“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(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.

The world responds to such people’s acceptance. Obviously escapism is involved—but at certain levels of interaction the beliefs smoothly flow from creation to market. No great challenges are presented, and no real condemnations; and when these do occur they are of a conventional nature, perhaps already stylish accusations. They are part and parcel of the social world.

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.

You are particularly sensitive here because of the male beliefs of your culture, and the feeling that Ruburt’s books are his rather than, say, yours. You want to show him that you appreciate that by your concern, but you do not express the love verbally half as much. Period.

To some extent you are unable to explain the secret nature of your own painting. You refuse to use it as collateral. Not only that, but your paintings are not an attempt to communicate with the world, or to get anything from it. You think you should—that is, you think you should sell your paintings, or make some effort in that direction. Instead they are communications between yourself and the universe, without the need, necessarily, that others approve or disapprove, or see or not see. In your writing, however, you want to communicate.

This is because those expressions were natural in your family. Love would never be clearly expressed through a clear channel. It might be expressed through action that did not, however, directly involve love’s expression. Your father might make things for you, for example. But after your childhood state he avoided caresses or verbal expressions.

Intellectually he accepts it, but emotionally he yearns for that direct expression. The child may think “My teeth are fine, why yell at me to brush them?” Ruburt thinks “What is there that allows you to speak your concern more actively than your love?” He is verbally oriented. Words have rhythm—emotional rhythms, to which he is acutely attuned. You are saying “I love you. My art is, for whatever reasons, private. I respect it. It involves a method of expression, and a primary stance of my life, regardless of what it brings or does not bring. I am sorry that somehow I cannot use it in the way that you use your writing, and even in the way that I can use mine. When I think that others take advantage of you in monetary terms—government, publisher, or public—it makes me wonder why. I wish that my painting could bring you abundance in social ways also. I feel guilty sometimes when I paint for that reason. I know that you understand on deep levels. I wish I could express my love verbally, but if not, I will express it is this fashion.”

(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 felt that the female was not temperamentally equipped to naturally handle such problems, and so adopted the symptoms. Because you so often expressed your concerns rather than your love, your fears rather than your hopes, and because of his own nature, the outside world appeared more threatening. He is by nature rather optimistic. From you he believed he learned that optimism was shallow, unrealistic, and that people were not to be trusted. He never believed in conflict. He is not abject, but he believes heartily in having nothing to do with an arena of activity in which he feels he might meet ridicule or criticism.

Your own inclinations and your beliefs did not reinforce his sense of security. The exuberant expression of your love, for your love for him is exuberant, found no expression in the overall of an active, direct, clear route, but was diverted through concern, and through mention of the threats you felt might surround him.

You do not expect the world to understand good work. You expect the artist, in whatever field, who is truly good, to be shunted aside. Your own hopes rise despite those beliefs, and have worked for you. But you have felt jointly that it was unsafe to trust the world; unrealistic; and while you could maintain a mental isolation, Ruburt adopted a physical one.

He became extremely frightened when he went to the dentist (last month, 6 weeks), and when you again expressed your concern, but not your love: “I’m afraid you’ve had it,” you said. He was of course afraid of the same thing. But he interpreted your remark verbally as you made it, knowing you love him, but having to search through the concern.

Your love since then has found more direct expression, and I am not obviously saying that that indirectness of expression is responsible for Ruburt’s symptoms—but only to state that your expressed concern in many instances, without the direct expression of love, reinforces the idea of threat or insecurity.

The fibers are more elastic in his legs, but his confidence is still poor, nor have you made any attempts to encourage him in that direction. The key here is encouragement. The expression of your love saw threats, so that both of you together reiterate those beliefs.

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.