“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Some of the reasons for such activities are sketched in our new book. But what you have is a learned pattern of face-saving self-deception and nefarious (with amusement) techniques, taught by parents to children; so often you pretend to want one thing, and you may say that you “will it” to happen—perhaps because what you really want is unacceptable, or so you have been taught: it is demeaning, or evil, or whatever. So in many cases people’s true motives “escape” them.

It is very important to know what you want. You may discard or dismiss “what you want” as unworthy, evil, but you must first be aware of your motives. This sounds quite simplistic, and yet it is quite practically true, but you have people professing to desire wealth while obviously doing everything possible to insure the continuance of poverty. They may state their purpose as often as they wish, and yet their imaginations carry vivid pictures of future deprivation, so it seems in such cases that the will and the imagination are in conflict.

There is nothing “wrong” with poverty, or morally reprehensible. But people who write you, for example, saying “I want to make good money, but all my jobs are innocuous, or I have none,” are not facing the fact that for the time being, at least, they want poverty.

Your willingness to help Ruburt walk, your encouragement—these are all important, but the most important issue is the unity, in practical terms, of imagination and will, and the generation of creative ability in health terms, that can be sparked.

That is enough for now. When we return to our ordinary schedule I will more than keep you busy—but the unknown reality applies in such cases, so that unknown motives can become known and dealt with.

It is in its way perfectly all right to be frightened of the world. (Almost with a laugh:) Under certain conditions it may be a mark of sanity—but it is highly self-defeating to put yourself in a position where you cannot go out into the world—or more importantly, where you cannot navigate as a creature.

(10:03.) Ruburt thinks it is beneath him to be frightened of the world, so it is easier to pretend you cannot go out in it than to feel you are a coward—which in your society is the interpretation placed upon such feelings. If Ruburt does not want a public life, that is not cowardice. But as private people, and as creatures, you must value your freedom of motion, and your connections with the natural world of the seasons.

He is good with people, and with communication—but very much as a sideline and not as a main endeavor. There is no need for him to feel cowardly, or inferior, for not “living up to” that role.

But he must dress his dreams in fashionable cynicism, while all the time trying to hold them safely clear, and gracefully allow some faith, some hope, to show in an uncontested manner.

The Village Voice is probably read by more creative young people, and more people in the arts, than any other New York paper. To those people the new journalism is transparent. They see it as the current necessary way to write—the in things, but most of them unconsciously understand the reasons behind the techniques, as I explained them earlier.