“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

First, we will begin with Nebene. He was a man of the strongest purpose, high dedication, a severe perfectionist who drove himself and his students. He was a mystic, but a mystic given to great discipline, denial, restraint. He inhibited many of his strongest drives in order to focus them upon his search and the work to which he was committed.

He saw in his time how so-called mysticism and even dedication, without discipline, could divert energy, distort truths and pervert causes. He was well aware that high energy could be lost through dissipation. He dammed his own up, letting it out only in the deep but narrow channel of his interest. He had little use for spontaneity. He was afraid of it.

His methods worked very well in the transcription of his records, and purified his translations. He was afraid that spontaneity would cause him to color certain transcriptions from the past. His methods did not work nearly as well in person-to-person contact with his students, however.

In dealing with these records he was suspicious of creativity, for he feared it could lead to original alterations where instead a literal interpretation was important. He was also however a creative man so there were personality conflicts, and he literally forced the creativity to take a weak secondary position.

The dilemma was, here now, between truth—a literal translation of ancient records—or a creative approach which could lead to falsification, so he was highly suspicious of the creativity in himself. Through discipline he thought that he had this suspicious creativity well in hand. He feared that his students would not have the same kind of integrity. He was therefore very severe in dealing with originality on the part of his students, considering it, again, a threat. He was indeed a taskmaster.

The Nebene within you however was quite certain that they must also be disciplined, kept within bounds and watched carefully. The same applied to your own creative abilities, where for some time a divergence from a literal pictorial illustration was felt to be wrong, or off. Some other personal information that I gave you concerning your relationship with your father this time also fits in here.

Now Nebene was aroused whenever the abilities showed themselves most spontaneously in Ruburt. Ruburt recognized the Nebene within you when first you met. Jane was dancing quite spontaneously, incidentally, and to boot somewhat tipsy. She felt you aloof and disapproving of the waste of energy, watching but not swept along as the other males were. A part of you enjoying the performance but a part, Nebene, critically wondering about the undisciplined use of such energy.

You did know Ruburt in the past as Nebene, and she was then a dancing girl.

(“When was that life?”)

You had a relationship of which Nebene did not approve, a sexual one. There were countless cults, and Ruburt as a woman was a prostitute priestess—the term is not a good one—of a particularly sensuous cult that had a connection with the land of Constantinople. (Turkey.)

It was emotional, unrestrained, given to orgies. You were unresistingly drawn to it, the power of your inhibited tendencies propelling you for release. So you had a secret life, unknown to your students for some time. It erupted suddenly at the age of 45 and ran for 10 years. You had no respect for yourself during that span.

Ruburt was 9 when this began, usual in those days incidentally. (I was surprised at the age, etc.) For some time in your relationship in this life, Nebene provided you with a framework to contain your own early emotions with your parents.

In this life you equated your own creativity with danger, now, to some degree. In the first place your father’s creativity, his inventions, brought him no recognition, no money in your mother’s terms. The creativity in your mother simply erupted in emotional tantrums, also dangerous and unproductive. You nicely channeled your creativity into comics, where it was socially acceptable and would also bring recognition in the terms of your society—cash.

Here Nebene within you rushed to your aid. He was appalled that your ability, while disciplined, lacked the intent and purpose, the search for truth and meaning, he felt being adulterated. Ruburt, with high youthful ideals, a strong sense of purpose, then came into the picture. He was accepted by you and by Nebene. Nebene felt the purpose would save your abilities.

Nebene, while thankful to Jane, quickly let other aspects enter in once you had safely decided upon painting rather than comics, which were to him degrading. He was then afraid that Ruburt’s spontaneity would divert you from the course that it had set you upon, so he began to take a stronger hand.

Part of the stronger hand also had to do with his attempts to help you with your family, to shut you off from too much distracting emotion, when for example you moved back to Sayre after New York. Ruburt however reacted most vehemently against this shutdown of emotional reaction. He felt then the force that was Nebene. Now at times his own overly-conscientious portions would agree quite heartily with Nebene’s dictates. Because of his psychic abilities he picked up these qualities quite accurately. They would often seem so different from your own actions at a given time that he became highly confused, and distrusted his own reactions.

The Nebene characteristics came particularly to the fore in the transcription of my book of course, and with the encounter with your friend Sue. Nebene was furious that Ruburt would not speak for him. Nebene wanted to speak through Ruburt, knowing his abilities, and Ruburt refused.

With you, Nebene checked the details of the book. This put Ruburt under additional pressure, and he began to rebel more. You made some remark that the book was marred because of the great gaps in sessions, Ruburt’s attitude, and so forth. Ruburt therefore felt that you were accusing him again of a poor performance, and for other reasons also felt that in your eyes these faults took precedence over the book’s obvious merit. Because of the strain, and because he felt his spontaneity so hampered, he came up with (Oversoul)Seven, defiantly, where Nebene could not follow; pure creativity, he felt, with no factual details that he could be called upon.

In the beginning it was you who mentioned the rest of the page to Tam—do you follow me?

—but when Ruburt merrily began to write you spoke to him quite sharply, reminding him that he was dropping other projects to embark on a new one at Tam’s enthusiasm. You implied his abjectness.

Nebene is quite jealous of Tam’s influence, such as it is, but again, Nebene let it be known he disapproved. Now this had charge behind it later when you assured Ruburt you were delighted with the project. You had no such charge. The charge registered. A quick aside: your friend Sue’s behavior: she was kicking her heels up at Nebene also.

Now Ruburt’s own background this time, with ideas of truth and falsehood, tied in beautifully with Nebene. Nebene was as determined to get the correct reincarnational details because they were in his terms true, as Ruburt was determined to avoid them because in his terms they were not true.

Now your (underlined) main failure in dealing with Ruburt is an emotional one. You cannot reason with the part of him who felt hurt deeply, or to the part that felt he was rejected. In your attempts to explain yourself in the main, now, you have tried to use logic and reason, when it was as I told you before a feeling of being deprived emotionally. He did not feel deprived intellectually.

He felt much time wasted, but held off, seeing if an absence from sessions would help his health. He had also resented the coercion that Nebene implied. Nebene was upset because of this own sense of purpose. Ruburt knew this but would no longer give sessions because he felt forced to.

Nebene has learned a thing or two. He was certain that given the chance Ruburt would throw the sessions over gladly. He did not trust Ruburt’s overall consistency, you see. Part of the symptoms these last months have arisen and continued because of these ambiguities.

Therefore there was little consistent attempt made to reassure Ruburt’s emotional nature, or reach it on an emotional or physical level. Instead you used reason. Secondly, the conflict over sessions: Ruburt himself felt he was wasting time on the one hand, and on the other was refusing to be coerced.

For other reasons, for one because Josef was undisciplined, you have not spontaneously given expression to that portion of you. To help your wife you can do so. I want you to know therefore that such emotional behavior is a part of your nature. I am dealing with your end of the stick this evening because I had been blocked in the past from doing so, and the information is so pertinent.

(11:15. Jane said she remembered little of the delivery, except that Josef was modeled after a life of mine. Then Seth returned:)