A Student’s Abridgment of the

AGELESS WISDOM

Volume VI - “Esoteric Healing”

EXTRACT OF A STATEMENT BY THE TIBETAN

I am a brother of yours, who has traveled a little longer upon the Path than has the average student, and has therefore incurred greater responsibilities.  I am one who has wrestled and fought his way into a greater measure of light than has the aspirant who will read this, and I must therefore act as a transmitter of the light.  My work is to teach and spread the knowledge of the Ageless Wisdom wherever I can find a response, and I also seek to help the Masters M. and the Master K.H. whenever opportunity offers.    

If a teaching can bring forth a response from the illumined mind,

a flashing forth of the intuition, then let that teaching be accepted, but not otherwise.

INTRODUCTION BY THE EDITOR

This abridgment is dedicated to the Tibetan and Alice A. Bailey,

and to all engaged with the work of uplifting the consciousness of humanity.

The work accomplished by Alice A. Bailey and the Tibetan, since revealed as the Master of Wisdom known by the name of Djwhal Khul, can hardly be given too much praise for in the Blue Books they succeeded in delivering a great deal of the Ageless Wisdom to the world.  Their seven core books, each masterfully presented with the clarity and order of a textbook, represent the essential current of Truth that runs through the sciences, religions and philosophies of Man, and unites them all under cosmic law.  Within their body of work are found the laws and processes that underlie the love of the Christ and the wisdom of the Buddha.  Herein are found answers to the true nature of God, the Cosmos, Spiritual and Solar Fire, the not-self and the true Self.

I demonstrate my gratitude for their service by attempting to apply the essential teachings in my life, and this abridgment is just such an attempt.  I am confident that the work was overseen not only by my Higher Self, but by both DK and AAB, for I felt their presences throughout the process.  The sutratma that they created between themselves and their body of work is strong and alive with vibrancy, and it was their discrimination that I relied upon when selecting text for inclusion.  Yet, the karma for errors and omissions between the Treatise and this humble abridgment, must necessarily rest upon my shoulders.  I freely offer this abridgment to the world in the spirit of love and intelligent service, and I believe it will, as a thought-form rightfully conceived and constructed, succeed in its purpose.

The purpose of this abridgment is threefold:

1.  To coalesce a condensed form of the Ageless Wisdom, and this for three reasons:

a)  To assimilate the data and develop an efficient method of studying the essential teachings.

b)  To circulate, teach and learn the Ageless Wisdom with friends and family.  To create a

study guide and teaching aid.

c)  To transmit the essential teachings to those Seekers who may not take the time to read the

full Treatise, with the goal of transmitting 70% of the essential teachings with only a

fraction of the study.

2.  To promote awareness of the Ageless Wisdom within studious occult circles, such as the Hermetic

Qabalists, Christian Mystics, Ceremonial Magicians and Astrologers.  Some within these

groups suffer heavily under dogma and misunderstood tradition, and will benefit greatly by

the study of Cosmic Law.

3.  To quantify, demystify and promote awareness of the Ageless Wisdom in the global population.

This has in mind the following four aspects:

a)  General psychology and self-improvement:  Through a greater perspective of one’s

microcosmic self, as well as Man’s position within the planetary scheme, individuals

will be able to respond to life’s challenges with greater mobility and intelligence.

b)  Unification of science, religion and philosophy:  Through an understanding of the Law of

Analogy, the scientist who studies the Ageless Wisdom stands to gain much when he considers

the living atom of matter.  The orthodox Christian may find illumination as to the nature of

God, the Father and the Son, while philosophers will discover the occult reason behind that

warmth, which is felt as individual, brotherly and group love; all will benefit through

knowledge of the concrete processes and abstract interactions that occur in, and actually

create of their own essence, the seen and unseen worlds around us.

c)  Harmlessness, through right thought and speech:  Through a proper comprehension of the

power of thought-forms, individuals will come to control the lower impulses, to seek harmlessness in all that they do, and to eventually radiate only the true essence of their Egoic Ray.

d)  Intelligent individual and group activity:  Societal reforms based on the Ageless Wisdom will promote enhanced unity within the human collective, and the intelligent organization and

activity that will result is the natural flow of evolution, for the Divine Plan works toward the greatest good of all.

In Unity, Love and Light,

Patrick Westfall    

Introductory Remarks

The entire subject of healing is as old as the ages themselves, and has ever been the subject of investigation and experiment, but as to the right use of the healing faculty and forces, the knowledge is in its infancy. Only in this age and generation is it at last possible to impart the laws of magnetic healing, and to indicate the causes of those diseases—originating in the three inner bodies—which today devastate the human frame, cause endless suffering and pain, and usher man through the portal which leads to the world of bodiless existence. Only today is man at the point in the evolution of his consciousness where he can begin to realise the power of the subjective worlds, and the new and vast science of psychology is his response to this growing interest. Processes of adjustment, of elimination and of cure engage the minds of all thoughtful people as well as of all suffering people. We have much to do, and I ask therefore for patience on your part.

When one enters the realm of healing, one enters a world of much esoteric knowledge, and of an infinity of conclusions, and one is faced with the formulations of many minds, who, through the ages, have sought to heal and to help. The why and the wherefore of disease have been the subject of endless investigations and speculations, and much definite deduction has been made as to the cures of such complaints; there has been also much formulation of methods, of techniques, of formulae, of prescription, of varied manipulations and of theories. All these serve to fill the mind with many ideas—some correct, some erroneous—and this makes it most difficult for new ideas to enter and for the student to assimilate the hitherto unknown.

Aspirants lose much by refusing to let go of that which the lower mind cherishes. When they do succeed in being entirely open minded and are ready to accept the new theories and hypotheses, they discover that the old and dearly held truth is not really lost, but only relegated to its rightful place in a larger scheme.

All initiates of the Ageless Wisdom are necessarily healers, though all may not heal the physical body. The reason for this is that all souls that have achieved any measure of true liberation are transmitters of spiritual energy. This automatically affects some aspect of the mechanism which is used by the souls they contact. When I employ the word "mechanism" in these instructions I refer to different aspects of the instrument, the body or form nature, through which all souls seek manifestation. I refer, therefore, to:

The dense physical body, which is the sumtotal of all the organisms which compose it; these possess the varying functions which enable the soul to express itself on the physical or objective plane as part of a greater and more inclusive organism. The physical body is the response apparatus of the indwelling spiritual man and serves to put that spiritual entity en rapport with the response apparatus of the planetary Logos, the Life in which we live and move and have our being.

The etheric body, which has one main objective. This is to vitalise and energise the physical body and thus integrate it into the energy body of the Earth and of the solar system. It is a web of energy streams, of lines of force and of light. It constitutes part of the vast network of energies which underlies all forms whether great or small (microcosmic or macrocosmic). Along these lines of energy the cosmic forces flow, as the blood flows through the veins and arteries. This constant, individual— human, planetary and solar—circulation of life-forces through the etheric bodies of all forms is the basis of all manifested life, and the expression of the essential non-separateness of all life.

The astral or desire body (sometimes called the emotional body) is the effect of the interplay of desire and of sentient response upon the self at the centre, and the resultant effect—in that body—is experienced as emotion and as pain and pleasure and the other pairs of opposites. In these two bodies, the etheric and astral bodies, ninety percent of the causes of physical disease and troubles is to be found.

The mental body, or that much of the chitta or mind stuff which an individual human unit can use and impress, constitutes the fourth of the series of mechanisms at the disposal of the soul. At the same time let it not be forgotten that these four constitute one mechanism. Five percent of all modern disease originates in this body or state of consciousness, and here I wish to enunciate the truth that the constant reiteration by certain schools of healers that the mind is the cause of all sickness is not as yet a fact. A million years hence, when the focus of human attention has shifted from the emotional nature to the mind, and when men are essentially mental as today they are essentially emotional, then the causes of disease must be sought in the mind realm. They are today to be found (except in a few rare cases) in lack of vitality or in too much stimulation, and in the realm of feeling, of desires (thwarted or over-indulged) and in the moods, suppressions, or expressions of the deep-seated longings, irritations, secret delights and the many hidden impulses which emanate from the desire life of the subject.

This urge to be and to have has first of all built, and is building, the outer physical response apparatus, and is today forcing a mechanism that has been constructed essentially for physical ends, to serve more subjective purposes. This again produces trouble, and only when man realises that within the outer physical sheath there exist other bodies which serve more subtle response purposes will we see the gradual readjustment and health of the physical body. With these more subtle sheaths we shall later deal.

You naturally ask here: What is the general plan which I shall seek to follow as I instruct you in the laws of healing, those laws which guide the initiates and must gradually supersede the more physical methods of the present art of healing? You naturally also seek to know what is the special technique which you—as healers—must learn to employ, both as regards yourselves and as regards those you seek to heal. I will briefly outline the teaching I shall endeavour to give and point out where you must lay the emphasis, as you commence the study of this subject.

I shall endeavour first of all to touch upon the causes of disease, for the occult student must ever begin in the world of origins and not in the world of effects. In the second place, I shall elaborate the seven methods of healing which govern the "work of restitution" (as it is called in the occult terminology) as practiced by the initiates of the world. These determine the techniques which must be employed. You will note that these methods and techniques are conditioned by the rays (of which I have written elsewhere) 1A Treatise on the Seven Rays, Volumes I and II.* and that therefore the healer has to take into consideration not only his own ray but also the ray of the patient. There are therefore seven ray techniques, and these require elucidation before they can be applied intelligently. In the third place, I shall lay emphasis upon psychological healing and upon the need to deal with the patient in his inner life, for the basic law underlying all occult healing may be stated to be as follows:

LAW I

All disease is the result of inhibited soul life, and that is true of all forms in all kingdoms. The art of the healer consists in releasing the soul, so that its life can flow through the aggregate of organisms which constitute any particular form.

It is interesting to note that the attempt of the scientist to release the energy of the atom is of the same general nature as the work of the esotericist when he endeavours to release the energy of the soul. In this release the nature of the true art of healing is hidden. Herein lies an occult hint.

In the fourth place, we will consider the physical body, its diseases and ills, but only after we have studied that part of man which lies behind and surrounding the dense physical body. In that way we shall work from the world of inner causes to the world of outer happenings.

 We shall see that all that concerns the health of man originates from:

• The sumtotal of forces, feelings, desires and occasional mental processes which characterises the three subtler bodies and determines the life and experience of the physical body.
• The effect upon the physical body of the condition of humanity as a whole. A human being is an integral part of humanity, an organism in a greater organism. Conditions existing in the whole will be reflected in the unit self, and many of the ills from which man suffers today are the effect upon him of conditions existing in the fourth kingdom in nature as a whole. For these he is not held responsible.
• The effect upon his physical body of the planetary life, which is the expression of the life of the planetary Logos, Who is an evolving entity. The implications of this are largely beyond our ken, but the effects are discernible.

I am not interested primarily in training individuals in order to make them more efficient healers. It is group healing at which I aim, and it is the work which is done in formation which interests me at this time. But no group of people can work as a unit unless they love and serve each other. The healing energy of the spiritual Hierarchy cannot flow through the group if there is disharmony and criticism. The first work, therefore, of any group of healers, is to establish themselves in love and to work towards group unity and understanding.

I would like to point out here the need for patience as a healing group integrates and the auras of the group members blend. It takes a little time for people to learn to work together in perfect understanding and impersonality, and at the same time to achieve, during their work, a one-pointedness which will produce the needed group rhythm—a rhythm of such unity and intensity that the work can synchronise internally. Aspirants and students as they work along these lines must train themselves to think as a group, and to give to the group the best that is in them, and also the fruit of their meditation upon these matters.

I might also add that these instructions must be as concise as possible. I shall have to endeavour to put much truth and information into a brief space, so as to make each sentence convey some real idea and give some real light on the problems which confront a healing group. That which I have to say will fall into two parts: First, we will deal with the general work of healing and teaching, and this will involve the impartation by me of laws, of techniques and methods. Secondly, we will consider the healer and how he can perfect himself in the art of healing.

Two words I give you which embody the requirements of all true healers, and towards which you must work. They are Magnetism and Radiation. A healer must be magnetic above everything else, and he must attract to him:

1. The power of his own soul; this involves alignment through individual meditation.
2. Those whom he can help; this involves a decentralised attitude.
3. Those energies, when need arises, which will stimulate the patient to the desired activity. This  involves occult knowledge and a trained mind.

The healer must understand also how to radiate, for the radiation of the soul will stimulate to activity the soul of the one to be healed and the healing process will be set in motion; the radiation of his mind will illumine the other mind and polarise the will of the patient; the radiation of his astral body, controlled and selfless, will impose a rhythm upon the agitation of the patient's astral body, and so enable the patient to take right action, whilst the radiation of the vital body, working through the splenic centre, will aid in organising the patient's force-body and so facilitate the work of healing. Therefore, the healer has the duty of rendering himself effective, and according to what he is, so will be the effect upon the patient.

When a healer works magnetically and radiates his soul force to the patient, that patient is enabled more easily to achieve the end desired—which may be complete healing, or it may be the establishing of a state of mind which will enable the patient to live with himself and with his complaint, unhandicapped by the karmic limitations of the body. Or it may be enabling the patient to achieve (with joy and facility) the right liberation from the body and, through the portal of death, to pass to complete health.

PART ONE

The Basic Causes of Disease

This is the problem with which all medical practice down the ages has wrestled. In our present mechanistic age we have wandered far to the surface of things and away from the partially true point of view of earlier centuries which traced disease back of the "evil humours" bred and festering in the inner subjective life of the patient. In the evolution of knowledge on every hand we are now on the surface of things (note I do not use the word "superficial"), and the hour has struck in which knowledge can again re-enter the realm of the subjective and transmute itself into wisdom. There is today a dawning recognition on the part of the best minds in the medical and allied professions, that in the subjective and hidden attitudes of the mind and of the emotional nature, and in the life of inhibited or excessive sex expression, must be sought the causes of all disease.

From the beginning of our studies, I would like to point out that the ultimate cause of disease, even if known to me, would fail to be comprehended by you. The cause lies back in the history of the distant past of our planet, in the career (occultly understood) of the planetary Life, and that it has its roots in what is largely designated "cosmic evil." This is a perfectly meaningless phrase, but one that is symbolically descriptive of a condition in consciousness which is that of certain of the "imperfect Gods." Given the initial premise that Deity itself is working towards a perfection past our comprehension, it may be inferred that there may exist for the Gods Themselves and for GOD (as the LIFE of the solar system), certain limitations and certain areas or states of consciousness which still await mastering. These limitations and relative imperfections may cause definite effects in Their bodies of manifestation—the various planets as expressions of Lives, and the solar system as the expression of a Life. Given also the hypothesis that these outer bodies of divinity, the planets, are the forms through which certain Deities express Themselves, it may be a true and logical deduction that all lives and forms within those bodies may be necessarily subject also to these limitations, and to the imperfections growing out of these unconquered areas of consciousness and these states of awareness, hitherto unrealised by the Deities, incarnated in planetary and solar form. Given the postulate that every form is a part of a still greater form, and that we do indeed "live and move and have our being" within the body of God (as St. Paul expresses it) we, as integral parts of the fourth kingdom in nature, share in this general limitation and imperfection.

It is surely better for us to admit that it is not possible for man to understand the deep-seated causes of that which can be seen emerging in the evolution of form life. Is it not wise to face the issue and the facts, as they exist for our present realisation, and understand that just as man can enter more intelligently into the mind of God than can the lesser mind of the animal, so there may exist other and greater Minds, functioning in other and higher kingdoms in nature which will surely see life more truly and more accurately than does mankind? It is possible, is it not, that the objective of evolution (as outlined and emphasised by man) may be only that partial fragment of a greater objective than he, with his finite understanding, can grasp. The whole intent, as it lies hid in the mind of God, may be very different to what man may conceive today, and cosmic evil and cosmic good, reduced to terminologies, may lose their significance altogether, and are only to be seen through the glamour and the illusion with which man surrounds all things. The best minds of this age are only just beginning to see the first dim ray of light which is piercing this glamour, and serving first of all to reveal the fact of illusion. Through the light thus cast, the following truth may stand revealed to those who have the expectant attitude and the open mind: Deity itself is on the road towards perfection. The implications of that statement are many.

In dealing with the causes of disease, we will take the position that the foundational and ultimate cosmic cause lies beyond our comprehension, and that only as the kingdom of God is revealed on earth shall we enter into some real understanding of the general widespread disease to be found upon our planet in all the four kingdoms in nature. A few basic statements can be made, however, which will be found true eventually in the macrocosmic sense, and can already be demonstrated to be true where the microcosm is intelligently concerned.

All disease is caused by lack of harmony—a disharmony to be found existing between the form aspect and the life. That which brings together form and life, or rather, that which is the result of this intended union, we call the soul, the self where humanity is concerned, and the integrating principle where the subhuman kingdoms are concerned. Disease appears where there is a lack of alignment between these various factors, the soul and the form, the life and its expression, the subjective and the objective realities. Consequently, spirit and matter are not freely related to each other. This is one mode of interpreting Law I, and the entire thesis is intended to be an exposition of that Law.

This lack of harmony, producing what we call disease, runs through all the four kingdoms in nature, and causes those conditions which produce pain (where the sentiency is developed) and everywhere congestion, corruption and death. Ponder on these words: Inharmony, Disease, Pain, Congestion, Corruption, Death, for they are descriptive of the general condition governing the conscious life of all forms, macrocosmic and microcosmic. They are not causes.

All these conditions, however, can be regarded as purificatory in their effects, and must be so regarded by humanity if the right attitude towards disease is to be assumed. This is oft forgotten by the fanatical healer and by the radical exponent of an idea, finitely grasped and in most cases only part of a greater idea.

Methods of healing and techniques of alleviation are peculiar to humanity and are the result of man's mental activity. They indicate his latent power as a creator, and as one who progresses towards freedom. They indicate his discriminative ability to sense perfection, to vision the goal, and hence to work towards that ultimate liberation. His error at this time consists in:

1. His inability to see the true uses of pain.
2. His resentment at suffering.
3. His misunderstanding of the law of nonresistance.
4. His over-emphasis of the form nature.
5. His attitude to death, and his feeling that the disappearance of the life out of visual perception through the medium of form, and the consequent disintegration of that form, indicates disaster.

When human thought reverses the usual ideas as to disease, and accepts disease as a fact in nature, man will begin to work with the law of liberation, with right thought, leading to nonresistance. At present, by the power of his directed thought and his intense antagonism to disease, he only tends to energise the difficulty. When he reorients his thought to truth and the soul, physical plane ills will begin to disappear. This will become apparent as we study later the method of eradication. Disease exists. Forms in all kingdoms are full of inharmony and out of alignment with the indwelling life. Disease and corruption and the tendency towards dissolution are found everywhere. I am choosing my words with care.

Disease is not, therefore, the result of wrong human thought. It existed among the many forms of life long before the human family appeared on earth. If you seek verbal expression, and if you want to talk within the limits of the human mind, you can say with a measure of accuracy: God, the planetary Deity, is guilty of wrong thinking. But you will not be expressing the truth, but only a tiny fraction of the cause, as it appears to your feeble finite mind, through the medium of the general world glamour and illusion.

From one angle, disease is a process of liberation, and the enemy of that which is static and crystallised. Think not, from what I say, that therefore disease should be welcomed, and that the process of death should be cherished. Were that the case, one would cultivate disease and put a premium on suicide. Fortunately for humanity, the whole tendency of life is against disease, and the reaction of the form life upon the thought of man fosters the fear of death. This has been rightly so, for the instinct of self-preservation and the preservation of form integrity is a vital principle in matter, and the tendency to self-perpetuation of the life within the form is one of our greatest God-given capacities and will persist. But in the human family this must eventually give place to the use of death as the organised, freeing process in order to conserve force and give to the soul a better instrument of manifestation. For this liberty of action, mankind as a whole is not yet ready.

The disciples and aspirants of the world should now, however, begin to grasp these newer principles of existence. The instinct to self-preservation governs the relation of spirit and matter, of life and form as long as the Deity Himself wills to incarnate within His body of manifestation—a planet, or a solar system. I have in the above statement given to you a hint as to one of the basic causes of disease, and to the endless fight between the imprisoned spirit and the imprisoning form. This fight uses for its method that innate quality which expresses itself as the urge to preserve and the urge to perpetuate—both the present form and the species.

The law of cause and effect, called Karma in the East, governs all this. Karma must be regarded in reality as the effect (in the form life of our planet) of causes, deep-seated and hidden in the mind of God. The causes that we may trace in relation to disease and death are in reality only the working out of certain basic principles which govern—rightly or wrongly, who shall say?—the life of God in form, and they must ever remain incomprehensible to man until such time as he takes the great initiation which is symbolised for us in the Transfiguration. All along in our studies, we shall be dealing with secondary causes and their effects, with the phenomenal results of those subjective effects which emanate from causes too far away for us to grasp. This should be admitted and grasped. This is the best man can do with his present mental apparatus. When the intuition rarely works, and the mind is seldom illumined, why should man arrogantly expect to understand everything? Let him work at the development of his intuition and at achieving illumination. Understanding may then come his way. He will have earned the right to divine knowledge. But the above recognition will suffice for our work and will enable us to lay down those laws and principles which will indicate the way humanity may gain release from the form consciousness and consequent immunity from the victory of death and those disease-dealing conditions which govern today our planetary manifestation.

We will divide our consideration of the causes of disease into three parts, eliminating from our quest for truth the quite understandable but equally futile desire to apprehend the mind of Deity.

I. The psychological causes.

II. Causes emanating from group life.

III. Our karmic liabilities, the karmic causes.

In all this we shall but gain a general idea as to the presence of disease in the human family, and of that to be found also, in part, in the animal kingdom. When this general idea is grasped, we shall have a clearer understanding of our problem and can then proceed with our consideration of the methods which will enable us to handle the undesirable effects with greater facility. Students of the Art of Healing should likewise remember that there are three ways in which healing can be brought about, and that all three ways have their place and value, dependent upon the point in evolution of the subject being healed.

First, there is the application of those palliatives and ameliorating methods which gradually cure disease and eliminate undesirable conditions; they build up the form life and foster the vitality, so that disease can be thrown off. Of these methods the allopathic and the homeopathic schools and the various osteopathic and chiropractic and other therapeutic schools are good exponents. They have done much good and constructive work, and the debt of humanity to the wisdom, skill and unselfish attentions of the physicians is great. They are dealing all the time with urgent conditions and dangerous effects of causes which are not apparent on the surface. Under these methods, the patient is in the hands of an outside party, and should be passive, quiescent and negative.

Secondly, there is the appearance of the work and methods of the modern psychologist, who seeks to deal with subjective conditions and to straighten out those wrong attitudes of mind, those inhibitions, psychoses, and complexes which bring about the outer states or disease, the morbid conditions and neurotic and mental disasters. Under this method, the patient is taught to cooperate as much as he can with the psychologist, so that he may arrive at a proper understanding of himself, and so learn to eradicate those inner compelling situations which are responsible for the outer results. He is trained to be positive and active, and this is a great step in the right direction. The tendency to combine psychology with the outer physical treatment is sound and right.

Thirdly, the highest and the newest method is that of calling into positive activity a man's own soul. The true and the future healing is brought about when the life of the soul can flow without any impediment and hindrance throughout every aspect of the form nature. It can then vitalise it with its potency, and can also eliminate those congestions and obstructions which are such a fruitful source of disease. This gives you much to ponder upon. If we go slowly as regards the practical application of techniques and methods, it is because I seek to lay a sound foundation for that which I shall later impart.

THE TRAINING OF THE HEALER

As regards the training of the healer, I will give from time to time the six rules which govern (or should govern) his activity. Bear in mind the two words which I earlier gave. They sum up the healer's story: MAGNETISM and RADIATION. They are different in their effects as we shall later see.

RULE ONE

The healer must seek to link his soul, his heart, his brain and his hands. Thus can he pour the vital healing force upon the patient. This is magnetic work. It cures disease, or may increase the so-called evil state, according to the knowledge of the healer.

The healer must seek to link his soul, his brain, his heart and auric emanation. Thus can his presence feed the soul life of the patient. This is the work of radiation. The hands are needed not. The soul displays its power. The patient's soul responds through the response of his aura to the radiation of the healer's aura, flooded with soul energy.

In considering the Causes of Disease, I find it necessary to speak a word in connection with conditions—external and internal. It will be apparent to the casual thinker that many diseases and many causes of death are due to environing conditions for which he is in no way responsible. These range all the way from purely external occurrences to hereditary predispositions. They might be listed as follows:

1. Accidents, which may be due to personal negligence, group happenings, the carelessness of other people, and the results of fighting, as in labour strikes or war. They can also be brought about by attacks from the animal or the snake world, accidental poisonings and many other causes.

2. Infections, coming to a man from outside and not as the result of his own peculiar blood condition. Such infections are the various so-called infectious and contagious diseases, and prevalent epidemics. These may come to a man in the line of duty, through his daily contacts, or through a widespread condition of disease in his environment.

3. Diseases, due to malnutrition, particularly when found in the young. This state of undernourishment predisposes the body to disease, lowers the resistance and the vitality, and of offsets the "fighting powers" of the man, leading to premature death.

4. Heredity. There are, as you well know, certain forms of hereditary weaknesses, which either predispose a person to certain illnesses and consequent death, or produce in him those conditions which lead to a steady weakening of his hold on life; there are also those tendencies which constitute a form of dangerous appetite, which lead to undesirable habits, a letting down of the morale, and are dangerous to the will of the person, rendering him futile to fight these predispositions. He succumbs to them and pays the price of such habits, which is disease and death.

These four types of disease and causes of death account for much that we see happening around us in people's lives, but they are not to be classed definitely under any of the psychological causes of disease, and will only be considered, and that very briefly, under the section dealing with group life and its predisposing causes of disease. Infectious diseases are there dealt with, but such situations as arise out of an automobile or railroad accident, for instance, are not to be considered as coming under the heading of causes producing disease. That the work of the healer may be involved in these cases is quite true, but the work to be done is somewhat different to that accomplished when dealing with those diseases which have their roots in some subtle body or other, or in the results of group disease, etc. The ills growing out of malnutrition and the wrong feeding of our modern life and civilisation will not here be considered. For these no child is individually responsible. I am concerned with the diseases arising in wrong internal conditions.

The responsibility of a child for his living conditions is practically nil, unless you admit karma as a predisposing factor, and its power to produce those re-adjustments which emerge out of the past and affect the present. I shall deal with this more fully under our third point, dealing with our karmic liabilities. I would only suggest here that the whole subject of disease could be treated from the angle of karma and be definite and conclusive in its value had there been right teaching on this abstruse subject from the time that it was given out in the West. But the truth as it has come to us from the East has been as much distorted by the Eastern theologian as the doctrines of the Atonement and of the Virgin Birth have been misinterpreted and taught by the Western theologian. The real truth bears little resemblance to our modern formulations. I am, therefore, seriously handicapped when dealing with the subject of disease from the angle of karma. It is difficult for me to convey to you anything of the truth as it really exists, owing to the pre-conceived ideas as to the ancient Law of Cause and Effect which are necessarily in your mind. When I say to you that the doctrine of Emergent Evolution and the modern theories of the work of a catalyst upon two substances which—when brought into relation with each other under the effect of the catalyst produce a third and different substance—carry in them much of the truth anent karma, will you understand? I question it. When I say to you that the emphasis given to the Law of Karma as it explains apparent injustices and stresses always the appearance of pain, disease, and suffering gives only partial presentation of the basic cosmic truth, is your mind in any way clarified? When I point out that the Law of Karma, rightly understood and rightly wielded, can bring that which produces happiness, good, and freedom from pain more easily than it brings pain, with its chain of consequences, do you feel able to grasp the significance of what I am saying?

The world of glamour is at this time so strong and the sense of illusion so potent and vital that we fail to see these basic laws in their true significance.

The Law of Karma is not the Law of Retribution, as one would surmise as one reads the current books upon the subject; that is but one aspect of the working of the Law of Karma. The Law of Cause and Effect is not to be understood as we now interpret it. There is, to illustrate, a law called the Law of Gravitation, which has long imposed itself upon the minds of men; such a law exists, but it is only an aspect of a greater law, and its power can be, as we know, relatively offset, for each time that we see an aeroplane soaring overhead, we see a demonstration of the offsetting of this law by mechanical means, symbolising the ease with which it can be surmounted by human beings. If they could but realise it, they are learning the ancient technique of which the power to levitate is one of the easiest and simplest initial exercises.

The Law of Consequences is not the inevitable and set affair which modern thought surmises, but is related to the Laws of Thought far more closely than has been believed; towards an understanding of this, mental science has been groping. Its orientation and purposes are right and good and hopeful of results; its conclusions and modes of work are at present woefully at fault, and most misleading.

I have referred to this misunderstanding of the Law of Karma as I am anxious to have you set out on this study of the Laws of Healing with a free and open mind as far as may be, realising that your understanding of these laws is limited by:

• Old theologies, with their static, distorted, and erroneous points of view. The teaching of theology is most misleading, but is, alas, generally accepted.

• World thought, strongly tinged with the desire element, and with little in it of real thought. Men interpret these dimly sensed laws in terms of finality and from their little point of view. The idea of retribution runs through much of the teaching on Karma, for instance, because men seek a plausible explanation of things as they appear to be, and are themselves fond of dealing out retribution. Yet there is far more general good karma than bad, little as you may think it when immersed in such a period as the present.

• The world illusion and glamour, which prevents the average and ignorant man from seeing life as it truly is. Even the advanced man and the disciples are only beginning to get a fleeting and inadequate glance. at a glorious reality.

• Uncontrolled minds and unreleased and unawakened brain cells also hinder man from correct realisation. This fact is often unrecognised. The apparatus of realisation is as yet inadequate. This point needs emphasising.

• National and racial temperaments, with their predisposing temperaments, and prejudices. These factors again prevent a just appreciation of these realities.

I have given enough here to indicate to you the futility of attempting to state that you understand these laws towards which you are groping and which you seek to understand. Nowhere in human thought is the darkness greater than in connection with the laws concerning disease and death.

It is necessary, therefore, to realise that, from the start, in all I have to say, under the heading The Psychological Causes of Disease, I am not dealing with those complaints or predispositions to disease which emerge out of the environment, or with those definitely physical taints which are inherited from parents who have carried in their bodies and transmitted to their children disease germs which they, in their turn, may have inherited from their parents. I would like to point out that these inherited diseases are far fewer than is at present surmised; of these, the predisposition to tuberculosis, to syphilis and to cancer are the most important where our present humanity is concerned; they are inherited and also can be imparted by contact.  

CHAPTER I -The Psychological Causes of Disease

The point I would like to make here, before proceeding further, is that I shall seek to avoid, as far as possible, all technicalities. Our theme is the esoteric consideration of disease and its forms; it seeks to elucidate the subject of and the vital causes of such diseases, and to indicate the general laws with which the healer must work and the six rules which he must impose upon himself—and to which he gives obedience, through discipline and understanding.

You will have noted that I listed the psychological causes under four headings:

1. Those arising out of the emotional-feeling nature.
2. Those which have their origin in the etheric body.
3. Those which are based on wrong thought.
4. The peculiar complaints and psychological troubles of disciples.

It may have interested you to see that I place the ills of the etheric body in the second place and not the first. The reason for this is that the group ills and diseases which have fastened upon the race, work primarily through the etheric body and find their way out into manifestation via the etheric bodies of all forms. But I have placed them second, even though they are the most numerous, owing to the fact that humanity cannot as yet deal with these en masse. The approach has to be through individuals, and men must clear their astral or emotional bodies of those conditions which pre-dispose them to disease, as individuals. At present, the race is astrally polarised. The emotional sentient nature is all-powerful in the masses. This leads to a relatively negative etheric body which is tuned in on the entire etheric substance of the planet. This substance, which underlies all forms, is simply a transferring and transmitting agency for vital energy to the outer dense physical body. Energy sweeps through this etheric substance, free from all control by the individual human being, and quite unrealised by him because his focus of attention is astral. From the astral or emotional state of consciousness, much concerning individual physical conditions can be deduced.

We must, however, eliminate those ills which are group ills and which have swept into and through all mankind from the world of etheric force, leaving him in some way depleted, or overstimulated, or in such a condition that Death naturally supervenes. It might be stated as a basic generalisation that personal physical trouble has its seat at present in the emotional body, and that that vehicle of expression is the one predominant predisposing agent in the ill health of the individual, just as group ills and the sweep of epidemics of any kind through the masses are founded in some condition in the etheric substance of the planet. Those diseases which are general, national, racial and planetary find their way to an individual via his etheric body, but are not so personal in their implications.  

I would also like to point out that the diseases for the masses, for the average citizen, for the intelligentsia, and for the disciples of the world may, and do, differ widely—not so much in their expression as in their field of expression. This is a point most difficult for the average healer to recognise; it is not easy or possible for him to grasp these distinctions and to gauge the point in evolution which a man may have reached. Some diseases must be dealt with from the mental plane, and will call in the mind of the healer; others require a concentration of emotional energy by the healing agent; and again, in other cases, the healer should seek to be only a transmitter of pranic energy to the etheric body of the patient, via his own etheric body. How many healers are really consciously aware of the focus of the consciousness or the life force in the patient with whom they may be concerned? How many realise anything of the type of healing which it is possible and necessary to apply to a disciple? How few realise that no disciple, for instance, can place himself in the hands of the average magnetic healer or radiatory worker, or psychological expert of any kind!

A disciple dare not subject himself to the auric emanations of any chance healer, nor put himself in the power of the inexperienced academic psychologist, no matter how prominent he may be. He may, however, subject himself to the wise skill of the physical plane physician or surgeon, as—for him—the physical body is but an automaton. He can therefore avail himself of physical means for its benefiting. Much of the failure of the healing methods at present employed consists in the inability of the healer to:

• Gauge the extent of the trouble, where it may be located basically, and in what body it principally arises and lies.

• Know where the patient stands upon the ladder of evolution, and where, therefore, he must look first for the source of the difficulty.

• Differentiate between the diseases which are due to inner personal conditions, or to inherited tendencies, or to group distribution.

• To know whether the disease should be handled:

1. Allopathically or homeopathically, for both can play their part at times, or through any of the other media of modern skill and science.

2. Through radiation or magnetisation, or both.
3. Through right inner psychological adjustment, aided by true insight on the part of the healing agent.
4. Through calling in the power of a man's own soul—a thing that is not possible except to advanced people.
5. Through definite occult means, such as forming a healing triangle of:

This method involves much knowledge and a high point of spiritual attainment on the part of the healer;—it also presupposes the healer's link with a Master and the Master's group, plus the earned right to call upon that group for energy on behalf of the patient—a thing as yet rarely granted.

I would like first of all to point out that my purpose and intent is not to write a medical treatise. I shall not, therefore, deal with the anatomy of the body, nor shall I discuss the symptoms of diseases, except quite incidentally. We will start with the premise that there is disease; that disease is an effect of inner causes; that man has made as vast strides in the understanding of the effect of these causes as they produce changes in the outer garment of man, as science has made in the understanding of the outer garment of God, the world of phenomenal nature.

The ameliorative and palliative and curative work of medicine and surgery are proved beyond all controversial discussion. The methods employed, such as the vivisection of animals, may rightly cause distress. In spite of all this the indebtedness of mankind to the medical profession is great, and the service rendered to humanity by the profession does largely offset the evil. That they know not everything is true; that there is a small percentage of physicians and surgeons (less than in any other profession) who are self-seeking and no credit to their craft is equally true; that they already know enough to be willing to admit how very much more there is to be known is also correct. But that it is a great and good and self-sacrificing group within the human family, is equally true. Forget this not.

I deal with the subjective aspect of man, and with the secondary causes which have their roots in man's inner bodies and in the subjective side of nature itself. I seek to make clear what man may do to free himself increasingly from the accumulation of the past, both individually and as a group, and in so doing to clear his physical body of the germs of disease. It must, however, be borne in mind that many diseases are of a group nature, and are consequently inherent in humanity itself. Just as the insect world devastates and destroys the vegetable kingdom, as any chance walker through the woods can note, so germs—individual and group—today devastate and destroy the human kingdom. They are agents of destruction and are performing a definite office and duty in the great scheme of things at present.

The intent is for men to die, as every man has to die, at the demand of his own soul. When man has reached a higher stage in evolution, with deliberation and definite choice of time, he will consciously withdraw from his physical body. It will be left silent and empty of the soul; devoid of light, yet sound and whole: it will then disintegrate, under the natural process, and its constituent atoms will pass back into "the pool of waiting units," until they are again required for the use of incarnating souls. Again, on the subjective side of life, the process is repeated, but many have already learnt to withdraw from the astral body without being subject to that "impact in the fog," which is the symbolic way of describing the death of a man upon the astral plane. He then withdraws on to the mental level, and leaves his astral carcass to swell the fog and increase its density. I seek to point out, therefore, that my avoidance of medical technicalities will be deliberate, though we shall refer often to the physical body and to the diseases of which it is a prey.

LAW II

Disease is the Product of, and subject to, three influences. First, a man's past, wherein he pays the price of ancient error. Second, his inheritance, wherein he shares with all mankind those tainted streams of energy which are of group origin. Thirdly, he shares with all the natural forms that which the Lord of Life imposes on His body. These three influences are called "The Ancient Law of Evil Sharing." This must give place some day to that new Law of Ancient Dominating Good which lies behind all that God made. This law must be brought into activity by the spiritual will of man.

What is a law, my brother? It is the imposition (upon both the lesser and the more important) of the will and purpose of that which is superlatively great. Therefore, it lies beyond man's ken. Man has some day to learn that all the laws of nature have their higher, spiritual counterparts, and of these we shall shortly be in search. Our laws today are but secondary laws. They are the laws of group life and they govern the kingdoms of nature and find their expression (for the human kingdom) through the medium of the mind, of the emotional nature, and through a physical plane agent. It is not my intention in this present short treatise to elucidate the primary laws.

RULE TWO

The healer must achieve magnetic purity through purity of life. He must attain that dispelling radiance which shows itself in every man when he has linked the centres in the head. When this magnetic field is established, the radiation too goes forth.

The significance of this will be somewhat apparent to the advanced esoteric student. As you know, the magnetic field is established when the powerful vibration of the centre in front of the pituitary body, and the centre around and above the pineal gland, swing into each other's orbit. The only controversial point in connection with the above rule is how and in what manner magnetic purity is to be achieved, and how the two centres in the head can form together one magnetic field. Later, in our conclusion, which is intended to be intensely practical, I will touch upon these two points.

One of the things which should definitely emerge in our studies is the fact that disease is seldom of individual origin, unless a man misspends his life and definitely misuses his body (through drink or sexual dissipation), and that the bulk of the disease to be found in the world today is almost entirely of group origin, is inherited, is the result of infection, or the result of undernourishment. The last named cause is primarily an evil of civilisation; it is the result of economic maladjustment or the corruption of food. As I earlier pointed out, these latter causes of disease are not primarily the result of inner subtle forces, but are the pouring upwards, into the etheric body, of energies from the physical plane itself and from the outer world of forces.

Little attention has been paid by occult teachers to these forces which come from without, which originate upon the physical plane, and which affect the inner bodies. There are physical energy and streams of force entering into the etheric bodies of all forms, just as the world illusion and the miasmas of the astral plane oft have their causes in physical plane conditions. The energies entering into the centres of man from the subtler levels have oft been considered in occult books, but the forces which find their way into the centres from the world of physical plane life are seldom realised or discussed. This is a somewhat new thought which I offer for your consideration.

What is Disease? I suggest the following:

1. All disease is disharmony and lack of alignment and control.

a. Disease is found in all the four kingdoms in nature.

b. Disease is purificatory in effect.

c. Definite methods of healing are peculiar to humanity, and mental in origin.

2. Disease is a fact in nature.

a. Antagonism to disease simply energises it.

b. Disease is not the result of wrong human thought.

c. Disease is a process of liberation and the enemy of that which is static.

The law of cause and effect governs disease as it governs all else in manifestation. We found also that healing is brought about in three ways: 

1. Through the application of the methods of the many schools of medicine and surgery, and allied groups.
2. Through the use of psychology.
3. Through the activity of the soul.

I have also stated that the major causes of disease are three in number: they are psychological in nature; they are inherited through group contact; and they are karmic. Remember, however, that these are the secondary causes and with the first of these we will now deal.

1. CAUSES ARISING IN THE EMOTIONAL-DESIRE NATURE

In A Treatise on White Magic, I gave the world for the first time information as to the nature and the control of the astral body. This book is practically the first one ever given out to the public on this theme. Much has been given in the past on the subject of the physical body and its care, both by exoteric and esoteric science. Much of it is true, and some of it is illusion. It is illusion because it is based on false premises. Modern esotericists have dealt with the subject of the etheric body, and this too has been partially true and partially false, but it is more generally true from the occult point of view than it is exoterically.

I may surprise you here if I tell you that A Treatise on White Magic is also true as far as it goes, but it is necessarily limited, and because of these limitations it is also partially incorrect. Does the above statement astonish you? Remember, how can it be entirely true when we consider the limitations of your power to comprehend? It is impossible for me to convey to you the truth, because there exist neither the terminology nor an adequate groundwork of knowledge on your part. This makes my task difficult. This teaching on healing is likewise the hardest I have yet undertaken, and this for two reasons.

First (the real nature of) the phrase "subtler bodies" is somewhat meaningless, is it not? They are not bodies like the physical body. They can be regarded as centres or reservoirs of particular types of force, attached to each individual, and possessing their proper inlets and outlets. They are collections of atoms, vibrating at high speed and coloured (according to some schools of occultism) by certain definite hues; they emit a certain tone, and are at varying points of evolution. According to others, they are states of consciousness and some regard them as made in the likeness of a man. What is your definition, Brother of mine?

The astral body is, for the majority of mankind, the major determining factor to be considered. It is an outstanding cause of ill health. The reason for this is that it has a potent and predisposing effect upon the vital and etheric body. The physical body is an automaton of whichever inner body is the strongest.

When you remember that the vital body is the recipient of the streams of energy, and is in fact composed and formed of such streams, and that the physical body is driven into activity by these streams, it is apparent that that stream which is the most potent is the one which will control the action of the physical body upon the physical plane. There are, however, two streams of energy which must be considered in studying the factors leading to physical plane actions. I would remind you in this connection that disease is an activity of the physical plane.

1. The stream of life itself, anchored in the heart, which determines the vitality of the man, his capacity for work, and the term of his existence.

2. The predominating stream of energy coming from the astral, mental or soul bodies. These control his expression upon the physical plane. With the masses of people throughout the world, and those whom we call the vast unthinking public, the dominating factors are the stream of life and the stream of astral or desire energy. This can be either of a low or medium calibre.

With the thinking public, the dominating factors are these two streams, plus a steady inflowing and increasing tide of mental energy.

With the intelligentsia of the world and the aspirant (those ready for, or already on, the probationary path) we find the above three streams reaching a point of equilibrium, and thus producing an integrating or coordinating personality. These number amongst them also the mystics of the world and the creative workers, who are conscious of the inspiration and the spiritual contact which indicates a beginning of the inflow of soul energy.

With the disciples of the world, we find a group of men and women coming under the control of soul energy, whilst the other three energies are being increasingly subordinated to this higher type of control.

It should be borne in mind that there are two other types of energy with which to reckon, when considering intelligent man.

1. The energy which is composed of the fused and blended forces of a coordinated personality.

2. The energy of the physical plane itself, which is finally identified by the aspirant or disciple, and becomes so utterly negated that eventually it constitutes one of the major factors in the release of the centres.

Finally the time comes when the initiate works simply with three types of energy whilst expressing himself in incarnation: the energy of life itself, the negative energy of the personality, and the positive energy of the soul. Thus he is an expression in conscious manifestation of the three aspects of the Trinity.

Certain things should be established as occult facts in the consciousness of the healer before he is able to work constructively.

First of all, that there is nothing but energy and this energy manifests itself as many differing and varying energies. Of these many energies, the universe is composed. Likewise man's bodies or vehicles of manifestation are without exception constituted of energy units. These we call atoms, and these atomic units are held together in body form by the coherent force of more potent energies.

The major focal point of energy to be found in human beings is that of the soul, but its potency as an agent of cohesion and of integration is as yet greater than its quality potency. In the earlier stages of human evolution, it is the coherence aspect that demonstrates. Later as man's response apparatus, or bodies, becomes more developed, the quality aspect of the soul begins to demonstrate increasingly.

Seen from the inner side where time is not, the human creature demonstrates as an amazing kaleidoscopic mutable phenomenon. Bodies, so called, or rather aggregates of atomic units, fade out and disappear, or flash again into manifestation. Streams of colours pass and repass; they twine or intertwine. Certain areas will then suddenly intensify their brightness and blaze forth with brilliance; or again they can be seen dying out and the phenomenon in certain areas will be colourless and apparently non-existent. But always there is a persistent over-shadowing light, from which a stream of lights pours down into the phenomenal man; this can be seen attaching itself in two major localities to the dense inner core of the physical man. These two points of attachment are to be found in the head and in the heart. There can also be seen, dimly at first but with increasing brightness, seven other pale disks of light which are the early evidence of the seven centres.

These centres, which constitute the quality aspects and the consciousness aspects, and whose function it is to colour the appearance or outer expression of man and use it as a response apparatus, are (during the evolutionary process) subject to three types of unfoldment.

a. That unfoldment which takes place as a physical plane child grows from an infant to a man. By the time he is twenty-one, the centres should normally have reached the same quality of expression as they had attained when he passed out of life in a previous incarnation. The man then takes up life where he had previously left it off.

b. The awakening of the centres through life experience. Occasionally only one centre may be dealt with in any one life; sometimes several are brought into greater functioning consciousness.

c. There is, finally, the awakening of these centres through the process of initiation. This of course only happens when the man is consciously upon the Path.

The centres determine the man's point of evolution as far as his phenomenal expression is concerned; they work directly upon the physical body through the medium of the endocrine system. This point should be borne in mind, for the future occult healer will approach his patient with this knowledge. He will then work through those centres and glands which govern the particular area of the body wherein the disease or discomfort is located. The time, however, for this has not yet come, for man's ignorance is great. Over-stimulation of the centres, and consequently of the glands, could easily be brought about, and the diseased condition might be stimulated also and increased, instead of dissipated or healed.

A. Uncontrolled and Ill-Regulated Emotion

Given these basic facts, it can be seen how wrong emotional attitudes and a general unhealthy condition of the astral body must be potent factors in producing discomfort and disease. This is due to the fact that the vital or etheric bodies of the masses of humanity are governed primarily and swept into activity through the action of the astral body. Agitation in that body, any violent activity under stress of temper, intense worry or prolonged irritation will pour a stream of astral energy into and through the solar plexus centre, and will galvanise that centre into a condition of intense disturbance. This next affects the stomach, the pancreas, the gall duct and bladder. Few people (and I might well ask who is exempt at this particular time in the world's history) are free from indigestion, from undesirable gastric conditions, or from trouble connected with the gall bladder.

The tendency to criticism, to violent dislikes, and to hatreds based on criticism or a superiority complex, produces much of the acidity from which the majority of people suffer. I would like to add in passing that I am here generalising. So many people are prone to an inferiority complex in relation to themselves, but to a superiority complex where their relation to other people is concerned! Stomachic physical plane effects are closely tied up with the desire aspect of the physical body, which finds expression in the eating and drinking of that which is desired, leading subsequently to those attacks of biliousness to which so many are prone.

I offer these above illustrations to demonstrate the effect of the prevalent wrong attitudes to life and people which today distinguish mankind and produce the above mentioned conditions.

The ills which are based on criticism, upon hatred, and upon the capacity to judge each other (usually unkindly) work through from the throat centre to the solar plexus. This inter-relation existing between the centres is one that has never been properly considered. The centres in the etheric body pass varying kinds of energies amongst themselves, and a great deal of the energy transmitted from one centre to another is undesirable, flowing from the centres below the diaphragm to those above.

The physical body (etheric and dense) can be pictured as a house with two telephonic installations— one bringing in energies from without the house and the other being in the nature of a house telephone from room to room. The analogy is far more accurate than appears to the casual thinker. In every modern house, light and water and gas and telephonic interchange are brought. Light, the symbol of the soul; water, the symbol of the emotions; telephonic interchange, the symbol of mind with its intercommunication of knowledges; and gas, the symbol of the etheric nature.

It is interesting and saddening to note that that which at present goes out of the average house is the refuse that is undesirable—this is the correspondence to that which is selfish and sad and the demand for the satisfaction of personal needs and desires. It can be seen, therefore, why I have so emphatically impressed the need of harmlessness upon all of you, for it is the scientific method, par excellence and esoterically speaking, of cleaning house and of purifying the centres. Its practice clears the clogged channels and permits the entrance of the higher energies.

The emotional causes of disease and the mental attitudes which produce physical discomfort are at this particular time those which are the most prevalent. When they are persisted in over a long period of time, and are carried over from life to life, they cause the more violent aspects of the conditions referred to above, and from them serious and destructive diseases can emerge, necessitating, for instance, the removal of the gall bladder or those operations incident to the appearance of chronic gastric ulcers. Other diseases grow from a constant pandering to the desire nature, though sexual diseases come under another category. It can be seen from the above how desirable it is that the true healer should combine in himself, not only a measure of esoteric knowledge, but—until he is an initiate—something of psychology, something of the work of a magnetic healer, and also be a trained medical man or surgeon.

Much of the healing now done is worse than useless, because the three above mentioned conditions are lacking. Most doctors, especially those who are called general practitioners, are good psychologists and they have also a sound knowledge of symptoms and of anatomy and of curative measures which are usually lacking in the average metaphysical healer. But they are entirely ignorant of one great field of knowledge—that concerning the energies which meet and war within the human frame and of the potencies which can be set in motion if certain esoteric truths are admitted in place. Until they work with the etheric body and study the science of the centres, they can make little further progress.

The esoteric healer knows much about the inner forces and energies and has some understanding of the basic causes of the exoteric diseases, but his ignorance of man's mechanism is deplorable, and he fails to realise two things:

1. First, that disease is sometimes the working out into manifestation of undesirable subjective conditions. These, when externalised and brought to the surface of the human body, can then be known, dealt with and eliminated. It is well to remember also that sometimes this working out and elimination may well bring about the death of that particular body. But the soul goes on. One short life counts for very little in the long cycle of the soul, and it is counted well worthwhile if a period of ill health (even if it eventuates in death) brings about the clearing away of wrong emotional and mental conditions.

2. Second, disease is sometimes incident upon and part of the process of the withdrawal of the soul from its habitation. This we call death, and it can come quickly and unexpectedly when the soul withdraws with suddenness from its body. Or death can spread itself over a long period of time, and the soul may take several months or years for its slow and gradual emergence from the body, with the body dying by inches all the time.

We might therefore conclude that:

• Disease is a purificatory process, carried out in order to produce a purer expression, life aroma, influence and soul usefulness. When this is the case, a cure is possible.

• Disease can be a gradual and slow process of dying and of thus releasing the soul. A cure then will not be possible, though palliative and ameliorative measures are needed and should most certainly be used. The length of the life can be prolonged, but a permanent and final cure is out of the question.

• This the average mental healer fails to realise. They make a horror out of death, whereas death is a beneficent friend.

• Disease can be the sudden and final call to the body to relinquish the soul and set it free for other service. In all these cases everything possible should be done from the standpoint of modern medical and surgical science and the allied sciences of which there are today so many. Much too can be done from the angle of mental and spiritual healing, aided by the science of psychology. Some day there must come cooperation in these various fields and a synthesising of their efforts.

I have earlier pointed out that the astral body is the prime motivating factor in the lives of the majority.  This is caused by the fact that:

• It is the body in which the bulk of human beings are today centering their consciousness.

• It is the most developed of the bodies at this time, and therefore receives the bulk of the life energy as it comes down the life stream, from the soul, and likewise receives the energy of the stream of consciousness.

• It is oriented, if I may so express it, outwards or towards the plane of physical experience. That orientation shifts at times and, temporarily in the case of the aspirant, turns inwards. Just as the centres in man, the "lotuses of life," are depicted as turned downwards and with the stalk upwards in the undeveloped man, but are turned upwards in the case of the developed, so there are conditions in the astral body analogous to this. In the case of the highly evolved man, of the initiate or the Master, the astral body is steadily oriented towards the soul.

In the mystic, the aspirant and the disciple, the process of thus definitely changing the direction of the forces is going on and producing, therefore, a temporary chaos.

• The astral body of man, being the latest to develop (the physical and the etheric being the first two in order of time) is still the most alive and potent. It reached its acme of development in late Atlantean days and its potency is still great, constituting the mass potency, the mass emphasis, and the mass polarisation. This is also augmented by energies coming from the animal kingdom, which is entirely astral in its point of attainment.

I would remind you here that the use of the word "body" is most misleading and unfortunate. It produces in the consciousness the idea of a defined form and a specific shape. The astral body is an aggregate of forces, working through into the consciousness in the form of desires, impulses, longings, wishes, determinations, incentives, and projections, thus laying the basis for much of the truth of the teachings of modern psychology. Psychologists have discovered (or rather uncovered) the nature of some of these forces, and their terminology in this connection is frequently more truly occult and accurate than is that of the orthodox esotericist and theosophist.

It may be of interest to you if I do two things. First of all, give you some technical information in connection with the working through of the forces from the astral plane into the physical body, and then give you the effects of that working through, as they take the form—owing to man's wrong use of them—of disease and the many varying disorders to which man is prone. With their cure we are not at this time concerned. I am here simply laying down the structure of fact upon which we can later base our conclusions. We shall, in this connection, only consider the average man. The problems of the disciple will be dealt with later.

I pointed out earlier that the three major groups of diseases for the masses are:

1. Tuberculosis.
2. The social diseases, as they are called: the venereal diseases and syphilis.
3. Cancer.

To these we must add two other groups of disease which predominantly affect those who are a little above the average and whose general level of intelligence is higher than that of the mass; this includes also the aspirants of the world.

4.    Heart diseases, but not what is called heart failure.
5.    The nervous diseases so prevalent at this time.

These five groups of disease, and their various sub-divisions are responsible for the bulk of the physical ills which attack humanity. A right grasp of their preponderating causes will be of definite assistance to future medicine.

I would like to point out here that, as you well know, there are physical correspondences to the seven centres of forces located in the etheric body, and fed from the astral body. These we call the endocrine glands. These glands are effects of or testifying evidence to, the centres, and are in their turn initiating causes of lesser effects in the physical body.

It will be of value if we here tabulate some of the things we know, and aid comprehension.

This tabulation is simply an outline and its interpretation will be dependent upon the point of view of the student. We shall employ it later and add further columns to it and further correspondences. In all our considerations, what we have to say will have the following synthesis of structure behind it:

• The soul.
• The subtler bodies of the mind and the emotions, which are simply qualified energy centres.
• The vital body with its seven major centres of force.
• The endocrine system, which is an effect of the seven centres, and the determining controlling factor in the physical body of man.
• The nervous system in its three divisions.
• The blood stream.

All the subsidiary organs of man are effects; they are not pre-determining causes. The determining causes in man, and that which makes him what he is, are the glands. They are externalisations of the types of force pouring through the etheric centres from the subtler worlds of being. They express the point in evolution which the man has reached; they are vital and active or non-vital and inactive, according to the condition of the centres. They demonstrate a sufficiency, an oversufficiency or a deficiency, according to the condition of the etheric vortices.

Again, the process of control may be stated to be via the nervous system; the close interlocking directorate of the nervous system, the brain and the blood stream (as a carrier of the life principle) governs the activities of the man—conscious, sub-conscious, self-conscious, and finally, super-conscious.

The three centres in supreme control today for the majority are:

1. The ajna centre, the centre between the eyebrows.
2. The solar plexus.

3. The sacral centre.

Eventually, when man will have "become that which he is" (that paradoxical esoteric phrase), the centres of control will be:

1. The head centre, the brahmarandra.
2. The heart centre.
3. The centre at the base of the spine.

Between the present and the future, the emphasis will be laid upon a constantly shifting triplicity, and each man will be different from his fellowmen as to emphasis, as to the conditions of his centres, as to their glandular correspondences in the physical body, and therefore as to the diseases and the ills, inhibitions, and difficulties to which his flesh will fall heir. It is in this connection that it becomes obvious that the work of the physician and of the psychologist must eventually go hand in hand.

The three most important aspects of all diagnoses are:

• The psychological, or the gauging of the inner bodies of man from the angle of their development, their integration and the total coordination of the personality, as these subtler aspects of the human being express themselves in consciousness.

• The work of the endocrinologist, as he deals with the endocrine glands, viewing them as power stations through which energy—dynamic and illuminating—can pour through from the centres.

• The physician, who, taking into consideration the conclusions of the two above experts, diagnoses the disease, and treats it in collaboration with the other two.

These three may call in other experts and specialists in electro-therapy, osteopathy and chiropractic, but it is in the combination of the knowledge of the physician, the psychologist and the endocrinologist that the medical profession can take on a new expression of usefulness, and enter the new age equipped to deal with the people who will gradually assume the new types and a changing physical organism. Electricity, in relation to human ills, is as yet an infant science, but it has in it the germs of the new techniques and methods of healing. The work done by the chiropractors is good and needed but should, with osteopathy, constitute a definite subsidiary technique to that of the other three. The work of the chiropractors and of the osteopaths forms two halves of one whole, little as their practitioners may like to recognise it. The former group need a more careful and lengthy training, and a higher standard of technical knowledge should be required.

Medicine is entering slowly into a new usefulness. Once the cause of disease is shifted out of an organ or bodily system into a more subtle and vital realm, we shall see radical and needed changes, leading to simplification and not to a greater complexity and difficulty.

From the above remarks it will be seen that disease emerges into the physical body from the world of the unseen, and from the use, or misuse, of the subtler forces on the inner planes.

It must be remembered, however, that disease—as it expresses itself in man—can be generally regarded as due to the following causes, and students would do well to have this most carefully in mind as they ponder on these matters:

• Individual disease, due to interior conditions in a man's own equipment, to his mental state, or to an emotional condition which can produce serious ills. This is inherited from the past.

• Disease inherent in humanity as a whole. There are certain diseases to which all men are prone; the germs of these diseases are latent in the physical vehicles of the majority of men, only awaiting predisposing conditions in order to manifest. They might be regarded as group diseases. Diseases which are, curiously enough, accidental. To these a man falls heir when, for instance, he succumbs to some infectious or contagious complaint.

• Diseases inherent in the soil. Of these as yet but little is known. The soil of our earth, however, is very ancient, and is impregnated with disease germs which take their toll of the vegetable, animal and human kingdoms, manifesting differently in each, yet being due basically to the same causes.

• Diseases which are the difficulties of mysticism. These are the peculiar ills and complaints which attack the disciples and aspirants of the world. These can be traced in every case to the pouring in of energy through centres which are not properly equipped, or adequately developed, to handle the force.

The method whereby these astral forces (which are, as we know, preeminently the determining life forces for the majority of men at this time) work out into manifestation is a relatively simple matter. In the astral vehicle of expression there are, as you may realise, the correspondences of the seven centres in the etheric body. These are essentially the seven major focal points of force, and each of them is expressive of one of the seven ray energies. Let me first of all make clear which centres express these seven ray types:

In the fourth kingdom, the human, it is the energy of the fourth ray which, cooperating with the first ray, eventually brings synthesis. There is a close relation between the highest centre (the head centre), and that at the base of the spine. This fourth type of energy thus expresses itself in cooperation with the first type because we are still Atlantean in our polarisation, and that civilisation was the fourth in order. It is very largely the work done in our fifth civilisation, our present Aryan race, which will, in cooperation with the fifth principle of the mind, bring a shift into a higher level of consciousness. This will produce a harmonising of all the centres through an act of the will, intellectually and intelligently applied, with the objective of producing harmony. This point warrants thought.

On the astral plane there will also be found in every astral body seven corresponding focal points through which energy can enter, raying forth then into the vital centres in the etheric physical body as seven differentiated types of force. These types of force produce both bad and good effects, according to the quality of the negative dense physical body. These differ according to the type of ray or force, and it may be interesting if I here indicate to you the good and the bad effects and the corresponding diseases.

           Astral Force             Centre                     Bad Aspect                       Disease                 Good Aspect

Please remember in studying this tabulation that it is a generalisation, and only a partial listing of the types of disease which can be the result of the inflow of energy. It is only intended to be suggestive; the complexity of the human equipment and the intricacy of the ray energies are such that no hard and fast rules can be laid down. The ray forces manifest differently, according to ray type and point in evolution. There is therefore no contradiction here to the previous tabulations. If you bear in mind that every human being is basically an expression of five ray forces:

1. The ray of the soul
2. The ray of the personality
3. The ray governing the mental body
4. The ray governing the astral equipment
5. The ray of the physical nature

It will become apparent that for the average person two such tabulations would have to be drawn up. There would be required the positive analysis of the astral forces as they express the personality. An analysis of the soul forces as they are faintly indicated. A negative analysis concerning what is not present in the equipment can be of little value here.

It will again be necessary to have an analysis of the forces, playing through into the physical body from the astral plane, which are received directly from the soul and are therefore a combination of soul-force plus the highest type of astral energy. This would be in the nature of a synthetic analysis and would only be possible in the case of a disciple or an initiate. You will therefore eventually have for each person:

• A positive analysis of the personality forces, primarily of the astral force as that is the predominating force pouring into the etheric centres.

• A negative analysis of those aspects of soul energy which are not present.
• A synthetic analysis, based on both the above. but combining also the record of positive soul expression.

B.  Inhibited or Rampant Desire

It would be of value to you here if I made clear that one of the first things a student has to remember is that—for the majority of human beings, for the huge majority—the influences and impulses which emanate from the astral plane are a predisposing factor in all matters with which the individual concerns himself, apart from those conditions which (being imposed upon him from his environment and the period in which he lives) are, for him, unavoidable. The astral plane is a centre of dynamic emanating force, which is fundamentally conditioning in its effect because of the stage of the individual consciousness at which that majority finds itself. Men are swayed by the impulse of desire of a high or low calibre. This is, of course, a broad generalisation, for that basic condition is becoming steadily modified by impulses coming from the mental plane. This necessarily complicates the problem. Influences emanating from the soul are also becoming appreciably present, and still further complicate the problem of the advanced human being. This "problem of complication" (if I might so call it) constitutes a "hard saying" for the student to understand in relation to his own physical condition or to that of any one whom he may be seeking to help.

LAW III

Diseases are an effect of the basic centralisation of a man's life energy. From the Plane whereon those energies are focussed, proceed those determining conditions which produce ill health, and which, therefore, work out as disease or as freedom from disease.

It will be apparent to you, therefore, that a shift of the inner attention (the mental attitude) of the patient can and will produce either real freedom from physical ills or an intensification of those reactions which produce discomfort, disease or death.

In the three laws which I have given you and which you now have before you for consideration, it is obvious that the following facts emerge. These should form the basis of your reflection:

Disease is the result of the blocking of the free flow of the life of the SOUL. It is conditioned by the forces emanating from that plane whereon a man's consciousness is primarily centred and is the result of three influences:

a. Ancient error, emanating from the past history of the person involved.

b. Human taints, inherited because one is a member of the human family.

c. Planetary evil, imposed upon all forms on earth by the basic condition, and by time.

There are five major groups of diseases, with their allied complaints and subsidiary diseases:

1. Tuberculosis
2. The syphilitic diseases
3. Cancer
4. Heart difficulties
5. Nervous diseases

I am not dividing what I have to say into organic and functional troubles, nor do I here refer to illnesses induced by epidemics or by accidents. I refer to those basic taints or predispositions that are the dubious heritage of humanity as a whole, and to those difficulties which are incident to those stages in evolutionary development which are characteristic of those upon the more advanced stages of the Path. It will be seen, therefore, that man comes into incarnation having inherited predispositions to disease which come:

• From his own past; i.e., effects which are the result of causes initiated in earlier incarnations.
• From the general racial heritage of humanity.
• From the condition of the planetary life. These latter causes lift the whole problem out of the usual comprehension of the average man.

A human being is also predisposed to trouble if he has succeeded (as a result of a long evolutionary history) in awakening in some fashion, however slight, the centres above the diaphragm. The moment that that occurs he becomes subject, for a long cycle of lives, to difficulties connected with the heart or with the nervous system in its various branches. Frequently an advanced human being, such as an aspirant or a disciple, may have freed himself from the inherited taints, but will succumb to heart trouble, to nervous disorders, mental imbalance, and overstimulation. They are classified occasionally as the "diseases of the Mystics."

I would like to make it clear that it is not my intention to enter into the realm of physiological discussion, to elaborate the symptoms of disease, or to deal with the lesions, the pathological conditions, and the distressing details attendant upon the breakdown of any human organism. I am not going to write a treatise on anatomy or on the various sciences which have grown up from a study of the mechanism of the human being, connected as they are with the framework and structure, the organs, nerves, brain tissue and interrelated systems which compose that intricate piece of machinery, the human body. As far as the exoteric science is concerned, two things would successfully deter me:

1. The whole subject is marvelously dealt with in the many books which embody the literature of medicine and of surgery. There is little that I could add which would be of profit in such a discussion as this.

2. The readers of my words are not, with few exceptions, versed in the construction and constitution of the human body; and pathological details, the description of diseases, and the various unpleasant symptoms of human degeneration are unwholesome reading for the average man or woman. A little knowledge along these lines can be a most dangerous thing.

I seek to deal primarily with causes, with the inner sources of dis-ease and deal with those states of consciousness (I do not say states of mind only) which induce wrong functioning, and eventually wrong conditions.

The problem of the healer, therefore, is twofold:

1. First, he must know whether the difficulty lies above or below the diaphragm; this takes him definitely into the realm of occult as well as of psychological knowledge.
2. Secondly, he must have a clear grasp of the patient's inner emphasis; this last aids him in the diagnosis of the first.

RULE THREE

Let the healer train himself to know the inner stage of thought or of desire of the one who seeks his help. He can thereby know the source from which the trouble comes. Let him relate the cause and the effect, and know the point exact through which relief must come.

I would like to call your attention to those last few words, and would emphasise to you the fact that disease primarily is an effort on the part of the natural physical body to seek relief and achieve release from inner pressures, from subjective inhibitions and hidden retentions. Primarily, from the point of view of esotericism, all physical disease is the result of:

• Wrong stimulation, or overstimulation, or wrongfully placed stimulation and of inner tensions in some part of the mechanism.

• Inhibitions, psychical starvation, and those accumulated subjective forces which dam the flow of the life forces.

You will see, therefore, that again (in the domain of health) all problems resolve themselves into the right use and the correct handling of force, in order to effect the free flow of energy.

Of the three major diseases which have been inherited from the past, it might be said that the syphilitic or so-called social diseases are remainders of the excesses indulged in in Lemurian times; they are of such ancient origin that the very soil is permeated with the germs of these diseases—a fact quite unknown to modern science. Down the ages, men have suffered from these groups of infections; they have died and been buried and in their millions have contributed their quota of infection to the earth. In Lemurian times, the emphasis of the life force was upon the physical body, upon its development, its use and control, and also upon its perpetuation or reproduction. It was in Lemurian times that troubles connected with the misuse of the sex life began; this was, in a peculiar sense, the essential primeval evil, and concerning this fact, ancient legends and hints are found throughout the earliest records and writings. There is much misinterpreted testimony to this effect, and when men can read the records more correctly and with right interpretation, they will understand the way out, because they will see more clearly the underlying causes.

Cancer is a gift to modern man from the Atlantean humanity, and the scourge of this disease was the major factor which devastated the inhabitants of old Atlantis. The roots of this dire evil are deep-seated in the emotional or desire nature, and are grounded in the astral body. Cancer is partially the result of a reaction to the diseases connected with the sex life which became so rampant in later Lemurian times and early Atlantean days. The people of those times, seeing the fearful evils and the extent of the disease which grew up out of the fertile Lemurian life, resulting from the promiscuous sex life on every hand, for the sake of self-preservation dammed back the natural flow of desire (the flow of life as it expresses itself through the centres of reproduction and procreation), and this in due time produced other evils. Cancer is primarily a disease of inhibition, just as the syphilitic diseases are those of over-expression and overuse of one aspect of the mechanism of man.

Today, owing to the vast reaches of time involved and to the untold generations of those who have died upon the earth, the "germs" (so-called by the unlearned thinker) of the dread complaint of cancer are to be found in the very soil on which we live, infecting the vegetable kingdom and also the human family. A correspondence to the syphilitic complaints of man are to be found in the mineral kingdom.

Tuberculosis, which was devastatingly rampant at a certain stage in Atlantean times, is nevertheless a disease which has been generated principally in our Aryan race, and one which we are bequeathing to the animal kingdom and are sharing with them. This is beginning to be realised. So close, however, is the relation between men and animals (particularly the domestic animals) that they today share with men practically all his ailments in some form or another, sometimes recognisable and sometimes not. Curiously enough, the cause of this great white scourge is to be found in the fact of the shift of the life emphasis away from the emotional nature into that of the mind nature, producing a temporary starvation of the emotional nature. It is largely a disease of depletion. Cancer, in its turn, was based similarly on a previous shift of the life force from the physical body into that of the emotional nature, producing an overdevelopment of the cellular life, through overstimulation. I realise the difficulty of grasping these statements. I can only give you these unsubstantiated hints. Later discoveries alone can prove the truth of my suggestions. Let us here tabulate our conclusions:

In referring above to the centres I am referring to the centre for the distribution of the life force, wherein the emphasis for the mass will be found. From the above it will be apparent where the emphasis of the possible cure will have to lie. Already, and because it is the latest, and therefore the least deep-seated of the three major diseases inherited by modern man, we have learnt how to cure tuberculosis. It has been discovered (when the mind was intelligently applied to the problem) that sunshine and good food could cure, or at any rate arrest, the disease. It is an interesting item in the field of esoteric correspondence that just as the light of the soul, pouring into the mind, can be depended upon to solve any problem, so that light of the sun and its prophylactic rays can dispel the dread symptoms of tuberculosis.

Similarly, as the race develops right emotional control we shall see the gradual disappearance of the phenomena of cancer. I said right emotional control; inhibition and the suppression of the desire impulses by the force of the will is not right control. It is interesting also to note that though both men and women suffer from the disease of cancer, the general cause is not identical, though the basic cause (reaction from an over-expression of the sex life through the cultivation of the desire nature) remains the same. Women, owing to the risks they run in childbearing, through the turning of the life emphasis to the sex aspect of life, have revolted on a large scale (as did the Atlanteans) against this form of life expression, and it is along this line—the sex line—that their major inhibitions are found. They do not suffer so much from the general inhibition of the emotional-desire-feeling expression. Men do suffer from this latter inhibition and have a tradition or a marked tendency to greater emotional control in the handling of life than have women. Men do not require or acquire so marked a sex control. The general field of their inhibited life tendency is therefore of greater extent, and consequently (if statistics can be trusted) more men suffer from cancer than do women, though it is a dread disease, feared by all.

In the secret of right transmutation lies the cure of cancer, and this will eventually be realised. I am using this phrase not only symbolically but also technically and scientifically. This again will later be seen. In the secret of right rhythmic living and in a right proportional accent upon all phases of life will come (and it is rapidly coming) complete immunity from tuberculosis. In the secret of right understanding of times and cycles and of periodic reproductive creation, will come the emergence of the race from the evils of the social diseases.

It will be apparent to you, therefore, that the syphilitic diseases will be the last to disappear, just as they were the first to devastate the race. Tuberculosis is disappearing. The attention of the experts is now being given to the cure of cancer.

I would like to add one or two comments which will be of general or rather modern interest. I have said that these taints to which humanity is prone are found in the soil, and that their presence there is largely due to the burial, down the ages, of millions of corpses. By the increased use of the processes of cremation, this condition will be steadily improved. Gradually, very gradually, the taint will thus die out. It is therefore highly desirable that there be as much propaganda as possible for the use of this method of disposing of the discarded physical vehicles of the souls who are passing out of incarnation. As the soil becomes less tainted, and as soul contact is established, we can hope to see a steady decrease in the number of those who succumb to the inherited taints. Curiously enough, the free use of salt sea bathing has a definite effect on the healthiness of the physical body. The water, incidentally absorbed through the medium of the skin and by the mouth, has a vitally prophylactic effect.

One of the major problems today to the psychologist and in a lesser degree to the medical man, is the growth of homosexuality, both female and male. Specious arguments are brought forth in order to prove that this abnormal development (and the consequent interest in this morbid tendency) is due to the fact that the race is slowly becoming androgynous in its development, and that the future hermaphroditic man or woman is gradually making its appearance. This, again, is not true. Homosexuality is what you call a "left-over" from the sexual excesses of Lemurian times, an inherited taint, if you like. Egos who individualised and incarnated in that vast period of time are the ones who today demonstrate homosexual tendencies. In those days, so urgent was the sexual appetite, the normal processes of human intercourse did not satisfy the insatiable desire of the advanced man of the period. Soul force, flowing in through the processes of individualisation, served to stimulate the lowest centres. Hence, forbidden methods were practised. Those who thus practised them are today, in great numbers, in incarnation, and the ancient habits are too strong for them. They are now far enough advanced upon the evolutionary path so that the cure lies ready at this time—if they choose to employ it. They can, with relative ease, transfer the sex impulse to the throat centre, and thus become creative in the higher sense, employing the energy sensed and circulating in right and constructive ways. Many of them are beginning automatically to do this. However, it is well known that, among the so-called artistic types, homosexuality is very prevalent. I say "so-called" for the truly creative artist is not the victim of these ancient evil predisposing habits.

It might be pointed out here that homosexuality is of three kinds:

1. That which is the result of ancient evil habits. This is the major cause today and indicates:

1. Individualisation upon this planet; for those who individualised upon the moon chain are not susceptible to these dangerous characteristics.
2. A relatively advanced stage upon the evolutionary path which was achieved by the Lemurian egos who succumbed to this desire-satisfaction.
3. A consequent study of sex magic, plus a constant insatiable physical and sexual urge.

2. Imitative homosexuality. A number of persons of all classes imitated their betters (if I might use so paradoxical a term) and so developed evil habits in sexual intercourse from which they might otherwise have remained free. This is one of the prevalent reasons today, among many men and women, and is based upon a too active imagination, plus a powerful physical or sex nature, and a prurient curiosity. This I say with advisement. This category accounts for many of our Sodomites and Lesbians.

3. A few rare, very rare, cases of hermaphroditism. These people, combining in themselves both aspects of the sex life, are faced with a very real problem. It is a problem which is greatly increased by human ignorance, human refusal to face facts, wrong early training and teaching, and a widespread misunderstanding. These cases are to be found in small numbers everywhere, even though their numbers, in relation to the world population, is still negligible. But that they exist is of real interest to the medical profession and a subject of deep pity and commiseration to the humanitarian and the understanding psychologist. They face a difficult situation.

I have somewhat elaborated this matter as it is of use for you to know such facts and the information is of value to you. It serves to throw light upon a problem which an increasingly large number of people are called upon to face. Psychologists, social workers, physicians, and all those occupied with group training constantly meet with this problem, and it is just as well that some distinction is made between the types which must be considered, thus clarifying the issue.  

You will find in these instructions many hints which, though they may not be classified definitely as instructions in healing, yet fall into that category, for they will make those of you who read more efficient in understanding.

You will note also from the above how this taint, as might well be expected, has its roots in the astral or sentient body, the body of sensation. Many or perhaps most of the complaints from which average man suffers are based upon astral causes or upon some clearly defined desire. A formulated desire is one that finds expression in some form of activity. Of these homosexuality is one of the clearest to define. The other diseases to which humanity is heir are sometimes not so easy to clarify and define. The man or woman is a victim but the cause producing the illness or difficulty—physical or psychological—lies hid in a long past which the victim (with his limited knowledge) is unable to investigate, nor can he arrive at the cause producing the effect. All that he can affirm is that, in all probability, desire was the initiating impulse. What human beings are today and what they suffer is the result of their long past, and the past presupposes long and well-established habits. Such habits are inevitably the result of one of two factors:

Desire, dominating and controlling action.

or

Mental control, which substitutes for desire a planned campaign

which will run counter in many cases to the normally sensed, defined desire.

You will note from the above that it is my wish that you grasp the importance of the emotional sentient body and its power to initiate those secondary causes which, in this life, demonstrate as disease. You will note consequently the emphasis I have laid upon the astral body as a promoter of wrong physical conditions, and the necessity for astral understanding and control on the part of the patient, if there is to be a true overcoming of disease. Will you understand me if I say that the true overcoming may mean an acceptance of the Way of Death as the way out, should it come normally, or of healing, if the causes which are the initial impulses are exhausted? Ponder on this.

In all the above, even in connection with what I have said concerning homosexuality, I have considered either rampant or inhibited desire, but I have only considered it in general terms and in a broad outline. Will you misunderstand if I point out to you that where desire is inhibited (which is the case with many aspirants today) all kinds of diseases—cancer, congestion of the lungs and certain liver complaints— become possible, as well as the dread malady of tuberculosis? The diseases of inhibition are numerous and serious, as you will note from the above enumeration. It should be noted that where desire is rampant and uncontrolled and no inhibition is present, such diseases as the syphilitic disorders, homosexuality and inflammations and fevers appear. According to the temperament so will be the types of disease, and the temperament is dependent upon the ray quality. People on the different rays are predisposed to certain disorders. The psychologists are right in their basic differentiation of human beings into the two major types—extroverts and introverts. These two types produce their own qualities of disease, which demonstrate as ill health through over-expression or inhibition.

We have considered our second point under the healing of diseases which arise in the emotional or desire nature. Our first point deals with uncontrolled emotion. I would remind you of our premise that we would only consider the ills to which advanced humanity, the aspirants and disciples of all degrees are prone. We will not deal (in this short treatise) with the whole gamut of diseases which affect humanity as a whole, or down the ages. The more advanced the aspirant, the greater probability there is that the diseases from which he suffers will be pronounced and powerfully demonstrating, on account of the inflow to a greater or less degree of the stimulating force of the soul. Subsidiary to the five major groups of diseases to which I earlier referred, and working out in connection with them in the human frame, are a group of symptoms which are loosely covered by the terms: fevers, tumors, congested areas, plus general debility and the auto-intoxication which lies behind so many symptoms. I would have you remember this with care and bear steadily in mind that I am here only generalising, but that this generalisation is basic and therefore of importance.

C. Diseases of Worry and Irritation

The third category of complaints which arise in the emotional or astral body is synthesised esoterically under the term: diseases of irritation. These are the insidious poisons which lurk behind the phenomena of disease.

It might be said that all diseases can be covered by two definitions, from the standpoint of occultism:

1. Diseases which are the result of auto-intoxication. These are the most general.

2. Diseases which are the result of irritation. These are very common amongst disciples.

We hear much today about auto-intoxication, and many efforts are made to cure this by diet and the regulation of the life in terms of rhythmic living. All this is good and of help, but it does not constitute a basic cure, as its protagonists would lead us to believe. Irritation is a basic psychological complaint and has its roots in the intensification of the astral body, which definitely produces abnormal effects upon the nervous system. It is a disease of self-interest, of self-sufficiency, and of self-satisfaction.

I want briefly to touch upon the most common of all causes of trouble: Worry and Irritation. They are more prevalent at this time than ever before, and for the following reasons:

• The world situation is such, the problems and uncertainty are such, that scarcely a person in the world at this time is exempt. Everyone is more or less involved in the planetary situation.

• The intercommunication between people has increased so much, and men live so much in massed groups—large or small—that it is inevitable that they produce an effect upon each other as never before. "If one member suffers, all the members suffer with it" is a statement of truth, ancient but new in application and today realised for the first time.

• The increased sensitivity of the human mechanism is also such that men "tune in" on each other's emotional conditions and mental attitudes in a new and more potent manner. To their own engrossing concerns and worries are added those of their fellowmen with whom they may be en rapport.

• Telepathically, and also with a developed sense of prevision, men are today adding the difficulties that belong to someone else, or to some other group of thinkers and of people, to the difficulties that may be. It is not sure that they will be.

These problems will demonstrate to you how intensely difficult it is for men to face up to life. It will be obvious that the problems of worry and irritation are many and must be considered. Why are these difficulties of the astral body so "perilous" and so serious? Worry and Irritation are dangerous because:

• They lower the vitality of the man to such a point that he becomes susceptible to disease. The scourge of influenza has its roots in fear and worry, and once the world settles down to freedom from the present "fearful" condition, we shall see the disease die out.

• They are so highly infectious from the astral point of view that they lower in a peculiar manner the astral atmosphere, and thus make it hard for people—in the astral sense—to breathe freely.

• Because the astral conditions of fear, worry and irritation are so widespread today that they might be regarded as epidemic, in a planetary sense.

• Because irritation (I speak not here of worry) is inflammatory in its effects—and inflammation is hard to bear—and leads to much difficulty. It is interesting to note that certain forms of eye trouble are caused by this.

• Because worry and irritation prevent true vision. They shut out the view. The man who is the victim of these conditions sees nothing but the cause of his complaints and is so submerged through self-pity, self-consideration, or in a focussed negative condition, that his vision is narrowed and his group hindered. Remember that there is group selfishness as well as individual selfishness.

I have cited sufficient reasons for the effects of Worry and Irritation to demonstrate to you the wideness of the difficulty. It is not much use at this time to talk of the remedy. One does not say to an influenza patient (when the worst throes of the disease are upon him), "There is nothing the matter. Pay no attention. Get up and go about your business." It is no use saying to men today, "Do not fear. Leave off worrying. All will be well." They will not believe you, for one thing—and that is fortunate, for it is not true. Things are not well and humanity and the Planetary life are not well. This, the Hierarchy knows, and is working for the amelioration of the conditions. When the throes of the "planetary influenza" are over (and the patient will not die), then investigation can be made and effort produced which can prevent a recurrence. At present, all that can be done is to keep the patient quiet and also keep the fever down. This is the work of the New Group of World Servers and the intelligent men of goodwill.

2. CAUSES ARISING IN THE ETHERIC BODY

It will be wise for you to bear in mind that I am not here going to deal with those causes which, producing effects in the physical body, arise in the mind or in the astral body. Necessarily they pass through the etheric body. The etheric body is a transmitter of all energies to the physical body, and all types of force pass through it to different parts of the physical form, producing good and bad results, negative or positive results, as the case may be. This is a fact which we accept. I am here considering the diseases, problems and physical difficulties which arise in the etheric body itself and work out in its relations to the physical body. These are quite widespread and usual. It is essential that you keep these two lines of force-activity clearly differentiated in your mind. Both pass through and from the etheric body into the physical body, but only one of them originates in or is concerned with difficulties which have an etheric origin.

The etheric body is a body composed entirely of lines of force and of points where these lines of force cross each other and thus form (in crossing) centres of energy. Where many such lines of force cross each other, you have a larger centre of energy, and where great streams of energy meet and cross, as they do in the head and up the spine, you have seven major centres. There are seven such, plus twenty-one lesser centres and forty-nine smaller centres known to the esotericists. However, we will confine ourselves at this time to the etheric body as a whole and to the seven major centres.

It might be of interest to you, nevertheless, to be told where the twenty-one minor centres are to be found. They can be located at the following points:

• There are two of them in front of the ears close to where the jaw bones are connected.

• There are two of them just above the two breasts.

• There is one where the breast bones meet, close to the thyroid gland. This, with the two breast centres, makes a triangle of force.

• There are two, one each in the palms of the hands.

• There are two, one each in the soles of the feet.

• There are two, just behind the eyes.

• There are two also connected with the gonads.

• There is one close to the liver.

• There is one connected with the stomach; it is related, therefore, to the solar plexus, but is not identical with it.

• There are two connected with the spleen. These form one centre in reality, but such a centre is formed by the two being superimposed one on the other.

• There are two—one at the back of each knee.

• There is one powerful centre which is closely connected with the vagus nerve. This is most potent and is regarded by some schools of occultism as a major centre; it is not in the spine, but is no great distance from the thymus gland.

• There is one which is close to the solar plexus, and relates it to the centre at the base of the spine, thus making a triangle of the sacral centre, the solar plexus, and the centre at the base of the spine.

The two triangles referred to in this tabulation are of real importance. One is above and the other below the diaphragm. It is of course apparent that where there is a free flow of force through the etheric body into the dense physical body there will be less likelihood of disease or sickness. There may, however, be increased tendency to difficulties arising from overstimulation and its consequent results of overactivity of the nervous system, with all the attendant problems.

These forces, seeking inlet into the dense vehicle, are emanations from three directions:

1. From the personality vehicles—the astral and mental bodies.

2. From the soul, if contact, recognised or unrecognised, has been established.

3. From the environing world to which the vehicles of the soul and of the personality have acted as "doors of entrance." Incidentally, in connection with this last phrase, I would call your attention to a possible relation between these "doors of entrance" and the phrase "door of initiation."

In the case where these centres, through which the inflowing energy from these sources of supply flow, are quiescent, unawakened or only functioning partially or too slowly (as far as their vibratory rhythm is concerned), then you will have a condition of blocking. This will produce congestion in the etheric vehicle, and consequent and subsequent difficulties in the functioning of the physical body. One of the most common of these is congestion of the lungs which—though it may be exoterically traced to certain and definite physical causes—is in reality those causes, plus an inner condition of etheric congestion. It is the bringing together of the outer apparent cause and the apparent inner true cause which is responsible for the outbreak of the trouble. When these two conditions are brought into conjunction with each other, and you have a physical handicap and an etheric situation which is undesirable, then you will have disease, illness, or weakness of some kind. Every outer congestion can always be traced to these two causes—an inner and an outer cause. In these cases, the outer cause is not an effect of the individual inner cause, which is interesting. You will note, therefore, that all ills are not purely subjective or psychological in origin as far as an individual is concerned, but are sometimes both exoteric and esoteric. Hence the complication of the problem.

The above statement opens up the whole question of the activity of the seven centres of force in the etheric body. These can be regarded as dormant or unawakened, awakening but only as yet sluggishly alive, or functioning normally, which means that some of the energies which produce the form of the centre are moving rhythmically, and are therefore receptive to inflow, while others are still entirely inactive and unresponsive. Other centres will be fully active, and therefore predominantly attractive to any inflowing forces; still others will be only partially so. For the majority of people, the centres below the diaphragm are more active than those above the diaphragm (I am referring here to the seven major centres and not to the twenty-one minor centres). For aspirants, centres below the diaphragm are active and the heart and throat centres are slowly coming into activity, while in the case of disciples, the ajna centre, plus those centres below it in the body, are rapidly awakening. In the initiate, the head centre is coming into vibrant activity, thus swinging all the centres into real and coordinated rhythm. Each patient or human being, being on some ray, responds differently; the time factor also differs; the pattern of the unfoldment varies, and the response to the inflowing forces is slightly differentiated.

All of this we will consider with due care when we deal with Chapter IX, which concerns itself with the seven modes of healing. I simply mention it here so as to lay the foundation for what must later be considered, and thus show you how the whole question of the relation of the etheric body to the physical body is connected with the problem of healing. It will be apparent, therefore, how important it is—before real healing can take place—that the healer should know the point in evolution reached by the patient, and should also know his ray type, both personality and egoic. If to this you add some knowledge of his astrological inclinations and indications, a far more accurate diagnosis can be produced. The key to all release (either through the physical cure of disease or through death) lies in the understanding of the condition of the centres in the etheric body. These determine the rate of the bodily vibratory activity and the general responsiveness of the physical body. They even condition the activity and accuracy of the instinctual nature and its relation to the outer plane life and the "wholeness" and general health of the sympathetic nervous system.

A. Congestion

Much real difficulty can be traced to congestion or to the lack of the free play of the forces. In this connection it might be pointed out that the etheric body is a mechanism for intake and for outlet. There is consequently a curious and intimate relation between it and such organs as the lungs, the stomach, and the kidneys. There is no symbol so relatively accurate to the whole creative process as the human frame.

The symbology here present, when correctly understood, will tend to show that there is a deep underlying esoteric relation between:

• The mind and the lungs. The process of breathing, with its stages of inhalation, the interlude, and exhalation, works out in connection with both aspects of force, mental and physical.

• The desire nature and the stomach. Here again is the process of intake, of assimilation, and of elimination.

• The etheric body itself and the kidneys, with the processes clearly defined in both cases of absorption, chemicalisation, and transmission.

Congestion in the etheric body, producing much distress in the physical body, can exist. therefore, at the point of intake from the astral body or from the astral plane (Note the phrasing and the difference.) or at the point of outlet, in relation to the centre to which the particular type of etheric force most easily flows and through which it most easily passes. Where there is no free play between the etheric body and the astral body, you will have trouble. Where there is no free play between the etheric body and the physical body, involving also the nerve ganglia and the endocrine system, you will also have trouble. The close relation between the seven major centres and the seven major glands of the physical system must never be forgotten. The two systems form one close interlocking directorate, with the glands and their functions determined by the condition of the etheric centres. These, in their turn, are conditioned by the point in evolution and gained experience of the incarnate soul, by the specific polarisation of the soul in incarnation, and by the rays (personality and soul) of the man.

Forget not, that the five aspects of man (as he functions in the three worlds) are determined by certain ray forces; you have the ray of the soul, the ray of the personality, and the rays of the mental, the astral and the physical bodies. All these will, in the coming New Age, be definitely considered and discovered, and this knowledge will reveal to the healer the probable condition of the centres, the order of their awakening, and their individual and basic note or notes. The new medical science will be outstandingly built upon the science of the centres, and upon this knowledge all diagnosis and possible cure will be based. The endocrinologist is only beginning to glimpse possibilities, and much that he is now considering has in it the seeds of future truth. The "balancing of the glandular system" and the relation of the glands to the blood stream, and also to character and predispositions of many kinds, are considerations of real value and worth following. Much, however, remains to be discovered before it will be really safe to work with the glands, making them a major subject of attention (as some day will be the case in all forms of illness).

Throughout this short treatise I will give many hints which will serve to guide the open minded investigator in the right direction. Before passing on to the consideration of the relation of the etheric body, as a unit, to the physical body, I would like to point out that I place the complications of congestion first upon the list of diseases arising in the etheric body, because it is at this time—and will be for a couple of centuries—the major cause of difficulty for the bulk of humanity or of those people whom we esoterically call "solar-sacral" people. This is partly due to the age-long habits of suppression and of inhibition which the race, as a whole, has developed. It is this congestion at the point of intake and of outlet in the etheric body which is responsible for the impeding of the free flow of the life force, with the results of a rapid succumbing to diseases. Hence, also, you will see how carefully assigned breathing exercises, with their subtle effects of reorganising and readjusting the subtler bodies (particularly the etheric and astral bodies) will become more and more generally used. The widespread interest in breathing today evidences a subjective recognition of this fact, though not enough is yet known about methods and effects.

One other thing I would like to call to your attention is that the points of congestion may exist either in the astral body centre or in the etheric body, and this situation the healer will have to investigate.

B. Lack of Coordination and Integration

We come now to a brief consideration of our second point of difficulty to be found in the etheric body, which in our tabulation we have called lack of coordination or integration. This is exceedingly prevalent today and is responsible for a good deal of trouble. The etheric body is the inner "substantial" form upon which the physical body is built or constructed. It is the inner scaffolding which underlies every part of the whole outer man; it is the framework which sustains the whole; it is that upon which the outer form is patterned; and it is the network of nadis (infinitely intricate) which constitutes the counterpart or the duplicate aspect of the entire nervous system which forms such an important part of the human mechanism. It is thus definitely, with the blood stream, the instrument of the life force. If, therefore, there is weakness in the relation between this inner structure and the outer form, it will be immediately apparent to you that real difficulty is bound to supervene. This difficulty will take three forms:

1. The physical form in its dense aspect is too loosely connected with the etheric form or counterpart. This leads to a devitalised and debilitated condition, which predisposes man to sickness or ill health.

2. The connection is poor in certain directions or aspects of the equipment. Through certain focal points or centres the life force cannot adequately flow, and therefore you have a definite weakness in some part of the physical body. For instance, impotence is such a difficulty and a tendency to laryngitis is another—to mention two widely different disorders.

3. The connection can also be so basically loose and poor that the soul has very little hold upon its vehicle for outer manifestation, and obsession or possession is easily established. This is an extreme example of the difficulties incident to this condition. Others are certain forms of fainting or loss of consciousness and "petit mal."

There are also, as will be apparent, the exactly reverse conditions when the etheric body is so closely knit or integrated with the personality—whether it is of a highly evolved nature or simply an example of an ordinary etheric body—that every part of the physical body is in a constant condition of stimulation, of galvanic effort, with a resultant activity in the nervous system which—if not correctly regulated—can lead to a great deal of distress. It is to this that I refer in the third heading, "Overstimulation of the Centres." Too loose a connection or too close a connection leads to trouble, though the first kind of difficulty is usually more serious than the others. I have here given enough to show how interesting and how important a study of the etheric body may be. The whole theme of healing is concerned with the development, unfoldment and control of the seven major centres.

C. Overstimulation of the Centres

There is much that I could add to what I have said on the cause of disease arising in the etheric body, but in Part II, I shall elaborate the theme much further. Congestion, lack of integration and over-stimulation of the centres, are obviously fundamental causes as far as the dense physical body is concerned, but they themselves are frequently effects of subtler causes, hidden in the life of the astral and mental bodies and, in the case of overstimulation, the result sometimes of soul contacts. The etheric body reacts normally, and by design, to all the conditions found in the subtler vehicles. It is essentially a transmitter and not an originator and it is only the limitations of the observer which lead him to ascribe the causes of bodily ills to the etheric body. It is a clearing house for all the forces reaching the physical body, provided the point in evolution has brought the various force centres to a condition wherein they are receptive to any particular type of force.

Esoterically speaking, the centres can be in one of five conditions or states of being. These can be described in the following terms:

1. Closed, still and shut, and yet with signs of life, silent and full of deep inertia.

2. Opening, unsealed, and faintly tinged with colour; the life pulsates.

3. Quickened, alive, alert in two directions; the two small doors are open wide.

4. Radiant and reaching forth with vibrant note to all related centres.

5. Blended they are and each with each works rhythmically. The vital force flows through from all the planes. The world stands open wide.

Related to these five stages, wherein the etheric body expands and becomes the vital livingness of all expression upon the physical plane, are the five races of men, beginning with the Lemurian race, the five planes of human and superhuman expression, the five stages of consciousness and the various other groupings of five with which you meet in the esoteric philosophy. Incidentally it might be of value and of interest to point out that the five-pointed star is not only the sign and symbol of initiation and finally perfected man, but it is also the basic symbol of the etheric body and of the five centres which control perfected man—the two head centres, the heart centre, the throat centre and the centre at the base of the spine. When these centres are fully awakened and functioning in right rhythm with each other, the various quintuplets to which I have referred above form an integral part of the consciousness of the perfected man.

Though this particular piece of information is not definitely related to the Science of Healing, yet the entire subject is related to energy, and energy in some form or another is related to the causes and the effects of disease, because disease is the undesirable effect of energy upon the energy unit which we call the atom.

It should be remembered that the etheric body of the human being is an integral part of the etheric body of the planetary Logos and is, therefore, related to all forms found within that body in any and all the kingdoms in nature. It is part of the substance of the universe, coordinated with planetary substance, and hence provides the scientific basis for unity.

If you were to ask me what, in reality, lies behind all disease, all frustrations, error and lack of divine expression in the three worlds, I would say it was separativeness which produces the major difficulties arising in the etheric body, plus the inability of the outer tangible form to respond adequately to the inner and subtler impulses. Here is found the cause (the secondary cause, as I pointed out above) of the bulk of the trouble. The etheric body of the planet does not yet freely transmit and circulate the forces which are seeking entrance into the consciousness and the expression of man upon the physical plane. These forces emanate from within himself as he functions on the subtler levels of consciousness and from the soul; they come also from associated and contacted groups, from the planetary life, and eventually, in the last analysis, from the entire universe.

Each of the centres can, when fully awakened and consciously and scientifically employed, serve as an open door through which awareness of that which lies beyond the individual human life can enter. The etheric body is fundamentally the most important response apparatus which man possesses, producing not only the right functioning of the five senses and consequently providing five major points of contact with the tangible world, but it also enables a man to register sensitively the subtler worlds, and, when energised and controlled by the soul, the spiritual realms stand wide open also.

The etheric body is a potent receiver of impressions, which are conveyed to the human consciousness through the medium of the awakened centres. There is, for instance, no true clairvoyance until either the solar plexus or the ajna centre is awakened. These transmitted impressions and information become the incentive whereby conscious activity is initiated. There are many words used to describe these forces and their actuating effects: such as impulses, incentives, influences, potencies, desires, aspirations, and many such terms which are only synonyms for force or energy and thus convey the same general idea. All of these words refer to forms of activity of the etheric body, but only as the physical body registers them and acts under their impression. The whole theme of motivating force is one of great interest.

The vastness of the subject is, however, so real that only little by little can humanity grasp the situation and come to the realisation that man is essentially (through his etheric body) an integral part of a great and vibrant Whole; only in time will he learn that, through the processes of evolution, can he hope to register all the different areas of divine expression. Only when the etheric body is swept into activity under the influence and through the "impressed forces" of the soul, the mind, and temporarily, of the astral body, can man become aware of all worlds, all phenomena, and all states of consciousness, and so achieve that omniscience which is the birth right of all the sons of God.

But, during the period wherein this state of being is in process of achievement, the lack of development, the failure to register, the life work of awakening and organising the various centres and of then correctly relating them to each other, produces much difficulty. It is this condition which is the fruitful source of those difficulties which, when carried down into the physical body, produce disease of various kinds, the many tensions and congestions, the overstimulation of the centres in one part of the etheric vehicle and their underdevelopment in another, plus the unequal unfoldment and wrong balance of the centres.

Much is said today in modern medical investigation anent the "imbalance" of the endocrine glands, and many physical difficulties are ascribed to this frequent imbalance. But behind this condition of the glandular system lies the basic imbalance of the centres themselves. Only when there is a right understanding of force and its reception and consequent use, will right balance be achieved and the human endocrine system control the physical man in the manner that is intended.

There is much need today for the study of the following problems: 

1. The problem of the right reception of force through the appropriate centre. An instance of this might be found in the correct control of the solar plexus centre as the one in which astral sensitivity can be registered and properly handled.

2. The problem of the right relation of a particular centre to its related gland, permitting the free play of the force pouring through the centre to the allied glandular correspondence, thus conditioning its peculiar hormone and eventually conditioning the blood stream. If you grasp this sequence of contact, you will understand more clearly the occult significance of the words in the Old Testament that "the blood is the life." It is the vitality coming from the etheric body which works through into the blood stream, via the centre which is responsive to one of the seven peculiar types of force, and its allied gland. It will be apparent, therefore, that there is a close relation between:

a. The etheric body as a transmitter of a vast aggregate of energies and forces.

b. The endocrine system whose various glands are in reality the externalisation or materialisation of the centres, major and minor.

c. The heart, which is the centre of life as the brain is the centre of consciousness. From the heart, the blood circulates and is controlled. Thus these three great systems are related.

d. The entire glandular system to the nervous system through the medium of the network of nerves and the "nadis" which underlie this network. These nadis are the threads of life force which underlie every part of the body and particularly the nervous system in all its aspects.

3. The interrelation which must be established between all the centres, permitting the free play of

   force in correct rhythm throughout the physical vehicle.

You have, therefore, certain great interlocking directorates which control or fail to control the physical body. Where there is lack of control it is due to the failure to establish right relations within the body, or to lack of development. These interlocking groups are:

• That of the etheric body, which works primarily through its seven major centres but also through many other centres.
• That of the endocrine system, which works primarily through the seven major glandular groups, but also through many other less important glands.
• That of the nervous system (the sympathetic and the cerebro-spinal) with a peculiar emphasis laid upon the vagus nerve with its effect upon the heart and consequently upon the blood stream.

All these points have to be considered and correlated in any system of occult healing, and the technical matter to be covered is, in the last analysis, less intricate than the vast system built up by orthodox medicine and surgery. It is because of the lack of coordination of these three systems that the healing art is at this time failing to achieve all that it desires. It has done much, but must move another step onto the etheric plane before the real clue to disease and its cure can be ascertained.

For instance, lack of vitality and the common subnormal conditions with which we are so familiar, indicate the inertia of the etheric body and its lack of vitality. The results of this inertness of the vital body can be both physical and psychological, because the glands in the physical body will not function normally and, as is well known, they condition the physical expression of man as well as his emotional and mental states, in so far as those are able or not able to find expression through the medium of the physical vehicle. The glands do not condition the inner man or his states of consciousness, but they can and do prevent those inner states finding manifestation outwardly.

In the reverse situation, too powerful an etheric body and the overstimulation of the centres concerned, may put too great a strain upon the nervous system and produce, as a consequence, definite nervous trouble, migraine, mental and emotional imbalance and, in some cases, lead to insanity.

I have elaborated this matter somewhat because the relation of the etheric body to the physical body and its receptivity to the inner energies most decidedly condition the man. It will be necessary for us to have this ever in mind as we study the causes of the diseases arising in the mental body, or due to the activity of the soul in the life of the disciple, or as we investigate the processes whereby a man is prepared for initiation. The etheric body must always, and invariably does, act as the transmitting agent of the inner energies to the outer plane, and the physical body has to learn to respond to and recognise that which is transmitted.

The effectiveness of the transmission and the resultant physical activity depend always upon the centres, which, in their turn, condition the glands; these, later, determine the nature and the expressed consciousness of the man. If the centres are awakened and receptive, there will be found a physical apparatus which will be responsive to the forces flowing through. If the centres are asleep, and thus little force can be transmitted, you will find a physical apparatus which will be equally slow and unresponsive. If the centres below the diaphragm are awakened and those above are not, you will have a man whose consciousness will be focussed in the animal and the emotional natures, and much of his physical disease will lie below the diaphragm also. You will see, therefore, how intricate and complex this whole matter is—so complex that it will only be truly understood when human beings regain the lost power to "see the light" of the etheric body and of its seven major centres and, through a developed sense of touch in the hands and fingers, to ascertain the rate of vibration in the various centres. When these two means of knowledge are available, the entire subject of the etheric body will take on a new importance and be correctly understood.

3. CAUSES ARISING IN THE MENTAL BODY

I started this section of our study with the causes arising in the astral and etheric bodies because they are the major sources of trouble, owing to the fact that the bulk of humanity is astrally focussed, just as the bulk of the forms in the animal kingdom are etherically focussed. The forces pouring into the animal kingdom come predominantly from etheric levels and from the dense physical levels of life. The higher animals, however, owing to the development brought about through their contact with human beings, are becoming susceptible to forces coming from the astral plane, and they thus develop actions and reactions which are not purely instinctual.

Today, owing to the development of the mind in the Aryan race, certain difficulties may arise in the physical body. Their origin is not basically mental but primarily due to the fact that the mental body is the transmitter (when active and rightly aligned) of soul energy and this soul energy, pouring into the physical body, can produce certain conditions of overstimulation and difficulties connected with the nervous system. But it is the transmitted energy which causes the trouble and not the factor arising from the mind itself.

A. Wrong Mental Attitudes

I would like to deal, first of all, with the basic premise that disease and physical liabilities are not the result of wrong thought. They are far more likely to be the result of no thought at all, or are caused by the failure to follow those fundamental laws which govern the Mind of God. One interesting instance of this failure is the fact that man does not follow the basic Law of Rhythm, which governs all the processes of nature, and man is a part of nature. It is to this failure to work with the Law of Periodicity that we can trace much of the difficulty inherent in the use and the misuse of the sex urge. Instead of man being governed by the cyclic manifestation of the sex impulse, and his life, therefore, being ruled by a definite rhythm, there exists at this time no such thing, except in the cycles through which the female passes, and little attention is paid to these. The male, however, is not governed by any such cycles, and has broken in also on the rhythm to which the female body should be subordinated, and which—rightly understood—would determine the use of the sex relationship, including naturally the male impulse also. This failure to live by the Law of Periodicity and to subordinate the appetites to cyclic control is one of the major causes of disease; and as these laws are given form on the mental plane, one might legitimately say that their infringement has a mental basis. This might be the case if the race were working mentally, but it is not. It is in the modern world of today that there is beginning a widespread infringement of these mental laws, particularly of the Law of Cycles, which determines the tides, controls world events and should also condition the individual and so establish rhythmic life habits—one of the major predisposing incentives to good health.

By breaking this Law of Rhythm, man has disorganised the forces which, rightly used, tend to bring the body into a sound and healthy condition; by so doing, he has laid the foundation for that general debility and those inherent organic tendencies which predispose a man to ill health and which permit entrance into the system of those germs and bacteria which produce the outer forms of malignant disease. When humanity regains an understanding of the right use of time (which determines the Law of Rhythm on the physical plane), and can determine the proper cycles for the various manifestations of the life force upon the physical plane, then what was earlier an instinctual habit will become the intelligent usage of the future. This will constitute an entirely new science, and the rhythm of the natural processes and the establishing, as habits, the correct cycles of physical functioning, will bring about a new era of health and of sound physical conditions for the entire race. I used the word "establishing," for as the focus of racial attention shifts into the region of the higher values the physical vehicle will gain enormously, and good health—through right rhythmic living, plus correct thinking and soul contact—will become permanently established.

There are, therefore, very few ills to which flesh is heir which are mentally based. It is exceedingly difficult to establish what they are. There are two reasons for this statistical failure:

1. The fact that very few, relatively speaking of the race are mentally polarised and therefore thinking.

2. The fact that the bulk of diseases are etheric or astral.

Another factor producing this difficulty is that the thinking and the emotional reactions of man are so closely interrelated that it is not easy at this stage in evolution to separate feeling and thought, or to say that such or such ills arise in the astral or the mental body, or that certain ills are due to wrong feeling and others to wrong thinking. Speaking in terms of the entire human family, the thinking that is done in the world of today, is done by the relatively few. The rest are occupied with feeling, with sensuous perception and with the many and differing aspects of emotionalism such as irritability, worry, acute anxiety, aspiration towards some desired end or goal, depression, plus the dramatic life of the senses and of the "I in the centre" consciousness. Few live in the world of thought and fewer still in the world of reality. When they do, the result is inevitably a better average of health, because there is better integration, and as a result a freer play of the life forces throughout the vehicles of expression. 

B. Mental Fanaticism, the Dominance of Thoughtforms

I would point out here that the diseases and difficulties which arise from what I have called wrong mental attitudes, fanaticisms and frustrated idealisms and thwarted hopes, fall into three categories, and a study of these will show you that, in the last analysis, they are not of mental origin at all, but primarily are the result of emotionalism entering in.

Those incident to the imposed physical plane activity and work which find their incentive in these mental conditions. They lead, for instance, to furious activity and overwork, due to the determination not to be frustrated but to make the plan work. The result is frequently the breaking down of the nervous system, which could have been avoided had the mental condition been changed and right rhythm on the physical plane achieved. But it was the work of a physical nature which caused the trouble far more than the mental condition.

Those brought about by the state of rebellion which colours all the life, and the registering of violent emotional reactions. These may be based upon a mental realisation of the Plan, for instance, plus a recognition that those plans are not materialising, owing often to the inadequacy of the physical equipment; but the basic cause of the disease is the emotional rebellion, and therefore not the mental condition. Bitterness, disgust, hatred and a sense of frustration can and do produce many of the prevalent toxic conditions and a state of general poisoning and ill health from which many people habitually suffer. Their vision is bigger than their accomplishment, and this causes emotional suffering. The cure for this condition is to be found in the simple word acceptance. This is not a negative state of settling down to a submissive nonactive life, but it is a positive acceptance (in thought and in practical expression) of a condition which seems at present unavoidable. This leads to an avoidance of the waste of time in attempting the impossible and to right effort to carry forward that which is possible.

Those difficulties which are caused by the failure of the physical apparatus to measure up to the demands of the thought life of the individual. These are, naturally and usually, a part of the physical inheritance, and where this is the case there is normally nothing much to do, though where the aspiration is real and persistent, a great deal might be accomplished in bringing about improvement and laying the ground for better functioning in another life cycle.

It is necessary here that I should deal, as briefly as possible, with the problem of mental healing and with the teaching that all disease is the product of wrong thought. You are starting out to work, and I would have clear thinking on this point. The two problems which I have posited are closely related. We could express them in the form of two questions:

1. Is disease the result of thought?
2. Can the power of thought produce healing effects when used by an individual or a group?

In view of the fact that many diseases are, as I have told you, latent in the very material of the planet itself, it is obvious that human thought is not responsible for disease. It antedates the arrival of humanity upon the planet. There is disease in the mineral world, in the vegetable kingdom, and also among animals, even in their wild states and in their natural habitat, uncontaminated by man. Hence, man cannot be held responsible for this, nor is it the result of human wrong thinking. It provides no answer to the question to say that it must therefore be due to the wrong thinking of the planetary Logos or of the solar Logos. This is only a begging of the question and an evasion of the issue.

I would here remind you of the two definitions of the causes of disease which I earlier gave. Let me call them to your careful attention:

I. "All disease is the result of inhibited soul life. This is true of all forms in all kingdoms."

II. "Disease is the product of and subject to three influences:

1. First, a man's past wherein he pays the price of ancient error.

2. Second, his inheritance wherein he shares with all mankind those tainted streams of energy which are of group origin.

3. Thirdly, he shares with all the natural forms that which the Lord of Life imposes on those forms. Those three influences are called the Ancient Law of evil Sharing. This must give place some day to that new Law of Ancient Dominating Good. This law will be brought into activity by the spiritual will of man."

If you analyse the four causes of disease here given, you will note that disease will eventually be controlled by the release of the soul in all forms, and that this will be done by the active use by man of his spiritual will. We could word this otherwise and say that when soul energy and the right use of the will (which in the individual is the reflection and the agent of the will energy of the soul) is released and rightly directed by the mind, then disease can be handled and brought eventually to an end. It is therefore by the imposition of a higher energy and of a higher rhythm upon the lower forces that disease can be controlled. Disease is therefore the result in the physical body of the failure to bring in these higher energies and rhythms, and that, in its turn, is dependent upon the point in evolution.

It is the dim sensing of this failure and the realisation of these facts that has brought so many groups to believe in the cure of disease by thought power and to ascribe the appearance of disease to wrong thinking. But in reality, humanity must some day learn that it is only the higher consciousness of the soul, working through the mind, that can finally solve this difficult problem.

We cannot consequently affirm that disease, as a general rule, has any relation to thought. It is simply the misuse of the forces of the etheric, the astral and of the dense physical levels. The majority of people are helpless to do anything about it, as the forces which constitute the physical body, for instance, and which pass through and play upon it, are inherited from a very ancient past, are a constituent part of the environment and of the group life into which they are integrated and which they share with all their fellowmen. Such force-matter is coloured with the results of ancient wrong rhythms, misused forces and inherited qualities. Soul energy, expressed through right thinking, can cure diseases to which man is prone.

C. Frustrated Idealism

There are certain diseases which appear in the physical mechanism and which are definitely rooted in the fact that activity (which is the result of thinking specifically) has been coloured and conditioned by the emotional life of the individual, and the emotional life is a fruitful source of disease and of establishing wrong rhythms. It is therefore the predominance of the astral force, and not of the mental energy, which really causes the physical trouble. I am not referring here to the diseases of the nervous system and of the brain, which are the result of overstimulation and of the impact of energy (often from the mind and the soul) upon an instrument unfitted to handle it. These we will consider later. I refer simply to the following sequence of events in the psychological life and the consequent resultant activities:

Disease is a form of activity:

• Mental activity and energy produces (through the power of thought) certain registration of plans, idealisms and ambitions.

• This energy, blended with astral energy, becomes dominated and controlled by astral reactions of an undesirable kind, such as worry over non-accomplishment, the failure to materialise the plans, etc. The life becomes consequently embittered.

• Disease then appears in the physical body, according to the predisposing tendencies of the body and its inherent, inherited weaknesses.

You will note that, in reality, the mental body, and the power of thought, have in no case been the cause of trouble. It has been caused by the obliteration of the original thought and its stepping down to the level of emotionalism. When this stepping down and eventual control by astral forces does not take place, and the thought remains clear and untouched upon the mental plane, there may be trouble of another kind, due to a failure to "carry through" the thought into effective action upon the physical plane. This failure produces not only the cleavage in the personality so well known to the practicing psychologist, but also a cutting off of a much needed stream of energy. As a consequence, the physical body is devitalised and falls heir to bad health. When the thought can be carried through to the physical brain and there becomes a directing agent of the life force, you will usually have a condition of good health, and this has proved true whether the individual thought has been good or bad, rightly motivated or wrongly oriented. It is simply the effect of integration, because saints and sinners, the selfish and the unselfish and all kinds of people, can achieve integration and a thought-directed life.

The second question asks whether an individual or a group can heal by thought power. Most certainly the generalisation can be made that an individual and a group can heal and that thought can play its potent part in the healing process, but not thought alone and unaided. Thought can be the directing agency of forces and energies which can disrupt and dispel disease, but the process must be aided by the power to visualise, by an ability to work with particular forces as is deemed advisable, by an understanding of the rays and their types of energies, and also by a capacity to handle light substance, as it is called. To these powers must be added the ability to be en rapport with the one to be healed, plus a loving heart. In fact, once these conditions are met, too much use of the thinking faculty and too potent a use of the mind processes can arrest and hinder the healing work. Thought has to condition the initial incentive, bringing the intelligence of the man to bear upon the problem of healing and a comprehension of the nature of the one to be healed; but once it has aided in focussing the attention of the healer and the healing group, it should become a steady but subconscious directive agent and nothing more than that.

The healing is accomplished, when possible, by the use of energy rightly directed and by detailed visualisation; love also plays a great part, as does the mind in the early stage. Perhaps I should say that a loving heart is one of the most potent of all the energies employed. I have brought these two questions to your attention because I am anxious for your minds to be clear upon these problems before you start any group work in healing.

Thought neither cures disease nor causes it. Thought must be employed in the processes, but it is not the sole or the most important agent. It is on this point that many groups and healers go astray. The mind can direct energy and this energy can, in its turn, produce overstimulation of the brain and of the body cells and so cause nervous trouble and sometimes brain disease, but the mind itself and thinking, per se, cannot cause disease and trouble in the physical body. As the race learns to think clearly and definitely, and as the laws of thought begin to control the racial consciousness, disease—as we now know it—will be greatly lessened and more and more people will achieve integration. Where there is integration there is the free play of force and of energy throughout the material body. The problems of stimulation will, however, steadily increase with the growing sensitivity of the physical man and the developing focus of his consciousness in the mind nature. This will go on until man learns how to handle the higher energies and to recognise the need for a rhythmic life, paying attention to the Law of Periodicity.

In healing work, certain rules should be mastered and followed by the healer. I have given three important rules already. Briefly they are as follows, and I am dividing the first one into its component parts for the sake of clarity:

1. The healer must seek to link his soul, his heart, his brain, and his hands. Thus can he pour the vital force with healing power upon his patient. This is magnetic work.

2. The healer must seek to link his soul, his brain, his heart and auric emanation. Thus can his presence feed the soul life of the patient. This is the work of radiation. The hands are needed not. The soul displays its power.

3. The healer must achieve magnetic purity, through purity of life. He must achieve that dispelling radiance which shows itself in every man once he has linked the centres in the head. When this magnetic field has been established, the radiance then goes forth.

4. Let the healer train himself to know the inner stage of thought or of desire of the one who seeks his help. He can thereby know the source from which the trouble comes. Let him relate the cause and the effect, and know the point exact through which relief must come.

RULE FOUR

The healer and the healing group must keep the will in leash.

It is not will that must be used, but love.

This last rule is of great importance. The concentrated will of any individual and the directed will of a united group should never be employed. The free will of the individual must never be subjected to the impact of a powerfully focussed group or individual; it is far too dangerous a procedure to be permitted. Will energy (particularly that of a number of people simultaneously playing upon the subtle and physical bodies of the one to be healed) can greatly increase the trouble instead of curing it. It can stimulate the disease itself to dangerous proportions and disrupt instead of cooperating with nature's healing forces, and can even eventually kill the person concerned by so increasing the disease that the patient's normal resistance can prove futile. I would ask you, therefore, in any group work of healing, to keep the will (and even keen desire) in abeyance. Only initiates of high degree are permitted to cure by the power of the will, focussed in the WORD OF POWER, and this only because they can test the capacity of the patient, the tension of the disease, and know also whether or no it is the will of the soul that the disease should be cured.

We have covered much ground of importance in this section and it will warrant your careful study. In the next one we will take up the peculiar problems of the disciple; I would ask you, in preparation for this, to study with attention, the teaching which I gave earlier on the diseases of the mystics. (Esoteric Psychology II) Much said there need not be repeated by me, but should be incorporated in our teachings on healing. I suggest that you read them and know something of the problems themselves, both theoretically and from an understanding of yourself. You should be aware of some of these difficulties in your own experience, at least to some degree.

The Sacred Art of Healing

I do not intend, in this treatise, to deal with the pathology of disease, with its systems and their maleficent indications. These are fully covered in any ordinary medical treatise and textbook and I, my brothers, am no trained physician or medical authority, nor have I the time to be engrossed with the technicalities. What I am concerned with is to give the world some idea of the true and occult causes of disease and their hidden origins, and with the work of healing, as it is carried on and sanctioned by the Great White Lodge.

The work is, in reality, that of the judicious use of energy, applied with love and science. All that I tell you is the result of experiment. Such healing falls into two categories:

1. In magnetic healing, the healer, or the healing group. does two things:

1. He attracts to the healing centre that type of energy which will counteract the disease. This is necessarily a vast subject and one of deep scientific import. Certain types of ray force can be used with certain types of disease, necessitating the use of certain specific centres for the distribution.

2. He attracts to himself and absorbs those forces which are producing the disease, drawing it forth from the patient.

This latter process necessitates a careful guarding of the healer from all contamination by the disease, so that the forces can find no place in his body. There must also be the supplying of fresh energy to the patient, in order to take the place of that which has been withdrawn. This process sets up a definite interplay between the healer and the patient. There is consequently some real danger in this work of occult healing, and for this reason the healers in training should bear in mind that they will work as a group and not as individuals. The free circulation of force produces good health in the individual or group. The free circulation of force between a healer or a healing group and the person to be healed can produce the cure of disease, provided it is the destiny of the man to be healed at any given time and his cooperation is given when possible, though this is not really essential. It facilitates more rapid results in many cases. In others, the patient's anxiety can negate the desired effects.

In radiatory healing, the process is simpler and safer for the healer simply gathers power into himself and then radiates it out on to the patient in the form of a steadily outflowing stream of radiant energy. This stream of energy should be directed to the centre nearest to the location of the disease.

In this work there is no risk to the healer, but if the element of will enters into his thought or the stream of energy projected is too strong, there may be danger to the patient. The impact of the force which is being radiated upon him may not only produce nervous tension, but may lead to an increase in the power of the disease and its intensification by stimulating the atoms and cells involved in the activity of the force responsible for the trouble. For this reason beginners must avoid any concentration upon the disease itself or the area in the physical body involved and carefully keep all thought in abeyance, once the preliminary work has been done, for energy ever follows thought and goes where the thought is focussed.

The healers have to determine the effectiveness of what they are attempting and the potency of their united group work and of the force which they can wield. They have also to discover their ability to keep the will in the background and to send the healing radiance out upon a stream of love-energy. Have ever in mind that love is energy and that it is a substance as real as dense matter. That substance can be used to drive out diseased tissue and provide a healthy substitute in place of the diseased material which has been eliminated. They will, therefore, in the first cycle of work, attempt the radiatory method. It is simpler and far more easily mastered. Later, they can experiment with the method of magnetic healing.

You will now see the purpose of the rules anent the modes of healing which I gave early in this series of instructions. You will realise why, in this radiatory work, the linking process involves the soul, the brain and the entire aura or the magnetic field of individual or group activity. The mind is not mentioned or involved, and the brain acts solely as the focussing point of the love and the healing force to be projected into the stream of energy which issues from the ajna centre.

The healer will, therefore, keep all the forces focussed in the head, and his attention must be concentrated there also. The heart will be automatically involved, as he will be using the energy of love—at first entirely.

Let us now tabulate the rules under which all healing groups must work. I would like to interpolate here that it is not always necessary or possible to meet and work together in group formation. This work can be carried forward efficiently and potently, if the members work as a subjective group; each should then follow the instructions each day and as if he were working in his group in tangible form. This real linking is brought about by imagining himself as in the presence of his brothers. If they were to meet as a group upon the physical plane, it would be hard to prevent the dissipation of force through discussion, through the ordinary pleasantries of meeting, and through the physical interplay between personalities. It would be inevitable that there would be too much conversation, and the work done would not be adequately effective. From the physical standpoint, they work alone; from the true inner standpoint, they work in the closest cooperation. The following are the first rules which I would have the student master:

Preliminary Rules for Radiatory Healing

By an act of the will, after making your own quick, conscious alignment, link up as a soul with the souls of your group brothers. Then link up with their minds, and then with their emotional natures. Do this by the use of the imagination, realising that energy follows thought and that the linking process is inevitable, if correctly done. You can then function as a group. Then forget about the group relation and concentrate upon the work to be done.

Within yourself, then, link soul and brain and gather together the forces of love that are to be found in your aura and focus yourself and all that you have to offer within the head, picturing yourself as a radiant centre of energy or a point of vivid light. This light is to be projected upon the patient through the ajna centre between the eyes.

Then say the following group mantram: "With purity of motive, inspired by a loving heart, we offer ourselves for this work of healing. This offer we make as a group and to the one we seek to heal."

As you do this, visualise the linking process going on. See it as moving lines of living light substance, linking you to your brothers on the one hand, and to the patient on the other. See these lines going out from you to the heart centre of the group and to the patient. But work ever from the ajna centre until instructed to do differently. In this way, the ajna centre and the heart centre of all the persons involved will be closely interrelated. You see here where the value of visualisation comes in. It is in reality the etheric externalisation of the creative imagination. Think this last sentence out.

Then use thought, directed thought, for a brief moment and think of the one you seek to heal, linking up with him, and focussing your attention on him so that he becomes a reality in your consciousness and close to you. When you are aware what the physical difficulty is, then simply recall it to your mind and then dismiss it. Forget now the details of the work, such as the group, yourself and the difficulty of the patient, and concentrate upon the type of force you are going to handle, which is, in this case and for the present, second ray force, the force of love.

What I am here giving out is an adaptation of the second ray method of healing, arranged for beginners.  Feel a deep love pouring into you. Regard it as substantial light which you can and will manipulate. Then send it out as a stream of radiant light from the ajna centre and direct it through the medium of your hands to the patient. In doing this, hold the hands before the eyes, palms outward and with the hacks of the hands next to the eyes and about six inches away from the face. In this way, the stream which is issuing from the ajna centre, becomes divided into two and pours out through the two hands. It is thus directed on to the patient.

Visualise it as pouring out and sense the patient receiving it. As you do this, say aloud in a low voice:

"May the love of the One Soul, focussed in this group, radiate upon you, my brother, and permeate every part of your body—healing, soothing, strengthening; and dissipating all that hinders service and good health."

Say this slowly and deliberately, believing in the results. See that no thought-power or will-power enters into the stream of healing energy, but only a concentrated radiating love. The use of the visualising faculty and of the creative imagination, plus a sense of deep and steadfast love, will keep the mind and the will in abeyance.

I would emphasise the urgent necessity for complete silence and reticence in relation to all healing work. Never let it be known by anyone that you are working in this manner, and never mention to anyone the names of those you are seeking to aid. Do not discuss the patient under treatment even among yourselves. If this basic rule of silence is not kept, it will indicate that you are not yet ready for this work and should discontinue it. This injunction is far more important than you can realise; for speech and discussion not only tend to deflect and dissipate force, but violate a fundamental rule which all healers are trained to keep, and even the medical profession on the physical plane follows the same general procedure.

Three Major Laws of Health

There are three major laws of health and seven minor laws. These work out in the three worlds, which is all that concerns you at this time. In all teaching to be given in the immediate future, the main emphasis will eventually be laid upon the technique of the etheric body, for that is the next step forward. The three major laws are:

1. The law controlling the will to live, a manifestation of the first aspect of the Logos, will or power.
2. The law controlling equality of rhythm, a manifestation of the second aspect of the Logos, love or wisdom.
3. The law controlling crystallisation, a manifestation of the third aspect of the Logos, the activity or foundational aspect.

These three governing factors or laws manifest through the three major divisions of the human entity:

1. The will aspect manifests through the organs of respiration. Another of its expressions is the faculty of sleep. In both of these you have a repetition or an analogy in the microcosm of Logoic manifestation and Logoic pralaya.

2. The love aspect shows itself through the heart, the circulatory system and the nervous system. This is in many ways most important for you to understand, for it controls paramountly the etheric body and its assimilation of prana or vitality. This prana works through both the blood and the nerves, for the life force uses the blood stream and psychic force works through the nervous system. These two departments of the human organism are those which cause the greatest amount of trouble at this time and will even more in the future. The race learns through suffering, and only dire need drives man to seek solution and relief. From the present standpoint of healing, man forms again a lesser trinity of importance:

1. The dense physical body, of which science and medicine know much.

2. The etheric body, which is the next field of endeavour, of experiment and of discovery.
3. The astral body which, simultaneously with the etheric, is the next object for scientific control. The science of psychology will work here.

3. The activity aspect, which manifests primarily through the organs of assimilation and elimination. I seek here to emphasise one point. Just as our solar system is developing the love aspect, which is the second aspect, and just as the human being is polarised in the astral body, which is the reflection of that second aspect, so the second of the three above mentioned departments of the human organism, the etheric, is the one of paramount importance. Up to date it has been the transmitter primarily of astral energy to the physical body. This is now in process of changing.

The whole trend of medical science should now be awake to the concrete facts of the dense physical body and moving towards the study of vitalisation and circulation, for these two are closely related. The nervous system is controlled principally today from the astral body, via the etheric, and the basis of all nervous trouble lies hidden in the emotional body wherein humanity at this time is polarised. The circulatory system of the physical body is controlled principally from the etheric body. When you have an etheric body that is not functioning properly and does not transmit prana sufficiently, and when you have an astral or emotional body that is not adequately or properly controlled, you have in these two the source of the majority of the diseases and nervous and mental conditions that are annually increasing. The reflex action of inadequate circulation upon the physical brain (again due to the etheric body) leads to mental strain and eventual collapse. From this you can see the importance of the etheric vehicle.

The first aspect, which has for its expression and field of control the organs of respiration and the faculty of sleep, when not functioning properly, produces death, insanity and some of the diseases of the brain.

The third aspect, when not functioning properly, causes stomach troubles, bowel complaints and the various diseases that are located beneath and below the solar plexus in the abdomen.

You see, therefore, how medical science must eventually seek solution in a simplification of methods and a return from a complexity of drugs and operations to an understanding of the right use of the energies which pour through from the inner man, via the etheric body, to the physical. The following suggestions may help:

• By the development of goodwill, which is the will of good intention and motive, will come the healing of diseases of the respiratory tract, lungs and throat, the stabilising of the cells of the brain, the cure of insanities and obsessions, and an attainment of equilibrium and of rhythm. Longevity will ensue, for death should be the recognition by the soul of work consummated and pralaya earned. It will only take place later at long and separated periods, and will be controlled by the will of the man. He will cease to breathe when he has finished his work, and then will send the atoms of his body into pralaya. That is the sleep of the physical, the end of manifestation, and the occult significance of this is not yet comprehended.

• By a comprehension of the laws of vitality—and in this phrase are comprehended the laws governing prana, radiation and magnetism—will come the healing of the diseases in the blood, of the arteries and veins, of certain nervous complaints, lack of vitality, senile decay, poor circulation and similar ills. This too will result in the prolongation of life. The laws of electrical energy will also be better understood in this connection.

• By the understanding of right methods of assimilation and elimination will come the healing of diseases connected with the bodily tissues, the stomach and bowels and the male and female organs of generation. It will some day be understood that these latter are only another system of assimilation and elimination, centred this time in the feminine aspect or woman, for again remember that this is the second or love system. The order is thus: 

1. The first system was masculine.
2. The present system, the second, is feminine.
3. The third system will be hermaphroditic.

Even though the evolving human Hierarchy is masculine or positive, yet that is no guarantee that all that is found in the present system is masculine too. The fact is that the negative faculty or the feminine aspect dominates, even though this may be unrecognised by you. Let me demonstrate and give some indication by figures of this hypothesis:

1. In the first solar system there was one dominant evolution, and it consisted of one hundred thousand million monads.

2. In the present system, the second, there are two dominant evolutions, the human and the deva; there are—as earlier stated—sixty thousand million human monads. Add to this the feminine evolution of the devas, consisting of 140 thousand million, and you have the necessary two hundred thousand million. This elucidates my statement anent this being a feminine system.

3. In the third solar system, the total number in evolution will be the needed three hundred thousand million that perfection requires of the threefold Logos.

The ideal physician and surgeon is the man who is also a metaphysician; to the lack of this combination much of the present difficulty and confusion can be ascribed. The metaphysical header today is so engrossed by that which is not the body that he is far less useful to the sick, diseased and damaged human being than is the practical physician. The average metaphysician, no matter by what label he calls himself, has a closed mind; he overemphasises the divine possibilities to the exclusion of the material or physical probabilities.

Complete spiritual healing will be divinely possible ultimately; but this is not materially possible at certain given moments in time and space and with people at widely differing points on the ladder of evolution. Right timing and a sound knowledge of the working of the Law of Karma, plus a large measure of intuitive perception, are essential to the high art of spiritual healing. To this must be added the knowledge that the form nature and the physical body are not essentially the major considerations or of the vast importance that some may think.

Various cultists and healers usually take the position that it is of major importance that the physical vehicle be rendered free from disease and clutched away from the processes of death. It might, however, be desirable (and it often is) that the disease be permitted to do its work and death open the door to the escape of the soul from imprisonment. The time comes inevitably to all incarnated beings when the soul demands liberation from the body and from form life, and nature has her own wise ways of doing this. Disease and death must be recognised as liberating factors when they come as the result of right timing by the soul. It must be realised by students that the physical form is an aggregate of atoms, built into organisms and finally into a coherent body, and that this body is held together by the will of the soul. Withdraw that will onto its own plane or (as it is occultly expressed) "let the soul's eye turn in another direction" and, in this present cycle, disease and death will inevitably supervene. This is not mental error, or failure to recognise divinity, or succumbing to evil. It is, in reality, the resolution of the form nature into its component parts and basic essence. Disease is essentially an aspect of death. It is the process by which the material nature and the substantial form prepares itself for separation from the soul.

It must be borne in mind however that where there is illness or discomfort or disease which is not related to the final dissolution, the causes thereof are to be found in many factors; they can be found in the surroundings, for a number of diseases are environmental and epidemic; in the tuning in of the individual to streams of poison emanating from world hate, or from psychological complexes with some of which we have already dealt, and in the diseases which are indigenous to the matter of which humanity has chosen to construct its physical vehicle, isolating it and separating it from the general substance of manifestation, and thus creating a type of matter which is consecrated to the task of forming the outer expression of the inward reality. This constitutes, therefore, a unique and peculiar aspect of the universal substance, perfected to a certain point in the last solar system and of a necessarily higher order than the substance which vibrates creatively to the call of the three subhuman kingdoms in nature.

The Causes of Disease Summarised

In every occult consideration of disease it must be accepted as a basic proposition that all disease is a result of the misuse of force in some earlier life or in this. This is fundamental. In connection with this I would remind you of some statements I have earlier made on this matter.

• Ninety per cent of the causes of disease are to be found in the etheric and astral bodies. Wrong use of mental energy and misapplied desire are paramount factors, yet with the bulk of humanity still in the Atlantean stages of consciousness, only five per cent of the prevalent diseases are due to mental causes. The percentage varies with the development of the race and its evolution. Disease is therefore the working out into manifestation of undesirable, subjective conditions—vital, emotional and mental.

• Everything concerning the health of man can be approached from three angles:

• That of the personality life...of this we are learning much.
• That of humanity as a whole..this is beginning to be appreciated.
• That of the planetary life....of this we can know little.

• All disease is caused by lack of harmony between form and life, between soul and personality; this lack of harmony runs through all the kingdoms in nature.

• The bulk of diseases are of:

1. Group origin.
2. The result of infection.
3. Malnutrition, physically, subjectively and occultly understood.

• Diseases for the masses, for the average citizen, for the intelligentsia and for disciples differ widely and have differing fields of expression. The three major groups of diseases for the first two classes are:

1. Tuberculosis
2. The social diseases
3. Cancer

• The two major diseases for the intelligentsia and for disciples are Heart complaints and Nervous diseases.

• Disease is a fact in nature. When this is accepted, men will begin to work with the Law of Liberation, with right thought, leading to right attitudes and orientation, and with the principle of nonresistance. Of this nonresistance, the overpowering willingness to die which is so frequently a characteristic of the final stage immediately preceding death is the lowest manifestation. It is nonresistance which psychologically governs coma.

• The Law of Cause and Effect, or of Karma, governs all disease. This embraces individual, group, national and total human karma.

If you will pause at this point and review what I have re-stated, and if you will reread and reflect upon the four Laws and the four Rules you will possess the needed groundwork upon which to proceed with our future studies, beginning with the diseases incident to the life of discipleship. Some of this I have already dealt with in Esoteric Psychology II. There the approach was largely from the angle of the mystic, whereas I am here going to touch upon the problems of the accepted disciple.

4. DISEASES DUE TO THE LIFE OF DISCIPLESHIP

Earlier I told you that disease originated in the four following causes:

1. It is the result of blocking the free life of the soul.

3. It is caused by three influences or sources of contamination:

1. Ancient mistakes, so-called sins and errors of the individual concerned, committed in this life or another earlier incarnation.

2. Human taints and predispositions, inherited in common with all the rest of humanity.

3. Planetary evil, incident to the point achieved by the planetary Logos and conditioned by planetary Karma.

3. It is conditioned by the forces emanating from the plane upon which the man's consciousness is

        primarily focussed.

4. The five major types of disease, with their allied and subsidiary effects, can and do produce results

        where the disciple is concerned; he is not immune until after the third initiation.

A. The Diseases of Mystics

However, the disciple is seldom tubercular (except when karmically conditioned), nor is he prone to succumb to the social diseases except as they may affect him physically through his sacrificial life of service. Contagion can affect him but not seriously so. Cancer may claim him as a victim, but he is more liable to succumb to heart complaints and to nervous trouble of some kind or another. The straight mystic succumbs more to purely psychological situations connected with the integrated personality, and therefore incident to his being focussed largely on the astral plane. The disciple is more prone to mental difficulties and to those complaints which are concerned with energy and are due to fusion—either completed or in process—of soul and personality.

The first cause which I listed earlier in this treatise was summed up in the statement that disease is the result of the blocking of the free life and the inpouring energy of the soul. This blockage is brought about by the mystic when he succumbs to his own thoughtforms, created constantly in response to his mounting aspiration. These become barriers between him and the free life of the soul and block his contact and the consequent resulting inflow of soul energy.

The disciple reverses the entire situation and falls a victim (prior to the third initiation) to the terrific inflow of soul energy—the energy of the second aspect—coming to him from:

1. His own soul, with which centre of energy fusion is rapidly taking place.

2. His group or the Ashram with which he, as an accepted disciple, is affiliated.

3. His Master, with Whom he has spiritual relation and to Whose vibratory influence he is ever susceptible.

4. The Hierarchy, the energy of which can reach him through the medium of all the three above factors.

All these streams of energy have a definite effect upon the centres of the disciple, according to his ray and his specific polarisation in this incarnation. As each centre is related to one or other of the glands, and these in their turn condition the blood stream, and also have a specific effect upon the organic structure within the range of their vibratory influence (i.e. the stomach, close to the solar plexus, and the heart, close to the heart centre, etc.), you will see how it is possible that the major diseases from which a disciple can suffer (which are unique and confined primarily to advanced humanity) will be the result of overstimulation or the inflow of energy to one particular centre, producing excessive and localised trouble.

To these conditions the mystic is not so prone unless he is rapidly becoming the practical mystic or occultist. This is a definite transitional cycle between the mystical attitude and that more definite position which the occultist assumes. I shall not therefore deal with the diseases to which mystics fall heir, except that I would like to point out one interesting fact: The mystic is ever conscious of duality. He is the seeker in search of light, of the soul, of the beloved, of that higher something which he senses as existing and as that which can be found. He strives after recognition of and by the divine: he is the follower of the vision, a disciple of the Christ, and this conditions his thinking and his aspiration. He is a devotee and one who loves the apparently unattainable—the Other than himself.

Only when he becomes the occultist does the mystic learn that all the time the magnet which attracted him, and the dualism which coloured his life and thoughts and which gave motive to all he sought to do, was his true self, that one Reality. He recognises then that assimilation into and identification with that one reality enables duality to be transmuted into unity and the sense of search to be transformed into the effort to become what he essentially is—a Son of God, one with all Sons of God. Having accomplished that, he finds himself one with the ONE in Whom we live and move and have our being.

Next, I would point out that the lowest expression of the mystical condition, and one with which we are becoming increasingly familiar, is that which is called a "split personality"; when this condition is present, the personal lower self expresses itself through a basic condition of duality and two persons express themselves, apparently, instead of the integrated personality-soul. This necessarily creates a dangerous psychological condition and one which warrants trained scientific handling. That is largely lacking at this time, as so few trained psychologists and psychiatrists recognise the fact of the soul. I mention this as it is of value today, and will be increasingly so in the later years when it will be necessary to trace and comprehend the analogies existing in the human consciousness to great unexplored areas of awareness. The split personality and the mystic are two aspects of one whole—the aspect which is right, and along the line of high spiritual unfoldment, and the aspect which is a reflection and a distortion of that grade of development which precedes that of trained occultist. There are many conditions prevalent in humanity at this time which can be subjected to the same reasoning, and one of the modes of healing which will be worked out later is the discovery of the higher correspondences to the lower difficulties and diseases, and the recognition that they are but distortions of a great reality. This leads to the transference of the attention of the one under the care of the healer to that recognised higher aspect.

The whole Science of Integration is involved in this matter. This science, if properly understood, will open up an entirely new field of psychological approach to disease, whether physiological or nervous. A small beginning has already been made along this line by spiritually minded psychologists and educators. The system of helping people psychologically is definitely along these new lines, and might be expressed as follows: the average psychologist employs the method (when dealing with nervous cases, with those on the borderland, and with neurotically inclined people) of discovering the deep-seated complexes, the scars, the ancient shocks or the fears which lie behind the experience of the present and which have made the man what he is today. These conditioning factors can usually be traced back to the subconscious by the process of unearthing the past, of taking into consideration the present environment, of reckoning with heredity, and of studying the effects of education—either academic or based upon life itself. Then the factor which has been a major handicap, and which has turned the man into a psychological problem, is brought (with his assistance, if possible) to the surface of his consciousness, is then intelligently explained and related to the existing condition, and the man is consequently brought to an understanding of his personality, its problems and its impending opportunity.

The spiritual technique, however, is entirely different. The personality problem and the process of delving into the subconscious are ignored, because the conditions which are undesirable are regarded as the result of lack of soul contact and of soul control. The patient (if I might so call him) is taught to take his eyes, and consequently his attention, away from himself, his feelings, his complexes and his fixed ideas and undesirable thoughts, and to focus them upon the soul, the divine Reality within the form, and the Christ consciousness.

This could well be called the process of scientific substitution of a fresh dynamic interest for that which has hitherto held the stage; it brings into functioning activity a cooperative factor whose energy sweeps through the lower life of the personality and carries away wrong psychological tendencies, undesirable complexes, leading to erroneous approaches to life. This eventually regenerates the mental or thought life, so that the man is conditioned by right thinking under the impulse or the illumination of the soul. This produces the "dynamic expulsive power of a new affection"; the old idées fixes, the old depressions and miseries, the hindering and handicapping ancient desires—these all disappear, and the man stands free as a soul and master of his life processes.

I have discussed these two conditions at length because it is essential that another law anent healing be understood before we proceed any further. The discussion about the split personality, the problems of the mystic and the new mode of approach to disease (from the soul angle and the realm of causes, instead of from the personality angle and the realm of effects) can clarify this law in your minds and indicate at least its reasonableness and its valuable application to human need.

LAW IV

Disease, both physical and psychological, has its roots in the good, the beautiful and the true. It is but a distorted refection of divine possibilities. The thwarted soul, seeking full expression of some divine characteristic or inner spiritual reality, produces within the substance of its sheaths a point of friction. Upon this point the eyes of the personality are focussed, and this leads to disease. The art of the healer is concerned with the lifting of the downward focussed eyes unto the soul, the Healer within the form. The spiritual or third eye then directs the healing force, and all is well.

B. Diseases of Disciples

We will divide what we have to say anent the diseases of disciples into two parts: the specific problems of all disciples, and the difficulties incident to soul contact.

We need here to remember that all disciples are susceptible to the major categories of disease. They are attempting to be one with all humanity, and this includes, therefore, all the ills to which flesh is heir. They may not, however, succumb to the frailties of the ordinary man, and should remember that diseases of the heart and of the nerves constitute their major problem. In this connection it might be pointed out that the disciples are found in two major groups: Those who live above the diaphragm and who are, therefore, prone to heart diseases, to thyroid and throat troubles, and those who are in process of transferring the energies of the centres below the diaphragm into the centres above the diaphragm. Most of these at this time are transferring solar plexus energies into the heart, and the world agony is profoundly hastening the process. Stomachic, liver and respiratory troubles accompany this transference.

1. The Specific Problems of Disciples

These special problems are, as you know, peculiar to those who have lifted themselves in consciousness out of the life of the personality into that of the soul. They are primarily related to energy, its inflow, its assimilation or non-assimilation, and its rightly directed use. The other ills to which all flesh is heir at this time in human evolution (for it must be remembered that diseases vary according to the point in evolution and are also cyclic in their appearance), and to which disciples can and do succumb, are not dealt with here; suffice it to say that the three major diseases of humanity to which reference has been made take their toll of disciples, particularly in bringing about the liberation of the soul from its vehicle. They are, however—little as it may appear—controlled in these cases from soul levels, and the departure is planned to take place as a result of soul decision, and not as a result of the efficiency of the disease. The reason that these three major diseases, indigenous to the planetary life in which we live and move and have our being, have this power over disciples is that disciples are themselves an integral part of the planetary life, and in the earlier stages of their recognition of this unity they are prone to fall a ready prey to the disease. This is a fact little known or realised, but explains why disciples and advanced people are susceptible to these diseases.

We could divide these problems into four categories: 

1. Those which are connected with the blood or with the life aspect, for "the blood is the life." These have specific effect upon the heart, but usually of a functional nature only. Organic disease of the heart arises in more deeply seated causes.

2. Those which are a direct effect of energy, playing upon and through the nervous system, via the directing brain.

3. Those which are related to the respiratory system and have an occult source.

4. Those which are specifically due to the receptivity or the non-receptivity, to the functioning or the non-functioning, and to the influence of the centre. Necessarily, these fall into seven groups, affecting seven major areas of the body. For the average disciple, before there is complete soul control and monadic direction, the major directing agent, via the brain, is the vagus nerve, along which the energies (entering via the head centre) are distributed to the rest of the body. A definite science of the centres and their relation to kundalini has been built up by a certain powerful esoteric school in the orient. It has in it much truth, but also much error.

I have differentiated between problems and physical reactions and disease because the inflow, distribution and direction of energy do not necessarily produce disease. Always, however, during the novitiate which precedes all the initiations, they do produce difficulties and problems of some kind or another, either within the consciousness of the disciple or in his relation to those around him. Hence his environment is affected, and consequently his own reciprocal action.

It should be remembered in this connection that all disciples are energy centres in the body of humanity and are in process of becoming points of focussed, directed energy. Their function and activity always and inevitably produce effects, results, awakenings, disruptions and reorientations in the lives of those around them. In the early stages, they produce this unconsciously, and hence frequently the results on those they contact is not desirable, nor is the energy wisely directed, deflected or retained. Intelligent intent must lie behind all wise direction of energy. Later, when they are learning consciously to be and are becoming radiatory centres of healing force, consciously directed, this informing and then transmitted energy is more constructively employed along both psychological and physical lines. Nevertheless, in any case, the disciple becomes an effective influence and can never be what is esoterically called "unnoticed in his place and minus impact on other souls." His influence, emanation and forceful energy inevitably produce problems and difficulties for him; these are based on the human relations which he has karmically established and the reactions of those he contacts, either for good or for ill.

Essentially the influence of a disciple of the Great White Lodge is fundamentally good and spiritually conditioning; superficially and in its outer effects—particularly where the disciple is concerned— difficult situations, apparent cleavages and the emergence of faults as well as virtues upon the part of those affected make their appearance, and often persist for many lives, until the person thus influenced becomes what is called "occultly reconciled to the emanating energy." Ponder on this. The adjustment has to come from the side of those influenced, and not from the disciple.

Let us now consider the four problems from the psychological angle, not the physical:

a. The problems arising from the awakened heart centre of the disciple are perhaps the commonest and frequently some of the most difficult to handle. These problems are based on living relationships and the interplay of the energy of love with the forces of desire. In the early stages, this inflowing love-force establishes personality contacts which veer between the stages of wild devotion and utmost hate on the part of the person affected by the disciple's energy. This produces constant turmoil in the disciple's life, until he has become adjusted to the effects of his energy distribution, and also frequent disruption of relationships and frequent reconciliations. When the disciple is of sufficient importance to become the organising centre of a group, or is in a position to begin to form, esoterically, his own ashram (prior to taking some of the major initiations), then the difficulty can be very real and most disturbing. There is, however, little that can be done by the disciple, except to attempt to regulate the outgoing energy of love.

The problem remains fundamentally that of the one affected; the adjustments, as I have remarked above, have to be made from the other side, with the disciple standing ready to cooperate at the first indication of a willingness to recognise relationship and intention to cooperate in group service. This is a point which both parties—the disciple and the person reacting to his influence—need to consider. The disciple stands ready; the responsive party usually withdraws or approaches according to the urge of his soul or of his personality—probably the latter in the early stages. Eventually, however, he stands with the disciple in full cooperative understanding, and the trying time of difficulty is ended.

It is not possible for me to enter into explicit detail in considering these problems connected with the heart and the life energy of the disciple. They are conditioned by his ray, the initiation for which he is being prepared, and the quality, evolutionary status and the ray of those affected.

There are also difficulties and problems of a more subtle nature arising from the same cause, but not localised in certain definite human relationships. A disciple serves; he writes and speaks; his words and influence permeate into the masses of men, arousing them to activity of some kind—often good and spiritual, sometimes evil, antagonistic and dangerous. He has therefore to deal not only with his own reactions to the work he is doing, but also, in a general and specific sense, to deal with the masses whom he is beginning to affect. This is not an easy thing to do, particularly for an inexperienced worker with the Plan. He fluctuates between the mental plane, where he normally attempts to function, and the astral plane, where the masses of men are focussed, and this brings him into the realm of glamour and consequent danger. He goes out in consciousness towards those he seeks to help, but it is sometimes as a soul (and then he frequently overstimulates his hearers), and sometimes as a personality (and then he feeds and enhances their personality reactions).

As time goes on he learns—through the difficulties brought about by the necessary heart approach—to stand firm at the centre, sending forth the note, giving his message, distributing directed love energy, and influencing those around him, but he remains impersonal, a directing agency only and an understanding soul. This impersonality (which can be defined as a withdrawing of personality energy) produces its own problems, as all disciples well know; there is nothing, however, that they can do about it but wait for time to lead the other person forward into clear understanding of the significance and esoteric meaning of right human relations. The problem of workers with individuals and with groups is basically connected with the energy of the heart and with the vivifying force of its embodied life.

It should also be pointed out that difficulties of rhythm are apt to occur, and problems connected with the cyclic life of the disciple. The heart and the blood are esoterically related, and symbolically define the pulsating life of the soul which demonstrates upon the physical plane in the outgoing and the withdrawing dual life of discipleship, each phase of which presents its own probl