“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Think of your own government in ideal terms for a moment. Its citizens are all individuals, with their own lives and interests. The government, if it has their loyalty, utilizes their energies in such a fashion that the majority are benefited, as is the government itself. Yet you cannot really put your finger on “the government,” though you might mention the White House as the seat of its power. The government is composed of many people, of course, and really extends all the way down the line, even to its least citizen, but the government can direct the use of energies, of goods, commerce, power, and so forth.

The people count upon the government to realistically define the conditions of the world, to have proper intelligence so that the activities in foreign lands are known, to keep up proper communication with other governments, and so forth. Now in some important respects the reasoning mind is like the government in this analogy. If the people in power are paranoid, then they overestimate the dangers of any given world situation. They overreact, or overmobilize, using a disproportionate amount of energy and time for defense, and taking energies away from other projects. The reasoning mind acts in the same fashion when paranoid beliefs are in power. It therefore tells all of the citizens — or cells of the body — to mobilize for action, to be on the alert, to pare down all but necessary activities, and so forth.

When a government is paranoid, it even begins to cut down on the freedom of its own peoples, or to frown upon behavior that in freer times would be quite acceptable. The same applies to the conscious mind in that situation. Now the people might finally revolt, or they will take certain steps to see that their freedom is restored, and so the body’s cells will do the same.