“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

With no idea of how we were doing, I couldn’t have cared less, finally, what Dr. Instream was concentrating on. The tests just became time-consuming, cutting down on the amount of theoretical material we could receive. Once more I wrote the good doctor, suggesting that he not spare my feelings in case the data was just wrong. If so, we were wasting his time and our own. Again he wrote of his continuing interest and suggested we keep on. But he would not say we were doing well, fair, or poorly, and he gave no reports on the many specific details given.

Here are a few excerpts from that session: “In a portrait,” Seth said, “do the same exercise as given earlier: [that is], imagine the individual as the center of all life, so that when the painting is completed, it automatically suggests the whole universe of which the individual is part. Nothing exists in isolation, and this is the secret that the old masters knew so well.

“In the smallest detail they managed to suggest the reality of the spiritual universe of which that detail was a part and through which the energy of the universe spoke. Use your talents—and they are considerable—to this end. You can do no less. …

“Now, oils suggest the earth. Let that medium stand for the physical appearance of permanency in any object, the physical continuity of any given human form in a painting. Let the transparent oil colors represent the constant renewal of energy that always escapes the form.

“One of the attractions of your portrait of me is that it automatically suggests an unseen audience to whom I appear to be speaking. Not a formal audience, but unseen listeners who represent humanity at large. The unseen is there. The figure manages to suggest the universe of men and the world that holds them, yet nowhere do these appear.

“Now, this information is from an artist who always used sienas for initial flesh tones, with a suggestion, very lightly, of violets. These were then very cleverly built up with a transparent ocher which he had, and a particular green, muted. The top complexion tone lay on this lightly, as if a wind could blow it away.”