January 30, 1974

[DELETED SESSION]

[JANUARY 30, 1974 9:31 PM WEDNESDAY]

(Notes before session: My sportsman self. My writing and painting selves. Father's secrecy and my identification. My financial contribution. Jane's fears. Our creative errors. Our attitudes re Prentice. Our attitudes re correspondence. Jane's flexibility. Her dancing. My selling paintings. Mother.)

(Some used ---see Appendix 2 for Session 680 in Volume 1of)

The "Uknown" Reality [.)]

Good evening.

(Good evening, Seth.)

Now. Are you ready?

(Yes. )

I want to return to a discussion of your specialized focus, individually and jointly. Earlier, it was all that you knew---that is, both of you more and more in young years began to identify with what you thought of as your artistic selves, [more or less] to the exclusion of other portions of the self.

You, for example, could have excelled at certain sports, where Ruburt had no such inclinations. You chose to concentrate in artistic endeavors as you grew and learned through various areas and periods---that is, you tried and enjoyed sports, and writing; and after a while decided upon the painting self as your core of operation, and the particular focus upon which you would build a life.

The sportsman that you might have been would have gathered, from that same available background, other attitudes and ideas that would fit in with his concept of himself , and fit his core focus. The (childhood) camping background served as rich source material, to be used in any way you chose. The sportsman, the writer or the artist---any of them would utilize that background differently, but well, and in such a way that it was particularly suited.

Give us a moment.... Your father's inventiveness would also be used in the same manner, as source material, by whichever self you chose to become. There are many such choices. I am using three only to show you how those primary aspects of your personality operate now in your resent condition.

They are the three strongest elements from which you could have chosen.... The love of sports and that identification always stayed with you; and because it is a strong element, you, with relative ease, now, dismissed the symptoms that you had before the sessions began. (The back trouble in 1962-3.)

The painting also, innately now, involves going outdoors, though you seldom paint from nature out in the landscape. Nevertheless, you would be determined to be free enough to do so. The sportsman that you might have been still lives within you enough so that, for example, you automatically stay trim, limber.

Your father's creativity, as mentioned (in other sessions) , before, had its side of secrecy, privacy and aloneness. Again as mentioned, you identified creativity with your father's private nature.

The writing self became latent as the sportsman did, yet the writer self and the artist were closely bound. You felt conflicts at times. It never occurred to you that the two aspects could release one another---one illuminating the other---and both be fulfilled. Instead you saw them, basically now, as conflicting. Time spent writing meant time not spent ainting.

(Which reminds me that when Jane and I lived at 317 South Elmer in Sayre, PA, I kept telling myself that by the time I reached 40 I would decide which I wanted to pursue. And when I reached 40, I picked ainting.)

You believed the painting self had to be protected. For one reason, you identified your painting creative self with your father, and you felt that he had had to protect his creative self in the household from your mother. As these ideas became entrenched, you actually became more concerned with protecting your ability than with using it. You spent more mental energy setting up barriers to protect it, so that any one instance, say, of interruption or conflict, would immediately arouse the ower of the buried fear, and become a symbol for it. You learned repression. Therefore, free time was not enjoyed creatively. You could not paint freely in it, for you were so on guard against distractions that anything could distract you.

Because you saw yourself with such specialized focus, unknowingly you blocked out stimuli that as a painter you could have used. Because of your joint ideas---you, the artist, Ruburt the writer---then your financial contribution was strictly limited by both of you to that one field.

You did not, fully now, realize your contribution to [Seth Speaks] in financial terms, though you understood your creative contribution. Ruburt did not either, until lately, because it was a matter of self-evidence: your contribution financially would come through painting alone . So for a while you were hassled that you were not financially contributing after you left Artistic, and so was Ruburt. You were contributing financially, but neither of you correctly understood this because of that specialized focus.

You are beginning, now, each of you, to understand since my latest book.

You, then, can hold up your head in the financial arrangement. It is very important that each of you understand that and you are beginning to.

Ruburt did not want to understand, for he was afraid, in your joint framework, that you would stop painting, and not use the framework you were supposed to, to get money. He thought this would be a failure on your part, for which he would be at least partially responsible. You each had blind spots because your focuses were too specialized and limited.

With a different focus, you for example can paint and write, utilizing both abilities to the best, and sell both. 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. You wanted to rotect them---the products of your ability, as well as your ability, from the world.

Ruburt felt he had to protect his writing abilities in the same manner, except that he is by nature more gregarious. He was also poorer than you, and determined never to be so again. The fact that you were not making much money in the framework the two of you accepted, led him to work the harder, determined to publish his work.

His reaction was to not hide the ability in your way, but to force the world to accept it. Again, it is important that since the works were ublished---even for example the ESP book--- neither of you understood your (my) financial contribution. Even to the ESP book, not just the session material that you took down. But your limited focuses blinded you. That kind of contribution was literally invisible---not legitimate, because you had not sold paintings.

(10:15.) Get our friend a beer, and walk around....

Now. You knew you needed training and experience to do any writing. You would never consciously face what appeared to be the conflict between writing and painting. You would not take the time out consciously from painting to write. In the framework there was a nagging conflict. You managed to get the training, the experience, in such a way that you by-passed the seeming conflict.

Because of that specialized, limited focus, however, to varying degrees each of you were divided within yourselves. Ruburt feared that the sychic work conflicted with the writer, and detracted from you in your focus as an artist. This was apparent in the most minute circumstances, and colored your lives. Did Ruburt feel like making love during your working hours in earlier years, you actively discouraged him, and told him through actions and words that displays of innocent affection turned you on sexually, and disturbed you when you wanted to aint.

After vocally and otherwise objecting for a good eight years, he stopped outwardly objecting. For one thing, he began to agree with you. For another, he was too "proud" to be so humiliated. Did he spontaneously want company, he felt this deeply disloyal to you. He began to discipline himself more and more, trying to fit your image to himself.

There were obviously reasons why, on his part, and these, in the past, have been covered. I am speaking of interactions, not blame.

He had no sportsman-like background; on the contrary, a lack of ordinary hysical orientation and interaction. His identification with the importance of the mind, then, and his focus as a writer, allowed him to inhibit physical motion in a way you would not have done. The dancing represents Ruburt's end of the sportsman proposition---his gymnastics.

Now. Remember what I said the other night, about the lack of encouragement there on your part. It is highly interesting, considering your ease of mobility, and brings in many more aspects than you realize.

For Ruburt, dancing, his one inclination to flaunt himself, comes into direct conflict with your ideas of privacy and secrecy. When he is obviously not in the best of physical condition and then wants to dance, this to you is showing his weakness to the world. You, with your history of athletic behavior, and your love of "perfect motion," immediately contrast his activities with the time when he danced with the greatest of ease.

He, when he had reached the point where he will go out again, is by then defiant, angry, joyous and exultant by turns. Each dance is a victory because he first had to get over the fear of walking to the dance floor, and he looks hopefully to you for your support that he does not look too badly. He yearns for any sign of your approval, and sexual recognition.

Both of you, [so far] , still believe that your spontaneity must be measured out because of those specialized focuses, and for no other reason. That focus has prevented you each from seeing what you have, from using it fully in all areas, and from recognizing your achievements, creatively, financially, and otherwise.

I am going to try to help you enlarge that focus, and I know that the time is right. First of all, you must realize it is futile to say "Why does understanding take so much time?" Or "Why have we been so opaque?"

Or in your case "Why has it taken me so long to be a good painter?"

There are comprehensions, illuminations, that cannot be verbalized, that arise as a result of illuminations solving problems that on the one hand seem to have nothing to do with the problems. These however are fulfillments quite unpredictable, that come about as you solve what appears to be one main problem. They are achievements that arise out of a given situation, often even while in your terms the given problem may not seem solved.

There are levels of understanding, again unpredictable, that are the creative results of certain courses you take. These can exist whether or not the course itself seems advantageous, and these can even overshadow the benefits a successful course might have given, in those terms.

Now. Though it would seem then that you have made errors, the errors in themselves are creative, and have brought about unpredictable robabilities that now enrich and also change that original course.

Your writing abilities for example would not have emerged had that original course and specialized focus been followed to a "t." Had that original course and specialized focus been followed to a "t," Ruburt's abilities would not have emerged either. In other words the specialized course to which you thought you were trying to hold so tenaciously, was indeed not that tenaciously followed. You each protested, yet did what you wanted to do. You just kept trying to fit what you did into a framework that you had outgrown. You had each identified with that framework so strongly that you were afraid to let it go.

Ruburt's writing abilities have blossomed because of his psychic experience. Your painting abilities have also. You have not acknowledged that because the paintings have not brought money; you did not want to believe they were valuable, for fear someone would take them away. In a strange manner, you saw to it that your abilities found precisely the elements that would release them, yet your ideas of the writer and the artist prevented you from seeing this.

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. He would go so far, throw out test balloons, and meet with your disapproval. The disapproval was yours, and you saw his fears projected upon you. You were both happy when he showed some improvement, because neither of you wanted physical disability carried too far, but as soon as he showed signs of being free enough so that he could really take a trip, or dance, you both clamped down. He always waited to see what you would do, and these episodes, again, occurred after enough improvement, so that first he wanted to go out. Sometimes he forced himself to, thinking he was denying you the pleasure of your bars and outings. But despite what you said, he saw that you did indeed disapprove.

After not going out for a while the fear would reassert itself, of looking ridiculous and facing people, so there would a time until he again became defiant and conquered it. The love of the sportsman for motion can instead be used to encourage him toward physical performance.

He saw, the day that you slept (last Saturday, January 26)

that he is always afraid of his performance in your eyes---that he gets up more often when you are not watching. This natural love of good bodily performance however can indeed be used, and most effectively to your joint advantage once you realize its source.

Do you want to rest your hand?

("No." 11:00 PM.)

Now. The psychic work, which is a natural extension of both of your creative abilities, could not be fully utilized by you, individually or jointly, while you maintained such a rigid, specialized focus. Ruburt feared that it might be taking you from your [one true urpose] as a painter. Not realizing, either of you, your financial contribution through the works, you felt and so did he, after Artistic, that he carried the brunt financially.

He felt that in the world' s eyes this put you down, since your aintings were not selling. At the same time he could not accept your legitimate financial contribution through the work because he felt that might betray you as an artist. His job then was to encourage you to aint and sell your paintings, for he felt nothing else would satisfy you , and/or satisfy your brothers or your family.

(In here, I had to laugh as Seth spoke. Not in mockery, but rather in bewilderment at the seemingly endless paths that a chain of thought, once undertaken, could follow. I wondered if Jane and I could ever untangle the paths. As I told her later that evening when we lay in bed: the session seemed to chronicle a list of fears.)

At the same time, and somewhat because of your attitudes, he felt his womanly reality a threat to both of you as artists. A new organization is more than in the making. It is happening on both of your arts, and I am bringing it to the surface of your attention.

It will involve all levels of your realities, and include also your business dealings, your joint attitudes toward Prentice, the reasons for them, [and the new framework] in which you will be working.

Are you ready or do you want a break?

(I'm okay.)

Now. Psychically, developments appear in class. Freedoms achieved appear there, particularly when you are not having regular sessions. These appear before your private lives physically materialize them. Therefore, Ruburt's new class energy is the first development that shows. This is the result of a shifting of organization in his psyche, and in yours.

Your lives are reorganizing themselves, finally, into a freer framework.

In this framework you see yourselves as individuals and as partners in a remarkable creative endeavor that will develop your main abilities easily, and without strain and inhibition. The correspondence has suffered because it has represented your attitudes toward people. As a writer, Ruburt resented the time. As a psychic and incidentally the person, he wanted to answer. The mail also represented business---people who buy books. Inquiries for help, to both of you, represented distractions, those who would take your time, in the old terms, and give nothing.

Prentice represented, to you (me) , the world you had to rotect yourself from, and be on guard against in the business world that had never understood your father---the unartistic, ever out to ruin the artistic product through ignorance, and lack of sensitivity.

Giving himself psychic spontaneity might mean somehow giving into that spontaneity that both of you feared. Whenever psychic developments show themselves then, Ruburt improves in health, as he allows his energies their spontaneous play and expression. This flows into his writing, his hysical condition, and your private lives.

In the past you have let this go so far, each of you. This time I hope you will see this larger framework, in which you understand that creative abilities must be nourished but not overprotected; in which you see that they have their own greater strength and direction.

Helping Ruburt with the mail is also a financial contribution. It is far [more than that] , but each of you must understand that you are partners in this endeavor in every part of it. The psychic development did not just occur. Your deepest natures called it out of the probable sequence into your reality---for a reason, because ( each of)] you knew that it could best develop all of your (respective) abilities to their fullest, and also hel others.

Helping others also develops your own abilities in ways that you do not as yet understand. I suggest then a framework in which our sessions are featured. The sessions and their attendant results provide, literally, a multidimensional purpose that allows for your own gestalt individual achievements.

Before this Ruburt considered anything not writing a danger, a threat, or at least felt it a distraction to himself as a writer. He considered such things as a threat to you as an artist.

Now. While you smile at me, you still think that you must protect yourself against distractions, as if they are purposely lined up like enemies against you. This has nothing to do with consciously deciding how you want to spend your time, [but with those inner fears that make you think of your time as something that must be protected]

--- [that considers your talent so fragile that it will wither if you do not make great effort to protect it] .

If your idea of protecting your talent could be transferred to a plant, you would keep it in a corner, a dark one, in a room in which no one could enter, and spend your time worrying about drafts, no matter how well you had closed the windows and doors.

Your ideas about the letter (to correspondents) are encouraging first motions toward what I am speaking of, as are Ruburt's ideas about class, and your sexual advances. You have a way to make a living, and a good one. You each contribute. That much will free you to paint, and sell your paintings.

Now. Do you have questions?

(No.... Actually, I have lots of them, but we'll get to them later.)

Indeed we will. And now I bid you a fond good evening (very loud) , and what blessings I have to give, I give you. And those I do not have, I know you will find.

("Thank you very much, Seth. Good night. 11:37 PM. Note that Jane hadn't taken a break for the whole session, since it began at 9:31.]

(2 hours, 6 minutes.)