“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Neither of us had questions for Seth in particular. That is, I said, “I could ask 5,000 questions, but I haven’t planned any for tonight.” Jane said we could have “just a question-and-answer Seth book”—one made up of just those ingredients, without the formal session format. “But the publisher would want it organized according to subject matter, or presented in some orderly way,” I replied, whereupon she wrinkled her face at the work this might involve: “But you could do all that after we got the material....”

Ruburt was highly creative, and so following the beliefs of his time, he believed that he must watch his creativity most carefully, for he was determined to use it. He decided early to have no children—but more, to fight any evidence of femininity that might taint his work, or jumble up his dedication to it. He loved you deeply, and does, but he always felt he had to tread a slender line, so as to satisfy the various needs and beliefs that you both had to one extent or another, and those you felt society possessed.

Now: you are creative, but you are a male—and one part of you considered creativity a feminine-like characteristic. If it were tied to money-making, as it once was, then painting became also power-making, and hence acceptable to your American malehood; and I am quite aware of the fact that both of you were, by the standards of your times, quite liberal, more the pity. You would not take your art to the marketplace after you left commercial work, because then, in a manner of speaking now, understand, you considered that the act of a prostitute, for your “feminine feelings” that you felt produced the painting would then be sold for the sake of “the male’s role as provider and bringer of power.”

The art of the Old Masters escaped such connotations, largely because it involved so much physical labor—the making of colors, canvases, and so forth. That work, providing the artist’s preparation, now belongs to the male-world manufacturer, you see, so the artist as a male in your society is often left with what he thinks of as art’s feminine basis, where it must be confronted, of course.

I have given material on that before. To some extent, then, Ruburt became afraid of his own creativity, and so did you. In Ruburt’s case the fear was greater, until it seemed sometimes that if he succeeded in his work he would succeed at some peril: you might be put in an unpleasant light, or he might become a fanatic, displaying those despicable, feminine hysterical qualities. (With much humor:) I hope this session benefits you both. End of session, and a fond good evening.

(Jane said she couldn’t really describe them now, but she had “great emotional feelings” when she delivered the part of the session about my thinking that selling work made me a prostitute. “Some gargantuan feelings there, full of humor,” she said.