“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

When new “threats” arose, Ruburt reverted to the old pattern. (The new threats being the death of my mother; our freedom to travel, now that we have finished Personal Reality; the absence from home and the interruption of routine, etc., as we talked about tonight.) Reading our book however kept some improvements alive, and it was but a matter of time before he would read again the sessions of work that I gave him (as Jane did today). The beliefs for a while fell back into invisibility because he wanted them to, of course. Those particular sessions are highly important.

He has trained his mind to respond with amazing facility to the moods and messages of the soul. Physically this meant in previous times that the body was fast, responding instantaneously almost to nuances of feeling that were then translated into both physical mobility and mental and psychic leaps of intuition that arose therefrom.

He was afraid that the body spontaneity would lead him away from mental and psychic agility. Since you are physical creatures the messages of the soul must be translated through the flesh, and to impede the flesh is to dim those communications. He has had to use far more energy to get those messages than is necessary, because he has impeded some of the sections through which information flows. He has cut down on some stimuli, and therefore slowed neurological messages.

In so doing he has cut down on the psychic information he could otherwise receive. You cannot shut down, or slow down certain methods of communication, or try to block out some neurological frameworks so that other portions will operate more effectively. It does not work that way.

While Ruburt felt he was doing the right thing, he would put up with almost any inconvenience, or make almost any sacrifice. He must understand that no sacrifice is ever required.

The individual feels the presence of great energy, and is unsure as to how to use it. Picasso let it go freely. Ruburt wonders how much wasted energy went into Picasso’s antics—that should have gone into his work. Van Gogh and Cézanne were afraid of their energy, and with all they did could have done far more. Picasso’s free flow of energy in all areas freed energy for his work, and did not detract from it. He kept his channels to energy open, therefore the energy flowed through his work freely, and in a short period of time he could produce a painting that might take years for another as gifted to produce, who husbanded his talent as a miser.

Ruburt sees the two of you against the world. He has taken precautions to protect you and himself. The spontaneity he feared might interfere with his abilities is precisely the key that will release them and him. It is important that you, Joseph, also examine your beliefs honestly in regard to your work and spontaneity, and your relationship with the world.

We know what he still gets out of them. You form your private and joint realities. If Ruburt knew that you were receiving no benefits, but only torment, from his symptoms, then he would give them up on the spot, because of his great loyalty to you, and because he would understand that he was hurting you beyond any benefits he gave.

Those purposes involve each of you and your work, and those methods that you think are necessary to direct your energies “properly,” husband your energy, and protect you from what you think of as a hostile world. You are as afraid of your energies as Ruburt is. He is afraid of not directing them into his “work.” He is convinced that he must protect you and himself from any spontaneity not reflected in work, and from the world.

Ruburt’s symptoms help provide the isolation. His continuing love provides however the climate, the steady reassuring climate, the only climate in which you dare to taste that isolation. He fears his spontaneity directed toward you sexually and emotionally would threaten you. So do you. You equate emotionalism with your mother. Ruburt equates spontaneity with emotionalism, therefore he imagines that his spontaneity will threaten your art.

(Or when I HAVE decided to get better and improve, I’d change my mind at any “danger”; or I’d get better awhile to make Rob feel better when I think he’d rather just have a normal wife. [But he could have chosen somebody else and he chose me because I had these ideas about work, wouldn’t threaten him with kids, make him get a regular job, keep us focused, etc. What other wife could do that? Stupid.] Apparently I feel that’s why he married me, and what we had in common.

(Or when I love Rob so much and I’m afraid that I’m robbing him by knocking out qualities in me that he loved and that I can’t get them back or be lovely again [despite what I wrote above].

4. Can’t count on Rob to do much financially, would think it self-betrayal on his part to get a job, and he always complained at Artistic. I felt he had to have his chance and was confident I could swing the financial end without buying a house, etc., anyhow.

7. With the symptoms Rob does lots of chores I think he wouldn’t do otherwise, freeing me to work? Keeps me from wasting my time with housework; think it’s degrading for R. as a male to do chores so much so the symptoms give us both an excuse; also gives him an excuse for not knowing for sure what he wants to do, paint or whatever, he can blame it on lack of concentration because of me.

8. Book ideas were to give R. alternatives if he wanted them.

9. Yet R.’s work as painter may be greater than either of us know, so on the other hand I feel he should hang onto them, rather than scatter his work, put them in one large room—bedroom?—to show them off well and sell them at high prices; he doesn’t sell many now anyhow and his prices may reflect his ideas of art value in society. Is there a correlation between my conflict between poetry and book contracted for, and Rob’s attitude toward art and money?

11. I think all this is for Rob’s good as much as mine despite my fears and his fears for me. One thing I can give him; buy time for him to do whatever he wants, be free of family and money problems, if he worries about me he isn’t going to feel responsible to get a job and my symptoms give him an excuse not to socially (old ideas) and the symptoms cut down on my flamboyance which has class to express itself in. It’s kept in work where it can’t threaten our framework.)