“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(I was typing the first portion of last night’s session when I heard President Reagan giving his anxiously awaited first address to Congress; he spoke on economic issues mainly. I took a break at 9:15 to watch some of his speech on TV. Jane was relaxed on the couch as usual. Eventually, however, she surprised me by saying she’d try for a session. Earlier today she’d said she would have one tomorrow night instead.

At its very basis, regardless of all tales to the contrary, art is indeed love’s production. Ruburt writes because he loves to write—the activity of itself is intriguing, again, it is a method of discovery and accomplishment, of celebration. It is natural for him to be inspired.

(Pause.) Ruburt has felt too responsible to develop his psychic abilities, to produce another “psychically inspired” work of his own. The sense of responsibility of that kind stifles love, which must be free to form its own creativity in its own fashion. Therefore, left alone, Ruburt writes freely, and in an inspired nature because that is (underlined) his nature. It is what he loves to do. When he becomes overly concerned with ideas of responsibility to use his talent, then the love beneath them is smothered to some extent and denied its flow.

When that flow is relatively unimpeded then he is naturally attracted to subjective activity and to performance in the natural world as well. He enjoys seeing people then. To enjoy seeing people is a different thing than expecting yourself to be a public personality, however. Ruburt has been trying out a system of values that is not naturally his own. He has told himself that his art must be used to help people primarily—as if that had been his main goal all along. Art then becomes a method of doing something else—and that idea runs directly contrary to the basic integrity of art, and to art as he truly understands it to be. He therefore often felt forced to do what before he had done because he wanted to.

(Pause.) This led certainly to conflict. The idea of the public image coming through the correspondence, and as it was interpreted by Ruburt, further deepened the feeling of responsibility. Certainly “a great psychic teacher” had a responsibility of some weight (ironically humorous), and therefore it seemed imperative to Ruburt that he not make errors, that he live up to the characteristics generally ascribed to such an image. Thus, some experimentation was cut out (such as?). He began to think that anything less than this public personality was cowardly.

He felt that your visitors came to see the public image (as they certainly did, I’d say), and felt inferior by contrast. To some extent he became divorced from some of his own feelings, for they seemed now beneath him.

He had always enjoyed being somewhat disreputable—had seen himself and you prowling around the edges of society (as Jane had said earlier today)—not simply observers of it but to a large extent apart from its foibles, and certainly not mired in all of its conventional misunderstandings. He enjoyed dealing with it by sending the written word out into the public arena. He insisted upon that—the publication of his work. The books were to be his public platform.

(10:28.) He is proud of that translation of private creative experience into the artistic public act of publication. He is not a performer, however, in the same way that an actor is, whose art requires for its best execution the lively responsive immediately present audience. He did not want to be a public personality of that kind.

It seemed that this would be thrust upon him, however—that it was expected, and that indeed furthermore he should expect such performance from himself. (Long pause.) His own earlier attitudes about such matters began to seem cowardly, so he tried to divorce himself from them. That idea, however, together with the idea of responsibility, you see, was always in the background.

In a fashion, the fears became substitutes for the earlier natural feelings that he had been in contact with before. There were reasons then not (underlined) to go out into the world: it was dangerous, and so forth. Those feelings of fear were reactivated to provide a seemingly reasonable explanation for the earlier natural feelings he was no longer in touch with.

Ruburt made gestures of unconventionality. To go on public television, join the workshops and so forth would not be Ruburt’s way, even while he felt that such a course was expected of him. He thinks in terms of individuals. He distrusts crowds. (Long pause.) He has no use for congregations—but all of those feelings remained largely unexpressed in later years.

(Long pause.) Beside this, he felt that such a performance would alter the direction his work would take in ways that would be detrimental overall, for the broadening quality of that kind of discourse could only be as extensive in scope as the quality of his audience’s understanding, so that the material might become too tailored to public need or consumption—tied up in answering conventional questions—an excellent point, by the way.

Ruburt’s nature leads to periods of painting and poetry and subjective exploration of unconventional thought. He felt that he should be doing other things, however: he should be using (underlined) his time better.

His body is relaxing because it needs to, and he is finally allowing it. He was able to see the quality of his poetry today for his book. The poetry adds to the world simply by its being. Art is not meant to be a prescription. It is a celebration. People who celebrate do not need prescriptions.

This will be a brief session. I want you to read over the last sessions, however, for your own edification. If you want to, note down any particular questions you want to ask—knowing of course that I will answer them in my own fashion. Ruburt’s material last night in the dream state was excellent, bringing feelings to the surface, and rearousing some attitudes he had forgotten.

This was a session Ruburt enjoyed—also one he had out of a sense of responsibility—but at least with some understanding of the issues involved. I bid you then a fond good evening.