“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Now, it would have been far more beneficial had he been able to use that energy, keep it as a part of himself and transform it into a more constructive nature. However, the dream taught him that the violence within himself was not big and threatening and did not need to be feared. He could use it as a symbol to see how small it was in comparison to the whole inner self and how easy, therefore, it was to rid himself of it. He cried however because, you see, he realized that this was part of his priceless energy that he had expended, uselessly, and in the tears lay the lesson.

Now, the point that our friend over here (Sue) was trying to make earlier is related, to some extent, along these lines in that you can become so afraid of violence that you overemphasize its effect. And if you will excuse me, in so doing you are taking on the guise of the devil. It is the same thing you see, as projecting upon a hypothetical devil all kinds of powers of destruction. You can do the same thing without realizing it by projecting into the idea of violence, all powers, and then it seems to you that life itself has no ability to protect itself and that any stray thought of violence or disaster will immediately zoom home and that the recipient has no way to protect himself. If this were the case your race would not have lasted out one day.

Now, in the first place, there are several things you must understand. Some of these things you can misinterpret, and so I go lightly in class with them because some of you are not ready to understand them as yet. You hear the words and yet you do not understand what they really mean, but basically, you do violence to no one. Basically, you cannot hurt anything, but as long as you think that you can, then you must dwell within that reality. Now, in that reality, as you understand it now, there are reasons that you do not as yet perceive. I am not saying that you cannot perceive them, I am saying that you do not perceive them. No one, therefore, could hurt our friend’s fish, even if it were a live one, in your terms. And there are interconnections between you that you do not understand and that can be misinterpreted and these, also, I go lightly with in class and for the same reasons.

([Arnold:] “We don’t really do violence against an identity or whole self, but only against a self-created camouflage system.”)

Violence, in your level, is the other face of creativity, but you do not realize it and it is you who have set up the separation. All life, in certain respects, involves what you call violence. Breath is a violence, it is simply where you draw the line. All living is a thrusting out toward, and joyful thrusting out toward, the energy that you have not learned, as yet, to use creatively, you call violence. It has great potentials for creativity, and it is up to you now to learn how to use it creatively for it is another face of creativity.

There was a civilization, and I am writing this in my book and some of you know of it—a civilization, in your terms, in your dim past, in which a group of human beings tried to form a physical body that could not act violently and when violence was threatened the body automatically closed off from action. It could not, literally, act. These people thought then that violence would be wiped away from the face of the earth, and they hoped to begin a race of people that would not know violence. It would seem perhaps to you, that this was a highly idealistic race and that they grew in strength and beauty, but they were not facing the issues clearly, you see.

They lived upon the physical planet with its wind and rain and storms and violence and animal [sic] but they would not show violence, they could not commit a violent act. They did not learn how to project their energy outward constructively. They blocked large portions of energy, rather than learn how to use it and so, in many ways, denied themselves facets of creativity. They became so terrified of the natural earth, with its pounding rains and wind that they literally crept into the bowels of the earth and lived there feeling as triumphant, when they set up a civilization within the earth, as you will feel when you set one up outside of the earth.

They were so on the outlook for violence that their entire system of communication was built upon fear, for they could not protect themselves, they could only run. They did not face the issue of creative energy and how to use it. They blocked the energy off at the source. To put a hole into the earth is violent. To pluck up a flower from the earth is violent. To yell out into the air, as I am doing, does a violence to the atoms and molecules. Your blood rushing through your body does violence to it then. Learn what energy and life is, and then you will use it creatively and you will not fear it.

([Arnold:) “The thought of not being able to do anything violent, as these people were, lead me to think of the opossum, that play opossum when violence appears.” )

Now you are getting a lot of goodies out of me tonight. Now I am going to end our session and go home, you are all too spooky for me. I do not need any reason. I will have more to say on the nature of violence and the different civilizations and how they have handled it in later class sessions.