“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Before the session Jane read her summary of the week’s events, including her continuing improvements. Her knees especially have shown many signs of loosening. Tam called her Friday; he’d received the James presentation, and was most enthusiastic, which cheered Jane a great deal. Then Saturday we learned by mail that Bantam is about to contract for the paperback edition of Politics. We are also waiting for the September royalty payment from Prentice-Hall, due probably next week. Tonight Jane remarked: “If only I could get my physical condition to work as well as the money one.” But she’s making progress. And last night we had a congenial group of friends in.

Ruburt has made some effort to avoid negative projections, and has therefore met with some success. Last evening, however, he became involved in a round of such projections, which operate, of course, as negative suggestions. When he voiced some of these you immediately told him that he was doing so. Previously this round of projections had been almost automatic—that is, he did not catch himself at it, but accepted the worries as worries, without seeing that the situations might or might not occur.

He resolved that he would refrain from such projections for the evening, and he did. This required initially some considerable effort, but once he decided upon this a mechanism took over so that for a while he behaved almost automatically in the new manner, as before he had behaved almost automatically in the old way. Your remark therefore operated as an excellent suggestion, that he desist from such activity.

It served to remind him what he was doing—but more, it allowed him to recognize the situation, which you saw clearly while for a time it was invisible to him.

Your simple remark then was strong enough to completely alter the pattern of his thoughts and behavior last evening, and most of today, so I want you to recognize the importance of your comments. In the past Ruburt might have reacted differently, perhaps with self-pity, but now he is much more amiable to beneficial suggestions, so that one can completely turn him about, back to his course.

(9:41.) Your intimate periods are of prime importance from all angles. Each of you needs to realize the importance of pleasure for its own sake. You always recognize pleasure in work, but the body also enjoys its own creature-reality, as any animal enjoys stroking—and in the past you have stroked your kitten more than you have each other.

So keep Framework 1 for working purposes, but become more and more aware of Framework 2. In your terms this will cut down the time necessary drastically.

I simply want to remind you of that other level, so that you can begin—gently, now, gently—to alter your emphasis, to begin to emphasize the use of suggestion in a new creative way. I have used the word creative before, asking you both to utilize creative methods to the physical situation. What I was actually doing was trying to point you toward Framework 2, where you do each have faith in the nature of ideas, suggestions, and achievement. You know the power of an idea, but you have not applied that to the physical problem. I hope that the session will arouse you both in that regard.

Your introduction of intimate moments, Joseph, is a small example. You have been afraid of dreaming of physical success, for fear you would not succeed, but the dreams are what makes Ruburt’s improvements possible.

Plan for a vacation. Dream about where you would go. Open your minds to such dreams, for when you do you do not close your imaginations. You need not set a time schedule, but at least in your minds gives yourselves freedom. You do not even have to decide that Ruburt is completely recovered—but the very plans for motion will definitely have beneficial effects on his condition and on the shape of your daily life.

In Framework 1, it does take some time for new habits to form, but even there constructive suggestions accelerate as beliefs change, so I would like you both to pay particular attention to the suggestions that operate in your lives.

(Jane wasn’t particularly interested, however. There followed a rather complicated discussion between us about the idea of questions for Seth—why I seemed to have them, but Jane seldom did. Much of Seth’s material to follow these notes deals with the topics of our discussion. Resume at 10:58.)

Ruburt begins with the large philosophical issues, and somewhat purposefully adopted a thinking pattern at least, or a method of operation, that to some extent ignored details, lest he become too involved in them—in, say, slaying a multitudinous number of detailed paper dragons. He does not deal with generalities, however, but he does not think in terms of specific questions, allowing specifics to emerge in a fresh way from the larger subjects of his interest.

The two of you often misunderstand your patterns of behavior in that regard, for they operate at many levels of your lives. Ruburt is pragmatic, however, in that he insists upon relating philosophy to daily life—but, again, by providing overall models for behavior, rather than, say, specific detailed method.

This balance is to a large extent responsible for the fact that the material reaches so many people, and your own joint characteristics in that regard are more obvious to your readers than to yourselves. The entire scope of the material of course reflects your joint questions—but Ruburt’s are often unformed, dealing with intuitive issues that he does not trust to verbalization.

The material follows its own flow: there are certain things I want to say, but how I say those things is colored and tinted by your own characteristics jointly, and your experience daily. Your different ways of working are obvious in your other creative endeavors, and your own questions and appliance to detail are highly important in your notes to our books, serving as important ribs, again.