When viewed from the perspective of one lifetime mental retardation seems cruel and unfair. However if we remember that human evolution continues over a series of lives it helps us understand the present and gives hope for the future. Law of Cause and Effect Mental retardation is rightly regarded as an illness. Just as any other illness it is suffered by an individual engendered solely by his own behavior during the present or a previous life. Under the Law of Consequence we reap precisely what we sow and if we engage in excesses or depraved conduct of any sort a comparable toll will be taken of our ability to function during a future physical embodiment, and to make consequent evolutionary progress.
Mental troubles are particularly traceable to abuse of the creative function.
As the Holy Spirit is the creative energy in Nature, the sex energy is its reflection in man, and misuse or abuse of that power is the sin that must be expiated in impaired efficiency of the vehicles, in order thoroughly to teach us the sanctity of the creative force. Occult science teaches that the sex function should never be used for sense gratification, but for propagation only. Occult science also teaches that the brain and the larynx were built by the Angels with half of the creative force so that man who, prior to the acquisition of these organs, was bisexual and able to create from himself alone, lost that faculty when these organs were created and is now dependent upon the cooperation of another of the opposite sex in order to generate a new vehicle for an incoming Spirit. There is, therefore, a close connection between sexual activity and mental activity, as well as the power of speech. Proof of this is shown in the case of the sex maniac, who becomes an idiot, unable to think clearly because he is continually occupied in drawing and sending out not only that part of the sex force which is normally to be used for propagation, but also much of the force which should be used to build up the brain, enabling it to produce thought.