“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Loving encouragement will work. Because of the material given the other evening, and Ruburt’s own background, this is what happened in the past: he would manage to show some improvement as your attitude became more loving. He was still looking for signs that you meant the change—do you follow me?

When you showed impatience with his progress it was sometimes a natural impatience, and sometimes Nebene’s dissatisfaction with a student who should, with those abilities, do better. Ruburt would indeed perceive withering looks on such occasions. Neither of you properly understood your own reactions. But Ruburt would immediately panic.

After all, you did (underlined) disapprove. You were not pleased with his performance, he was not living up to your expectations. He equated then a normal physical performance, from the standpoint of his condition, as an impossible perfect performance, while feeling that nothing short of perfection would please you.

I am bringing this out so that you understand, both of you. You would insist he overreacted, that no one should be that suggestible. He would think of the abject label again, have no use for himself, and think the whole thing useless. If at the same time you seemed overly critical—to him, now—of a manuscript, say, or his missing sessions, then it seemed approval was denied him from the one person whose integrity he trusted.

The difficulty showed itself in Ruburt in keeping with the style of life that you were both accustomed to. You did not go out without a reason. The idea was to avoid chores, time taken from work, ordinary mixing with neighbors. You never felt a responsibility to go out, but a responsibility to stay home and work.

Both of you had to acquiesce to some extent in the situation. He did not choose for example a way of action, even physically, that would go against your style of life or ideas, but cleverly wove these into ideas you both initially deeply believed in. when you were working particularly at Artistic, you could not say he was out gadding around and not using his abilities. There he was in his chair. He could not leave it.

He is not to be babied. I am not saying that, the emotional encouragement however is important. He felt earlier that you withheld it because you had little use for anyone who needed it, that to request it was impossible to begin with. You could not demand it.

The car lost, was lost—no coincidence any more than your behavior during the flood. You know you chose the situation. It is important that a new car be purchased as soon as possible. He felt that the last one was purchased by you in order to reach your parents, begrudgingly, that you would not have purchased a “new one” for him for example.

Lighting his own cigarette in public was the one wild gesture of independence he allowed himself because you made such a point of lighting it for him. He was saying “In big things where I need help you often refuse to help, and your help is a gesture as when you light my cigarette, when I can do that myself.” So if Nebene is a stickler for details and carries grudges, so did our friend.

The whole thing boils down to the fact that he thought and felt you would not help him, but demand that he use his own abilities and help himself independently of you. You held his arm once as he crossed a busy street, in, I believe, Cobbleskill, and he never forgot it. At other times you would say “Be careful,” impatiently, “Watch where you are going. Don’t you see that car,” when he simply could not turn that quickly, and was terrified. There were other occasions when you held his arm and helped him and he remembers each one.

His idea was to chart his course, hope he could reach the other side of the street, and that the cars could see him.

Now. Some of these extreme reactions on Ruburt’s part were brought about by his psychic understanding of Nebene, so he could not adequately communicate with you. If you reacted as Nebene you would later rationalize the results to him—while he would know in that (underlined) instance he was not projecting so he could not trust his reactions toward you.