“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(“Yes.” At suppertime, Seth spoke to Jane rather harshly as she worked in the kitchen. His data concerned her symptoms, and evidently continued material we had been discussing ourselves the last day or two on our own. I asked that tonight’s session deal only with personal material, so we were fairly well prepared. Jane shed a few tears when she came to the studio to tell me that she had heard from Seth late this afternoon. She also remarked that she wished she hadn’t heard from him. However, I considered the insights she gained to be very valuable indeed.)

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.

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.

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.

Now the body quickly made its protests known, and Ruburt squelched them whenever possible. The body was not important except as it supported his ideas. His will would drive it.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

(“Is this vacation going to do any good? It seems to me there’s got to be a strong change in his attitude, or the whole thing’s going to be wasted.”)

The stimulus of changed physical surroundings will be of benefit. The restaurant food will also be a stimulus to his appetite, and the changing physical sights alone refreshing. The change will also break old patterns of behavior, and will help therefore in changing his attitude.