“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Today he almost walked three times. Imaginatively, he did walk three times. The body immediately responded, so that he wanted to walk more. [...] He wants to walk. [...]

[...] He must show that for all of his youth he is world-weary, not easily taken in, that he is objective—and only then can he allow his creative abilities to flow. [...]

Ruburt does not need to feel that he would naturally, left alone, go out into the world, into the arena, and convince the world of our ideas, or think that with his energy unimpeded that would be part of his natural mission. [...] Nor would he be necessarily more fulfilled in that role, and it is that imagined, frightening role against which he pushes, and then retreats.

He is not “meant to be” that kind of person.

[...] I tell you that the recovery is more or less assured—as long as he does not backtrack in beliefs. When he learns he learns, however, so I do not expect backtracking. It might seem that all of this should happen without any soreness, that he should simply feel better and better, but such an attitude would also attempt to deny the body’s resiliency, and to short-circuit it.

[...] You understood what Ruburt had been working through—at a much lighter level, of course, and at least to some degree Ruburt could feel that he was helping you physically. You also together solved the other problems mentioned, where he did not panic, as he might have in the past, but continued his own improvement.

[...] He feels that he has lost his power, because he does not believe that the individual, with all his capacities, really has any effective power in the cultural world. [...]

[...] He obviously could not walk well. He obviously had difficulties, but you were both ashamed of those difficulties, so that he was ashamed to go into the bar or the supermarket, regardless, and to some extent this still applies.

[...] He has begun Seven, and so it must be finished (underlined), because, while he loves the book, he has begun to think of it as “work.” So poetry lately, again, does not fit in, for he must have a certain number of pages to show “that he has used his time properly.”

(Amused:) I often break off book dictation also at certain times to help relieve Ruburt of feelings of responsibility, when he thinks that he should have book sessions because of the responsible work involved. Poetry, painting, and out-of-bodies are quite as much a part of his “work” as anything else he does. [...]

[...] He does not have a responsibility to sit constantly at his table, as if creative ideas could only find him there. This does not mean, again, that there is anything wrong with his sitting at his table five hours steadily if he wants to, but that he must loosen his beliefs about work and responsibility. [...]

[...] Figuring out how he will get such-and-such done an hour or two hours from then—so he foreshortens the moment, in that it becomes far less full than it is capable of being for him.

This immobilization was in itself a lesson, and he has learned it. He conquered mentally and emotionally, and therefore he conquered finally in physical terms. [...] He is fond of saying that if you cannot control events, you can control your reactions. He did not do so well here, however, and he is considering only a half-truth in the above statement.

[...] It is now on the mend, and he should experience no further difficulties. He should automatically now give himself the suggestions mentioned in this session, before he reads a letter from his mother. [...] There is no great danger here, but since you know he is not inoculated, it should be done. [...]

[...] He is to visit us on September 1. Jane is particularly interested to talk business with him. [...]

[...] His indispositions taught him this is a way that he will not forget. [...]

[...] Years ago, before the psychic experience, he was not for example psychically spontaneous to any great degree. He used his writing to hold back and yet contain his innate psychic knowledge. He disapproved of his own dancing, sometimes even of his sexual yearnings. [...] He would through the years begin to approve of spontaneity in one more area—spontaneity in class, for example—or with Sumari poetry, or in finally approving his own psychic writings. The disapproval was still present, however; yet now and then through the years would come a period of release, of sudden ease and sudden physical improvement—each time when he suspended self-disapproval, and when for your reasons you began to suspend your own.

[...] When Christ said “Believe in me, and you will be saved,” he meant “Believe in your relationship to God, in that you are his son, as I am, and you will surely be saved.” Again, he spoke in religious terms, for those were the terms of the times. [...]

[...] He was not identified with his failures or limitations, but instead with his potential.

[...] That vitality allows for different readings, of course, and through man’s changing development he reads his myths differently, yet they serve as containers for intuitional knowledge.

[...] While Seth is not “blatantly” male, in his actions and speech he is more a man’s man than the woman’s man type. [...] While he is a teacher, he is not basically the stereotyped “spiritual guide” either. He is simply himself—which may, after all, be the badge of his own independent existence.

[...] Apparently he has considerable “presence.” He reacts to others, and relates much better than I do to people from various walks of life. As the excerpts show, though, he has made it plain that the characteristics by which we know him are only a portion of his personality and those he finds most helpful in getting our attention and delivering the material.

[...] … Now when you watch, say, educational television, you see the teacher, and he speaks. He may or may not actually be speaking at that time, for you may be watching a film. But the teacher exists whether or not he is speaking at that time, and his message is legitimate. [...]

[...] Seth is not static; he does not just methodically deliver the material as if we were recorders. He responds to questions, so that to some extent the questions put to him must, at times, cause him to change the particular way he discusses a particular subject.

[...] But these are to be carried on but once daily, and if he tries any other sort of experiment, such as he tried with the Father Trainor poetry session last week, then he is not to attempt his regular psychological time experiment for that day.

[...] And also, I am at present against these fairly frequent sessions where, on the one hand, Ruburt pretends that he is merely resting; that is, he pretends to himself, but actually he is expanding his energies, and expending them just as quickly, for this amounts to more than one psychological time experiment daily.

[...] This has been mentioned in the past, but Ruburt became so fearful of his own spontaneity in early life that he was more or less forced, out of fear, to deny the validity of his identity with the inner self. On some occasions, as the other evening, he spontaneously accepts this identification, particularly when alcohol acts as a depressant.

Then he dares to go forward, only then he must rush. [...]

He was taking you to a concert. [...] The horses panicked, and he fell beneath a hoof. You never forgave yourself, and now in your first reincarnation as a woman since that time, you decided to be the vehicle through which he could enter physical reality again, and so became his mother in physical terms.

For various reasons, and because you did not understand, you held it against yourself that once you accidentally killed him, and then when he was a child you gave him away. [...] There were other entries available, but he understood your purposes, and accepted you as a mother to show you that he held no grudges. [...]

[...] He was impatient with you at times for he remembered you as a companion in male pursuits, and bitterly resented your femininity.

[...] He went to adjust a bridle. [...]

[...] My father was in the dream with me as I knew him in “real” life, and oddly enough he was about the same age as I was in the dream. [...] Anyhow, he used a phrase that I remembered when I woke up: “I live in a brown-paper-bag part of town,” meaning a lower middle-class neighborhood; he implied that that was his station in life, and that he had no idea of trying to change it, or felt that he couldn’t. In the dream I wore a brown faded coat and perhaps a small matching hat. [...]

[...] Then he became aware that those particular thoughts were intrusive, completely out of context with his immediately previous ones, for only a moment or so earlier he had been congratulating himself precisely because he had made no plans for the day or evening at all that would involve guests or other such activities. Very shortly he forgot the entire affair. Then, however, about fifteen minutes later he found the same ideas returning, this time more insistently.

[...] Ruburt found himself wishing that the friends lived closer, and he was suddenly filled with a desire to see them. He imagined the couple at the house, and surprised himself by thinking that he might indeed call them later in the day and invite them down for the evening, even though he and Joseph had both decided against guests that weekend.

[...] This time, however, he decided not to call his friends, and he went about his business. [...]

[...] More is involved than the simple question: Did he perceive the visit precognitively? More is involved than the question: Did he perceive his information directly from the minds of his friends, or from the letter itself, which had already been mailed, of course, and was on its way to Ruburt at the time?

[...] The scientist begins tipping tables or whatever, and suddenly disgusted by the limits of scientific knowledge, he turns all of his dedication to what he thinks of as its opposite, or pure intuitive knowledge. Thus, he blocks his reason as fanatically as earlier he blocked his intuitions. The businessman who believed in Darwinian principles and the fight for survival, who justified injustice and perhaps thievery to his ideal of surviving in a competitive world — he suddenly turns into a fundamentalist in religious terms, trying to gain his sense of power now, perhaps, by giving away the wealth he has amassed, all in a tangled attempt to express a natural idealism in a practical world.

(Pause.) A particular idealist believes that the world is headed for disaster, and [that] he is powerless to prevent it. Having denied his impulses, believing them wrong, and having impeded his expression of his own power to affect others, he might, for example, “hear the voice of God.” That voice might tell him to commit any of a number of nefarious actions — to assassinate the enemies that stand in the way of his great ideal — and it might seem to him and to others that he has a natural impulse to kill, and indeed an inner decree from God to do so.

[...] Man must not only act, but he must act constructively, and he must feel that he acts for good ends.

[...] Eight weeks later he’s still following that arrangement, that “unspoken agreement” among the three of us. [...]

Now he knows what I know, though some experiences that are uniquely mine, he can never know as I know them. When I know all he knows, then symbolically speaking I will be where he is—but then also symbolically speaking, he will be gone.

[...] He does have abilities. He is aware of them to some degree. However he does not utilize them, and does not realize their import.

(Just before break ended Jane said: “Seth was gone during break, but he just came back; I can feel him. [...] I’ll bet he went to Boston.” [...]

He has also helped others, those with whom he had any emotional contact, when clairvoyantly aware of their situation.

He looked right through me, taking no notice of me at all. [...] “Sam,” I said again, but he walked briskly past. I looked at him fully in the face, running ahead of him, ready to confront him with “What’s the matter with you?” But, instead, I realized that he didn’t see me. He never saw me at all.

[...] Consciousness was independent of the body — Seth was right — and if that was true, then there was no reason why he couldn’t be what he said he was: an independent personality, out of the flesh. [...]

[...] When Ruburt learned about the projected operations, he leapt to the conclusion that this was the meaning of the dream. Subconsciously, however, he knew that far more was involved. [...]

[...] It was difficult for him to ask questions and take notes at the same time, but if possible, he wanted the questions answered before he forgot them.

[...] A man may dream of a childhood experience in which he was bitten by a dog. [...] Not because he is necessarily connected with the dreamer, but because the experience will strike at him emotionally, and he will then attract the dream.

[...] He has forgotten about us until very late. He lies down. (Pause at 10:10.) He seems to be in a dissociated state, but whether or not it was produced purposely I do not know.

[...] Seth’s whiskey connection arises from the fact that he was drinking heavily at that time in Asheville; the only time he did so. [...] If her youngest child, a boy, had listened, he did so at the age of one. [...]

Now these same sort of emotional systems operate under all conditions, and they regulate the kinds of experience to which an individual is susceptible or open, and they close out from his awareness those experiences which he has already decided he will not accept. [...]

In such a state he literally uses incredible power, in terms of energy, now; and the volume of the voice in many cases is an attempt to help him use some of this, and discharge it, while he learns how to use it, and until he is taught other purposes to which it can be put. The volume, of course, can also be used as an excellent demonstration of the vitality with which he is in touch.

I refer readers to Ruburt’s Introduction, in which he compares his own creative experiences as a writer to those he feels in our sessions. There are several points he did not understand, and so here I would like to clear them. [...]

In our own sessions he is not aware, consciously, of the creative work that is being done, precisely because he has gone out of the range that the conscious mind can follow. He has projected a portion of himself into an entirely different kind of subjective reality, a different dimension of activity entirely.

Referring to his Introduction again, he remarks that he misses the excitement of the chase, encountered in his own creative work. Here, you see, the acceleration is so rapid and intense that he is not consciously able to follow it. [...]

[...] The fact is, had he followed my suggestion then, affairs for him would have been much simpler. As it is, on his own with your help, because of quite practical events, he has chosen to leave, after having accepted the assistant directorship. Had he taken my suggestion when I gave it, affairs would have gone smoother. [...]

[...] He blocked some of that material. [...] I knew he would leave in any case. I wanted him to leave before he was offered the position. [...]

He tried to scream, could not for a frozen moment, then he screamed and ran. [...] The interval during which Ruburt could not scream represented the frozen interval of indecision, in which he could not act.

[...] Ruburt also had a dream which gave him clear warning of trouble, the dream in which he was at the home of the art gallery president. He, Ruburt, opened a strange door to find a threatening male figure therein.

This next may sound Pollyannaish to an extreme, but he should make it a point to help another human being in any small way, without expecting thanks, three times a week. I do not suggest, you see, that he do this on purpose daily, lest it develop psychologically into a self-sacrificial ritual. And I also most strongly suggest that three times a week in a very quiet, disciplined but positive manner, he makes it a point to express himself when any matters arise where he holds a diverse opinion from the one being presented.

He should take a half-hour’s brisk walk. [...] I also suggest, merely as a matter of discipline, that he contemplate his part in the universe, so that he senses an enlargement of self in which personal worries and obsessions will not loom so large.

With such a firm foundation he will indeed be most successful, and he can achieve such a foundation. Then he can apply inner knowledge to the ego’s environment. [...]

[...] He should express himself when he feels a diverse opinion, when he feels wronged. [...]

Actually, the board first gave a few messages from a personality called Frank Withers, who insisted that he had known our neighbor, Miss Cunningham. I didn’t take this very seriously at first, but he also said that he knew an elderly woman who worked with me at the local art gallery where I had a part-time job. When questioned, this woman told me that she had known such a man, though he had merely been an acquaintance.

[...] He was fifty-three when he died. [...] Then another cobbler came and Albert helped out in the shop again … He finally married. [...]

[...] He was walking along a flat, dusty, reddish road. I think he was barefoot, though now I wonder about some kind of rudimentary sandal. He had a brownish, long robe flapping about the calves of his legs. [...]

Then my visitor sat with my husband,
And smiled out through my eyes at the cat.
With me out of the way, he seemed quite at home.
“Good evening. I’m Seth,” my lips spoke.
He began walking my body about
As if getting accustomed to arms and legs.
I’d never been so astonished,
To be locked out of myself like that.

[...] He thought, for example, of his own pajamas that he wears now instead of the jeans he wore before, and it seemed to him that in all his strivings he had in one way or another also acted like your friend whose jeans kept turning into the Turkish towel: he had been trying to protect an important way of relating to the world, or to protect a way of life. [...]

[...] He represents someone highly gifted artistically, and therefore stands for your artistic self as you might have idealized it when you knew that young man. When he tries to put on ordinary working clothes, however, something happens: the shorts keep changing into a Turkish towel, and harder he tries to pull the pants on the more and more they change, until there is no mistaking that the shorts simply will not do. [...]

[...] He wondered if he did not have the responsibility, again, to spread the psychic message outward. [...] Your discussion reminded him of how he used to be (pause), and also brought up in his mind the seeming contradictions of creativity, in that it is private, but usually ends up as some kind of public expression. [...]

[...] The whole nature of your independent and joint creativity involved a retreat from the world that you both enjoyed, followed by, in the case of books, an expression in the world—in which, however, the books appeared in your stead: a way of life that involved usual publicity—lectures and so forth—seemed to threaten that kind of existence to Ruburt, in which he feared expression itself would be diverted, simplified, so that the message that finally did get through would not be the same message at all as the original one. Yet still, because of misunderstandings and old beliefs, he still felt a responsibility to act otherwise, a social pressure to do so. [...]

Give us a moment please… We find we do not believe that he is interested in the kind of relationship that you have in mind. He is somewhat sentimentally intrigued, but he is not about to change the framework of his days, and he is not resolute. He realizes that basically you expect what he cannot give. [...]

He could write music. It seems he stole scores and sold them to recognized composers. [...]

(John said he did not give his missive to Philadelphia the same interpretation as Seth, when he wrote it; but that Seth’s interpretation could be correct, and therefore the results could very well be as Seth predicts.

[...] One is given to reading books, though he does not carry a portable bar in his car.