“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.

Despite all of your knowledge about the animals, it has not really been suspected that the natural hunter-animal kills most mercifully. The animals follow the rule of good intentions, in which unconsciously, in your terms, the good of one does serve the good of all.

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.

A cat knows how to kill a mouse, and the consciousness of the mouse knows when to leave. Certain mechanisms are triggered that are inherent. They are not triggered as easily under conditions alien to the mouse’s understanding of its and the hunter’s biological natures.

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.

(9:44.) He will learn to be consciously well-intentioned. Again, simple enough. He will consciously seek his own good – not at the expense of others, for he will realize that he cannot achieve any good in that manner. You cannot kill a chicken, personally now, and eat it comfortably. You certainly cannot kill a cow by yourselves. Indirectly, however, you know that the slaughterhouses are cruel—that animals are not killed quickly or cleanly, and to some extent the psychic disquiet of those animals is consumed with their meat. Animals killed quickly and cleanly make better food.