“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

You isolate the criminal element, therefore, in an environment in which any compensations are refused. The entire framework of a prison — with its bars — is a constant reminder to the convict of his situation, and reinforces his original difficulty.

Any normal home life is denied him; and along with the overall concentration upon the problem at hand, all other stimuli is purposely held to a minimum. In their ways, the warden and guards subscribe to the same set of beliefs as that held by their prisoners — the idea of force and power is accentuated on both sides, and each believes the other its enemy.

The guards are certain that the incarcerated are the dregs of the earth and must be held down at all costs. Both sides accept the concept of human aggression and violence as a method of survival. The prisoners’ energies are usually used in boring, innocuous tasks, even though some attempt is made to provide vocational training in many institutions.

Both prisoners and officials, however, take it for granted that most of those now behind bars will return time and time again. The confined project their personal problems out upon the society. Society returns the “favor.” In the same way individuals often think of certain characteristics as animal or evil, and attempt to isolate those portions from other areas of their own activity. Power or the lack of it, and the attitudes surrounding either mode, are often involved.

[...] This concerns the prison population of Portugal’s prisons, and the prison system itself. Discussed in the article is the building of a network of modern establishments, to “replace a few big antiquated prisons,” etc. Other references include such phrases as “prisons were of very low standard,” etc.

(“Connection with a disturbance”, is, Jane said, a possible reference to the article on the prison system in Portugal, in column one on page 11 of the full page. Many statistics are given in the article, dealing with various types of crime, etc., as well as the new prison system that is replacing the old buildings, etc.

[...] Jane said she thought this a reference to the article on prisons of Portugal, in column one of page 11 of the full sheet. The article presents some of the history of Portuguese prisons, mentioning their past low standards, overcrowding, etc.

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

As for the war in Vietnam: over 500 American military prisoners were released by North Vietnam following the January, 1973, cease-fire. [...] There have been suicides among them (as of July), and many have undergone at least temporary stress reactions since their release from prison.

1. According to Seth, then, feelings of powerlessness would have much to do with the especially high rate of violence — even to the death — among American servicemen who had once been prisoners of war. [...]

[...] However, you are at present imprisoned within this false conception of yourself—and within this prison, you do not think of others except as they are related to yourself. [...]

[...] You can to some extent escape this prison, personally, by attempting several exercises. [...]

[...] And I seem to be in a prison. [...]

[...] It turned out that part of Christina’s trouble was that as she sat in her room with no lights on, she thought she was in prison. [...]

[...] It showed how much we were still prisoners of the system: a pill as a remedy.... [...]

[...] Until that day the 53 prisoners had been held at two locations in Tehran, the capital city of that very turbulent land. [...] Actually, our forces hadn’t come close to reaching the prisoners: Responsible were mechanical failures and two dust storms that the American helicopters had to struggle through before joining a group of transport planes at a remote airfield, code-named Desert One, in central Iran. [...]

(11:23.) For all practical purposes the ill are put into prison. [...]

[...] In your prisons you do the same thing, of course, isolating groups of people with like beliefs — denying them all natural stimuli so that a greater contagion of similar beliefs ensues. [...]

(“Maybe Fort Charlotte, where prisoners died.”)

[...] If you magnify your limitations you create your own prisons. [...]

[...] They are not prisons to be escaped from. [...]

[...] The boxes are not prisons anymore than the cousin of Richelieu is hidden to the housewife who is now so proudly the housewife and so contemptuous, for Richelieu’s cousin who was also contemptuous particularly of housewives. [...]

[...] The camouflage here however in the matter of a statue is too much like a prison. [...]

They will be and they are prisoners of their own tools. [...]

When Ruburt closes his mind to the feelings of the Sinful Self, he locks it up within a prison as if it could receive no new information, but must always operate with the distorted beliefs of its birth. [...]

As for Iran, I described how last February [1979] a mob of Marxist-led Iranian guerrillas overran the United States Embassy in that country’s capital, Tehran, and temporarily held prisoner some 70 Americans. [...]

[...] He realizes that he is a creator of the book, not its prisoner, and he once thought that he was. [...]

He will be at all times a prisoner of clock time and of aging, for he will consider these the primary conditions under which he must operate. [...]

The mother had been particularly given to the mutilation of prisoners, and hence chose the physical condition finally—not, now, as punishment, but to understand the experience—and to develop abilities under those conditions.

Other impressions dealt with another article headlined “Portugal Shows Dip in Prisoners.” This specifically referred to the need to modernize the “big, old antiquated prisons” that were “of very low standard,” and made several remarks concerning the crime rate in Portugal. [...]

[...] They are and they will be the prisoners of their own tools.