“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Now under many situations people, again, behave in the same manner. They use portions of themselves as hostages—or as in Ruburt’s case they use a portion of themselves not so much as hostages, but they take a part of the self under “protective custody.” This almost always occurs when there are misunderstandings in particular areas between the picture of the self or the world as painted by the intellect, and the picture of the world or of the self painted by the emotions.

Many of the methods used to find solutions actually involve the setup of negotiations on the part of nations—the third party or parties—who in the beginning can communicate with each side, explaining one side’s viewpoint to the other. The setting up of communication with individuals, communication between the various portions of the self, is highly desirable then. This is often accomplished quite automatically as other portions of the self form themselves into negotiative postures, inserting various thoughts and ideas and feelings to the opposing psychological camp.

(Pause at 9:20.) In either case, however, portions of the self are hampered, restrained, and their expression drastically reduced, and there are bound to be repercussions. Ruburt’s body suffered whether or not he intended it to, because value fulfillment was being further denied. In the case of hostages and those in protective custody, a certain kind of enforced isolation is also bound to happen —and to some degree or another, the individual involved will display in certain areas the same kind of exaggerated postures between various portions of the self, as the Americans and the Iranians display in their behavior together.

One side will be unable to see or understand the behavior of the other side. Each will seem foreign to the other. The American response—generally, now, speaking—to Iranian emotionalism is to become still more self-righteously reasonable, cooler, more superior. The Iranian’s response to the Americans’ reason involves new outbursts of emotionalism and behavior that appear utterly irrational to the American view. So we are often indeed faced with a lack of communication between various portions of the self, or between various portions of the world.

Some of this is difficult to clarify, because affairs are not really all that clearly cut (emphatically). (Long pause.) When united, the intellect and intuitions do well. The intellect, however, wants the emotions to be perhaps more respectable than they are, neater, held better in check, well-dressed. It wants approval from the world. In Ruburt’s case, it began to worry that the exuberant, spontaneous, emotional parts of the self would allow their search for truth and creativity to get out of bounds, bringing some danger, perhaps, rather than honor—or at the very least scorn and criticism.

(Long pause.) By the very fact that a portion of the self is kept, say, in a sort of protective custody, it is kept in isolation, which means that it is not kept up on current events. Like political hostages, it does not get all of the mail—or the mail it does get is apt to be censored, so it is not operating with a full set of facts. That alone of course prolongs the difficulty.

The portions of the self kept in protective custody develop certain characteristics just to get by—modes of behavior that perhaps serve to take off some of the pressure, while ever seeking ways to escape the situation. This applies to all such instances, of course.

We are now involved with reassuring Ruburt that it is safe to move, and ultimately that it is safe to relax. We are trying to reassure him that relaxation is indeed a part of a creative process, and that it also makes all other motion possible. (Pause.) Such a statement can be accepted by all portions of the self, but it must be emphasized time and time again. In the meantime, there can seem to be other reasons, different ones, that crop up to make his attitudes seem more rational. These are part of the modes of behavior adopted by the portion of the self held in custody, so to speak.