“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.

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?)

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.

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.

(9:45. The pace had been good. My hand was tired. I was absolutely appalled by the material. It was an extension of insights we had been discussing lately, but to see it all neatly arrayed together was devastating. I sat in silence for several minutes because I didn’t know what to do; I seemed to be neutralized by the conflicting feelings washing over me. Nor did Jane say anything.)

(I asked Jane why she was allowing this material to come through now, but she didn’t know. I had been getting very angry lately however so I felt this was a prime reason. I was terribly depressed, at least briefly. I grimly promised Jane that there were going to be changes; and this was to not at all minimize my own role in this problem—it was merely my stated vehement desire that this madness come to an end, that I was ready for a change, and demanded one.)

(10:05.) Now. You both said from your earliest days together that you wanted to put all of your energy into your work. That was Ruburt’s objective.

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.

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.

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.

The idea that being is its own justification is important here: The rights and privileges of the body cannot be long ignored, though Ruburt’s body has withstood very much. You should be thankful under the circumstances that the condition was not worse, for the body’s own resiliency fought back, and provided some balance out of its own sanity.

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.

(I explained this to Jane last summer. But that was six months ago now, and there has been no change.)

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.

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.

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.

(I was quite skeptical. I was remembering a lot of other such statements by Seth about vacations, etc., none of which accomplished anything that I could remember. I was remembering now what Seth had said earlier in the session about Jane’s attitude toward vacations, chores, etc., being a waste of time since these things took her away from her work.)

(I still intend to leave Artistic at the end of January, though some of my ideas have changed. Now I wonder if Jane will take my painting full time as a sign that her course of action was right all along, and simply intensify her withdrawal. Earlier today I told her I didn’t have any more time to wait, because of my physical age, that I no longer wanted to wait, etc. Easy to say. I have no idea whether I can bring it off, but I feel I might as well try. I feel exhausted, and that every other avenue has been explored.