“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Now: Ruburt may sometimes object to the terms used to describe his work. On a surface level the seeming shift from writer to psychic annoyed and bothered him, but it was always the same work, and he knew it. And he was always driven to do whatever must be done in order to produce it.

In terms of this life, the justification of existence entered in, as I told you; the tale that he told himself in other words to see that he did his work.

He is magnificently intent, persistent and determined. When the situation allowed him to do so, he immediately began to pare down all activities not directly connected with his work, to shake them off, to force himself to be disciplined, to cut distractions to a minimum and thus avoid conflict, to his way of thinking.

He did this quite wholeheartedly, and with a vengeance. He would not have an ordinary job. He would force himself into a position where he must indeed make good through his work, financially and otherwise. He tried to emulate what he thought your actions would be in the same circumstances at the time this began.

You had the discipline by nature, he thought. He did not: therefore the enforced solitude, the narrowing of other interests until his vitality was forced in one direction, the inner direction. He gave stimulus to his mind with coffee and cigarettes, whipping it to make it go faster and faster.

At the same time he gave less and less nourishment to the body, denied it exercise until it began to wither from disuse. He goes inward then with great applied focus, but held the body in such tight reins that he denied it both energy and attention.

He often hid from fellow students out of shyness and fear of confronting them. He would hide in his poetry. The tendency then was there. He had no great faith in the body because he saw how his mother’s behaved, without any knowledge of the reasons. The body was not strong, therefore. He did not trust it. He trusted his mind, so the idea of retreating from the body into the mind was quite logical to him when this began. (The sessions or the symptoms?)

Ruburt put his body on a strict survival level, giving it the barest of attention. He is in the habit of ignoring its feelings, attitudes or desires, so that he is quite numb to some of them.

Again however understand that both of your attitudes worked here, though he exaggerated some indeed. You both considered the world in many respects as distracting, stupid, its people beneath your notice, and your work the only thing of importance. Given the opportunity (when I obtained steady employment) and as soon as he was able, Ruburt then retreated from it, and gave himself the excuse for doing so—your attitudes made flesh.

Before, necessity would not allow it. He leaped over that barrier, and when you thought you had given him the opportunity to be free, he was not about to misuse it. He would force himself to devote all his energies in that direction, to silence for example any stray temptations to go out into the yard in working time, to visit friends. He would see to it that he could not give in to such temptations.

A good number of his depressions were body depressions. The body was de-pressed, pressed down, and this of course affected the psychic state. He hides his body in his dress. His face is in good condition because he considers that the mirror of his soul, and allows it therefore free-enough expression. He trusts his head.

He has been satisfied with the bargain. He felt it was necessary (underlined) to inhibit physical expression in order to concentrate all of his energies inward into his work. He felt it was necessary to inhibit physical mobility in order to facilitate deeper penetration into inner reality.

He was trying to sublimate the energy, to take it away from the physical so that it could be used more productively, to his way of thinking. Now, this is not necessary. He was afraid of frittering away his energy. This was his idea of conserving it.

He did not of course understand what the complete results would be. He felt that the physical could be safely dispensed with, and did so by degrees. Whenever physical mobility is demanded as an auxiliary to his work, then he produced physically—on your tour, at the high school engagement, and so forth.

He thought that he would have your approval, that you also would do anything necessary in order to put all of your energies into your work. He thought he was showing you he was (underlined) determined to take advantage of the opportunity you gave him.

In the past you often railed against Saturday chores while he was quite happily enjoying them. To show you that he could be like you he adopted your attitude, hid any enjoyment he used to feel from them, and took steps to cut these out of his life as far as possible; as he felt you would do had you the chance.

You have also learned then through seeing your attitudes put into flesh. These were joint attitudes, now. I do not mean that Ruburt put your attitudes alone into flesh. He has a one-track mind in that regard, however.

When your communication system did fall down, the situation was at its worst for him. At an unconscious level he felt he was doing what was right, that you should approve of it, that despite the inconvenience and the physical soreness he was sticking to his guns.

As this began to take more and more of your time however, he became concerned, for he did not intend to have his work at the price of your difficulty with him. He felt guilty enough that you had to work outside. He could justify some small inconveniences on your part, but not your continued unease and worried concern.

Whenever he had a work problem he hastily then withdrew more physical energy in order to go inward with greater acceleration. The key is, he thought this was necessary. He took literally the idea of putting all of your energy into work.

Ruburt believed his place was in his room. Time spent in the preparation of meals, in your social activity, in travel, was wasted time, and his attitude was largely shared by you. He simply put it into greater practice.

When Ruburt felt, as I have told you, that you no longer loved him, then he had less use of the body. He feels his body’s condition should tell you how devoted he has been to his work, instead of getting at it for not walking right or eating enough. He feels you should consider his condition as one of the means adopted in a goal in which you both believe. He was then afraid of giving up the condition for fear of using physical energy at the expense of mental energy, and hence at the expense of his work.

You both always railed against overweight people. He did not think that would bother you then. (But it does, terrifically.) Again, he did not foresee the results. When they became obvious he decided there was nothing to do but put up with them if the end was justified.

He felt you did not want him in bed anyway, so you would not complain there. He tried then to attain the goal in ways that would not upset you, as far as his understanding went at the time.

When your communications were reestablished, he began to see that you suffered far more than he supposed from his course of action.

When he began it, as explained, your personal relationship was relatively at an unstable point. He did not feel he could depend upon you, and so went inward in the way given.

Nothing could sway him from that course while he believed it was the right one. When the two of you became more emotionally open, then he began to doubt it.

He wants you to leave Artistic and paint full time, to make up to you what you have suffered on his account, and also because he now believes that is the correct course to follow. I will go deeper into this in our next session.

Part of the reaction had to do with past conditioning, and was all interwoven. He was so often told “Do not fritter away your energy,” “Do not go in so many directions at once,” “Restrain yourself,” and so he was making sure that he avoided these pitfalls.

The condition with the teeth simply resulted from keeping a tight upper lip, clamping down the jaw. He made his bed, he would lie in it. To relax meant to let down the guard, and distractions in. The physical strains altered the appearance of the teeth, then. Physically there were infections, enough to maintain the condition and no more. The condition had certain invisible boundaries that were carefully maintained. Only when the body objected and went over those boundaries did he become frightened, for he saw then that he lacked the control over the body he thought he held. He could not silence all of its objections.

He never planned on the condition becoming permanent, but only as a conditioning process to be dispensed with when no longer needed. He also wanted you so see how hard he was working, so that you would not resent his being at home. This also showed that he was paying for the privilege. He did not intend that you pay also.

In the beginning you encouraged him, and found such signs of withdrawal as indications of his maturity. Again, you both in the past found any endeavor disconnected from your work as a distraction. He saw to it that they were cut out and dispensed with in a large degree.

(“But he’s got to be willing to do these things…”

Your understanding will also help, for he thought that you agreed with the basic premise.

(“He’s known for at least a year that I didn’t agree at all—and probably longer than that, Seth.”)

He did not understand that you did not basically agree. Now I will end the session —and I hope that you are glad of the information.