“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Your psychological tests show you only the current picture of males and females, brought up from infancy with particular sexual beliefs. These beliefs program the child from infancy, of course, so that it behaves in certain fashions in adulthood. The male seems to perform better at mathematical tasks, and so-called logical mental activity, while the female performs better in a social context, in value development and personal relationships. The male shows up better in the sciences, while the female is considered intuitional.

The child is not born a sponge, however, empty but ready to soak up knowledge. It is already soaked in knowledge. Some will come to the surface, so to speak, and be used consciously. Some will not. I am saying here that to some extent the child in the womb is aware of the mother’s beliefs and information, and that to some extent (underlined) it is “programmed” to behave in a certain fashion, or to grow in a certain fashion as a result.

Basically the species is relatively so freewheeling, with so many potentials, that it is necessary that the mother’s beliefs provide a kind of framework in the beginning, allowing the child to focus its abilities in desired directions. It knows ahead of time then the biological, spiritual, and social environment into which it is born. It is somewhat prepared to grow in a certain direction — a direction that is applicable and suited to its conditions.

Beliefs about the infant’s sexual nature are of course a part of its advance programming. We are not speaking here of forced growth patterns, or of psychic or biological directions, impressed upon it so that any later divergence from them causes inevitable stress or pain. The fact remains that the child receives patterns of behavior, gently nudging it to grow in certain directions. In normal learning, of course, both parents urge the child to behave in certain fashions. Beside this, however, certain general, learned patterns are biologically transmitted to the child through the genes. Certain kinds of knowledge are transmitted through the genes besides that generally known, having to do with cellular formations and so forth.

The child, also, uses such information as a guide only; as a premise upon which it bases early behavior. As the mind develops, the child immediately begins to question the early assumptions. This questioning of basic premises is one of the greatest divisions between you and the animal world.

As a child he once thought that his father was immortal, in human terms — that he could do no wrong. The son tries to vindicate the father by doing no wrong himself, and perhaps by succeeding where it seems the father might have failed. It is much more natural for the male to try to vindicate the father than it is to destroy him, or envy him in negative terms.

(10:54.) The child is simply the male child. He is not jealous of the father with the mother, in the way that is often supposed. The male child does not possess an identity so focused upon its maleness. I am not saying that children do not have a sexual nature from birth. They simply do not focus upon their maleness or femaleness in the way that is supposed.

To the male child, the penis is something that belongs to him personally in the same way that an arm or leg does, or that his mouth or anus does. He does not consider it a weapon (humorously). He is not jealous of his father’s love for the mother, for he understands quite well that her love for him is just as strong. He does not wish to possess his mother sexually in the way that adults currently suppose. He does not understand those terms. He may at times be jealous of her attention, but this is not a sexual jealousy in conventionally understood terms. Your beliefs blind you to the sexual nature of children. They do enjoy their bodies. They are sexually aroused. The psychological connotations, however, are not those assigned to them by adults.