“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(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 10:11.) I am speaking generally now about the war under discussion, for there were certainly exceptions, yet most of the men involved in it learned something from their experiences. They turned against the idea of violence, and each in his own way recognized the personal psychological ambiguities of their feelings during combat.

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

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.

(That one had been concerned exclusively with the Second World War, Jane said with some surprise, and had contained amazingly complete information on the war’s origins and the individual, racial, and reincarnational aspects of it as experienced by the peoples of various nations, whether or not said nations had been directly involved in it. The information had even considered the consequences flowing from the intensified use of technology by the societies of the world after the war. “All of that was coming from that way,” Jane pointed to her lower left. She spent perhaps ten minutes describing some of the categories inherent in the material, and repeatedly said that she wished we had a record of it. At the same time, although the data was available, we didn’t want to lay this book aside to get it.

Hatred always involves a painful sense of separation from love, which may be idealized. A person you feel strongly against at any given time upsets you because he or she does not live up to your expectations. The higher your expectations the greater any divergence from them seems. If you hate a parent it is precisely because you expect such love. A person from whom you expect nothing will never earn your bitterness.

(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.

(Slowly:) In the same way, it is possible to love your fellow human beings on a grand scale, while at times hating them precisely because they so often seem to fall short of that love. When you rage against humanity it is because you love it. To deny the existence of hate then is to deny love. It is not that those emotions are opposites. It is that they are different aspects, and experienced differently. To some extent you want to identify with those you feel deeply about. You do not love someone simply because you associate portions of yourself with another. You often do love another individual because such a person evokes within you glimpses of your own “idealized” self.