“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Now. To you ... (Long pause, eyes closed.) Your paintings are your own, and I am no artist. If I read your inner intent correctly however, your prophet will dominate the background, and seem almost to come out of it. At the same time the background itself will be alive, so it is difficult to tell whether the living background propels him outward, or whether he himself, from his own power, seems to rise out apart from the background. Or whether he has been thrust outward from the background of which he is part, a living focus rising out of the background, a part of consciousness rising out of a larger, undifferentiated consciousness implied in the background.

(Seth here refers to a large painting I have planned and made a pen-and-ink drawing for in small scale. Tonight I explained to Jane the problem involved in determining the correct relationship between background area, and the prophet, who is in a standing position. In this particular painting the background will play an important role, since it is designed to indicate a play of light and shadow. The prophet looks upward to the left, lips parted in speech.)

(Just before the session I had said that I feared I would have to revise my preliminary planning, and allow more background area in the painting than at first planned.)

(Jane had no visions while speaking, but sensed some things. She felt the background in the projected painting as being alive, she said, with the figure being the important thing and materializing out of the background, while yet a part of it .

Do his words go back into the background from which he himself emerged, and does the answer emerge also? Or is there any clear answer to his question? (Smile; pause, eyes closed.) Or is the question itself the important thing, whether or not there is any answer to it in the terms in which it is asked? All of these issues are a part of your painting, implied in every line of its conception, but I want you to see consciously the implications of the figure, and the overall implications of the figure in context with the background.

For now the figure rises from the background and dominates it, is thrust forward and you catch it; but may it not also once more return to that background in the instant that you turn away, and emerge anew. The question itself is significant, and indeed universal. (Smile.) And look even further: what is the nature of one who can ask such a question?