“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(All of that naturally led Jane and me into talking about our own experiences in NYC after our marriage. We went over a lot of ground, and it seemed to have very beneficial, even therapeutic effects for Jane. I kept recalling things about those times, and so did she as the morning passed.

(“I don’t know whether you’re going to get it from me or Seth,” Jane said at 3:05 PM. “Earlier I felt the stuff around from Seth, but also from me too,” she said. “But I don’t know. I’ll let you know....” Then at 3:10: “I guess you’re gonna get a session after all. I feel him around, but it won’t be too long.” I made her coffee, and she sipped at it as we waited. The afternoon was dark, wet, and quiet. I was all for anything that could help her.

In the first scene of this dream you see a probable self, who could reasonably be expected to be the kind of son your father might have, gifted with his hands mechanically, assertive enough to own his own business, however—after all, a part of the American dream, embarked upon employment that he enjoyed, and yet one that provided a service, hence physically seen between the ice (and roller-skating) rink, representing pleasure or fun, and the grocery store, representing service or nourishment. So you might have been that kind of person, with the belief system of your times, and with your background. A man if possible should own his own business, provide a service for the community—and, again, inventiveness or creativity were to be wedded to those pursuits. Your father’s inventiveness, again, dealt often with mechanics.

(Long pause.) Ruburt made certain correlations. He thought, for example, of his own pajamas that he wears now instead of the jeans he wore before, and it seemed to him that in all his strivings he had in one way or another also acted like your friend whose jeans kept turning into the Turkish towel: he had been trying to protect an important way of relating to the world, or to protect a way of life.

(Long pause.) You kept your own studio apart, say, from the house’s living areas. The whole nature of your independent and joint creativity involved a retreat from the world that you both enjoyed, followed by, in the case of books, an expression in the world—in which, however, the books appeared in your stead: a way of life that involved usual publicity—lectures and so forth—seemed to threaten that kind of existence to Ruburt, in which he feared expression itself would be diverted, simplified, so that the message that finally did get through would not be the same message at all as the original one. Yet still, because of misunderstandings and old beliefs, he still felt a responsibility to act otherwise, a social pressure to do so. (All intently.)

When you overwork the idea of responsibility—or service to the world—you erode that pleasure. All in all an excellent session, of course.

I will certainly. Overall, I do agree, however, that our sessions ideally should not be tied to utility as a primary consideration, but should be freed of such considerations, at least generally speaking, so that their full potential can be expressed. A potential that belongs to all of art, whatever its nature, since it is daring enough, free enough to fly ahead of man’s needs at any given time, and to create a new atmosphere that transforms the nature of being itself.

(“The same thing,” I said. “It all basically has to do with this idea of responsibility. If you can get rid of that you might be home free. If it was up to me, I’d throw the idea of responsibility down the hillside and into the river.”