of the mother’s restrictive presence, and the comparative isolation in the house, the comparative solitude that he felt was necessary then for the emergence of the creative abilities—both of these you see existing in the child environment.

Give us time. He did not count upon the body’s response. He was terrified of the vulnerability to pain, and yet he felt the ability to face and handle the pain was something he would run away from otherwise; that he had done everything to avoid it, and that it was one of life’s physical realities that he had refused to admit. So he felt a taste of it would not hurt him.

The matter of speaking the opposite of what he means to say: this always occurs then he makes an innocuous remark that is meant to cover up a repressed feeling. The remarks are again harmless ones, usually a line or two of pointless conversation, chatter meant to cover up a thought that has briefly come into consciousness, and been repressed.

(Just before I sat down to resume typing this session, Jane made such a remark, about the food she was giving one of our cats for supper.)

The use of the opposite is simply to tell him that he is not meaning what he says, that the remark, usually a pleasant one, is covering up an unpleasant feeling.

One evening dancing, he tried consciously too hard, so that he tensed the muscles as he was trying to use them, and there was a physical result then. Now, the point is, he no longer needs the controls. (Pause.) Understand that the whole situation, on a very deep basis, was protective as it tried to reproduce to some extent, though to a far lesser extent, those early conditions that allowed for the controlled and disciplined growth of strong creative abilities. He chose a mock version of those early restraints. Now. The controls are no longer necessary. The reasons as given in this evening’s session should make him realize that. The physical symptoms now remaining are a direct result of these contradictory messages being given—one relax let go, the other wait, now, not so fast, slow up.

Give us time. He has been letting the symptoms go, as he has become aware of emotional stabilities. He has let them go slowly: “Now how will you behave if I give you this much more freedom? And a little more?” You see. Give us time. (One minute pause.)

He feels then that he is accomplishing nothing, and this period ends this cycle with a depression like the one in the beginning of the cycle, in that he usually manages through discussion with you or Psycho-Cybernetics to break the cycle and initiate a period of fair balance; and symptoms are minimized and decent improvement shows.

Now, some practical suggestions: one I mentioned earlier. Remember that many symptoms have vanished. He should be on the alert for restrictive statements, vocal or mental—I can’t, for example; I’d better go slowly; or mental pictures of that nature. Such thoughts automatically tense the muscles. If he is consciously adding instructions to relax on top of this he worsens the situation, for the muscles cannot relax and contract at once.