“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

The spirits of the two islands join for a journey to a third one, and there they discover a top-heavy land filled to the brim with strange birds and insects and animals that neither knew at home. The first island says to the third: “You are myself, only unbearably social. How can you stand to nurture so many different kinds of life?”

The second island-spirit says, also to the third: “You are myself, only my excitement, my joy and beauty, are concentrated in the magic of my volcano, and you instead stand for the twittering excitement of diverse species — birds and animals and insects — that flow in far less grandiose fashion across the slopes of your uneasy land.”

The second island says: “Suppose my spirit visits your island for a while, to discover what it is like to possess palm trees, a few birds, and a tranquil shore. I will give up my volcano for a while, and try to make an honest evaluation, if you will in turn come to my land and promise to view it without prejudice. Perhaps then you will understand the great majesty and explosive power of my exotic world.”

One day a bird flies out further from that first island than ever before, to another one, and comes back with a strange seed that falls from its beak. The seed grows. From it springs a completely new and unknown species of plant, as far as the island is concerned; and the plant in turn brings forth flowers with pollen, fruits, and scents (spelled) that have a different kind of creativity that is still its own. The spirit of the second island, then, brings forth elements in the first island that were not active earlier, but it becomes homesick, and so it finally returns to its own land.

(Heartily:) What a transformation! Its volcano, it finds, now gives birth to soil and pollen, its excitement roused in a million different ways. It meets the spirit of the first island that has been living there, and says: “What a change! I would like a still more spectacular display. The flowers are not nearly colorful or wild enough. It is, if you will forgive me, too well-tamed — yet all in all you’ve done wonders. Now, however, I’d like a cultural interchange with others still unknown; and if you don’t mind I wish you’d go home. (Whispering:) This is, after all, me, and my land.”

The spirit of Island One says: “I quite enjoyed my venture, and I’ve learned that the great explosive thrusts of creativity are good — but, oh, I yearn for my own quiet, undisturbed shores; and so if you don’t care I think I’ll return there.” And so it does — to find a land in some ways transformed. The sands still lie glittering, but the fog and mists are gone. The beloved birds have multiplied, and there is in the old familiar sameness a new, muted, but delightful refrain, colon: new species in keeping with the old, but more vigorous. The spirit of Island One realizes that it would find the old conditions quite boring now, and the new alterations fill it with pleasing excitement and challenge. What a delightful interchange. For the spirit is convinced that it definitely improved the condition of Island Two, and there is no doubt that the spirit of the second island improved Island One beyond degree.

That island spirit responds: “Even the vigor of your questions sickens me. I sense that you come from a land so overcrowded and tumultuous that it makes my sands blanch even further, and the knuckles of my rocks turn white.”

The two confront each other sideways, for neither can look in the other’s eyes. What opposites, what contrasts, what fascinations! So they strike a bargain. The spirit of the desert island says: “You are all wrong. I will go to your land and prove it, and you can stay here and partake of the joys of my peaceful existence — and, I hope, learn the value of austerity.”