“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(A fourth category—publishing/advertising—developed shortly before the session began. I happened to discover a full-page ad of Prentice-Hall’s in the New York Times book section for April 27, 1975. Four books were featured, but none of Jane’s. I showed it to her, and it got as negative a reaction from her as it did me. Such instances always make me angry, almost at once.

(Pause at 9:49.) It would have been highly impractical, then, to expect Prentice to advertise the book. Times are changing. There is a so-called occult climate, yet we do not fall precisely into that category for them, the publishers, either; and Ruburt refuses to take advantage of “the trappings.” At least then they could say they had an occult personality who played the new part. It might be farce, from the publisher’s viewpoint, but they could sell it, and they would know how to advertise it.

No other publishing house would have treated you any better to this point. They would have tried, most of them, to have turned Ruburt into a performing circus. Advertising men cannot handle that kind of copy. You would have been put through experiences most difficult to cope with, that would have so disrupted your peace of mind that the work might well have not progressed to this stage.

He hides behind no other credentials, or social system, or dogma. It is important that our books make their way, and as unhampered as possible by the commercial distortions that would automatically be applied by men interested in advertising a product.

Now Tam can write some good ads. (Long pause.) There will be some good advertisements. In the meantime, Prentice has given a framework—a reputable one—in which the books could find their growth and audience.

Bantam is helping—but no one there would have had the guts to make any initial investment. What I have said however applies now to Bantam, as it did to Prentice in the beginning. You give them no handle of a recognizable nature in your culture, upon which their kind of advertisement can be written.

(Jane, as Seth, paused. As I commented after the session, it seems that we’ll have to pull in our horns as far as our feelings about advertising and Prentice are concerned; it may be a relief to do just that. But I think that Seth’s material here is the best we could possibly come across on our publisher, Castaneda, etc., and I’m sure that Jane will agree.