“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.

The poems show my attitude toward life in general just before my psychic experiences began. When you see the type of poetry that I was writing then, you will understand immediately why the ideas in “Idea Construction” were such a revelation to me. Incidentally, I considered these poems as aesthetic creations. I made no effort at the time to examine my own subjective states — I simply expressed them as best I could and then criticized the poems on their aesthetic merits. The way I saw life was the way life was! It never occurred to me that my own attitudes had anything to do with it.

These poems were all written in spring and summer of 1963 and concern life in general:

I remember writing this poem on one of a series of dreary afternoons in which it seemed that life in general had little meaning.

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

A small household tragedy, the death of a cat, yet to me it contained the question of the uniqueness of life and the value of consciousness. Didn’t anyone or anything care that one cat had died? I felt guilty even considering the question. In a world where humans slaughtered their own kind constantly, who in their right mind would give a moment’s thought to a cat’s consciousness? Yet either all life was sacred, or none of it was. So I brooded.

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.