“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

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.

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.

Two days later, I sat at my desk, idly watching the sunshine on my bare arm, and was suddenly astonished by the miracle of skin. I wrote the following poem which is mentioned later by Seth as an indication of the inner knowledge that was almost ready to burst into consciousness.

I have dealt with this extensively here because creative, unconscious energy is so often a part of the dream state. Apparently, in my case at that time, the “intrusive” unconscious material had to be propelled through to my consciousness during my waking state, since I never regained memory of the initial dream in which the information was originally given.

Time and time again, the inner centers of our being come to our aid through subjective promptings — either in waking, dream or trance states. Through the dream experiences related later in this book, this will become quite clear. Dreams, inspirations, experiences in mystic consciousness — all, I believe, have their prime source outside of our usual consciousness and mode of activity.

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.

Before Seth began a discussion of dreams, and as a preliminary, he explained the natural mobility of human consciousness and outlined the main features of the “interior universe” that could be glimpsed in both waking and dream states and which underlie physical reality. This introduction offers a natural pathway into the area of dreams (part of the interior universe) and to the other states of consciousness possible within the dream framework. The first portion of this book will therefore deal with this material and with our first explorations into that inner reality.