“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(I began this short appendix a couple of weeks after the 732nd session was held, but didn’t finish certain parts of it until some time later. 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. Although we keep the power of suggestion in mind, on one level we found Seth’s associations quite pleasant for the most part, and, once given, somewhat as we might have expected them to be. 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….”

(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Norma Pryor and Jack Pierce, are themselves of a younger generation than Jane, Peter, and I. Jack writes novels, as yet unpublished. Norma does not. Both are very quiet and unassuming.

(I found it very interesting to consider my class counterparts with that general designation of them in mind. Peter and I had rather idly speculated that because of our common interests we could have reincarnational ties.² Seth’s naming Norma as being psychically affiliated with me was unexpected, however. Norma is a new member of class. She’s from out of town, and I hardly know her [she’s also so quiet]; but even so, I could see how it was possible that she could be embarked upon her own series of lifetime challenges while expressing certain qualities of the entity, or whole self from, which we both emerged. Some of her characteristics, which I’ve just begun to glimpse, complement some of mine; others are opposing. And Norma, of course, would turn all of this around and examine it from her own very independent viewpoint.

(But individual reactions to a given idea or event can vary tremendously, from the most withdrawn behavior to the most explosive. Jane and I saw Norma socially one evening, along with a few other students as well as some people who were not class members. Psychic matters weren’t stressed, and counterpart ideas weren’t even mentioned. That is, I made no effort to bring up the subject, nor did Norma as I waited somewhat curiously through the evening. 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.