“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(My pendulum related the symptoms to my decision to paint an oil from a small pen-and-ink sketch I had made in 1969. I pulled the little sketch, which was a free interpretation of what I considered to be a man facing himself, embodying certain distortions of face and form from my files recently and decided to paint it. For a surface I chose a cardboard canvas-covered panel made by one of the well-known artist’s manufacturers. I don’t often use such panels, usually thinking them not permanent enough; I almost always prefer Masonite, etc.

(To bolster the permanency of the panel I backed it with a wooden frame that I glued to the panel, to prevent warping, etc. I used wood for this that I found in father’s garage in Sayre over the last weekend. On Tuesday afternoon when I began the blowup of the drawing to transfer in turn to the panel for painting, the symptoms began—coughing, sneezing, etc., much like aggravated hay fever symptoms. I also had trouble figuring out the right size to make the figures in the oil—nothing was going right, and after a while it was only too obvious that my subconscious was raising hell about the whole project.

(I connected my symptoms also with the creed, mentioned in the notes proceeding the undeleted material for this session. As stated this creed grew out of the last, 584th session for May 3, 1971, Seth Speaks, pages 321 and 322, where Seth discussed the ego’s fear of being swamped by strong creative abilities, etc. I had felt for some time now that Jane entertained fears of this kind, and that they must be resolved.

(Part of the creed involved Jane’s listing what bothered her—indeed, it would end up covering all essential points in our lives, and I hoped would act as a guide and reminder. I was now beginning to feel that none of us were all powerful, and would have to live within whatever limits and capabilities we could handle. In short, there might be certain things that, even though we could do them, we might better not do, in order to maintain overall balance, health, etc. Which is another way of saying that we could accomplish our ends by perhaps slightly different methods.

(When I began to learn about my own symptoms, I started taking steps whereby I could present the same idea—of a man facing himself—in other ways, and shortly evolved several quite acceptable ways, that were in harmony with my ideas of pictorial form, permanence, etc. This experience was quite revealing. It taught me to consider all portions of the personality—its needs, desires, creative drives and expressions, etc., and I intuitively linked this up with Jane’s problems. It began to seem very clear to me that this was what she must do.

(Elements of the creed would consider whether she should have these sessions, whether they should be public or merely private, whether they should be published now or later, or never, etc. I was, and am, anxious to do anything that will help, and will feel no regrets. Jane has already learned that she doesn’t want to do merely psychic, Seth books, like the Edgar Cayce series, for instance—from her own work on the creed. She wants to, and needs to, do work in which she is her own creator, and goes through the creative process from start to finish consciously, etc. It doesn’t really matter that the Seth material is excellent, etc. What counts is her reaction to it, and the symptoms, as far as I can tell at this time, are all too clear a sign of her reaction to it—at least an important part of her is reacting this way.

(Excellent information, etc.)

(“Okay.” I had been coughing again, etc.)

(In earlier deleted material, Seth told us that Jane’s slower physical motions since the publication of The Seth Material was, in part, caused by her desire to slow down to give me a chance to catch up to her own success, etc., through my painting.)