“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Ruburt felt like seeing company—a good sign. You encouraged him in that respect, but not too actively. You went along, however. When Ruburt could not reach O’Neill’s, and pleased by his reactions during the day, you acted on impulse—a good sign, and suggested you both go for a ride. Up to here, all is well.

Ruburt in the meantime had felt his body relaxing. He wanted to go out in order to show that his attitude had changed. And to please you. You said “Don’t go out because you think you should.” He felt like crying all of a sudden, and he mentioned that. He went to the bathroom, and as he did he knew at once that his bodily situation had changed. At that point he immediately took it for granted, with a rush of self-disapproval, that this was a sign that he had learned nothing, and that his body was objecting to the whole idea of going out, and therefore challenging him—in other words, that his negative beliefs had risen to challenge new healthier attitudes.

He made a half-hearted attempt to get out of it. You then made a remark, voicing his own fears as well as your own, saying that you would not let him get away with it, meaning you would not let him get away with not going out as a pattern. So you were both in the middle of a crisis. What happened physically was this. Ruburt’s body had extended itself on several occasions that day, stretching and using new postures, giving him the impulses toward further activity, exercising itself through that small-enough but important walk. It then relaxed.

Because of your fears, going out has become an issue. Not walking properly is the issue—otherwise there would be no problem. You were pleased when Ruburt walked across the floor with his plunger, without the table, yet both of you expected him to walk down steps, small as they are, and walk around the car in the garage without his table, or there is something wrong. You expect different kinds of behavior in the house and in the garage.

You helped Ruburt physically, but you heaped upon him a barrage of disapproval. That disapproval was in a way quite natural, considering your interpretation of the event. It made the situation worse, of course. You both managed at the end to not fall into the kind of situation that in the past you might have, considering the conditions.

I am dealing with probabilities—but I do not believe it would have been out at all yet, and your own attitudes would have made that an even more regrettable situation. There was nothing held back in that regard. Ruburt’s attitudes, now, were known to you, as were your own. Let yourselves be for a while. Ruburt will feel like going out. There is nothing about outside, in those terms, that frightens him—that is from the house into the garage, symbolically speaking. There were times in the poor weather, when physically he felt like going out. When you make an issue, however, you manufacture a crisis.

When Ruburt does not go out, however, it is never a simple issue of the body’s condition at any given time, but a moral dilemma in which, basically you see, you are misinterpreting events. Ruburt felt like having company. Your own improved mental habits of the week, your pendulum work and his own improvements, released energy that under those conditions sought release—and his impulse showed him in what direction.