“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Now: the man who wrote Alice in Wonderland was, I believe, a mathematician of note in his time.

(Pause.) He considered himself to be excellent at his work. It gave him a professional respectability, a feeling of worth and merit. He found it—his occupation—to be a responsible one, befitting an adult. The occupation filled many of his needs and expressed some of his abilities. In his spare time, however, for a lark, simply because he wanted to, he wrote his Alice in Wonderland—a book that is a masterpiece at many levels. What a shock when he discovered that the world was ignoring what he thought to be his important contribution to mathematics. He believed (underlined) that he should devote all of his time to his work, and could hardly forgive himself for his regrettable lapses into writing—and he was writing, after all, not even for adults, and not for young males either.

He was, in a fashion only, sexually ambiguous, his mathematics expressing what he thought of as an acceptable male aspect while the artistic levels in his mind, now, he related to his feminine aspects. So he was to some extent a divided man. His creativity showed itself, however, when he allowed himself to play, when he forgot what he thought he should do, and did what he wanted to do.

(Pause.) Because of his beliefs he considered himself somewhat of a failure, and the rich, evocative nature of his own stories did not meet with the approval of his academically attuned mind. Despite himself, however, he was stretching the dimensions of his own consciousness, exercising his consciousness in different directions, expanding the scope of his abilities—and in so doing contributing a small masterpiece to the world.

(9:00.) I want here to stress the basic playful exercising aspects of creativity. When a child indulges in physical play, it exercises its muscles and its entire body. No one has to tell a child to play, for playing comes naturally. Playful games in childhood, not dictated by teachers or parents, often give clear indications of a child’s abilities and leanings. You can sense by watching a child’s play the future shape that his or her life can most productively take. The child does not consciously exercise his or her legs so that they will be strong, but simply joyfully follows the inner impulse to do so.

As in the case of Cézanne, masterpieces would justify all else. Even relationships would make no difference—and Ruburt in his way made the same judgments about the “writer.”

Cézanne, as you know, was not a happy man. He could have been a far better artist still, for if his vision was intense, my dear friend, it was cramped, and it moved within itself in an agony to find a creative release that could never be found in the creative product alone, but in the psyche from which that product emerges.

You are aware of the nonsense connected with artists and poets and so forth—that they are too sensitive for the world, that great talent brings spiritual desolation, and that a man’s genius more often destroys him than fulfills him. Add to that list the belief that the great artist or writer concentrates upon his or her art so intensely and single-mindedly, and single-heartedly, that the focus itself forces the artist or poet to use those abilities to their utmost, or that great genius demands one-sided vision and a denial of the world.

An artist or writer, believing such selective nonsense, will of course find all of his or her other creative abilities a distraction, a bother, a temptation that is bound to detract from the main genius, rather than add to it, deepen its application, and add an orchestration to its subjective moods that would otherwise be quite lacking (all intently).

They often worked by choice with a multitude of workmen, apprentices, students, hangers-on and whatever. For all of Michelangelo’s ranting, he found great zest in the political tumult of his time, in which he was of course quite intimately involved. He played church and state against each other, made an ass of the Pope whenever he could, and was deeply involved in the social, political, and religious fervor of those days.

That applies even more of course to Da Vinci, who was a social dilettante besides, but a man of incredible vision—a psychic if you prefer, who invented in his mind gadgets that would not physically come into your world for centuries.

Those sketches of his, it seems, do not stand up as creative products as a great sculpture might, but they stand for a truly creative originality in which a consciousness played with internal material, and projected outward many of the material properties that then simply did not exist. Much of his art in those terms did not show, but the art of his consciousness expanded beyond Michelangelo’s.

Now: Ruburt’s list is an excellent idea, and so is the note on the refrigerator. Remind him to walk at least twice daily, and to add to that when possible. Have him forget his ideas of the exclusive expression of creativity, mental or physical. His body is responding, and very well. Encourage his reception of relaxation. He is also being creative when he is relaxed.

This session should be of excellent use, really, to both of you—and remembering the playful nature of creativity will help Ruburt get back to his book. He does that by forgetting the book, and playing with the ideas that it contains.