“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

“Who knows?” I said. Later I started a poem on the idea, but couldn’t follow it through. “I can believe that almost anything is possible, theoretically or … philosophically,” I said. “When I think of the same thing in practical terms, apply it to life, that’s when I pull my horns in.”

I wasn’t about to close off the Seth material until I made up my mind, though. Another possibility was always in the back of my thoughts. Suppose I stopped having the sessions while I tried to figure things out, then decided that Seth was right on all counts — and found I just couldn’t have sessions again? That, to me, would be the worst possibility of all — that I might close off knowledge out of uncertainity. So I kept on.

I’d identified all life with the birds, of course. Miss Cunningham, Rob, me and all the people that we knew were surely getting shot down; falling through time, we were dying in a descent that we couldn’t understand or control. Either that, or Seth and the material — still so strange to me — were giving answers that I refused, so far, to accept in practical terms.

All kinds of thoughts flooded to my mind. Consciousness was independent of the body — Seth was right — and if that was true, then there was no reason why he couldn’t be what he said he was: an independent personality, out of the flesh. But why hadn’t I caught on sooner? And why hadn’t I run up to see if the house mailbox had a name on it? I couldn’t wait till Rob came home so I could tell him what happened.

Yet, as badly as I wanted to check this out, I just couldn’t bring myself to call Dr. Levine. “He’ll think I was out of my mind instead of out of my body,” I said. “And what excuse could I use? If I knew what the street was, I could at least say, ‘I thought I saw you on such-and-such a street.’ “

We had no idea then that I would be involved in still more startling episodes with Miss Cunningham, but I grinned, looking out the window. I’d been on my first real “field trip.” I didn’t have to take everything Seth said on faith alone. The psychological time exercises suddenly took on greater significance. I was ready now to really use the inner senses. And almost immediately after this, Seth began his discussions on the nature of dream reality and the methods that would let us explore it for ourselves. If I could leave my body and go out into the physical world, then I didn’t see why I couldn’t leave it and explore the inner one.