“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Ruburt’s mother often told him she wished the birth had not taken place, and that Ruburt had not been born. She let Ruburt know that she wanted a boy —a son—rather than a daughter to begin with. So Ruburt felt that he was certainly a disappointment to say the least.

He was made to feel often that he was at least strongly responsible for his mother’s illness. It was also true that on other occasions his mother apologized for such statements—but the statements of course were highly charged and emotional, while the apologies were relatively prosaic.

As I stated before, Ruburt was not responsible for his mother’s illness, the break-up of her marriage, the deaths of his grandmother and housekeeper (long pause), and had he had brothers or sisters, for example, they would have reacted in their own fashions to Marie’s behavior. Ruburt had been put in the Protestant day camp for an unfortunate short summer following the grandmother’s death, and later into the Catholic home for a more protracted period of time. To some extent he thought of that as punishment, of course, of being abandoned, forced to take charity as well, and the home reinforced all of the Catholic beliefs, particularly stressing the sinfulness of the body. Remember for example the bathing episodes. There was no distinction made: to be sinful was of course to be a sinner, and in that home there was no time to foster any kind of independence—the children had to follow strict schedules, toe the mark.

(Long pause at 9:56.) He spent a good deal of time on his knees, then, doing penance when he did not fit into that structure. If he looked into a mirror and was caught at it, he was then caught in the sin of pride. When he wet the bed in the fourth grade night after night, the act was characterized as dirty.

(Long pause at 9:58.) When he wrote the letters to his mother they were censored. The nuns told him that he must say he was happy, whether or not he was. By the time he returned home he was quite rigid and moralistic. On the other hand, for the time being he had a very secure belief system against which for quite a full number of years he could test his own mental, emotional and spiritual vigor.

(Long pause.) He used dogma in a mystical manner, only to discover, however, that the church’s mysticism had no place to go: it was in its fashion dead-ended. It squashed creativity unless that creativity cowed under dogma.

(Long pause.) In that background Ruburt saw firsthand an example of many of the most unfortunate issues with which we have been presently concerned, to at least some extent, as he followed his mother’s adventures through the medical system, for example, through the welfare process. Marie was also a woman living without a man for many years. She was a strong personality. She lived in a relatively tumultuous emotional climate, provided with one kind of emotional excitement or another all the while.

The priests introduced “good” music, poetry, and a high educational background, even if it was a limited distorted framework. Father Traynor provided some kindliness, compassion and good will as he tried to translate Catholic dogma to Ruburt’s rebellious mind. He tried to restrain Marie in her expressions of bitterness.

(Long pause at 9:32.) Worse, its questions were largely ignored, so that its panic grew. Another portion of the self seemed to be initiating an entirely different system of reality, in complete opposition to that early background, and the Sinful Self was bound to react with some alarm. It is already beginning to change its views. It wanted the communication to begin with. In the meantime Ruburt felt—because of those beliefs—to some extent now, I am simplifying —that he could not do enough, produce enough, help himself or others enough, that he could not satisfy you enough in many areas, because he felt he was so flawed to begin with, therefore he did not deserve love, and would have to work for it, or plead for it.