“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Before the session I read Jane two questions that I asked Seth to consider: 1. Why is she still losing weight? 2. Why does she move so slowly about the house, especially when getting up from chairs, etc.? We’d talked about items earlier in the week, without dwelling upon them. A rather acrimonious discussion followed my reading the questions tonight, but the session finally began.)

The core beliefs and the resulting subsidiary beliefs are interrelated and work back to back, one to the other. The literal-mindedness applies. That is why the dancing is important. There is a difference between saying “we danced,” to Ruburt, regardless of how well he danced, and the belief that he could not dance at all. True, that is a subsidiary issue, but it is one where he has insisted upon keeping some physical freedom open.

Give us a moment. Use that power that you have, and it is multiplied. Use the freedom that you have, and it is multiplied. You are, Joseph, now, able to see many of Ruburt’s negative concepts, but you are blind still to many of your own. The feeling and belief in freedom must come before its physical manifestation, and this regardless of any beliefs to the contrary.

If you act upon a belief in freedom and exert it, then it will automatically show you by contrast that the prior belief in lack of freedom was not in basic terms realistic. The prior belief will be chipped away to that extent. At the same time you must of course work at understanding the prior belief. But at the same time you must make efforts to act according to the new one that you want.

To some extent he still does. But he is beginning to understand, and is willing to enter that arena. He wants to enter it, and there is the important change in belief that has occurred. He is still frightened, and will be worried lest he become too involved in it, but he is willing to handle that on a conscious level now, which is another important change in beliefs.

Before he did not believe he could handle that consciously, so it is important. Not that you go camping or not go camping, but that you realize the freedoms that you have; use them, encourage any physical ideas of that nature that he has, and do not make him feel inadequate to try.

Before we get to your questions: if you want any more sessions from me on this matter, then each of you are to keep a list of any improvements you notice in Ruburt’s condition. You may not notice the same things. Your lists do not have to coincide, but you are each to keep such a list. Is that agreed upon?

Such structuring impedes your progress to a large degree, and prevents improvements that could occur. I have told you about the importance of imagination, both in building up and destroying beliefs, but you still do not understand completely.

It is precisely the challenge of things like dancing when he is in poor shape, but coming through when others are watching, or a trailer trip, or riding a bicycle when it seems impossible, or climbing a tree, that has the imaginative literal qualities that inspires him to change beliefs, whether or not those issues in that way make sense to you.

In trying to show him his realistic condition in the face of such ideas you end up by making him believe also that they are unrealistic, stupid, and that he should not need challenges but only the simple joy of walking across the floor.

He went to an extreme (intently), cutting out physical distractions because he believed that he had to. He was afraid that he would go to the extreme in the other direction. Now he is ready to open up. His beliefs are changing. But in the context of that change, the challenge of extremes still appeals to him. It is this that you have not understood. For that matter neither has he.

This, you see, is connected with the trailer idea, and I am telling you because you still do not understand the importance of belief and imagination combined. He has gone ahead despite, in this case, your negative interpretation, and seen himself under certain conditions traveling in a trailer, writing, granted, but in front of strangers in a bathing suit or shorts, and he does not want to look like a bony witch. So already in his mind he is gaining weight, seeing himself fairly agile—but he felt this was in spite of your attitudes, not with your enthusiasm or understanding.

He felt that in your world and interpretation his ideas were Pollyanna, but I tell you that is practical creativity—and it can wipe out many negative beliefs, more in a moment than you can realize.

The times that Ruburt managed rather considerable improvements even in the face of strong negative beliefs, were times when he managed to convince himself against all objective evidence that there was nothing wrong with him physically but habitual stiffness. That belief minimized the seeming impediments, allowed greater physical freedom that in its turn by contrast began to lessen the preliminary negative beliefs. That was the summer of which we have spoken, and the conditions did not continue for the reasons given.

He could quite happily accept your early rising but he felt that you poked fun at him when he spoke of working at night or rising early—again not understanding how he could utilize extremes.

It would not be any solution if the beliefs were not faced, but with that understanding it can facilitate improvements. Enough sleep is important when beginning, however, or of course he will simply want to sleep through. In the ordinary schedule he becomes tired and blue toward the end of the afternoon if he feels that he has not done enough work.

Now some of this is connected with ideas of sex in earlier years, adolescence. If a male writer or artist had to work to develop his abilities, then a woman had to work twice as hard. You also picked of course a woman you knew would not want children, but Ruburt felt a division between his biological nature and his art back then.

He has felt a love for wherever you lived, and an abiding love for you, but also some conflicts involving the housewifely chores and the writing. You help often, and have always done so, but he felt that because of the male-female relationship any help you gave was something he should be thankful for, that you were doing it out of the extra goodness of your heart—that he should not have to be grateful.

That is why any physical achievements are important. You are correct, however. The badminton was dropped because it succeeded so well—but also because Ruburt was not able then to face the dilemma between the accelerated motion in the game and the slow motion otherwise.

Now. The resistances are two. The most important one is that Ruburt must make a conscious effort not only to alter his habits but to handle what he thinks of now as distractions by conscious effort, the changing of a pattern, rather than by unconscious limitations on the body. So of course a dilemma is implied.

Beside this, when beginning such a venture, time must be allowed for the waking-sleep patterns to be adopted. The eating patterns also, and he will want to eat more. But such change represents at his level of behavior a definite attempt to substitute conscious alterations to seek the same ends.

I will end the session, but I will have more, providing you two follow through.