“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Many illnesses are physically experienced facades that are meant to alter the person’s relationship with the world. They act often like barriers, or coats of armor, and according to the situation another person must first confront this condition or coat of armor, if he ever hopes to establish contact with the personality. I hope that is clear.

(Pause.) Now Ruburt has had such a condition, for many reasons often given. He is trying to free himself. To do so he must change his own reality, alter his feeling of relationship with himself, and between himself and others. His physical situation—the symptoms—are public to the extent that others know he has difficulties. New sentence: When attempts are made to change that reality, then the reality of family and friends is also changed to some extent. Your dreams and Sue’s allow you, ever so subtly, to change your own views of Ruburt’s behavior. You see him operating normally. So has Tam, incidentally. Such dream behavior helps to break the heavy-handed stress of “daily physical evidence.” (Pause.) Exterior changes begin on the inside, and appear then physically—and not the other way around.

When Ruburt has such dreams, his muscles and joints react in sleep, mimicking normal actions—and he well might be sorer than usual upon awakening, because in sleep, at such times, now, without the weight of his body, standing and so forth, the muscles and joints will make motions of a releasing nature quite painlessly in the dream state. Sometimes waking consciousness will vaguely be aware of the motions, and because they are expected to bring discomfort, they do.

(10:35.) Such dreams on Ruburt’s part bring one vital message: that he can walk normally, and that this can be easily (underlined) brought about. In some of the dreams he is surprised that he can perform so well. In others he takes it for granted, as in your (Boy Scout) dream. In waking life, however, you have both been literally hypnotized by the idea that such a recovery is one of the hardest things in the world to achieve (intently). In the waking state Ruburt believes that he cannot walk properly. In the dream state he holds no such beliefs.

(Long pause.) Now he wanted to hold such beliefs because he felt he needed that quite painful facade to protect himself from his own spontaneity, and then to protect himself against the world because he felt he was too spontaneous. The answer was to cut down on physical spontaneity. Spontaneity is easy, so we will make it hard. We believe it is the most difficult thing in the world. I have given endless material on that. Privately and through your dreams and Sue’s, Ruburt with your help in the dream state sees that motion can be and is easy. He responds telepathically to your dreams.

Let us look at his painting. He digs into it, this present one, concentrates. Forgets how much he loves to paint, and considers all the problems involved in a new technique. And considers how he can never be as good as you in that regard. He uses effort. He forgets his ease, and the same thing applies to “trying to get better.”

Psychocybernetics (underlined) is a good handbook, very simplified, with some distortions, but its premise is quite correct: you do hypnotize yourself into such situations. I want to make a point that Ruburt can often interpret relaxation as depression, because the loss of tension can still be frightening. You have actually helped in that regard. The dreams show your activity in Framework 2 —and again, may I recommend on Ruburt’s part some sense of creativity in his physical situation? Even suggestions should be given playfully, not heavy-handedly. For his point-of-power exercises have him just playfully for five minutes pretend—knowing that it is a game—that he feels perfectly normal and relaxed. Let him consider impulses also playfully, not looking at each one as if it were as important as the ending of the world.

Your father dream. Your father represented your father, but he also stood for your version of the race [species] of man itself, of the nameless old men seemingly worn down by age, the lack of communication between nameless fathers and sons. Yet the old man does sleep in a gigantic shoe that is also like a cradle, from which he and all of civilization continue to emerge. Your question was why the lack of communication and compassion, the inarticulateness of love? And as you consoled your father, you tried to console humanity. And how? Through expression of the words, but also through your art, for you saw all art as an expression of love, a love in which the old man and civilization was ultimately held.