“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

When the two of you could work together, he thought, all that would change. You would have time to work and play. You would be more emotionally demonstrative, freed from your job. His work would bear more and more the burden of his needs, and take up the emotional slack that was now apparent. It had to be everything, then. The more you two communicate in the way I mentioned, the less the pressure is in the work area.

Both of you were sure of your love, but each of you at various times were quite willing to let its personal aspects take second place, and I am not speaking alone of physical love-making. When Ruburt took this place (Apartment 4) he was about ready to say, “All right, we will be work partners.” Then you responded with the display of love and devotion, plus a definite program, embarked upon together.

I want to come back to this point in time, where we left off.

Yet these people were coming to Ruburt because of his psychic work, and his psychically inspired writing. Eleanor, he discovered, was anything but his idealized concept of a literary editor. This was a shock. From the time Eleanor came she spoke with the words of Ruburt’s past, glowingly presenting the possibility of purely literary success, prestige, and cash.

A cruel trick, Ruburt felt, offering promises unfulfilled. Yet at the same time Ruburt was able to catch an inner glimpse of that world, its emptiness and the obvious existence of important dilemmas, ignorance, and that finally—it was simply another field of human endeavor.

Yet for the entire time he began to wonder, regardless, about his position at Prentice. Was he being taken for a fool? Should he have changed to another publisher? But this meant in his case: should he try to exclusively be the literary person again? Yet he found that these people wanted his psychic work most of all. And that while they appreciated his other work, his main value in their eyes lay precisely in the field that he thought would mean nothing to them.

Both of you at times do. In your particular personal relationship Ruburt began to feel that when you looked at him you were comparing him precisely with “that perfect physical self” that seemingly so eluded him, and in the face of that image, any improvement at all began to seem so insignificant as to be meaningless.

Now: This is not as rambling as it may seem. I take it for granted that you understand the jumps in time. This was merely to remind you of certain continuities without going over events already mentioned—so going back to the point in time mentioned earlier in tonight’s session: when Dialogues was finished Ruburt tried it out on Prentice, and felt briefly that Tam might take it. Even then there was talk from a time earlier about a paperback deal. This had excited Ruburt, as had the Dialogues possibility. Both fell through.

After Eleanor’s refusal Ruburt was left with Rich Bed. Now this is his projection, and one he only realized at break: he felt that any incomplete manuscripts were indications of a waste of time, and that you thought he should publish everything he wrote, and that an unpublished manuscript was a blot of sorts. You often mentioned Dreams for example, when he was only too willing to forget it. So he felt guilty about Rich Bed even though it wasn’t finished.

To him, Dialogues had to be published at once. When Eleanor came back onto the picture, the time before this last visit, there was also a trip to Rochester preceding it. Here was Eleanor again, saying, “Save me Bed,” and even speaking of Dialogues while in no position to accept them. Here again, more strongly, were hints that Eleanor could do more than Prentice.

Later now, in the last period of time, when Eleanor heard that Ruburt had sent the outline of a new book, Aspects, to Tam, she astounded Ruburt by remarks of great regret, and implications that Ruburt had made an error. Ruburt was quite surprised, since Eleanor had not suggested before that a manuscript not be sent to Prentice.

Ruburt began to feel powerless momentarily in the business area. At the same time the hiding-from-you issues that had developed, and are given tonight, had come into full force. Ruburt, as you know, does not like to say no, particularly to people like Dick, a friend. He knew however intuitively that he did not want to change alliance. He has simply hoped Eleanor would take what Prentice did not want.

Remembering your past ideas toward Prentice, he wondered, regardless of what you said, if you thought he should stay with them. He was very afraid of losing a contract with Prentice for Aspects, and a Bantam contract, while waiting around for another arrangement. At the same time he was afraid of making demands at Prentice for fear he would discover that they didn’t care if he stayed or not. Feeling that way he still went ahead on his own, and felt happily vindicated. The whole affair, with his reactions now, still had him at the point where he did not think he could physically recover, and he was caught in a panic that he tried to hide from you.