“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

[...] Seth’s naming a good number of class members as counterparts came as no great surprise to Jane and me — but it did make us more than a little suspicious at first. We’ve been thinking about counterpart ideas since Seth introduced the concept two months ago; see the opening notes for the 721st session. Then, in the 726th session, Seth named Jane and me as counterparts of each other. [...] Yet I felt no strong surge of emotion, for instance, to learn that Norma Pryor [whom I’ve met but a few times], Peter Smith, and Jack Pierce are counterparts of mine — nor did they when I read Seth’s material to them during ESP class six nights later. Jane’s feelings were pretty similar to mine, when Seth named three students as her counterparts: Sue Watkins, Zelda, and “the young man from Maryland….”

(Student Bill Herriman is a professional pilot who flies a considerable distance to Elmira for class; his counterpart in class, Carl Jones, lives in Elmira each summer while giving instructions in sailplane flying, the third member of the counterpart trio, Bill Granger, is not a member of class, lives in Elmira, has always had a deep interest in aircraft, and is now learning to pilot sailplanes. [...] The close observer could, I think, find among the three men more physical and psychological correlations [some having to do with illness], as well as meaningful opposing features, so that in this instance the counterpart relationships can be seen as quite apropos.

[...] Psychic matters weren’t stressed, and counterpart ideas weren’t even mentioned. [...] Still, it’s worth noting that being in the presence of a relative stranger who may also be one’s counterpart does make some sort of interior difference in response or attention. I wondered about the countless times counterparts had unwittingly gathered on similar occasions, and what sort of numberless exchanges had taken place on unconscious levels between those who were psychically related in some fashion.

(My counterpart, Peter Smith, and I are both professional artists; we’re roughly of an age, with strong interests in other forms of creativity, such as writing, and in myth and fantasy.¹ A number of the similarities and differences between Jane and me should be obvious to our readers; she also does quite a lot of painting. Both of my other class counterparts, Norma Pryor and Jack Pierce, are themselves of a younger generation than Jane, Peter, and I. Jack writes novels, as yet unpublished. [...]

(Our suspicions entered in, however, when Jane and I realized that between us [and including each other] we were personally acquainted with nine counterparts: All but one of them [Alan Koch] were class members. [...]

“We’re so used to thinking that our encounters with others are caused by chance — except for those we purposely bring about through choice, such as marriage partners — that Seth’s comments about my students seem a bit outrageous at first: So many counterparts in one room?

“Yet,” she continued, “second thoughts make us question old assumptions: Granted the existence of counterparts to begin with, certainly their common goals, though differently expressed, would bring them together when possible. [...]

(I suppose that one can find all sorts of variations within counterpart situations, all sorts of reasons for such affiliations, so I can merely hint at a few here as they rise out of the class framework or orbit around it:

(Jane’s own counterparts, Sue, Zelda, Alan Koch, “Maryland,” and myself are all committed to the dissemination of Seth-type ideas, either through professional writing, classes, and/or lecture appearances that extend from one end of the country to the other.

(I found it very interesting to consider my class counterparts with that general designation of them in mind. [...]