“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.

(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.

The inner self is permanent regardless of its form of course, and the encounter of a man with himself is primarily an interior one. Do you have questions?

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.

Intuitively you knew better, and (but?) when painting was concerned—your career, you did not allow yourself the freedom. In sketches which were fun, and to you not permanent, you permitted the spontaneity.