“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(The pendulum told me that I was bothered by the idea of the possible lack of permanency of the panel I had chosen, and briefly that I was somewhat aware of the change in this picture, as far as handling of form would be concerned, from my usual style of working. I told none of this to Jane at the time. I thought I had resolved the problem, but when the symptoms continued during Jane’s ESP class Tuesday night, I realized I was wrong—the problem had not been cleared up.

(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.

The idea of permanence in your mind is strongly connected with more representational work. You think of the old masters for example, the figure work. You are concerned lest the freer style itself implies a lack of permanency, in that you wonder how well others will relate to it as time passes.

(“I didn’t want to be rigid in my ideas, and the way I expressed them.”)

You did not encounter the difficulty in sketch form, you see—only when the idea of permanency in a painting came into issue. The remark I made about the inner encounter will help you reconcile the two positions.

You can accept completely abstract work, and do it well, though you would not be satisfied with it for a great time. (True.) This sort of a painting however, that uses figures or objects, but not in representational form, bothers you, while you are strongly attracted in sketches of the same nature. There is no dilemma: you allow the intuitive self spontaneous expression in those sketches. It is only when you transpose the same ideas onto painting and a more permanent form that you become uneasy.

In this line of feeling, the distortions, artistic distortions represent those points where you feel that the irrational could enter in, or untruth. To portray an object faithfully represented a kind of truth to you. To represent it differently than it was, represented at best a half-lie—this from the exaggerated and distorted ideas of order that surrounded you as a child on the part of your father.