“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(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.

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

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.

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[...] You will then consider goodness and powerlessness to be somewhat synonymous, and equate power with evil. [...]

[...] Following such ideas, you end up with segregations in which the ill, being powerless, are isolated; the criminals are kept together; and the old are held in institutions or in cultural ghettos with their own kind. [...]

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. [...]

[...] (Gesturing:) He believed that the individual personality was relatively powerless to understand itself and that it stood precariously alone and undefended, with a chasm of evil beneath and with an unattainable, cold, just, but not compassionate Good (with a capital “G”) above.

[...] He believed that he was utterly powerless as an individual, that despite all his efforts he would come to nothing, go unnoticed. [...]

[...] It was this unceasing swing from high states of exaltation and power to low ones of powerlessness and depression that the body could not tolerate, because of the vast alterations entailed. [...]

[...] The basic ideas and beliefs that have been personified into his being, that became his being, were formed to protect Augustus One from the destructive ideas given to him in his childhood, to combat the beliefs in powerlessness and futility. [...]

[...] Fears should not he inhibited, but encountered, and yet behind all of them, in your time at least, lies the feeling that the individual is powerless against the conditions of his body or the events of the world.

There are other reasons, however, that have added up to a feeling of powerlessness on Ruburt’s part in regard to his physical condition. [...]

[...] He does not like people to speak of the book in that way because it arouses, of course, thoughts of those who followed any dogmas without using common sense—dogmas that blindly led people into further feelings of powerlessness. [...]

Ruburt’s mood of powerlessness must be broken, and you can help him there. [...]

Now: Dictation: Most criminals, in or out of prison, share a sense of powerlessness and a feeling of resentment because of it. [...]

[...] Since they believe so strongly in the power of others, and in their own relative powerlessness, they feel forced into aggressive actions almost as preventative measures against greater violence that will be done against them.

[...] Disappointments, conflicts, and feelings of powerlessness can begin to make unfortunate inroads in the personalities of those who believe that life itself has little meaning. [...]

[...] People who feel powerless, and who find no cause for living, can come together then and “die for a cause” that did not give them the will or reason to live. [...]

[...] They are powerless in society. [...]

[...] The individual is seen as powerless to work alone toward that ideal with any sureness of success. Because of his belief in his powerlessness [the fanatic] feels that any means to an end is justified. [...]

[...] Basically (pause), a fanatic believes that he is powerless.

[...] These patterns lead quite predictably to moods of powerlessness and restriction.

The rooms bear the brunt of beliefs also as mentioned earlier, but the inhibited anger against the conditions and against himself, for feeling powerless to change the conditions—these bring him face to face with issues he has hidden. [...]

[...] Both of these areas help work against the sense of powerlessness that was tied up in the troublesome beliefs.

I have used Andrea because so many typical Western beliefs coincide in her reality — the idea that aging is disastrous; that women are relatively powerless without a man beside them; that life is, practically speaking, highly difficult while it should be ideally simple. All of these ideas obtain their charge from a basic belief in the powerlessness of the conscious self to form and regulate its experience.

[...] In contrast, good is seen as weak, powerless, passive, and in great need of defense.

[...] We are still working on one challenge,” so it seemed, finally, that he was powerless or helpless to alter the rigidity of his body.

[...] But he closed off his will from his body, so in that area he felt powerless.

[...] The momentary feeling of powerlessness in the business area added to the physical sense of powerlessness. [...]

[...] Feelings of any powerlessness, then, found easiest expression physically. [...]

Ruburt began to feel powerless momentarily in the business area. [...]

The individual is made to feel powerless, at the mercy of doctors or nurses who often do not have the time or energy to be personable, or to explain his [or her] condition in terms that he can understand. The patient is therefore forced to transfer his own sense of power to others, which further deepens his misery; this in turn reinforces the sense of powerlessness that initiated his condition.

[...] It was apparent that Dineen sat alone all day in her lovely home with nothing to do; that she was making no effort to face her situation truly, but looking to others to do it for her, and therefore reinforcing her sense of powerlessness. [...]

[...] A feeling of powerlessness in one field can be transferred to others. [...]

[...] As long as you believe your environment to be objective and independent of yourself, then to a large extent you feel powerless to change it, to see beyond it, or to imagine other alternatives that may be less apparent. [...]

[...] They are yours, not something thrust upon you in which you are powerless.

[...] Through all of this you must realize that you are not powerless. [...]

[...] If you say, “I am powerless to direct my life,” you are also making a deliberate choice — and in that case a limiting one.

[...] Avenues of probabilities are closed bit by bit until you do indeed live — if you follow such precepts — in a closed mental environment, in which it seems you are powerless. [...]

(Pause.) A particular idealist believes that the world is headed for disaster, and [that] he is powerless to prevent it. [...]

[...] But most of all, they operate to increase the individual sense of alienation from the body, and to promote a sense of powerlessness and duality.

When man feels powerless, however, and in a state of generalized fear, he can even turn the most natural earthly ingredients against himself. [...]

Many — not all — plotless novels or movies are the result of this belief in man’s powerlessness. [...]

What kind of events can people form when they feel powerless, when their lives seem robbed of meaning — and what mechanics lie behind those events?

[...] He began to feel powerless. [...]

(9:55.) Some people looked, and are looking, for some authority — any authority — to make their decisions for them, for the world seems increasingly dangerous, and they, because of their beliefs, feel increasingly powerless. [...]

[...] When disease is seen as an invader, forced upon the integrity of the self for no reason, then the individual seems powerless and the conscious mind an adjunct. [...]

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