“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Now. Up to a certain point compromise can be a beneficial reaction. Beyond that point it can turn against you. The compromise of your job therefore was beneficial to a point. Ruburt feared that the point had been reached beyond which you could not afford to go, while still maintaining those ideas, ideals and goals that were your own.

It was known at your place of employment. An unconscious bargain had been made by you and your employers. They knew precisely how much you would work for, and to what ends you would work. They also knew that you did not want more money—this is precisely what you did not want. More money simply would have made the temptation stronger. You made your attitude quite clear. You did not want advancement, and you did not want more money.

In some (underlined) respects he was right about compromises, and some made in the past out of well-meaning ignorance cannot easily be changed. These concern your family.

Too many compromises do sap your strength and energy, and the work compromise was inhibiting your painting to some extent. The focus upon compromise automatically forces you to withhold directness and energy in all of your pursuits. After a while despite yourself you take on to some extent the coloration and attitudes of others who live by compromise entirely, until your own clear-cut ideas and purposes seem more and more unrealistic.

This is the fear that Ruburt felt for you. Now. Your own ideas and goals are worthy ones, and yours for a reason. They have within them the power to develop and mature. It was known, then, that you would leave before you gave notice, unconsciously perceived.

Your mother realizes when she is pulling emotional blackmail on you, and recognizes when you come, willingly or unwillingly. The situation’s roots lie so in the past, and so pervade the present, that practically little can be changed without the greatest efforts. She knows you come out of obligation. That is like a slap in the face that she must tolerate, and because of her own actions and stress laid upon what was right and proper at the expense of true feelings.

Yesterday he allowed some of these feelings to arise only because he was so miserable. (While we were in Sayre; Jane was doing the washing; mother was cooking dinner, etc.) He remembered you and the pendulum, and having none there instead allowed submerged feelings up. You should know what they were. (Jane told me about some of them at the time; which I thought an advancement.) He was scandalized and outraged. Sundays were the days he could not escape his mother. There was no school, no excuses to get out. It was a day of encounters with her—her two-hour bath, the preparation of meals, and the wild hope that he could escape after supper for a few hours.

Ruburt felt “Here was another ranter and raver, another tyrant in skirts, taking my free day of the week.” Now. He felt better physically when he realized the feelings at that point, and when even through a reproachful silence he expressed them. When they returned he felt them again. Then they vanished again.

(9:45. True, Jane didn’t express those feelings to me in those terms, but she let me know she was quite upset, etc. Resume at 9:52.)

(“For the last couple of years I’ve been wondering about my strong interest in the painting of Rembrandt van Rijn. When I was a young man in New York City I even saw some of it in the museums, but I don’t recall being that affected by it then. I might vaguely recall some of it, but that’s all.”

(I didn’t add that I was well aware of the time sequence here—that according to Seth I had a rather long life in Denmark in the 1600 ‘s —and that Rembrandt lived in Holland from 1606 to 1669.)

(“Is this in Italy?” I didn’t know whether to interrupt or not. Seth/Jane had a little trouble with the word frescos, as though it was unfamiliar to her. She knows the word, however.)

(“What did you mean when you said I was very close to Rembrandt?”)

You were indeed. You were the man who experimented with color, as applied however to sculpts. And one of your discoveries was of the binding agent adopted by the master painter in his work.

You were also close friends. You came from a different country, where the weathering effect upon statues was different. (Denmark? I hated to interrupt with a lot of questions. I thought we could fill in details in later sessions.) This is a long subject however. There was difficulty with varnishes, sometimes drying before the color upon which they were applied. Also varnishes that did not dry evenly, but with accumulations of oils resulting. On frescos this was disastrous enough.

(All of this is very acute artistic information, and embodies the use of good technique even today. Again, I don’t believe Jane knows these things consciously. The varnish data is very good, also the fresco material. Many frescos were ruined in those days through poor techniques. Quality control was not what it is today re paints, varnishes, etc.)

Too much oil facilitated the growth of certain molds. Lead white often stopped the growth of the mold, but it was too harsh a color. The lead content stopped the mold.

(Lead white, for centuries, has been the recommended white pigment for oils, and indeed before this century was the only white available, as far as I know. It is poisonous. Even today most authorities still regard it as having superior properties to all other white pigments. In this life, however, I prefer zinc white.)

There was a varnish, finally, that you mixed in with some of the pigments after they were prepared, with the dry pigments after they were prepared, that served as a binding agent that also protected each color from the other one. There was a slight lead content mixed into the varnish.

(In those days, tubes for paints did not exist—all color had to be prepared fresh each day by the artist or assistants, from dry pigment. Varnish was often used as an ingredient in mediums. There are and were, many kinds of varnish. A slight lead content in a varnish sounds quite possible.)

(The Rembrandt data is surprising, and raises many questions. According to Seth I lived in Denmark in the 1600’s. I was a painter as a younger man, then gave it up for the more respectable role of a farmer, at which I was quite successful. I do not know whether I traveled to Italy, or at what point in my life age-wise. Perhaps I was there before giving up active painting. I believe I farmed in Denmark, but there is much here that we don’t know. Denmark and Holland of course are close geographically.