“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

I enjoy the lively arts.

However your unbounded enthusiasm this evening made me hesitate to disappoint you. It’s so nice to be wanted. I don’t mean to be sarcastic, it really is. Though I certainly appreciate your interpretation, Joseph, as far as my comment on the lively arts is concerned, nevertheless though I enjoyed Jane’s little performance that is not what I was referring to. Incidentally, I rarely attend your little apartment unless in one way or another you ask me to, and tonight you were yelling my name from the rooftops, so to speak.

My remark about the lively arts had to do with the method of communication we use at the present time. Jane is right in supposing that I prefer conversation, even though I admit this usually amounts to a monologue. And this is what I meant by the lively arts. There is little spontaneity involved in automatic writing, as far as emotional content is concerned. At least that is my opinion.

This is just a short private little session. I have never completely trusted the written word half as much as I trust the spoken word, and on your plane it is difficult to trust either. But I do not feel that I could be myself as easily if you tried automatic writing, for example. I do not mind speaking through Ruburt’s mouth. Somehow the sound of the words is rather pleasant. But seeing myself transformed more or less into plain black and white words on a page of paper seems dull and uninteresting. And I have always enjoyed conversation, which is the liveliest of all arts. And I am speaking now of the social arts, dear Joseph. Already I can see you yelling foul. I did not mean that conversation was on an equal par with painting.

I mentioned once that I found sculpture to be a more imprisoning form than say painting, music or a poem, and here I will mention my reasonings. You will have to look at this in an opposite manner than is usually used when discussing such arts. I believe that it is usually considered that an art is more powerful if it appeals to as many outer senses as possible. That is, you would perhaps think that a statue would be extremely lifelike because it exists in space and depth, having width and girth. That is, you can feel it, see it and touch it.