“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

The crisis would have developed on the condition that Ruburt tried to use and develop his spontaneous and intuitive abilities on an adult basis. The cleavage between discipline and spontaneity had long existed; given the all-or-nothing attitude of the personality, there was bound to be a swing, a complete swing from one to the other until the personality learned to combine the two and become more thoroughly integrated.

As long as he acted with relative abandon, as in the early years, relatively unreasoning, then there was no point of conflict. When he tried on the other hand to act in a more reasoning and disciplined manner, when he became convinced of the necessity for discipline and this was in Florida, then he attempted to stifle all spontaneity.

The poetry was not seen as threatening to the disciplined self. Any work of fiction in which his abilities were at all fulfilled would have brought him to this point, and any endeavor such as the psychic work, which was adopted. In other words, for the personality to use its abilities fully that challenge would have had to be faced in every instance but the poetry.

The development of abilities, your introduction to me and the sessions, came because both of you realized that a rigidity was settling in upon you. The pendulum had swung too far over in both of your cases, to a discipline that became static and frozen. There was a boomerang effect on Ruburt’s part.

You therefore would protect him from the results of his own spontaneity, carried too far, for he never thought in terms of a spontaneity tempered by self-discipline. In Florida he saw his father as the epitome of unreason and uncontrolled spontaneity, which had actually become a hodgepodge of unrelated emotional acts, and he felt you then deserting him symbolically.

It goes without saying that all of this was fueled by past symbols and associations that then emerged. As the psychic development appeared the overly disciplined self reacted strongly.

The overly-disciplined self could not be hidden now. One part of the self could no longer be dominant at the expense of the other. The physical symptoms represented the conflict as the overly disciplined self again tried to take over the reins. It has gradually let itself fit in now, let itself integrate, and in so doing the body has been relived of symptoms.

He doubled his discipline, and tried to put the lid upon the spontaneous self. For some time he confused true spontaneity with acts caused by blind propulsion, so he could not trust his spontaneous nature. Your mother for example says what she thinks often. Ruburt therefore thought she was spontaneous; for a while he did not see the blind panic behind the words or acts.

Your father seemed to be, earlier, highly disciplined. Ruburt did not see that the discipline was the result of terror, and was not true discipline. He saw both personalities as frozen, finally, and he thought: if spontaneity and discipline are both false roads, then where do I go? There is no road, and no escape, you see.

Now, the overly conscientious or disciplined self is letting go as the integration takes place. The inner psychic in terms of psychically psychological activity has been constructive therefore since the process of integration began. He should, as he realizes, avoid dwelling on the symptoms consciously. This does not mean that he pretend they do not exist.

Some of the confusion was the result of Ruburt’s attitudes toward spontaneity and discipline, toward the spontaneous and strongly conscientious aspects of his personality.

He thought of the overly conscientious self as stern, good, boring, constricting and uncreative, but very safe. He never made any serious attempt to integrate his personality, or to understand these portions of himself until recent years. He did not understand that discipline can be an aid to creativity, and that the spontaneous self is good. These erroneous attitudes were built up in this life. They echoed however experience in past lives also.