“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(“Synchronicity” also seemed to be involved with the dream, for in today’s paper I found myself reading a column in the sports section, concerning knee injuries —and this in turn triggered my remembering that Ralph Ramstad had a “trick knee,” as he used to call it, the result I believe of a childhood accident. And following those two connections, I speculated with Jane about a third: my hurting the lower left ribs about a week ago during the visit of Tom D’Orio and friends. Frank Longwell told me I’d strained the ligaments helping to support the ribs, and that “they don’t like that.” Most uncomfortable, even at times in bed. The seemingly innocuous injury, which hasn’t even left a black-and-blue sign, is quite painful at times and most inconvenient in regards to various bodily functions involving any sudden movements, as in sneezing, etc.

(The pendulum told me I hurt the rib cage over my frustration at the visit of Tom and friends, although I wasn’t conscious of any such feelings. Jane also enjoyed it, and we took Tom’s address with a view to inviting he and wife Becky some Friday evening.

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.

In the next scene, you have the introduction of the artistic ability, however, personified by your friend of your younger New York artistic past. He represents someone highly gifted artistically, and therefore stands for your artistic self as you might have idealized it when you knew that young man. When he tries to put on ordinary working clothes, however, something happens: the shorts keep changing into a Turkish towel, and harder he tries to pull the pants on the more and more they change, until there is no mistaking that the shorts simply will not do.

(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.

(3:49.) Ruburt began to wonder about television and so forth for publicity. He wondered if he did not have the responsibility, again, to spread the psychic message outward. Many different pressures operated there. In later years, as books were finished, the matter of publicity would rise anew, but his relative success meant that the issues stayed in the air, so to speak. Your discussion reminded him of how he used to be (pause), and also brought up in his mind the seeming contradictions of creativity, in that it is private, but usually ends up as some kind of public expression.

(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.)

The mail represents the voice of the world, the needs of its people. It also represents the simple thanks of readers. Ruburt has indeed felt a strong responsibility regarding the predicament of some correspondents—again, because he was not certain as to which purposes his psychic abilities should be put.

If those abilities did lie in other directions, he would have felt strong impulses to hold sessions on the behalf of others, and would long ago have taken that course, so here again there are misunderstandings.