“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Frank Longwell visited yesterday noon. During one of our discussions yesterday, also, I mentioned to Jane some of my own ideas about the power of the Sinful Self, according to Seth’s material. For even though it was seemingly somewhat isolated or cut off from the personality’s creative processes, as well as from many current events and ideas, still it had that power to so drastically influence the physical body. This of course implied strong connections with the body as it operated in daily physical reality. The two states almost seemed contradictory, I said to Jane, and hoped that Seth would go into that matter eventually.

Illnesses are in their way inadequate methods of solving problems. Ruburt had strong elements of personality still caught up in the beliefs of what I have called the Sinful Self. At the same time, for many reasons, he had the idea that he was expected to be not merely a well-adapted natural person, but a kind of superself, solving other people’s problems, being a public personality, a psychic performer, and so forth. There was a vast gulf between those two extremes—one that was bound to cause strain and effort and misunderstandings.

(Long pause at 9:58.) He had been shy with people, shy about reading his own poetry, though determined to do so, yet he felt that he should become this public personality, or to perform. I keep trying to think of examples so that you know what I mean. The entire idea of responsibility has been over-stressed. The creative work was expected not only to be creative, imaginative, intuitive, to contain the highest elements of conceptual thought, but must also be capable of solving the most concrete physical problem, tuned with some magical tuning fork so that it could serve almost any purpose required of it.

That is enough for this evening. Generally speaking, however, both the physical discomfort and the panic have passed their intense periods. The idea of responsibility has hampered him. The panic-in-the-morning episodes will also begin to pass, but—they are also caused by the feeling of not being able to measure up, no matter what one does.