“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

He was murdered for an act of pure thoughtlessness, of impulse. He determined to discipline himself much more carefully from then on, but from this point he threw himself wholeheartedly, for two lives, into lives of great restraint and overcontrol.

Fear of course was the motive behind this iron discipline. In the last life, as a medium, he had swung somewhat to the other side again, deliberately not using his intellect and giving the spontaneous portions full play. He was open-hearted, rather childishly vain, the emotional pattern quickly moving from joy to tears.

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.

Give us time here. I will at your request, at any time, give you the details of these lives. This evening I am answering the question I believe most important, and details will follow. I will not put you off on this. Now. In this life until very recently the personality has been involved with highly charged, volatile emotional personalities. He worked up a proportional degree of energy to ward off their influence. It was necessary that he learn how to do this. Do you follow me?

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.

Now I could not tell you, for the personality had set up its own guards in the realm of personal material. The old Instream data enters into this. Now Ruburt’s mother was not there to serve as a restraining element. You would no longer act in that role. Moreover, Ruburt did not feel it proper to project that role upon you any longer.

Therefore the symptoms were adopted, mimicking the mother’s symptoms was the next best thing to having the presence of the mother as a control against the spontaneity.

Bernard did not operate as a psychologist. Ruburt thought of him as being on his side, and there was no hint of accusation in Bernard’s attitude.

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.

Ruburt interpreted Instream’s final attitude to mean that the psychologist had more or less by implication justified the mother’s frequent warning. The affair was not to be taken seriously as a psychic phenomena, and Ruburt with his either/or attitude then decided that it was time to apply controls.

Since he had temporarily put you in the role of a controlling factor, this was also in the back of his mind. You emerged whole and hearty, and so should he. The issues were not identical, you see, but similar enough in his mind.

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.

Otherwise he felt he might fritter his energy away. At the same time he was afraid of it for the reasons given, and felt it was best to handle it in an environment of applied controls.

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.

He also felt it would help him understand to some extent his mother’s actions, and rid him of the hatred he had of her. Now give us time. The problem as he set it in the framework he made for it, was quite literally huge. He also wanted to understand the effect of mind on matter. He did not really believe, intellectually, what I told him, that you form your own reality, and he felt that the symptoms would also help. He did not get his symptoms to test my theories, understand. Do you follow me?

Give us time. He was quite appalled at the conditions once he had set them up. He did not realize until he went through it, how this kind of strain reacts on the body. When he began to realize this the inner plan had already been put into effect, and at the time of worst symptoms he literally could not withdraw quickly. Many processes had to be reversed.

(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.)

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.

The controls were actually adopted in fear against the insanity threatened by his mother, and the implications that he felt implied in the Instream affair. He did not for example fear he was insane, but he felt the need once more to control the spontaneity. Your father’s condition as always had these implications, and it did not escape him that your father, in his mental condition, is put in a wheelchair and restrained forcibly. In other words Ruburt restrained himself ahead of time.

(This was not what I meant by my remark. I was, rather, briefly considering expense. Actually we did go to Saratoga, on June 28-29, 1969.)

We will then close the session, and my best wishes to your fingers. The information should prove quite valuable. Ruburt did not feel he was mature enough to handle his abilities. Tell him that I am saying that he is. He can quite literally relax with them now and with himself. He can quite literally let down. And a hearty good evening.

(11:18. The trip to Saratoga was a great success, and Jane did experience many of the ideas, realizations, feelings, etc., detailed above by Seth. Both of us enjoyed seeing the town again immensely, and Jane without doubt has now put Saratoga in proper perspective, both as to her past, present and future. She met some schoolmates, saw her old house, etc., and thoroughly enjoyed herself.)