“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(I am merely making these observations here to get them on the record for possible later reference, and to give some background to my own personal problems of recent days. If I ever do any more extensive writing about the situation, then at least I’ll have dated material on file.

(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.

(I might add that on the telephone with Tam the day before yesterday I really lit into Tam—rather to his surprise, I think. But I was determined that he understand our feelings—or mine, at least, in no uncertain terms, for as we talked I could feel him start using words to paper over our upset about foreign rights; I felt that his tactics would only make it possible for the whole thing to happen again with succeeding books, and that I was going to short-circuit at once. I believe my reactions, which were loud and clear, paid off, for Tam called Jane yesterday to find out, in his own way, whether I was mad at him personally. Jane said I wasn’t, of course—but of course I was.

(9:20.) Now you are in a position where you see the intersection point where art meets the practical world. That point is the publishing house. With painting it would be the gallery. You do not understand that your own abilities give you a far clearer picture of the “ideal,” for example. You have understood that visually you see details that others do not—simply the world at large. In the same fashion, however, you see, say, book jackets, ideal situations, in a way that the people in the business world simply do not—and you do become literally outraged when their vision proves to be so inadequate.

Emotional shoddiness upsets you. When you become enraged at Prentice you are of course enraged against the larger defects of the world—but Prentice’s defects are the ones that come of course to your own more immediate attention.

I am in no way putting the business world down. People in it have their own abilities and drives. As a rule, however, it is foolhardy to expect them to have a sense of the artist’s values, whatever the art may be, and then to become upset when they do not live up to that picture.

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.

Give us a moment.... Ruburt does not feel that you are amiss because you are not “making money on your own,” but he feels deeply your own discontent in that area, and he feels bewildered—for years ago you said so often that it would be great if you could just paint or write without worrying about money. He feels that you are highly dissatisfied. He would do anything that you wanted. You would do far better, however, to think of painting rather than a simple job, which would certainly seem like cutting off your nose to spite your face.

It would be nice if you learned to appreciate your own abilities both as an artist and as a writer (louder). It would be nice if you learned to appreciate your comparative financial freedom, instead of arguing with yourself as to whether or not you deserve it, or whether or not you are a good male if you accept it.

(Long pause at 9:55.) I do not want to define for you an ideal picture to which you can never live up. That is, I do not want your practical experience of life to seem inferior as you are in the process of learning how to live in a new fashion. The patterns of give-and-take between you and others are actually very simple to describe and delicate at a certain level of activity. There is some material of course that I have not given, though I will, because it would seem to you initially that in the light of what is possible, you were doing poorly—where instead in the light of your reality at this time, you are doing well. You must realize that you are judging your behavior by standards that are very high indeed, and that you are in a situation in which, say, all of the facts are not yet in. You have been geared to disapprove of yourselves, you have been taught to judge your performance in a very shallow fashion, according to social mores and sexual affiliation, and when you are breaking out of those patterns, you may indeed feel betwixt and between.

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.