“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Earlier today I’d asked Jane if Seth would comment on my chest symptoms, re causes that I’d arrived at through using the pendulum. It appears that my own hassles are related to my fears that Jane’s improvements may not continue. More is involved, however, and we’ve obtained considerable insights in recent sessions. Today the pendulum linked my reactions to certain foods to the chest symptoms, but these I question.)

I do not want to set up polarities. I do want to give you some background, however, for some of your attitudes. From childhood in your society, you were as children told in one way or another that it was healthy to enjoy sports and outside activity, to join in games, to be outgoing with playmates, and all of that is of course quite true. Children are also taught, however, that reading for anything but short periods was somehow unhealthy, that daydreaming or staying alone for anything but a brief period meant that the child was withdrawn, and that his activities—or hers—were somehow unnatural.

You felt you could not merge the separate groups of attributes because they were diametrically opposed in your minds. Instead, of course, there are gradations of behavior, and patterns or rhythms in your lives that would naturally flow one into the other, released from the artificial polarities. The polarities are artificial, but there is no doubt that in your society and times the exterior-tuned consciousness is the most paramount. It, of course, by its nature, is not given to introspection, so it does not question its stance as deeply. So some of this disapproval has to do with your own attitudes about the attitudes of others as they view your lives.

Physically, for example, you are in much better physical condition than Joe Bumbalo, but he is a prime example, to you, of the exteriorized consciousness—and while on the one hand you envy his shoveling the walk, you are to some degree underneath all that, somewhat contemptuous—somewhat, now; I do not want to speak too strongly, but simply help you become aware of some feelings you might have submerged because you think they are not nice.

(In addition, there is the interesting news from Alan Neuman, regarding his giving Seven to a well-known movie director, as well as showing it to another agent, etc. Jane has records of this activity, but I wanted to mention it here.

By nature, leaders are not so much at odds with their world as they are ahead of it. The Bumbalos, for example, envy you, as do the Gallaghers, but they are afraid of subjective reality. They have taught their consciousnesses to conform.

Here, as opposed to the apartment, where the life-styles were seemingly in a more transitory situation, you have both again dramatized yourselves to some degree as outsiders in a negative fashion, disapprovingly seeing yourselves in relationship to your neighbors, but not constructively. You could instead have stressed your positive and constructive differences, for your move to the neighborhood, again, to some extent—excuse the constant qualifying—your move has helped the neighbors see themselves in a different light.

Conventionally, they enjoy having what they think of as highly creative people in the neighborhood. Your lives make them think of their own hidden aspirations. You bring up questions for them. In a strange way, they feel comforted by your presences. They know there are differences, but they are far more willing to see the creative aspects of your lives than you give them credit for.

All of this is connected with the chest difficulties. The food is not basically related, except as it reflects other issues (as I told Jane this afternoon). Those are relatively shallow, but do operate—that certain foods are good for the body and others are not—that heart disease is connected with cholesterol and dairy products, while skim milk is innocent. The chest difficulty reminds you of heart trouble, and you react negatively then to whole milk.

At certain stages your experience relatively coincides—relatively—with events in the past, so that some material attains double strength. Generally, however, your hopes and faith in Ruburt’s recovery became somewhat eroded. Your feelings of hopelessness were the result, as given in the last session, but nowhere did you thoroughly work out in the past the problems of self-disapproval; or if one managed to attain a foothold, the other did not, so you could not properly reinforce each other creatively, and became quickly discouraged.

(11:09.) You believed to some degree—varying degrees, but jointly—that subjective activity and creative activity must be achieved at the expense of some physical expression. You obviously did not fall for that to the extent Ruburt did —and all of this must be considered also in the light of the religious and scientific views, with Ruburt particularly, in which the spontaneous self was considered the psychological villain of the society and the individual. The spontaneous self is the guardian—that is what Ruburt is learning.

Give us a moment.... You can see how Ruburt’s body responds when he suspends self-disapproval, and when he allies himself with his nature, and when you both suspend your sense of hopelessness in that area. If you continue as you are, you can indeed expect quite startling improvements—but you are not to compare, either of you, Ruburt’s condition with the Gallaghers’ skiing, anymore than they could compare their attempts at subjective journeying with Ruburt’s inner soaring. Avoid absolutes.

Ruburt stands taller—observably. He is using muscles in new ways. Gaining strength and vitality. Your body is already in excellent shape, in general terms—we are not speaking of athletes. It would need, naturally, some period of training if you were thinking of climbing mountains, or expected to ski down a good slope tomorrow—but it is well prepared for normal activity. Only your beliefs impede it—so work with those beliefs before you shovel the drive. It is the dilemma behind the whole thing that is important, the implied conflicts between subjective and objective activity. And the responsibilities you feel this entails.

You have both moved through many periods of understanding, where others might have stopped, and the going-ahead always involves new challenges. Your friend Bill Gallagher’s operation represented a triumph on his part, for he regained his health in one important area—an achievement of worth. But it also represented a failure of a kind, a stopping-point at a certain level of development.

(Of course I did, yet I seemed to be peculiarly numb mentally: I couldn’t think of any. “No, I guess not. Probably—but I can’t think of them.”)