“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Then however the abilities want to grow and thrive, and the economic factors must no longer be a prime incentive. If they are there will be difficulty. The personality will try to develop its abilities further in a freer, more mature fashion, but the old habits will hold the personality back. “Will this sell or won’t it?” That question was more or less imperative when Ruburt was learning to use his abilities. Not only that, but the economic need itself was important, helping to focus those abilities to some degree, to the needs and desires of others as well as himself.

Ruburt has been trying to be economical in terms of money, energy and time. He differed from you only in that he carried your own ideas and his further in certain respects. In others, financially for example, he broke away first and you followed. The idea of the spare, poor young artist or writer, living romantically in a garret or poor apartment, has served as a handy self-image for many in their early years, providing a sense of dignity that enabled such apprentices to make their way. You chose the circumstances. You purposely chose a time involved in which writers and artists had it “hard”—so you cannot turn around then and blame the society. You each wanted to be apart from it to some extent. You (RFB) proved to yourself that your art could support you when you were young. You made good money. Then you immediately disentangled your abilities from economics in a particular fashion. You used your dexterity in “artistic” ways in your jobs—but the bulk of your artistic yearnings were divorced completely from the world at large. Ruburt did not know that his abilities could ever bring him money.

When you worked in an art department, even though you knew you were doing “commercial work,” society referred to you as an artist. You had a certain prestige. When Ruburt needed jobs he worked in a factory, or he was a sales clerk or a door-to-door sales person—jobs he felt that gave him no prestige. He was afraid, however, of such jobs—prestigious ones—for fear the need for money would lead him to neglect his work. He became more economical.

If he could not go out so often, if he could not go on vacations, if he could not leave his desk, he would save not only energy but time and money as well. You would not spend so much. He would not be tempted to buy so many clothes. You cannot separate your beliefs in one area from those in another, for they are so beautifully connected. Ruburt’s talents are luxurious. They will automatically bring you luxury. Abilities must be ultimately tied in with your greatest inner aspirations—not tied down by your fears.

You have your existence now as yourself. Nebene has his existence in his own now as himself, and there are many others. Joseph in Seven is a representation of another portion of your being that is connected with Bill Macdonnel. Your “purpose” is to bring those diverse aspects together, to form them into your own kind of artistic production—to wed in your life and art those seemingly diverse qualities of spontaneity and order, spareness and abundance, beloved detail and wholeness, and to form in your life and art a new kind of synthesis.

There is nothing strange in the fact that Ruburt begins to have sexual feelings as the muscles begin to feel toward flexibility (legs). His physical difficulty has involved then his ideas of economical action—the cutting out of waste. These ideas, again, are a part of the one line of consciousness that says “You have only so much energy and so much time. You must therefore ‘use’ time and energy well; practically you must not waste time or effort. If you have a purpose and you want to achieve it badly enough, then everything else must be sacrificed for it—because “time marches on.” “Time is money.”

I will end shortly. Your pendulum help is all important because of what it represents—on emotional levels, and because Ruburt then does not feel so alone in his dilemma. When you give pendulum directions however other portions of your psyche come through in a loving directing fashion, and the greater contact is made than you realize.

(“You said last time that you were going to say something about his teeth.”)

Now: Ruburt’s teeth further followed through, and were a kind of safeguard, for if he lost his symptoms, still he would not look good enough to go on television.

Tell Ruburt that even in the old terms it is not economical to take such an amount of time for simple movements to the bathroom, for example. He holds his urine as he holds his breath, hardly taking time to breathe. This is not creative action, or productive action, as he is now with your help beginning to realize.

He took these steps for his own reasons, but you have come together in a joint reality, so his situation is teaching you things that you wanted to learn, and you are learning through his example. You would not take on that physical coloration. In a way however you are working through the same problems artistically, and Ruburt would never accept that coloration, so he has learned from you there.