“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(9:38.) These lifetime organizations may involve very drastic physical disabilities from birth. From the outside it seems impossible that anyone would choose such a background, such a highly restricted or even painful situation in which to live. From that viewpoint birth defects, or lifetime diseases of any kind, make no sense.

In your terms, birth defects of whatever kind are chosen before this life. This is done for many different reasons (just as people choose to be ill in this life, regardless of the duration involved). That is, a certain psychic framework is set up through which an individual decides “ahead of time” to experience an entire life situation. Some information on this has been given in my other writings.¹

In many cases it is the family, rather than the incapacitated member, who questions and does not understand — as in cases of severely mentally retarded children, for example. Yet in all instances not only do children choose their parents ahead of time, but parents choose their children, of course.

Now this accomplishment need not involve some great artwork or invention, or political leadership, for example, though it may. Often the successful activity represents a challenge on the part of the personality who set it in terms of psychological creativity, and the overall enrichment of experience. Those involved, such as family, will have acquiesced to the situation “earlier.” Often, particularly in the case of mental or physical birth defects, the incapacitated person will be accepting that role not only because of personal reasons; he or she will also be choosing that part for the family as a whole.

A person may choose a great talent instead, through which he or she will perceive reality and concentrate all experience. This will serve as a formidable focus, yet by its nature it may often preclude other experiences that many individuals find quite normal. Some artists with great ability may shut out intellectual maturity, utilizing native emotional qualities to such an extent and with such intensity that the mental reasoning faculties are largely shunted aside. (Pause.) Without rational illumination, the emotional elements may be so unwieldy that the artist, for all of his spontaneous expression, cannot relate in any kind of permanent situation of an intimate nature. For reason and emotion are natural counterparts.

Someone else may choose to focus upon intellectual achievement to such a degree that he shuts out all true closeness, and though he can accept a permanent relationship, he will not experience the emotional richness that others may derive from a much briefer encounter. Therefore each of you choose — ahead of time, in your terms — the kind of framework through which you will contend with this life situation. This applies personally and collectively.