“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Inspiration and creativity he felt he could trust, but never felt he could trust his working capacity in the way he thought of work. At the same time other activities became taboo as not-work, so it was “wrong” to putter about the house in his work hours, and equally wrong to work after hours, when people who worked should be free.

A note: in creativity play and work are invisibly entwined. In your society however work often implies something you have to do, a chore that must be performed for monetary reasons. With Ruburt the play-work elements that had once been together became separated; from play-work to work-play, and occasionally the combination simply became work.

Ruburt’s normal “work periods” would often involve nonconventional hours, however, precisely because they were nonconventional. Each morning he felt it his duty to get up at a decent hour to go to work. At the same time artistic work had other connotations. Everything else was unimportant by contrast, so that other pursuits became taboo. If you went out in the day people knew you were not working. You early used the word “chores” for activities in which Ruburt took a childish delight. With his literal-mindedness, and for reasons given in the past, he also began to think of them as chores. Otherwise he would want to do them and not work.

All of his ideas of responsibility became attached to the word “work.” In the past as given, he wanted to prove to you that he was working at home while you worked outside. Later when money became involved, then for a while fun writing had to come after working hours.

[...] Your work would be clear and unimpeded. [...] You felt like working and so you worked. It would make little difference, and this applies to each of you, whether you worked 12 hours for three days straight, or whether you worked more regular hours. Following your inclinations, you would discover your own prime working creative rhythm.

You would be working intensely when you work, and your relaxation periods would be far more refreshing. Your work would come easier. [...] You do chores often when you feel like working, and often when there is no real necessity to do them. [...] On the other hand, you often work when you do not feel like it, but need other refreshment, simply because of course you have already tired yourself through the ensuing dilemmas.

[...] If you faithfully followed through on your moods, inclinations and leanings, in, say, any given week, you would discover that you wanted to work, felt like working, and worked well for certain periods of time.

On other occasions you would not feel like working. You would not force yourself to work on those occasions, for your natural need for play of some kind —outings or guests—would then assert themselves. [...]

He wrote despite the fact that he had to work, and out of love of writing. When work in terms of making money was applied to writing, then divisions occurred in his attitude as to what might be salable and bring money, and therefore fall into the work category—and what might not be salable but highly creative regardless.

[...] Working home meant working home, so he shut down impulses that might make him become distracted ,or want to go out when others were working.

If he thinks in terms of doing what he wants to do, even if he assigns time to the pursuits, he is better off than labeling anything work. Out-of-bodies, writing and spontaneous impressions are all things he likes to do, but some fell inside his work category and some did not. [...] Then have him “work” with them, and use them to his advantage. [...]

Now: when Ruburt worked out for money his ideas and beliefs concerning work were divorced from his ideas about creativity.

[...] He felt he needed financial freedom in order to work, but in those terms work was equated with the Protestant work ethics, where spontaneity was frowned upon. Artistic work will show its own regularity. It will find its own schedules, but your joint ideas of work hours were meant to fit in with a time-clock puncher’s mentality, and not your own.

Left alone, you would both work many hours, but under completely different mental conditions. Left alone, you would both have altered your schedules simply because creative work enjoys variety. You would each have had periods where you worked nights for a while, and then days, or whatever, or when you began work at eight and worked until one in the morning. [...]

[...] You have not understood the connections between your work and your life. [...] You cannot separate your work from your life. Spontaneity as you understand it now, in the light of your knowledge, can only add to your work, for it is not meaningless license, nor is it composed of impulses contrary to your work. [...]

The Protestant work ethics give you great technology sometimes. [...] Protestant work ethics do not produce great art, and they can finally undo the good that they have done, by turning all work into a meaningless performance in which the product itself becomes a means to an end, and loses any esthetic value.

[...] Let’s return to the basis: the dedication to “work.” This in itself is good, but his idea of “work” was what limited him, and what is still limiting him. His life is his “work.” [...]

[...] Ruburt wonders how much wasted energy went into Picasso’s antics—that should have gone into his work. [...] Picasso’s free flow of energy in all areas freed energy for his work, and did not detract from it. He kept his channels to energy open, therefore the energy flowed through his work freely, and in a short period of time he could produce a painting that might take years for another as gifted to produce, who husbanded his talent as a miser.

Those purposes involve each of you and your work, and those methods that you think are necessary to direct your energies “properly,” husband your energy, and protect you from what you think of as a hostile world. [...] He is afraid of not directing them into his “work.” He is convinced that he must protect you and himself from any spontaneity not reflected in work, and from the world.

5. Symptoms keep me at my work, can’t do much else; they stop me from frittering away my time, provide built-in discipline that makes up for other people’s work hours. Like we don’t get up early when we don’t have to; if I didn’t have to stay in and work, would I?

You doubted that your own good work would bring any financial success at all, while you believed that commercial work would; but you do not like commercial work. Somewhat like George (Rhoads), you believed that your best work would not be appreciated. It would not sell, while “inferior” work, by contrast, would.

[...] Some long time ago your own belief that good work could not be financially relied upon put up enough of a barrier so that Ruburt became frightened about his own work (a fact I have long suspected, and recently discussed with Jane), and set up a physical situation that would force him to stay home, literally, work, and prevent him from trying any longer those other avenues that you were still adopting. [...]

All of this was based upon your much earlier beliefs that life was short and that all of your energies must be put into your work. [...] Earlier, spending money on anything not strictly necessary was bad, because it might detract from money needed to allow you to work. Money used meant that you might have to look for work again and not be able to develop your abilities.

The symptoms also cut down distractions to insure that he did work while at home. [...] Unfortunately in some respects certainly he went overboard, so that the symptoms served to cut out anything he felt might be threatening to his work and to your situation.

[...] He forgets his natural contours of mind and spirit when he hassles himself about time or hours, for his particular kind of creativity works in a different fashion. I want him, again, to try and sense the natural rhythms within him, of work and play, to continue his notes, to write for now four hours a day, with one hour for poetry, to think of the ideas of his book instead of thinking about the contracts, or of a book as a book, or as work as work; and tune into the library. [...]

[...] Ruburt’s natural person is highly spontaneous, creative, imaginative, with an excellent intellect, natural habits of working with a spontaneous rhythm—a rhythm that follows its own internal, logical and intuitive order. [...]

[...] He likes a change of pace, alterations in schedule—changing his hours, for example—two or three times a year, works well for him when he allows it.

(“Yesterday we were talking about works like James and Cézanne. [...]

[...] I have given more material than I can say on the subject of Ruburt’s attitude toward creativity and what happens when he emphasizes the idea of work as work, or as a career, above his spontaneous creativity. [...] It is the overemphasis upon work and career—overemphasis, now, that brings about or triggers the fears behind the difficulties.

In such a situation, Ruburt thinks of work as work, and finds himself wanting—for a doctor after all heals patients, a lawyer solves cases or whatever, so it seems to Ruburt that his work must—underlined three times—make truth practical, and of course beneficially so. [...]

[...] They inclined him further to think in terms of his life’s work as a highly serious, no-nonsense endeavor, a body of work to be set against the world’s other great works.

The overemphasis, again, upon the work alone triggers the old fears about poverty, and toeing the mark and so forth, for it arouses worries about “making the work pay.” [...] The woman could not win out in tales for Playboy, so when Ruburt thinks in that fashion about work, he thinks he is not only not slanting his material for the market, but often telling people precisely what they may not want to hear at all—hence this would arouse worries about the sale of the books.

[...] I did not think Ruburt would work unless he was chained to his chair, so I chained him, both to do his own work and force you to do yours. [...] He did not like working chained, and I tried to make the chains appear as natural as I could. [...] I see now that they would not be, that instead all your time would be spent concentrating upon the condition that was meant as a protection, until no work was done—hence my dismay. [...]

If you work on your own, both of you, then I do not need to police you. You are free to play and wander when your work is done. [...] The purpose twofold: to see that he worked creatively himself, and could not have a job, and to have money so that you could paint full time.

(We talked briefly after a late supper.While washing up, Jane told me after she was finished, she “got” that she was worse in Key West because she should have stayed here and worked today. [...] After the nap, I suggested we might stay here the next week, to work, have a couple of sessions, etc., and Jane agreed.

[...] The vacation itself an excellent idea if half of it were devoted to work. I go along with the psychic development, as long as it adds to your work and influences it. [...]

It also serves by giving you another message—that you do want to leave, and that your desire to do so has been affecting your work. If you had to stay, and if you will not be given as much money as you think you should receive, then you will see to it that the work will suffer. [...]

[...] You are also afraid however, to some extent and under certain conditions, of working, even painting, entirely at home because your father worked at home and did not do well.

From your work with the pendulum you understand some points. [...]

She thinks it far more laudable that you work in an art department with steady wages, and you know this. [...]

(This morning Jane and I worked with the pendulum on the question of inspiration, and discovered that there was much there to be learned and clarified in her attitudes, and mine too, for that matter. [...] I hadn’t anticipated her doing that kind of “work,” though. [...]

Ruburt “works” intuitively. [...] You might quite properly say that much “work” is involved, but it is of an interior, concentrated, intent and largely invisible nature. [...]

I have given information on this before, but you settled upon the idea of work, as you think of it, because it was the only way at the time that you could justify art to yourself. Naturally, however, your working method is different, and is built up of an intricate series of quite complicated logical judgements involving spatial relationships—in for example particular kinds of immaculate gradations. [...]

The world thinks that inspiration is impractical, and you have both made unfortunate distinctions between inspiration and work. You can afford to do so more than Ruburt, since your natural working method falls more easily into that kind of context, where the effort shows in time. [...]

In the first place, your intuitions are of course always working. Regular working hours can give you a time framework you need, in which those ideas can appear, but the ideas themselves, and the insights, often come to you particularly when you are not thinking of work. [...]

(10:12.) What I am saying, again, is quite apart from your having regular working hours, but you would do far better to choose another word than “work.” Your intuitive hours, perhaps, or your creative hours—even better—for in that kind of atmosphere the greatest works would result.

I am not saying that you should not have regular working hours. I am saying that you should change your beliefs concerning the nature of time and creativity—and for Ruburt, time, creativity, responsibility, and work. [...]

Ruburt has been thinking too much in terms of responsibility and work again. [...] 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.” [...]

[...] A distrust so that you do not want to entrust your best works to it. You are not afraid to entrust lesser work to it in terms of commercial art. [...]

You feel the work is safe while you have it. You put in time and effort in the past to sell your commercial work, but have refused to do the same to sell your paintings. [...]

The man to whom I have referred is approximately 62, but filled with energy, and would have intuitive understanding of your work. He also needs something new in his own life, and your work would give him new purpose. [...]

You are so jealous of your own work that you use your psychic abilities most strongly as an aid to your work. [...]

[...] His own paintings and work are of a highly emotional nature. Intuitively he understands much about your work that he does not realize he knows.

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. [...]

[...] 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.

[...] Now the age issue is connected to you and your work. [...]

(I have for some time thought that Jane needed to sell her writings as a means of justifying her life—whether these writings were her best work was, in that sense, immaterial; she couldn’t possibly wait until her writing was a polished art before beginning to market it. So I don’t believe comparisons between her selling her work, and me selling mine, mean much. [...] Oddly enough, I am sure that my work will end up very successful, both as art and in the marketplace. So I can safely say that in my own way I am trying very hard to make a “success” of my work. [...]

(A thought: I now realize that Jane put the same interpretation on her own work—namely, the psychic work. It took me years to learn that she regarded her work in the psychic field—and the time and energy involved—as aside from her main creative goal, which is to write “straight” literature that is also art.)

He feels that you are not satisfied with your work, and so will not try to sell it in the marketplace, while he must sell his work in the marketplace. [...]

(Further, my urge toward doing my best work comes at an age when I feel that I should be doing my best work. [...]

[...] Now you have other sets of quite positive beliefs also working for you, and luckily these will often help shake a harmful belief off balance. [...] Both of these areas help work against the sense of powerlessness that was tied up in the troublesome beliefs.

Besides working with body belief, you are automatically working with the inner belief, showing him that physical activity can be mixed with creativity in the book and in our sessions, that you approve, yourself, and that he is physically capable.

The set of habitual patterned thoughts, then, that he recognized today, ultimately work against creativity, for they destroy the sense of being peaceful and free within the moment.

[...] The affair is much more out in the open—the conflict between work and other activity.

[...] In August of that year — 1985 — she moved to Elmira to work with me in a number of ways. She helped me carry on the massive project of continuing the work that Debbie Harris had begun: copying many more of the thousands of pages of Jane’s and my work for the archives of the library at Yale. [...] She’s worked as a researcher of Jane’s material for The Magical Approach — the book she has “most dreamed of working on.” [...]

[...] The day after Jane died I went back to work, finishing the last two Seth books to meet long-overdue publishing deadlines. Jane’s and my dear friend, Debbie Harris, began making copies of all of the Seth sessions, plus the transcripts of Jane’s ESP classes, for the “collection” of Jane’s and my work in the archives of Yale University Library. [...]

Our books continued to go out of print, and in 1990 I began working with Anne Marie O’Farrell, a literary agent. [...] Like Laurel, both women are passionately interested in keeping Jane’s work in print. [...]

[...] I’ve let answering any but immediate business mail go while Laurel and I worked on the manuscript for The Magical Approach.)

[...] In those areas where you are dissatisfied, you are not putting the material to work, for it does work in the most immediate and practical ways.

[...] They also appear, not in the work you have done, but in the work you have not done. [...]

[...] I put this to you—that you spend time in the same way, but in your way, concentrating upon all that stands in the way of your work and concentration, until finally your work time seems consumed. [...]

[...] If Ruburt’s symptoms represent the seemingly negative aspects of his life, then your dissatisfactions about work represent the same in your private experience. [...] Now in your work you are progressing, but slowly—so why do you magnify the distractions?

(I was very facile—so much so that a large part of my early work consisted of finishing off the work of others so that it would reproduce well. In the comic trade I was an “inker,” and had more work available than I could handle. [...]

The psychic developments are also interbound in your own work, because you doubted yourself the preparation time was extended by you. The final period was and is to be one in which your energies are directed to your work without the outside job, for finally you began to feel that you were not doing what you should do; this itself inhibited your trust in yourself further, and therefore the development of your work.

[...] They involve mostly portrait work, and such mundane things as the handling of paint, both opaquely and thinly, and the symbolic meaning behind these things. I told Jane I wasn’t asking that Seth go into these this evening; I preferred that he talk about Jane or the Sumari work. [...]

[...] The impetus to help you is a built-in one, also meant as a further stimulus to Ruburt in his work and in our work. [...]

Your knowledge of form now can work for you automatically, serving to give structure to those ideas which will come to you freely and clearly. [...] You must forget the idea as you have it, that your painting must serve to work out problems. [...]

Forget the idea of man’s work and what your paintings should (underlined) provide, and the idea of fame or success. Let yourself go with the joy of painting what you want to; but forgetting also, again, the idea that your paintings are working out problems, technical or not.

Your own giving is flowing into your work. Let your work have its way. [...]

[...] Each artist has other overall concepts to work with besides those regarding his art.