“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(We wanted a session tonight on Jane’s problem, although we’d settle for something from Seth each time, along with his other book dictation, or whatever. As a result of our work with the pendulum this morning, Jane was so relaxed by session time that she didn’t know whether she could manage a session. I suggested she try, so that her mind would be at ease. Tonight’s session was excellent, and should of course be studied in connection with the material we’ve already accumulated through pendulum work.)

First of all, it is important to realize that Ruburt’s unconscious, so called, is not working against him on purpose, sabotaging his projects. The subconscious does reason, but it also reasons according to the information that you give it.

You have a good point of organization with your pendulum work today. Fear of the kind mentioned (scorn and ridicule)is behind the symptoms. Whenever our sessions, your own efforts, or other events, have convinced Ruburt either of the personal safe universe or of the basic safety of the self, that reassurance helped quiet the unconscious fears, and allowed him then to direct his will toward physical improvements.

We must start with the fact that Ruburt did not feel secure as a child, but was made somewhat to feel responsible for his mother’s illness and breakup of her marriage. He was then sent to a home. He was a high-spirited child, and was taught there that he must toe the mark and do what the others did, or he would be punished.

Later, when he returned home, he learned that he must toe the mark again, or Welfare would put him in another home. He must not make waves. It was not safe to stand out. His food, clothing, and survival depended on toeing the mark. The church provided a family of sorts, but that family also was dependent upon religious obedience. Ruburt’s high spirits and abilities fought against such circumstances. He finally broke away from the church—running to college—a college considered by the church at the time as communistically inclined, antireligious, and so forth.

His survival in college, since he had a scholarship, was dependent upon toeing the mark, and even then he refused to do so; and was quite unceremoniously kicked out on his independent ass.

He refused several marriage proposals, having determined he would not toe the mark at all in a conventional marriage. He tried a relationship with Walt, but his high spirits and abilities would not stand for that kind of repression. When he met you, he turned to love and science, for by then he had set upon science and the intellect as a safe means of containing his abilities and expressing them.

Your own joint sexual love was too hot for either of you to handle, and you both tempered it with intellectualism and caution; but for all of that it has endured. Ruburt’s abilities and energy kept seeking fulfillment. Through those years he considered himself an outcast from society, and he did not know where his abilities were leading. He tried to toe the mark while doing his own thing. He did not identify with the world or its people. He identified mentally, however, with science, with the avant-garde, and so was sustained. At the gallery, for example, when your psychic work began, he did not speak out, and you encouraged him not to, and you both considered this as a scientific kind of breakthrough. When Ruburt discovered that his energy and abilities had led him to a point where he was at odds with religion and science, and had no place to roost, thematically, he became very worried.

(10:00.) If you did not toe the mark, you were punished severely, or abandoned; or your sustenance was cut off. His unconscious had learned to tread a careful line, to let Ruburt use his abilities while seeing that he was protected at the same time. Its ideas were largely gained in childhood, and there was a giveand-take between Ruburt’s fears and hopes. Gradually, however, the give-and-take gave. He held back the fears, thinking them beneath adult behavior. He stopped giving his unconscious feedback in that regard.

He found himself with you and his work. He would do what he would do anyway, protecting himself as he thought fit. When the feedback stopped, the subconscious became panicky. Since so much of Ruburt’s life was involved with yours, it felt that Ruburt must now toe the mark with you also—at least topside —so that he must not express any contrary opinions, or that you would abandon him also, in which case he would be utterly alone.

At the time the subconscious developed these fears, it believed that its survival was dependent upon other people, for Ruburt was young and frightened. If you did not do what other people said, you were in trouble—and deeply. In the face of that belief Ruburt still determined to do his own thing, only with the safeguards.

As his abilities blossomed, the safeguards turned into fortifications. He could not counter the fears because he would not acknowledge them. The unconscious therefore felt forced to take stronger measures.

His new room gave him the view that he wanted, but no protection—and not only that, but then he was the one who met guests head-on.

Give us a moment again.... Obviously the unconscious is spontaneous, but his early experience taught him, as given earlier this evening, to use that spontaneity with care. The subconscious feels that it is doing its job, because Ruburt has not allowed feedback; not approving of fear, not allowing the feelings release, and therefore also cutting down on experience that could counter the feelings and show the subconscious that the fears were exaggerated.

Ruburt does not think that you are afraid, for you seldom voice any fears. He feels, therefore, that he is a coward, that fears make him seem abject, that they are unacceptable. On various occasions, when the suggestions in his papers worked—you follow me—they worked because at the same time Ruburt was writing down his feelings: his aggressions and his fears.

My standards of spiritual behavior, I would say, are as pertinent as your own, as “high,” yet I can honestly say that your self-righteousness blinds you both to the good intent, however misguided, in say even political actions. Look how Ruburt’s unconscious tries to protect him, with symptoms that you certainly find most disagreeable, because Ruburt has not given his unconscious, say, all of the facts.