“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

You isolate the criminal element, therefore, in an environment in which any compensations are refused. The entire framework of a prison — with its bars — is a constant reminder to the convict of his situation, and reinforces his original difficulty.

Unknowingly, the sick often give up their power to act in a healthy manner to the physicians. The doctors accept this mandate since they share the same framework of belief, so the medical profession obviously needs patients as badly as the ill need the hospitals. Society as you know it, not understanding the nature of normal aggression, considers it violent. The prisons and law enforcement agencies need criminals in the same way that criminals need them, for they operate within the same system of belief. Each accepts violence as a method of behavior and survival. (Pause.) If you do not understand that you create your own reality, then you may assign all good results to a personified god, and need the existence of a devil to explain the undesirable reality. So churches as they now exist in Western society need a devil as well as a god.

If you equate power with youth then you will isolate the elderly, transferring upon them your own rejected powerlessness, and they will seem to be a threat to your well-being. If you agree that violence is power then you will punish the criminal with great vindictiveness, for you will see life as a power struggle, and will concentrate upon the acts of violence about which you read. This may bring such aspects into your personal life, so that you yourself meet with violence — hence deepening your conviction. (Pause.) If you accept the basic idea that evil is more powerful than good, then your beneficial acts will bear little fruit because of your own framework; you assign such small power of action to them.

If you utilize the point of power properly (as described in the 657th session in Chapter Fifteen), you will feel the nonphysical energy translated into effective personal power through your intersection with flesh. You will be able to use that power consciously, with purpose, to change your personal experience, and so to change the social framework at least partially. Such exercises aid in the evolution of your consciousness, and will also serve you in fashions you may not suspect. The acquiescence to your own power will automatically flow through your experience, activating your dream life as well and providing additional helpful impetus to your waking reality. You will no longer need to transfer your sense of power to others. All of the exercises given earlier in this book are prerequisites, however; they are necessary so that you understand how the point of power is to be used. The recognition of personal feelings and the working through of beliefs — all of this will expand your understanding of yourself.