“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(She’s received several recent requests for such interviews from or through Prentice-Hall, and the call this morning brought the matter to a head. When I called Jane at 10:30 and told her about the proposal, I could see that the idea of it made her uneasy. I finally realized that she didn’t really want to do such shows anymore, no matter whether the Sinful Self was involved or not. It came to me that this dilemma was the reason for her much worse hand and arm discomfort: She can barely hold the telephone now, and has much trouble typing. [I’ve also noticed that she keeps such requests lying around on her desk for days before answering them in the negative. I’ve seen her carry such envelopes from room to room with her work, even.]

(One of the obvious reasons, I thought, was that the portions of the personality that were acting up became so powerful that they prevented or subverted a simple thing like asking for help to deal with a problem or challenge. Whatever struggles lay behind the hand and arm symptoms, for example, adopted their own protective armor, resistant to change....)

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.

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.

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.