“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(I’d been commenting on her call tonight to a psychiatrist—Dr. Beahrs—who’d written her recently from Washington state, and of his informing her that another doctor out there is also using the Seth material ideas in dealing with her patients. I talked about the doctor reporting that Jane’s books were kept in the occult section of the bookstore, thus causing her to lose readers; I used the incident as an example of how stereotyped ideas can limit something becoming better known—breaking out of its specialized field to reach a much wider audience, as I think Jane’s work deserves. I used political activity as an example of a field reaching many people. Yet, I added, the fact that the two medical people had discovered Seth was, in a small way, a sign that the material had at least managed some sort of transcendent movement.

(Then in today’s mail Jane received a letter from another doctor, as well as from a professor of mathematics – also signs that the Seth material was capable of wider appeal. I said that we should be grateful for these signs, and that they may be more widespread than we realize. Then Jane dictated the words quoted above, saying Seth would probably cover them in tonight’s session.

(It happened shortly after Frank Longwell’s visit at lunchtime, during which we discussed a new arrangement for the stove/cooking area of the kitchen. This would be a sign of the spontaneous change Seth mentioned in a late session. Then the day after this session was held, Frank returned at noon with literature on what stove units are available, prices, et cetera, so the discussion proceeded further.)

Now: I have given some—not all—of this material before, but now you can put the understanding to better advantage. Ruburt’s “overly conscientious self” was indeed built up in response to his belief that he was, to begin with, overly enthusiastic, overly impulsive, overly spontaneous. He was naturally expressive and open with people. He was creatively gifted—but an overly impulsive child does not care for an invalid mother, conscientiously, for 21 years.

It was you who suggested the ESP book, and you also early decided not to become a part of the American mainstream of life. You did not have a strong drive to have a family. You avoided heavy sexual relationships also. Both of you, before you met, knew that you wanted to study and observe from your own viewpoints. You felt that a family life would automatically plunge you into the kind of living that would not allow you such luxury. At the same time, both of you to some extent feared what you thought of as the power of sex. Again, Freudian beliefs that filled the books and movies led you both in your own ways to fear that your energies could be “swallowed” by sexuality—that to some extent you had so much energy, and that most of it must go into creative work.

More than this, the Freudian concepts said more or less that each person, regardless of their individuality, was driven by sexual energies of great force. There was in such a system no room, literally, for individual differences, but a norm set so that you must behave thus and so.

Now. If you did not express your sexuality through sexual experience, as prescribed, you were in for trouble. So went the tale. You found yourselves married. Ruburt as a woman, with those beliefs in the background, determined not to betray the writer, Jane, or the artist, Robert—thru becoming pregnant, or making too many sexual demands. Ruburt, incidentally, had a natural abortion because the message was already in the body, and all of his worries and concerns were unnecessary.

There are bodies, in those terms, who do not want to have physical offspring. They are not faulty. They fit in with nature’s plans, and with the psychological plans of the personalities involved. You were rather repressed at that period, frightened about your own work, and sometimes you would ignore Ruburt’s occasional sexual advances when you happened to be in your studio. He felt he was too spontaneous, again, too impulsive—but then in that belief system he worried if his sexual needs could not be properly squashed, supposing someone else aroused them, and he “fell in love” with someone else as quickly as he had fallen in love with you. Or worse—supposing your repressed sexuality was repressed because of your joint work, and supposing you fell in love with someone else, and became sexually aroused for another?

(Jane wanted to know if Seth had covered all of the topics she’d listed before the session—then realized that he’d missed just one: Home. “But I can’t get it now,” she said. “He’s gone.... I felt like we got a whole lot of stuff, though. I can’t believe it; you mean I was only out for an hour?”