“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(We sat for the session at 9, but just then a neighbor began cutting his grass with a power mower. Our windows were open and the sound seemed especially bothersome. We waited for the job to be done, which took half an hour. By then we were both quite upset, although I think Jane’s unease stemmed more from my reaction to the noise, than it did from any noise itself.)

The paper written today should be discussed by both of you so that those ideas are brought completely into the open where he can consciously and intellectually examine them. Your emotions follow your beliefs. For many reasons then he was convinced that his course was correct. His methods began to alarm him, but even when they did, and he realized that he was making a bargain of a sort, he still believed in the premise that made a bargain necessary.

(Intently, as above:) His nature then on other levels would follow the same pattern. He felt that this same quality, physically translated, led to a physical spontaneity that would make the inner spontaneity more difficult to achieve. Spontaneity and energy used in his work was one thing, but allowed physical translation, he felt, could mean bizarre, unreasonable physical complications.

Give me a moment. I want to organize this so it makes sense to you... For other reasons, the fear of pregnancy for example, physical spontaneity was also suspect, and here again you were involved. Not that you consciously approved the methods used, but he had his situation and yours always in mind, and was convinced he was acting for both of your interest.

Now these are his interpretations, but whenever you rejected his spontaneous advances, for whatever reasons you may have had, this helped reinforce that idea. There was, my dear friend, little danger of Ruburt becoming pregnant, when spontaneous passionate moments on both of your parts were cut out.

With the dream book he tried to do something he did not consider artistic, and was unable to do it. He believed in the book’s ideas, but the artistic framework for him was not right. When it was rejected my book was developing. Finances were mixed up with freedom to write, then.

These two events made him pull in his horns; or rather, his interpretation of them in the light of your relationship. He always felt now, and work this out yourselves, that you focused upon the most negative aspects of his condition, and ignored any improvement as minute. But more, that you almost disapproved of them, that you expected him to be in poor shape. So he would hide any he felt from you often for fear you would crush them, or make him lose whatever small confidence in himself physically he’d gained.

The tooth difficulty arose because of the conflicts of wanting a new contract while thinking of spending money for a house. Also his great difficulty physically when you were looking at houses. He felt that you wanted one but that you were refusing to do what you could do—move to a rented place, and that did excite him.

Hearing you voice the same opinions, he becomes mad at them or at you, for he knows that those reactions of yours helped him form his fear of the world—helped, but are not responsible.

Now if he said under those conditions “I want to go out and dance,” you would say “I don’t want to make you feel bad, but I don’t think you can manage it now. Maybe later you can.”

You are to some degree, both of you, using the symptoms as excuses. Ruburt is afraid that if he can operate in a trailer, and he can, that you will find yourselves losing work time, running all over the country, and you are afraid of the same thing. Any project the two of you are attracted to but think will be distracting, you blame on the symptoms. Since this is never challenged you never know whether or not Ruburt can perform.

Symbolic interpretations immediately became obvious, and yet brought out into the open, as in tonight’s episode. I do not want to duplicate material, but Ruburt’s seeing you working without symptoms was of great benefit. Your reaction then to the noise was upsetting, which is quite all right, because now your reactions there can be consciously assimilated. Your reaction is to yell about the condition, yet you do not move. His has been to say little and to withdraw. Though your particular interpretations of distractions may vary, to him the noise itself, for example, is not so charged. But quite rightly he recognizes the noise as your symbol for distraction.

Letters and calls were interpreted as distractions mainly—as another pull upon his energies. He recognized the psychic source of his writing, which cleared the psychic area in that respect, finally. But he was afraid that the spontaneity denied in physical life would run rampant now in inner psychic experience.

To let these ideas go was to let his youth go, and to admit that many of those ideas, believed in so strongly and so stubbornly, were not working any longer. Even your remarks about a black-haired wife meant the image of a woman in her 20’s—the-younger-than-you obviously youthful, spontaneous and cute wife; not a 44-year-old woman with experience behind her, some sense, and who could stand on her own feet, but a much younger version, youthful enough to get into trouble, and to be humorously watched in that regard.

Seeing you work, as these last few days, instantly made him see other alternatives in which the same ends are met, but without cutting down on physical flexibility. The most seemingly impractical ideas, imaginatively considered, may be precisely the most practical in greater terms. Your expectations must be changed, and despite what so-called practical experience shows you. That is why a puny weakling who cannot lift a sack of groceries may suddenly find himself holding up a car so a child can escape.