“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

In the dream (of March 29) Bill Gallagher offers to take you out to dinner, and you say you have good food at home. Here the word “food” refers to nourishment. He offers the nourishment of the world—but the world as he perceives it, and instead you prefer your private nourishment. Bill Gallagher sees a dog-eat-dog world, and, as mentioned earlier, animals have an entirely different meaning to Bill.

The evening found you in a clash of ideas, as Bill painted the world through the most pessimistic of eyes. He saw man’s greed for money everywhere predominate. The rest of you to varying extents objected, because he portrayed so clearly the darkest of your own fears and imaginings in exaggerated fashion.

To some extent (underlined) now, his beliefs stand for a certain conventionalized view of the world. To some extent (underlined) those views, colored by a different era, were those of your own father, concerning at least the world of commerce, business, and so forth. You all felt that those dire events of the cultural and social world were somehow transposed over the natural one.

Now: Bill Gallagher, with his beliefs about that world, in his mind joined it. He felt that he betrayed himself, that he performed acts that he should not perform in order to fit into its context, and he felt that he must do so in order to survive.

You were astonished when Ruburt told you how much money the Gallaghers were making, for if Bill sold his soul, few it seems could have sold it for less. Bill, however, concentrated upon life’s regrettable elements, upon the impediments, the dishonesties and so forth, until it seemed that even if he followed the world’s way he could not succeed. His idea of manliness was such that he insisted upon a conventional job, clear-cut.

As the evening progressed Sue Watkins became more and more upset, as Bill pointed out the toll that society demanded, the impossible stakes and the penalties that must be paid. Bill feels that his business productive life is coming to an end, when he will retire. He spoke of the values that existed when he was young in the world, that now are gone. With all of that as background, then look back to the time clock you found, hidden in your dream in a closet.

When you pursue new avenues, there are no such easy ways to assess success or failure (intently). Thinking in terms of the conventional world, however, you feel sometimes at a loss, for you want to say, “What am I?” in those terms (underlined)—an artist, or a writer, or a combination of the two? Ruburt wonders, what is he—a writer, a psychic, a combination of the two? The books bear his name, so you feel that they are primarily his, and yet all of those feelings ignore completely the larger realities of your lives and of your work.

Now: beside other reasons, the taxes serve as a focal point, because you feel you must pay tribute to the world that is described by Bill Gallagher—and in that world you feel you have no specific (underlined) conventional role, as earlier mentioned.

You did what you wanted to do, in line with your own natural inclinations, and only when you judge your circumstances against convention’s surface beliefs do you lack your own approval. You cannot rate the subjective growth of a personality, lines of comprehension, or the value of ideas given to the world. You are a success in lines that can be felt by the world but not measured. The books are more effective than any letter to a congressman, and you put the substance of your life into your notes.

(Seth’s reference to a letter to a congressman came about, I think, because during our conversation on Friday night Bill Gallagher said that no one present had done anything to protest the conditions in our world that we didn’t like—forgetting, of course, that the books themselves are full of protests, and of suggestions for the better. But Bill doesn’t read the books, and to that extent lives in a world closed off from such ideas.)