“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

It will automatically tempt him to walk about. The two levels of the house are good. The stairs will be a part of living. There is privacy, but it is tempered by the open air of the hill, yet still the distance is maintained that is necessary for each of you. It is not claustrophobic privacy.

More than that, however, as far as you are both personally concerned, you have a built-in sense of distance that gives the house actually an extra dimension of privacy that is not within the grounds themselves, yet adds to that aura. The house is set itself atop its own knoll, which to Ruburt at least gives a fortress feeling, in that he can look down and see who is coming.

The private-type yards, the house on its own knoll, say clearly “We are not neighborhood barbecue people.” There is not an easy access from house to house. People who relate in a cozy, more or less openhearted way with their neighbors like adjoining patios. They may put up a screen for privacy, but all in all they prefer more or less constant neighborly give-and-take.

There are points to be considered also in the Levine affair, for our bemused Dr. Levine would cut out all of nature, you think, if he had the chance, and as Ruburt said, sterilize the neighborhood. His response there was excellent for him, as you said. You both do need privacy for your work and because of your natures, but if you try to find a home with no dogs or children within miles, then in another way you are doing what Sam Levine is trying to do, only in your own way. To you, far more acceptable, of course, than his way.

(Jane finally became quite angry and vexed, and burst out talking about the lack of privacy in 330 today. This was all part of our free-association material today, May 2. She vehemently expressed her feelings, with tears, that if she wanted privacy, being in the hospital wasn’t the way to get it. She’d always wanted privacy, she added. “It’s pretty dumb, because I sure as hell don’t get any privacy this way,” she exclaimed — and I thought she was clearing a road, as Seth had suggested last session.

[...] You both do need privacy for your work and because of your natures, but this does not mean that you should try to find a place with no [distractions] within miles. It does mean that you settle for a reasonable amount of privacy, in that you do not carry the idea to extremes.

The Foster house represents many things, and though it is not on a hill it stands for your feelings of secrecy and privacy. [...] The hill house has some privacy. [...]

[...] It provides privacy yet openness. [...]

[...] You both also had from other existences strong drives toward privacy and secrecy. The television program you saw about monasteries and privacy to some extent applies here, for in the hurly-burly of medieval life there was no privacy for thought.

In some ways the monks and the outlaws had much in common: a desire for privacy, a bent for independence, an unconventional curiosity, and yet a need for some kind of communal existence, for there was no technology to support such people.

[...] Some of those experiences led you both to desire a certain privacy while remaining in the midst of a community, and here again Ruburt’s condition came into service, giving you a built-in reason for not going out into the world.

You need privacy, and I am concerned. Privacy will actually help you deal with the outside world in a more efficient manner, that will enable you to receive benefits from the outside world because of a more relaxed attitude toward it.

[...] The house offered privacy but seemed to raise as many questions as it answered, one of them being that it was situated on a hillside and was accessible only by a very steep dirt road that was not maintained by either state or county.

Your reluctance to buy a home with actually adequate privacy but without large acreage stems from a sort of self spite. [...]

Later, and Ruburt sensed part of this, a simple and inexpensive enclosure here would provide the utmost in privacy. [...]

Your father’s creativity, as mentioned (in other sessions), before, had its side of secrecy, privacy and aloneness. [...]

[...] The old framework was so restrictive that your ideas of secrecy, protection and privacy made you want to protect yourself to such a degree that you did not want your paintings to sell, to share them with others. [...]

[...] For Ruburt, dancing, his one inclination to flaunt himself, comes into direct conflict with your ideas of privacy and secrecy. [...]

Ruburt used his body as a symbol of the entire situation, and the symptoms as a way of maintaining privacy, and lack of distraction on both of your parts—again, inhibiting sexual freedom, spontaneous outings that threatened both of your ideas. [...]

[...] (Long pause.) You will have to protect your privacy, simply because you are the kind of people you are. [...]

[...] The area has brought together diverse kinds of people, united by love of nature, some airy spaces, and some privacy … The people are also achievers of one kind or another, and while [your goals may be different] you appreciate the fact that they are trying to do something with their lives. [...]

[...] They have only met them at receptions (with amusement). They have an almost childlike wonder and curiosity about such matters, and will actually give you as much privacy as you want.

The hill property represents a certain kind of security, then — financial, spiritual, and artistic — but an open security, in which there is relative privacy without an overemphasis upon secrecy, which is something different.

[...] This offends your sense of privacy while reading poetry to others does not. [...]

The two apartments helped, but in a way there is less privacy because of the public hall, you see. [...]

[...] The feelings of privacy you enjoy, yet the need also for some neighborly encounters that you also require. [...]

[...] At one time Ruburt could walk in the yard, you see, in privacy. [...]

[...] For a while the whole house had feelings of privacy when the same tenants, for example Lucy, were here for some time. [...]

[...] Ruburt has a basic though well-disguised need for privacy, as you do Joseph, though your need is not disguised. This is a need for privacy from the outside world that I speak of.

[...] Many of his Florida contortions had to do with a simple need, basic for him, having to do with space, orderliness and privacy. [...]

[...] I will tell you the reasons later, but regardless of his flamboyance and seeming disregard, he needs space division of certain activities, and privacy from the outside world. [...]

You are so consciously aware of your need for privacy and you are so consciously modest, that his very strong but mostly unconscious needs in these directions sometimes go unsatisfied, since he is not as consciously aware of them.

[...] He likes privacy as well as you do. [...]

[...] There may be further complications, in which the person insists that phones were bugged, letters opened, and privacy was constantly invaded.

(8:32; eventually a one-minute pause.) The symptoms have served to “allow you” a certain privacy, A certain detachment from the world, while at the same time providing a way of relating to others, of sharing life’s misfortunes so that it might not be said, for example, that as artists or people you lived in an ivory tower, untouched by life’s usual dilemmas. [...]

Making a portion of the nighttime hours available in one way or another at least occasionally is also another way of breaking up habitual reactions, and of assuring a certain kind of privacy, using a completely different method entirely. [...]

[...] Each child should be told that his body, or her body, is a precious private possession, however, so that it is easy to build up a desirable feeling of bodily privacy, without any hint of shame or guilt.

[...] In the future you may need some kind of organization, but you must preserve your privacy.

Your father’s creativity, as mentioned [in earlier, unpublished sessions] had its side of secrecy, privacy and aloneness … you identified creatively with his private nature. [...]

[...] Boxes and boxes of letters are now at Yale University Library, where their privacy is protected. [...]

[...] The living room can be closed off by old-fashioned glass doors, so we closed those and had relative privacy even though the children passed back and forth on the other side. [...]

(I had no calls or disturbances of any kind this morning, and greatly enjoyed the privacy. [...]