“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

People’s beliefs do form the cultural system, which then exerts its influence upon the individual. The cultural system is not imposed however from some outside source, and it is not biologically predetermined. It has its biological aspects, of course; but war, for example, is not a biological culmination of an aggressive instinct (period).

Since it is formed by beliefs held by natural creatures, culture is, as Ruburt states, as natural as your physical environment. Once you are born into a particular time and country, you do grow up in an almost invisible but definite environment of concepts, assumptions, and predetermined ideas that serve as a basis from which your own individual beliefs spring. There is a constant give-and-take between any individual and his cultural system.

As mentioned before, he was told to slow down, told he would burn himself out before he was twenty. He climbed through belief systems with an unerring sense of direction, but as he toppled one there was always another. When he finished with the Catholic church, for example, he was certain that the secular, academic world offered the answers to the questions ignored, he felt, by religion. But that world of beliefs also was found highly limiting.

The next was the system of science. And for some time he felt it to be a framework in which man could discover the truth about himself, and his relationship with the universe—but always there was the hope that some established system was there someplace. So while he rebelled against any given framework he was also certain that one did exist.

When our material began he was still convinced that science offered such a convenient framework. So, really, were you. A new science, certainly—parapsychology—but a recognized system, though perhaps avant-garde.

His early religious friends quickly turned away when he left the church. He was kicked out of college, and another bridge, he felt, had fallen down. Science fiction for a while offered science plus writing—a convenient platform. But the science fiction writers he met, and the field itself, he soon found as highly limiting.

These previous cozy hopes of such acceptance were quite necessary to couch him as he went about his own searches, because he did not want to admit that he was, in a way, now, alone. His temperament is somewhat different than yours. You were alone in your family, but because he had no family his aloneness was so apparent that he tried to hide it.

I do not want to frighten you—but if we ever do The Nature of Cultural Reality, it will be a fine book.

(I laughed. “Okay. I’m glad to hear that. But I’m not worried....”

Ruburt suddenly found himself then exploring very strange grounds indeed—and without the earlier sustaining hope. For all the recognized systems were wanting. He did not have to examine each one minutely, for his abilities, after some familiarization, left him with the knowledge of their merits. The stated discernible hypotheses of the various systems are one thing—but their invisible root assumptions are something else. Ruburt tried to put his understanding to practical use in terms of daily life, your relationship, work, finances, his classes, yet he found himself with definite physical hassles. You have encountered them through your relationship with him. In certain areas you both have blazed ahead. Those deeply seated, invisible, cultural assumptions still operated, however. Some of them you both dismissed for the very simple reason that they never temperamentally suited you to begin with. Others you dismissed because you grew in wisdom.

Now Ruburt wrote about it just lately (in Psychic Politics?), but he still does not realize how persuasive (pervasive?) this one particular cultural belief is, and only by accepting it does his physical condition make any sense.

(10:21.) To one extent or another you both believe your world is hostile. You (pointing to me) do not believe that nature is hostile, nor does Ruburt, but you both accept the concept that there are hostile elements against which you must protect yourselves, and that the artist or writer, or any sensitive wise person is at a great disadvantage against a system in which he is born, and that he is to some extent at its mercy.

Ruburt felt that anyone who went outside the established systems would meet ridicule, so he protected himself against it. He did his thing, but he set about creating an environment of “safety,” and he would not go outside of it. He would not have to deal with so-called skeptics on the one hand, nor would he allow himself to be set up as an occult priestess on the other. Nor would he be an object of ridicule to neighbors, for they would not see him that much.

The codicils will offer new hypotheses upon which private life can be based, and in this they are highly important. It is almost impossible for you, individually or together, to look back and see those beliefs you have dispensed with that were limiting, but the framework still lingered. These are ideas, then, that Ruburt must get through his head. It was necessary in the old frame of reference, that he believe his body could not work properly. It was a method of operation that allowed him to go ahead with what he felt was reasonable caution. While it limited his inner and outer potential to some degree, he still felt overall that he was going ahead as fast as he dared to.

In your system insanity means uncontrolled behavior largely, so he began putting more and more control upon his physical actions, so that no one could say his work was the result of instability. He tried not to appear nervous, but in control, while he was temperamentally and physically fast.

This is also based on cultural-sexual beliefs. He is afraid that you will not love him if he does not take the traditional woman role, and that if he does not he has no right to expect such gallantry. Both of you, however, were highly suspicious of sexuality in connection with your work, and you, Joseph, did feel it a trap, which is why you married late. Ruburt tried to hide what he thought of as characteristics that would frighten you—but the need itself was only camouflaged.

(11:09.) You can decide that you like to work alone—that you do not want to do tours—not because the world is hostile, but simply because that is your way. When the phone rings it is the hostile world out there, so it seems. That was what your father (to me) thought when his phone rang.

If Ruburt now and then wants to cry on your shoulder, let him, and comfort him. It is natural enough when his body hurts. He would not do it freely, and only because he tries to hide such tears from you does the emotion seem so lonely. He is afraid you are afraid, as you are. But the feeling is never let go properly or healthily, and it is a natural reaction—not threatening at all.

Its restraint holds back other expressions of love on both of your parts, and of laughter. The body condition itself will respond as this session is understood. You have made preliminary necessary changes. He actively wants to move about here, inside and out. He is moving somewhat faster overall, and overall he is somewhat straighter, though not always. You are each afraid of giving much notice, however, for fear you will be mislead. He would go in stores more, but he is afraid of humiliating you.

Now—a closing remark.... Your organizational structures are based of course on cultural beliefs. I will not go into them now as they apply to organizations—but we do not need that structure. There are inner communications far more potent, and we are working with those.