“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.”

(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 third island says: “I am myself too busy for such nonsense. The many species that roam my domain demand my attention, and if you two want to exchange your realities that is fine — but leave me out of it, please.”

So the spirit of Island Four journeys to that other reality, where all kinds of life swarm over shore and mountain, and the spirit of the third island visits a world of such peace that all motion seems stilled.

What peace! Yet in the peace, what power! And so little by little cacti grow where there were none, delicate buds opening, filled with water. The spirit of the third island immediately begins to transform the desert island. Great changes appear, and showers of power — quick bursts of rain, explosive inundations of energy.

So the volcano throws its energy into the formation of still more new species, while the desert spirit sings its calmness through their tissues. But this new life confounds it also, and it yearns to return home to its old quietude. There, the spirit of the third island has quickened the desert’s abilities so that it blooms with muted flowers not present before. The two spirits meet. Each island is changed. “We are counterparts, each of the other, yet inviolate.”