“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

The ideas he has been working with are good. He knows which ones. [...] He feared for a while, again, that it was not possible for him to walk properly or move normally. [...] There in that area he was not sure of his power. I tell you that the inner work is mental, and it need not be work—but if each of you believe he is beginning to attain normal flexibility, he will.

[...] He is barely, again, beginning to sense that feeling of freedom, and the body is always ready to respond. [...] It is only necessary that he believe it.

The fact, as mentioned, that he is going ahead with the book has a greater meaning than either of you recognize. He is beginning to understand the validity of the self, and therefore is freer to use his power, realizing that it is a strength and not weakness.

In those states, while his body is resting, he is learning greater agility both physically and in natural manipulation of the magical approach in general. He is also given at such times immediate physical feedback: he realizes at once that his body is more at ease, more agile, and so forth. His state of mind during the day then varies, so that with his files (of poetry) today he was in a highly relaxed, creative, productive, mental level, one that served to cushion his mind from the critical reproaches he can often give himself, and therefore bodily relaxation could continue. [...]

Ruburt has indeed made excellent strides, of late, in dealing with beliefs, and in switching orientation, so that he is beginning to learn to use the magical approach—which is, again, the natural one. Of late, when he says that he is out of it, or very relaxed, he is involved at certain levels of awareness, in which indeed mental and physical tensions are being relieved and drained away. [...]

In your terms he would be in the alpha state, fluctuating, sometimes, between several states of consciousness and orientation. [...] As a result he has had some valuable nightly experiences, two in particular, though there are others that he does not recall. [...]

[...] She didn’t feel Seth around and had no idea what he might talk about, or whether the session would be long or short. [...]

He has been exercising because he wants to. Let him give himself the opportunity, as he has been, to walk twice a day, as far as he wants, or as briefly. Just so he allows the opportunity, for his own peace of mind, but do not force the body. [...] Now he tries to walk when you are in the kitchen so as not to bother you, but there will be times when he will want to, and can simply call.

(9:44.) He will learn to be consciously well-intentioned. [...] He will consciously seek his own good – not at the expense of others, for he will realize that he cannot achieve any good in that manner. [...]

He has been used to putting his full weight on that right leg, so he is more aware of the sensations. He has a tendency then to favor it for a while. The left knee has also loosened, and the entire back of the left leg, the altered position of the right leg however means that the left leg is also uncomfortable when he walks. [...]

[...] Seemingly he gave up a certain identification with nature, and as a result he will finally come to appreciate it from an entirely different viewpoint.

[...] It seems to me that by now he could learn to trust his impulses. He did not feel that he wanted to lecture or to be connected with the group as yet, and indeed the time has not yet come. He will be involved with that organization. [...]

I certainly hope that he will be. Tell him that he is as stubborn out of his body as he is when he is in it. [...]

[...] Seth told us that he had been a Catholic in two past lives. In another past life, Seth said he had been a member of a religion that no longer existed in our terms; that he would tell Jane and me about it some time, and that we would find it very interesting.

[...] (Humorously:) He (Jane) need not type my own book up unless he learns to spell better, however. [...] He has put me off on it to some extent.

He still believed in the fantastic ability of destruction, and he tried to cover it up. He did not believe that strongly in the creative function of his own being, and in the natural abundance of life itself. He was more pessimistic than you realized. [...]

He is sitting inside looking out at the clean windows he has just washed from the outside. [...] What will he say and what will he do—his joy and release, and forget the how.

He did indeed fear destruction so that he saw it everywhere, and therefore in himself. [...] In one frown of yours he saw ten, and imagined all kinds of dire thoughts were going on within your head. [...]

If he could not reach out to comb his hair correctly then he was no good, a cripple for life, and useless. Much of this has fallen away, but some patterns remain, though he is now alert to many of them.

When a person recovers from such an ordeal, he [or she] usually grants his recovery to be the result of the medication he has been given. Or he may think that he was simply lucky — but he does not grant himself to have any real power in such an affair. [...] Usually the patient cannot see that he brought about his own recovery, and was responsible for it, because he cannot admit that his own intents were responsible for his own illness. He cannot learn from his own experience, then, and each bout of illness will appear largely incomprehensible.

[...] The child carries with him [or her] the impetus and supporting energy provided him at birth from Framework 2, and he knows intuitively that desires conducive to his development “happen” easier than those that are not. His natural impulses naturally lead him toward the development of his body and mind, and he is aware of a cushioning effect and support as he acts in accordance with those inner impulses. [...] When he gets sick he intuitively knows the reason why, and he knows quite well that he brought about the illness.

[...] The child who gets the mumps with a large number of his classmates, however, knows he has his private reasons for joining into such a mass biological reality, and usually the adult who “falls prey” to a flu epidemic has little conscious awareness of his own reasons for such a situation. He does not understand the mass suggestions involved, or his own reasons for accepting them. He is usually convinced instead that his body has been invaded by a virus despite his own personal approval or disapproval — despite his own personal approval or disapproval (most emphatically). He is therefore a victim, and his sense of personal power is eroded.

[...] He may be told that he has a virus, so that it seems his body itself was invaded despite his will. He learns that such beliefs are acceptable. [...]

We know what he still gets out of them. [...] If Ruburt knew that you were receiving no benefits, but only torment, from his symptoms, then he would give them up on the spot, because of his great loyalty to you, and because he would understand that he was hurting you beyond any benefits he gave.

He was afraid that the body spontaneity would lead him away from mental and psychic agility. [...] He has had to use far more energy to get those messages than is necessary, because he has impeded some of the sections through which information flows. He has cut down on some stimuli, and therefore slowed neurological messages.

(Or when I HAVE decided to get better and improve, I’d change my mind at any “danger”; or I’d get better awhile to make Rob feel better when I think he’d rather just have a normal wife. [But he could have chosen somebody else and he chose me because I had these ideas about work, wouldn’t threaten him with kids, make him get a regular job, keep us focused, etc. [...] Stupid.] Apparently I feel that’s why he married me, and what we had in common.

While Ruburt felt he was doing the right thing, he would put up with almost any inconvenience, or make almost any sacrifice. He must understand that no sacrifice is ever required.

And in the past, he toyed with some of those ideas and positions. When he tried teaching he began to get ill, for he was afraid that he would settle for the respectable-enough prestige it afforded, give in and stop his writing and other pursuits. He was in his late thirties, and sometimes tempted to do so. [...]

[...] As Ruburt wakens, he realizes that nowhere in the dream did he have any reason to hide. No reason was given for the pursuit itself, for he was being pursued now and then at least, by several people.

He began to question as he awakened his motives for such frantic behavior. [...] From which he was seeking escape.

In the first scene in the gallery he is explaining with some eloquence the mental and physical benefits of art, and its action as providing “a natural high.” The word “high” is important, for art, his art—writing, poetry—was his version of, say, the high mass of his childhood, where he and not the priest was in connection with the universe. [...]

[...] He loves you so deeply that he never wants to admit that you are hurt, bitter or sad. He has always thought that you were used, mainly by your mother, but he was afraid that his statements would be misinterpreted because of his own relationship with his parents.

You would not have left your parents so far behind at that time, he felt, except on his behalf. He felt also that you chastised him and held it against him bitterly. He has therefore never pushed you really to make a change since that time, and has pushed such ideas away from him, although he feels that the longer you stay at Artistic the more unhappy you will be; and there is also in him, and in you, a fear of making a move in physical terms. [...]

All of the material given concerning Ruburt’s background and motives is highly legitimate, but it shows clearly why he was willing to take on this role. He thought it would free you. In late months he has seen that it has not.

He would do literally anything to see you relieved and happy, and working productively. He thought, or felt, that by taking on the symptoms of your joint problem, he could free you creatively, and was bewildered when it did not.

Certainly he tried to see to it that his success did not put you down in the eyes of others. [...] At the same time he is not that, of course, since he cannot completely carry out the woman’s role of housekeeping, and so forth—so in that (underlined) way, he also shows that he is a writer. [...]

He believed that his creativity was highly specifically oriented to its artistic expression only. He did not understand that the spontaneous self knows its own order (gently), or that the spontaneous creative self had any notion of his conscious needs and desires. He believed that often creativity expressed itself at the expense of other portions of the self, and that if it were allowed to spill over the edges (with gestures) from artistic productivity into normal living, then it would lead to all kinds of disruptive activity. [...]

[...] He had an unfortunate marriage behind him when you met. When he fell in love, it was wholeheartedly, and he was determined to merge his creativity and his marriage. [...]

[...] If Ruburt understands that, then he will realize he does not have to protect himself privately or socially, for all of his characteristics are meant to help him deal successfully with the challenge he has chosen. [...]

[...] What he thinks immediately is. It is not that he is cold, he has a different kind of thermal quality. He is vast. I am old, but he is vast. [...]

This “other personality” is aware that a part of himself is filtering down, and in his own way he is aware of you and of the room. But he is not aware of you as you know yourselves, and he is scarcely aware of me as I know myself. He is aware of me, but in another context, and in another dimension of existence. [...]

[...] He is not as scintillating as I am—but he has his reasons. [...]

There is also a large effort made when he speaks through Ruburt and an effort on his part. He knows a portion of him is filtering down into this room. [...]

He has noticed, however, that almost immediately afterward his arms are freer, and that he has taken some of the steps there (pointing to the couch) with his weight better distributed, though he is bent way over, and so he has made good efforts to understand. He still needs, however, to remind himself more often to trust the body’s processes, and your help is invaluable in that regard.

Lately, when he lies down, and the pressure is off, his hips, hip joints, and hamstrings have begun new adjustments that are at a certain level uncomfortable—but because that frightens him the discomfort is more than it would be otherwise. He tenses, for example. [...]

It is as I have said before, and the session is to help you and Ruburt trust his own processes, since consciously he cannot know all of the body’s multitudinous happenings. [...]

[...] He should indeed read sessions from the last group, however—one or two daily. [...]

[...] He expects himself to possess all of the qualities that his art tries to entice from human nature. If man can be a natural healer, and he says so, then he personally should heal others and himself. [...] If he is gifted with words in writing, and gifted in speech, then he feels that he should go out bravely into the public arena, and speak out his message to the world.

[...] His subconscious, however, knowing its own beliefs which were given it by the conscious self, after all, feels highly threatened, for it knows not more about Ruburt than he does, but more than Ruburt will admit he knows. He expects himself to do such things, and the minute he gets better, he says, he will go thusly out into the world.

[...] He hoped for the world’s approval, for he knew his work was good. On the other hand he carried the beliefs of this afternoon’s dream—that originality made a person instantly suspect, and that in the ordinary world, if you put yourself in the world’s eye its people would hunt you down. In opposition, he carried the belief that he should go on television, make tours, and so forth, and expose himself in direct opposition to those fears. [...]

Ruburt became frightened, for example, of out-of-body travel when he began to get it in his head that “all the nuts” were doing it too, and that out-of-body activity involved him in an inner public environment, in which he might meet “all those fools” who were then not bound by physical restraints. He did not fear death, for example, at the hands of others, then, but too close emotional contact. He felt people “could get at him” that way.

He tried to regulate his own health through his beliefs, while a part of him still wondered if he was wrong. He tried to maintain his health without medical supervision of any kind. [...] As mentioned, only lately has he realized fully that the authorities, so-called, are failing. He realized, as you have, that the race needs help, and that he has something to offer.

Ruburt turned aside from his book for a while, doubting his own authority, and so to some extent slowed his progress physically—but he did not stop it, and is returned to it. You, Joseph, do not realize emotionally how you can direct your energy to help him overcome what doubts he still has left. Intellectually you appreciate this, but emotionally you can help him, by bolstering him as he does others.

[...] He watered it, and it straightened up. So you must water him with your beliefs in health, and so he must water himself—and there is no impediment. He is as resilient as any plant.

[...] He must believe it. He can.

[...] He should know that inspiration does not come from the ego. He knows this intellectually, but upon this occasion he insists in using his ego as a whip to force speed. In the past he was more sensible in this respect.

He has forgotten the daily joy that comes through simple observation of the day. I here suggest most strongly that until the following Monday at the earliest, he does not work at his writing or his records, that he does not consciously brood over them, and that he divert himself by changing the focus of his conscious awareness.

When he is working his plunge into creativity is deep. [...] If he had taken more time off completely, he would not be in his present position.

It will not do if he resents the time he thinks is lost in relaxation or other pursuits. His intuitive nature will respond easily and enthusiastically when he stops trying to beat it into submission.

[...] He is using the invitation to prove to himself that he is sought after as a lecturer. [...] Without it he will deflate like a balloon; but he is up to the challenge. He will do a good job.

[...] He needs it badly, and I have a note for Miss Taylor: it will hurt Jim Crosson badly if he does not have a part in the program. He needs to feel, particularly after retirement, that he is looked up to and needed, and can hold his own and attract an audience.

He will not make a practice of contacting the departed for their relatives. [...] Otherwise he should leave himself open. [...] It will work to Ruburt’s benefit as he meets other psychics with excellent abilities. He can also learn from the experience.

I was the guide he was searching for, and they were looking for me, though they did not know my name. [...] This is why he was told he could travel no further. He was afraid momentarily there would be no physical world to return to—simply his personal reaction. [...]

[...] He lives in Williamsport, PA, but has witnessed several sessions. At the date of the 166th session he knew of no drug or pharmaceutical firms in Minneapolis. Visiting us this noon while making his rounds, John told us he had checked up on Seth. He gave us the names and addresses of two drug houses that he learned about in Minneapolis. He had not heard of them, and they are both small companies.

He would not accept the responsibility that he felt such ability would put upon him, and so he looked for an outside source of the voices, and dreamed the sequence in which the voices came from a radio, and not his head. In the dream he switches the radio off, hoping to still the voices. They continue because he knows that he is picking them up from a channel that is not physical.

In the dream itself, he goes into his room and discovers that his ability is as much a part of him as his breath, and that he cannot turn it off and on at will, or turn it off as one would a radio. He stands in the room, and there is an electric storm in the dream, and the room is touched by vibrating currents. He is afraid. Nevertheless he realizes that he is part of the storm, and the storm is part of himself, and it is not destructive but creative; and most of all, a simple elemental part of reality as it is.

But he tries again, and in the dream he discovers another radio on your bookcase, Joseph , where our material is kept. The connection is obvious, for he knows that the Seth material comes from the same system as the voices. Here he reaches out to turn the radio off, and is stopped by a severe and sudden shock. The shock is his knowledge that our material would cease were he to shut off his abilities in such a manner. [...]

[...] He said that the image would at intervals become quite a bit stronger, so that he could then glimpse details. [...] He said he felt the cranium was gigantic.

[...] He has been invited to. He has expressed neither belief nor disbelief; he has also listened to part of the tape recording we made of Jane when delivering the 25th session. [...] Someday Jane and I intend to put the pressure on Sam and make him attend a session, no matter how busy he is. [...]

(As soon as break arrived, Bill announced that he had seen an image in the doorway of the bath; it was this that had drawn his attention as Jane dictated. Bill asked for a sheet of paper and immediately set to work on a sketch of what he had seen. He is an artist and schoolteacher.

(Bill Macdonnel said that the dark bath doorway turned into a foggy white; he then saw the form of Seth’s apparition stand out against this lighter background. The form was mainly a silhouette, he said, without much detail; yet during the first monologue he obtained a strong look or glimpse of the face. [...]

I will not go into this deeply this evening, except to say that he was thoroughly shocked. In many ways he is indeed a creature of habit, and he feels comparatively safe at the gallery and hates to give up a retreat which has helped financially, certainly. Where his writing is not concerned, and when he relates himself to the world at large, he is timid, fearful, and without the confidence that his inner knowledge of his own worth should certainly give him.

[...] He is actually more frightened by business relationships than you are, to say the least, even granting that his training is not as specific. As he begins to understand these issues he will expand, as he should in these directions.

Selling door to door had to him the subjective advantage in that he was master of the situation, and was indeed the invader. [...] This will no longer work, and I suggest he not consider it. In his own way he had been brooding. He would like some prestige in terms of position and financial benefit, that earlier did not concern him.

He is confident of his basic worth as an individual, as a writer, and even finally as a wife in relationship to you. But when he relates to the world at large, his first unfortunate reaction is a panic that is derived from psychological and emotional heritage, environmental as he picked up his mother’s distrust of the outside.

[...] He prefaced this by saying that we were all friends here tonight, presumably I suppose if the information was considered to be personal. Just before this he had mentioned again the similarity between Jane’s mother and Bill’s mother. Now he said that Walter Zeh had also been an invalid in a previous life, and a female. For reasons he didn’t go into now, Jane owed Walter Zeh a debt, which she has paid in full. [...]

(Seth said he had unfortunately been involved with some other groups on our plane, in seance gatherings. He spoke very harshly of such “idiotic” gatherings and personalities. At the same time Seth stated he was not a spirit, although if he materialized in the middle of the floor we would pay more attention and not take him for granted.

[...] The voice was somewhat unusual, Seth told us; he himself was not interested greatly in physical effects or proofs, but realized they might be necessary to us, or scientists. He was interested, he said, in effects like the voice, or Jane’s facial changes. There was much that he and Ruburt could do; there was also much they could not do. [...]

[...] Seth, talking about physical effects, said that he could probably have levitated the small coffee table we sat around tonight, with Ruburt’s help. [...] Seth then said he had caused the flame to grow. It stayed brighter for several minutes as he continued talking, then died down. [...]