“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(When she tried to get back to sleep, however, she kept waking up very sore, and took aspirin at 5 AM. At the same time she “knew my body was trying out some new positions in bed, like it used to before all this happened. I also knew I was working out some conflicts, and I wasn’t worried. But then after I decided to stay in bed when you got up, the panicky stuff started.... I tried to remember what Seth had said, and follow the feelings through so I wouldn’t repress any of them....”

(True—for from my painting room I could hear her turning and tossing restlessly in bed all morning.... “Panic and fear—fright—is the closest I can come to it all,” she said. “Nothing evil, but certainly a fear of letting go, of expression, maybe abandonment.” All of this was accompanied by strong physical sensations of her being sore.

(Then when I called her at noon, Jane cried for at least half an hour. It was hard for her to verbalize her feelings, to even tell me about them, but she felt waves of panic and fear sweep through her—not hidden or covered up now, but faced and admitted, although with much difficulty. These feelings lingered throughout the day, though they seemed to be about gone at session time. Perhaps it was just exhaustion, for she felt quite relaxed by now. We didn’t discuss the dreams or the crying experience, or even read a session after breakfast. Nor have I read her notes on the dreams. “I’d decided I’d deal directly with the world again in the first dream,” she said. She plans to type them for this session.

(Watching her struggle to do this reminded me of the fix we both face, and that must be resolved. It was also a reminder of how far she had carried her resistance to change and confrontation with the Sinful Self—and often without my really understanding just how badly off she is. Once again in the bathroom I was amazed that any belief could have such a powerful effect upon a person that they would tolerate such physical limitations day after day, year after year, rather than to come to terms with them in an effort to obtain at least some relief. I’d still like some material from Seth on why the personality would choose to go to such lengths in the name of self- protection.... I didn’t mention any of this to Jane, since she had done so well today, but do want to make note of my feelings here.

(Pause.) He took the dictums of the church seriously, but questioned them with as much passion and enthusiasm as he overall used in his affiliation with the entire church organization. The church did not like that kind of questioning, and in a fashion it has always been highly suspicious of those who were too mystically inclined, for such people in their originality are not easy to lead.

(Long pause.) “The church” was not a hypothetical entity, but was encountered through Ruburt’s experience with the priests who visited, their effect upon his life and his poetry, and with the entire fabric of a young intense daily life. If the church became upset with what Ruburt wrote or read, then Father Ryan burned one of his books, or argued with his poetry, for example, so all of that was living emotional content.

It took some time before such a framework began to develop—a kind of double one—represented by my work and by his own—an excellent accomplishment, of course. Also an accomplishment that clearly stood out as a direct challenge to religion and science, that not only contradicted their theories but offered an alternate framework through which reality could be experienced.

(9:34.) Through the last few years religious fundamentalism has begun to grow, bringing to the forefront in exaggerated form many of the old beliefs with which Ruburt thought he had dispensed so neatly. Science, if it bothered, might label him a fool, but fundamental religion could label him as evil, or claim his work was inspired by the devil in Christian terms, and so the old beliefs in the Sinful Self or evil self were activated.

Religion, having in certain terms created the entire concept, had then to create the idea of redemption to rectify it. Ruburt has not been able to utilize the natural grace of the basic self because of those beliefs in their sinful nature. Those feelings were the ones that he experienced this morning—the fear that the self’s very expression was somehow wrong, since the self itself was intrinsically flawed. Your own lovemaking the other evening, and your renewed expressions of affection, helped initiate the entire experience, by letting Ruburt feel safe enough to be aware of and experience those sensations. Of course they reflect upon the body. They seek expression. It is not that they are so fearful in themselves, but the effort to repress them gives them additional charge.