“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

This artistic sense of responsibility was given a thicker coat by what seemed to be psychic responsibility: it seemed to Ruburt that he should use his abilities primarily to help others, or to help solve the world’s problems, or to cast some light into man’s condition. Certainly the attitude of some correspondents was involved there. Actually, however, it was the simple extension of such a feeling into the psychic realm, where it was further hardened by many religious views.

Ruburt saddled himself with a feeling of responsibility, however. At the same time of course he naturally resented such dictates. They tempered his own inspiration, narrowed his spontaneity. The idea of that kind of responsibility is extremely persuasive, however, in your society. (Long pause.) Because women were somehow regarded as less responsible than males, more easily given to frivolity, Ruburt also tried even harder to insure that he was acting in a responsible way.

If creativity itself was sometimes considered irresponsible, or “feminine,” or adolescent, then psychic activity, he discovered, seemed to be held in an even murkier light, in which the abilities themselves were sometimes thought of not as creative enhancements but as symptoms of feminine weakness and irresponsibility. He has recognized that, of course, to some degree, and written about it.

It added considerably, however, to the thick coat of responsibility that he placed about his own shoulders. He is still harder on women than he is on men in that regard. In that light then again, to stand somewhat apart from my material, to question it as a matter of principle, became a sign of responsibility. It showed that he was not a frivolous female, fancifully following each stray imaginative trance image.

(9:46.) At the same time, he recognized the excellence of our joint creativity. When you overstress the idea of responsibility, pleasure largely goes out the window, so he is now learning to redefine the term, “pleasure,” and to experience it in its many forms. He is learning to identify himself with his pleasures —a highly important point—one that, understood, can release triggers of healing energy and creative impetus.

(10:05 PM. “I got something at the tail end of the session that he didn’t say,” Jane told me. “I don’t know whether it was right or not—it involved you. I don’t know if you’ll agree: You can check with the pendulum. The idea of the trouble you gave yourself with the rib was connected with the guys coming to work here, to give you an excuse to do your thing and be isolated so they wouldn’t ask you to help, or strain yourself physically because you were already hurt. I got it at the very end. I don’t know why he didn’t say that. I waited to see if he was going to give it, and when he didn’t, I did.”

(Note that Seth didn’t continue with his material on the mail, which he began in answer to my question on July 26. I also forgot to ask him to. In that last session I meant to add the thought that we may have to dispense with answering much of the mail. I’ll gladly do this if I discover that it is behind any large-sized hassle Jane may be carrying around about public responsibility. The mail would have to go, at least until she’d resolved such an issue. It serves as a constant reminder of what many people regard as her responsibility, and could be more of an impediment or irritant than I had suspected, I told her the other day. People read the books, get something out of them—then want personal help that Jane can’t give in any meaningful, long-term way. She’s been very rigorous in answering the mail for a number of years, and my thought at the moment at least is that it—the mail—might be more of a time bomb than we realized in that respect.