“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Now: you (to me) have been wondering whether or not to use family photographs in “Unknown” Reality. On the one hand you see how they fit into the book. Yet photographs are also connected in your mind with paintings to some degree. This is visual data, and as far as photographs are concerned personal data, out in the open, so to speak.

Your stomach began to bother you when you considered whether or not to use photographs. (On Sunday, when I bought an album to keep them in.) You have the idea of how the book can appear, a model that exists in your mind. Use the model, but let it be a flexible one, in which your ideals work with the material at hand, molding it. Do not exaggerate, however, so that the ideal seems to be a perfection that cannot be attained given the conditions.

(This really surprised me, since for some months I’ve had the idea that my own reluctance to use photographs was a weakness on my part, when it was obvious that they’d add considerably to the books. But my reluctance was based, I thought, on my resentment at Prentice-Hall over their handling of art work; I really didn’t want to let the photos in question out of the house, for fear they’d be lost, etc. This in spite of Tam’s assurances some months ago that they’d be handled with care, etc. I still think my reaction here is valid. But I missed out on the connections involving my mother, disclosure, etc.