“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(What particularly upset me about the flap over publicity was that I saw in it a repetition of past ways of refusing to meet challenges head on involved with the psychic work. I finally understood that Jane didn’t want to do any work involving publicity or interviews, and that for years now she’s bitterly—if unwittingly —resisted such demands, and that these unresolved pressures were having a devastating effect upon her physically. This was all behavior I still could not really comprehend.

First of all, children seek enjoyment. They recognize that enjoyment and self-satisfaction are important gateways to the development of their abilities. You drew because drawing gave you pleasure. Ruburt wrote for the same reason. You did not draw or paint because you felt a responsibility to do so.

(Long pause.) These issues are extremely vital in cases of creativity also, although they operate in all areas. The good parent, for example, is motivated by a sense of enjoyment and fulfillment, in which case his or her “responsibilities” are almost automatically reinforced and performed. People usually talk about what they should do only because they have forgotten how to remember what they want to do.

For some years, to varying extents, Ruburt and you also to a lesser degree became motivated by ideas of who you should (underlined) be, what you should (underlined) be doing, and what your responsibilities were. That tendency became stronger as our “work” became better known. To some extent—with some important variances, having to do with quite legitimate ideas of art—such feelings have also been behind many of your own responses to, say, the appearance of the books, as public packages in the world (intently). In Ruburt’s case the idea of responsibility became far more pervasive, resulting in what I have referred to as being almost a superself image—an image composed of his ideas of the kind of person he should (underlined) be in his position. That image largely at least ignored his own likes or dislikes. He felt he should do many things, for example, that he did not really like to do at all. Small doses of such attitudes can be handled, of course: people do not have to be entirely satisfied with their own performances in order to be reasonably happy and healthy. Remember that you react to interior events, not just to physical ones.

(Long pause.) As creative people, and as certain kinds of creative people —not being audience performers as musicians, for example—you deal with the creative construction of artistic worlds in which as your friend (painter) William Alexander would say, you are the master magician perhaps—but it is your world primarily, created according to your vision. All of the activities that bring you the largest pleasure in life generally are of that nature. This does not mean that you do not enjoy companionship, or that you do not have a give-and-take with society.

Ruburt began to feel a pressure as the books became better known to carry out a kind of responsibility, not simply to sell books, for example, but to get the message out into the world, to help others—all considerations that seemed to be—he thought—the acceptance of adult behavior on his part: actions that would be more or less expected of him. Again, they were actions that to a large degree went against the grain. They could be performed, however, to some extent, at least some of them, and he could on occasion enjoy them, and he did well enough, for example, with public speaking or the few shows that you did.

He writes because he wants to create a unique world, one in which during the act of creation as a creator he is in charge, and yet while he is in charge he is in contact with a certain magic of creativity that gives him experience with greater realms of being. People of that nature have very private ways, and to some extent now those ways involve a deliberate (long pause) repudiation of the ordinary world—not that they need to stop relating to it, but that they must momentarily forget it in light of another vision. This applies to you as well as to Ruburt. (All very intently.) You do not feel the need to go on tours, for example.

No conscious decisions were ever really clearly made, because Ruburt felt that ideally (underlined), if he were giving himself true freedom and being true to all his abilities, he would and should be performing in such a manner. He would naturally want to be at least on the most intelligent of television shows, for example, or speak to those groups for which he had some respect.

The overdone sense of responsibility can erode love and satisfaction. Ruburt “loved” to do housework at one time. Later his ideas of responsibility told him he should be working—not because he wanted to be working, but because he should be. At the same time those same worldly concerns led him to wonder about the validity of his own “messages”—and how responsible he was to the world for them—so the symptoms also served to give him a greater sense of caution, to temper creativity, for all the reasons stated in the Sinful-Self material.

(Upon thinking it over—it’s now Sunday afternoon as I finish typing the session—I now believe that I should have said little or nothing, and I became concerned lest I undid, or tried to, what progress Jane has managed to achieve lately. I was angry at session’s end, however, with the fact that she had responded to the publicity dilemma with aggravated hand and arm symptoms, and that it had taken me so long myself to realize what was going on. It made me question what we were doing generally, that such an obvious response should escape our notice. All of this is based on my deep concern for what has befallen Jane—or, more truthfully, what she has created for herself with my cooperation.

(I do think that it will all serve a valuable purpose, however, if we clear up the one major stumbling block over publicity—whether to do or not to do it. If we have solved that dilemma, well and good. Earlier I asked Jane if she was willing to stick by her decision to forgo public life, as stated in the letter she wrote Prentice today, and she said yes. I certainly am, let the chips fall where they may. I for one have no real idea of how Prentice-Hall may react, although Jane told me today that she’s picked up that Prentice-Hall plans to be much more aggressive on questions concerning publicity. I don’t think there will be any hassle, for surely the people at Prentice-Hall know enough about Jane’s abilities and sales and productive talents to know a good thing when they have one, whether or not publicity is involved.