“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Some wanted me to identity their counterparts for them. One student (Fred), a contractor, said little. Instead, during the last week he let his own creative imagination go wherever it might while he held the general idea in his mind. He played with the concept, then. In a way his experiences were like those of a child — open, curious, filled with enthusiasm. As a result he himself discovered a few of his counterparts.²

You pay little heed, however. You think that this is just your “imagination.” The unknown reality is alive in your own psyche. There are hints of it in all of your experience. You would not be alive, in your terms, if first you did not imagine yourself as you are. Play is, in fact, one of the most practical methods of survival, both individually and for the species. Within its framework lie the secrets of creativity, and within the secrets of creativity lie the secrets of being.

To me, beside whatever relationship it might have with counterpart reality, the soul-mate belief embodies strongly distorted versions of the ideas contained in the two Seth passages quoted above.

6. Seth’s line about the dislike that can exist among counterparts is hilarious, nor am I being facetious in so commenting. To use the members of ESP class as a general example, Jane and I have often noted the variety of feelings, ranging from the most positive to the most negative, that her students exhibit toward one another. The interesting thing about Seth’s statement is that with counterpart theory in mind one can gain a fresh appreciation of how underlying emotions and motives flow among certain individuals, sometimes surfacing in feelings of dislike, for instance, to whatever degree. And, of course, my thinking here is in line with material Seth himself soon gives in this session.

“The thought occurred to me that perhaps Seth’s remarks (in sessions 724 and 732) were more pertinent to the situation than we imagined. What if at one time Peter and Rob had been counterparts, and, having served a purpose, somehow ‘became’ no longer counterparts? Once you ‘killed your enemy,’ (and therefore yourself) — like the Roman soldier in Jerusalem — and realized it, did something change the counterpart connection? Do counterparts slide in and out of interconnections, according to needs, beliefs, and the experience of the present personalities involved?

“As Seth has noted before — and as we feel, I think — there are distinct connections between Peter and me and Rob and Jane, in terms of age differences, creative abilities, belief patterns, et cetera. Not that I think the four of us are involved in a counterpart association now — just that perhaps we have been, or that our friendship is a recalling of that kind of connection. Or that we recognize certain possibilities in each other and react (rather humorously, I think) to those.