I think there is very much an author’s intent.

But, I am also coming from a background where psychic phenomena is real, that there is a lot more to be explored with consciousness.

I have found that many authors knowingly or unknowingly create a whole construct from which a book, or a series of related books, expresses those things. And some people have the wherewithal to visit them through dreams or through astral projection.

If you ever looked up the phenomena of “tulpas” ... some authors have created something similar for characters, in which they are almost consulting them on how they see or feel about certain situations. I think most authors who do never heard of tulpas.

There are also authors (and artists, and musicians) who receive a kind of transmission, like a download for a work, in which they then craft into a work. There is even a TED talk somewhere about that. That the root word for “genius” is “genie”, as in a spirit (or a muse), that this would come to someone and they must write it down... or it almost seems as if it would leave and find someone else to inspire. (The full story gets weirder than that).

There are also works where no such thing was constructed, and the book itself is shallow or incoherent.