“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Today I mentioned to Jane that I’d like Seth to go into some of the elements of question 17 on the list I’ve compiled so far—especially those parts of it pertaining to why didn’t the overall personality know when it had gone far enough, or even too far, concerning the symptoms. I also was curious as to what he’d say about my speculation that the symptoms themselves might actually be one of her main challenges in this life.

(The index proofs for God of Jane arrived day before yesterday, and Jane found them okay when she checked them today. Tam told her recently the book would be out in May. Mass Events was supposed to come out on March 13, but this date is evidently in error, since we’ve just learned we won’t see front-matter proofs until next week. Jane thinks Tam meant the paperback edition of Volume 2 of “Unknown,” since the week’s sales figures, which arrived today, show sales of some 3,000 copies of that edition. But we’re still uneasy over the whole Mass Events affair —the disclaimer question, Jane’s reaction to the book itself since Seth started giving it, etc.—and any delay only serves to make us more suspicious, I’m afraid. I guess I never saw a book being looked forward to less than that one.

For example: You were pleased, Joseph, with the portrait you did and showed Ruburt, remarking, however, that you wished you had done such work earlier, and on other occasions you have made similar remarks. You will compare your own life and work often in a critical fashion to artists who were obsessed with one art from the beginning of their lives, or who pursued what is really a kind of straight and undeviating course—a brave courageous one, perhaps, and highly focused, but one that must be in certain respects (underlined) limited in scope and complexity, not crossing any barriers except those that seem to occur strictly within painting’s realm itself (all intently.

You also ignore the fact that even the kind of painting you do could not be done by anyone else, and contains within it the raw material of your own unique and natural experience with life, and no one else’s.

(Long pause at 9:48.) Give us a moment.... (Long pause.) The strain of trying to live up to such images causes tension, of course. It also causes feelings of self-disapproval, where a constant reminder of one’s background puts current situations at least into perspective. Now Ruburt’s body is trying to rid itself of those tensions, and he is learning to let go of them, and with your help, which lately has been considerable.

(Pause.) Today’s mail shows of course the better side of your readership, letters from people in many walks of life who are not fanatics, but who are normal individuals who recognize quality and who are seeking it. You are changing their lives, or allowing them to do so, of course, helping them release their own abilities—accomplishments that should be considered in line, again, with your own backgrounds, and not compared with hypothetical ones.

Some of your psychological growth is obvious through the books, of course—obvious to others if often not to yourselves. The books make a psychological impact difficult to describe—one of course that overall presents a kind of multidimensional portrait, highly difficult to assess. (Long pause.) You lose contact with yourself to whatever extent as you compare yourself to others, and therefore your own work can escape you, again, and the contour of your own experience. You are planting seeds, and with the books you are planting seeds, only the results are not immediately before your eyes—a good point to remember.