“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.

Ruburt took a portion of himself into protective custody—not wishing to do that portion any damage, but simply to restrain it, to teach it discipline. Some people take portions of themselves, again, as hostages, restraining such portions with the idea of punishing them for imagined wrongs, or for actions not understood.

(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.

Ruburt’s intellect and his emotions, working together, work joyfully in his writing, his psychic endeavors, and his subjective experience in general. They unite and stimulate his creative abilities so that he does what comes naturally, easily and vitally to him, searching out his own view of reality—but in certain areas the intellect and the emotions begin to separate in their visions of the picture of the world. The intellect (long pause, eyes closed) disapproves of certain feelings and emotions because the intellect, allied with (pause) the social aspects of reality, thinks in terms of a public face, or respectability, of its position with other adults in 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.

(9:37.) Over a period of time you ended up with two exaggerated postures —artificial ones—with the spontaneous elements of the personality straining for the full use of their abilities (in parentheses: value fulfillment), and the reasoning one determined to pursue such endeavors—but with caution. The intellect’s reasons, however, were not entirely its own, but only appeared to be because the opposing camps were so out of communication. The intellect actually quite unknowingly made those reasoning deductions on an emotional basis from an outdated picture of the world, held jointly by emotions and intellect years ago in Ruburt’s childhood.

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.

(Long pause at 9:55.) Because the two of you are so involved, your own position is bound to change, and in years previous—to some extent, now—you also felt that certain portions of Ruburt’s personality should indeed be held in protective custody. For some time you were alarmed only because the treatment given that portion was more severe than you thought it should be. Now you are actively acting as a trusted party, working for the release of the portion held in relative captivity, and your assurances at this point can be extremely important.

Ruburt has also managed to set up a better system of communication, and whenever you begin to pay more attention to your impulses again, you are bound to get off-center at any point. You begin to change the situation. Your impulses immediately begin to broaden your picture of reality, to uncensor the mail, so to speak. Ruburt will naturally seek your aid, however, and your helpful hand, as he moves out of those limited corridors of activity—and so he is. End of session—