“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(We’ve lost the old sense of freedom we had with Prentice-Hall, where we can just do our work, ship it to them, and expect it to be well handled, with royalties paid every so often and a trust both felt and expressed between the two sides. Now we’ve become suspicious of everything they tell us. Jane still has on hand the contracts for Mass Events and God of Jane waiting for these to be straightened out: amended with Tam’s promised “superamendment” that’s supposed to protect us in the rights departments, paperback covers, and all the rest; jacket copy, etc. Prentice-Hall even wanted to have Jane sign contracts giving them the right to take money from Mass Events to pay for God of Jane. I sometimes have the feeling that we’re little more than ciphers to them. I for one am in favor of taking a stand, as Jane well knows, but as I’ve told her, I don’t expect her to go along. I think she’d be too terrified to be without a publisher, if it came to that, whereas my fighting blood is aroused and I’d be perfectly willing to let the chips fall where they may.

(The little I’ve worked with the pendulum tells me my troubles are rooted in money attitudes, as well as the production time I’ve lost on Mass Events for the last two weeks and more. I thought I was doing something by working hard on that book, to get it underway in an organized fashion, I told Jane as we sat for the session—so what happened? I added that I wouldn’t put up with the kind of hassles involving Prentice-Hall beyond a certain point—that I’d take some kind of drastic action in order to rid myself of the problems connected with dealing with someone I no longer respect. This would involve holding the sessions, but letting Jane herself do any work about producing books for the market. I would go back to painting, try to sell some, and possibly end up with a part-time job for ready money—anything to break the vicious mental pattern of distrust I seem to keep creating. I believe that Jane at last understands that I’m quite capable of reacting that way, that I would refuse to indefinitely put up with our present kind of hassles with Prentice-Hall, or any other entity. I explained that I had such thoughts when we moved to Pinnacle Road, and could easily revive them and try a different kind of life.

(So as I write this on Wednesday morning at 11:20 we expect to receive from Tam today a “care package,” as he put it, of the latest correspondence involving our foreign hassles. I intend to finish this session today, and make preparations to resume painting each day. I think at the moment that I’ll continue to rise early to get three hours in on Mass Events in the mornings, paint and run errands in the afternoons, and have evenings for either sessions or more work on Mass Events. Let’s hope things run smoothly enough. As I told Jane last night, there isn’t much more we can do about foreign rights; let’s hope that challenge has been met.)

Give us a moment.... in a fashion Ruburt and Tam’s seemingly emotional, fairly spontaneous relationship has represented good common business sense on Ruburt’s part. Regardless of what better deals businesswise you may or may not have made in the past, both of you would have been highly discomfited by any frequent change of publishers. Part of your personal problem now is because you feel you have cut off the easy flow of creative energy into your painting and into Mass Reality, and even to some extent—on your part, now—because the contracts are unsigned, and the flow in that area momentarily is somewhat impeded.

Divide your time between Mass Reality if you want to and your painting. It does not matter which of you handles the business end, as long as you have as much peace of mind as possible, and as long as you judge events as clearly as possible, according to their actual proportion as apart from their emotionally charged symbolic content.