1 result for (book:ecs2 AND heading:"esp class session novemb 17 1970" AND stemmed:accident)
[... 1 paragraph ...]
In nature there are no accidents. If you do not take Ruburt’s word then at least listen to mine. You need not take mine but listen to it, and there are no accidents. Now, if you accept, my dear Lady of Florence, the possibility of the slightest, smallest, most insignificant accident then, indeed, you open Pandora’s box. For logically there cannot be simply one small accident, but a universe in which accidents are not the exception but the rule. A universe in which, therefore, following logically, your consciousness is a combination of an accidental conglomeration of atoms and molecules without reason or cause that will vanish into nonexistence forever even as, indeed, they would have come from nonexistence.
Once you accept, you see, that idea then you must, if you follow your thought completely through, accept the idea of a random accidental universe in which you are at the mercy of any accident; in which mind or purpose have little meaning; in which you are at the mercy of all random happenings; in which 300,000 human beings can be swept off the face of the planet without reason, without cause, simply at the whim of an accidental happening. And if that is the universe in which you believe that you live then it is a dire and forbidding universe, indeed. In that universe the individual has little hope for he will return to the nonexistence that his random physical creation came from. Following that line of thought, then accidentally, if you follow this through, a group of atoms and molecules were sparked into consciousness and song and then will return to the chaos from which they came. And the individual has no control over his destiny for it can be swept aside at any point by random fate over which he has no recourse.
[... 23 paragraphs ...]
(To Rachel.) Now I have to look over here at my friend to see if she will wink at me again. I will let you take a break and return for I have a few personal remarks for you, and not accidental remarks.
[... 45 paragraphs ...]
There is no accidental universe. You create the accidents. You create the triumphs. Now, each of you create the ambiguous universe that you live in, and you project your ideas of reality upon it.
[... 21 paragraphs ...]