“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

As you wonder, more astonished still, you discover other coral paths extending from you in all directions. These lead to further islands. “They are all me,” you think, though each is very different. One may have no trees at all, and another be the home of a volcano. Some may be filled with soft grasses, innocent of sand.

Now this first island is very clever indeed, and so it sends its spirit wandering to the closest counterpart, and says: “You are myself, but without sand or palm trees.”

(Pause.) The third island, startled, replies: “I am myself, and you must be imperfect versions of my reality. I would no more be a dull island of only sand and palms, or a neurotic landscape of burning lava, any more than I would be a snail. My life is far the better, and you two are only poor shadowy counterparts of me.”

The spirit of the first island visits the second one, and finds itself amazed. It feels an ever-thrusting power, rushing up from beneath, that erupts in always-changing form. Yet it is always itself, comparing its experience to what it has known. When the volcano itself, ceaselessly erupting, wishes for peace, the spirit of the first island thinks of its own quiet home shores. The volcano learns a new lesson: It can direct its power in whatever way it chooses, shooting upward or lying quietly. It can indeed be dormant and dream for centuries. (Slowly now:) It can, if it chooses, allow soft sands to lie gracefully upon its cooling expanse.

In the meantime, the spirit of that volcanic island is visiting the first island, and finds itself enchanted by the still waters that lap against the shore, the gentle birds, and the few palm trees. However, it seems that the palm trees, and the birds and the sand, have dreamed for centuries.¹

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.”