“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(I had three questions for Seth, following my promise at the end of the last deleted session to come up with some—and Jane had two. I’ll list them here so as to make them part of the records; and Seth deals with them all in tonight’s materials:

(1. My stomach. Have had a lot of discomfort lately. On June 22 the pendulum told me that my stomach bothers me not because I don’t spend enough time painting, but because I feel guilty at spending the time I do, in view of all the other work with Jane that I feel I should be doing: working on sessions, “Unknown” Reality, etc.

Popular novelists and writers are above all things people of their times. They are socially oriented, dealing with lively discourse. They cannot see beyond the times. As a rule, however, they enjoy people as people are. They enjoy stupid people, wicked people, cowardly people, bigoted people, and sometimes wise people too. They do not make demands. They share the belief systems of their times, and they are richly rewarded—generally speaking, now—for there is overall no great conflict between their natural works, their writing, and the world at large.

(I should take the space here to set the scene. After supper this evening I read a news account of the riches accruing to a nationally known popular writer, his son and daughter, who shall be nameless here. Royalties, prime-time TV series, movies, TV specials—there was no area in which the family wasn’t making incredible amounts of money. All they produce is garbage. I was of course especially angry that they were world renowned while I thought Jane’s great abilities were largely unappreciated and ill paid for by Prentice, Bantam, etc. The recent sale of Oversoul Seven to an English publishing house for an unbelievable $100, and Prentice’s recent notice to us of a possible sale of Seth Speaks for translation and publishing by a German house for only $300 bothered me greatly; I just couldn’t believe that so little money was available in Europe, no matter what Prentice told us. [I still don’t.]

Not only is our own work rather unique, but you have no academic credentials. You have avoided, for example, holding seminars of that nature. In that framework many psychologists, for example, would feel comfortable, but you offer no such bridge to anyone. You avoid “the wild psychic world” of cults, semicults, and so forth, and above all you are individualists who do not play according to game rules.

Flattery is no social crime. It is a psychological art of its own, taken for granted in all circles. You do not flatter others in personal encounters. You make no effort to cultivate the kind of characteristics involved. Ruburt has them, and ignores them. Some important people, in your terms, do not contact you personally except on rare occasions. Those who bang at your doors are the antisocial, the drifters, the troubled, or those so enthusiastic that they also ignore all social rules, in which case you two rise up in arms.

Ruburt’s work straddles all these issues—that is, it involves all of them at different times. Your stomach problem is basically the result of your feelings about what you consider to be a lack of communication, a blocking of your natural love. From your background, regardless of your intellectual beliefs, now, you learned to mask your expressions of love or exuberance, lest they be misunderstood. You learned to express love through worry or concern.

(10:43.) Your stance with the world is involved. Behind it all, however, is the feeling that you do not express your love verbally, or through touch, to Ruburt, so that instead you look out for ways that feel he is being taken advantage of; and through that concern, you express your love. He does not understand this.

(10:53. Jane’s pace throughout had been good, and limited only by my own writing speed. I thought the material was excellent in all respects. I didn’t see how the insights could be better, I told Jane, and will try hard to implement them. I thought part of the material was hilarious, about our attitudes toward the world. I think that Seth’s expression for me of my feelings toward Jane were most accurate and penetrating—the kind of information one could spend months acquiring with the help of others, say. My own pendulum answers had steered me in the right direction, I saw, but were far short of being complete enough. I felt better than I had in some time.

Your father expected the worst of the world. You have not seriously, with determination, examined those beliefs. If they were true the world simply would not have lasted this long. Nuclear destruction has little to do with it. If anything, it adds to my argument—for if those theories really held sway, one nation or another by now would have already destroyed your world. Hence, you do not make any simple, joyful remarks, like “The book will be out in England or Germany,” and indeed, you take little pleasure from that, but leap ahead to the imagined threats. A man protects his family because he loves it—but in his love he can see threats all around.

He thinks he is being practical when he worries about his condition. You think jointly it is only common sense and practical, particularly after all of this time, to remember that any improvements have dead-ended. You think that in terms of his physical condition the point of power is in the past. Despite all of this, the overall processes of his body have improved. His flesh is more responsive and alive. The circulation is vastly better. His weight—for him—is almost normal.

Give us a moment.... For him, quickly now, again the eyes are all right. He applied tension to the head and neck area primarily, causing the difficulty with the teeth and so forth. The body was used like a shield. To some extent the exterior skin thickened, the muscles became fairly rigid, and the joints therefore constrained. The body has been softening, giving him a feeling of vulnerability, you see.

In ways too complicated to describe this evening, each portion of the body is connected with each other portion. The massage of the feet upon the ground, for example, does affect all body areas. The foot reflexology is good for him, and does help the eyes and head—but not overdone.

All of this is involved in the papers he wrote lately on sexuality. His body is quite capable. It needs encouragement, not demands—but above all, let him concentrate upon expression rather than repression. Only his worries held back this inspiration. You will see improvements the minute you expect them. The minute you look for them, and are not afraid of them.