“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(This session came about quite unexpectedly just before midnight, after we’d had company—the Leahys from the end of Pinnacle Road; Jane had called them at supper time this evening and asked them to visit us. They left at about 11:30 PM. I then told Jane that I’d been feeling poorly all week—to such an extent, even, that I’d wondered if I was developing an ulcer. But my distress was also more general than that, so I felt other things were involved. I’m including a few notes here to remind myself of this session’s context when I reread it in later times.

(Then today, Saturday, my pendulum told me that I felt guilty about using painting time when I should be working on Seth’s “Unknown” Reality, since the painting wasn’t bringing in money, etc. This was a subtle but important change in my knowledge—for I saw that I wasn’t so much concerned about the amount of work I had to do on the books, as that I felt guilty about doing other things. When I made this connection I knew I had learned something.

(I told myself that this attitude was ridiculous; My stomach didn’t clear up immediately, but once again the pendulum informed me that I had no physical illness—ulcers, or anything else. I did believe this, as I had all week, but still the physical pressure of my discomfort made me question everything. Nothing was much fun, although I went through the motions of doing everything. I also knew that I’d refuse to continue this way.

(After the Leahys left I spontaneously told Jane what had been going on. To my surprise she offered to have a session on the spot—peculiarly, it hadn’t occurred to me ask her to have a session at any time earlier in the week. I agreed, of course. But I think this came about because I felt I’d already begun to figure things out. After the session I told her that my faith in the pendulum was reinforced; that in my own way I’d have eventually understood what I was up to, but that the session cut through many obscuring byways, etc., and went straight to the core of the problem. I also said that it was easy to see how such problems, left unfaced, could lead to things like ulcers, heart attacks, cancer, etc.—and small wonder that our hospitals were crowded with a flow of miserable humanity. It seemed like a great waste.

(When the session began I began to feel almost nauseous—which is a feeling Jane has had when she deals with personal material. I’d begun to drink a glass of milk, but couldn’t continue. During the first couple of pages of material I was rather close to being physically ill there on the couch. At the same time I knew what was happening, and as the session continued the feeling subsided. When the session was over I was able to eat. Then Jane felt “sick,” as she put it. But this too passed, although she couldn’t eat before we went to bed even though she was hungry.

(This is the final connection here that I hadn’t arrived at yet on my own with the pendulum; but that I had uncovered hints about today.)

You have within your grasp the understanding to clear all these issues, but you have come to a point in your life where you cannot equivocate. You see about you the results of such compromise, and each of you have always been determined to entirely work though the belief systems of your era. While others can tell themselves stories, or be content with rationalizations, neither of you could take that road. In an important respect, therefore, your own disquiet has been creative, for it was meant to make you question.

You are in a position that you may have never really understood. You do not particularly need more money, but it is coming to you, and naturally as rain out of the sky. Now for once you should rationally feel free in your painting time to paint, released from all requirements of buying or selling. Yet perversely now, of all times, you feel as if your painting must bring money. Why?

Here you encounter all of the ambiguities that have always been connected in this life with your art. You should be pleased that you have, say, even three hours that need not be accounted for in any terms, financial or otherwise, but your own.

If you thoroughly understood that you dwelled in a safe universe, you would need no such concepts. Both you and Ruburt have had a hangup, so to speak. You have believed that so much time “spent” had to produce “so much” creative work, or creative product. (Loudly:)You even more than Ruburt—and that is saying something—have connected creativity and time in a way that is detrimental. That idea has impeded your creativity. Ruburt has struggled with that, but so have you. Your painting time, I tell you—listen to me—had basically nothing to do with clock time. It takes a certain amount of “time” physically to work with a brush. Beyond that, the inspiration of your soul can speak in three minutes, and give you the inspirations of a lifetime (loudly)—but not while you insist that creative time and physical time coincide. This has to do with Ruburt’s symptoms, for he felt that he must be at his desk so many hours, whatever the number, and you became so obsessed with the amount of physical hours that you had to devote to painting that you began to divide up your psyche in terms of time.

Each of you built up your own set of defenses, because you did not believe that the universe was safe for creativity. Ruburt fixed it so that he could only sit at his desk—and for all your protests, my dear friend, you acquiesced. He finally became so physically upset that he is ready to dismiss the symptoms. But he also needed your help, because while the main method was his, your intents were in unison and the same—to protect yourselves and your creativity from an unsafe universe. The unsafe quality showed two faces. One: you had to cut out distractions. And two: one of you had to make money with your art or you would not survive. Between the two of you, you made your decisions.

Ruburt proudly shows this book to your neighbors, not because it is an excellent joint creative venture of merit, primarily, but because he can point to a sketch that you have made that makes money and appears in a book. The male is making dough. Passé ideas, that do not belong with the level of awareness that you are achieving.

(“Yes, but that’s enough for now. Let me think this over. But how about saying something about Jane’s trouble when she goes to the john?”)

There is nothing wrong with the kidneys, but with the suppression of impulse. He has conditioned himself not to feel the impulse, so that when he is aware of it, in your terms, it is too late. This frightens him because consciously he has not been aware. When he is, then of course the slow motions add to the problem. He put off bodily functions as long as he could, for what he thought of as mental creativity—and all of this is highly related to the ideas of time as I explained them.