“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(“I’m beginning to get a cluster of images. They’re of islands,” Jane said at 9:40. “I don’t know why, but I’ve been doing things that way lately. Then Seth uses what I get in the material … Okay: I guess I’m about ready.” She lit a cigarette.)

Now: Dictation (slowly and softly). The unknown reality: It cannot be expressed in the cozy terms of known knowledge, and so you must stretch your own imagination, rouse yourself from mental lethargy, and be bold enough to discard old dogmatic comfort blankets.

(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 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.”

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.”

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.

(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.

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.”

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.

This is the end of our analogy. The spirit of each of the four islands was itself intact, and the interchanges were chosen. You are not islands unto yourselves, except when you choose to be. Each counterpart views reality from its own viewpoint, and there is never any invasion.

(Nor have I checked up on “Unknown” Reality’s bulk. This was the second time in three weeks that Jane had mentioned a two-volume work; see the opening notes for the 721st session. I wondered aloud whether she might be getting herself used to such an idea. I added that I didn’t think she need worry about readers following Seth’s material — that certainly many others are just as curious as we are about where “Unknown” Reality is going.

(3. The material on my parents reaches back to the first two sessions, 679–80, in [added later] Volume 1 of “Unknown” Reality.

(To me:) You viewed aspects — counterparts — of your father’s reality. That reality invades no other. As in the analogy given this evening, the spirit of no island invaded any other, but looked momentarily and with permission through another’s picture of reality.

Your mother and father are alive, as are Ruburt’s parents,⁴ but their realities are not pinpointed to any given island, and they are forming alliances, but always from the standpoints of their own unique identities. Your own private identities do not need fences. They are themselves. They can combine and unite with others, yet retain their uniqueness and experience. Only your concepts limit your understanding of that prime freedom.

One strand of your mother’s consciousness — that one involved with you — is intertwined with your reality because of her interest in homes.⁵ Another strand of hers is involved because of her interest in families — and hence with the children of your two brothers, Linden and Richard.

She identified with you to some extent, and to some unrecognized degree was “only masculine, now,” in her understanding of power. I hope you will recognize what I mean: but in the light of her understanding at the time, children were to be used as power, as a man might use weapons.⁷

Consciousness is not limited. Identities can mix and merge while retaining their inviolate nature and memories. This is all for now, but again, later, you will see where it relates, and how you can disperse your own characteristics into another and they can disperse theirs into you, with your consent and theirs, to form new aspects of reality and to cast new light on combined purposes and challenges.

4. Earlier in this decade of our camouflage reality, all four of our parents died within a period of less than three years. In Volume 1 of “Unknown” Reality, see Note 2 for Session 680, and the notes at the beginning of the 696th session.