“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.

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.

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?

The comics acquainted you with what I will call a kind of surface art, and also in a way acquainted you with caricatures of social reality. Also involved however were folk dreams, as for example with Captain Marvel. While you happily worked and caroused quite innocently, you also began half unconsciously to further question the nature, not necessarily of society, but of the individual lives you met within it. The deep drives of your personality began to make their way known.

The excellence in sports, however, also involved the accepted thing to do. Sports even then were looked up to. Rewards were instantaneous for good performance. This involves black-and-white thinking again, however, for you thought of “perfect performance” in sports—high excellence. Something like the driveway usually involves an inner dilemma: “Shall I do creative work or physical activity?” in rather absolute terms.

The driveway involves the sports situation, and also the mainline-America theme—for shouldn’t you be shoveling the walk like your neighbor? This involves questions like “How different am I from my neighbor? What does he think of me, working at home?” et cetera.

Taxes or whatever might serve as a trigger, but the basic point is that you do not approve of what you are doing. If you shovel the drive, you think you should be working, and vice versa sometimes. The session should help you here.

Give us a moment.... In all cases, overexaggerations are involved. If you shovel you are not suddenly going to decide to devote yourself to a life of physical chores, and “meaningless” activity, and ignore your creative work. You are not that kind of person. If you paint or write steadily, that does not mean you will let all chores go. You are not that kind of person.

If Ruburt walks, he is not suddenly going to turn into a television personality and ignore his inner work. He is not that kind of person.Misunderstandings of your own abilities and characteristics are responsible for such unfortunate conclusions. Again, the New Year resolutions, really understood, can help you, for they will dissolve such thoughts.

(It’s my hunch that Seth’s New Year’s resolutions are perhaps the most potent material we could get, provided we keep them in mind as time passes. I have a copy of them up on the wall of the studio. So does Jane, in her work area.)