“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

You, for example, could have excelled at certain sports, where Ruburt had no such inclinations. You chose to concentrate in artistic endeavors as you grew and learned through various areas and periods—that is, you tried and enjoyed sports, and writing; and after a while decided upon the painting self as your core of operation, and the particular focus upon which you would build a life.

Because you saw yourself with such specialized focus, unknowingly you blocked out stimuli that as a painter you could have used. Because of your joint ideas—you, the artist, Ruburt the writer—then your financial contribution was strictly limited by both of you to that one field.

You did not, fully now, realize your contribution to Seth Speaks in financial terms, though you understood your creative contribution. Ruburt did not either, until lately, because it was a matter of self-evidence: your contribution financially would come through painting alone. So for a while you were hassled that you were not financially contributing after you left Artistic, and so was Ruburt. You were contributing financially, but neither of you correctly understood this because of that specialized focus.

Ruburt did not want to understand, for he was afraid, in your joint framework, that you would stop painting, and not use the framework you were supposed to, to get money. He thought this would be a failure on your part, for which he would be at least partially responsible. You each had blind spots because your focuses were too specialized and limited.

Ruburt felt he had to protect his writing abilities in the same manner, except that he is by nature more gregarious. He was also poorer than you, and determined never to be so again. The fact that you were not making much money in the framework the two of you accepted, led him to work the harder, determined to publish his work.

Because of that specialized, limited focus, however, to varying degrees each of you were divided within yourselves. Ruburt feared that the psychic work conflicted with the writer, and detracted from you in your focus as an artist. This was apparent in the most minute circumstances, and colored your lives. Did Ruburt feel like making love during your working hours in earlier years, you actively discouraged him, and told him through actions and words that displays of innocent affection turned you on sexually, and disturbed you when you wanted to paint.

He had no sportsman-like background; on the contrary, a lack of ordinary physical orientation and interaction. His identification with the importance of the mind, then, and his focus as a writer, allowed him to inhibit physical motion in a way you would not have done. The dancing represents Ruburt’s end of the sportsman proposition—his gymnastics.

Now. Remember what I said the other night, about the lack of encouragement there on your part. It is highly interesting, considering your ease of mobility, and brings in many more aspects than you realize. For Ruburt, dancing, his one inclination to flaunt himself, comes into direct conflict with your ideas of privacy and secrecy. When he is obviously not in the best of physical condition and then wants to dance, this to you is showing his weakness to the world. You, with your history of athletic behavior, and your love of “perfect motion,” immediately contrast his activities with the time when he danced with the greatest of ease.

Your writing abilities for example would not have emerged had that original course and specialized focus been followed to a “t.” Had that original course and specialized focus been followed to a “t,” Ruburt’s abilities would not have emerged either. In other words the specialized course to which you thought you were trying to hold so tenaciously, was indeed not that tenaciously followed. You each protested, yet did what you wanted to do. You just kept trying to fit what you did into a framework that you had outgrown. You had each identified with that framework so strongly that you were afraid to let it go.

Ruburt’s writing abilities have blossomed because of his psychic experience. Your painting abilities have also. You have not acknowledged that because the paintings have not brought money; you did not want to believe they were valuable, for fear someone would take them away. In a strange manner, you saw to it that your abilities found precisely the elements that would release them, yet your ideas of the writer and the artist prevented you from seeing this.

Ruburt used his body as a symbol of the entire situation, and the symptoms as a way of maintaining privacy, and lack of distraction on both of your parts—again, inhibiting sexual freedom, spontaneous outings that threatened both of your ideas. He would go so far, throw out test balloons, and meet with your disapproval. The disapproval was yours, and you saw his fears projected upon you. You were both happy when he showed some improvement, because neither of you wanted physical disability carried too far, but as soon as he showed signs of being free enough so that he could really take a trip, or dance, you both clamped down. He always waited to see what you would do, and these episodes, again, occurred after enough improvement, so that first he wanted to go out. Sometimes he forced himself to, thinking he was denying you the pleasure of your bars and outings. But despite what you said, he saw that you did indeed disapprove.

Now. The psychic work, which is a natural extension of both of your creative abilities, could not be fully utilized by you, individually or jointly, while you maintained such a rigid, specialized focus. Ruburt feared that it might be taking you from your one true purpose as a painter. Not realizing, either of you, your financial contribution through the works, you felt and so did he, after Artistic, that he carried the brunt financially.

Now. Psychically, developments appear in class. Freedoms achieved appear there, particularly when you are not having regular sessions. These appear before your private lives physically materialize them. Therefore, Ruburt’s new class energy is the first development that shows. This is the result of a shifting of organization in his psyche, and in yours. Your lives are reorganizing themselves, finally, into a freer framework.

In this framework you see yourselves as individuals and as partners in a remarkable creative endeavor that will develop your main abilities easily, and without strain and inhibition. The correspondence has suffered because it has represented your attitudes toward people. As a writer, Ruburt resented the time. As a psychic and incidentally the person, he wanted to answer. The mail also represented business—people who buy books. Inquiries for help, to both of you, represented distractions, those who would take your time, in the old terms, and give nothing.

Giving himself psychic spontaneity might mean somehow giving into that spontaneity that both of you feared. Whenever psychic developments show themselves then, Ruburt improves in health, as he allows his energies their spontaneous play and expression. This flows into his writing, his physical condition, and your private lives.

Helping Ruburt with the mail is also a financial contribution. It is far more than that, but each of you must understand that you are partners in this endeavor in every part of it. The psychic development did not just occur. Your deepest natures called it out of the probable sequence into your reality—for a reason, because (each of) you knew that it could best develop all of your (respective) abilities to their fullest, and also help others.

Before this Ruburt considered anything not writing a danger, a threat, or at least felt it a distraction to himself as a writer. He considered such things as a threat to you as an artist.

Your ideas about the letter (to correspondents) are encouraging first motions toward what I am speaking of, as are Ruburt’s ideas about class, and your sexual advances. You have a way to make a living, and a good one. You each contribute. That much will free you to paint, and sell your paintings.