“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Ruburt’s creativity is highly individualistic—and not, however, narrow in scope. As given in some old sessions, certain difficulties began when Ruburt tried to make his creativity fit the conventional work patterns. The creative person often is not wanted at a job, because their creativity by contrast with others’ behavior shows the vast difference between what I will now call joyful work and the usual variety.

Mysticism itself involves, basically, encounters with the art of being—a kind of creativity that in usual terms may produce no product at all, creative or otherwise. Such experiences may be translated into poetry or art or whatever, but initially they involve a spiritual encounter with reality. This encounter promotes a heightened state of creativity, even though, again, a creative product per se may not show.

Man painted, thought, dreamed, sang, and so forth from the beginning. People are creative whether or not their particular kind of creativity happens to fit in with their cultures, and whether or not their creativity can fit into economic contexts.

Those kinds of conflicts can only exist in a society in which the entire concept of creativity is segmented, in which the creative processes are often seen as inner assembly lines leading to specific products: a society in which the very nature of creativity itself is largely ignored unless its “products” serve specific ends.

(8:53.) Early artists hoped to understand the very nature of creativity itself as they tried to mimic earth’s forms. [...] His specific art (pause) was both his method of understanding his own creativity, and a way of exploring the vast creativity of the universe—and also served as a container or showcase that displayed his knowledge as best he could. [...]

The sessions I give you, in usual (underlined) terms, are a new extension of that creativity—but again, that extension has an ancient heritage. [...] It is also a method of understanding and perceiving creativity. [...]

Both of you, highly creative, find your creativity in conflict with your ideas of sexuality, privately and in your stance with the world. Much of this is involved with the unfortunate myths about this creative person, who is not supposed to be able to deal with the world as well as others, whose idiosyncrasies are exaggerated, and whose very creativity, it is sometimes said, leads to suicide or destruction. No wonder few numbers of creative people persist in the face of such unfortunate beliefs.

Now, creativity has always been the species’ closest connection with its own source, with the nature of its own being. Through creativity the species senses All That Is. Creativity goes by a different set of rules, however. [...] So what happens often in your society when men or women have creative bents, and good minds to boot?

[...] They cannot imagine (pause), life’s “initial” creative source, for in their terms it would remind them of creativity’s feminine basis. [...]

[...] Both of you, highly creative, find your creativity in conflict with your ideas of sexuality, privately and in your stances with the world. Much of this is involved with the unfortunate myths about the creative person, who is not supposed to be able to deal with the world as well as others, whose idiosyncrasies are exaggerated, and whose very creativity, it is sometimes said, leads to suicide or depression. No wonder few numbers of creative people persist in the face of such unfortunate beliefs!

Now, creativity has always been the species’ closest connection with its own source, with the nature of its own being. Through creativity the species senses All That Is. Creativity goes by a different set of rules, however. [...] So what often happens in your society when men and women have creative bents, and good minds to boot?

Ruburt (Jane) was highly creative, and so following the beliefs of his time, he believed that he must watch his creativity most carefully, for he was determined to use it. [...] He was creative, and is. [...]

To some degree, creativity always involves a denial of life’s daily official evidence, for creativity deals with that which you are about to bring into being. [...] Creativity involves productive change. [...]

I want you both to look at Ruburt’s physical condition in the light of what I have just said about creativity always contradicting the evidence to some degree. In your works, you both automatically have the courage, the daring, to allow creativity its way. [...] Creativity, again, thrives on dreaming, and dreaming serves as a conduit for Framework 2’s activity. [...]

To some extent, creativity involves you (pause) in a contradiction with the evidence of reality within your world. [...] The state of creativity can (underlined) be discussed as if it were (underlined) a separate state, like waking or sleeping. [...]

Some of the material in this session is extremely valuable in the handling of health problems, because of its clues in rousing the creative abilities from one area of life to another. The great thrust of creative abilities, utilized in the health area, will automatically bring Ruburt flexibility. Before, his condition was the one area in which he was not creative, as far as his flexibility was concerned.

If I try too specifically to help Ruburt become consciously aware of methods he uses naturally in his creative work, he is apt to get too detailed in his physical efforts, where the creative activity you have begun of itself can carry itself along in physical areas if you allow it to.

The peace of mind will enrich his creative abilities—and that will automatically minimize whatever fears he has that physical activity would cut down on his creativity.

[...] Any given day a creative urge might span the day. At another time that creative surge might reach its peak in two hours, and deliver nuggets of creativity. [...]

[...] You picked up the idea of work but frowned upon certain aspects of creativity as not safe or profitable—as your father’s creative, inventive aspects did not produce financially in your family, and in terms of work did not pay off in social or family terms.

Your mother felt that his creativity was a threat to stability, so maintaining your own creativity stubbornly, you still felt to some degree that it was a threat, that it would not pay off, and so you tried to clothe it in the garb of work, effort, regular hours, and stability, and to deny or play down its playful aspects.

Now: creativity is basically a mental proposition, a mental or psychic activity. [...] (Pause.) What you are dealing with, then, in creativity is a continuing kind of psychic play, an activity that probes into the nature of inner reality and explores it with as much sheer vitality as that with which the child explores physical reality. [...]

[...] He could have been a far better artist still, for if his vision was intense, my dear friend, it was cramped, and it moved within itself in an agony to find a creative release that could never be found in the creative product alone, but in the psyche from which that product emerges. [...]

Those sketches of his, it seems, do not stand up as creative products as a great sculpture might, but they stand for a truly creative originality in which a consciousness played with internal material, and projected outward many of the material properties that then simply did not exist. [...]

(Pause.) These sessions themselves involve the highest levels of creative productivity, at many, many levels, so he should refresh himself painting or doing whatever he likes, for that refreshment adds to his creativity, of course. [...] He should follow the rhythms of his own creativity without being overly concerned with the time. [...] You can see how your own creativity is emerging in the notes for Mass Events. Granted, you need time to write physically, but the basic creativity has its own time.

[...] He forgot, once again, that the creative self is aware of his entire life, and that his impulses have a creative purpose. [...]

[...] You felt you could not afford free creative work. Ruburt felt that creative work could pay. Because of your ideas about time and creative work you felt that painting could not pay. Ruburt tricked you quite cleverly into doing the sketches for Dialogues—for your own good, he felt, and you did not enjoy the experience, allowing your beliefs to contaminate your creativity. You do not feel the world deserves creative work. [...]

Those worries on each of your parts tie down your highest aspirations to goals that are unbecoming to them, and impede the very creativity you hope to foster. [...] I realize of course that you live in time, but I also know that the quality of creative work is not bound to time, but defies it. Your own feelings about publishers, for example, impedes the creative processes so that you must then labor over notes that would otherwise come clearly and quickly.

When you both had to work outside at least partially for a living, you did not have to consider your beliefs about creative time, or how to organize your day creatively. [...] Once that goal was reached, your beliefs about time and creativity became pertinent, as did the issues concerned with spontaneity and discipline.

“Now, the creative abilities do not just help you write books, paint pictures, play the piano, compose. The creative abilities are largely responsible for keeping you alive. Your cells are creative. [...] Every act you perform is creative. Your creative self, your spontaneous, creative self—that self that speaks through your impulses—keeps you alive.”

[...] Basically the creative play exploration, writing, is the main core of my creativity—and I do that for the love of doing it. [...] But basically creativity is not a career in usual terms. [...] Now this can be expected to some degree for a noncreative career; but it can damage creative activity; the need for creativity naturally is... [...] If you confuse the issues you try to temper your creativity (to gain approval, etc.) which can dilute the work; or you set up protective measures to protect yourself against the worlds disapproval or scorn.

(The idea seemed to be that creativity, mine and anyone’s, is initially playful, curious, seeks expression—and is one of the highest kinds of psychic play—the artist playing with concepts no matter what the art; and actually inserts his or her reality onto the world, superimposed upon it. But the creative basic part of the personality enjoys that; the doing, primarily—the art will always be an individual interpretation and recreation of the world—that exists for itself and is its own meaning.

(My personal problems developed in force when I began to be overly concerned with my creative “work” as work, as it applied to the world, as it would be received and interpreted; when I tried to compare its reception to other officially accepted activities—that people understood—when I tried to look at my “work” through their eyes, and when I began to expect the kind of honor and approbation given to others—who conformed.

The artist who paints such a scene may do so for several reasons: because he hopes through portraying such inhumanity to awaken people to its consequences, to make them quail and change their ways; because he is himself in such a state of disease and turmoil that he directs his abilities in that particular manner; or because he is fascinated with the problem of destruction and creativity, and of using creativity to portray destruction.

In your wars you are using creativity to create destruction, but you cannot help being creative.

Illness and suffering are the results of the misdirection of creative energy. They are a part of the creative force, however. [...]

I want Ruburt, again, to encourage spontaneity in all areas, and to trust that the spontaneity is the result of quite orderly sequences in Framework 2, and of larger patterns of creativity that are not yet consciously apparent. I want him to allow for greater physical spontaneity, to perform a physical act when he feels like it, and for greater psychic and creative spontaneity, both in his working hours and outside them; to concentrate on creativity, not time; for then you use time and it does not use you.

In a manner of speaking, and in the terms of this discussion, you adapted the methods of the Protestant work ethics to your creative endeavors. [...] To some degree, you squeezed your exuberance into a tight fit, and tried to make a creative productivity regulate itself, to fit the industrial time clock: so many hours bringing a feeling of virtue, even if the attitude itself cut down on the exuberance of inspiration.

[...] The creative abilities do follow your conscious intents to some degree. [...] The creative abilities are quite capable of helping your physical survival, economically speaking, when they are freely followed. [...]

[...] The human personality is naturally a seeker of value fulfillment and creativity. It is not just, again, that man does not live by bread alone, but that his life is intimately bound up with his need for creative expression—his need to develop as an individual, and therefore to affect his world. [...]

The various, numberless individual human abilities are part of your, say, gene pool as a species, so the drive to creatively use individual abilities is a spiritual and biological necessity. [...] Idiosyncrasies were frowned upon, and signs of creative ability were suspect in direct proportion to the strength of those abilities. [...]

That insidious mistrust of creative abilities is alarmingly dangerous to the society, and frightening to the individual. [...] Creative people are not self-destructive, but if they sometimes appear so in the western world, it is because of that division, that artificial barrier. [...]

[...] You have believed that so much time “spent” had to produce “so much” creative work, or creative product. (Loudly:)You even more than Ruburt—and that is saying something—have connected creativity and time in a way that is detrimental. That idea has impeded your creativity. [...] Beyond that, the inspiration of your soul can speak in three minutes, and give you the inspirations of a lifetime (loudly)—but not while you insist that creative time and physical time coincide. [...]

In actuality your creativity escapes all such bonds, and definitions. [...] Your creativity seems to have burst the practical elements of time. That is, your painting, Ruburt’s work, and my books seems to be “too much” in terms of time only because you have not let your intuitive understanding of creativity grow with your experience. [...] It is a creative period, far more significant than you realize, and you have set a challenge for yourselves because you know that you can break through the barriers of old beliefs.

[...] Your ideas of time, jointly and individually, have hampered your creativity. [...] As long as you insist upon identifying creative time with physical time, the dilemma will be real. [...] And because you still seem to believe that your universe is unsafe, all of your creativity must give you the weapon—money—to protect you against the inequities and uncertainties of “fate.”

(9:25.) When the projects were done, particularly with Ruburt, there was still the cultural belief that time should be so used (underlined), that creativity must be directed and disciplined to fall into the proper time slots. In other words, to some extent or another he tried to use an assembly-line kind of time for your creative productivity. This may work when manuscripts are being typed, and so much physical labor is involved, but overall you are using the “wrong” approach to time, particularly for any creative artist. [...]

(9:39.) Trying to fit the great thrust of creativity into assembly-line time is in itself bound to lead to conflicts, dissatisfactions, and frustrations. If the proper creative and magical orientation is kept primarily in mind, other things will fall into place. You do not say to the creative self, “Now it is 7:30. [...]

[...] Ruburt followed his impulses and interpreted your dreams — all of which led you both into fresh creative activity. [...] True creativity comes from enjoying the moments, which then fulfill themselves, and a part of the creative process is indeed the art of relaxation, the letting go, for that triggers magical activity, and that is what Ruburt must learn.

“These sessions themselves involve the highest levels of creative productivity, at many levels, so he should refresh himself painting or doing whatever he likes, for that refreshment adds to his creativity, of course. [...] He should follow the rhythms of his own creativity without being overly concerned with the time. [...] You can see how your own creativity is emerging in the notes for Mass Events. Granted, you need time to write physically, but the basic creativity has its own ‘time.’

It may be said by some that any book at all is an ambitious endeavor, when it originates from a psychological source (underlined) so far divorced from your ordinary ideas of creativity. It is one thing, for example, for a physical writer to produce a manuscript—and even that kind of creativity involves vast and hidden psychological maneuvers that never appear in the manuscript itself.

[...] Certain qualities are implied in all kinds of creativity that are generally overlooked, and so they are not apparent. The kind of creative procedures we are involved in can serve to bring some of those qualities to light, and to shed illumination upon many aspects of the human psyche that usually remain hidden.

He believed that his creativity was highly specifically oriented to its artistic expression only. He did not understand that the spontaneous self knows its own order (gently), or that the spontaneous creative self had any notion of his conscious needs and desires. He believed that often creativity expressed itself at the expense of other portions of the self, and that if it were allowed to spill over the edges (with gestures) from artistic productivity into normal living, then it would lead to all kinds of disruptive activity. [...]

Specific creativity is but one important aspect of the psyche’s vast, almost incomprehensible productivity, for it produces your lives. [...] When he fell in love, it was wholeheartedly, and he was determined to merge his creativity and his marriage. [...]

[...] The state of creativity is one you both know intimately. In it there is a kind of mental or psychic plasticity, where the evidence of the normal world loses its hard edges, becomes less real, and yet is touched by the psyche’s creativity so that it can (underlined) in a moment be literally transformed.

He feels that he has taken a chance that you have not taken, staking financial survival on creative work. But here also is one of the rubs, for both of you used to take it for granted that real creativity did not sell. So Ruburt became somewhat suspicious when he considered creativity of his own, and afraid that it would not sell because it was creative.

[...] The confusion about it has to do with his interpretation of work and creativity. Often he tried to block out creative ideas he feared were not salable, or work.

[...] Creative work was his joy, but that creativity also had more and more connotations that applied to work and money.