“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Dare he let himself be aware of these feelings when he feels them, give expression to them, since they also involve you? [...] While legitimate in themselves he watches your reaction to them very closely.

[...] But if he seems afraid it is because he fears, in an exaggerated manner, that if given freedom he would want you, and you would consider this disruptive, of work and schedule.

[...] He is saying, really, is it safe to admit all feelings now? (I nodded yes.) He is at the point you see where he is beginning to do so. [...]

Ruburt held back from the recognition of desire, physical desire, for many reasons, and subconsciously now that he has begun listening to his inner feelings, he has been using this as a sort of test case.

(Humorously:) He wants you to be a success while you are young enough to enjoy it. (I laughed.) Because he is younger he feels he should not be successful first. [...] To some extent he overexaggerated your response to emotionalism as he came to think of it, during your illness. This is also connected to your work in that he was afraid that his quite natural emotions would frighten you, and therefore impede your work.

Since he does not use his unconscious knowledge of your work in daily life, and since you do not talk of it often, then he searches your face to see how you may have done. He feels guilty when you are working if he is not, for fear you will think his success is coming too easily. [...]

[...] Intuitively he understands much about your work that he does not realize he knows.

[...] If you are particularly proud of a given painting, and he does not emotionally relate to it, then he feels guilty, or afraid he will offend.

He sees more than you do, or more than his mother does, because he does not yet realize that you only accept certain patterns and reject others. By the time he is born he has already learned to accept his parents’ idea of what reality is. In a large sense he begins to train himself to focus only upon what you would call physical reality, though he still partially perceives other fields that you do not accept.

This was not a dream, but the first clear recognition on your father’s part that he was ready to leave the physical plane entirely. [...] He had not fully made the decision earlier. [...] There was nothing else he would do here. He discarded the paper. Earlier he had held it even though it was empty.

You recognized the entity that he will become, and so did your father, unconsciously, when he took the picture. He also contacted you once through the (Ouija) board. [...] He gobbles great insights, and they bring him sorrow until he learns what they mean. [...]

These are not sharp images, but he already begins to build up ideas of shape and form. [...] He can see through closed eyelids in other words. He is aware of light and shadow, of shape and form, though he must learn to distinguish those portions of the available field of reality that you accept as objects, from the available field that you do not accept as objects. [...]

[...] Through those years he considered himself an outcast from society, and he did not know where his abilities were leading. He tried to toe the mark while doing his own thing. He did not identify with the world or its people. He identified mentally, however, with science, with the avant-garde, and so was sustained. At the gallery, for example, when your psychic work began, he did not speak out, and you encouraged him not to, and you both considered this as a scientific kind of breakthrough. When Ruburt discovered that his energy and abilities had led him to a point where he was at odds with religion and science, and had no place to roost, thematically, he became very worried.

He refused several marriage proposals, having determined he would not toe the mark at all in a conventional marriage. He tried a relationship with Walt, but his high spirits and abilities would not stand for that kind of repression. When he met you, he turned to love and science, for by then he had set upon science and the intellect as a safe means of containing his abilities and expressing them.

He found himself with you and his work. He would do what he would do anyway, protecting himself as he thought fit. [...] Since so much of Ruburt’s life was involved with yours, it felt that Ruburt must now toe the mark with you also—at least topside —so that he must not express any contrary opinions, or that you would abandon him also, in which case he would be utterly alone.

Later, when he returned home, he learned that he must toe the mark again, or Welfare would put him in another home. He must not make waves. [...] He finally broke away from the church—running to college—a college considered by the church at the time as communistically inclined, antireligious, and so forth.

[...] I could not force Ruburt to face the dilemma until he felt he was ready to handle it—then he would see it as he does, now, as a challenge. [...] They were behind the reasons that he did not feel he could face the dilemma, but they partially masked it, also.

[...] Ruburt was upset with the psychic reputation, not because it was psychic but because it was not the one he wanted. He is delighted with it as long as he is working toward what he wants. Then he can relax and enjoy it.

[...] He chose not to deal with it however because he was not ready to face the problem, he did not feel himself capable. He was not ready to make the move.

They were not worked through, however, and he stopped the practice. [...] Until he produced Seven, however, he would not really consider facing the dilemma. Seven was the novel that showed him he could (underlined) write fiction.

He thinks basically that it is, and he accepts the basic principles of the work—that is, the Seth material. He still finds reincarnation difficult to accept, but this is not the only sore point. [...] He sometimes is confused about the God concept also. He accepts the source of the material as beyond his usual self. If he were not committed to the material he would have ceased the sessions long ago. [...]

[...] In other areas he feared that the spontaneous self could lead to childbirth. In the psychic area he was afraid it could lead to falsehood, much more for example than he feared anything like schizophrenia. With you, for a while, he felt the spontaneous self brought you only trouble—as per the Florida trip and so forth, and that he had better learn to control it.

Then he realized that the coverage given on your tour, the people being reached, and so then again he wondered. He was also using his writing ability, or putting his writing ability at the hand of the material. Then again it had better be legitimate, since it was obvious he was being interviewed as a psychic who wrote, rather than as a writer with psychic abilities.

It made his position clear to him in the world’s eyes, he thought. He did enjoy the publicity and the experience however, and he did, as mentioned, feel let down by Prentice later.

He did voluntarily choose to be born as a son in this existence. Now he rationalizes on a conscious level his reasons for remaining home. You said earlier that around the school there was the expression he “loves them and leaves them”. [...] He is, of course, aware subconsciously of this and acts in such a way for he feels more honest. Through his actions in this life he is trying to make an honest statement about actions in the past. [...] His secrecy also is a direct result of these past existences, for once he spoke too much and betrayed too much, so now he remains secretive about matters that he considers important. [...] He has chosen to act in this particular manner. He would be much freer if he’d realize that the brothers do not hold him responsible. And the betrayal, while a betrayal, was understandable, and that he spoke out of fear and did not intend to betray. [...]

… He is afraid of any contacts that would … It seems here that there is a certain thing that he fears will happen to him if he involves himself in any relationship that would result in a family group. [...] There was a situation involving the three of them and he abandoned them in a way that he interpreted as a betrayal. [...] He will not leave them now for he feels that he abandoned them in the past. In this past of which I speak there was a physical difficulty suffered after he abandoned them; and if he leaves them now, he is afraid that this physical difficulty will return. [...]

([Jane:] “Now see, he’s coming through much stronger than he used to, and it takes me longer to learn how to manage the transition. And I can’t remember hardly anything at all that he said this time, except that he was trying very hard to make his point clear. What did he say about Dick Reed, that’s what I want to know. [...] I knew that he was telling Pat something but I couldn’t eavesdrop.”

[...] He knew I had a crush on him; he knew that most girls did. He flirted with us. [...] Sometimes he’d hold our hands; or if we were in the supply room, shut the door so that we’d be alone and then hold my hand and tease me. Now, thinking back on it, he was rather cruel to do that. [...]

[...] He did not feel that the publisher shared any enthusiasm from the beginning. He did feel that Wollheim did, and had no resentment toward Wollheim, though he did not publish the book. He felt Wollheim’s enthusiasm.

He projected his resentment into the future, and against all other publishers for awhile, anticipating the same sort of response as he felt the ESP book had received. He stopped sending out any material at all, for this reason. It is a healthy sign that he has changed his stand here.

[...] He was angry at Fell for rather obvious reasons, but the reasons involved his work, which touched upon his energy, and this caused then the unfortunate comparison between Fell and Ruburt’s father. He reacted then as Ruburt’s mother reacted when deserted by the father. He adopted the same symptoms if not the disease itself.

[...] (Friday morning, March 3,1967.) He thought he was being put off with the phone call. He did not admit his anger, and attempted to soothe himself with other suggestions.

He abhorred liquor because he was aware of the tales saying that liquor was the Indians’ downfall. He tried to be “civilized,” to counteract the Indian image, and he repressed his feelings. He was an outsider and a small, short, tubercular-looking man. He felt himself a pygmy, because of size and because as an Indian he was put down. He never related to his French background.

[...] That negative quality emerged only when he felt the need for greater protection, when he threatened to become uncivilized—going against his society in unforeseen ways. When he became important at all in world terms, he could no longer be a pygmy, and therefore lost a part of that identification that he felt had protected him against his mother and the feared spontaneity or instincts. So he would become shorter.

[...] He identified with them perfectly however as himself, or versions. [...] The male figure however represented the fact that he believes that strong muscular motion is a male characteristic, and not one that he feels belongs to mentally oriented males. In this life he never sought tall, strongly developed, muscular, large-boned males out, but avoided them. He felt they would not understand his mental properties. Here indeed he saw a symbolic representation of Ruburt—not one that could be physically materialized with his bone structure as a woman, but a figure of idealistic physical proportions that also possessed great mental faculties to match.

There were in-between episodes where he saw himself more or less an adolescent, weak and spindly. That represented a period in his life where he felt physically insecure. At his grandfather’s death he felt betrayed, then, because he had felt his grandfather invulnerable. It was then, though he forgot, that he was given the elixir to strengthen him.

Now, he thought as a child that every night was literally a death, and every dawn literally a rebirth. He was terrified that his mother had died during the night when he was very young, and could not help him. [...] Later he felt that she would either commit suicide or kill them both while he slept, and he feared the night. [...] In the deepest trouble he doubted your feeling for him also, and in exaggerated panic felt that you would feel released if he died, as he felt that he would feel released as an adolescent if his mother died. For in those hours he saw himself crippled as she was, and a stone about your neck.

He rarely slept for more than three hours at a time for years, without interruption, and the old remembered biological pattern returns. Some guilt here, since in the past if he slept four hours he would have known that he slept through his mother’s call. [...]

He should give notice to his Mr. Miller by August first, at the latest, if not earlier. He should expect to make his financial contribution through his classes, and to throw his energy into them, and be patient as he would if he had an outside job.

[...] In a large manner in the past, he went along with your ideas involving the overall atmosphere—underline overall—of the apartment, feeling you would find contrasting elements irritants. [...] He is not so afraid now of making mistakes, or of trusting his own judgment, though he thinks it might conflict with your ideas in any given case. [...]

He sees more than you do, or more than his mother does, because he does not yet realize that you only accept certain patterns and reject others. By the time he is born he has already learned to accept his parents’ idea of what reality is. In a large sense he begins to train himself to focus only upon what you would call physical reality, though he still partially perceives other fields that you do not accept. He is only recognized and his wants satisfied, when he focuses in one particular reality. He learns quickly, then, to discard the others.

These are not sharp images, but he already begins to build up ideas of shape and form. [...] He can see through closed eyelids, in other words. He is aware of light and shadow, of shape and form, though he must learn to distinguish these portions from the available field of reality that you accept as objects, from the available field that you do not accept as objects.

[...] He hears sounds from the physical environment, but also sounds within the available range of reality that you do not accept. When the infant is born, he still hears these sounds and voices, but again, they do not answer his physical needs, nor bring milk when he cries, and gradually he discards them.

For some time he literally perceives many levels of reality at once, and part of what seems to be disorientation is simply the result of early confusion with so much data. According to the individual and the situation, the fetus may still be receiving messages from those he has known in the past. This adds to the confusion, and it is a matter of physical survival that he largely ignores these messages while he learns to focus in physical reality.

[...] He is used to feedback from others. He enjoys ideas, but in that regard he does not trust himself. When he is alone and writing, the distrust of the self becomes apparent. He does not trust the expression without the feedback.

When he learned to write, he thought of writing to express such thoughts, and was always tempted to use writing as an expression of those subjective feelings he felt were forbidden—not just directed toward his father, but feelings of which he felt his father would disapprove. [...]

Sometimes a particular desire, as when he does estimates, will allow him to work unimpeded, because in that area experience has shown him that his estimates are usually more or less correct. There he has anticipated future feedback that he relies upon.

The direct expression through writing confuses him, for he is faced with a different kind of construction, say, than one might feel in a kindergarten, where blocks of wood carry the alphabet, and physical blocks might be moved around to form words. At the same time he is afraid of feedback, and he has learned to minimize his hearing to protect himself from criticism. [...]

[...] He became determined not to pamper himself, but he never did pamper himself to any great extent. He would not buy clothes that you could afford, but wore others given to him by others, as if he did not feel he deserved his own.

[...] They had not been paid for as yet, and he had lost some money earlier. On the way to work he found some sweaters he wanted. To some degree he felt guilty, wanting the sweaters when he had already lost money, and when they were obviously meant to replace the sweaters of his mother.

He did not feed it properly. He denied it full satisfaction in your personal relationship. He tried to make it thin enough to disappear. He tried to douse his normally vital animal spirits, and now the body and the animal spirits do need some such extra attention.

He is willing to compromise by taking various jobs, but here there are other influences also. [...] Only in his last ill year did he work for others. He had his own businesses, but he barely scraped by with them you see.

He took it for granted that, ideally speaking, he should do such public work, that it was his responsibility, but also that it represented a natural expression of abilities that he was denying because of his fears. So often he told himself that if he got better he would only be too glad to go on television or whatever, or to do whatever he was supposed to do. [...]

[...] The news broadcast (for ABC) for example: Suppose he did say yes, he has thought, and even managed to get by with it in his present condition—how many other such interviews might then be offered? [...] Ruburt didn’t feel free to simply admit that he did not like the public arena. He felt he needed excuses, or in his own eyes and the eyes of others he would seem to be a coward. [...]

The important point is that he has felt that he should perform publicly, to promote our ideas, and also because he felt he should do so, since he obviously could do so (all intently). [...]

[...] He told himself that if he were using his abilities as he should, he would then naturally seek out their public expression. [...]

He does not allow it the freedom that he should or set it to work for him as completely as he could. Often when he most believes he is being analytically intellectual, he is instead using the intellect in a surface manner to cover rationalizations.

One of the reasons why he did not understand that the spontaneous intuitive self was the deeply creative and therefore deeply stable self, was that he identified it with his idea of femininity as he unfortunately misunderstood it. [...] He never equated money with respectability or prestige. As a youngster he had no family background or money, and his need to be looked up to and held in esteem could not wait.

He was afraid that as once he felt he dragged you all over the country, you would fear that he was now dragging you all over the inner universe. [...] Now, they have grown less as he understood the inner situation.

[...] It is not as well developed however as he supposes. He could do far more with it. Now he emphasizes its strictly analytical nature, and in so doing puts limitations upon the ways in which he uses it.

For many years, at least seven, he has been deeply concerned about your work, a repressive element in it, and the psychic freedom he felt you needed to release it. Because of the age difference he became very worried. Your best energies were going into your work, he felt, at the job, not into painting, and the very focus divided you. He felt it disloyal to recognize the repressive element in your work, and tried to pretend he did not see it.

He felt these feelings extremely disloyal. He felt your mother was silently accusing him of putting you in a poor light whenever he succeeded. He wanted you to state your position, and say “I am an artist” to her and to the world, but he deeply feared that you considered that attitude irresponsible, frivolous, not practical; and worse, that you felt it negated the sacrifice you made by keeping the job for so long. [...]

[...] Because of his abilities he picked up your feelings all too clearly, but because of his fears he picked up your negative feelings. He was afraid you were not an artist after all. He knew you were not a Sunday painter, but he felt you were greatly repressed in your work, and that any breakthrough could only come when you focused upon it, your work, regardless of other consequences.

He therefore did not discuss any issues with you concerning his own discouragements or fears as they happened. He felt guilty enough because you were working. He did not want to lay extra burdens on you, but he came to resent everything that was provided by a job.

[...] (Pause.) He distrusts the spontaneous which is so a part of his nature. As he worries occasionally about going too far when he is dancing, so he worries the same about the sessions—how far is spontaneity to be trusted, you see. Yet he must trust it, and when he does not do so the difficulties build.

He should begin to write. He should not read and reread endlessly notes that he has made, for as he begins to work he will find himself writing.

Now, he is not afraid of me. He is afraid of the unknown. He is afraid of giving fully his abilities and commitment to what he does not thoroughly comprehend. [...]

He looks to you to look out for him in psychic matters. He allows his spontaneity freedom in sessions because he knows that you will carry on for him those usual sensory characteristics that he temporarily dispenses with.

[...] One day he could run away from his mother, and he did. One day he could leave Walt, and he did. But he loved you deeply, and there was no place he could run to, nor from the problems presented by your parents.

He adopted the symptoms partially out of example, both from his mother and from your own illness. He has made gains, but he had not made gains as far as fears were concerned at all. [...] He was not consciously aware enough of the fears, he had shoved them so far underground.

[...] He had tried to dissociate himself from unpleasantness because he was surrounded by so much. He led a very active physical life however, and to some degree then could work off some of the emotional feelings that were repressed. He began in our work to become more aware of these feelings, and extremely frightened at expressing any of them, for many of the reasons given by me in the past.

Many of the fears have been trivial but he would not discuss them. [...] A gray day becomes therefore a symbol that the sunny inner self is clouded, and he feared he could not change himself any more than he could the weather.

[...] He felt this also in his relationship with you—that he could serve you best by writing and cutting out all other activities. When he had his last series of excellent improvements, he paid attention to the sessions I gave him on his ideas of work. He cannot smother the person and cultivate the flower of his talent. What he had achieved as a writer and as a psychic has been achieved despite his methods—not because of them.

Now because neither of you wanted children, his books were considered part of his wifely duty; substitutes, he felt, that were better than the originals. He felt, then, that he could produce far better books than he could children. [...]

[...] In one session—he remembers it—I told him to write for three hours daily. When he did so he not only produced excellent work on Aspects, but frequently felt the urge to write more. He also improved physically, rather dramatically.

He must see that the writer’s freedom and ability is dependent upon his being a free person. [...] If he remembers his instinctive feeling for nature he will know that he belongs outside as well as inside.

He is overall good-natured, of good intent, as ready to serve the indulgences of others as his own. But he is not what you call a businessman. He is too warm, in this particular context, now—he wants to be liked and approved of, so he lets others take advantage of him—and when he knows this it makes him angry. Yet he continues on the pattern.

He has, particularly in the past, been almost contemptuous of those with regular habits, regular ways. He has sought out to some extent the strange and the bizarre, and he believes, now, as he did earlier, in the importance of conflict as a way of keeping a man on his toes. [...] As he reached 50, his beliefs about age rose to the forefront. This was the time of caution and danger, when a man could retire, settle for security, give in to complacency—or even become a gentleman farmer—as he was at times tempted to do (with amusement).

(9:16.) He likes the farmer image, but he is afraid that being a farmer would cut him off from the commerce with the marketplace that he now enjoys, and the hearty comradeship. [...] He is slightly contemptuous of it, while liking what it can buy. He is slightly contemptuous of the wealthy, or those in social positions. He enjoys needling them, while at the same time traveling in their circle.

He battles his beliefs about age, yet he is frightened that with age comes complacency, stagnation. All of his life he has sought comradeship with others. He enjoys the easy commerce of the marketplace, the unpredictability of being a contractor.