“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

There is some difference, of course, in Ruburt’s mind between his attitude toward his books and mine. To some extent this is more than understandable. He would (pause), had I not emerged, written books of his own in any case. He would have encountered no unusual obstacles as far as his public stance was concerned, in that he would have felt the rather characteristic dilemma of some creative writers, who must assimilate the private and public portions of their experiences. He would have had no unusual difficulty, however, in say, standing up for his own ideas—holding his own, so to speak, in any arguments or philosophies.

(Now slowly at 9:13:) Ruburt is very highly gifted—extraordinarily so in many respects. The nature of his gift generally speaking, however, presupposes or implies the existence of vast reaches in the psyche—reaches that if (pause) unwisely compared to the usual portions of the self, can seem to leave the usual self in a position of inferiority by contrast.

If I were only—only—a portion of Ruburt’s larger psyche, then I would be the portion that knows what it knows: the portion that is concerned with spontaneous knowledge.

You have first of all to explain your definition of personality, to attempt redefinitions of a very emotional kind, for when you are speaking of, say, space and time, that is one thing. When you are asking people to reexamine the whole matter of personal identity, you are setting conditions that may frighten many of them. Ruburt feels that he could, for example, explain any of his own books from his own framework quite well. To explain my books is something else again, and in that manner of speaking, my books are self-evident also.

Ruburt and you live in a world with its own cultural taboos, its own assumptions. The idea of personhood is a highly vital one, uniting peoples and societies. The idea of personhood held by the Roman Catholic Church affected the history of the world for centuries, and that idea of personhood is intimately involved, of course, with the idea of personhood’s source.

Now Ruburt understood quite well in a fashion that his own experiences were taking him outside of that cohesive framework, not simply outside of science’s or religion’s dictums, but outside of those areas that science and religion ignored, deplored, or denied (all very intently).

Again, definitions of personality are important here. Ruburt could read poetry without first having to define the nature of a poet. He could meet any criticisms with suitable explanations, since any audience was not about to question the poet’s psychological validity. Any arguments would take place within an implied framework of definitions.

Before even hearing the poetry no such audience, Ruburt felt, would question the fact of poetry itself—its techniques, traditions or value. My books, however, by their very existence appear in a world that largely does not concern itself with anything but the most surface elements of psychological reality. (Long pause.) The matter of duplicity almost immediately arises. Ruburt feels the existence of innumerable barriers in that regard—having, he feels, to fend with the questions that ensue.

(Pause.) I must be, as Seth, true or false, fiction or nonfiction, personality essence—spirit, if you prefer—or Ruburt’s own psyche in definitions usually accepted, playing at best a dubious role. And to a large degree those questions would be there even if our material quite agreed with the established knowledge of your world—but it does not. It contradicts much of the world’s knowledge.

If Ruburt wants to disagree with the world’s knowledge, he feels that it is his right—and again, would defend such ideas forthrightly. They would be based upon experiences that are his own—many that you have shared as a result of your own personal experiences together. But Ruburt is not aware of my subjective experience. My self-evident knowledge comes even if I were no more, again, than a part of his larger psyche, from reaches that would be inaccessible in those terms to him (all emphatically). That is, in those terms I would be delivering self-evident knowledge to him, revealing it (long pause), delivering it. I could not hand over the psychological quality of self-evident knowing, however. In that regard he does not have the same kind of inner experience with which to back up my words.

Give us a moment.... the books themselves—mine as well as his—are themselves indications of achievements (pause) that are not easily broken off, since they represent the natural, creative development of his own abilities and growth. They also provide, if you realize it, the solutions to your dilemmas, as I hope you shall shortly see. That is, they provide you with that larger framework of understanding, for the old frameworks of understanding force you to continue to explore your reality for larger definitions. In those areas of concern, then, Ruburt is still involved with too-small definitions.

A fond good evening. This should help relieve some of Ruburt’s stress. Read the session of course together. I will also give some pertinent comments more specifically, involving interviews, television, classes and so forth.

(Now it’s Friday night [the 6th] as I finish typing this session. Seth’s reference to “grievous errors” was obviously in answer to my own comment as recorded in the opening notes. At first when I asked her, Jane said the session hadn’t done anything to “relieve some of Ruburt’s stress.” But then we decided that it had helped her somewhat Thursday and Friday. On Wednesday night she’d had a dream involving our Instream-Oswego experience, and a copy of that is attached under February 5. And she had a pair of positive healing dreams that afternoon during her customary nap. These dreams were quite good.