“Thus it continued during almost a whole terrestrial year, during which time the ranks of the contending parties increased everywhere and towards each other there grew one of their particular properties called ‘hate’; the result of which was that one sorrowful day in the town of Kronbookhon itself, there suddenly began among the beings, who had become followers of one or the other of the two said mutually opposite currents, their process of what is called ‘civil war’. 2347 BTG XXVIII

“‘Civil war’ is the same as ‘war’; the difference is only that in ordinary war, beings of one community destroy the beings of another community, while in a civil war the process of reciprocal destruction proceeds among beings of one and the same community, as, for example, brother annihilates brother; father, son; uncle, nephew, and so on. 2348 BTG XXVIII

“These processes occurred partly between different communities and partly within the limits of these communities themselves; and these latter processes afterwards came to be called ‘civil wars’. 6574 BTG XLIII

“The first of these convictions was that everything takes place precisely according to the theory of the philosopher Atarnakh, that is to say, that there must necessarily proceed ‘wars’ and ‘civil wars’ on the Earth quite independently of the personal consciousness of men; and the second conviction was that which all the members of the society had already previously had, namely, that if they succeeded in carrying out the program which their society had set itself, this evil also which proceeded on their planet, might be destroyed root and branch, and everything might proceed in a desirable way. 6617 BTG XLIII

“According to the laws of Nature, there must periodically always proceed on the Earth, independently of the will of men, ‘wars’ and ‘civil wars’; and this is because during certain periods there is required for Nature a greater quantity of deaths. In view of this we are all, with much grief but with inevitable inner resignation, compelled to agree that by no mental decisions of man is it possible to abolish the shedding of blood between states and within states themselves, and we therefore unanimously resolve to wind up current affairs and everything done by our society and perforce disperse for home and there to drag out our inescapable ‘burden of life’. 6623 BTG XLIII