1 result for stemmed:onchocerciasi
[... 14 paragraphs ...]
(9:56 P.M. “Boy, how he got all that out of me, I don’t know,” Jane laughed, for she had been very relaxed before the session. Her delivery had moved right along. I’ve deleted a few portions of the session that don’t apply to disease and evolutionary experimentation. Jane reported that when Seth gave the material on onchocerciasis she “really felt that the people’s skins were trying to turn into some sort of leathery protection. I don’t know whether I got those sensations from Seth, picked them up on my own, or just created them myself to go along with the material.” She hadn’t been aware of any feelings involving her own skin.
[... 4 paragraphs ...]
3. The disease Seth referred to is onchocerciasis, which is caused by a filarial parasite spread by the bite of the blackfly. In his passing reference to it, Seth didn’t mention that besides producing the gruesome leathery skin, onchocerciasis can cause blindness — hence its common name, river blindness. This most serious affliction appears to be centered in West Africa, and infects many millions of people there. Four centuries ago, it was carried to the Western Hemisphere by slaves, and is now found in certain areas of Mexico, south to Brazil.
Onchocerciasis doesn’t kill, and the percentage of victims who lose their sight varies according to location. We’d like to get more data from Seth on the experimental evolutionary aspects of the blindness, however, since we don’t understand how such a debilitating state could really lead to something better. (Perhaps in this particular biological experiment, the blindness represents an evolutionary dead end, in those terms.) We may ask Seth to elaborate before he finishes Mass Events.
[... 2 paragraphs ...]