“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Now in close marriages or those of long duration, there is a kind of superimposed family personality, a composite, to which each member contributes, and to which all members respond. In a relationship like yours and Ruburt’s this applies in a very intense manner. What you read in the old session this evening still applies to a large extent. It should be noted, as Ruburt said, that the poverty angle was largely eradicated—yet you (to me) preserve it in your worries about taxes, for example—for those feelings of resentment still help you continue to feel impoverished and virtuous. They serve to disconnect you from any opulent income status—put you back with the poor where you feel you belong; and hence you imagine the greater, the far greater incomes of other people, and in that comparison you come out put-upon—but again, virtuous.

Before you moved here you imagined, both of you, what oddities you would be in the neighborhood, and exaggerated your differences from others. Ruburt did not mind spending the money for the porches. Since he would be “increasing the value of the plant”—the working establishment. He would write on the back one (humorously) to show the porch was not after all for pleasure.

This session you read (the 367th) applied mostly to Ruburt, yet you also have what I will call an overly conscientious self in battle with the spontaneous self (a fact I’m well aware of, and had discussed with Jane before tonight’s session). You have actually grown somewhat more spontaneous. Why not—since Ruburt was nicely expressing the overly conscientious selves of both of you?

No one can completely do that for anyone else, of course, so you have your own struggles with spontaneity. Ruburt’s spontaneous self was by far the most active, and so his defenses against it, as the overly conscientious self, were more obvious than yours.

Your struggles earlier, before you met Ruburt, involved relationships, in that you had no deep ones, allowing yourself to become close to no one. When you fell in love with Ruburt, a part of you was appalled, for it felt it must hold itself ever aloof—and in those days Ruburt’s spontaneous self often met a response from your overly conscientious self, so that you appeared cold to him, and in repelling his spontaneity you were of course frightened to reveal your own.

Now: you had of course other problems that he was not experienced enough to see, and at the time the sessions began you were both at a low point. The release of psychic energy involved, regardless of me, was literally a new birth, bringing forth an impetus for change and creative activity. In an important sense, Ruburt’s abilities as a writer found their forte. He had found his direction —though that direction did not follow his beliefs. He was naturally meant to go in areas that would confound his earlier upbringing.

You set up, little by little, certain barriers against the world. As you grew older the failings of the human condition became more noticeable. Your own differences from others became more apparent. As the books became more popular, you were suddenly threatened in terms of privacy, of exposure personally—and perhaps, Ruburt felt, being forced one way or another into that other world in which, after all, the two of you did not belong.

To skip ahead: it is true that Ruburt has not asked you to take him for a ride, and it is equally true that you have not offered (although I mentioned it last week). He would have gone to the party (at Bumbalo’s on December 29) with some encouragement from you, and you gave him none—for cleverly, when one is ready to move the other is not.

Your perfectionist tendencies tell you not to go out into the world until Ruburt can walk normally and proudly. Your perfectionist tendencies—I refer to both of you—tell you that it is a crime for either of you to have a problem, whether or not the rest of the world is filled with chaos.

Ruburt’s condition, in a way, stops you from hurting others. If you close the door in the world’s face, it is because Ruburt cannot walk properly. The overly conscientious self on both of your parts to a strong degree becomes a composite personality. Its beliefs are invisible because you accept them unthinkingly. The next few old sessions should be read. You have both largely, except in your work, now, cut spontaneity from your lives; your habits are so set.

Ruburt’s reaction to my following simple suggestions shows how badly they are needed, and you will doubtlessly experience your own weaker version.

You need the idea of change—an idea that Ruburt once used to find exciting. Change your living room furniture, your bedroom, your kitchen or whatever you can—simply to symbolically and slowly break you in to the idea of change, and to break up the invisible bulk of mental patterns that are connected with your present state.