“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

[...] Later he tried straight novels, but when he let himself go his natural fiction fell into the form of fantasy, outside of the novel’s conventions into science fiction’s form—and at that time further away from the mainstream. He managed to get some of his work published, however, so that as he reached his early 30’s he had some apprenticeship under his belt. [...]

He could have tried to publish the material in camouflaged form through fiction, and he was far more tempted to take such a line than perhaps you realized. [...] He recognized, however, the excellent quality in his own newer writings and in my own work also. He recognized the elements of mystery and creativity involved in the entire affair, and realized that he could not after all camouflage all of that, and so took the course upon which you both embarked. [...]

[...] On the other hand, while he did critically examine our material, he insisted in those terms “that he must be responsible for it,” in that he and everyone else must take normal responsibility in a fashion for “subconscious” actions or revelatory information. [...]

His creative abilities led him beyond the precepts of that church, creatively speaking, at a fairly early age—though the actual breaking-off point did not occur in fact until he was in his teens. He was fairly young, then, however, when he first encountered conflicts between creativity as such, intuitive knowledge, and other people’s ideas about reality. [...]

He thinks of this place in terms of a dwelling rather than as land, but because his attitude is not charged and because he does love land, he is able to enjoy what land there is. Now he compares this place for example to his childhood home, as subconsciously you compare it to yours, whether you know it or not. He comes out far above in comparison. [...]

[...] (To me:) You are largely the one to be satisfied, for Ruburt will find joy in almost any environment that he considers his own; you see he personifies in a way that you do not; any place he is in is his place, to his mind, as this is his yard. So any dwelling that you find he will personify and make his own, and therefore your own, if you follow me.

It upsets Ruburt when you talk of moving, but make no actions to do so, because subconsciously it reminds him of the deep uncertainty and insecurity he felt when he was in the orphanage. Never knowing when he would go home or not, he kept himself in a constant state of readiness to leave. [...]

He did not realize this connection. [...] He feels he is not living where he is. [...]

In the meantime, he looks with horror and disgust at the older men who have worked there for years, “getting drunk on Saturday nights, thinking only of the narrow world of their families,” and he is determined that the same thing will not happen to him. He has been “called down” several times for “things that everyone else does,” though he protests that no one else is caught. [...] At the same time he did not consider trying to go to college, to get a scholarship or whatever, to better his knowledge in the field of his choice. He doesn’t want to leave town, which is the place of his birth, to find a better job; nor does it occur to him to try and understand better the experiences of his fellow workers. He doesn’t believe that he can change the world by beginning where he is, and yet he is afraid to count upon his own abilities by giving them a practical form of expression.

[...] I do not want to define his existence by those attitudes alone, however, for when he forgets the great gulf between his idealism and practical life, and speaks about other activities, then he is full of charming energy. That energy could have sustained him far more than it has, however, had he counted on his natural interests and chosen one of those for his life’s work. He could have been an excellent teacher. He had offers of other jobs that would have pleased him more, but he is so convinced of his lack of power that he did not dare take advantage of the opportunities. [...]

He cited many instances of nefarious acts committed for money’s sake. [...] Roger, let us call him, is an idealist at heart, but he believes that the individual has little power in the world, and so he did not pursue his personal idealism in the events of his own life. “Everyone is a slave to the system.” [...] He took a routine job in a local business and stayed with it for over 20 years, all of the time hating to go to work, or saying that he did, and at the same time refusing to try other areas of activity that were open to him — because he was afraid to try.

He feels he has betrayed himself, and he projects that betrayal outward until betrayal is all that he sees in the socio-political world. Had he begun the work of actualizing his ideals through his own private life, he would not be in such a situation. [...]

[...] He knew you were less emotionally demonstrative than he, and more or less accepted this, knowing that underneath was a foundation upon which he could rely. It was this foundation he lost faith in, that so frightened him.

As he becomes reassured again you see he will not require as many proclamations. The rejection he felt however was quite real, and you did feel it—the jealousy—for whatever reason, was felt as valid. [...]

[...] Also however he had shut down so many spontaneous feelings toward you, because he feared them, that it was difficult to be spontaneous when he wanted to be.

He has ways of escaping that are devious, for they are not obvious, and they are to some extent automatic responses adopted in childhood. He will not hurt you if you hurt him to retaliate, but he will escape, close himself off from further hurt, leaving a shell behind, an animated but empty one.

Ruburt earlier said, before the session, that he suddenly had an idea for a book, called The Beginning. He was creatively aroused. He did not wonder how he would get the paper to write it on. He did not question the mechanics. In the physical area he has questioned the mechanics. He has doubted his ability for reasons given in the past, and in the past, to some extent you helped him, and you did not reinforce his sense of physical ability. [...]

A good deal of the time he has been writing well, operating in Framework 2. Whenever you operate in Framework 2 in any area, to some extent you enrich other areas of your life. He was excited last evening about Seven, and in that period of physical time he forgot his problems, and he dealt with the challenge of the book in the same way that he can learn to handle the physical situation.

[...] He did visit Egypt, and made tours to various esoteric communities. (Long pause.) He became disenchanted at a young age with the many conflicting schools of truth, so when he found what he finally settled upon, he would brook no interference. [...]

(10:02.) The thoughts of the Florida trip offered no present contradictions because he knew he was not leaving for any trip tomorrow. [...] The days he had those fantasies he operated better physically here. [...]

The dilemma was, here now, between truth—a literal translation of ancient records—or a creative approach which could lead to falsification, so he was highly suspicious of the creativity in himself. Through discipline he thought that he had this suspicious creativity well in hand. He feared that his students would not have the same kind of integrity. He was therefore very severe in dealing with originality on the part of his students, considering it, again, a threat. He was indeed a taskmaster.

He saw in his time how so-called mysticism and even dedication, without discipline, could divert energy, distort truths and pervert causes. He was well aware that high energy could be lost through dissipation. He dammed his own up, letting it out only in the deep but narrow channel of his interest. He had little use for spontaneity. He was afraid of it.

[...] This put Ruburt under additional pressure, and he began to rebel more. [...] Because of the strain, and because he felt his spontaneity so hampered, he came up with (Oversoul)Seven, defiantly, where Nebene could not follow; pure creativity, he felt, with no factual details that he could be called upon.

[...] He was a man of the strongest purpose, high dedication, a severe perfectionist who drove himself and his students. He was a mystic, but a mystic given to great discipline, denial, restraint. He inhibited many of his strongest drives in order to focus them upon his search and the work to which he was committed.

He must project that same sense of freedom and understanding into the physical situation, and fly as freely in the face of that situation. You were correct, therefore: he must believe that he can indeed be normally flexible. And if he does so believe, he will be. The fear causes him to organize memory and behavior so that all physical evidence then correlates with his belief that he cannot get well.

Earlier he did not want to use the body largely, for reasons he now understands and largely dismisses. As a part of that process he convinced himself that he could not use the body. [...]

In areas where he is doing well, such limitations, and resulting limiting behavior, do not occur to him. In the Air Force situation, for example, he did not say “I cannot possibly deny physical laws, or know what is going on in another place, or even at another time.” He enjoyed defying the physical evidence accepted by the scientist and others.

[...] He wants to get up earlier. But when he feels as if his efforts physically are getting nowhere, then he thinks “What is the use?” So your very early morning encouragement can be of value.

He fears that he will be loved when he gives support, but not loved when he must rely, or ask it, from another person. Sensing a death, immediately fearing that it was yours, Joseph, since he heard himself call for you, he hastily attempted to sacrifice his previous husband in your place. Therefore the mix-up of names when he wrote down his experience.

First of all, when he cried out silently for you during a recent psychological time experience, it was because he sensed, through inner communications, a situation concerning a death in which he would need your support. The poor Rob cry was his regret at having to depend upon your support, taking, he feared, energy from your work; and a regret, based on fear, that he always feels whenever he is forced to rely upon someone’s strength.

Even in his dream he was stunned, afraid that the death was his own. This is why he could not remember that the envelope was addressed to him. In his dream, therefore, which he knew he would remember because of his training, he then added shielding fabrications, interwoven with the valid information.

This made him more worried that the future death foreseen was his own, since he was looking up at a nurse and doctor while they looked down at him. He heard the words spoken by a nurse, “She is still in shock,” but he distorted the words so that he remembered them as being, “She is coming out of shock.”

Then he becomes angry when you say “Why don’t you make a decision?” He felt you were afraid to, and if he made one and it was wrong, he did not want to take the blame. So he felt in an impossible situation: and quite consciously, when he allowed himself to become aware of his thoughts. He is afraid of hurting you, of making you move, or making you cry.

It seemed to him that you were always going to leave your job one day and paint, but that day never came and the two of you were going to move one day, but that day never came, so he forced the one issue. In Florida he thought seriously of living there to make a move, but nothing came of it. Your discussion this evening at the table about finances led him deeper into those feelings he tries so hard to avoid. Here he was doing better than ever, with more money in the offing, and to what purpose? [...] He could not keep up financially, much less think of moving, so put it ahead in the future again.

Now money for security he does want, but this he sees after the necessities are taken care of: a suitable environment. If he is not happy today, money in the bank is meaningless to him. He also felt that a house might interfere with your ideas of work—the added responsibility, and he kept that in mind.

He is in a state of frozen waiting, and all of the elements given in the past have applied. The environment has gone down; the garden apartment here that he once thought of no longer exists. He thought of this place as highly desirable once in social terms—the best place you had ever lived in together. As the neighborhood deteriorated he became more and more irate, as did you.

As the new beliefs take over, however, he is then stimulated to use techniques that he tried to use before on occasion, but did not consistently keep up. He is learning to use these techniques to keep his purpose in mind. He is more consciously aware of what he is doing, so that he does not fall, for example, into self-pity so often, or feelings of hopelessness, but instead stops. He has become more determined than ever to change his mode of thought and to rid himself of the physical symptoms.

[...] He is not inhibiting worry, hiding it, but trying to alter the reaction itself—a big difference. When he does find himself worried, he should feel free to speak to you, however, as your conversation about the dentist was illuminating to him. It served to show him that he anticipated the worst—and he did not realize that earlier. He only has to be reasonably proficient in altering his beliefs. [...]

Seven was available, for Ruburt did realize that Seven represented legitimate playful, spontaneous and creative elements that he often inhibited. [...]

While he worries sometimes about future money, or how he will make out, generally speaking he can handle that, and knows that left alone his creativity will, and is, producing financial as well as other results. He may worry about prices in the grocery store—and he does—but you do think in terms of financial limitations. [...]

He is afraid of overbuying at the grocery store, of wasting food. He feels guilty in your eyes if students owe him, because this does not seem practical. Then he feels unappreciated and hurt, feeling he is not doing enough, and then resentful and angry.

He purposely went to a store (Elmira Discount) where he would not find clothes.... Looking for houses, in a strange way, made him feel good, for he realizes that you could afford one. [...]

The more financially threatened he feels, the less free he feels to be creatively himself, and the more something like a book deadline gains in importance. [...]

He is moving out of one house. He is no longer on dead center, wondering what kind of treatment he might receive at another house—and so he is moving at important psychological levels. He was willing to take a chance, therefore he was not quite as determined upon safety above all. He allowed the impulse to surface initially, and then he allowed himself to act upon it, in a sense “throwing caution to the wind.” That is, he was not going to have Emir cut in two, period, even if it meant, as he hoped it would not, that he must ship it around to many other places.

I told you that he was beginning to gain weight, and so he is. This does not mean he cannot gain more. [...] The circulation is improved—veins and so forth show more—but he has begun to gain because even in the chair he moves his legs more, which has increased his appetite.

No one in his childhood, in his 20’s, or in your early relationship, ever warned him that he could become too conservative. It certainly did not seem that he was being overly cautious in any regard, and yet when his sexuality was perhaps most noticeable, he made sure he took up with a man, Walt, who could not take advantage of it—a very cautious step for all of its unconventional overtones.

[...] When he feels that he is generally in such a mood for a day or so, he should definitely tell you about it. He is very seldom however in such a mood for any period, for each day now brings some definite feelings of release to his body.

When that flow is relatively unimpeded then he is naturally attracted to subjective activity and to performance in the natural world as well. He enjoys seeing people then. [...] He has told himself that his art must be used to help people primarily—as if that had been his main goal all along. Art then becomes a method of doing something else—and that idea runs directly contrary to the basic integrity of art, and to art as he truly understands it to be. He therefore often felt forced to do what before he had done because he wanted to. [...]

[...] To go on public television, join the workshops and so forth would not be Ruburt’s way, even while he felt that such a course was expected of him. He thinks in terms of individuals. He distrusts crowds. (Long pause.) He has no use for congregations—but all of those feelings remained largely unexpressed in later years. [...]

[...] Certainly “a great psychic teacher” had a responsibility of some weight (ironically humorous), and therefore it seemed imperative to Ruburt that he not make errors, that he live up to the characteristics generally ascribed to such an image. [...] He began to think that anything less than this public personality was cowardly. [...]

He had always enjoyed being somewhat disreputable—had seen himself and you prowling around the edges of society (as Jane had said earlier today)—not simply observers of it but to a large extent apart from its foibles, and certainly not mired in all of its conventional misunderstandings. He enjoyed dealing with it by sending the written word out into the public arena. He insisted upon that—the publication of his work. [...]

As long as he acted with relative abandon, as in the early years, relatively unreasoning, then there was no point of conflict. When he tried on the other hand to act in a more reasoning and disciplined manner, when he became convinced of the necessity for discipline and this was in Florida, then he attempted to stifle all spontaneity.

[...] He felt relatively free in his spontaneity in the beginning with you, for he granted you super-human abilities, relying upon what he thought to be almost absolute strength and stability. He did not have to reason, for you would reason for you both.

He doubled his discipline, and tried to put the lid upon the spontaneous self. For some time he confused true spontaneity with acts caused by blind propulsion, so he could not trust his spontaneous nature. [...] Ruburt therefore thought she was spontaneous; for a while he did not see the blind panic behind the words or acts.

He identified strongly with both of your parents, for each of them seemed to signify the warring aspects of himself. He identified with each, hating and loving each for that reason. He did not trust you when you told him to free his intuitive self, now, when the symptoms were bad last year, because he felt you did not trust yourself to be spontaneous in your dealings with him. [...]

“He did not mean to stay within physical reality. He only came to show you what was possible, and to bring you both to an understanding of inner reality. He chose his illness. [...] He did not manufacture sufficient blood, for he did not want to be physical beyond the time he had allotted.

[...] “He was exceptionally bright,” Jim said. “He was fantastic, and I’m not just saying that because he was our child. From the start he was way above average, quick in his reactions, so much so that we were almost frightened in a way. And then, overnight, he died of aplastic anemia. [...]

“He wanted to give you an impetus, and his effect was far stronger than had he lived, and he knew this. He had a horror of living to young malehood for he did not want to meet a young woman, become attracted, and continue with another physical life.

[...] He lost his wife and was left with a highly neurotic crippled daughter for whom he cared for many years. [...] He resented the girl, and while he cared for her, he did not do so kindly.

He did not work on his book, incidentally, because he felt you did not want him to. (Long pause.) You resented it when he began typing some of the sessions. (I thought this was my idea: RFB.) You felt he was trying to deprive you further of your part. He felt particularly poor at your parents because there he felt under combined attack. He does have a natural aggressiveness also however, and a rebellious nature.

Ruburt indeed felt attacked, but he would not fight against you, you see. He fought, but without ever daring face what it was he was fighting. [...] For if he suffered because of them, he knew that you would also suffer, until finally you would have to admit the truths that could set you both free.

He has been afraid of directing either outward for fear of hurting others. (Long pause.) He must learn to handle normal aggressions, and yet when he is operating spontaneously his natural exuberance is a mechanism for such release. (Long pause.) He was aware of your feelings. He felt that any success of his was a threat to you. [...]

Ruburt’s arms, now—he wanted to rock himself in comfort. [...] The fingers, connected with his work… Here he refused to budge. They could have been so bad he could not type, and this he did not allow. [...] They were also fat however, for he still considered them powerful in regards to his work.

The period of recovery, as he has set it up, is also meant to impress upon him the fact that the kind of venture he embarked upon physically is not one to be thrown aside overnight. Each new improvement is a triumph of trust, and the reeducation is highly important, for he is constantly impressed with the fact that he will not go that way again.

This means that he is bravely and fully encountering himself, so if he comes up against worries for example about his work, tell him to be patient. He is encountering and solving his difficulties. The book is also progressing precisely because he is reaching areas of development necessary to its completion.

[...] He trusts them. An “instant” recovery would have been too easy, in that he might have reasoned in the future that such a course was after all safe: he could always snap out of it at any time.

He cannot fake it, so he improves in direct proportion to his growing trust of the inner self.

[...] If your father did have daughters, rather than sons in the life that you know, he actually would have fared better in the physical world, because he would have felt it his duty to protect them financially: he would have considered them fairly helpless, and in need of his abilities. As his sons grew out of boyhood he felt that they dwarfed him. He was in a fashion frightened of the ideas of masculinity he grew up with—ideas he felt he did not embody, and he projected those upon his sons so that in a fashion they overawed him, or put him to shame. [...]

A daughter, however, would have given him a beneficial relationship, someone with whom he could discuss such feelings, as he did with you in the dream. With sons, he felt that he should not show emotions of defeat, and he felt that communication itself had the feminine overtones of an unfortunate nature. [...]

(Pause.) Your father’s sentence—the paper-bag reference—was one he actually made in his own mind, in the life that you actually knew him in, and he considered that sons rather than daughters represented his one physical triumph —that is, he believed sons preferable, and they alone compensated for a working man’s life—a life he felt did not befit him. [...]

Each son became the man he could not be. In the dream, however, you are a woman to whom he is able to express his feelings, and he therefore shows a side of himself to you with the paper-bag image. [...]

[...] Now, for example: so as not to bother you, Ruburt made it a point of conscience to speak to your mother on the phone for you, and not call you, when he did not want to do so. Very seldom was he even aware of his true feelings here, and when he was he was ashamed of them, and was 10 times nicer to your mother to cover up the feelings from all of you.

Ruburt’s list about what he will do when he is completely well is a good idea. Except that as an act of faith you see he should begin to carry out some of those points now.

Now this shows him that he can act resolutely in the physical world, that he can express himself through his body, that he can be physically assertive. [...]

Besides this he felt highly inadequate because he knew that all the time your mother of course would have preferred two minutes with you to ten with him, so then he felt unappreciated. [...]

[...] If he dances or cleans the apartment, then his natural impulses are being physically directed in those fashions. He does not have to feel that he must go for his walk when physically he feels like cleaning, for example. The badminton, unless he is in a relaxation period, is excellent, however, and should be maintained because of the opportunity for speed. Now it is the only way he can experience some, except for the swinging of the arms.

[...] In relaxation periods then he is apt to worry. [...] He feels guilty. He wonders how far along with the relaxation he should go.

[...] Ruburt thought he had to make a choice (louder). If will and power meant relative immobility but purpose—and purpose was what he had—then in the past he chose that above what he thought of as laxness, relaxation, and physical freedom that might mean frittering away ability, a relaxation in which nothing was accomplished.

As he knows the same is happening with the arms, but he is not walking on them, as indeed he has told himself. [...]