“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

You did not ask me for a session, but it is a stormy night, so that along the way I touch on a few “stormy” subjects, though with a light hand.

You could have followed still another course—one in which you did not become involved in any intellectual or challenging concepts but bypassed them completely. That kind of painting can be excellent, but it also involves an intense immersion in the emotions, to the exclusion of any important conceptualizing. The greatest kind of painting includes both the intuitions and the intellect, but in your terms this also requires the maturing of the high intellect. You decided to take that course. In a different way Ruburt chose the same journey. Had he not delved into deeper questions, he could very well have been the novelist, going no further than a novelist can into the nature of personality or motivation.

(9:43.) Give us a moment.... The two of you together through these sessions help to spread certain ideas, yet many people not personally involved actually can use the material at times better—but they could not produce it—a very important point, and so in that area of freedom you are so ahead of the game that ordinary behavior by contrast is sadly lacking. Other people realize your positions in that area better than you do.

Give us a moment.... You both have blind spots, in other words. These appear in Ruburt’s physical condition. They also appear, not in the work you have done, but in the work you have not done. Sometimes you can see Ruburt’s blind spots, and point them out. Occasionally he can see some of yours. The blind spots of course each have to do with the same issues, though you handle them differently.

Now. I put this to you—that you spend time in the same way, but in your way, concentrating upon all that stands in the way of your work and concentration, until finally your work time seems consumed. Only now and then do you get on top of those thoughts and imaginings. You spend four times as much time worrying about the distractions as the so-called distractions themselves actually take. In doing so you rob yourself of peace of mind. You imagine future distractions, yet when Ruburt projects his symptoms into the future, you see clearly his error—though he may not.

Now there must be reasons for that kind of behavior. You make your own reality. If Ruburt’s symptoms represent the seemingly negative aspects of his life, then your dissatisfactions about work represent the same in your private experience. You say to Ruburt “You are using the symptoms as a framework of a sort, in which you feel it safe to progress, though, slowly.” Now in your work you are progressing, but slowly—so why do you magnify the distractions?

If you were pleased with your work right now the chores of the house would scarcely take your notice. You would have them done, or do them, but your creative energy and your thoughts would be involved with your creativity, and the chores at times would give you a necessary enjoyed change. The chores you have to do, either of you, are laughable.

Give us a moment.... Ruburt was going to use his abilities come hell or high water. He did use the symptoms as a framework. You are determined to use your abilities, but you are ever on your guard to see that you use your abilities, and that they do not “use you;” so you set up working habits, but you do not allow yourself a real environment of freedom in which to work. You consciously tell yourself over and over that this or that bothers you. You concentrate upon the distractions in the same way that Ruburt does upon his symptoms.

Frank can say to Ruburt (Frank called Jane a “tough little bird”—which she liked), “Truly, your legs can straighten. The muscles are tight, but they are not impaired,” and you can agree that this is true. Ruburt is faced with the sensation of tightness, however—there is something there in his experience to deal with, so that his senses can conform to his belief about his body. While he tries to free it he is faced with the lingering, quite valid-seeming evidence of his senses. So you are encountering the evidence of your senses, so that the chores seem to hound you. You do not seem to have time in a day to do what you want. As long as you keep telling yourself those things, they will be true. Ruburt is trying to say “There is nothing basically wrong with my body, though in my reality there seems to be.” That sounds like a legitimate statement to you, and it is. I am telling you that the number of distractions in your life is laughable, though in your experience they appear quite threatening. “I am free to do my painting.” How many times have you said that to yourself—yet in that statement lies great freedom, for you must change your belief.

Give us a moment.... Some of your private and joint problems spring from cultural beliefs that you are intellectually aware of, but not emotionally free from. Your idea of a separate painting studio, and some of your attendant ideas, are simply hangovers that you do not have to accept, springing from your father and his garage. You are aware of the connection, but you make no attempt to get above it.

You also have ideas of guilt about your painting that are culturally induced. Again, you recognize them, but you do not try to rise above them emotionally. The painting does not bring in money, so to punish yourself you do not enjoy it sufficiently—but concentrate upon the distractions instead. You do your financial part with the books, but you still tie in your social identity with your painting, and to some extent you still feel that that social identity is dependent upon the money your “art” should produce, so you punish yourself by not enjoying your painting time. This also impedes your spontaneity in painting, of course.

I said once that Ruburt became hypnotized by the symptoms, and you agreed. But you become as hypnotized by your own thought patterns in certain areas. When you do so your accomplishments seem to vanish, and you cannot take comfort from them. It seems that the ideas do not work only when you do not use them. You react differently to the same set of challenges. Your strengths reinforce each other, but so do your misunderstandings.

Ruburt fears that if he were suddenly better he would add to your distractions, so when distractions seem threatening to you he emphasizes the symptoms: if he were better, would you want him to do all the chores? So your ideas about distractions intertwine. If he were better he could help you with the chores—but if he could, would you then withdraw to your studio and leave them all to him? All of this because distractions, so to speak, are considered threats. All of this because you both believe there are serious impediments in the way of creative work, and obstacles ever-present to mitigate against your creativity. So you each react differently. At the same time, because of some cultural beliefs, you are still not all that trustful about creativity to begin with.

Those refinements that you want of technique are within you now. Only your worrying slows their actualization. Together you can solve both challenges. You can get on top of your lives in these important respects. But you must be willing to do so, and use the methods given. Both of you can help each other. And the results will seem as miraculous, as this house might have, had you suddenly been transported to it ten years ago.

(10:47 PM. But it proved to be the end of the session after all. Jane soon decided to end it, saying that she had that “sick feeling” she sometimes gets when the material has been very personal. Later she told me that Seth had been there, ready with more blocks of material.)