“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

—good evening. You wanted to create a point of crisis, believing to some extent that this would help solve Ruburt’s difficulties.

Ruburt is not in a life-threatening situation. There is nothing wrong, say, with his blood, though circulation is impaired. Your optometrist told you more or less what I told you about Ruburt’s eyes. In that no eye disease as such was responsible. Ruburt has not had a series of strokes—or any strokes.

The physical condition itself, on that level (pause), is caused (long pause) by “improper” relationships—that is, things not working together well, though the parts themselves are not diseased, per se—and that is the result of stress, habitually applied, of bodily habits. Ruburt’s reaction to the books is partially responsible for the latest difficulties, but so is the creation of the crisis situation itself.

All of the material I have given about attitudes toward revelationary material are important in that context, and please realize that I am categorizing. To that degree and in the light of this discussion, you end up with what I will call —and have in the past called—the overly conscientious self, which attempts to deal with the attitudes of the Sinful Self by checking and double-checking all the time, by being, in other words, overly conscientious: is Ruburt dealing with “the truth,” and so forth? That kind of question is endlessly considered by the conscientious self. You are taught as children to be honest in very literal terms, and often children’s natural imaginative abilities and creativity get them in a good deal of trouble.

When our material began to deal directly with the world, then, Ruburt’s questioning intensified. At the same time, however, the self will not be denied its creativity, and it will most stubbornly seek out those areas of its own expression, so not working on my book will not help solve Ruburt’s difficulties, and may indeed aggravate them, simply because of the further inhibition of expression.

Ruburt’s nature leads him toward the kind of creativity he is naturally embarked upon. It represents his true nature. The fears and difficulties may be deeply ingrained, but they are largely learned. To cut down on creative activity will not alleviate the situation. An overconcern (underlined) about the mechanics of publication, or the necessity of publication, or the wheres and hows of publication, or a sense of responsibility about the work, can indeed cause difficulty, but the basic creative expression—which has been impeded in the past by fears—should still be encouraged.

The fear of relaxation is still there, so that mentally and physically it still impedes progress. In all of this, however, thoughts of self-accusation simply must be avoided as much as possible, for to a good degree in one way or another such activities and misunderstandings are behind any illness, and Ruburt is hardly to single himself out in any one area as being more stupid than anyone else. All of these issues are responsible for the bathroom difficulty, and once again I maintain the steady attempts of the body to recuperate. Your reassurances, when you are able to give them, are invaluable.

(8:54.) Ruburt always wanted to help his mother, and felt largely powerless to do so. His mother’s condition made him ask questions, of course, concerning man’s condition, at a very early age. To some extent trying to help the world is a larger, expanded attempt to address such situations. Again, he was in no way responsible for his mother’s condition, however, or for her unhappiness, nor is he in those terms responsible for the unhappy situations of other people.

Ruburt’s body has been given an enlarged dose of stress lately, for the reasons mentioned here. The philosophical issues, involving truth or nontruth, and so forth, are highly important in practical terms, and should be discussed freely.