“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(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Norma Pryor and Jack Pierce, are themselves of a younger generation than Jane, Peter, and I. Jack writes novels, as yet unpublished.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 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….”

(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.

(Peter’s statement was soon confirmed by another longtime friend of ours, Sue Watkins,¹² who also knows Peter well. [...] Peter told me after class that my sketches had instantly rearoused his memories, although in his experience he’d seen the event from different angles. Yet, even with those discrepancies, and a few others, Peter believed that the walls in Jerusalem, the battlemented tower, the soldiers that I’d just described and depicted, were all the same as those he’d seen in his own visions of so much earlier.

This isn’t the first time Peter Smith has been able to comment upon one of my Roman experiences from his own viewpoint. [...] In Chapter 4 of Politics, Jane described how Peter offered some interesting present-day “correlations” with portions of my third Roman, of the first century A.D. Peter’s information concerned the Spanish fishermen he saw hauling large nets ashore along certain beaches of the Mediterranean Sea; I’d seen similar actions during my internal perceptions that day.

[...] So now, what do I make of the considerable similarities between my Jerusalem episode and Peter’s? [...] Just as I do, Peter rebels in his own peaceful ways against conventional authority, preferring to go his individual route in the arts, no matter how dubious his rewards may be.

Sue Watkins, who had introduced Peter to Jane and me in 1973, was involved in the question through her friendship with all of us. It was Sue who verified that several months ago Peter had described to her what he now felt to be the same psychic event I’d tuned in to just a few weeks ago (on December 3, 1974) — only Peter’s experience had taken place in 1967! [...]

Originally, however, I felt a surge of uneasiness as soon as Seth mentioned that my friend, artist Peter Smith, is a counterpart of mine. When I checked the 724th session, I affirmed the reason for that reaction: Seth had stated therein that Peter and I were not counterparts, although “closely enough allied so that in certain terms you ‘share’ some of the same psychic memories….” [...]

[...] From a deleted session that I prefer not to date here because of other, personal reasons: “I may have slipped up, but I do not think so: I do not believe I gave the information about you and Peter in book dictation (for ‘Unknown’ Reality), in order to keep the material simple enough for the reader — although you chose to include that (724th) session in the book anyhow. But you and Peter are and are not counterparts. [...]

[...] Let us call this friend Peter.

Peter [for his own reasons] may decide that his body is out to get him and punish him, rather than, say, the FBI. [...]

Peter will interpret such body events in a negative fashion, and as threatening, so that some quite normal sensations will serve the same functions as a fear of policemen, for example. [...]

In like manner, the visit of your young friend will also be beneficial (Peter Murtough, from Chula Vista, CA) and the visit of your Boston friend (Pat Norelli). [...]

[...] Neither of you said no to your Peter, and more important you did not say no to Ruburt. [...]

You will indeed have the opportunity to help this Peter at a very important time in his life, and his meeting with you will change the direction of his life; both inspire him and set him firmly and safely on his feet.

[...] From the way the letter was written, it seemed as if the friends—call them Peter and Polly—had already started on their journey that (Saturday) morning, and would stop in Elmira on their return much later toward evening. [...]

Peter and Polly would be on the road, it seemed, unreachable by phone, though they had included the number of their answering service, and had also written that they would call before leaving—yet no such call had been received.

[...] It looked as if Peter and Polly were indeed going to arrive almost as if Ruburt had in fact called and invited them. [...]

(Witnesses were Peter Murtough, who arrived Monday, July 24, from Chula Vista, CA, and Bill and Peggy Gallagher. [...]

[...] Peter Murtough told us that he has an Uncle John in Australia who is about 40, lives in Canberra and has two young children.

(We, of course, knew of Peter’s connections with Australia. [...]

These impressions also included some statements concerning the origin of the disease that killed Peter. [...] But the characteristic symptoms of the disease I gave also described Peter’s condition accurately. [...]

[...] She told me that her son, Peter, had died a few months ago at the age of three. [...]

[...] “He [Peter] could not force you to remember, but he could give you a nudge and a push, and in this existence he did so.

(This grand idea soon petered out. [...]

On the way, Peter suddenly went through a traffic light. [...] Peter told us later that he just hadn’t seen the light.

COMMENT: The next day a friend, Peter James, visited us. [...]

[...] I wasn’t driving as in the dream, Peter was. [...]

(Marilyn Wilbur and Peter Murtough were witnesses.)

(Very recently, while falling off to sleep—in the hypnogogic state—Peter Murtough had a vision of his sister Julie falling. [...]

Peter three times denied the Lord (Matthew 26), saying he did not know him, because he recognized that that person was not Christ.

The plea, “Peter, why hast thou forsaken me?” came from the man who believed he was Christ — the drugged version. [...]

(Peter K. explained the above to Jane.)

[...] Today I went out in the back where we have the tent for Peter, and I was lying down and thinking and I started to hear this beepbeep-beep kind of sound and looked, and it wasn’t coming from anything around. [...]

1. I can note a good deal later that Seth’s material on our making further distinctions in the families of consciousness, beyond the nine he’s already named for us, is certainly related to the passages from a private session that I quoted in the last three paragraphs of Note 8 for the 732nd session: Seth stated that Peter Smith and I “are and are not counterparts” — that with another in this life each of us may often come together, then part, “forming a counterpart relationship when it suits your purposes….”

[...] From the way the letter was written, it seemed as if the friends — call them Peter and Polly — had already started on their journey that (Saturday) morning, and would stop in Elmira on their return much later toward evening. [...]

[...] It looked as if Peter and Polly were indeed going to arrive almost as if Ruburt had in fact called and invited them. [...]

Peter.

I want you all to Mu for Peter (Kristof) who came all across the country. [...]

Now: Your friend Peter [Smith] shared the same earthly period.⁴ You were not counterparts — or you are not counterparts, but closely enough allied so that in certain terms you “share” some of the same psychic memories, like cousins who speak about old dimly remembered brothers.

[...] So there are reasons why you and Peter met, and why certain people come to Ruburt’s classes.

(“What will Peter [Murtough] think when he gets Jane’s letter?”)