“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Jane had obtained excellent material on her own today, working with beliefs about her writing, symptoms, and movement about the house. The idea was that physical restraints would keep her at her desk and remove temptations to do other things. We were anxious to hear what Seth would have to say about this material.

(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.

There are other issues of which he has been lately somewhat aware, connected here for example. In the beginning the symptoms made certain that he would not have to get a job. That fear no longer operates. The belief as he wrote it alone was simply that to do his creative work he had to curtail other activities. In the beginning as an apprentice writer this was to allow him to develop.

Now: your attitude and his interpretation of it, to him, clearly jibed. Such courses would also represent distractions to you. He thought you hated distractions, and for a period of time he felt that you thought him one.

His writing seemed dependent upon the curtailment of activities of other kinds. Give us a moment.... When the system was set up, for many reasons having to do with relative youth and lack of experience, he did not have any confidence in his conscious ability to say no, to hold to a “line of attack.” He was afraid he would be swept willy-nilly. He was also afraid, particularly when he tried teaching, that he might be led to give up and settle for another occupation that would bring automatic respectability, money, and some prestige.

In many areas then both of you controlled your spontaneity. For Ruburt this had greater dangers than it did for you because he is geared toward spontaneous action. Other issues would have subsidiary effects, all within the framework. For him the writing abilities had to be allowed freedom. The psychic initiation actually united them. The early novels, published, would have led to another kind of personal problem, since all involved were living. He would still have had to face the world, so to speak. To be free to write freely, he had also to make a certain financial success, or he would need a job.

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.

If you did not know that Ruburt could indeed manage to dance, though not in the wildest fashion, then you would not believe it when “faced” with the reality of his behavior around the house. You would think he could not do it.

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.”

A bicycle has all kinds of connotations for him. It seems unreasonable, watching him, to think that he could even begin to ride one. Watching him you would not think he could get to a dance floor, much less move. He mentioned adjusting the seat. You have been afraid to fix it, thinking he might hurt himself. That is another point however that is important.

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.

Practically, in the light of the man’s experience, such an activity would seem impossible. You have been looking, both of you, to see how bad Ruburt was, how much worse he would get, until each of you projected the situation into the future until he was nearly bedridden—all in a misguided attempt to get yourselves out of the situation.

In the light of that picture improvement was not reasonable, not to be expected. What was projected finally however was your complete statement that you no longer agreed with the methods, that you would no longer go along with them, and this was to the good.