“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Jane and I consider Seth’s concept of counterparts to be an intriguing psychological framework, spacious enough to serve as a workable thematic structure in which the social and nationalistic characteristics of our species can be studied, as well as the components of the individual psyche. That is, the private person is here seen as interacting with others because there is, beneath our awareness, an inner “person-to-person” relationship connecting each individual with his or her physical counterparts, though they may well be living in other parts of the globe while sharing the same historical period. It follows, then, that one may or may not ever meet a counterpart “in the flesh” — may or may not even suspect the existence of such relationships.

(“Well,” I said to Jane after class, as we discussed the Chinese-American situation cited by Seth, “I don’t know about counterpart relationships in other kinds of realities, but it’s certainly obvious that at least some physical counterparts can hate each other …” So the larger self, I thought, would be quite capable of seeking experience through its parts in every way imaginable. Although it might be difficult for us to understand, let alone accept, the whole self or entity must regard all of its counterparts as sublime facets of itself — no matter whether they loved, suffered,⁵ hated, or killed each other or “outsiders.” Within its great reaches it would transform its counterparts’ actions in ways that were, quite possibly, beyond our emotional and intellectual grasp. At the same time, the self would learn and be changed through the challenges and struggles of its human portions.

(On more “practical” levels, we thought that behavior among nations might be changed for the better if the idea of counterparts were understood, or at least considered — if, for instance, many of the individuals making up a country realized that they could actually be acting against portions of themselves [or of their whole selves] in the persons of the “enemy” country, and so modified the virulence of their feelings. The nations of the world would benefit greatly from even a small improvement in their relationships with each other. And if an individual strongly disliked a counterpart in another land, wouldn’t this quality of emotion be detrimentally reflected in the person doing the hating?

(In the 6th session, however, I made quite an intuitive remark: I told Jane I had the notion that Ruburt had once been Joseph. It took me a while to recognize that this had simply been my way of groping toward the realization that Seth, Jane, and I did have a strong psychic relationship. Though we’d started these sessions with the Ouija board, Jane had made such a rapid progression that she was already giving some material vocally. However, at the time we still used the board to obtain answers to most of our questions. After I made my statement about Ruburt and Joseph, Seth spelled out his reply through the board’s pointer as it moved quickly beneath our fingertips:)

15. In Appendix 18 I discussed to some extent the relationships involving Jane, Seth, and me. [...]

Seth refers to evocative situations here, though — one of them possibly being a kind of counterpart relationship among the three of us in another reality.