“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

However, you have both learned how to deal with annoying situations, and you are better equipped now. Ruburt does block me on gallery material. At this stage personal blocking of this sort is stronger during such situations, and this is entirely natural.

(Break at 9:26. Jane was dissociated as usual. During break we discussed the situation at the gallery where she works part time. With the departure of Dee Masters as director, a new director is trying out for the job; the situation is thus unsettled, and Jane is not in favor of some of her new duties and is thinking seriously of leaving the job. This situation has also interfered with our consideration of house-buying.

If Ruburt will bear with me: He will benefit from your fairly objective ideas about the gallery, if you can bring yourself to discussing them objectively.

The situation will not be of basic or long-lasting confusion. You have both learned too much for that. I mentioned earlier that the art gallery experience was a necessary one. This requirement has been settled.

(It will be remembered that Seth stated an art gallery experience was in the cards for Jane many sessions ago—back somewhere in the beginning sessions. At the time Seth also said that had we settled in Miami, Florida, as we considered doing a few years ago, Jane would have worked in a gallery there. He gave some street locations with this information, but we did not try to check it out.)

An art gallery did not have to be the answer, of course. Some like institution would have served as well. Ruburt did have a larger measure of independence at the gallery until very recently, and it is this more than anything which causes the difficulty.

If he could operate in such a manner at the gallery in the plan that he outlined, things should go well.

In the past he stayed at the gallery despite some natural disadvantages, because of the independence which he enjoyed there, because of the commitment mentioned earlier, and because of innate interest in paintings which surrounded him. But the fair amount of independence allowed was the main point.

Ruburt was not projecting other difficulties to the gallery situation, as both of you thought probable, but was reacting to the limits set upon independence.

The new director does indeed have a fussy, almost womanish love of detail for detail’s sake, and this sort of mind is one with which Ruburt finds it difficult to attune when closely involved. And here is a pretty point: Ruburt’s insistence upon the term gallery secretary left room for a certain independence and impersonality and leeway, that the term Mr. So-and-so’s secretary does not leave room for.

(Because she had been upset by the gallery situation, Jane at this point wished aloud that Seth could help her out as to what the future held; this is something we have scrupulously refrained from doing in any serious way, yet this time we sincerely felt we could use all the help we could get. Even so, we made no formal requests of Seth during break. Jane resumed as before at 10:31.)

The remark concerning, I believe, settling for less for a while at the gallery while looking for another position, so that the house could be purchased without strain.

I repeat: generally speaking, I see no important difficulties immediately ahead, despite this gallery situation, and I see no financial difficulties.