“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(9:45.) In no way do I mean to demean the indisputable value of geniuses, or their great contributions to the quality of life—but the quality of life is, again, also benefited by the existence of idiots. 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. Those terms are human judgments. Idiots also serve their role by moderating the sometimes fierce hold that the reasoning mind can (underlined) have upon human activity.

Dictation. (Pause.) If there were no idiots among you, you would soon find that geniuses were absent also.

Those human abilities that you consider to be characteristic of your species are, again, dependent upon the existence of infinite numbers of variations that appear in the aggregate, to give you often obviously opposing states. What you think of then as the average intelligence is a condition that exists because of the activity of constant variables, minute variations that give you at one end of the scale the idiot, and at the other the genius.

The idiot is often able to experience in his or her own reality a freer, more generous, more faithful flow of emotional states, unhampered by reason’s sometimes stern dictates, and it is important that such a moderating tendency does operate genetically.

(To Joel.) You know I am going to say this to our friend of the idiot flowers over there. [...]

Our friend here of the idiot flower, then look through and beyond Ruburt’s head and wherever that leads you then follow and follow in your own way. [...]

(Long pause.) Your species as a species includes the idiot and the genius, the stupid and the wise, the athletic, the deformed, the beautiful and the ugly, and all variations in between. [...]

[...] There are also, again, highly gifted people, physically or mentally, people who seem to be at times as far from the ordinary person on the gifted scale as an idiot might be [on] the other. [...]

[...] Some, had they lived in your century, would have been able to outperform computers (just as some are outperforming computers these days!). In most cases where such accomplishments show themselves, they do so in a child far too young to have learned scientific mathematical procedures to begin with, and often such feats are displayed by people who are otherwise classified as idiots (idiot savants), and who are incapable of intellectual reasoning.

[...] She’d begun to tune into Seth’s material on idiot savants just before the session. [...]

[...] Just before the sessions began the idea of “The Idiot” came to me as a symbol of inner truth that appears to be complete nonsense to the reasoning mind at times; or at best, highly impractical in normal living. [...]

The Idiot

The idiot cries.
The tears slosh inside his boots.
The people say he’s bats
Because he weeps
When the police shoot down the starlings
Aiming at the tall-eyed trees.

The idiot swears
That the birds are holy.
He shouts as the starlings drop
And the police chuckle good-naturedly
“Stop. [...]

[...] And when a sunny day comes, the flower does not lift its idiotic head and say, “Now, this appears to be the sun. [...] Perhaps it is a fancy tale told by other idiots as stupid as myself.” [...]

Now, in the winter time our poor idiotic flower seems, indeed, to be dead. [...]

[...] If optimism seems to be such a simple-minded, idiotic attribute, then listen. [...] The foolish body, not realizing that such a philosophy is a food for idiots, replenishes itself for good activities, and in an animal fashion anticipates comfort and exuberance.

[...] And so surely should our little idiot flower cower beneath this fine intellect of man that even the seasons themselves should tremble before this fine instrument of the ego. And yet it seems to me, if I remember correctly, that idiot flowers, without a brain in their petals, manage to grow beautifully into what they are and to perfectly do their thing. [...]

Children who are labeled mentally deficient or even called idiots, can often grow and develop far beyond medical science’s suppositions — particularly if they are aided by loving parents who constantly provide stimulation and interest.

[...] It is up to you to wander in that field and pluck your own idiot flowers and find your own paths. [...]

(To Joel and Bette.) You escaped from your current physical roles in class last week, our cousin of Richelieu, and our friend who loves the idiot flower, you experienced your emotional reality on an entirely different level. [...]

[...] I am not suggesting that you adopt a bland, idiotic, male Pollyanna smile, nor that you shout love, prosperity and health from the rooftops while the world below is steeped in poverty and ignorance.

[...] Joy is not a weak spineless idiot either. [...]

[...] That almost sounds like the babbling of a child or an idiot.

(Lest some hypothetical readers of this material in the future regard Jane and me as idiots, incapable of learning, I’d like to note in our own defense that we’ve made many efforts to put the symptom situation out of mind as much as we’re capable of, yet it doesn’t leave us. [...]

[...] On the other hand, for the seasons and the idiot flower (looks at Joel H.), you have yourselves to thank. [...]

It would be idiotic of you to say that you were forced to become an adult, however. [...]

You do not give complicated problems to an idiot to solve. [...]

More than this, again, any money thus acquired in the future, as in the past, would go to promote the continuance of the very system that, left alone, would mutilate our book, and continue idiotic cultural and political policies that are opposed to what you stand for.

[...] Why do your fellow beings sometimes seem like unfeeling monsters — (loudly:) Frankensteins not of body but of mind, spiritual idiots, ignorant of any heritage of love or truth or even graceful beasthood? [...]

[...] So is an idiot and a genius, a glass and an ant. [...]

[...] And it would make your ordinary everyday intellect seem like an idiot child indeed—for you have no idea of the ability of your intellect as it really operates. [...]