“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Yesterday evening, when I began to massage Jane’s calf muscles, I discovered that those areas were looser, more “floppy,” than I’d found them to be in some years. Their new state didn’t yet match that of her thighs, but it was much better nevertheless. I thought that if her legs attained equality in their states of looseness, that she would find it much easier to straighten and strengthen them.

(She tried to get comfortable in her chair. It was quiet in the house, and outside, too. We’ve been undergoing extremes of weather lately. Today it was raining at 52 degrees; now it’s 25 above and snowing, with a low close to zero predicted. The new snow covered the bare ground evenly and whitely.

Sometimes back then he would not even tell you of projects until he was certain they had jelled. He did not want to talk them out ahead of time.

(Pause.) In later life the trend continued, as per many examples at 458 (and as we have discussed today). That creative kind of withdrawal is quite healthy, psychologically pertinent, and creative. As some of his other less auspicious ideas came into prominence, however, that natural healthy withdrawing tendency was also used to some extent (underlined) as a framework that was overextended. As the feeling that he needed protection grew, the need for relative isolation grew also. You live in a social world, so the symptoms also served as face-saving devices.

Ruburt had a reason for not going on tour, for example—one that was certainly acceptable enough in a world of conventional understanding. He was saved, so it seemed, from endless explanations; so with a kind of psychological economy that worked far too well for a time the symptoms served to keep him writing at his desk, to regulate the flow of psychic activity, making sure of its direction, and to provide a suitable social reason to refrain from activities that might distract him—from tours or shows, and also even from any onslaught of psychic activity that might follow any unseeming (underlined) spontaneous behavior.

He took it for granted that, ideally speaking, he should do such public work, that it was his responsibility, but also that it represented a natural expression of abilities that he was denying because of his fears. So often he told himself that if he got better he would only be too glad to go on television or whatever, or to do whatever he was supposed to do.

He has, however, held it over his head that if he improved he should then do such work—and that only fear held him back. He was afraid that the spontaneous self would go overboard in that direction. It is the spontaneous self, of course, as much as any other portion of the personality, that often spontaneously holds back when such issues are considered—the part that is somehow spontaneously offended—a very important point to remember. So the reasoning: “Get better, then you can go out into the world to go on television or whatever,” or “Once you get better, you will be delighted to go on television and tell your story”—those directives simply make the issues more muddy.

Now this idealized self was primarily Ruburt’s—but to some extent also you contributed to it, feeling that anyone as gifted as Ruburt, if he were sure enough of himself, would indeed want to go out in that arena and press forward. You both felt a sense of schism between Ruburt’s physical condition and a hypothetical image of Ruburt as someone getting my material and ideally embodying it, so that if not perfect at least the main aspects of the life were smoothed out without contrasts. (Long pause.) In that regard indeed Ruburt felt as if he could not live up to my creative work—as if his physical being must embody all of the knowledge that came to him through our sessions—another important point.

(10:55.) Some of the members of your readership added to the pressure, of course (long pause). Behind all that you have earlier aspects of Ruburt’s life, involving habits of secrecy developed in childhood, the need for protection and so forth, that simply served to help build the framework. The young woman (Jane) found herself extremely uncomfortable to find your family members living together in one house—astounded by the thought of the family together in a trailer, frightened of the camp get-togethers. She could be expected to have some difficulties when presented with the thought that she should speak to gatherings of perhaps a thousand people or more, and that this was indeed her responsibility, all other feelings to the contrary.

(“Nope.” I had some, actually, but could see that it was time for Jane to get out of her chair.)

(“Jane then wanted to do the Seth books and not do them. All of this reflects black or white thinking, of course. Jane could have ended up in as much trouble by not doing the Seth books as she did by doing them, then. As long as repression was used in either direction the whole personality would suffer. What is vital is that the whole personality understands each of its portions, accepts and believes in them, and trusts in their expression. All else in life would flow from that balanced creative free state of being. All portions of the personality will automatically integrate themselves with the others to the benefit of all. Then decisions can be easily made about what activities to pursue in daily life: what books to write, how to deal with the public, etc.”