“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

You have been considering the nature of good and evil, and in your dream you presented yourself with a capsule demonstration. It is good to eat, and each creature seeks food. In the world of nature you say there is a hunter and prey, and yet in that natural world “hunter and prey” are peculiarly suited to each other. The hunter is naturally equipped to kill in such and such a manner. The prey is most easily killed by such maneuvers.

To eat is good. To consume other creatures at your level of existence is natural. It is how the earth is replenished. To torture other creatures in the terms of this discussion is not at all “natural.” The animals, however, are embarked upon a different avenue than you. The development of tools gave man options in the way and manner of killing his prey.

In your system of reality, the other creatures cannot help but act with good intent—even if their intent is to kill their prey. Because of many reasons given throughout the material, mankind took himself out of that context. Seemingly he gave up a certain identification with nature, and as a result he will finally come to appreciate it from an entirely different viewpoint.

[...] Danger in that context exists under certain conditions clearly known to the animals, clearly defined: The prey is known, for example, as is the hunter. But even the natural prey of another animal does not fear the “hunter” when the hunter animal is full of belly, nor will the hunter then attack.

There are also emotional interactions among the animals that completely escape you, and biological mechanisms, so that animals felled as natural prey by other animals “understand” their part in nature. [...]

(4:20.) There are those who come down with one serious disease — say heart trouble — are cured through a heart transplant operation or other medical procedure, only to fall prey to another seemingly unrelated disease, such as cancer. It would relieve the minds of families and friends, however, if they understood that the individual involved did not “fall prey” to the disease, and that he or she was not a victim in usual terms.

[...] To some extent you also fell prey there. [...]

[...] Partially, these are also victims of beliefs, for you believe that the natural body is the natural prey of viruses and diseases over which you have no personal control, except as it is medically provided. [...]

[...] They help create the dogma or system or cult to which they “fall prey.” [...]

[...] If they did not die of the disease, they may have “fallen prey” to an accident, or died in a war, or in a natural disaster.

[...] You may be cured of a particular disease, but unless you learn more about the dynamics of your being, you will simply “fall prey” to another. [...]

[...] In many cases, even when hearts are repaired through medical technology, the same trouble reoccurs at a later date, or the patient recovers only to fall prey to a different, nearly fatal or fatal, disease. [...]

[...] The mouse itself has been hunter as well as prey, and both understand the terms in ways that are very difficult to explain.

The hunter, freed more or less from animal courtesy, would be forced to emotionally identify with his prey. [...]

[...] As the animal must play, mate, hunt his prey or eat his berries within the physical context of sun, ground, trees, snow, hail and wind, so in a different way man must pursue his ideas by clothing them in the elemental realities of earth, by perceiving them as events.

One animal chasing and killing its prey serves the greater purpose of preserving the balance of nature, whether or not the animal is aware of this — and again, the animal’s intent is not evil. [...]

[...] Such children may not come down with the disease against which they are medically protected, then — but they may indeed therefore become “prey” to other diseases later in life that would not otherwise have occurred.

[...] There are also people, of course, who never fall prey to such unfortunate cycles, but instead remain exuberantly free and healthy. [...]

[...] If a man was caught and eaten by animals, as sometimes happened, [his fellows] did not begrudge that animal its prey — at least, not in the deepest of terms. [...]

[...] Biologically the connections between physical hunger and the prey are instant and intimate in a way that the body understands. [...]

[...] If individual A is in a period of despondency, then this is because he has already become prey to negative suggestions of his own and others. [...]

[...] Ruburt did fall prey, in your terms, (underlined twice), to a flu-like condition — but the additional fear added immeasurably, prolonging the situation.

[...] A psychic depression often results, one that is deepened by the Christmas music and the commercial displays, by the religious reminders that the species is made in God’s image, and by the other reminders that the body so given is seemingly incapable of caring for itself and is a natural prey to disease and disaster.

Many people, caught between such conflicting beliefs, fall prey to physical ills during the Christmas season particularly. [...]

[...] They watched the drama of the “hunter” and the “prey,” seeing that each animal contributed so that the physical form of the earth could continue—but the rabbit eaten by the wolf survived in a dream body that men knew was its true form. [...]

[...] The consciousness of the prey leaves its body under the impetus of a kind of stimulus unknown to you.

[...] Seth’s reference to the poor and nationalized health care referred to material Jane had picked up from him during the day; The poor were actually better off as they are now, without such a national health-care plan, for as it is they’re isolated from and immune to a number of ills they would start falling prey to if they could afford to pay for such treatment—that is, if the costs were paid for them. [...]

[...] The hunted and the prey are highly regulated. [...]