“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Your overreliance upon physical norms, and your distorted concepts concerning survival of the fittest, help exaggerate the existence of any genetic defects, of course. Many religious dogmas consider such conditions, again, the result of a god’s punishment. The survival of the species is far more dependent upon your subjective activities than your physical ones—for it is your subjective behavior that is responsible for your physical acts. Science of course looks at it the other way around, as if your physical acts are the result of a robot’s mechanical, formalized behavior—a robot miraculously programmed by the blind elements of an accidental universe formed by chance. The robot is programmed only to survive at anyone’s or anything’s expense. It has no real consciousness of its own. Its thoughts are merely mental mirages, so if one of its parts is defective then obviously it is in deep trouble. But man is no robot, and each so-called genetic defect has an internal part to play in the entire picture of genetic reality. The principle of uncertainty must operate genetically, or you would have been locked into overspecializations as a species.²

By themselves, whether they appear as superior or defective conditions, they necessitate a different kind of adaptability, a change of subjective or physical focus, the intensification of other abilities that perhaps have been understressed. Yet granting all this, why, again, would some individuals choose situations that would be experienced as defective conditions? For this, we need to examine some human feelings that are often forgotten.

Let us become more practical, and see how these issues merge in your reality. Some of this requires a great honesty on your own parts, as you try to recall some feelings and daydreams that you have tried to put away or forget or disown. Why are some people, then, born with conditions that are certainly experienced as genetically defective, granting even the overall value of such variances on the part of the species? For, again, I must stress the fact that in its way nature makes no such judgments, regardless of the beliefs of your science or religions.

In man, the probabilities of development are literally numberless. No computer could count the combinations of characteristics possible. It is highly important, then, that the species retain flexibility, and not become locked into any one pattern, however advantageous (intently)—and I am referring to physical or mental patterns. Within the framework of established specieshood, there must be every kind of leeway—leeways that are biologically activated, so that variances are constantly active. Those genetic variances may appear as defective or eccentric. They may appear as the handicapped. They may appear as superior characteristics of one kind or another, but they must be biologically stated as the variations from the genetic norm.

[...] Any variations are frowned upon, and any birth defects considered in the most suspicious of lights. Some schools of thought, then, have it that only the genetically superior should be allowed to reproduce, and there are scientists who believe that all defects can be eradicated through judicious genetic planning.

[...] You were too proud to show your defects, because in your eyes such defects are so horrendous, and Ruburt’s condition becomes the symbol for all of man’s physical distress, in your eyes.

Now understand that I am using the term “perfectionism” in a comparative fashion—but you disapprove of defects of any kind, the both of you. [...]

[...] At Ruburt’s last visit to your dentist, both of you decided that his position was embarrassing, that it put you both in a bad light, that his condition spoke of invisible defects. [...]

[...] 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. [...]

[...] 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 birth defect is obvious, and sets up certain conditions that cannot be ignored.

[...] These remarkable physical changes stem from a genetic “defect” carried by a common ancestor who lived more than a century ago. [...]

[...] Not only because both ends of the scale are necessary for genetic reasons, but also because idiots themselves are in no way considered failures or defects by nature. [...]

[...] Because the Jews were considered less than human—or, at best, human defects—they were thought of as justifiable sacrifices on the altar of “the genetic betterment of mankind.” [...]

[...] Indeed, I seldom see consciousness mentioned in connection with genetics, except as its quality may relate to genetic “defects” like mental retardation, say.

[...] For the purposes of this particular chapter, we will discuss illnesses or situations that have arisen since childhood, so we are not including birth defects or very early life-endangering childhood accidents, or most unfortunate childhood family situations. [...]

[...] When you become enraged at Prentice you are of course enraged against the larger defects of the world—but Prentice’s defects are the ones that come of course to your own more immediate attention. [...]

[...] Ruburt knows the defects are there. [...]

[...] The reincarnational influences are most apparent in what would be considered bodily defects dating from birth, and these will be discussed later on in this book.

[...] While it is true that medical technology has many serious defects, it is also true that many people believe in the medical profession to such a degree that it would be nearly impossible for them to survive in good health without it.

[...] Questions abound involving amniocentesis (examination of the fluid in the womb to detect genetic defects in the fetus); therapeutic abortion; artificial insemination; reproduction by in vitro fertilization; embryo transfer (surrogate motherhood); the responsibilities of the legal, medical and religious communities; whether mentally retarded, genetically defective people should receive life-prolonging medical treatment, and so forth. [...]

[...] Here Jean Reome was out with a bad back, Shirley was out with a bad arm, Susie was going to be operated on for a defective kneecap, and Georgia had to have a tumor removed and a hysterectomy.... [...]

[...] This time the self-adopted defect is less, a mere annoyance.

You should know, and Ruburt should certainly know, that you form your own physical image in a most actual and practical manner, with all its defects, for your own reasons. [...]

[...] Suppose the worst, that in this life you have the following background: You are poor, you are of a minority race, you are not intellectual, you are a woman, you have a severe physical defect and you are no beauty. [...]

(9:14.) There are no magical methods, only natural ones that you use all of the time, although in some cases you use them for beliefs that you take for truths, when instead they are quite defective assumptions. [...]

[...] Her memory in that regard, now, was not defective: It was the memory of the probable woman that she became.²

[...] The kind of reality that you understand forms the least active portion of their actuality, and would represent, for example only, a relatively defective or “inferior” state of consciousness and comprehension, a state like (underlined), perhaps, senility. [...]

[...] Any talent or achievement should be noted as honestly as you recorded the most minute “defects” earlier.

[...] But Ruburt was correct: There was nothing defective about the genes mentioned in your article (in the National Enquirer), in which individuals were born girls, and turned into boys. [...]

Later we will discuss such matters as birth defects. [...]

[...] Such encounters provide an emotional support that cements feelings with your fellow beings, and that in a fashion helps minimize in the present some of the defects of Ruburt’s childhood relationship with his mother. [...]