“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Now. Some of this will seem very simple, but often you forget the pure simplicity of your motives when you concentrate upon tangles.

You chose ahead of time therefore to be driven along certain directions. Now. Both of you decided that you would give your lives to creative work. Both of you decided that you would have no children, not only because this fit in with the first goal, but because the energy connected with family life would go into your creative productions, would be saved and available when you began to embark upon the psychic work for which you had also planned.

You overreacted, but merely along the lines of a learning process to insure that the main areas were not violated. You went too far, both of you, in that direction. All touch, to each of you now, was not innocent or joyful encounter; it meant “How far will this lead, and is the time of the month correct?” This applies to you both. Ruburt desperately wanted you to cherish him as a woman, to play and flirt with him. He wanted you to show even innocent animal affection. At the same time however, implied in any such touches, in his mind also was the question “How far will this go?”

This was the reason for his outrage last night. He had done what both of you wanted, and now everyone was angry at him, including himself—but he felt (underlined) that he had done it mainly to reassure you.

You feel threatened if you get too far apart or if you come too close together physically. Now knowing this and seeing it clearly in words, you can I am sure make adjustments so that you do not go to those extremes.

Now you may take your break, and if you have questions along these areas I will answer them.

Now. For those reasons you felt most threatened when Ruburt broke in upon your painting time for intimate relations in the past. This symbolically highlighted the whole affair, and brought it too close to consciousness for either of your comforts.

Your before-class activities were decided upon because you knew they could not last too long. Now Ruburt chose, as a woman, to have this strong magnetic feeling toward you, and while the same drives pull you both, because he is a woman this time he is, far more than you, sensitive to the lack or ordinary physical endearment. This leads us to a difference in your reactions to these problems.

This is the meaning of the dreams he had in the past about divorce. He feels completely uncherished, and therefore he does not nourish his body, because he does not want more of it. Now in that way, and he could not explain it to you because he did not understand it, he did feel completely divorced by you, particularly when he was at nursery school. He felt you had divorced his body, but not you see his mind.

Now you feel more actively threatened when the two of you reach the opposite end of closeness and contact, where you feel that despite all your precautions pregnancy might result. You withdraw emotionally, and it is at this point that Ruburt then begins his reactions. Precisely at the point where he feels pressed enough to practically and symbolically invade your working studio with intimacy in mind, and spontaneous intimacy at that—that is the point that you quickly begin an emotional and physical retreat.

Now Ruburt strongly reacted this time positively, when you massaged his leg, because he interprets your feelings toward his symptoms in this manner: you will not comfort his body physically because you do not like it. You tell him to use suggestion, which is a mental tool, and evade the physical contact which to him is proof of the physical divorce, and a reassertion of the mental being valued and the physical denied.

Now when Ruburt senses a strong disruption in these main areas he will act up, and strongly. He is trying to see to it, as you are, that your primary purposes are held to. Both of you intuitively realize that your work, both creative and psychic, is bound up in your relationship, for Ruburt helped to bring out in you the freedom to paint, as you knew ahead of time he would.

Now I suggested that we move our sessions back here for the reasons given, but also because I knew that to Ruburt this meant an implied greater sense of togetherness on your parts, and of secrecy. Secrecy is a strong element in Ruburt’s personality, and while you recognize this in yourself, you have been very opaque in that you have not earlier seen it in Ruburt.

Now too many people enter it. It has become to him a very necessary and important meeting ground between the two of you. Your ideas, our work—and the world at large. It becomes therefore a necessary and important room of communication, but now of communication going out into the world. It loses then that secrecy that has always been important to him.

Now. When you were working full time some years ago at Artistic your fears that Ruburt would become pregnant became an obsession. You were already breaking one of your directives, you see, in working full time at other pursuits, and so you became twice as frightened that you would fall into the world’s familiar mold, have children in which case the job would become indispensable.

A point I want to make: these are small but significant attitudes of his. I suggested frequently the up and down movements and the running, because he must set those legs into activity. I stressed however that he should make a game of it. As you know we have met severe blockage here, and I can now tell you the reasons.

He wanted you to help him get up and down from the floor, and encourage him. He felt instead that you and I were saying in effect: “You have not hurt yourself enough, now do this five times a day, and you will be a good girl,” and this he simply would not do.

Now give us a moment. I am dealing mainly right now with his attitudes because you did not recognize many of them. Such a physical alienation was bound to have emotional consequences on both of your parts. He did not feel physically loved or wanted by you, but more than this you see, he agreed with the judgment that he felt both of you had made. Had he not agreed, you would have had a different set of problems.

Now when he felt that physical divorce you made various attempts to come closer, and you have made strides since obviously the symptoms have lessened. But one or the other of you would become frightened for the reasons given, and lately Ruburt felt an emotional separation might occur, and was occurring. Here again the threat to the prime directives, for he feels, and so do you, your work and the sessions quake when your relationship goes toward either extreme.

Now this is true. However, he interpreted this to mean “Because I do not want to go, I should,” which is not the same thing. I am not explaining this particular paragraph of material as clearly as I would like. There are some fine distinctions verbally that are difficult to make clear.

Now. Before I close a note: in your combined backgrounds you nicely chose situations in which parents did not have ordinary sexual relationships. Yours did not sleep together for years, and you are quite familiar with that pattern. You could have very nicely decided upon separate bedrooms or beds—it would fit in with your family background, and also with the situation. This is one peril that you did avoid, for it would have allowed you to go even further along the noncontact lines.

Now I will close. These are important points however. If you have questions I will answer them. I thought your hands would be quite tired by now.