“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

You were guiltily aware of this, and punish yourself by refusing to allow yourself to make money with good paintings now. This is that key to understanding, Joseph.

To paint paintings for joy was an act of defiance against your mother, and so you have punished yourself in several ways; by being overly concerned with their quality, insisting upon perfection, and by not making strong efforts to sell them or to work for recognition in that field.

To search for perfection within your art is good. The drive is good. But this is something different. Each painting has a spontaneous reality that you have often refused to acknowledge. (Pause.) Carried to extremes this could smother the spontaneous spark that is the heart of each painting.

Had you continued engrossed entirely in the commercial field your painting would not have developed. Your father would not have worked as a photographer. You could have become all but sexually your mother’s husband. This was avoided.

(Long pause, eyes closed.) This session itself should aid your understanding enough to allow some improvement almost immediately in the condition itself. Two issues are involved. The painting was an act of defiance against your mother, an act of independence. She approved of the commercial art because it made money. Therefore if you made money through your paintings, then subconsciously you thought that your mother would still be getting her way. You see?

Not allowing yourself to make money through paintings also allowed you to punish yourself for what you considered this act of defiance. Two purposes in the main were served. This also affected your work itself to some degree, in that you sometimes inserted qualities in the paintings to hold people off, a remoteness.

(10:04. Jane said she had been well dissociated. I thought that perhaps Seth asked about an end to the session because Jane was blocking material about me she thought I might not like to hear. We now had a discussion about my motives in painting; I hoped it would release any blocks Jane might have set up. Seth then broke in at 10:15.)

You therefore believed all emotionalism to be of this nature. Ruburt was of great benefit to you here. In the beginning feeling and emotion sparked or initiated your paintings, but you worked it out of them to some considerable degree, not trusting it, and therefore not trusting the particular painting. So you did not feel justified in accepting money or payment for it.

Give us a moment. (Pause. Head down.) Now hear me. Using what you have learned here tonight, you can use your ability more freely. (Pause.) You can step out, so to speak, you can allow yourself to rely upon the integrity of spontaneity as it applies to your painting and to your talent.

(After a long pause Jane came out of trance at 10:28. She said she had been much farther out than usual, and believed this was due to tonight’s material; she was afraid of hurting me. For this reason my questions and comments bothered her, she said. We discussed my abstract paintings briefly, speculating on the reasons people were attracted to them, and Seth came through briefly at 10:30.)

Now. For you the abstracts also represent excellent exercises in the free flow of spontaneity, and this benefits your other paintings also. The other questions that you have in mind, and such material, will be discussed in our next session.