“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

But what initiated the “Idea Construction” experience? Even when I wrote The Seth Material, I didn’t clearly understand why it happened or connect it in any way with my previous life or beliefs. It seemed like a complete intrusion. This present book, devoted to dreams and subjective experience, led me into deeper self-examination. In preparation, I reread my own records and poetry. The poetry itself provides a clear record of subjective thoughts and emotions. And it was through reading this old poetry that I found clues that showed me the points of continuity between my life before my psychic initiation and after it.

I’m including in this chapter a few poems as notes of a subjective autobiography, to show what events triggered this first release of unconscious material on my part, opening the doors to the interior universe; for now I believe that certain personal conditions are characteristic prerequisites for such developments, that the channels of intuitive knowledge are opened according to the intensity of individual need. This need might not be consciously recognized, as it was not in my case, but it must be present.

Rob always enjoyed excellent health, but in 1963 he came down with severe back trouble. Certainly this frightened me and was probably partly responsible for the feelings expressed in the following poem — feelings, I think, that are quite prevalent during early adulthood:

But then the flesh knew it was flesh,
And howled out its defeat,
And I was flamed to life
By vulnerability.

This next is not as good a poem, aesthetically, as the others, but it was written to Rob and clearly shows the growing sense of panic with which I viewed the passing years. I remember writing it — half in tears.

Beaches sparkle under stars.
They’ll be there for a million years.
Seas leap up in endless waves,
But we live far briefer lives.

I shall never be adult
But I am growing wise
Like some crazy holy child
With ghosts inside its head.

The wind on the arm blows the hair,
And at the base, a golden mole,
Such a speck as a peach might have,
But the hair arches back to show a gaping hole,
And each ounce of flesh is a fence,
Erected roundly and snug
About hidden landscapes, suns, and shadows,
Inroads laced with prickly shrubs.
Peer through. The holes are not big enough to see much,
But dreams travel wondrous wires.
Fires brighter than autumn moons
Throw leaping shadows on the arm.
Days and nights burn like stars
In the twinkling meadows of the skull,
And through the fence of peach-blooming flesh,
Other fruits blossom, beyond reach.

I suppose that the “Idea Construction” experience could have gradually faded from memory, losing much of its vitality if the manuscript did not exist as a constant reminder; but this is difficult to imagine. Instead, the theories were made manifest in my life, becoming facts of my existence. I never would have been able to accept Seth and the sessions without that initial introduction to nonphysical information. That experience, then, led to the sessions and to this book, containing enough energy and motive force not only to change my life but also to affect the experience of others.

This book is concerned mainly with dreams, but it will also stress the true mobility of our consciousness which makes possible dreaming (and astral projections) and those unconscious abilities that are so vital to our functioning.