“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

People could physically only see what was presently before their eyes—no postcards with pictures of the Alps, or far places. Visual data consisted of what the eye could see—and that was indeed a different kind of a world, a world in which a sketched object was of considerable value. Portraits [were] possessed only by the priests and nobility. You must remember also that the art of the great masters was largely unknown to the poor peasants of Europe, much less to the world at large. Art was for those who could enjoy it—who could afford it. There were no prints to be passed around,⁴ so art, politics, and religion were all connected. Poor people saw lesser versions of religious paintings in their own simple churches, done by local artists of far lesser merit than those [who] painted for the popes.

(9:40.) Those mythological images and their belief system were shared by all—peasants and the wealthy—to a large degree. They were, then, highly charged emotionally. Whether an artist painted saints or apostles as heroic figures, as ideas embodied in flesh, or as natural men, he commented on the relationship between the natural and the divine.

4. Right away I began to wonder when Seth stated that “There were no prints to be passed around….” Presumably he referred to the time of Michelangelo. However, my reading indicates that Seth was probably right about prints being unavailable to the “poor peasants” of those times.