Theos-Talk Archives (December 1999 Message tl00069)

kymsmith@micron.net wrote:
>
> Bart wrote:
>
> >       While scientists have connected certain chromosones with statistical
> >tendencies, they have yet to link any specific chromosone with any
> >specific behavior. Also, we don't know what makes a person incarnate in
> >a body, although Theosophical writings at least imply that the etheric
> >body helps shape the physical body (including the chromosones).
>
> In what way does the etheric body "shape" the physical body?  I was under
> the impression that the etheric body 'maintained' the physical body, but
> not that it was involved in its construction or shaping.  And if the
> etheric body is responsible for shaping the chromosones, then is the
> etheric body responsible for defects in chromosones as well?  If a person
> is born mentally retarded (possessed of an extra chromosone), did the
> etheric body boo-boo?

	It's as good an explanation as any of Blavatsky's contention that apes
are descended from men; that the etheric bodies, attempting to create
new forms that could hold the evolving "monads" that the 4th root race
bodies were no longer capable of handling, did not do a sufficiently
good job in evolving some of the early primates into 5th root race
bodies, and created the apes, instead.

> It would seem to me that the etheric body works with what is already there
> - such as in healing and as a sensor/monitor/reflector of what is going on
> the body; but the etheric seems to enter AFTER the creation of a form.  I
> mean, even a television set, when turned on, has an etheric form - but did
> the etheric create the television set?

	Certainly, the etheric body has to work with what it has, and has only
a limited ability to make changes. There is some contention that the
"monad" (or reincarnating part of humanity, which is more accurate but
harder to type) chooses the body in which it's going to reside; the
etheric body does the "fine tuning", so to speak.

	In terms of inanimate objects, do not mistake the consciousness of an
object with the image forced on it by humanity. A steel hammer has the
consciousness of steel, not the consciousness of a hammer. Philosopher
David Chalmers has been, apparently without knowledge of Theosophy,
writing well-respected papers about consciousness which come within a
hair of Theosophical thought. Look him up on a web search engine; he
publishes quite a few of his papers on the Web (which, after all, was
the original purpose of the Web; a medium for the presentation of
scholarly papers).

	Bart Lidofsky