“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Often it is akin to love, for the hater is attracted to the object of his hatred by deep bonds. It can also be a method of communication, but it is never a steady constant state, and will automatically change if not tampered with.

(Pause at 9:59.) Give us a moment… This is not to be a chapter devoted to war. However, there are a few points that I do want to make. It is a sense of powerlessness that also causes nations to initiate wars. This has little to do with their “actual” world situation or with the power that others might assign to them, but to an overall sense of powerlessness — even, sometimes, regardless of world dominance.

They were told by politicians that it was to be the last war, and the irony is that most of those in uniform believed it. (I, Robert Butts, was one of the believers.) The lie did not become truth but it became more nearly so, for despite their failures the ex-servicemen managed to bring up children who would not go to war willingly, who would question its premise.

In an odd way this made it even more difficult for those who did go into the next two, less extensive wars, for the country was not behind either one. Any sense of powerlessness on the part of individual fighting men was given expression as before, this time in a more local blood bath, but the code itself had become shaky. This release was not as accepted as it had been before, even within the ranks. By the last war (in Vietnam), the country was as much against it as for it, and the men’s feelings of powerlessness were reinforced after it was over. This is the reason for the incidents of violence on the part of returning servicemen.¹

(10:25.) Power would be effectively shown, but symbolically. This type of animal encounter occurs infrequently, for the animals involved would have had to ignore or short-circuit many lesser preliminary anger or initiation encounters, each meant to make positions clear and to ward off violence.

Another small point here: Christ’s dictum to turn the other cheek (Matthew 5:39, for instance) was a psychologically crafty method of warding off violence — not of accepting it. Symbolically it represented an animal showing its belly to an adversary. (Jane, as Seth, patted her midriff.) The remark was meant symbolically. On certain levels, it was the gesture of defeat that brought triumph and survival. It was not meant to be the cringing act of a martyr who said, “Hit me again,” but represented a biologically pertinent statement, a communication of body language. Give us a moment… (Softly:) It would cleverly remind the attacker of the “old” communicative postures of the sane animals.

(Her awareness of this “probable” channel reminded me that she’d experienced a similar phenomenon in the 666th session in Chapter Eighteen. But now, [as then] when I asked how she could perceive a subjective stream of information from Seth while giving book dictation for him, she couldn’t really say. See the 616th session in Chapter Two for her first encounter with multiple channels.

Love, therefore, can contain hate very nicely. Hatred can contain love and be driven by it, particularly by an idealized love. (Pause.) You “hate” something that separates you from a loved object. It is precisely because the object is loved that it is so disliked if expectations are not met. You may love a parent, and if the parent does not seem to return the love and denies your expectations, then you may “hate” the same parent because of the love that leads you to expect more. The hatred is meant to get you your love back. It is supposed to lead to a communication from you, stating your feelings — clearing the air, so to speak, and bringing you closer to the love object. Hatred is not the denial of love, then, but an attempt to regain it, and a painful recognition of circumstances that separate you from it.

(11:22.) Trusted, your feelings will lead you to psychological and spiritual states of mystic understanding, calm, and peacefulness. Followed, your emotions will lead you to deep understandings, but you cannot have a physical self without emotions any more than you can have a day without weather.

(As I looked up, Seth said in anticipation of my question:) You can add the word “is” to that sentence (before “involved”) if you want to. But it is fine without it.

Now: Often you are taught not only to repress verbal expression of hate, but also told that hateful thoughts are as bad as hateful actions.

You become conditioned so that you feel guilty when you even contemplate hating another. You try to hide such thoughts from yourself. You may succeed so well that you literally do not know what you are feeling on a conscious level. The emotions are there, but they are invisible to you because you are afraid to look. To that extent you are divorced from your own reality and disconnected from your own feelings of love. These denied emotional states may be projected outward upon others — an enemy in a war, a neighbor. Even if you find yourself hating the symbolic enemy, you will also be aware of a deep attraction.

A bond of hate will unite you, but the bond was originally based upon love. In this case however you aggravate and exaggerate all those differences from the ideal, and focus upon them predominantly. In any given case all of this is consciously available to you. It requires only an honest and determined attempt to become aware of your own feelings and beliefs. Even your hateful fantasies, left alone, will return you to a reconciliation and release love.

(“In this book, Seth leads the reader beyond conventional ideas of good and evil to a new framework of understanding. But even at these deeper levels, hate is not justified, since an honest confrontation with it will lead the individual back to the love upon which it is really based.

(“In using the word ‘curse,’ Seth is not referring to swearing, but to directing hatred against another. Until the individual comes to terms with himself and his emotions, the hatred will return, because it belongs to the one who hates and not to anyone else. The earlier instructions on handling emotions, in Chapter Eleven, provide a framework in which hate can be faced and understood. Also important in this context is Seth’s frequent reminder that the expression of normal aggression prevents the buildup of anger into hatred.”)