“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Imagination and will, working together, are miracle-makers, because self-deception does not stand between them.

(“Do you want to say something about the Voice?” In a rather funny confrontation, Seth and I stared at each other for a few moments. My question of course grew out of the first installment of the story about us and Seth that was published earlier this week in the Village Voice. Our feelings about it ranged all the way from ridicule to a grudging understanding that Jim Poett had worked hard on the piece. We think the pictures are especially bad, yet could see why the Voice had chosen the ones they did.

(I suppose the two-part article marks the end of our involvement with the media, though this opinion may change. Not likely, though. We’re left feeling that it’s largely a waste of time, and fraught with a lack of understanding. It’s practically impossible, for example, to get free of the connotations of the worst elements of the whole field: the moment the subject comes up, we’re associated with all the history of mediumship in the most banal of terms. This fact is indicative of both Poett’s own inexperience, and the way association works generally. To have Jane’s work studied and respected for what it is, on its own, is evidently asking the impossible of most people. It appears that intuitively at least Jane has made the right decision, to concentrate upon the books; at least they offer something the way she wants it to be. Unfortunately, I suppose, this also means that we set ourselves outside the mainstream of activity in the field, and that our readership is likely to be pretty much confined to the “average” individual. The “authorities” aren’t going to pay any attention.)