“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

He at least wished he could go into the yard this afternoon, once he imagined that he could make that step out. He wanted to pick his daffodils. He could not give in to that impulse yet, but before he would not have allowed it, because his position would then seem so hopeless in contrast. There are then several other such instances that he has forgotten, that are at least as important as the lapses that seem to loom so large. Such activity increases his sense of power, minimizes his physical hesitancy, and mobilizes physical activity.

The arms have been exercised in new ways. He has felt like performing some physical activities—getting the meal today. (Jane’s first in many many months.) The impulse automatically led him to perform physical acts that before he simply would not have done, so desire and impulse mobilize the body.

You must realize that the inner portions of the self are aware of the greater framework in which individuality takes place. Men will die for an ideal. A man will die to protect his children. If pure personal survival were all that mattered to the so-called subconscious, such acts would be impossible—and in fact, they would be inconceivable on man’s part. And the selfish gene has nothing to do with any of it (emphatically).

Excellent health is to be sought, it would certainly seem. Men have committed crimes in misguided searches for an ideal. Great acts of heroism have also resulted, however, and men, it seems, have spent themselves in following an ideal that they hoped to actualize for the rest of mankind. Why does the body not protest if men have nearly starved, or become the scorn of their fellows, or whatever? The answer is that as beneficial, as desirable, as good health is, and the performance of an excellent body, man’s pursuit of other kinds of accomplishment, his equally strong desire for knowledge, and his insatiable curiosity, his pursuit of the ideal, often lead him into pathways that result in the body’s difficulties.

Yet in certain individuals, life, fully healthy or otherwise, would be meaningless otherwise. You both decided to do what you wanted to do regardless of any “psychic field” of endeavor. The term is meaningless. The fact is that you decided to use your minds in certain ways that you felt were not approved of in your society—and that pattern goes way back for both of you; when you, for example, decided to bow out of a career in commercial art.

You had a period of acceptance under your belt, in comics, that you left. Ruburt did not. (An important point to remember.) He was determined to go his own way. His being demanded expression through the use of its abilities, and despite his need to be accepted by others he began to exaggerate the threat of their disapproval into scorn. When he began to sell his work, he felt to some degree, now, dependent upon the acceptance of the others in the world—for if they did not accept him at all they would not buy his books. Your own feelings about the world did not help in that regard.

The two of you exaggerated your position. You saw yourselves in opposition to the world. Ruburt was afraid his need for the world’s acceptance might lead him out into it again, where he would necessarily meet scorn, for he thought in absolutes.

It is important that he used to promise himself that he would go on tours or television if he became well. This was actually a threat he held over his own head. You must both realize that he can indeed recover completely—and you must both want him to. Do not forget Framework 2. Ruburt need not go abroad in the world to promote our ideas, nor have I ever suggested it. The ideas are best promoted through these sessions, and books—and not by hasty encounters on television, where answers must be simplified and ideas diluted, but in the reasoned writings that build in their own way, tell Ruburt, resting upon the great framework of the intuitions’ knowledge. And remind him that spontaneity knows it own order.

He is afraid, of course, that if he “gives into” impulses other than writing for a day or so that he is lax, yet the exercise and relaxation of the body refreshes the soul and allows the intuitions their clear vision. If he can stand it, I would like him to take until Monday to follow his impulses, whether or not writing is involved. Then, as of Monday, he can begin to correlate the new physical activity with his writing, gently, by settling upon three hours a day of the basic “time put in”—but with the stress upon creativity, ideas, and free creative play that may or may not include Seven on any given day.

He was afraid that they were lost. Then he thought only one lens was saved. This shows that he was worried for his vision, and thought that only the one right eye would operate properly. He discovers the glasses intact, however, better than before, and no longer curved outward and thick.