“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

It is easier then to sense and feel the alive energy within and beneath the physical forms that you see. It is easier to feel yourself as the artist, also a part of the landscape that you paint; to sense the merging of your own energy into the scene before you, and to realize that you are a part of it also. For you paint reality from within.

The form is caused by a characteristic condition of the energy at any given time. If you are intuitively aware of that miraculous neatness, if you allow yourself to be enveloped within that particular moment point, then the painting will form itself about you in somewhat the same manner that I am formed about Ruburt’s voice. But your painting of course will be more visible.

Think of the energy as radiating outward from the object, giving life to all other things, whether or not many specific objects are to be in any given painting. This will result in paintings in which your chosen point of attention radiates through the form, illuminating all other objects in the painting, and psychically radiating outward from the painting.

It will automatically be evocative of other objects not in the painting, and will automatically remind the viewer of the universe that you did not paint. Expansiveness is built in psychically in this manner.

Now in other ways it was also utilized by your old masters. The expansiveness then was also of a spiritual nature. Whatever objects were shown in the painting automatically presupposed the existence of spiritual realities, and other universes, though these presuppositions were highly ritualistic.

The meaning behind them was known to all. Each of the great masters’ paintings somehow suggest the existence of far greater realities, of which the paintings were a part. They saw the objects within their paintings as portions of a greater whole that was suggested by the painting.

The timeless quality will be built in, for the painting itself, though flawless in form, will suggest the changing quality of form, and stress the permanent quality that gives it its meaning. If you as artist are also aware that the same energy that fills the form that you paint also forms your own image, then the transformation into something better than excellent art is made.

(This is sound painting technique. Jane paints in her own manner, quite different than mine, but the above data is not her way of thinking in painting terms as far as I know. I have never heard her mention this, at least.)

In a portrait, do the same exercise as given earlier. Imagine the individual as the center of all life, so that when the painting is completed it automatically suggests the whole universe of which the individual is part. Nothing exists in isolation, and this is the secret that the old masters knew so well.

Painting or sketching outdoors for a while will aid you considerably in your ability to sense this inner unity, to see each natural object in its individualistic momentary majesty, and yet to realize that it is in one way a center through which all energy moves.

Now oils themselves suggest the earth. The medium is a fairly natural one. Let the medium then stand for and represent the physical appearance of permanency in any object, the physical continuity of any given human form in a painting. Let transparents represent the constant renewal of energy that always escapes the form. These lift the medium itself into another realm, and the two together can suit your purposes well.

An apple can do more in a painting than stand before the spirit of all apples, though that is an accomplishment. An apple can imply, through use of the exercise I have given you, the whole unseen universe, though not another object is shown in the painting itself.

Now. One of the attractions for others in that painting of me is that it automatically suggests an unseen audience, to whom I appear to be speaking. Not indeed a formal audience, but unseen listeners who represent humanity at large. The unseen is there. ‘The figure manages to suggest the universe of men and the world that holds them, yet nowhere literally do these appear.

(Now Jane, as Seth, pointed to an acrylic seascape that I had recently hung on the wall opposite Seth’s portrait. This I painted last year. After the seascape Seth inspected an oil of a tree that I had painted in 1960; this hung beyond the seascape, toward the front door.)

The seascape automatically suggests the energy that moves the ocean. Now, the tree does not suggest the energy that forms trees. It does not suggest the universe. The tree does not for others suggest more than you have literally put into the painting.

Ruburt cannot deal with form you see, in painting. He does not understand form in those terms, and never has. You can use it beautifully, as the carrier through which energy flows, and at the same time remember that the form itself is also the energy, period.

Energy fills out the sails of form. The energy is psychic and spiritual. It will endure as long as there are people to look at paintings. If you can suggest this, and you can, Joseph, then you will truly fulfill your artistic abilities. To some extent you have been trapped by the object, trying so hard to identify with it that this kind of expansion was not possible.

(I asked the question because of the long pause; I wanted to keep Seth on this track, and thought he might begin talking about another subject. Jane said she had visions of brown earth and clumps of grass while she gave the data. A little earlier, she now added, she had seen flashes of other paintings as she spoke about the old masters, but she didn’t know which paintings were involved by name.

(The Van Elder name was not specifically familiar to me, although it could be said to have a familiar sound. I can say that the painting and energy data given tonight is entirely sound and worthy, however, and certainly beneficial for any artist. The method of using siennas, ochre and violet is not one I have used, but appears to be quite sensible; I may try it soon. I do not believe Jane consciously thinks this way.

(Jane said Seth seemed to have a tremendous fount of information to draw upon as she gave the data tonight, as though he had gathered it together just for this session. Jane felt that either she or Seth, or both, were looking at paintings as she talked.