“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Once again, as I had before the deleted session for Monday the 16th, I told Jane that I was close to a “breaking point.” My side had bothered me all day today in the same old fashion. Although I’d felt slightly better yesterday I’d been taking baking soda often for my stomach for several days, and it seemed now that the feeling of pressure, or gas, perhaps, was getting the best of me. I took soda before lying down with Jane this afternoon. I woke up half an hour later so uncomfortable that I had to get up.

(Jane read these notes over as we sat for the session at 9:35. I explained that I hated to “put her on the spot” by asking if I had an ulcer, or a hernia, say, or gas or whatever. I realized my doing so frightened her. At the same time, I said, I was curious as to whether I did have an ulcer, for instance—that if so, I could see that I’d created that situation in order to contend with certain challenges.)

With your projects of the past finished, the “man who needed a job” had no job. It was as if he were laid off, and immediately had to find a new job. That man approves of creative projects only when he thinks of them as jobs, when they become acceptable as legitimate male pursuits. Commercial art is beautiful there, for at one time it allowed you to paint because (underlined) you were immediately repaid, and that made art legitimate. (With some ironic humor:) I am laying it on here. And forgive a bit of gentle—gentle—sarcasm, but to your puritan American soul, art for its own sake, or contemplation, still somehow goes against the grain.

You must understand, as certainly you do, the focus of your lives. Even before the psychic venture began, it was always your individual and joint work: in the beginning writing and painting.

You were both unconventional. On the exterior you broke conventions, but you were still tainted by conventional ideas. Even without the psychic endeavor, you both would have been bothered if, say, Ruburt succeeded as a writer of his own books, with no help from you of any kind, unless you succeeded as an artist. It was quite well known by both of you, however, that you disliked the marketplace.

That dislike, as much as anything, made you unwilling to do what is required to be a selling artist. You felt differently about commercial work. You have always had the sex roles to contend with in society to some degree. All of this did help contribute to Ruburt’s symptoms, particularly in the beginning. He was afraid you would be jealous, that others would say he dominated you, and to some extent both of you felt the symptoms helped you save face in society.

(10:40 PM. “That was good,” I said to Jane at once. “I feel better already.”

(“Thank God,” Jane said. “I’m better at it now—remember how touchy I used to be? I’d feel my trance come right up to the surface whenever we got into anything personal. But I had no idea of what he was going to talk about. I’ll have another session for you tomorrow if you want to.” I said we’d see; that this one was excellent, a great help.)