“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

In its natural state, hatred has a powerful rousing characteristic that initiates change and action. Regardless of what you have been told, hatred does not initiate strong violence. As covered earlier in this book, the outbreak of violence is often the result of a built-in sense of powerlessness. Period. (See sessions 662–63 in Chapter Seventeen.)

(9:50.) Psychologically, only a massive explosion can free them. They feel so powerless that this adds to their difficulties — so they try to liberate themselves by showing great power in terms of violence. Some such individuals, model sons, for example, who seldom even spoke back to their parents, were suddenly sent to war and given carte blanche to release all such feelings in combat; and I am referring particularly to the last two wars (the war in Korea, 1950–53, and the war in Vietnam, 1964–73), not the Second World War.

(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.

Give us a moment… Without going into any detail, I simply want to point out that in the United States strong national efforts were made after World War II to divert the servicemen’s energies into other areas on their return home. Many who entered that war feeling powerless were given advantages after it was over — incentives, education, benefits they did not have before it. They were given the means to power in their own eyes. They were also accepted home as heroes, and while many certainly were disillusioned, in the whole framework of the country’s mood the veterans were welcomed.

Hate, left alone then, does not erupt into violence. Hatred brings a sense of power and initiates communication and action. In your terms it is the build up of natural anger; in animals, say, it would lead to a face-to-face encounter, of battle stances in which each creature’s body language, motion, and ritual would serve to communicate a dangerous position. One animal or the other would simply back down. Growling or roaring might be involved.

(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.

The child’s antagonism is based upon a firm understanding of its love. Parents, taught to believe that hatred is wrong, do not know how to handle such a situation. Punishment simply adds to the child’s problem. If a parent shows fear, then the child is effectively taught to be afraid of this anger and hatred before which the powerful parent shrinks. The young one is conditioned then to forget such instinctive understanding, and to ignore the connections between hatred and love.