“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

I do admit that in recent years I’ve wondered more and more why artists don’t deal with at least their own past-life images. Surely these would be as original as any conventional self-portrait. Surely the artist could have, would have, insights into such existences but for a number of reasons—fear of ridicule, for example—choose not to investigate them. Especially in public ways! Yet artists are supposed to be uninhibited to express their feelings and knowledge. An incredibly rich and very nearly untapped, psychic and psychological field lies open for exploration, I think, waiting, waiting. I also believe that opening up past-life fields would enrich us all. In my naiveté I can see a whole genre of art growing. My own projected portfolio of art will include at least several past-life images of me. I’ve already painted them (but can always add more). Recently I finished a past-life portrait from my vision of a friend Jane and I had known years ago. Jim hasn’t seen it; we lost touch with him before moving to the hill house in 1975. Why did that past-life image of him come to me in 2002? I painted my image of Jim with tiny crosses in the pupils of his eyes, and with his eyes themselves brimming with tears. I wrote: “Always very religious in his lives, Jim cried with compassion for his fellow human beings.” The resultant oil is one of my best.

We quickly made friends with the family across the road. Joseph and Margaret Bumbalo had three children, all living away from home. The youngest, John, who visited his parents occasionally, was attracted by the ideas in Jane’s work. (Now that was a coincidence!) He had, and still has, no doubt, a most powerful and moving baritone voice. He was also restless. When we met, John had little interest in an operatic career, as far as I recall, yet had taken professional singing lessons and given auditions. When he crossed the road to visit I would encourage him to sing a bit for us a cappella. The few brief times he did so I thrilled to the power and quality of his voice; I could feel it surging within me, as could Jane. John’s masculine power, while different from Jane’s Seth voice at its masculine strongest, represented the only time I’ve personally heard a voice that could match Seth’s voice at its best. Both voices could make my ears ring, conjuring up deep-seated wordless emotions that usually lay unsuspected within the psyche. Very revealing, Jane and John.