“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Ruburt received certain kinds of knowledge by taking various jobs throughout his early adulthood, including factory work or whatever. That knowledge was used in all of his writing. On a certain level he took those jobs because he needed money, not because he needed experience in other lines of work or with other kinds of people. When he sold Avon he was hearing the questions that his own work would later try to answer. He could not have faked pretending to need the jobs, or it would not have worked, so neither of you could pretend to have physical difficulties so that you could, for example, put yourselves in other peoples’ shoes.

—They were simply brushed up and renewed. They represented a kind of psychological handicap. The situation also helped serve to explain, you felt particularly in the beginning, oddities of your own behaviors in regard to society. When you gave up your job you did not have to explain why you did not have to find another as “any normal red-blooded male should do,” but stayed at home devoted to a time of painting and philosophy. You also had a wife to look after who had physical difficulties.

(10:12.) Now: Ruburt’s hearing is not impeded (long pause), meaning that he is not losing his hearing. That condition was also related to the telephone one, adding the extra difficulty of clearly hearing a television—or rather radio—program, and the hearing difficulty was aggravated along with the hands.

Both of you—to some extent, now, following this evening’s discussion —felt that with two books and perhaps even the poetry book coming out in one year, people would think it was easy enough for you to write your pronouncements from the hilltop, even though in those books you made certain that you mentioned any and all difficulties that came your way, collected your stories of hassles with scientists or publishers, and so forth.