“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Our books are in the regular trade department. This poses some problems for the legal department, which is given to the most literal translation of reality as interpreted through law. You have almost what you could call a schizophrenic relationship, existing, say, between Parker Books and Prentice’s trade-book division. The textbook division represents the workings of the intellect in the usual terms of rational thought, and in those books the qualities of the imagination, of the psyche, of poetry, of creativity, are quite lacking. Such qualities are indeed considered threats, for they do not accept easy answers, and are not content with the status quo.

Many of the Parker books on the other hand emphasize creativity, the intuitions, the use of the imagination, but are relatively innocent of any clear reasoning, logic, or any feeling for tradition at all. I am simplifying here to some extent to make my point. Prentice is always, then, to some extent in a state of creative tension, as the seemingly opposed, seemingly contradictory elements are each expressed through these two divisions.

(9:23.) Give us a moment … Prentice does more than it knows it does. As a corporate entity, it also has a conscious and unconscious intent, as do all organizations, because they must mirror the people who belong to them. In its way Prentice is an educational institution. It tries to fly ahead with avant garde ideas, while at the same time protecting its flank of college textbooks. (With amusement:) It does not know if our work is fact or fiction, in the deepest of terms. It knows the work is not forged. It knows that I appear in sessions, for example, but it does not know whether or not my ideas correspond with a greater reality, or whether they are the result of an extraordinary psychological creativity.

“As I came out of the experience a few moments later I resolved to paint a small oil of it, as I’ve done following my three previous perceptions of the light of the universe this year — on February 9 and 10, and on June 16. And it’s obvious that in tonight’s little adventure I had once again cleverly protected myself from confronting the full creative blast of the light of the universe by allowing myself just a peek at it, and a careful one at that, at the top of a door. Seth has told me that as a physical creature I’d be overwhelmed if ever I came even close to facing that awesome conscious and creative power.”