January 10, 1979

[DELETED SESSION]

[JANUARY 10, 1979 9:27 PM WEDNESDAY]

("Home, sex, power, you and the driveway, hay fever, the impulsive selves that we were talking about earlier tonight"---these are all words dictated to me by Jane abruptly as we sat waiting for the session to begin.]

(I'd been commenting on her call tonight to a sychiatrist---Dr. Beahrs---who'd written her recently from Washington state, and of his informing her that another doctor out there is also using the Seth material ideas in dealing with her patients. I talked about the doctor reporting that Jane's books were kept in the occult section of the bookstore, thus causing her to lose readers; I used the incident as an example of how stereotyped ideas can limit something becoming better known---breaking out of its specialized field to reach a much wider audience, as I think Jane's work deserves. I used political activity as an example of a field reaching many people. Yet, I added, the fact that the two medical people) [ had ] [discovered Seth was, in a small way, a sign that the material had at least managed some sort of transcendent movement.]

(Then in today's mail Jane received a letter from another doctor, as well as from a professor of mathematics -- also signs that the Seth material was capable of wider appeal. I said that we should be grateful for these signs, and that they may be more widespread than we realize.

Then Jane dictated the words quoted above, saying Seth would probably cover them in tonight's session.)

(This afternoon, incidentally, she lost the loose tooth that has been referred to recently....)

[(It happened shortly after Frank Longwell's visit at lunchtime, during which we discussed a new arrangement for the stove/cooking area of the kitchen. This would be a sign of the spontaneous change Seth mentioned in a late session. Then the day after this session was held, Frank returned at noon with literature on what stove units are available, rices, et cetera, so the discussion proceeded further.)

Good evening.

(Good evening, Seth.)

Now: I have given some---not all---of this material before, but now you can put the understanding to better advantage. Ruburt's "overly conscientious self" was indeed built up in response to his belief that he was, to begin with, overly enthusiastic, overly impulsive, overly spontaneous. He was naturally expressive and open with people. He was creatively gifted---but an overly impulsive child does not care for an invalid mother, conscientiously, for 21 years.

He did not run away. He did not get into any serious difficulty. The very consistent writing of poetry through those years shows its own kind of discipline, but people are not used to bursts of creativity. They were not used to Ruburt's very quick insights.

He thought of himself as overly impulsive. Very seldom did he yell back at his mother. An impulsive child might have done far more. He refrained from heavy sexual encounters---certainly not the behavior of a sexually impulsive person. He knew he didn't want a family.

Here we see purpose, strong intent, and despite the ins-and-outs with mood, and the youthful wandering, the same purpose to write, to express oneself, to observe, and to stand apart from the mainstream of American life.

You considered yourself not impulsive, yet it is you who wrote "Make me a galaxy, Jane," took up with Ruburt after a very brief acquaintanceship, and brought him home to your startled family.

It was you who suggested the ESP book, and you also early decided not to become a part of the American mainstream of life. You did not have a strong drive to have a family. You avoided heavy sexual relationships also. Both of you, before you met, knew that you wanted to study and observe from your own viewpoints. You felt that a family life would automatically plunge you into the kind of living that would not allow you such luxury. At the same time, both of you to some extent feared [what you thought of] as the power of sex. Again, Freudian beliefs that filled the books and movies led you both in your own ways to fear that your energies could be "swallowed" by sexuality---that to some extent you had so much energy, and that most of it must go into creative work.

More than this, the Freudian concepts said more or less that each erson, regardless of their individuality, was driven by sexual energies of great force. There was in such a system no room, literally, for individual differences, but a norm set so that you must behave thus and so.

Now. If you did not express your sexuality through sexual experience, as rescribed, you were in for trouble. So went the tale. You found yourselves married. Ruburt as a woman, with those beliefs in the background, determined not to betray the writer, Jane, or the artist, Robert---thru becoming pregnant, or making too many sexual demands.

Ruburt, incidentally, had a natural abortion because the message was already in the body, and all of his worries and concerns were unnecessary.

There are bodies, in those terms, who do not want to have physical offspring. They are not faulty. They fit in with nature's plans, and with the psychological plans of the personalities involved. You were rather repressed at that period, frightened about your own work, and sometimes you would ignore Ruburt's occasional sexual advances when you happened to be in your studio. He felt he was too spontaneous, again, too impulsive---but then in that belief system he worried if his sexual needs could not be properly squashed, supposing someone else aroused them, and he "fell in love" with someone else as quickly as he had fallen in love with you. Or worse---supposing your repressed sexuality was repressed because of your joint work, and supposing you fell in love with someone else, and became sexually aroused for another?

(I can safely say that such ideas never occurred to me.)

(9:50.) The entire premise is highly faulty, for the species deals with value fulfillment and quality, as do all forms of life, and not with mere physical reproduction. The sexual aspects of men and women do not exist apart from their individual psychological make-ups, but connected with all of the other unique individual characteristics.

Now give us a moment.... Those beliefs at that time helped give rise to further conservatism on Ruburt's part. Now: in certain terms physical activity---sports---intrigued you. They were highly acceptable masculine ursuits. They were mainstream America. They allowed you to participate with others. To communicate with them on one level, while at other levels you preferred solitude, painting and writing; and you always observed.

The hay fever began early, the example set by your father, and you used it to temper your activities in terms of sports in particular, because your intents overall did not want you to go in that direction. You kept those physical abilities around, though---the feeling for sports---in school, with the idea that you could fall back upon them if need be. But you would have considered that a partial failure. Your high-school art teacher, Miss Bowman, lent you the money to study art in New York City.

The comics acquainted you with what I will call a kind of surface art, and also [in a way] acquainted you with caricatures of social reality. Also involved however were folk dreams, as for example with Captain Marvel. While you happily worked and caroused quite innocently, you also began half unconsciously to further question the nature, not necessarily of society, but of the individual lives you met within it. The deep drives of your personality began to make their way known.

Simple-enough incidents, like shoveling the driveway, can bother you because they arouse old conflicts having to do with your earlier situation and the decision, say, to explore your mental and creative abilities rather than to pursue the physical ones in the excellence of sports.

The excellence in sports, however, also involved the accepted thing to do. Sports even then were looked up to. Rewards were instantaneous for good performance. This involves black-and-white thinking again, however, for you thought of "perfect performance" in sports---high excellence.

Something like the driveway usually involves an inner dilemma: "Shall I do creative work or physical activity?" in rather absolute terms.

The driveway involves the sports situation, and also the mainline-America theme---for shouldn't you be shoveling the walk like your neighbor? This involves questions like "How different am I from my neighbor? What does he think of me, working at home?" et cetera.

(10:10.) Give us a moment.... The issue is obviously then clouded by current ones, so that different details in a day can contribute, or serve as triggers.

When you do not approve of yourselves, then you do not approve of your own power, and so you pretend that you have none. Often the word "power"

has bad implications: power corrupts, for example. Often you both retend that you have no power in the society, and this is not the case.

Give us a moment.... Because you have not seen yourselves clearly, you cannot see or judge the difference in your quality of thought from your early adult years, for example, or perceive what you have learned. But all of your difficulties are based to one extent or another on self-rejection [that has gone unquestioned] .

There is nothing wrong of course with having your driveway plowed because you have other things that you want to do. That is a simple, excellent, choice.

Give us a moment.... When you feel at the same time that you must and should plow the driveway out yourself, to rove that you are the same as your neighbor, or to rove that you are physically agile, and on the other hand [if you feel that you do not want to plow out the driveway at all] , then you are in a quandary---and when you shovel, you tell your body to shovel and not to shovel at the same time, setting your muscles against each other.

Taxes or whatever might serve as a trigger, but the basic point is that you do not approve of what you are doing. If you shovel the drive, you think you should be working, and vice versa sometimes. The session should help you here.

Give us a moment.... In all cases, overexaggerations are involved. If you shovel you are not suddenly going to decide to devote yourself to a life of physical chores, and "meaningless" activity, and ignore your creative work. You are not that kind of person. If you paint or write steadily, that does not mean you will let all chores go. You are not that kind of person.

If Ruburt walks, he is not suddenly going to turn into a television ersonality and ignore his inner work. [He is not that kind of erson.] Misunderstandings of your own abilities and characteristics are responsible for such unfortunate conclusions. Again, the New Year resolutions, really understood, can help you, for they will dissolve such thoughts.

Do you have questions?

("Well, we're making progress, I think. We read the resolutions over several times a day.)

You have made progress.

(Jane continues to improve.)

Indeed. The session should also help there.

(Okay.)

I bid you a fond and hearty good evening.

("Thank you very much.")

(10:25 PM.)

(Jane wanted to know if Seth had covered all of the topics she'd listed before the session---then realized that he'd missed just one: Home. "But I can't get it now," she said. "He's gone.... I felt like we got a whole lot of stuff, though. I can't believe it; you mean I was only out for an hour?")

(This afternoon, by the way, I made arrangements to have our driveway lowed. It's now clear. It's also going to be plowed by the service station operator who takes care of our car; whenever the snow accumulates to three inches or so, the clearing-out will be automatically taken care of.)

(I for one think the session of great benefit. I've felt quite a bit better. Seth's insights in the session carry further the various hints and clues I've uncovered by using the pendulum at different times---in a not very efficient way, I'm afraid, considering how much the situation has bothered.)

[(It's my hunch that Seth's New Year's resolutions are perhaps the most otent material we could get, provided we keep them in mind as time asses. I have a copy of them up on the wall of the studio. So does Jane, in her work area.)