“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(After supper Debbie Janney visited without seeing Jane. Her cat, Kitty Cat, has been missing since 8 AM, and Debbie fears for its safety and/or life. She gave me a color photo of the cat to show Jane. The incident upset Jane, signifying as it did people’s urges to ask her all kinds of questions for all kinds of psychic help—taking it for granted that she was able and willing to offer that help. Jane said it made her feel “incompetent” that she couldn’t, or didn’t, pinpoint what had happened to the cat. She didn’t want to do such psychic detective work, she said, because it reminded her of her own difficulties—an obvious point we both mentioned. Yet there’s no controlling other people’s reactions to a given body of work, from which among other things such possibilities as finding lost animals—or people—could be deduced. Jane recalled her successes in helping to reassure the parents of two lost girls some years ago [in separate incidents] in the Midwest. I’d forgotten about these events, which contained some striking “hits” on her part. Neither girl was dead, by the way.

(So we know she has the ability to do that sort of psychic sleuthing, but it turns her off. I’d say that it would do so even if she had no hassles of her own.

Ruburt is operating in an area in which there are few such specifications, simply because no one knows what can or cannot be done, practically speaking, at psychic levels. Some people highly gifted with psychic abilities gravitate toward various activities. They find themselves acting more naturally, creatively and efficiently following their own natural bents. They are naturally devoted to healing, whether or not for example they may be highly proficient. That is the field of their interest, intent and ability. Then within the realms of your practical reality they learn to utilize that ability.

Others for their own reasons—as numerous as there are individuals—are interested in pursuing the “wicked,” finding the lost, teaching creativity, seeing into the future or past or whatever. The psychic abilities operate along with your other characteristics.

The person interested in the psychic pursuit of the wicked, for example, certainly has as much in common basically with the policeman or detective as he or she has with other psychics, regardless of the differences that seem to exist. Psychic musicians or artists are highly interested in music, using their psychic abilities in that direction.

In those situations natural leanings and intents help specify what is expected and not expected. Now in those terms, Ruburt has often expected too much from himself. Part of the reason lies in the pervading popular misconceptions about psychic ability. Part lies in the very fact of the unknown elements that are involved. He does possess natural desires, characteristics and intents that help focus his own activity. And he also feels strong disinclinations in some other areas. Those disinclinations are quite healthy indicators that in those cases he is straying away from the strong areas of his own proficiency and interest.

It would be most handy for him after some thinking to draw up his own statements of the areas of his main concentrations. Generally speaking, anything outside of that area is not to be expected from him: he need not concern himself there. He can quite honestly state that such and such is outside of the area of his concentration, at the far periphery of his “field.” People will understand if he is clear in his own mind. The same applies of course to healing. Regardless of the differences with which the public considers exists between the medical profession and psychic healing, psychic healers have very much in common with doctors or nurses, and use their psychic abilities in a way that follows those characteristics and leanings.

Basically, Ruburt does not have those characteristics. Everyone has healing abilities (long pause), but Ruburt, basically speaking, is interested in the theoretical and philosophical concerns that underlie the condition of health. He would not on his own be a doctor or a nurse or whatever, so his psychic abilities are not naturally enthusiastically expanded in those directions in terms of a vocation, or the requirements of a profession (all very intently).

The term “psychic” is ill-defined, so he must define for himself the field of his activity, specify clearly for both of your sakes where his own strengths lie, and his intents, and what is to be expected of him and what is not. Even within that statement there must be room for growth and accomplishment, “to explore the nature of reality.”

(Long pause at 9:14.) Now how do you practically interpret such an intention? Where does such an exploration begin or end? Ruburt’s natural psychic abilities follow his other abilities, again, and characteristics. They cannot be patterned upon other people’s. (Long pause.) He has his own way of dealing with details—an instinctive manner. They all go into the creative mill, for example, where they are in their ways uniquely sorted, transformed into patterns, emerging into creative illuminations. He may on the other hand appear to normally ignore details.

I suggest that such a statement be drawn up, for it would certainly help clarify many situations, and show Ruburt that he was performing very well indeed. The nebulous nature of the “psychic” has served to help build up a picture of an unrealistic superself (long pause), mentioned earlier, that is supposed to perform a dazzling array of activities, solving everyone’s problems, displaying all of the psychic abilities at once, from healing to finding a lost kitten.

The Sinful Self in the past has felt even more sinful, or example, in comparison to the unrealistic expectations set upon the self by the super-images. Ruburt expected to be the super healer, super clairvoyant, and so forth. Ruburt is (pause) a natural receiver of psychic information, of knowledge from another level of activity, a natural receiver of deep insights that are a part of your spiritual and biological heritage, and a natural translator of such material (all with emphasis). That is his primary, most proficient area of exploration and accomplishment.