“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(As Jane and I worked with the pendulum on Thursday morning, May 8, I thought of two questions for Seth that we’d never asked him before. 1. Since he is presumably dead by now, what does Dr. Instream think about psychic phenomena? Does he remember Jane, etc? 2. What about the young psychologist we met at Oswego during our visit to see Instream? What does that individual now think about psychic phenomena: Does he remember Jane, etc? Has he heard of her? Why did I get to talking with him in the conference room on campus, then take him to our room, where he proceeded to so upset Jane?

(Last night Jane had a dream she didn’t like. She couldn’t recall it clearly, but it featured her talking to a man, objecting to him that he’d told her something he’d given her would be painless—but that it was instead quite painful: a suicide pill, or something like that, she said. “You told me it wouldn’t hurt...” I was there as a bystander. Jane had agreed to do something that wouldn’t hurt, but it did. I asked that Seth comment.

You were quick to intuitively understand the nature of such inspiration. You were quick to nourish it. You helped give it form, so you do understand inspiration. It is not a luxury, but the nature that sustains each individual and the world. Ruburt has more than appreciated your support, and in fact you have indeed inspired him, so your conversation earlier upset him considerably.

(10:05.) Give us a moment.... Ruburt has tried to pace himself to you, because it seemed your way was the more practical. He does not think of jobs to be done. The use of the word means one thing to you and one thing to him.

Now let us look at the dream, and also at today’s activities. The dream told him that he had agreed to deaden himself to a certain extent, and that he did not think deadening yourself would be painful. He would just slow everything down. He was confronting the part of himself that decided upon the course to which the other part agreed, while you stood by, watching. He discovered that trying to deaden yourself is quite painful.

The dream initiated your pendulum work on inspiration, for to Ruburt to deaden yourself is to deaden inspiration, which to him is the quickness of life. Now he did this because of his ideas of work, and of jobs to be done, and effort.

When he thinks of work in that fashion, then feelings of responsibility, respectability, scorn or criticism emerge, to thicken the picture. He felt that inspiration was providing so much material that it could not be handled in time. He also felt that his inspiration threatened you with more work, which, it seemed to him, was not particularly pleasant for you, since you often spoke about your difficulties in doing the notes, and only lately have you begun to say when you are doing well.

Often my sessions are meant to lead him somewhere, or to stimulate him in certain fashions. Today he felt like acting actively with “Unknown.” Both of you there have concentrated upon impediments, and suddenly, finally, his desire led him to begin typing the book. He began thinking in terms of what he could do, so that now we see that he is not only physically desiring to do more, and trying it, but also mentally stimulated, and with a new sense of purpose as far as “Unknown” is concerned, and a desire reawakened to play with Seven.

Very briefly: Instream is astonished at his own opaqueness in life, and the chances that escaped him. The younger man was, when you met him, afraid himself of schizophrenia, and had a great need to establish his own sanity at the expense of anyone who showed any but the most conventional characteristics.

I believe he is teaching, or taught, in a midwestern university. You approached him because of your own quite conventional feelings, that because he was comparatively young he would be broadminded. You also sought to form a contact with someone more or less a contemporary, who was in the psychological field.

You also thought two opinions were better than one, and you hoped that the man could provide some information about Instream himself, so that you would know better how to deal with him.