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 problems.

Once a disciple has mastered the rhythm of his outer and inner life, and has organised his reactions so that he extracts the utmost meaning from them but is not conditioned by them, he then enters upon the relatively simple life of the initiate. Does that phrase astonish you? You need to remember that the initiate has freed himself, after the second initiation, from the complexities of emotional and astral control. Glamour can no longer overpower him. He can stand with steadfastness in spite of all that he may do and feel. He realises that the cyclic condition is related to the pairs of opposites and is part of the life manifestation of existence itself. In the process of learning this, he passes through great difficulties.

He, as a soul, subjects himself to a life of outgoing, of magnetic influence and of extroversion. He may follow this immediately with a life of withdrawal, of apparent lack of interest in his relationships and environment, and with an intense introspective, introverted expression. Between these two extremes he may flounder distressingly—sometimes for many lives—until he learns to fuse and blend the two expressions. Then the dual life of the accepted disciple, in its various grades and stages, becomes clear to him; he knows what he is doing. Constantly and systematically, both outgoing and withdrawing, serving in the world and living the life of reflection, play their useful part.

Many psychological difficulties arise whilst this process is being mastered, leading to psychological cleavages, both deep-seated and superficial. The goal of all development is integration—integration as a personality, integration with the soul, integration into the Hierarchy, integration with the Whole, until complete unity and identification has been achieved. In order to master this science of integration whose basic goal is identity with the One Reality, the disciple progresses from one unification to another, making mistakes, arriving often at complete discouragement, identifying himself with that which is undesirable until, as soul-personality, he repudiates the earlier relationships; he pays the penalty again and again of misplaced fervour, distorted aspiration, the overpowering effect of glamour, and the many conditions of psychological and physical disarrangement which must arise whilst cleavages are being healed, right identification achieved and correct orientation established.

Whilst this basic, inescapable and necessary process is taking place, a definite work is going forward in the etheric body. The disciple is learning to lift the energies, gathered from the lower centres, into the solar plexus and from that centre into the heart centre, thus bringing about a re-focussing of the energies above the diaphragm instead of putting the emphasis below. This leads frequently to profound complications, because—from the personality angle—the solar plexus centre is the most potent, being the clearing house for the personality forces. It is that process of decentralisation and "elevation" of the lower consciousness to the higher which produces the main difficulties to which the disciple is subjected. It is this process also which is going on in the world as a whole today, causing the appalling disruption of human affairs, culture, and civilisation.

The entire focus of humanity's consciousness is being changed; the selfish life (characteristic of the man centred in his desires and consequently in the solar plexus centre) is giving place to the decentralised life of the man who is unselfish (centred in the Self or soul), aware of his relationships and responsibility to the Whole and not to the part. This sublimation of the lower life into the higher is one of deepest moment to the individual and to the race. Once the individual disciple, and humanity as well, symbolising the world disciple, have mastered the process of transference in this respect, we shall see the new order of individual service and of world service established, and therefore the coming in of the awaited new order.

Of all these processes, the circulation of the blood stream is the symbol, and the clue to the establishment of the world order lies hid in this symbology—free circulation of all that is needed to all parts of the great framework of humanity. The blood is the life, and free interchange, free sharing, free circulation of all that is required for right human living will characterise the world to be. Today these conditions do not exist, the body of humanity is diseased and its internal life disrupted. Instead of free circulation between all parts of the life aspect, there has been separation, blocked channels, congestion and stagnation. It has needed the terrific crisis of the present to arouse humanity to its diseased condition, to the extent of the evil which is now discovered to be so great, and the diseases of the "blood of humanity" (symbolically understood) so severe that only the most drastic measures—pain, agony, despair and terror—can suffice to establish a cure.

Healers would do well to remember this, and to have in mind that disciples and all good men and aspirants share in this universal disease of humanity which must take its toll psychologically or physically or both. The trouble is of ancient origin and of long established habit and inevitably affects the physical vehicle of the soul. Exemption from the effects of human ills is no indication of spiritual superiority. It might simply indicate what one of the Masters has called "the depths of spiritual selfishness and self-satisfaction." The initiate of the third degree can hold himself exempt, but this is only because he has completely freed himself from glamour and no aspect of the personality life has any further power over him. All the ray types are equally subjected to these particular problems. The seventh ray, however, is more susceptible to the problems, difficulties and diseases incident to the blood stream than are any of the other ray types. The reason is that this is the ray which has to do with the expression and manifestation of life upon the physical plane and with the organisation of the relationship between spirit and matter into form. It is concerned therefore today, as it seeks to create the new order, with free circulation and with a consequently intended freedom of humanity from the ills and problems of the past. This is of interest to remember, and students would find it helpful at this time, if they want to cooperate intelligently with the happenings of the day, to collect and study all that I have written about the seventh ray of ceremonial order and magic.

b. Diseases of the nervous system, due to the flow of energy to all parts of the body, directed by either the personality, some aspect of the personal lower self, or by the soul, via the brain, are many and become acute as the disciple nears initiation or becomes an initiate. Apart from the physiological ills which this produces, there are many other conditions brought about by this inflow of force. The disciple becomes, for instance, overstimulated, and therefore overactive; he becomes unbalanced, and when I say this I do not refer to mental imbalance (though that can happen), but to overdevelopment and overexpression in some part of his nature. He can become extravagantly overorganised through the medium of some overactive centre, or underorganised and inactive. He is therefore subject to the imbalance of the glandular system, with all its attendant difficulties. His overstimulation or his undevelopment, where the centres are concerned, normally affects the glands, and they in their turn produce character difficulties which necessarily, in their turn, produce environmental problems as well as personality handicaps.

It is then a vicious circle, and is all due to wrong direction of force and the inflow of force from one or other of the personality vehicles to its related centre (i.e., the astral force and its relation to the solar plexus), and then the appearance of the problems of health, of character and of influence. Over-radiatory activity, through the medium of some centre, attracts attention and the disciple becomes the victim of his own achievement. I shall deal with these at greater length when I take up the diseases which develop from the four categories.

These difficulties are of a most general kind but do affect primarily second and sixth ray disciples. The one because the second ray is the building ray, and is therefore concerned predominantly with outer manifestation and with the utilisation of all the centres, and the other because it is primarily the ray of tension—a tension which can work out in the form of the most evil fanaticism or the most altruistic devotion. All the rays present the same problems, needless to say, but the second ray deals largely with the soul's activity through all the centres (those above and those below the diaphragm) but with the heart as the prime centre of attention. The sixth ray has a close relation to the solar plexus centre as the clearing house and the place of reorientation of the life force in the personality. Bear this constantly in mind.

c. The problems connected with the respiratory or breathing system are all related to the heart, and therefore concerned with the establishing of right rhythm and right contact with the environment. The drawing in of the life breath, the sharing of the air with all other human beings, denotes both an individual centre of life and participation also in the general life of all. To these problems of individual or separative existence and of its opposite, the Sacred Word, the OM, is intimately related. It might be said in the words of an occult manual on healing, given to advanced disciples, that:

"He who lives under the sound of the AUM knows himself.

He who lives sounding the OM knows his brother. He who knows the SOUND knows all."

"The breath of life becomes the cause of death to the one who lives within a shell. He exists but he is not; the breath then leaves and spirals to the whole. He who breathes forth the OM knows not himself alone. He knows the breath is prana, life, the fluid of connection. The ills of life are his because they are the lot of man—not generated in a shell, because the shell is not. He who is the SOUND and sounding forth knows not disease, knows not the hand of death."

In these few words the whole problem of the third group of problems and diseases is summed up. They are concerned with the circulation of soul energy, which is the energy of love, and they are not concerned with the circulation of the life essence. These two basic energies, as they play upon the forces of the personality, bring about the bulk of the problems to which humanity falls heir. These are lack of love, lack of life, failure to sound forth correctly the note of the soul and of the ray, and failure to transmit. The secret of constituting a pure channel (to use mystic but not occult phraseology), is considered in the first group of problems; and the establishing of right relation by right sounding forth of the attractive note of the soul, is considered in the last two groups.

This third group of difficulties, problems and diseases are of course those of people upon all the rays, but first ray people have a definite predisposition to these specific troubles. At the same time, when they rightly utilise their latent powers, they can overcome by the right use of the OM, and finally of the SOUND, the incidental problems and difficulties far more easily than those on other rays. You have here a reference to the Lost Word of Masonry and to the SOUND of the Ineffable Name.

The sound of the AUM, the sound of the OM, and the SOUND itself, are all related to vibration and its differing and varied effects. The secret of the Law of Vibration is progressively revealed as people learn to sound forth the WORD in its three aspects. Students would do well to ponder on the distinction between the breath and the sound, between the process of breathing and the process of creating vibratory activity. They are related but distinct from each other. One is related to Time and the other to Space and "the sound, the final and yet initiating sound, concerns that which is neither Time nor Space; it lies outside the manifested All, the Source of all that is and yet is naught".

For this reason, disciples on the fourth ray usually can develop by the power of the intuition an understanding of the OM. This ray of harmony through conflict (the conflict of the pairs of opposites) is necessarily concerned with the bringing in of that vibratory activity which will lead to unity, to harmony and to right relations, and to the release of the intuition.

d. The problems incident to the activity or inactivity of the centres are perhaps the most important from the standpoint of disease, because the centres govern the glandular system and the glands have a direct relation to the blood stream and they condition also the major and most important areas in the human body; they have both a physiological and a psychological effect upon the personality and its interior and exterior contacts and relations. The reaction is primarily physical but the effects are largely psychological, and it is therefore this fourth group upon which I shall principally enlarge, dealing with the diseases of disciples and giving some definite instructions upon the centres. This will indicate more clearly than elsewhere the causes of the many human ills and physical difficulties.

LAW I

All disease is the result of inhibited soul life and this is true of all forms of 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.

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; third, 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 someday 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.

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.

LAW IV

Disease, both physical and psychological, has its roots in the good, the beautiful and the true. It is but a distorted rejection 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.

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 increases the 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.

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 links the centres in the head. When this magnetic field is established, the radiation too goes forth.

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 the help 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.

2. Difficulties Incident to Soul Contact

We begin a study of the difficulties, the diseases and the psychological troubles (neurological and mental) of the aspirants and of the disciples of the world. These we shall study definitely from the angle of the seven centres, as well as considering the results of the forces and energies (I use these distinctive words advisedly) which pour through them. Much that I shall say will be open to question from the viewpoint of orthodox medicine, yet, at the same time, orthodox medicine has been steadily drifting towards the occult point of view. I shall not attempt to relate the esoteric attitude of healing, its propositions and methods, to the modern schools of therapy. The two are gradually approaching each other, in any case. The lay reader, for whom these teachings are intended, will get a clearer comprehension of my thesis if it is kept relatively free from the technical terms and the academic attitudes of the medical sciences. They would but serve to confuse, and my effort is to give a general picture of the underlying causes of outer physical ills. I seek to present certain aspects of occult therapy for which mankind is now ready, reminding you that the presentation is naturally inadequate and partial, and for that reason may appear incorrect and to be challenging to those who look ever for outlets for human credulity. That, however, concerns me not. Time will prove the accuracy of my statements.

The new medicine will deal with factors which are dimly recognised at present and which are not, as yet, brought into any real or factual relationship to man and his body. The basic theory upon which the new medical teaching will rest can best be summed up in the statement that there is in reality nothing but energy to be considered, and the forces which are resistant to or assimilative of higher or different types of energy. Let me therefore start by giving you a new Law to add to the four already communicated. The previous Laws have been in the nature of abstract propositions, and unless related to this fifth Law will remain somewhat vague and meaningless.

LAW V

There is naught but energy, for God is life. Two energies meet in man, but other five are present. For each is to be found a central point of contact. The conflict of these energies with forces and of the forces twixt themselves produce the bodily ills of man. The conflict of the first and second persists for ages until the mountain top is reached—the first great mountain top. The fight between the forces produces all disease, all ills and bodily pain, which seek release in death. The two, the five, and thus the seven, plus that which they produce, possess the secret. This is the fifth Law of Healing within the world of form.

This Law can be resolved into certain basic statements which can be tabulated as follows:

• We live in a world of energies and are a constituent part of them ourselves.

• The physical vehicle is a fusion of two energies and seven forces.

• The first energy is that of the soul, the ray energy. It is the producer of conflict as the soul energy seeks to control the forces.

• The second energy is that of the threefold personality—the personality ray as it is resistant to the higher energy.

• The forces are the other energies or ray potencies which control the seven centres and are dominated either by the energy of the personality or by that of the soul.

• Two conflicts, therefore, proceed between the two major energies and between the other energies, focussed through the seven centres.

• It is the interplay of these energies which produces good health or bad.

There has been much teaching given anent the age-long struggle between personality and soul, but it has always been presented in the language of spiritual approach, of mysticism and of religion, or else in terms of character reaction, of abstract aspiration and of purity or non-purity. With these I shall not deal. My theme is the effects of this conflict in the physical body. I wish, therefore, to confine myself only to the physiological and psychological problems incident to the struggle which, in the main, make hard the lot of the disciple. It might be posited that:

A. All diseases and physical difficulties are caused by one or more of three things or conditions:

1. A developed soul contact, thus producing the vitalisation of all the centres in ordered rhythm, according to the soul ray. This necessarily produces stress and strain in the physical vehicle.

2. Personality life and focus, which attempts to negate this soul control, and which is largely expressed through the activity of the throat centre (predisposing an activity of the thyroid gland) and of the centres below the diaphragm.

3. A cycle in the life of the aspirant wherein personality control begins to weaken and in which the emphasis and consequent activity shifts into the centres above the diaphragm—again causing trouble and readjustment.

B. Certain objectives present themselves to the aspirant at various stages, and each involves progress, but at the same time certain attendant difficulties.

The objective before the initiate is to have every centre in the etheric body responsive to the ray energy of the soul and with all the other seven ray energies subsidiary to it. This process of stimulation, of readjustment, and the attainment of established control goes on until after the third initiation. Then, when that initiation has been taken, the physical vehicle is of a totally different calibre and quality, and the Rules and Laws of Health no longer apply.

The objective before the disciple is to promote control of the centres in the body, via the soul, through stimulation, elimination and eventual stabilisation. This inevitably produces difficulty, and the vitalisation or inspiration (either of these words would be appropriate), or their lack or deficiency, affect the bodily organs within the areas around the centres and affect all substances surrounding the centres.

The objective before the aspirant or the probationary disciple is to transfer the forces from the centres below the diaphragm, via the solar plexus centre, to the centres above the diaphragm. The energy of the base of the spine has to be transferred to the head; the energy of the sacral centre must be lifted to the throat, whilst the energy of the solar plexus must be transferred to the heart. This is done in response to the magnetic "pull" of the soul ray as it begins to dominate the personality ray. It is a long and painful process, covering many lives and carrying, as the result, many physical ills.

The objective before the average man (unconsciously effective) is to respond fully to personality force, focussed primarily at the middle point, the solar plexus, and then steadily and intelligently to coordinate these forces so that an integrated personality is presented eventually to the soul for control and use.

The objective before the primitive or undeveloped man (unconsciously effective) is to live a full animal and emotional life, thereby gaining experience of growth, of contact, and eventually of understanding. By this means the response apparatus of the soul in the three worlds is built.

I would also call attention to the thought which I have here interjected, that the objectives intrinsically in themselves have an effect upon that towards which man is striving. This is a thought warranting careful consideration.

These generalisations will be useful only if you remember that they are generalisations. No aspirant at any stage is perfectly clear cut in his endeavour until after the third initiation, nor is he entirely particularised in his life and effort. Men are at all imaginable stages of development, and many of these stages are intermediate to the five stages above mentioned. These all merge and blend into each other, and often constitute a formidable and confusing arena for thought and activity. It is only in the life of the undeveloped individual that clear simplicity is to be found. In between—from the stage of infancy of the race or of the man to that of the state of liberation from personality life—there is nothing but complexity, the overlapping of states of consciousness, difficulty, disease, psychological problems, illness and death.

This must obviously be so when the vast number of energies and forces which constitute man's being and form his environment are brought into relation with each other. Every human being is, in reality, like a miniature whirlpool in that great ocean of Being in which he lives and moves—ceaselessly in motion until such time as the soul "breathes upon the waters" (or forces) and the Angel of the Presence descends into the whirlpool. Then all becomes still. The waters stirred by the rhythm of life, and later stirred violently by the descent of the Angel, respond to the Angel's healing power and are changed "into a quiet pool into which the little ones can enter and find the healing which they need." So says the Old Commentary.

The Centres and the Glandular System

It will therefore be apparent to you that disease (when not of a group origin, or the result of planetary karma or based on accident) takes its rise in the activity or the non-activity of the centres. This is a statement of a basic truth, given in the simplest manner. The centres, as you know, govern the endocrine system which, in its turn, controls the seven major areas of the physical body and is responsible for the correct functioning of the entire organism, producing both physiological and psychological effects.

The importance of this glandular system cannot be overestimated. It is a replica in miniature of the septenary constitution of the universe and the medium of expression and the instrument of contact for the seven ray forces, the seven Spirits before the Throne of God. Around this at present unrecognised truth the medicine and the healing methods of the future civilisation will be built.

The glands constitute a great relating system in the body; they bring all parts of the physical vehicle into relation with each other; they also relate the man to the etheric body—both individual and planetary—and likewise to the blood stream, the carrier of the life principle to all parts of the body. There are consequently four major agents of distribution to be found in the physical body. They are all complete in themselves, all contributory to both the functional and the organic life of the body, all closely interrelated and all producing both physiological and psychological results according to their potency, the response of the centres to the higher inflow, the point in evolution achieved, and the free expression, or the reverse, of the incoming energies. These four agents of distribution of energy are:

• The etheric vehicle itself. This with its myriads of lines of force and of energy, the incoming and the outgoing energies, its responsiveness to energy impacts coming from the environment as well as from the inner spiritual man and the subtle bodies, underlies the entire physical body. In it are to be found the seven centres as focal points of reception and of distribution; they are the recipients of seven types of energy, and they distribute these seven energies through the entire little human system.

• The nervous system and its various interlocking directorates. This is a relatively tangible network of energies and forces which are the outer expression of the inner, vital, dynamic network of the etheric body and the millions of nadis or the prototype of the nerves which underlie the more substantial body. These nerves and plexi and their many ramifications are the negative aspects of the positive energies which condition or are attempting to condition the man.
• The endocrine system. This is the tangible and exoteric expression of the activity of the vital body and its seven centres. The seven centres of force are to be found in the same region where the seven major glands are located, and each centre of force provides, according to the esoteric teaching, the power and the life of the corresponding gland which is, in fact, its externalisation.

          Centres                                         Glands    

Head centre                                Pineal gland

Centre between eyebrows                Pituitary body

Throat centre                                 Thyroid gland

Heart centre                                Thymus gland

Solar plexus centre                        Pancreas

Sacral centre                                The gonads

Centre at base of spine                         Adrenal glands

These three systems are very closely related to each other and constitute an interlocking directorate of energies and forces which are essentially vital, galvanic, dynamic and creative. They are basically interdependent, and upon them the entire interior health of the physical organism depends. They are responsive first to one or other of the bodies (emotional or mental), then to the integrated personality and its ray, and finally to the soul ray as it begins to assume control. They are, in reality, responsible for the production of the physical body and—after birth—they condition its psychological quality, and this in its turn produces the developing physical man. They are the agents for the three divine aspects of all manifestation: life quality appearance.

• The blood stream. This is the carrier of the life principle and of the combined energies and forces of the three above systems. This will be an idea of some novelty to the orthodox. The relationship of the circulatory system of the blood to the nervous system has not been as yet adequately developed in modern medicine. Much, however, has been done to relate the glandular system to the blood.

Only when these four interrelated systems are viewed as one integrated whole and as the four aspects of one vital circulatory system will the truth emerge. Only as they are acknowledged to be the four major distributing agents of the combined rays of the individual man will the true nature of material phenomena be grasped. It might be added here that:

1. The etheric vehicle from the circulatory angle, is governed by the Moon, as it veils Vulcan.
2. The nervous system is ruled by Venus.
3. The endocrine system is governed by Saturn.
4. The blood stream is governed by Neptune.

These four systems are in reality the manifestation of the four aspects of matter in its lowest or purely physical expression. There are other aspects of expression of the fundamental substance, but these are the four of greatest importance.

Each of these is essentially dual, and each duality corresponds to the ray of the soul or of the personality. Each is therefore both positive and negative; each can be described as a unit of resistant force and of dynamic energy; each is a combination of certain aspects of matter and substance—the matter being the relatively static aspect, and the substance the relatively fluid or quality-endowing agent. Their interplay, relationship and unified function are an expression of the One Life Principle, and when they have reached a point of perfected fusion or synthesis or coordinated activity there then appears that "life more abundantly" of which Christ spoke and of which we, as yet, know nothing. The four aspects of matter produce the correspondence also to the four divine attributes as well as to the three divine aspects.

The analogy of the basic dualism of all manifestation is also preserved, thus making the nine of initiation—the three, the four and the two. This correspondence to the initiatory process is, however, in the reverse direction, for it is initiation into the creative third aspect, the matter aspect and the world of intelligent activity. It is not initiation into the second or soul aspect, as is the case with the hierarchical initiations for which the disciple is preparing. It is the initiation of the soul into the experience of physical incarnation, into physical plane existence, and into the art of functioning as a human being. The door into this experience is the "Gate of Cancer." Initiation into the kingdom of God is entered through the "Gate of Capricorn." These four attributes and the three aspects of matter, plus their dual activity, are the correspondence to the four aspects of the personality and the Spiritual Triad and their dual active relationship. In this statement is hidden the key to liberation.

The Seven Major Centres

It would be of value here if we consider for a moment the nature of the centres themselves, summarising somewhat the teaching already given in my other books, and so presenting a clear picture of the energy body which underlies the dense physical vehicle.

There are many focal points of force within the body, but we shall deal only with the major seven which control in some degree or other all the remaining. In that way we shall not be confused. We shall consider the five centres found upon the spinal column and the two which are found in the head.

1. The Head Centre:  This is located at the very top of the head. It is frequently called

                                "the thousand-petalled lotus" or the Brahmarandra.

1. It corresponds to the central spiritual sun.

2. It is brought into functioning activity after the third initiation and is the organ for the distribution of monadic energy, of the will aspect of divinity.

3. It is related to the triple personality by the antahkarana, which disciples and initiates are in process of constructing and which reaches its full usefulness only after the destruction of the causal body at the fourth initiation.

4. It is the Shamballa centre in the physical body and the agent of the Father or of the first divine aspect.

5. It registers purpose, corresponds to the "electric fire" of the solar system, and is dynamic in quality.

6. Its dense physical externalisation is the pineal gland in the head. This remains active during infancy and until the will-to-be is sufficiently established so that the incarnating person is firmly anchored in physical incarnation. In the final stages of divine expression in man it again comes into activity and usefulness as the agent for the accomplishment on earth of the will energy of established Being.

7. It is the organ of synthesis because, after the third initiation and prior to the destruction of the causal body, it gathers into itself the energies of all the three aspects of manifested life. Where man is concerned, this means the energies of the Spiritual Triad, of the threefold egoic lotus and of the triple personality, thus again making the nine of initiation. The energies thus synchronised and focussed in, around and above the head are of great beauty and extensive radiation, plus dynamic effectiveness. They serve to relate the initiate to all parts of the planetary life, to the Great Council at Shamballa, and to the Lord of the World, the final Initiator—via the Buddha and one of the three Buddhas of Activity.

The Buddha, in a most peculiar sense, relates the initiate to the second aspect of divinity—that of love—and therefore to the Hierarchy; the Buddhas of Activity relate him to the third aspect of divinity, that of active intelligence. Thus the energy of will, of consciousness and of creativity meet in him, providing the synthesis of the divine aspects.

8. This is the only one of the seven centres which at the time of perfected liberation retains the position of an inverted lotus, with the stem of the lotus (the antahkarana, in reality) reaching up into "the seventh Heaven," thus linking the initiate with the first major planetary centre, Shamballa. All the other centres start by being inverted, with all the petals turned downwards towards the base of the spine; all, in the process of evolution, gradually unfold their petals and then slowly turn upwards "towards the summit of the rod," as it is called in the Old Commentary. The above is a piece of information which is of small value, except in so far as it presents a truth, completes a picture, and gives the student a symbolic idea of that which is essentially a distributing agent of the will energy of Deity.

3. The Ajna Centre: This is the centre between the eyebrows and is found in the region of the head j

                                just above the two eyes, where it "acts as a screen for the radiant beauty and the

                                glory of the spiritual man."

1. It corresponds to the physical sun and is the expression of the personality, integrated and functioning—first of all as the disciple, and finally as the initiate. This is the true persona or mask.

2. It achieves this functioning activity fully by the time the third initiation is taken. I would remind you that this initiation is regarded by the Hierarchy as the first major initiation, a fact which I have already communicated. It is the organ for the distribution of the energy of the third aspect—the energy of active intelligence.

3. It is related to the personality by the creative thread of life, and is therefore closely connected with the throat centre (the centre of creative activity), just as the head centre is related to the centre at the base of the spine. An active interplay, once established between the ajna centre and the throat centre, produces a creative life and a manifested expression of the divine idea on the part of the initiate. In the same way, the active interplay between the head centre and the centre at the base of the spine produces the manifestation of the divine will or purpose. The forces of the ajna and the throat centres, when combined, produce the highest manifestation of "fire by friction," just as the energies of the head centre and the basic centre produce the individual "electric fire" which, when fully expressing itself, we call the kundalini fire.

4. It is the centre through which the fourth Creative Hierarchy on its own plane finds expression, and here also this Hierarchy and fourth kingdom in nature, the human family are fused and blended. The head centre relates the monad and the personality. The ajna centre relates the Spiritual Triad (the expression of the monad in the formless worlds) to the personality. Ponder on this statement, because you have here—in the symbolism of the head centre, physically considered—the reflection of the spiritual will, atma, and spiritual love, buddhi. Here also comes in the teaching on the place of the eyes in the development of conscious expression, creatively carrying forward the divine purpose.

The Third Eye                        Head Centre                Will, Atma

        The eye of the Father, the Monad.                Shamballa

        The first Aspect of Will, or power and purpose.  

        Related to the pineal gland.

The Right Eye                        Ajna Centre                Love, Buddhi

The eye of the Son, the Soul.                        Hierarchy

The second Aspect of Love-Wisdom.

Related to the Pituitary body.

The Left Eye                        Throat Centre                Active Intelligence

        The eye of the Mother, the personality.        Humanity

The third Aspect of Intelligence.

Related to the Carotid gland.

When these three eyes are functioning and all of them "seeing" simultaneously, you will then have insight into divine purpose (the initiate), intuitive vision of the plan (the disciple), and a spiritual direction of the resulting creative activity (the Master).

5. The ajna centre registers or focusses the intention to create. It is not the organ of creation in the same sense that the throat centre is, but it embodies the idea lying behind active creativity, the subsequent act of creation producing eventually the ideal form for the idea.

6. Its dense physical externalisation is the pituitary body: the two lobes of this gland correspond to the two multiple petals of the ajna centre. It expresses imagination and desire in their two highest forms, and these are the dynamic factors lying behind all creation.

7. It is the organ of idealism therefore, and,—curiously enough—it is closely related to the sixth ray, just as the head centre is essentially related to the first ray. The sixth is peculiarly linked to the third ray and the third aspect of divinity as well as to the second ray and the second aspect. It fuses, anchors and expresses. This is a fact which I have not hitherto emphasised in my other writings. The ajna centre is the point in the head where the dualistic nature of manifestation in the three worlds is symbolised. It fuses the creative energies of the throat and the sublimated energies of desire or the true love of the heart.

8. This centre, having only two real petals, is not a true lotus in the same sense as are the other centres. Its petals are composed of 96 lesser petals or units of force (48 + 48 = 96) but these do not assume the flower shape of the other lotuses. They spread out like the wings of an airplane to the right and left of the head, and are symbolic of the right hand path and the left hand path, of the way of matter and the way of spirit. They constitute symbolically, therefore, the two arms of the Cross upon which the man is crucified—two streams of energy or light placed athwart the stream of life descending from the monad to the base of the spine and passing through the head.

The idea of relativity is one that must ever be held in mind as the student seeks to comprehend the centres, interiorly related within the etheric body, related at the same time to the subtler bodies, to the states of consciousness which are synonymous to states of being and of expression, to ray energies, to environing conditions, to the three periodical vehicles (as H.P.B. calls the personality, the threefold soul and the Spiritual Triad), to Shamballa and to the totality of manifested Lives. The complexity of the subject is extreme, but when the disciple or initiate is functioning in the three worlds and the various energies of the whole man are "grounded" in the earthbound man, then the situation becomes clearer. I use the expression "grounded" in its true and correct sense, and not as the description of a man who has discarded his physical body as the spiritualists use the term. Certain recognitions in time and space become possible; certain effects can be noted, certain ray influences appear more dominant than others; certain "patterns of being" appear; an expression of a spiritual Being at a certain point of conscious experience emerges into clarity and can then be spiritually diagnosed. Its aspects and attributes, its forces and energies, can be determined at that time and for a particular created expression of life. This must be borne in mind, and the thoughts of the student must not be permitted to rove too far afield but must be concentrated upon the appearance of the man (himself or another) and upon the emerging quality. When that student is a disciple or an initiate, he will be able also to study the life aspect.

Our study will, however, be somewhat different, for we shall attempt to discover the diseases and difficulties incident to the energy stimulation or the lack of stimulation of the centres, and so arrive at some of the effects which this energy inflow and conflict with forces will produce.

3. The Throat Centre: This centre is to be found at the back of the neck, reaching up into the medulla oblongata, thus involving the carotid gland, and down towards the shoulder blades. It is an exceedingly powerful and well developed centre where average humanity is concerned. It is interesting to note in this connection that:

a. The throat centre is ruled by Saturn just as the two head centres are ruled respectively by Uranus (ruling the head centre) and Mercury (ruling the ajna centre). This is only where the disciple is concerned; the rulership changes after the third initiation or before the first. These three planets constitute a most interesting triangle of forces and in the following triplicities and their inevitable inter-relations you have—again only in the case of disciples—a most amazing picture story or symbol of the ninefold of initiation:

        -Head-Ajna-Throat

        -Third Eye-Right Eye-The Left Eye

        -Pineal Gland-Pituitary Body-Carotid Gland

These present the mechanism through which the Spiritual Triad, the soul and the personality work. The key to a right understanding of process lies in the relation of the three planets: Uranus, Mercury and Saturn, as they pour their energies through these nine "points of spiritual contact" upon the physical plane into the "grounded sphere of light and power which is the man in time and space."

b. This centre is related to the first initiation and develops great activity when that point in experience is achieved, as it has been achieved by the vast majority of men who are at this time the aspirants and the probationary disciples of the world. (Forget not that, technically speaking, the first major initiation from the hierarchical angle is the third. The first initiation is regarded by the Masters as signifying admission to the Path. It is called an initiation, by humanity, because in Lemurian days, it was then the first initiation, signifying entrance into complete physical control). It is the organ for the distribution of creative energy, of the energy of the third aspect by souls at the above point of evolution. There are three centres in the human being which are related to and the major expression of the third ray or aspect at certain differing stages of development upon the path:

• The sacral centre for the undeveloped and the average man.
• The throat centre for the aspirant and probationary disciple.
• The ajna centre for disciples and initiates.

Here again you have a great triplicity of energies, containing great potencies today, owing to the fact that the expression of the third aspect of active intelligence has reached such heights through human development and consciousness.

c. It is related to the personality by the creative thread, to the soul by the thread of consciousness, and to the monad by the sutratma or life thread. It is not related to any of the divine aspects by the antahkarana because that thread which links monad and personality directly (and finally independently of the soul) simply anchors the monadic expression of life in the head, at the head centre. Then direct consciousness is established between the monad and the personality, and a great duality comes into being. Life, consciousness and form are then all focussed creatively and actively in the head, and their activity is directed from the head via the two head centres. The ajna centre only comes into creative activity when the antahkarana has been built. In the earlier stages it is the throat centre which is the creative agent, and in the earliest period of all the sacral centre is active. You have, however, one interesting thing to remember. The building of the antahkarana only becomes genuinely possible when the creative life of the aspirant shifts from the sacral centre into the throat and is becoming factual and expressive. Of this connecting "bridge," the neck itself is the symbol, as it relates the head—alone and isolated—to the dual torso, consisting of that which lies above the diaphragm and that which lies below—the symbol of the soul and the personality united, fused and blended into one. The head is the symbol of what Patanjali describes as the state of "isolated unity."

d. It is the centre through which the intelligence aspect of humanity focusses creatively. It is therefore the centre through which the creative energy of that great planetary centre called Humanity flows. The three major planetary centres are Shamballa, Hierarchy and Humanity. When perfection has been achieved, the Shamballa energy of will, power and purpose will pour freely through the head centre, the love-wisdom energies of the Hierarchy will flow through the heart centre, and the energy of humanity will focus through the throat centre, with the ajna centre acting as the agent of all three. Then will take place a new activity on the part of mankind. It is the task of relating the three superhuman kingdoms to the three subhuman kingdoms, and thus establishing the new heavens and the new earth. Then humanity will have reached the summit of its evolutionary goal on this Earth.

e. The throat centre is the organ specifically of the creative WORD. It registers the intention or creative purpose of the soul, transmitted to it by the inflow of energy from the ajna centre; the fusion of the two energies, thus brought about, will lead to some type of creative activity. This is the higher correspondence to the creativity of the sacral centre. In that centre the negative and the positive creative energies are embodied in the separate male and female organisms and are brought into relation in an act of creation, consciously undertaken, though as yet without much definite purpose.

f. The dense physical externalisation of this centre is the thyroid gland. This gland is regarded as of supreme importance in the well-being of the average human being of today. Its purpose is to guard health, to balance the bodily equilibrium in certain important aspects of the physical nature, and it symbolises the third aspect of intelligence and of substance impregnated with mind. It is in reality connected with the Holy Ghost, or the third divine aspect in manifestation, "overshadowing" (as the Bible expresses it), the Mother, the Virgin Mary. The parathyroids are symbolic of Mary and Joseph and the relation they hold to the overshadowing Holy Ghost. It will eventually be determined that there is a close physiological relation existing between the thyroid gland and the pineal gland, and between the parathyroids and the two lobes of the pituitary body, thus bringing into one related system the entire area of the throat and of the head.

g. Just as the head symbolises the essentially dualistic nature of the manifested God, so the throat centre symbolises the triple nature of the divine expression. The dualistic nature appears fused and blended in the head in the relation between the two centres and their two dense physical reflections. The three great energies which are brought into play during the divine creative activity are unified in activity by the full expression of the energy flowing through the throat centre, through the apparatus of speech and the two lungs. You have in this relation: Life or Breath, the Word or the Soul, and the throat centre of Substance in activity.

h. This lotus of the throat is inverted in the early stages of evolution, and its petals reach out towards the shoulders and include the two lungs or parts of them. During the life cycle of the soul, it slowly reverses itself, and its petals then reach out towards the two ears and include the medulla oblongata and the carotid gland. This gland is more closely related to the thyroid gland than it is to the two other glands in the head.

Thus it will be apparent to you how whole areas of the physical organism can be brought into active and correct functioning, can be vitalised and kept in good and true condition by the activity in some form or another of the centre nearest to the area of the body under consideration. It will also be apparent to you that deficiency and disease can result from the inactivity of a centre.

4.  The Heart Centre: This is located between the shoulder blades and is—in this day and age—the centre which is receiving the most attention from Those Who are responsible for the unfoldment of the human consciousness. It might be truly said, brother of mine, that the rapid unfoldment of this lotus is one of the reasons why the world war could not be avoided. In one sense, it was a necessary happening (given the blind selfishness of the bulk of humanity) because it had become necessary to do away with all the old forms of government, of religion and of the crystallised social order. Humanity has now reached a point of group awareness and of group interplay of a deeply spiritual kind, and new forms were required through which this new spirit could function more adequately.

a. The heart centre corresponds to the "heart of the Sun," and therefore to the spiritual source of light and love.

b. It is brought into functioning activity after the second initiation. That initiation marks the completion of the process whereby the emotional nature (with its outstanding quality of desire) is brought under soul control, and the desire of the personal lower self has been transmuted into love. It is the organ for the distribution of hierarchical energy, poured out via the soul into the heart centre of all aspirants, disciples and initiates; in this way this energy is made available and brings about two results:

1. The regeneration of humanity through love.

2. The relationship, firmly established, between a rapidly developing humanity and the Hierarchy. In this way two great planetary centres—the Hierarchy and Humanity—are brought into a close contact and relationship.

As the Bible says: "the love of God is shed abroad" in the human heart, and its transforming, magnetic and radiatory power is essential for the reconstruction of the world and for the establishment of the new world order. Upon the unfoldment of the heart centre, and on an intelligent relation of mankind to the Hierarchy, with the consequent response of man to the energy of love, all disciples are asked at this time to ponder and reflect, for as a "man thinketh in his heart, so is he." Thinking in the heart becomes truly possible only when the mental faculties have been adequately developed and have reached a fairly high stage of unfoldment. Feeling in the heart is often confused with thinking. The ability to think in the heart is the result of the process of transmuting desire into love during the task of elevating the forces of the solar plexus into the heart centre. Heart thinking is also one of the indications that the higher aspect of the heart centre, the twelve-petalled lotus found at the very centre of the thousand-petalled lotus, has reached a point of real activity. Thinking as a result of correct feeling is then substituted for personal sensitivity. It gives us the first faint indications, likewise, of that state of being which is characteristic of the monad and which cannot be called consciousness—as we understand the term.

c. The heart centre becomes essentially related to the personality when the process of alignment with the soul is being mastered. This process is today being taught in all the newer and sounder esoteric schools, and has been emphasised in The Arcane School from the start; it is that procedure (distinguished by right orientation, concentration and meditation) which relates the personality to the soul, and thus to the Hierarchy. Relationship to the Hierarchy automatically takes place as this alignment goes forward and direct soul contact is thereby established. Personality consciousness is superseded by group consciousness, and the inflow of hierarchical energy follows as a natural consequence, for all souls are only aspects of the Hierarchy. It is this established relationship, with its subsequent interplay (magnetic and radiatory), which brings about the final destruction of the soul body or causal body as the relationship reaches its highest point of intensified recognition.

d. It is that centre, therefore, in the physical body through the medium of which the Hierarchy works; it is also the agent of the soul. When I here use the word "soul" I refer not only to the individual soul of man but to the soul also of the planetary Logos, both of which are the result of the union of spirit and matter, of the Father aspect and the Mother aspect. This is a great mystery which only initiation can reveal.

e. The heart centre registers the energy of love. It might here be stated that when the antahkarana has been finally constructed, the three aspects of the Spiritual Triad will each find a point of contact within the etheric mechanism of the initiate who is functioning upon the physical plane. The initiate is now a fusion of soul and personality through which the full life of the monad can be poured.

1. The head centre becomes the point of contact for the spiritual will, Atma.
2. The heart centre becomes the agent for spiritual love, Buddhi.
3. The throat centre becomes the expression of the universal mind, Manas.

In the work of the initiate, as he works out the divine purpose according to the plan, the ajna centre becomes the directing agent or the distributor of the blended energies of the divine man. The heart centre corresponds to "solar fire" within the solar system, and is magnetic in quality and radiatory in activity. It is the organ of the energy which brings about inclusiveness.

f. Its dense physical externalisation is the thymus gland. Of this gland little is known at present, though much will be learned as investigators accept and experiment with the hypotheses which the occult sciences present, and as the heart centre develops and the thymus gland is returned to adult functioning activity. This is not as yet the case. The nature of its secretion is not yet established, and the effects of this gland are better known from their psychological angle than from the physical. Modern psychology, when allied to medicine, recognises that this gland when overactive will produce the irresponsible and amoral person. As the race of men learns the nature of responsibility we shall have the first indications of soul alignment, of personality decentralisation and of group awareness, and then—paralleling this development—we shall find the thymus gland becoming correctly active.

At present, the general imbalance of the endocrine system militates against the safe and full functioning of the thymus gland in the adult. There is as yet an unrecognised relation existing between the pineal gland and the thymus gland, as well as between both of these and the centre at the base of the spine. As the Spiritual Triad becomes active through the medium of the personality, these three centres and their three externalisations will work in synthesis, governing and directing the whole man. As the pineal gland is returned to full adult functioning (as is not the case with adult man) the divine will-to-good will make itself felt and divine purpose be achieved; when the thymus gland similarly becomes active in the adult, goodwill will become apparent and the divine plan will begin to work out. This is the first step towards love, right human relations and peace. This goodwill is already making its presence felt in the world today, indicating the coming into activity of the heart centre, and proving that the heart centre in the head is beginning to unfold as a result of the growing activity of the heart centre up the spine.

g. It is the organ of fusion, just as the head centre is the organ of synthesis. As the heart centre becomes active, the individual aspirant is slowly drawn into an increasingly closer relation to his soul, and then two expansions of consciousness take place which are interpreted by him as events or happenings:

1. He is drawn into the Ashram of one of the Masters, according to his soul ray, and becomes an accepted disciple in the technical sense. The Master is Himself the heart centre of the Ashram and He can now reach His disciple, via the soul, because that disciple, through alignment and contact, has put his heart into close rapport with the soul. He then becomes responsive to the heart of all things which, as far as humanity is at present concerned, is the Hierarchy.

2. He is drawn into close service relationship with humanity. His growing sense of responsibility, due to heart activity, leads him to serve and work. Eventually he too becomes the heart of a group or of an organisation—small at first but becoming worldwide as his spiritual power develops and he thinks in terms of the group and of humanity. These two relationships on his part are reciprocal. Thus the love aspect of divinity becomes active in the three worlds, and love is anchored on earth and takes the place of emotion, of desire and of the material aspects of feeling. Note that phrase.

h. In the early stages of unfoldment, of both the individual and the race, the inverted heart lotus with its twelve petals reaches downwards towards the solar plexus centre. This last centre, since Atlantean days, has been reversed, and its petals are now reaching upwards towards the next centre up the spine, the heart centre, owing to the slowly mounting energies from the solar plexus centre which are seeking to escape from the "prison of the lower regions" through a process of transmutation.

As a result the heart centre is beginning slowly to unfold and also to reverse itself. The reversal of the "lotus centres" is always brought about as the result of a dual action—the pushing from below and the pull from above.

The reversal of the heart lotus and its upward unfolding is due to the following factors: 

• The growing potency of the hierarchical approach.
• A rapidly establishing soul contact.
• The response of the unfolding heart lotus to the pull of the Master's Ashram.
• The surging upwards of the transmuted energies from below the diaphragm, via the solar plexus, in response to spiritual will.
• The growing understanding by man as to the nature of love.

There are other factors but these are the ones you will most easily understand if you will regard them as symbolic and not too literally. Eventually, at the close of the next root race, you will have the full expression of love and the lotuses up the spine will appear—all five of them—differing only in the number of petals found in each. Finally at the close of the great world cycle when all the lotuses have reversed themselves, all will be opening and presenting free channels for the inflow and the transmission of the three major divine energies and the four lesser forces.

To this constant movement of the centres and to the constant inflow of energies we can trace much of the discomfort of humanity in its various bodies; it is the inability of the centres to respond or to unfold which in many cases produces disease and difficulty; it is the unbalanced unfoldment of the centres, their arrested development and their lack of response which creates problems in other cases; it is their premature unfoldment and their overactivity which in other cases brings about danger; it is the failure of the physical mechanism to measure up to the inner unfoldment which causes so much trouble. Thus again you can see the complexity of the subject. The stage of theory is a simple one, except in so far as it sets forces in motion which eventually lead to difficulty. The stage of reaction to response and of adjustment to the theory also institutes a cycle of intense difficulty and complexity, because it leads to a cycle of experiment and experience during which the disciple learns much and suffers much. Then as experience is gained, the stage of spiritual expression supervenes and freedom from danger and emancipation from difficulty and liberation from disease takes place. Simplicity is restored.

The Body, Phenomenal Appearance

Not much need be written here anent this, for the body nature and the form aspect have been the object of investigation and the subject of thought and discussion of thinking men for many centuries. Much at which they have arrived is basically correct. The modern investigator will admit the Law of Analogy as the basis of his premises and recognises, sometimes, that the Hermetic theory, "As above, so below," may throw much light on the present problems. The following postulates may serve to clarify:

1. Man, in his body nature, is a sumtotal, a unity.

2. This sumtotal is subdivided into many parts and organisms.

3. Yet these many subdivisions function in a unified manner, and the body is a correlated whole.

4. Each of its parts differs in form and in function, but all are interdependent.

5. Each part and each organism is, in its turn, composed of molecules, cells and atoms, and these are held together in the form of the organism by the life of the sumtotal.

6. The sumtotal called man is roughly divided into five parts, some of greater importance than others,

        but all completing that living organism we call a human being:

a. The head

b. The upper torso, or that part which lies above the diaphragm.

c. The lower torso, or that part lying below the diaphragm.

d. The arms

e. The legs

7. These organisms serve varied purposes, and upon their due functioning and proper adjustment the comfort of the whole depends.

8. Each of these has its own life, which is the sum total of the life of its atomic structure, and is also animated by the unified life of the whole, directed from the head by the intelligent will or energy of the spiritual man.

9. The important part of the body is that triple division, the head, upper and lower torso. A man can function and live without his arms and legs.

10. Each of these three parts is also triple from the physical side, making the analogy of the three parts of man's nature and the nine of perfected monadic life. There are other organs, but those enumerated are those which have an esoteric significance of greater value than the other parts:

a. Within the head are:

1. The five ventricles of the brain, or what we might call the brain as a unified organism.
2. The three glands, carotid, pineal and pituitary.
3. The two eyes.

b. Within the upper body are:

1. The throat
2. The lungs
3. The heart

c. Within the lower body are:                                d. The sumtotal of the body is also triple:

1. The spleen                                                1.  The skin and bony structure.
2. The stomach                                                2.  The vascular or blood system.
3. The sex organs                                        3.  The threefold nervous system.

11. Each of these triplicities corresponds to the three parts of man's nature: 

1. Physical nature: The skin and bony structure are the analogy to the dense and etheric body of man.
2. Soul nature: The blood vessels and circulatory system are the analogy to that all pervading soul which penetrates to all parts of the solar system, as the blood goes to all parts of the body.
3. Spirit nature: The nervous system, as it energises and acts throughout the physical man is the correspondence to the energy of spirit.

12.    In the head we have the analogy to the spirit aspect, the directing will, the monad, the One:

1. The brain with its five ventricles is the analogy to the physical form which the spirit animates in connection with man, the fivefold sumtotal which is the medium through which the spirit on the physical plane has to express itself.

2. The three glands in the head are closely related to the soul or psychic nature (higher and lower).
3. The two eyes are the physical plane correspondences to the monad, who is will and love-wisdom, or atma-buddhi, according to the occult terminology.

14. In the upper body we have an analogy to the triple soul nature:

1. The throat, corresponding to the third creative aspect or the body nature, the active intelligence of the soul.

2. The heart, the love-wisdom of the soul, the buddhi or Christ principle.
3. The lungs, the analogy for the breath of life, is the correspondence to spirit.

15. In the lower torso again we have this triple system carried out.

1. The sex organs, the creative aspect, the fashioner of the body.
2. The stomach as the physical manifestation of the solar plexus is the analogy to the soul nature.
3. The spleen, the receiver of energy and therefore the physical plane expression of the centre which receives this energy, is the analogy to the energizing spirit.

It might be asked: Why should it be necessary to be so meticulous in enumerating the physical, psychological and systemic details of a purely academic nature when, by an act of the will and of divine power, and by the use of certain Words of Power, healing can be accomplished? These ideas are basically true, but are based upon a misapprehension—in time and space. If all healers were Masters of the Wisdom, if they were all clairvoyant, if they comprehended the Law of Karma and its working out in the life of the patient, if they had the full cooperation of the patient, and if they had the ability to add to all the above requirements the use of certain Words and Mantrams, then the academic knowledge would indeed be needless. But these requirements are not and can not be met. Healers, as a rule, have none of these powers. That they frequently heal (though not as often as they think they do) is true, but when successful they have succeeded in doing one or other of the following:

Healed the patient when his destiny and fate so willed it and his soul had therefore drawn its vehicle (the physical man) into the radiatory aura of a healer or a healing group. The probability is that the patient would have recovered in any case but that the process was hastened by the applied effort and attention, plus faith.

Interfered with the immediate design or pattern of the patient's life, and so postponed certain processes of spiritual tuition which were needed. This is very apt to be forgotten. It is too intricate a subject to be dealt with here, but I may be able to make it somewhat clearer as we deal with our final section.

Therefore (until there is full knowledge) it is vitally necessary that the structure of power and vitality and the network of energies and forces which compose the human organism should be studied.

A mental grasp of the processes of healing is needed; and the reasons which make them seem difficult and complicated, unnecessary and wasteful of time, are as follows:

The inability of even the most advanced human mind to grasp themes and subjects as a whole. The synthetic element is as yet lacking. At present, the teaching and processes involved must be mastered step by step, detail by detail, precept by precept, application by application. But the future holds the promise clear, and the ability of the human eye to function synthetically, to grasp a landscape, for instance, in its broad and salient outlines and to do this simultaneously and in a flash of vision is the guarantee of the future technique of the race. One look by the illumined mind, one great radiation of love, and the healer or the healing group will know whether to heal, to aid the effort of the patient—a much slower process—or to refrain from healing.

The inertia of the average man or woman, which rebels against the effort needed to master the technical side of healing. It is so much easier to fall back on divinity (a divinity in reality latent but not expressive) and "let God do it." It is so much easier to recognise love and the outpouring of love than to master the processes whereby it can be made effective—or the nature of that which must be affected.

These are points requiring careful attention and consideration. They merit reflection. The synthetic power of the mind, aided by true love, will some day be the instrument of all true healers. In the meantime, for the sake of the future and in order to aid the formulation of the coming healing art— based on the understanding of energy, its inflow and circulation—this treatise will deal somewhat with the academic side. After all, the facts given are facts in existence and are truly present, as are those emotions which the average healer calls love.

The Seven Major Centres—(Continued)

Let us now continue with our consideration of the centres. We have dealt with the four above the diaphragm—the three centres through which the Spiritual Triad must eventually work, and the synthetic centre, the ajna centre, which finally expresses the integrated personality and becomes the direct agent of the soul. We now have three more centres to consider, all of them to be found below the diaphragm—the solar plexus centre, the sacral centre, and the centre at the base of the spine. The most important for all aspirants at this time is the solar plexus centre; the most active—generally speaking— in humanity as a whole, is still the sacral centre; the most quiescent centre in the body (from the angle of the spiritual man) is the basic centre.

5. The Solar Plexus Centre: This is located well below the shoulder blades in the spine and is exceedingly active. In Atlantean days, it was brought to a high stage of development, just as in Aryan days, the throat centre is being rapidly awakened. This centre is peculiarly related to two other centres: The heart and the ajna centre, and they form at this time an interesting triangle of energies in the human body and one which is receiving much attention from the Hierarchy. There is a downflow of energy from the ajna centre to the heart from the soul, just in so far as the aspirant is in touch with his soul. This leads to three things: 

1. A stimulation of the heart centre.

2. A responsive reaction from the heart which evokes a stimulation of the ajna centre and produces eventually the recognition of group consciousness by the personality.

3. The evocation of the heart centre in the head.

All of this, however, is facilitated by the advanced development of the solar plexus in the aspirant, which has its own effect upon the heart and a reciprocal effect upon the ajna centre.

There are, consequently, two important triangles to consider:

a. The solar plexus is a reflection in the personality of the "heart of the sun," just as the heart centre is. It is the central factor in the life of the personality for all humanity below the grade of probationary disciple. At that point the mind definitely begins to function, however faintly. It is the outlet—if such a word can be used—of the astral body into the outer world, and the instrument through which emotional energy flows. It is the organ of desire. It is of supreme importance in the life of the average man, and its control is a vital goal for the aspirant. He must transmute desire into aspiration.

b. The solar plexus came into full functioning in Atlantean times, during the period wherein the second great human race was developing. These lower centres are not so specifically related to initiations as are the centres above the diaphragm, for they are personality centres and have to be under the full control of the soul when initiations of a certain degree are taken.

c. The solar plexus centre is the great clearing-house for all energies below the diaphragm. This refers to the three major centres and the minor centres which were enumerated on page 72. The relation of this centre to the astral plane is (to use a peculiar but most expressive word) acute. It is the recipient of all emotional reactions and of desire impulses and energies and, because humanity is today becoming active in a group sense and is more inclusive than ever before in human history, the situation is one of acute and extreme difficulty.

Mankind, through the individual and also through the collective solar plexus, is being subjected to almost unendurable pressure. Such are the tests of initiation! It is not my intention to deal here with the processes of attracting the lower energies, the mode of centralising them in the solar plexus, and there transmuting them and refining them to the point where transference into the heart centre becomes possible. Much of this is connected with the training given to accepted disciples, prior to the second initiation. It would be too intricate a matter to discuss, as well as carrying with it certain peculiar dangers for those not ready for the process; it is, however, one that—under living effort—goes forward almost automatically. The solar plexus is thus the most separative of all the centres (except the ajna centre, in the case of the man on the left-hand path) because it stands at the midway point, between the throat and the heart centres—above the diaphragm—and the sacral and basic centres—below the diaphragm. This is a consideration of major importance.

d. The solar plexus is the centre in the etheric vehicle through which humanity (average, unenlightened humanity) lives and moves and has its being. Humanity is conditioned by desire—good desire, selfish desire, wrong desire, and spiritual desire. It is the centre through which most of the energies flow which make a man progressive because he is ambitious, selfish because his personal desires are of importance, and fluidic because astrally polarised. Through it the "bright light generated in Atlantis" is poured, and the astral light is contacted. It is therefore the centre through which most mediums work and clairvoyants function.

Later, these people will learn to work as intermediaries, consciously and intelligently using their powers; they will possess clear perception, and this will supersede clairvoyance. They will then be polarised in the ajna centre. It is consequently a most disturbing centre in the body, and is a basic cause of the majority of stomach complaints and troubles connected with the liver. The entire area immediately below the diaphragm is in a constant state of turmoil, where average man is concerned; this is due to individual and collective causes.

It is interesting to note here that just as the ajna centre (the synthesis of the personality forces, when highly developed) is a great directing and distributing agent, so the solar plexus centre (the synthesis of the average developed personality energies, prior to the process of integration) is a centre for collection, for a gathering-in of all the lower energies, and is finally a focal point for the direction and distribution of these collected energies—remitting them to their receptive higher centres:

1. The energies of the solar plexus centre itself have to be directed to the heart centre.

2. The energies of the sacral centre have to be transmitted to the throat centre.

3. The energies of the centre at the base of the spine have to be transferred to the head centre. After the third initiation, these basic energies are raised, controlled or distributed by an act of the will of the Spiritual Triad. Then "the light generated in Lemuria" (the sacral light) and "the light generated in Atlantis" (solar plexus light) will die out, and those two centres will simply be recipients of spiritual energies from on high; they will possess no direct, inherent light of their own; the light which they will transmit will come to them from collective sources on etheric planes.

The dense physical externalisation of this centre is the pancreas, with a secondary externalisation in the stomach. There is, in relation to the solar plexus centre, a curious relation which is symbolic both in form and in implication.  

Here again appears the theme of a centre of spiritual force (for astral force is spiritual in essence) and its three manifestations. All these three dense materialisations are fed and nurtured by the forces and energies of the solar plexus centre. I have here given a very important fact to those who are interested in the study of medicine from the esoteric angle; rightly appreciated, it will lead to an understanding of the healing art. Control of the solar plexus centre, and the right reception and release of the energies focussed in that centre would bring about a major purification, an intensive strengthening and a vital protection of the three vital organs to be found in that area of the human physical mechanism.

As I have earlier pointed out, this centre is an organ of synthesis and gathers into itself all the lower energies at a certain point in the higher development of the human being. It is factually then an instrument (when rightly understood and rightly directed) for aiding in the integration of the personality life. The major problem of the man who is highly developed but not yet spiritually inclined is that of desire. What are his goals? To what are his aims directed? What is the nature of his realised ambitions? To what does he aspire? According to the nature of the forces and the energies which his thought life brings to bear upon the solar plexus centre, so will be his decision to move forward along the path of light, to remain statically self-centred, or to take the lower way which leads to the blotting out of the soul light.

As we have seen, the petals of the solar plexus centre are reaching upwards towards the heart centre. This, in reality, means that emotional energy, desire and ambition (in the race of men as a whole) are striving upwards towards the higher way.

It should be noted here that the transference of solar plexus energy per se is the task of all aspirants to the Path of Discipleship at this particular time, plus the gradual awakening of the heart centre. The first members of the human family to become group conscious are naturally the aspirants and the disciples, and these set the pace for the rest of humanity. This they achieve through the pressure of life itself and of circumstances, and not by the following of set rules or specific meditations. Later, prior to a certain major initiation, such rules and measures may be applied so as to give the initiate immediate and conscious control over the astral body and its focal point of entry into the physical organism, the solar plexus centre, and again at the time that certain major transferences are consciously made.

Of these transferences there are three of primary importance:

1. From the three centres below the diaphragm into the heart, throat and ajna centres.

2. From the two centres above the diaphragm—the heart and throat centres—into the ajna centre and the thousand-petalled lotus of the head.

3. From the ajna centre into the head centre, signifying the complete unification of all the energies throughout the entire etheric body into one central focal point of distribution—under direct control of the Spiritual Triad.

The processes involved in these three great experiences (each preceded by much testing and experiment) naturally put a strain upon the physical body and are the cause of many of the ills to which disciples fall heir.

It will be obvious to you, for instance, that the transference of all the accumulated energies in the solar plexus centre into the heart centre will cause difficulty, very frequently of a serious nature; this is the reason why today so many advanced people die of heart disease. In the long cycle of the soul life and experience, this is of relatively small moment; in the short cycle of the individual disciple's life it is of great difficulty and oft of tragedy. Similarly, the transference of the energies of the five centres up the spine into the head centres will carry with it its own problems. The stimulation of the ajna centre by the focussing of these energies may lead to disastrous psychological problems. A man may become an ego-maniac temporarily (all is temporary in the long life of the soul) and become such a human monster as Hitler and others of his ilk, though in lesser degree; there may be also violent conditions of epilepsy, or the eyesight may be affected and a man may become blind. All these points warrant careful thought.

6. The Sacral Centre: This centre is located in the lower part of the lumbar area and is a very powerful centre, controlling as it does the sex life. One of the interesting things about this centre is that it must always remain a powerful centre until two-thirds of mankind have taken initiation, for the generative processes must go on and remain active in order to provide bodies for incoming souls. But as the race progresses, this centre will be controlled and its activities will be carried forward intelligently and as the result of knowledge, of insight and of higher and subtler contacts, and not as the result of unlimited and uncontrolled desire, as is now the case. I cannot enlarge further upon this matter as the theme is too big. I can, however, bring to your attention what I have already written, and suggest that someone with the interest and the time should collect all I have said in all my books anent the subject of sex so that a pamphlet on the subject may be compiled.

a. The sacral centre corresponds to the physical sun, the source of vitality, and the life-giving agent on

    our planet.

b. The symbolism of the sacral centre is concerned primarily with the gestation period prior to birth, and in its right understanding can be traced and expanded the whole story of conception, of form-building, and this whether it is the physical form of a human being, the form of an idea, an organisation built around a central truth, the form of a planet or of a solar system. It is perhaps above everything else else the centre through which the forces of Impersonality must eventually express themselves, and the whole problem of dualism must be resolved. This solution and interpretation of the symbol must come from the realm of the mind, thereby controlling the physical reaction and occupying itself with purposes and not with desire. Ponder on this. When it is thus understood, then we shall be reaching the point where a great transference can take place into the higher centre of creation, the throat centre.

c. The sacral centre is therefore closely related to matter, and there is a flow of energy between three

     points in the lower part of the human body:

1. The spleen, the organ of prana or of physical vitality coming from the sun.
2. The sacral centre, the predisposing agent towards physical generation.
3. The centre at the base of the spine which (until the will aspect is aroused in man) feeds the life-giving principle, the will-to-live, to all parts of the human frame.

These create a great triangle of force, concerned with matter, with substance, form-building, creation, vitality and persistence in form. This triangle is a reflection of a much higher one, composed of:

1. The throat centre, corresponding to the sacral centre.
2. The pituitary body, corresponding to the splenic centre.
3. The pineal gland, corresponding to the basic centre.

In the relation of these two triangles lies the clue to the instinct of self-preservation, the survival of the subtle bodies after death, and the principle of immortality which is seated in the soul and functions when self-preservation and survival no longer hold sway. This constitutes a triplicity of ideas which requires most careful study and which—if I might so express it—gives the key to the spiritualistic movement.

d. The sacral centre is also connected with the ajna centre in the last analysis; the two together create a functioning duality which is productive of that subtle quality which we call personality. There is a wide field for investigation in the theme of personality as an integrated whole and in the quality of personality, which is the aroma, the influence, the effect and the radiation of a personality. I throw out these ideas to students, hoping that some research may follow which will relate this subject of the centres to the recognised facts of coordination, integration and their effects in producing greatness.

For those of you who are students of The Secret Doctrine, there is much to be unfolded anent the relation of the "lunar Lords," the Barhishad Pitris, to the solar Lord or Angel. The field of work of the former is the sacral centre, par excellence; that of the solar Angel is the throat centre.

e. The sacral centre registers the energy of the third aspect of divinity, just as the solar plexus centre registers that of the second aspect and the basic centre expresses the energy of the first aspect. Here again you have the lower centres reflecting the throat, heart and head centres and thus completing the higher and the lower manifestation of the divine Trinity in man. This centre was brought into full functioning activity in old Lemuria, the first human race; its energy is that of the Holy Spirit, overshadowing virgin substance. Here again we find also another divine reflection in the following image: (left)

Eventually, in the Divine Hermaphrodite (later to appear) you will have another combination.

( right)

Again you will note, my brother, how the Science of Triangles governs the human frame in all its aspects, as well as the frame of a solar system. This is to be expected.

f. The dense physical externalisation of this centre is to be found in the gonads, the human organs of generation—viewing them as a basic unity, though temporarily separated in the present dualistic expression of the human being. It must be remembered that this separation fosters a powerful impulse towards fusion, and this urge to blend we call sex. Sex is, in reality, the instinct towards unity: first of all, a physical unity. It is the innate (though much understood) principle of mysticism, which is the name we give to the urge to union with the divine.

Like all else that undeveloped man has touched, we have perverted and distorted a divine idea and prostituted an immaterial urge to material desire. We have reversed the direction of the sacral energy, hence the over-developed animal nature and functions of average humanity.

There is also little that I can say anent the centre at the base of the spine. Before, however, I take up whatever information is fruitful or possible, I would like to point out that the diagram on page 162 portrays the point in evolution of a disciple and not of an advanced initiate. It is not a description either of the everyday, average human being. This is indicated by the fact that the reflection of the heart centre in the head is turning upwards in response to an increased activity of the heart centre itself, and that the definition of the ajna centre is clear and exact, demonstrating an integrated, coordinated personality. This is not therefore the diagram of the centres of the ordinary or undeveloped person. It is impossible for such diagrams to do more than give some point of consummation, but it should be remembered that these points of consummation are not static attainments but are each of them preceded by phases and stages of activity which produce constantly changing results and varying aspects of the centres; these, in their turn, are succeeded by other cycles of movement, of change and of a renewed release of energies. The effects of the deep underlying causes themselves become causes, for in the cycle of manifestation there is nothing static or fixed or finally determined. This is a point of extreme importance. Be not therefore misled by apparent moments of achievement. They are but prefaces to change, for such is the Law of Being.

7. The Centre at the Base of the Spine: This centre is, above everything else, controlled and governed by the Law of Being, above referred to, and is established where spirit and matter meet and where matter, the Virgin Mary—under the influence of the Holy Spirit, time energy of the etheric vehicle—is translated "into Heaven," there (as the Christian phraseology puts it) "to be seated beside her Son in the house of the Father."

This centre is found at the very base of the spine, and supports all the other centres. It is relatively quiescent at this time, for it is only roused into full activity by an act of the will, directed and controlled by the initiate. It is responsive only to the will aspect, and the will-to-be in incarnation is the factor which at present controls its life and produces its effects as it feeds and directs the life principle in matter and form. Just as we are told that the life principle is "seated in the heart," so the will-to-be is seated in the base of the spine. There has been much idle and dangerous talk anent this centre, and the whole subject of the "kundalini fire" has proved an exciting and enticing tale by the pseudo-occultists of the world. The true occultist in training has naught to do with the kundalini fire—as usually understood. It is not possible for me to do more than make certain facts somewhat clearer to you, and yet at the same time I must refrain from indicating modes and methods of arousing the activity of this centre, on account of the extreme danger involved in any premature work on the basic centre. The best I can do is to make a series of statements which will be comprehended in the right way by those who know (and these are as yet few and far between), which will aid the thinking of those who are in training and give them a somewhat more complete picture, but which will protect the ignorant from disaster. I shall make these statements as clearly and briefly as possible, but shall give practically no explanatory matter with them.

1. This basic centre is the point where, under the evolutionary law, spirit and matter meet, and life is related to form.

2. It is therefore the centre where the essential dualism of the manifested divinity—man or planetary Logos—meet and produce form. 

3. The nature of this divinity is only revealed when the second aspect has accomplished its work, through the medium of the third aspect, but under the directing will of the first aspect.

4. It is the centre where the "serpent of God" undergoes two transformations:

a. The serpent of matter lies coiled.

b. This serpent is transformed into the serpent of wisdom.

c. The serpent of wisdom is translated and becomes the "dragon of living light."

5. These three stages are nurtured by the life and energy pouring down through the entire length of the spinal column, via the etheric correspondence of the spinal cord, and—in time and space—this downpouring (plus the simultaneously uprising life) produces:

a. The awakening in a gradual and orderly manner of the centres, according to ray type.

b. The reversal of the centres so that the consciousness of the indwelling man is

       adequate to his environment.

c. The synthesis of the life energies of all the centres, and adequacy to the demands of

       the initiate and the service of the Hierarchy and of Humanity.

6. The spinal column (from the angle of the esoteric sciences) houses a threefold thread. This is the externalisation of the antahkarana, composed of the antahkarana proper, the sutratma or life thread, and the creative thread. This threefold thread within the spinal column is therefore composed of three threads of energy which have channeled for themselves in the substance of the interior of the column a "threefold way of approach and of withdrawal." These are called in the Hindu terminology: the ida, the pingala and the sushumna paths, and they together form the path of life for the individual man and are awakened into activity sequentially and according to ray type and the point of evolution. The sushumna path is not used correctly and safely until the antahkarana has been built and the Monad and Personality are thereby related, even if it is only by the most tenuous thread. Then the Monad, the Father, the will aspect, can reach the personality in a direct manner, and can arouse the basic centre, and with it blend, unify and raise the three fires.

7. One of these paths is the one along which the energy which feeds matter is poured. Another is related to the path of consciousness and of sensitive psychic unfoldment. The third is the path of pure spirit. Thus in every living form the work of the Father, of the Mother and of the Son is carried on. Life-consciousness-form and life-quality-appearance are blended, and the response apparatus of the divine man is perfected, enabling him to contact and recognise the major divine aspects in the kingdoms in nature, in the planet and in the solar system—eventually. 

Be not betrayed into placing these interlaced spheres of living energy on the right or the left of the spinal cord. Constantly a movement, an interplay and a reversal is going on. I can but portray the nature of a symbol which will indicate the special path of the three energies of the divine Trinity. I indicate not a fact in location or place, for it is this materialising and localising of the main concept which has produced so much danger. The initiate-student seeks to grasp the relation of the three basic energies, the three paths of living fire, their relation and inter-relation and their sequential polarisation. He seeks not to narrow the teaching down to points and lines and place until such time when these terms mean little to him and he knows more.

8. These three paths of life are the channels for electric fire, solar fire and fire by friction, and are related in their usage to the three stages of the path of evolution: the path of evolution in the material, earlier stages; the Path of Probation, and the early stages of the Path of Discipleship until the third initiation; and the Path of Initiation itself.

9. The Kundalini Fire, about which so much is taught and written in the East, and increasingly in the West, is in reality the union of these three fires, which are focussed by an act of the enlightened will, under the impulse of love, in the basic centre. This unified fire is then raised by the use of a Word of Power (sent forth by the will of the Monad) and by the united authority of the soul and personality, integrated and alive. The human being who can do this in full consciousness is therefore an initiate who has left the third initiation behind him. He, and he alone, can safely raise this triple fire from the base of the spine to the head centre.
10. As usually interpreted by the ignorant esotericist in the various occult groups, the kundalini fire is something which must be "raised," and when it is raised all the centres will then come into functioning activity and the channels up and down the spine will be cleared of all obstruction. This is a dangerous generalisation and a reversal of the facts. The kundalini fire will be raised and carried up into heaven when all the centres are awakened and the channels up the spine are unimpeded. This removal of all obstruction is the result of the livingness of the individual centres which, through the potency of their life, themselves are effective in destroying all hindrances and obstructions. They can "burn up" all that hinders their radiation. What usually happens in those accidental cases (which do so much harm) is that the aspirant, through his ignorant curiosity and by an effort of the mind (not of the spiritual will, but purely as an expression of personality will), succeeds in arousing the lowest of the three fires, the fire of matter, fire by friction; this produces a premature burning and destroys the etheric web in the etheric body. These circular disks or webs are to be found between each pair of the centres up the spine and also in the head. They are normally dissipated as purity of life, the discipline of the emotions, and the development of the spiritual will are carried forward.

There are four of these webs. When the fourfold personality is highly developed and the ajna centre is awakening, then these webs slowly and gradually, normally and automatically disappear. The webs in the head are of much higher quality and bisect the skull horizontally and vertically. Thus they symbolise the Cross upon which a Son of God is crucified.

11. The three channels up the spine are responsive in their totality to the three major centres:

1. To the solar plexus centre, providing thus the impulse of desire and feeding the physical life and the creative urge.

2. To the heart centre, providing the impulse to love and to conscious contact with ever widening areas of divine expression.

3. To the head centre, providing the dynamic impulse of the will to live.

I do not indicate which channel is responsive to which centre, except in the case of the sushumna channel which is responsive only to the energy of the head centre and the directing will, centred in the 1000-petalled lotus. This can be safely stated, as the spiritual will is as yet undeveloped in those who seek to arouse kundalini. When it is aroused, they will know what they can safely do.

12. The three centres in the head are also related to this triple channel:

1. The medulla oblongata area (the alta major centre) and the carotid gland.
2. The ajna centre and the pituitary body.
3. The 1000-petalled lotus and the pineal gland.

Students will find it interesting to relate all these triplicities to the three major rays:

1. The first ray of will or power

2. The second ray of love-wisdom

3. The third ray of active intelligence

Also to the three human races which are endowed with the power to unfold the seed of these divine aspects: Lemuria, Atlantis and the Aryan race. These can be linked, as seed, to the two final races which will fuse and synthesise all the above powers, qualities, achievements and goals into one perfected planetary life. These groups and triplicities are all related in time and space to the triple spinal cord.

Another synthesis is also possible and of importance:

a. Path of Evolution -------------------centres below the diaphragm.

b. Path of Discipleship ----------------centres above the diaphragm.

c. Path of Initiation --------------------centres in the head. 

13. There is also—again in relation to all the above points of synthesis in the body—one consummating point of complete fusion. I give each of these in the sequence of their work of fusion:

1. The solar plexus centre, fusing the centres below the diaphragm.

2. The ajna centre, fusing centres both above and below the diaphragm.

3. The base of the spine, fusing all six centres.

4. The thousand-petalled lotus of the head, fusing all the seven energies.

Bear in mind, in connection with all the above, that we are dealing entirely with forces and energies, functioning through the etheric body; that we are dealing with the tertiary world of causes, which is responsible for the organic world of the dense physical manifestation. This physical manifestation is itself subject to the influence of the secondary world of conscious life, which in its turn is responsive in time and space to the dynamic world of purpose and of Being. The key to the full life of the soul lies hidden in my words, but it takes the dedicated life and the illumined mind to profit by the knowledge conveyed, and to see behind the form of words the key thought which gives it life and—occultly speaking—generative warmth. Have clearly in mind the concepts of stimulation or lack of stimulation, of interplay or of separativeness, of quiescence or of activity, for in these dualities are to be found the causes of health or of disease.

The Etheric Body, Nervous and Endocrine Systems

What I have to say here is based upon certain remarks in the previous pages wherein I pointed out that the etheric body itself, the nervous system and the endocrine system are closely "related to each other and constitute an interlocking directorate of energies and forces which are essentially vital, galvanic, dynamic and creative. Upon them, the entire interior health of the body depends." 

To these three I then added the blood stream as the conveyor throughout the body of:

1. The Life Principle.

2. The combined energies of the three above systems.

I pointed out that the great combination of forces which we call the pairs of opposites or the major dualities, govern the underlying causes of health and disease. In making these statements, I am endeavouring to reduce our entire theme to one of the utmost simplicity. In so doing, some of the truth is lost, but it is essential that certain broad generalisations are grasped by the student before he begins to study the exceptions and to deal with minutiae and the detail of bodily defects or their opposites.

It has become a truism with students of the occult that the etheric body conditions, controls and determines the life expression of the incarnated individual. It is a secondary truism that this etheric body is the conveyor of the forces of the personality, through the medium of the centres, and thereby galvanises the physical body into activity. These forces, routed through the centres, are those of the integrated personality as a whole, or are simply the forces of the astral or emotional body and the mind body; they also transmit the force of the personality ray or the energy of the soul ray, according to the point in evolution reached by the man.

The physical body, therefore, is not a principle. It is conditioned and does not condition—a point oft forgotten. It is a victim of personality life or the triumphant expression of soul energy. It is for this reason that the science of psychology will, during the next two centuries, dominate modern medical science, except in the category of those diseases with which we will deal in our next section—those emanating from group life, such as tuberculosis, venereal diseases and cancer. Until the race is more definitely group conscious (something as yet far distant) it will not be possible to apply broad psychological generalisations to the diseases indigenous to our planet. We can, however, consider the handling of similar difficulties which arise in the individual unit; these are based on the conflict of the pairs of opposites and upon the lack of harmony to be found in the three major interlocking, directing systems.

You have, therefore, three systems to carry in your minds, and one carrier or conveying agent, plus the basic occult fact that certain great opposing energies, working within the body, produce what we call disease. To the above factors I would add another needed correlation. I would remind you that we are concerned with forms of life, and that all these forms are creative within themselves, and can create potentially more forms or can provide environments in which these forms can live. Please note this mode of expressing a fundamental truth. The basis of all the occult teaching as regards manifestation is that the building forces exist, and that this statement is true whether you are concerned with the Life of a solar system or only with the consciousness of that body in which the human being moves and lives—along sound or unsound lines; we are dealing with the world body in which a human being lives. Owing to this, we come up against another great natural Law which can be expressed simply as follows:

LAW VI

When the building energies of the soul are active in the body, then there is health, clean interplay and right activity. When the builders are the lunar lords and those who work under the control of the moon and at the behest of the lower Personal self, then you have disease, ill health and death.

This is a profoundly simple rule, but it gives the clue to the causes of disease and to the reason for an established immortality; it will be understood with great clarity and comprehension in a few years' time and will then supersede those idealistic but factually unsound and untrue systems to which we give the name Unity, Mental Science and Christian Science. These systems present as immediate, demonstrable possibilities the stage of final liberation from the natural and material limitations which today control all forms; they ignore the time factor, and overlook the evolutionary process and also the point of development of the person concerned; their position is based on wishful thinking and on the innate desire of the average human being for comfort and physical harmony, and gloss the innate selfishness of their presentation of truth with the concept that all is to the eternal glory of God.

Unquestionably, disease and physical limitations of any kind will vanish, but this will only happen when the soul of the individual controls and the lower personal self becomes as much an automaton of the soul as the physical body is at this time the automaton of the emotional nature, of the mind, and occasionally (and only very occasionally for the majority of people) of the soul.

Only when the soul, consciously and with the cooperation of the personality, builds the temple of the body, and then keeps it full of light, will disease disappear; this building is, however, a scientific process, and in the early stages of discipleship (which is the time wherein the soul begins to grasp its instrument, the personality) this leads inevitably to conflict, increased strain and frequently aggravated disease and disharmony. This dis-harmony and dis-ease lead to much necessary trouble and consequent undesirable effects. These effects will be overcome but—in the interim of adjustment— whilst they are registering and expressing themselves, there will be much distress, physical and psychological, and all the major and minor difficulties to which humanity seems heir.

In undeveloped humanity, the conflict (from the angle of consciousness) is practically nil; you have less susceptibility to the subtler diseases emanating from the three interlocking systems, but at the same time a much greater responsiveness to the three indigenous diseases, to infectious and contagious diseases, and to the great epidemics which sweep through nations and great planetary areas. As humanity develops, diseases become more personal (if I might express it in this manner) and are not so definitely related to the herd or mass condition. They arise within the persons themselves, and though they may be related to the mass diseases, they are based on individual causes.

When a man steps out of the general mass and steps upon the probationary path, and thus becomes a candidate for discipleship, then the diseases of the flesh and the inharmony of his entire threefold system, plus the conveying stream, constitute a conscious problem and one which the aspirant must himself tackle—thus revealing to him the need for conscious, creative building.

It is at this point that the doctrine of reincarnation becomes of supreme value; the disciple begins to institute those conditions, to create those forms and build those vehicles which, in another life, will prove more suitable for soul control and more adequate instruments with which to carry forward the perfecting process which the soul demands. Let me point out that the disciple does not concentrate upon the physical body at any time, or begin with any physical emphasis to work at the elimination of disease or disharmony. He begins with the psychology which the soul teaches and commences with the causes which are producing the effects upon the physical plane. It is a slower process, but endures. Much of the violent auto-suggestion of the systems allied to Christian Science and Unity are only temporary in their effects and are based upon a process of scientific suppression, plus a refusal to recognise existent factors. They are not based on truth. In a later life, the suppressed condition will again emerge in ever greater potency and will continue so to do until such time as it is ignored altogether and the life emphasis is laid on soul contact and the life expression is extroverted into service to others.

In connection with physical disease and its relation to the centres (regarding these as focal points for incoming energies from some source or another) it might be useful if certain broad generalisations were made here, remembering that to all of these there may be exceptions, particularly in the case of the health or the non-health of disciples.

1. Each of the seven major centres governs or conditions—from the material angle as well as from that of the soul and of the life principle—the area of the physical body in which it is found, including the multitude of lesser centres of energy and plexi of force which may be found therein.

2. The three great basic and manifesting divisions of divinity are to be found symbolically present in every centre:

1. The life principle, the first aspect, discloses itself when the entire centre is esoterically unfolded or awakened. It is present all the time in latency, but it is not a dynamic factor producing monadic stimulation until the end of the great cycle of evolution.

2. The quality or soul aspect is gradually disclosed in the process of evolutionary unfoldment and produces, in time and space, the definite effect which the centre has upon its environment. This quality is dependent upon the ray (either of the personality or the soul) which is the source of the incoming energy, or upon the ray governing the astral body in the case of the little evolved: it is also dependent upon the point in evolution and upon the radiatory influence of other centres.

3. The appearance in the etheric body of a developed or a developing centre indicates the place of the man upon the ladder of evolution, his racial affiliations, and his conscious goal; this latter can range all the way from an emphasis upon the sex life, and consequent activity of the sacral centre, to the goal of the initiate, which brings the head centre into activity. All this produces a consequent effect upon the surrounding tissue, substance and organic forms within the radius of influence of the centre. The area of this influence is variable according to the activity of the centre and this is dependent upon the point of development reached by the individual and the preponderant type of energy to which the individual reacts.

The incoming energy is transmuted within the centre into forces. This involves a process of differentiation into secondary energies of the primary energy involved, and is an automatic happening; the rate of transmutation process, the strength of the resultant aggregation of forces, and the subsequent radiatory activity producing conditioning results upon the dense physical body) are dependent upon the extent of the unfoldment of the particular centre involved and its awakened or unawakened state.

The outgoing forces from a centre play upon the etheric counterpart of the entire intricate network of nerves which constitute the nervous system. These counterparts of identical subjective correspondences are called in the Hindu philosophy, the "nadis"; they constitute an intricate and most extensive network of fluid energies which are an intangible, interior, paralleling system to that of the bodily nerves, which latter system is in fact an externalisation of the inner pattern of energies. There is as yet no word in the. English language or in any European tongue for the ancient word "nadi," because the existence of this subjective system is not yet recognised, and only the materialistic concept of the nerves as a system built up in response to a tangible environment yet holds sway in the West. The idea of these nerves being the dense physical result of an inner sensitive response apparatus is still undefined and unrecognised by modern Western science. When recognition is accorded to this subtle substance (composed of threads of energy) underlying the more tangible nerves, we shall have moved forward in our approach to the entire problem of health and disease, and the world of causes will be that much nearer. This network of nadis forms a definite life pattern which varies according to the personality ray.

The nadis determine the nature and the quality of the nervous system with its extensive network of nerves and plexi covering the entire physical body. The nadis, and consequently the network of nerves, are related primarily to two aspects of man's physical equipment—the seven major centres in the etheric body (the substantial body which underlies the dense physical body), and the spinal column with the head. It must always be remembered that the etheric body is a physical body, though composed of subtler material than the one we can see and touch. It is made of substance or of that which "substands," or underlies, every part and particle of the dense physical vehicle. This is a point which will later receive attention from healers and from enlightened medical men in the New Age. When this relationship existing between the nadis and the nerves, and their joint relationship to the centres and spinal column is recognised, we shall see a great revolution in medical and psychiatric methods. Experience will tend to show that the more closely the interplay between these two—the nadis and the nerves—can be brought about, the more rapidly will the control of disease also be implemented.

The nadis in the physical body correspond to the life or spirit aspect; the nerves are the correspondence to the soul or quality aspect. That which demonstrates as their united externalisation is the endocrine system which corresponds to the form or matter aspect. These three—the nadis, the nervous system and the glands—are the material correspondences to the three divine aspects; they are esoterically responsive to these three aspects and they make the man upon the physical plane what he is. These three groups are themselves conditioned (via the seven centres, as we have earlier seen) by the astral or mental vehicles, or by the integrated personality, or by the soul which begins to use the personality as a transmitting and transmuting agency, and—at the close of the Path of Discipleship—by the monad, via the antahkarana, using that self-created path as a direct channel of communication to the seven centres and from there to the threefold system of nadis, nerves and glands.

These three major systems within the human being express through the medium of the physical body the condition or the state of development of the centres. The life, the quality and the energy which they represent are conveyed to every part of the physical vehicle via the blood stream. This, modern science is already recognising as a fact, indicating that the blood stream conveys certain elements released by the glands. It does not yet recognise the fact of the relationship of the glands to the centres, with the intermediate systems of nadis and nerves. The next great move in medicine will be to recognise the fact of the etheric body, the physical substance which underlies dense matter.

When the centres are awakened throughout the body, there will then be present a highly electric nervous system, responsive with immediacy to the energy carried by the nadis; the result of this will be a well-balanced endocrine system. The vitality and life pouring through the entire body will then be of such potency that automatically the physical body will be resistant to disease, either innate, hereditary, or of group origin. In these words I express for you a future probability but not an immediate possibility. Man will some day have the three systems perfectly coordinated, psychically responsive to the inner pattern of nadis and centres, and consciously integrated with the soul, and later—via the antahkarana—with the Life principle.

Today as there is uneven development, with some centres unawakened, others overstimulated, and with the centres below the diaphragm overactive, you have consequently, whole areas of the body where the nadis are in an embryonic state, other areas where they are highly energised but with their flow arrested because some centre along the path of their activity is still unawakened or—if awakened—is still non-radiatory. These uneven conditions produce potent effects upon the nervous system and upon the glands, leading to overstimulation in some cases, subnormal conditions in others, lack of vitality, overactivity, and other undesirable reactions which inevitably produce disease. Such diseases either arise from within the body itself as the result of inherent or hereditary tendencies or predispositions, present in the bodily tissue; or they arise as the result of the radiation or the non-radiation of the centres, which work through the nadis; they can also arise as a result of external impacts or contact (such as infectious or contagious diseases and epidemics). These, the subject is unable to resist, owing to the lack of development of his centres.

To sum all up: Disease, physical disability of any kind except of course those due to accidents and, to some extent, to planetary conditions inducing epidemics of a peculiarly virulent nature such as war oft produces), and the many differing aspects of ill health can be directly traced to the condition of the centres, as they determine the activity or the non-activity of the nadis; these, in their turn, affect the nervous system, making the endocrine system what it is in the individual man, and the blood stream is responsible for this condition reaching every part of the body.

Effects Produced in Specific Areas

Let us now consider certain of the effects of the above facts, and their effect upon the areas governed by the centres and in which disease appears. It will be apparent to you that as the energy pours through the centres, via the nadis and the nerves and potently affecting the glandular system and the blood stream, the areas of the body become vitally involved and responsive. This covers, of course, the head, the throat and the torso. The energy thus despatched penetrates to every part of the physical vehicle, to every organism and to every cell and atom. It is the working of the quality of energy upon the body which induces, stimulates, removes or palliates disease. I am not here referring to the three major indigenous diseases; cancer, syphilis and tuberculosis. With these I will deal later because they are planetary in scope, present in the substance of which all forms are made, and are responsible for producing a host of lesser diseases which are sometimes recognised as affiliates but are frequently not so known.

Those diseases which are loosely called mental diseases, and which are related to the brain, are little understood as yet. There was very little mental trouble in the last rootrace, the Atlantean; the mind nature was then quiescent and little stimulation was conveyed through mental levels via the head centre to the pineal gland and the brain. There was very little eye trouble either, and no nasal difficulties, for the ajna centre was unawakened and the third eye rapidly becoming inactive. The ajna centre is the organ of the integrated personality, the instrument of direction, and is closely related to the pituitary body and the two eyes, as well as to all the frontal areas of the head. In Atlantean days, personality integration was largely unknown, except in the case of disciples and initiates, and the goal of the initiate then, and the sign of his achievement, was this triple integration. Today, the goal is that of a still higher fusion—that of the soul and personality. Speaking in terms of energy, this involves the formation, activity and related interplay of the following triangles of force:

1. The soul, the spiritual man on his own plane.

1. The personality, the threefold integrated man in the three worlds.
2. The head centre.
3. The head centre, the point of the second fusion.

2. The ajna centre, the point of the first fusion.

3. The centre in the medulla oblongata, controlling the spine.

1. The pineal gland, the externalisation of the head centre.

2. The pituitary body, related to the ajna centre.

3. The carotid gland, the externalisation of the third head centre.

All these triplicities, present within the circumference of the head, constitute the mechanism through which:

1. The soul controls its instrument, the personality.

2. The personality directs the activities of the physical body.

The spinal column (esoterically, the ida, pingala and sushumna channels), the two eyes and the total brain tissue are receptive to, stimulated by, or nonreceptive to these energies in the head. In the latter case, the entire area is in a quiescent state, spiritually speaking, and the focus of energy is elsewhere.

This deficiency or this stimulation, if unbalanced or if misapplied, will produce some definite type of trouble, frequently of a physiological nature as well as psychological, and in our Aryan times we shall see an increasing amount of diseases of the brain (a constantly increasing mental imbalance), and of eye difficulties, until the nature of the centres and the type of incoming force and their regulation are recognised and carefully and scientifically studied. Then we shall see the science of the regulation of energy, as it conditions the human being, developed. In the meantime, there is much difficulty everywhere, and mental diseases, neurotic conditions, insanities and, perhaps even more prevalent, glandular imbalance, are on an expanding arc. To date, in the West, little is known as to the methods of control or cure, and in the East, where some knowledge can be found, nothing is done, owing to the apathy there present.

The spinal column is primarily intended to be the channel through which the energising of the centres and the distribution of energy to the surrounding areas of the body is carried forward by the intelligent, integrated personality, acting under the conscious direction of the soul. I refer not here to the bony structure of the spinal column, but to the cord, its esoteric counterpart, and to the nerves which issue from the spine. Today this planned, directed esoteric control of energy is not present, except in the case of those with the initiate consciousness and certain advanced disciples. There are inhibitions, blockages, unawakened areas, deficiency of vitality, lack of free flow and consequent lack of development within the whole man; or else there is too much stimulation, a too rapid vibratory activity, a premature awakening of the centres, leading to the overactivity of the atoms and cells governed by any particular centre.

All these conditions, along with others not mentioned, affect the nervous system, condition the glands and produce psychological difficulty and disease in some form or another. You have the following simple yet suggestive and symbolic diagram of the spinal column and the head, looking at both from the angle of the centres and the glands:

You will note that the spleen is not included in this diagram. Its function is a peculiar one, being the centre of vitality in relation to the planetary vitality and the radiation from the sun. It is not controlled in any way from the spinal column. It must be borne in mind that this diagram is simply an effort to relate in pictorial form the centres, the glands which they condition, and the organs which are affected by both. It is not intended to be a true picture of any physiological organic relations.

The centre at the base of the spine has a unique function. It is to the substance of the body, to the physical tissue and to all matter not included in the organs mentioned above, the source of life. In the perfected man, the two centres (the highest head centre and the basic centre) represent the great duality of spirit and matter, and they then control and govern, in perfect unison, the entire direction of the vehicle of the soul.

Finally, you will have the spiritual aspect of the human being expressing itself perfectly through the related monad and personality (which is brought about by a third great major fusion). The material man is then responsive to these two, via the head centre (the monad) and the basic centre (the spiritually energised personality). These two centres will then be in complete rapport, expressing the full nature of the spiritual man.

It is essential that spiritual healers should get clearly in their minds the picture of the areas in the body which are governed by the head centres and the other centres, because within those areas are the various organs which react to disease. The health of these organs is largely dependent upon the centres, as they condition the glands and as the energy is distributed throughout the body. A full and balanced flow of energy from the centre into the area which it controls leads to resistance to so-called disease; where there is lack of development and an unbalanced situation, where the centres are concerned, there will be no power to resist.

The healing process in the New Age will start with definitely planned work with the centres, and the general trend of the healing art will then be—as you can easily see—preventive in nature rather than curative. The whole emphasis will be upon the energy centres, energy currents and the direction of energy to the organs within the radius of the influence of any particular centre. From a study of the glands (a study so much in its infancy that it hardly merits the word "embryonic") much will be later learned of their relationship to the centres, and much experimental work will be done. From the standpoint of the esotericist who admits the fact of the centres, the glands are, par excellence, the major determining factor in connection with the general health of an individual; they indicate not only his psychological development far more than is today grasped, but they have (as is suspected by the orthodox medical science) a most potent effect upon the whole organic system; their influence, via the blood stream, reaches into every part of the body and to the extremities. The glands are the result of the activity of the centres; they are first, last, and all the time effects of inner predisposing causes, and it is through the centres and their affiliated glands that the soul builds the apparatus upon the physical plane which we call the physical man.

Therefore, the group of related factors with which we have been dealing must be carefully studied and grasped by any practicing healer, for he will eventually have to work through his own centres in relation to the patient whose ills he is endeavouring to heal. He must remember, consequently, three factors: The centres, their related glands, and the group of organs for which these two are responsible. You have in the seven areas of the body, governed by the seven major centres and their affiliated glands, the appearance again of the basic trinity of manifestation:

1. Life or spirit..........the energy centre.
2. Soul or quality......the gland.
3. Form or matter.....the organs in any particular area governed by any one centre.

LAW VII

When life or energy flows unimpeded and through right direction to its precipitation (the related gland), then the form responds and ill health disappears.

This is a basic law in healing and concerns the true art of relating spiritual energy with form life, and upon this the health and the vitality of the organs depend. Therefore we come to the next rule which the healer has to master. This is concisely expressed, and those phrases which convey instruction must be understood and applied intelligently.

RULE FIVE

Let the healer concentrate the needed energy within the needed centre.

Let that centre correspond to the centre which has need.

Let the two synchronise and together augment force.

Thus shall the waiting form be balanced in its work.

Thus shall the two and the one, under right direction, heal.

It will be obvious to you, therefore, that healers at the present time (I refer not here to the medical profession but to the multitude of the many schools of thought) have not yet got back to the basic factor, in spite of all their talk anent love being the healing force. They are in reality emphasising and dealing with the motive which impels the healer to ply his healing art. They are concerned with the instrumentality whereby contact can be made with the patient to be healed. That contact must ever be established in Love—fresh, compelling and selfless. But once that relation is established, the healer must grasp the fact that, as far as he is concerned, he must work scientifically; he must apply knowledge and—after right diagnosis, after right modern therapeutic methods, after due common sense, which includes the best that the tried science of medicine can give—he must then begin to work through his own centre, putting it en rapport with the centre in the patient which governs the distressed area or diseased organ.

As he thus works, the energy which loving intent and skilled knowledge has tapped and brought in is not permitted (during the healing process) to stimulate or affect the healer's own related glands or produce action in the connected area of his own body. The healer must learn to insulate himself from the energy to be used on behalf of the patient. He blends it with the energy of the patient's centre, governing the diseased area; the allied gland is then doubly energised (or lessened, as the case may be and diagnosis requires), and the blood stream releases into the diseased tissue that which is needed to cure or prevent the growth of the disease.

In this instruction I have given you much food for thought. I have emphasised an aspect of scientific esoteric healing which has not before been brought to the attention of students. I would have you grasp the general picture and get the outlines of process clear; I would have you study the relation between the healer and the patient as he passes out of the stage of just loving and sending out love or of seeing the patient in the light of love, and goes on to the scientific work of augmenting the patient's own spiritual energy. He thus enables him to effect his own cure, consciously or unconsciously.

You have, therefore, the healer, the patient and the reservoir of spiritual energy, plus the scientific process of bringing all three into a close and healing rapport. This is done via the centre concerned in the equipment of the patient, the corresponding centre in the equipment of the healer, and the direction (by an act of the will of the healer or of the healing group) of the united streams of required specific energy to the area diseased. This is usually done via the related gland, though it is not always so.

Ponder on these things and see, if you can, the simplicity of the process which is based on loving intent, which isolates the specific area in which the trouble exists, which identifies itself with the spiritual centre of energy in the patient, and which then applies and directs the fused and blended energies.

Effects of Under-Stimulation and Over-Stimulation of the Centres

We have been for some time studying the centres and their relation to the dense physical body. We have also noted the areas which are conditioned by these centres and the mediating work of the ductless glands. We have seen that two major predisposing causes of physical trouble, arising within the physical organism, are the understimulation or the overstimulation of the centres. There are also, as you will recall, three diseases which are inherent in substance itself, and which therefore create basic predispositions within the human body: cancer, syphilis and tuberculosis. With these three we are not at this time dealing. But the condition of the centres produces, basically, all the difficulties, permitting entrance to infections and germs which might not otherwise cause trouble, producing those situations where the diseases inherent in the form nature can be fostered, and making undesirable tendencies powerful.

We might consequently lay down the premise (one which the medical profession will later accept in its entirety) that diseases which are self-engendered, and which are not the result of contagion or infection or of accidents, are caused by the failure, the limitation, the deficiency or the excess, and by the overdevelopment or the underdevelopment, of the endocrine system. This ductless glandular system, via the hormones, affects every part of the physical organism—via the blood stream—and it may therefore be truly posited that when the ductless glands are perfectly balanced and functioning correctly, there will be no diseased areas in the body. The blood stream will then be kept also in perfect condition. The clue to perfect physical health as it is expressed by a Master of the Wisdom can consequently be directly traced to His full control of the centres, to their balanced state of energy reception and distribution, and to the effect which they produce upon the entire ductless glandular system. By this means every area of the body is properly supplied with the needed forces and is thus kept in perfect condition.

Coming midway between the centres and the corresponding endocrine glands, and acting as the agent for the distribution of energy, is the nervous system. Here, however, difficulty is usually to be found. There is a lack of adequate flow of energy; the energy distributed by its means to the body, via the centres, is unevenly distributed; some centres receive an undue supply; others receive an inadequate amount; some centres are still unawakened, and therefore are nonreceptive; others are prematurely developed and transmit too much force to the areas they govern. In esoteric medicine and its philosophical interpretation (which is the effective and practical application of the known facts) it is the cerebro-spinal aspect which conditions and governs the entire nervous system, for it is by means of this aspect and through its agency that the centres work and affect the bodily organism, supplying the body with the needed vital energy; thus the nervous system becomes eventually responsive, via the seven centres, to the seven major energies or the seven ray forces.

In no human being, except a Master, are all the centres properly awakened and functioning in a balanced manner, nor are they properly related through intensive radiation; in no human being is the nervous system correctly responsive to the centres. There are two reasons for this, and both are related to the cerebro-spinal system:

1. The head centre is not yet awakened, or is only slowly being developed, as the disciple submits himself to training.

2. The flow of energy through the head to the centres up the spine is uneven, owing to the fact that the inflow is uneven, and that the etheric web—between the centres—permits as yet only a very little energy to flow through to all the centres.

The life of the centres is founded, in the initial stage, upon the inherent life of the organism itself, with the focus of the emanating life to be found in the centre at the base of the spine. This is a point oft forgotten by esotericists. This basic centre is the one through which the life of matter itself works; this is the life or energy of the Holy Spirit aspect, the third aspect. Through its life each atom in the body is fed. This process of animating the substance of the physical form is started in the prenatal stage; after birth, this type of force is aided and paralleled by the inflow of planetary prana or vital energy from the planetary life itself, via the spleen. This is the essential relating organ between the inherent life of matter itself, as present in the microcosm, and the inherent life in the planet. 

As evolution proceeds, there is gradually added to this inherent force an inflow of "qualified" energy which is expressive of the consciousness aspect of divinity, and indicates to the esotericist the state of awareness of the man and also the ray type of his soul. This inflow comes from the second divine aspect, from the soul or the indwelling Christ. It might therefore be stated anent the two head centres that:

1. The head centre (called in the Hindu philosophy, the thousand-petalled lotus) conditions the pineal gland and is related to the life of the soul and—after the third initiation—to the life of the monad; it conveys to the centres the energy of the three major types of spiritual being of which the three forces of the personality are the reflections or physical counterparts.

2. The ajna centre, or the personality centre, focussed between the eyebrows and conditioning the pituitary body, is related to the entire life of the integrated threefold organism. Through this organism the consciousness must perforce express itself, and the physical, emotional and mental vehicles demonstrate its point in evolution.

Later, energy from the spirit aspect, the first or Father aspect, will become available and will pour down through the head centre to the ajna centre, combining personality energy and soul energy. Then, by an act of the will, it is projected down the spinal column, via the alta major centre, which conditions the carotid gland. As it passes down the spinal column it vitalises two aspects of the centres; when it reaches the basic centre, it combines with the latent energy of substance itself, and you have, therefore, the union of all three divine energies and the manifestation in man of the three divine aspects. These combined energies then rush up the central channel in the spinal column, and the third or highest receptive aspect of the centres is energised. All the centres are thus brought into full expression; all limitations are destroyed; every part of the body is vitalised and material perfection is produced, plus the full play of the enlightened consciousness and also of the life aspect.

The nervous system then comes under the complete control of the spiritual man, and the blood stream is purified and becomes an unimpeded and satisfactory channel for the circulation of that which the energised glands discharge. This is the esoteric significance of the Biblical words, "The blood is the life," and also of the words "saved by the blood of Christ." It is not by the blood of a Christ dying two thousand years ago upon the cross in Palestine that man is saved, but by the livingness of the blood of those in whom the Christ life and consciousness, and the quality of the Christ, is perfectly demonstrating and expressed. Then, when the nature of the indwelling Christ is fully, spontaneously and automatically expressing itself in and through the personality, the three fires of the creative process—the fire of matter, the fire of the soul, and the electric fire of spirit—are blended, and there is then a perfect manifestation on Earth of physical living, of the emotional and mental life, and also of the spiritual life of an incarnated Son of God, a Christ.

It is on this point of understanding that so many worthy people go astray, particularly in the mental science movements, in the Unity movement, and in Christian Science. Instead of focussing their effort on achieving the pure life of Christ in every day life, and acting as consecrated servers of their fellowmen and as channels for love, and becoming aware only of the consciousness of the whole, they are focussed on affirming a future perfection—mentally and vocally—in order to have good health and physical comfort. They regard it as their right and due, to be gained by affirmation, and forget the hard work necessary to bring about within themselves those conditions which will make the divine manifested Christ present. They need to bear in mind that good health will be normal and declarative if the inner consciousness is harmless (and the majority of these people are guilty of a superior spirit of criticism), if they are decentralised from the lower self in the three worlds, and if they are "focussed in heaven, thereby enabling the heavenly Son of Man Who is the Son of God to lead the heavenly life when far from the heavenly realm"—as an old Christian mystic, long forgotten, used to say.

Another school of thought, branding themselves untruthfully as occultists, are equally in error. They work, or rather profess to work, with the centres, only fortunately for them nature protects them often from themselves. They endeavour consciously to vitalise the centres, to burn away the protective web, and to raise the fires of matter before the fire of spirit has combined with the fire of the soul. They then fall victims to premature stimulation of the fires of substance before the balancing of the forces can take place. Disease, insanities, and many neurotic conditions, plus serious pathological conditions, then occur. Some of the glands become overactive; others are overlooked, and the entire glandular system and the dependent nervous system are in a state of complete imbalance.

Disciples need to learn to focus their attention upon the reality and upon the factors of primary spiritual importance. When they do this, the energies in the head, the correct use of the spinal area with its "beaded centres," and the awakening of the basic centre and its consequent fusion with the higher energies will be an automatic and perfectly safe happening.

The orderly rhythm of the glandular system and the free, safe use of the controlled nervous system will then be possible; the energies, projected from the centre, via the nadis, will be safely related and brought into a synthetic functioning within the body, and the disciple will experience not only a fully awakened consciousness, and a brain which is ever intelligently receptive, but a constant inflow of spiritual life. There will then be that perfect balance and perfect health which characterise a Master of the Wisdom.

Knowledge concerning the endocrine or ductless glands is as yet in an embryonic state. Much is known anent the glands connected with the sacral centre and about the thyroid gland, but to date, naturally, the medical profession does not admit that they are effects of the activity or the nonactivity of the centres, or that a line of least resistance exists between the sacral centre and the throat centre. Something is known (not much) about the pituitary body, but its extreme importance as it affects the psychological response of the person is not adequately grasped. Nothing is known, factually speaking, about the pineal or the thymus glands, and this because neither the head centre nor the heart centre is awakened in undeveloped man, or even in the average citizen.

That there is a considerable wealth of knowledge anent the sacral centre (as the source of physical creation) and the conditioning effects of the thyroid gland is due to the fact that both these centres are awakened in the average man, and when the functioning is adequate and the necessary interplay is established, you then have a highly sexed individual who is also a creative artist along some artistic line. This is very frequently seen, as you well know. When the ajna centre and its externalisation, the pituitary body, are also active, and the relation between the three centres—sacral, throat and ajna centre—is awakened and beginning to function, and definite conscious relationship is being set up between it and the other centres (dependent upon ray, upon conscious objective and training), then you will have the practical mystic, the humanitarian and the occultist.

Students should remember that there is both an upward and a downward trend of energy within the entire structure of centres, where the aspirant and the disciple are concerned: 

1. The upward trend...producing Transmutation.

1. From the sacral centre to the throat centre. Physical creation is transmuted into artistic creativity.
2. From the solar centre to the heart centre. Individual, emotional consciousness is transmuted into group consciousness.
3. From the base of the spine to the head centre. Material force is transmuted into spiritual energy.
4. From any or all of the five spinal centres to the ajna centre. Uncoordinated living is transmuted into personality integration.
5. From the six centres in relationship into the highest head centre. Personality activity is transmuted into spiritual living.

This is a wide generalisation, and the process is not carried forward in any sequential fashion or smoothly and in order as the tabulation above might suggest. The process involved is spread over many lives of unconscious transmutation in the earlier stages, and as a result of bitter experience and of conscious effort in the later stages, and becomes increasingly dynamic and effective as the various stages upon the Path area trodden by the aspirant. The five rays with which a disciple has to work (two major conditioning rays and three subsidiary rays) have a definite active effect; karmic adjustments provide opportunity or hindrance, and the intricacies of the entire process (within the relatively limited experience of the disciple) are so confusing whilst in process that all that he can do is to grasp the general outline as here given and not pay too much attention to the immediate factual detail.

2. The downward trend...producing Transformation.

Once the head centre is awakening and the disciple is consciously active in the work of directing the energies to the centres and thereby governing his personality life, there is a scientific undertaking of energising the centres in a certain ordered rhythm which is again determined by the rays, by circumstance and by karma; thus all the bodily energies are swung into correct spiritual activity. With the process involved we cannot here deal, beyond pointing out that this downward trend can be roughly regarded as falling into three stages:

1. The stage of energising the creative life, via the throat centre, thus bringing:

1. The head centre and the throat centre.
2. These two and the sacral centre.
3. All three, consciously and simultaneously, into conscious relation.

This relation, when properly established, will solve the individual problem of sex, and without recourse to either inhibition or suppression, but by bringing about right control and making the disciple, at the same time, creative in a worldly sense, and therefore of use to his fellowmen.

2. The stage of energising the conscious life of relationship via the heart centre, thus bringing:

1. The head centre and the heart centre,
2. These two and the solar plexus centre,
3. All three, simultaneously and consciously, into close cooperation.

This serves to establish right human relations, right group relations, and right spiritual relations throughout a man's entire life expression. Just as the stage of regulating the creative life has a paramount effect upon the physical body, so this stage affects the astral vehicle with great potency; emotional reactions are transformed into aspiration and service; selfish individual love is transformed into group love, and then divinity rules the life.

3. The stage of energising the entire man, via the basic centre thus bringing:

1. The head centre and the basic centre,
2. These two and the ajna centre,
3. All the three, simultaneously and consciously, into rhythmic, coordinated expression. This is a final stage of great importance, and only takes place in its completeness at the time of the third initiation, that of the Transfiguration.

You can see, therefore, how three important words convey the purpose of the scientific unfoldment and the right direction of the centres: Transmutation. Transformation. Transfiguration.

This process is wisely and safely carried out over a long period of time and—returning to our theme of health and of disease—when consummated, perfect physical health is the result; in the interim process of adjustment and of change, the reverse is frequently the case. The danger involved in a large number of physical ills can be traced to the condition of the centres, to the interplay or their lack of interplay, to an undeveloped condition, unawakened and sluggish, and to an overstimulation or an unbalanced activity.

If one centre is prematurely awakened, it is frequently at the expense of other centres. The rude health of the savage or of the unskilled and unintelligent labourer or peasant (a state of being which is rapidly passing as the mind development and the process of evolution take effect) is largely due to the quiescent state of practically all the centres, with the exception of the sacral centre. The fact of their falling easy prey to the infectious diseases can also be traced to the same quiescence. As the emotional nature is developed and the mind begins to function, the centres then become more active. Definite trouble then ensues, largely because psychological conditions begin to appear. The man is no longer simply an animal. The wear and tear of the emotional life (the major predisposing factor in ill health) floods the lower nature with ill-directed energy (or should I say mis-directed?). The solar plexus centre then becomes unduly active and this activity falls into four stages:

4. The stage of its awakening, as the astral body becomes steadily more powerful.

1. The stage of its potency when, for lives, it is the conditioning centre in the etheric or vital body and the man is consequently entirely conditioned by his emotional-astral life.

2. The stage wherein the solar plexus centre becomes the clearing house for all the centres (major and minor) below the diaphragm.

3. The stage wherein the solar plexus energies are raised to the heart.

All these stages bring, temporarily, their own physical ills.

You will note that, beyond certain generalisations, I am not relating specific diseases to specific centres. I have indicated the areas conditioned by the centres, and far more powerfully conditioned than you have any means yet of ascertaining; I have said that fundamentally the ductless glands—as externalisations of the centres—are the determining factors in the health of the body, and that where there is imbalance, overdevelopment or underdevelopment you will have trouble; I have suggested that the medical profession in the New Age will deal increasingly with the theory of energy direction and its relation to the ductless glands, and that it will admit, at least hypothetically and for the purpose of experimentation, that the theory of the energy centres may be correct and that they are the primary conditioning factors, working through the ductless glands which, in their turn, guard the body, produce the necessary resistance, keep the blood stream supplied with the essentials to health and—when rightly interrelated—produce a balanced expression of the spiritual man throughout the entire physical body—physiological and psychological balance.

When this desirable condition is not the case, then the ductless glands, through wrong relationship and incorrect and unbalanced development, are not adequate to the task; they cannot protect the body from disease, and are unable to pour into the blood stream what the physical vehicle needs. Owing to their inadequacy, the body is unable to resist infections, is in a constant state of ill health, and cannot cope with disease coming from without or latent within the organism of the body; this weakness often produces mortal disease.

Medicine in the next century will be built around certain major premises:

1. Preventive medicine will be the goal, producing the attempt to keep the body in balanced order.

2. Sound sanitation and the providing of healthy conditions will be regarded as essential.

3. The supply of the right chemical properties to the physical body will be studied—a science of chemistry which is yet in its infancy, though it is becoming a flourishing infant.

4. An understanding of the laws of vitality will be regarded as of prime importance, and of this the emphasis today on vitamins and the influence of the sun are wholesome indications.

5. The use of the mind will be regarded, above everything else, as a factor of major importance: the mind will be seen as the prime influence as regards the centres, for people will be taught to work on their centres through mental power and thus produce a right reaction from the endocrine system. This will necessarily involve the right directing of thought to a centre, or the withdrawal of attention from a centre, with consequent effect upon the glandular system. This will all be based upon the occult law that "Energy follows thought."

Owing to the fact that disciples have a greater development of mental power than the average man, and also to the fact that ray type is more easily ascertained, involving consequently a more correct determination of the condition of the glandular system, they will be the first to cooperate with the medical profession and to demonstrate the relation of the centres to the glands, and therefore to the body as a whole. Through concentration and right meditation, carried on in the head centre, and directed towards some one or other of the centres, disciples will demonstrate such definite changes in the ductless glands that the medical profession will be convinced of the importance and the factual existence of the centres and of their power, and also of the possibility of controlling the physical organism through the power of thought. This all lies in the future.

Physiological science and psychological power, plus the cooperation of the trained disciple with the trained medical man (particularly with the open-minded endocrinologist), will eventually succeed in solving many human ills and will bring about the cure of the bulk of the diseases now troubling humanity.

We have, therefore, studied to some purpose our first section: The Psychological Causes of Disease. We have carried the idea down from the inner and more subtle causes of disease to the major physical conditioning factor, the ductless glands. We can now briefly consider certain far more occult causes and deal with those which emanate from the group life of humanity and from the karmic liabilities of mankind. Here we shall enter the realm of occult knowledge and of esoteric information, and this will be far more difficult for the orthodox thinker to accept.

CHAPTER II
Causes Emanating from Group Life

In considering disease and its basic causes, we have dealt particularly with those which concern our Aryan race and modern humanity; these are largely astral in origin and might be described as Atlantean in nature. We have briefly considered also the various diseases which originate upon the mental plane; these are more strictly Aryan and involve also the ills to which disciples are prone. Infectious diseases and those which are fundamental in the planetary substance have a potent effect upon those races (still among us) which are the oldest on our planet, and which are related to the fast dying out Lemurian types; Negroes are specially prone to infectious epidemics.

I have not attempted in this treatise to deal pathologically with any of the diseases touched upon, nor have I paid attention to the physiology of the patient. That is entirely out of my province. I have, however, attempted to indicate the origins of some of the diseases, to call attention to the paramount importance of the glandular system, and to relate, as far as is just and wise, some of the oriental theories anent the centres and western wisdom. Later I shall point out some basic human conditions which must be changed if the true healing work is to be correctly applied, and then I hope to give some of the methods whereby healers can accomplish work which will be in line with the facts of the case and which will aid in the processes of restoration.

The problem of disease is today greatly enhanced, owing to the fact that in this race, the Aryan, which now dominates the planet, you have the first true appearance outwardly on the physical plane of the basic synthesis of humanity which will be—in its better form—so strikingly significant of the next major rootrace, the sixth. Inter-marriage between nations and races, the fusion of bloods for hundreds of years—due to migration, travel, education and mental unity—has led to there being no really pure racial types today. This is far more certainly the case than the most enlightened think, if the long, long history of mankind is considered. Sexual intercourse knows no impenetrable barriers, and people today have in them all the strains and the blood of all the races, and this (as a result of the world war, 1914-1945) will be increasingly the case. This development is definitely a part of the divine plan, no matter how undesirable it may appear to those who idealise purity of relationship, or how ruthless its application is at the present moment. Something intended is being brought about and it cannot be avoided. The urge to mate becomes peculiarly strong when men are removed from their familiar settings and experience the novelty of complete loneliness, when the normal inhibitions and customs imposed by family relationships and national standards are removed, when danger of death is constantly faced and the larger value submerges the lesser values and the usual conventional attitudes, and when the physical organism has been trained and brought by scientific treatment and heavy feeding to the height of physical efficiency. I am speaking in terms of physical effectiveness and not of mental efficiency, which may or may not parallel the former.

The animal instincts are therefore potent; the centres below the diaphragm become peculiarly energised; the emotional demands enormously vitalise the solar plexus centre, and the centre at the base of the spine increases the activity of the adrenal glands as the will of the man is called into play to surmount danger; the will-to-live, with its adjunct, the will-to-perpetuate and to live in one's children, is powerfully fostered. To this must also be added, as a major adjunct of war, the will of Nature itself working (under certain divine laws) to offset the loss of life and the casualties of war by a fresh inflow of life into form, thus preserving the human race, providing the bodies for the next tide of egos and thus peopling the earth.

In saying this I seek only to explain the phenomena which can be noted at all times when war is present and which in the world war can be noted on a large scale. The armies of the world are everywhere and are spread over every country; racial transmigration is a universal factor, both from the angle of military necessity and from the plight of the civilians who find themselves in the path of war.

This movement of millions of men everywhere is one of the paramount factors which will condition the new civilisation, and its importance is based upon the fact that in twenty-five years' time men and women will be a hybrid race whose fathers and mothers will be of every imaginable nation; white fathers will have had physical relation with women of every Asiatic or African origin, thus producing a fusion of blood which—if recognised and rightly handled and developed, from the educational angle and with understanding—will express in embryo the nature of the sixth rootrace, and which will be in fact Humanity without any racial or national barriers, with no so-called pure blood and exclusive castes, and with a new and virile sense of life because of the infusion of stronger stocks with the weaker or worn-out types and of the newer racial strains with the older and more developed. I hold no brief for the manner in which this is being brought about.

It could have happened without war and through a conviction that all men are equal and human, and that the mixture of races would solve many problems; war, however, has hastened the process and the soldiers of all the armies of the world are having physical relations with women of all races, all civilisations and all colours. This must, whether regarded as right or wrong according to the code of ethics and standards of the observer, produce an entirely new situation with which the world of the future will have to cope; it must inevitably break down national prejudices and racial barriers—the first producing more effect than the latter during the initial stages. Inevitably a more homogeneous humanity will appear during the changes of the next one hundred years. Many attitudes and many customary reactions which today hold sway will vanish, and types and qualities and characteristics for which we have as yet no precedent will appear upon a large scale.

Whether the conservative and the so-called strictly "moral" people dislike this worldwide happening has no bearing on the case. It has happened and is happening daily and will materially bring about far-reaching changes. These inter-racial and mixed relationships have always happened upon a small and individual scale; they are now happening on a large scale. For the results of this due preparation must be made.

As is well known to you, there are certain diseases which are numerically dominant in the world:

1. Heart diseases of various kinds, particularly afflicting advanced humanity:

1. Insanities.
2. Cancer, so widely prevalent among every type of man today.
3. The social diseases—syphilitic in nature.
4. Tuberculosis.

In a subtle and occult manner, these diseases are due to two basic causes: One is the close interplay between people, living under modern conditions, and the massing of people into cities and towns; the other is the age of the soil upon which man lives (a fact little recognised or considered), for it is deeply impregnated with the germs and the residue incident to past ages. The immunity of man is an amazing matter, could you but realise it; he resists and throws off constantly and continuously every kind of disease—those which are the result of contact with others, those which are prevalent in the very atmosphere at every time, those which are latent within his own bodily organism, and those which are inherited and to which he has a constant predisposition. Man's fight for health is ceaseless and unending, ranging all the way from ordinary fatigue and tiredness (plus the universal tendency to take cold), to mortal disease, ending in death.

To the trained occult observer, it is as if humanity—as a whole—is walking partly in a dense shadow which engulfs the race, and some part of which involves an area of the body of every human being. One of the aims of the New Age will be "to lighten this shadow and bring people out into the fitness of true health." This same shadow penetrates also into the mineral kingdom, affects the vegetable kingdom, and involves also the animals; it is one of the major causes of all that can be considered under the name of "sin," which may surprise you. It is also the fertile seed of crime. This is a fact to be accepted, to be properly considered and dealt with rationally, sanely, intelligently and spiritually; it will require all the factors mentioned to lift humanity out of the darkness of disease into established and radiant health. Certain of the Masters are dealing with this problem in relation to the other kingdoms in nature, for there will be no true escape for man whilst his environment is still under the shadow of disease.

1. DISEASES OF HUMANITY, INHERITED FROM THE PAST

History, as studied today, goes back but a little way and although the enlightened historian and scientist may extend the story of humanity to millions of years, there is naught known about the races of men who lived those millions of years ago; naught is known of the civilisation which flourished in early Atlantean times twelve million years ago; naught is known at all of the still more ancient Lemurian civilisation which goes back more than fifteen million years; still less is known of that twilight period which existed twenty-one million years ago when men were scarcely human and when they were so closely related to the animal kingdom that we call them by the cumbersome name of "animal-man."

During the vast period between then and now, myriads of people have lived and loved and experienced; their bodies have been absorbed into the dust of the earth and each has contributed something which they have gained during life experience—something different, however, to that which they contribute to the life of the soul on its own plane. This something contributed has altered in some way the atoms and cells of the physical body, and that gained something has in due time been released again into the soil of the planet. Each soul, withdrawn from the body, has come to the earth repeatedly, and many millions are here today, particularly those who were present in later Atlantean times and who are, therefore, the flower and the highest product of that highly emotional race. They bring with them the predispositions and the innate tendencies with which their past history has endowed them.

It should therefore be borne in mind that the physical bodies in which humanity now dwells are constructed of very ancient matter and that the substance employed is tainted or conditioned by the history of the past.

To this concept must be added two others:

1. First, that incoming souls draw to themselves the type of material with which they must construct their outer sheaths, and that this will be responsive to some aspect of their subtler natures; if, for instance, physical desire conditions them, the material of their physical vehicle will be largely responsive to that particular urge.

2. Secondly, each physical body carries within itself the seeds of inevitable retribution, if its functions are misused. The great original sin in Lemurian times was sexual in nature, and due largely not only to inherent tendencies, but to the extraordinarily dense population of its civilisation and to the close relation of the animal kingdom. The origin of the syphilitic diseases traces back to these times.

There is a beautiful idea in the minds of the ignorant that primitive races are free from that type of contamination and that the many sexual diseases and their results are predominantly the diseases of civilisation. This is not so from the occult angle of vision. True knowledge disproves it. In the infancy of the race, a great mismating, promiscuity and series of perversions took place, and in the language of some of the most ancient books in the Masters' Archives we read: "earth took its toll and earth to earth, polluted and impure, returned to earth; thus evil life entered the pristine cleanliness of the ancient mother. Deep in the soil the evil lies, emerging into form from time to time, and only fire and suffering can cleanse the mother of the evil which her children have given unto her."

The Lemurian race practically destroyed itself, owing to its misuse of the sacral centre, which was at that time the most active and the dominant centre. In Atlantean days it was the solar plexus centre which was the prime objective of the "entering fire." The work of the Hierarchy in Lemurian days was, as I have told you elsewhere, to teach infant humanity the nature, meaning and significance of the physical vehicle, just as in the next race, the emotional was fostered and the major object of attention, and in our race, it is the mind which is subjected to stimulation. The initiate in Lemurian times was one who had completely mastered the control of the body, and hatha-yoga was then the outstanding spiritual practice. This, in time, was superseded by laya-yoga, which brought all the centres in the etheric body (except the throat and head centres) into functioning activity. This is not the type of activity which is now possible, because it must be remembered that the Master in those days had not the development or the understanding of the Masters of today, the only exceptions being Those Who had come from other schemes and spheres to aid animal-man and primitive humanity.

A. Venereal and Syphilitic Diseases

Paralleling all the activity of the Great White Lodge (as was always the case and is the case today) was the activity of the dark forces. Their effects had to be brought about through the medium of the sacral centre, and thus a most vicious situation came about which weakened the stamina of the human body, which greatly increased the demands of the sex nature through the stimulation of the sacral centre, artificially brought about by the Black Lodge, and which produced many unholy alliances and widespread evil relations.

A great new law of nature was then imposed by the planetary Logos which has been expressed (very inadequately) by the words, "The soul that sinneth, it shall die." This law could be better expressed by saying, "He that misuses that which he hath built will see it fall from forces within itself."

As the centuries slipped away and the Lemurian race submitted to the evil impulses of the animal nature, gradually the earliest type of venereal disease made its appearance; eventually the entire race was riddled with it and died out, nature taking its toll and exacting its inexorable price. You might here ask how these early inhabitants of our planet could be held responsible for there is no sin where there is no sense of responsibility and no consciousness of wrong doing. The Hierarchy in those days had its own methods of teaching these infant peoples, just as the smallest child can be taught today to refrain from certain physical habits. Humanity then knew well what was evil, because the evidences of that evil were physically apparent and quite easily perceived. The penalty was obvious and the results immediate; the Teachers of the race saw to it that cause and effect were quickly to be noted.

At this time there also arose the first tendencies to marriage, as differentiated from promiscuity; the formation of family units became the subject of attention and a goal for the most highly evolved. This was one of the first tasks undertaken by the Hierarchy and the first effort toward any form of group activity, conveying the first lesson in responsibility. The family unit was not stable as it can be now, but even its relatively brief tenure was a tremendous step forward; the segregation of the family unit and the growth of the sense of responsibility has gone steadily forward until it has culminated in our present system of marriage and our stress in the Occident upon monogamy; it has led to the western pride in family strains and pedigrees, our interest in genealogies and relationships, and the complete horror of the occidental thinker over the syphilitic diseases as they affect families and their offspring.

As the ages passed away, humanity entered into the Atlantean stage of development. The conscious control of the physical body dropped below the threshold of consciousness; the etheric body became consequently more potent (a fact not oft considered), and the physical body reacted increasingly like an automaton to the impression and the direction of a steadily developing desire nature. Desire became something more than simply response to animal physical urges and to the primitive instincts, but was directed to objects and objectives extraneous to the body, towards material possessions and towards that which (when seen and coveted) could be appropriated. Just as the major sins of Lemurian times (if they could be called sins in any true sense, because of the low intelligence of the race) were through the misuse of sex, so the major sin of the Atlantean people was theft—widespread and general.

The seeds of aggression and of personal acquisitiveness began to show themselves, culminating in the great war (as related in The Secret Doctrine) between the Lords of the Shining Countenance and the Lords of the Dark Face. To procure what they coveted and felt they needed, the most highly evolved of that race began to practice magic. It is not possible for me to outline to you the nature and practices of Atlantean magic with its control of elementals and of forms of life which have now been driven back into retreat and are inaccessible to humanity; neither can I indicate to you the particular methods used to acquire what was desired, the Words of Power employed and the carefully planned rituals which were followed by those who sought to enrich themselves and to take what they wanted, no matter what the cost to others. This magical work was the misdirected travesty of the White Magic so openly used in those days, prior to the great war between the Forces of Light and the Forces of Evil.

Magic of the right kind was very familiar to the Atlantean people, and was used by those Members of the Hierarchy Who were entrusted with the guidance of the race and Who were combating rampant evil in high places. That same evil is again upon the warpath and is being fought by the men of goodwill, under the direction of the Great White Lodge. Heights of luxury were reached in Atlantis of which we, with all our boasted civilisation, know nothing and have never achieved. Some faint traces of it have come to us from legends and from ancient Egypt, from archeological discovery and old fairy tales. There was a recurrence of pure Atlantean mischief and wickedness in the decadent days of the Roman Empire. Life became tainted by the miasma of unadulterated selfishness and the very springs of life itself became polluted. Men only lived and breathed in order to be in possession of the utmost luxury and of a very plethora of things and of material goods. They were smothered by desire and plagued by the dream of never dying but of living on and on, acquiring more and more of all that they desired.

B. Tuberculosis

It is in this situation that we find the origin of tuberculosis. It originated in the organs whereby men breathe and live, and was imposed—as a penalty—by the Great White Lodge; the Masters promulgated a new law for the Atlantean people when Lemurian vice and Atlantean cupidity were at their most ruthless height. This law can be translated into the following terms: "He who lives only for material goods, who sacrifices all virtue in order to gain that which cannot last, will die in life, will find breath failing him, and yet will refuse to think of death until the summons comes."

It is difficult for us in these days to appreciate or to comprehend the Atlantean state of consciousness. There was no mental process whatsoever except among the leaders of the race; there was only rampant, ruthless, insatiable desire. This action of the Great White Lodge forced two issues and confronted the race with two hitherto unrealised problems. The first was that psychological attitudes and states of consciousness can and do bring about physiological conditions, these being both good and bad. Secondly, for the first time the people faced with recognition the phenomenon of death—death which they themselves brought about in a new way and not just by physical means. This had to be dramatised for them in some definitely objective manner, for as yet the masses did not respond to verbal teaching but only to visual events. When, therefore, they saw a particularly predatory and rapacious person begin to suffer from a dire disease which seemed to arise from within himself and—whilst suffering— hold on to his love of life (as tubercular people do today), they were faced with another aspect or form of the original law (imposed in Lemurian times) which said: "The soul that sinneth, it shall die." Death had hitherto been accepted without questioning as the fate of all living things, but now, for the first time, mental relationship between individual action and death was recognised—as yet in a dim and feeble way—and a great step forward was made in the human consciousness. Instinct failed to handle this situation.

Death, brother of mine, is a great and universal heritage; all forms die, for such is the law of life, to speak in paradoxes. The time had arrived when the race could be taught the lesson that death can either be the ending of a cycle and an automatic response to the great Law of Cycles which continually institutes the new and ends the old, or it can be brought about by the misuse of the physical body, by misapplied energy and by the deliberate action of the man himself. The man who deliberately sins, and who is psychologically wrong in his attitudes and consequent actions, commits suicide just as truly as the man who deliberately blows out his brains. This is seldom realised, but the truth will become increasingly apparent.

The Biblical injunction to remember that the sins of the fathers will be visited upon the children is a literal statement anent the human heritage of disease from Lemuria and Atlantis. Syphilis and tuberculosis have been extensively prevalent in the first half of the Aryan race, in which we now find ourselves, and today they not only affect the organs of generation or the lungs (as they did in the early stages of their appearance), but now have involved the blood stream and consequently the entire organism of the human body.

Much has been done in the last fifty years to bring the great Atlantean disease of tuberculosis under control by simplicity of living, pure and ample food and good air. Much is being done to control, finally, the syphilitic diseases, and both will eventually be stamped out, not only by sound treatment and the discoveries of medical science, but because the race—as it becomes more mentally polarised— will itself deal with the problem from the angle of commonsense, will decide that the physical sins exact too heavy a penalty and that the possession of that which you have not earned or needed, and which consequently is not rightfully yours, is not worth while.

It is around these basic ideas that the world war (1914-1945) was fought. We call the unlawful possession of other people's land, territories, goods and chattels, aggression; but this is the same thing in principle as stealing, theft and rape. Today these evils are not only individual sins and faults, but can be national characteristics; the world war has brought the whole problem to the surface of the human consciousness and the ancient Atlantean struggle is being bitterly waged, with the probability that this time the Great White Lodge will triumph. That was not the case in the earlier conflict. Then the war was ended by the intervention of the planetary Logos Himself, and that ancient civilisation went down into the deeps and was engulfed in water—the symbol of purity, sanitation and universality, and therefore appropriate as an ending for what one of the Masters has called "a tubercularly oriented race." Death by drowning and death by obscure physical means which I am not at liberty to describe have both been tried in the effort to salvage humanity. Today, death by fire is the applied technique, and it promises to be successful. In contradistinction to the great Lemurian and Atlantean crises, humanity is now far more mentally alert, the causes of the trouble are recognised, motives are seen more clearly, and the will-to-good and to change past evil conditions is stronger than ever before. What is beginning to manifest now in the public consciousness is something utterly good and new.

The subjective reasons given to account for the appearance of these two most ancient racial diseases may well appear to the non-esotericist as possible but not probable and as fanciful and too general in nature. This cannot be helped. These two groups of diseases are of such exceedingly ancient origin that I have called them inherent in the planetary life itself and the heritage of all humanity, for in all, the breaking of certain laws will bring about these diseases. If I cared to do so, I could take you still further back into the realm of cosmic evil as it prevails in our solar system and affects the planetary Logos, Who is still numbered among "the imperfect Gods." The outer form of the planet through which He expresses Himself is impregnated to a certain depth with the seeds and germs of these two diseases; as immunity is built up, however, as methods of cure are developed, as preventive medicine comes into its own, and as man himself arrives at increasing mental and soul control of the animal and desire natures, these forms of human suffering will disappear, and (no matter what statistics may say) they are disappearing among the more controlled areas of the human family. As the life of God (expressing itself as individual divinity and universal divinity) pulsates more powerfully through the kingdoms of nature, these two penalties of evil-doing will inevitably no longer be required and will disappear for three reasons:

1. The orientation of humanity towards the light is steadily changing and "light dispels all evil." The light of knowledge and the recognition of causes will bring about those carefully planned conditions which will make the syphilitic diseases and tuberculosis things of the past.

2. The centres below the diaphragm will be subjected to a cleansing, lifting process; the life of the sacral centre will be controlled and the energy usually focussed there will be expended in creative living, through the medium of the throat centre; the solar plexus centre will have its energy lifted to the heart, and the trend of human selfishness will then die out.

3. Complete cures, implemented by science, will bring about a gradual fading out of contagion.

Another reason which will bring about the cessation of those practises and modes of living and desiring which account for these diseases is one little recognised as yet; it was referred to by the Christ when He spoke of the time when nothing secret would remain hidden and when all secrets would be shouted aloud from the housetops. The growth of telepathic registration and of the psychic powers such as clairvoyance and clairaudience will eventually tend to strip humanity of the privacy in which to sin. The powers whereby the Masters and the higher initiates can ascertain the psychic state and physical condition of humanity, its quality and consciousness, are already beginning to show themselves in advanced humanity. People will sin, commit evil deeds and satisfy inordinate desire, but they will be known to their fellowmen and nothing that they do will be carried out in secret. Some one or some group will be aware of the tendencies in the life of a man, and even of the incidents in which he satisfies some demand of his lower nature, and the fact of this possibility will act as a great deterrent— a far greater deterrent than you can imagine.

Man is indeed his brother's keeper, and the keeping will take the form of knowledge and of "boycott and sanctions"—as it is called today in reference to the penalising of nations. I would have you ponder on these two modes of treating wrong doing. They will be practically automatically applied as a matter of good taste, right feeling and helpful intention by individuals and groups to other individuals and groups, and in this way crime and the tendency to evil doing will gradually be stamped out. It will be realised that all crime is founded upon some form of disease, or upon a glandular lack or overstimulation, based in turn upon the development or the underdevelopment of some one or other of the centres. An enlightened public opinion—informed as to man's constitution and aware of the great Law of Cause and Effect—will deal with the criminal through medical means, right environmental conditions, and the penalties of boycott and sanctions. I have no time to enlarge upon these matters, but these suggestions will give you food for thought.

C. Cancer

We come now to a consideration of the rapidly increasing and typical Atlantean disease which we call cancer. We have spoken of one basic widespread disease related to the physical body; we have dealt superficially with another which is a product of the desire nature. Cancer, in our present cycle, the Aryan, is definitely a result of the activity of the lower concrete mind and of the stimulation of the etheric body which the mind can bring about. It is a major disease incident to stimulation, as far as the Aryan masses are concerned, just as heart disease is also a disease of stimulation, affecting very largely the advanced types of humanity who—through interest in business and leadership—often sacrifice their lives and pay the penalty of misused and over-concentrated energy by developing various forms of acute heart trouble.

Disciples and initiates are prone also to suffer from this disease, owing to the awakening into violent activity of the heart centre. In the one case, the life energy flowing through the heart is employed past all human tolerance in handling human affairs; in the other, the heart centre opens up and the strain put upon the organ of the heart is too great, and heart disease supervenes. A third cause of heart disease is due to the premature or deliberately planned lifting of the energy of the solar plexus to the heart, thus putting an unexpected strain upon it.

I am dealing naturally in broad generalisations; later evidence will go to show the types of activity which will evoke corresponding difficulty within the heart. Heart disease will increase greatly as we enter into the new rootrace, particularly during the interim wherein the fact of the centres, their nature and qualities, is admitted and they consequently become the objective of trained attention. Energy follows thought, and this mental focussing upon the centres will inevitably produce overstimulation of all the centres, and this in spite of care and a carefully developed Science of the Centres. It is something which cannot be avoided, owing to the nervous and uneven unfoldment of man. Later, this stimulation will be regulated and controlled, and the heart will be subjected only to a general strain, along with all the other centres.

Cancer is a disease most definitely related to the centres, and it will be found that the centre in the area wherein the cancer exists is overactive, with a consequent increase of energy pouring through the related bodily substance. This energy and the overstimulation of a centre can be due not only to the activity of the centre and its consequent radiation, but also the suppression imposed by the mind upon any activity of a particular centre. This brings about a damming up of energy, and again we have the creation of too much concentrated energy in any particular area.

One of the main sources of cancer as related to the sacral centre, and therefore to the sex organs, has been the well-intentioned suppression of the sex life, and of all thought connected with the sex life, by misguided aspirants; they are those who find the teaching—monastic and celibate—of the Middle Ages the line of least resistance. In that period of time, good people taught that sex was evil and wicked, something not to be mentioned, and a potent source of trouble. Normal reactions, instead of being controlled and transmuted into creative activity, were violently suppressed and all thoughts anent the sex life were refused expression. Nevertheless, energy follows the direction of thought, with the result that that particularly magnetic type of energy attracted an increasing number of cells and atoms to itself; therein is found the source of the tumours, growths and cancers so prevalent today.

The same thing can be said about the violent inhibition imposed by an aspirant upon all emotional reactions and feelings. In their effort to control the astral body, these people resort to a process of direct inhibition and suppression. That suppression makes of the solar plexus centre a great reservoir of drastically retained energy. Transmutation of the emotions into aspiration and love and directed control is not present, and the existence of this vibrant reservoir of power brings about cancer of the stomach, of the liver, and sometimes of the entire area of the abdomen. I simply mention these causes (overactivity of a centre and the retention of energy, unexpressed and inhibited) as fruitful sources of cancer.

We come back in every case, as you can see, to the fact of the existence of the centres and their physiological effects. So much emphasis has been laid upon the qualities and characteristics which man will develop when the centres are all properly organised and directed, that the effects of the energy which they receive and distribute into the physical organism have been largely overlooked.

Two factors in connection with the centres and the blood stream warrant repetition and attention: 

1. The blood stream is the agent of the glandular system as it, in its turn, is an effect of the centres; the blood stream carries to every part of the body those essential elements of which we know so little and which are responsible for making man psychologically what he is, and thus physically control his equipment.

2. The blood stream is also the life, and carries throughout the organism an aspect of the energy stored up by the centres which is not directly related to the endocrine system; it penetrates, by its radiation, into the blood stream and into all the veins, arteries and capillaries within the area controlled by the centre under consideration. This permeating energy of life itself, localised and qualified, can be either life-giving or death bestowing.

All diseases—except those due to accidents, wounds resulting in infections, and epidemics—can in the last analysis be traced to some condition of the centres, and therefore to energy running wild, to energy overactive and misdirected or insufficient and lacking altogether, or retained instead of used and transmuted into a higher corresponding centre of energy. The mystery of the blood still remains to be solved, and will receive increasing attention as time goes on. The anemias, so prevalent today, are also due to excess of energy.

2. DISEASES ARISING FROM OBSCURE PLANETARY CONDITIONS

I shall, and can, say but little here—only enough to indicate one fruitful cause of disease and one of such great age that it is inherent in the life of the planet itself. These diseases have no subjective or subtle origin; they are not the result of emotional conditions or of undesirable mental processes. They are not psychological in nature and therefore cannot be traced to any activity of the centres. They originate from within the planetary life itself and from its life aspect, having a direct emanatory effect upon the individual atoms of which the dense physical body is composed. This is a point of importance to remember.

The source of any disease of this nature induced by the planet itself, is due primarily, therefore, to an external impact of certain vibratory emanations coming from the surface of the planet, engendered deep within the planet, and impinging upon the dense physical body. These radiations play upon the units of energy which, in their totality, constitute the atomic substance of the body; they are unconnected in any way with the blood stream or with the nervous system. They are consequently impossible to trace or isolate, because man is today so highly organised and integrated that these external impacts immediately evoke a response from the nervous system; the modern physician is at present unable to distinguish between the diseases arising from within the patient's own interior mechanism—tangible or intangible—and those which are in the nature of extraneous irritants, producing immediate effects upon the sensitive organism of man's body. I am not here referring to infectious or contagious difficulties.

Perhaps one point which I might helpfully emphasise is that it is this obscure planetary effect (obscure to us, at this time) upon the physical body which is the major cause of death where the purely animal form nature is concerned, or the forms of life present in the animal and vegetable kingdoms, and to a lesser and slower degree in the mineral kingdom likewise. Death, as far as the human being is concerned, is increasingly due to the planned intent and planned withdrawal of the soul, under the pressure of its own formulated intent. This is true to some degree of all who die, except those who are of so low a grade of intelligence that the soul is practically little more than an overshadowing agency. Of all who die, highly developed or not, the later stages of dissolution, effective after the conscious withdrawal of the soul (conscious on the part of the soul and becoming increasingly conscious on the part of the dying person), are taken over by this death-bestowing power of the planetary life itself.

In the case of the subhuman kingdoms in nature, death is the direct result of this obscure activity of the planet. The only idea as to its functioning which I can give you is that the soul of all non-human forms of life is an inherent aspect of the substance of which the planet is itself constructed; this soul can be withdrawn according to cycles, undetermined yet by science but fixed and certain in their working— apart from great planetary accidents or the direct action of the fourth kingdom in nature. This innate planetary power leads to the death of an animal and—in the larger sweep of evolution—to the extinction of a species; it leads also in time to the death of the forms of the vegetable kingdom and is also one of the causes which leads to the autumnal cycle in the year, producing the "sere, the yellow leaf," the loss of verdure in the grass, and those cyclic manifestations which indicate not alone death, upon a temporary and passing scale, but the complete cessation of vitality within a form. "Times of perishing" are cyclic manifestations of the "destroyer aspect" within the planet itself. These are necessarily difficult matters for you to grasp.

This radiatory activity of the planetary life, cyclic in nature and eternally present, is closely related to the influence of the first ray.

It is that aspect of the Ray of Will or Power which produces the dissolution of the form, and the corruption and dissipation of the bodily vehicle until it has been again completely reabsorbed into the substance of the planet. A focussed use of the imagination will aid you in discovering how vitally constructive this agency of divinity can be. Death has been present upon our planet from the very night of time itself; forms have come and gone; death has overtaken plants and trees, animals and the forms of human beings for untold aeons, and yet our planet is not a charnel house as it well might be in the face of this fact, but is still a thing of beauty, unspoilt even by man. The processes of dying and of dissolution and the dissipation of forms goes on every moment without producing contagious contamination or the disfiguring of the surface of the earth. The results of dissolution are beneficent in effect. Ponder on this beneficent activity and on the beauty of the divine plan of death and disappearance.

With man, death takes on two aspects of activity; the human soul differs from the soul in the non-human forms in that it is itself a full and—on its own plane—an effective expression of the three divine aspects; it determines within certain limits—based on time conditions and spatial necessity—its entrance into human form and its exit therefrom. Once this exit has been made and the soul has withdrawn the thread of consciousness from the brain and its life thread from the heart, certain life processes still persist; they are now under the influence of the planetary life, however, and to these the physical elemental (the sumtotal of the living atoms of the body nature) is responsive. I would have you note the occult paradox that death is the result of living processes. Death, or the death-producing energy emanating from the planet, brings about the complete disruption of the bodily organism and its reduction to its essential elements—chemical and mineral, plus certain inorganic substances which are susceptible of absorption into the soil of the planet itself. Death, as the result of soul activity produces, therefore, the withdrawing from the body of the "light body and of the subtle bodies," leaving the dense form and its component parts to the benign processes of planetary control. This dual activity produces death—as we know it from the human angle.

It is necessary here to point out that this ability of the planetary Logos to extract the life essence innate in each atom, produces what might be called deterioration in the structure of the form at any point from whence this life essence is emitted. This brings about conditions which eventually become apparent visually; thus disease and the "tendency to die" become recognisable. Therefore, the withering of a flower, death from old age in an animal or a tree, and the many diseases of the human being are all brought about by the pull of the powerful life of the planet, speaking esoterically; this is an aspect of what is called, erroneously, the Law of Gravitation. This law is—again speaking esoterically—an aspect of the Law of Return, which governs the relation of a unit of life in form to its emanating source. "Dust thou art; unto dust thou shalt return" is a statement of occult law.

In the curious evolution of words—as any good dictionary will show—the word "dust" comes from two roots, one meaning "wind" and the other "falling to pieces." The significance of both these meanings will be apparent and the sequence of ideas is arresting. With the withdrawing of the wind or breath, a falling to pieces eventuates, and this is a true and significant statement. As the greater life absorbs the lesser life, the disappearance of that which the life has informed takes place; this is true of all forms in the subhuman kingdoms as they respond to the drag or pull of the planetary life; it is true also of the human form as it reacts to the call of the soul to return its life principle to the soul, via the sutratma, and to return as consciousness to its registering source. 

In this process and interaction, the form shows the results of being either the receiver of the tide of life from the planet or as the releaser of that life, under cyclic law, to its general reservoir of living energy. Upon these two reactions depends the health or the disease of the form in various stages and states of response and under the action of other contributing and conditioning factors.

There are three major stages in the life cycle of all subhuman forms, and in the human form likewise when the soul is simply an overshadowing force and not an integrated energy:

1. The stage of inflowing, of vitalisation and of growth.

2. The stage of resistance, wherein the form preserves its own integrity for a temporary cycle, determined by its species and environment, thus resisting successfully any "pull" of the all-enveloping life and any reabsorption of its vitality.

3. The stage of emission, wherein the pull of the greater life of the planet draws out and absorbs the weakening lesser life. This weakening process is a part of a cyclic law, as the old adage "the days of a man are three score years and ten" hints. When the average of a general cyclic period is normally run, a point of weakening in the bodily tissue will surely and gradually arise. Disease or deterioration of some part of the form usually eventuates and death supervenes. The length of the cycles and their determining cause are a deep mystery and are specifically related to the various kingdoms in nature, and to the species and types and forms within those aggregates of living processes. These cycles are known as yet only to the Masters and to those initiates to whom is given the task of promoting the evolutionary process within the subhuman kingdoms, and to the devas whose task it is to control the process.

As you well know, the great distinction between the human kingdom in the three worlds and the other kingdoms in nature is the factor of freewill. In the matter of death, this freewill has a definite relation to the soul; the will of the soul is either consciously or unconsciously followed, where the decision of death is concerned, and this idea carries with it many implications which students would do well to ponder.

LAW VIII

Disease and death are the result of two active forces. One is the will of the soul which says to its instrument: I draw the essence back. Tire other is the magnetic power of the planetary Life which says to the life within the atomic structure: The hour of reabsorption has arrived. Return to me. Thus, under cyclic law, do all forms act.

The reference here is to the normal dissolution of the form at the close of a cycle of reincarnation. As we well know. this cycle is determined in the case of man by major psychological factors which can hasten or prolong the "hour of the end," but only up to a certain point. The dictum of the soul and the fiat of the planetary Life are the final determining factors, except in the cases of war, accident, suicide or epidemics.

The power of absorption with which the planet is endowed is very great within certain limitations; it is these limitations, for instance, which promote epidemics as the aftermath of war. Such epidemics have a serious effect upon the human race after the war cycle is over and after the consequent epidemic has spent itself. Humanity, particularly in Eastern Europe, had not completely recovered from the epidemics, incident to the first part of the world war, when the second part took place. The psychological effects continue; the scars and the results of the second phase of that world war will persist for fifty years, even though—owing to man's greater scientific knowledge—the epidemic factor may be kept surprisingly within bounds. This, however, still remains uncertain. Time alone will demonstrate how successful humanity is in offsetting the penalties which outraged nature is apt to exact.

Much good will be brought about through the growing custom to cremate those forms which the indwelling life has vacated; when it is an universal custom, we shall see a definite minimising of disease, leading to longevity and increased vitality. The factor of resistance or the process whereby a form renders itself immune or non-responsive to the planetary pull and urge towards reabsorption requires the expenditure of much energy. When the life increases in potency within the form and there is less reaction to disease-conveying factors, the soul within the form will have fuller sway and greater beauty of expression and usefulness in service. This will be true some day of all the kingdoms in nature, and thus we shall have a steady radiance shining forth in the mounting glory of the Life of God.

3. RACIAL AND NATIONAL DISEASES

It must be apparent to you by now that I am principally concerned with indicating factors which are the result of the past history of the race rather than with giving you a specific and detailed account of the diseases which are allied to the various nations. Above everything else, I seek to make clear what must be done along the line of preventive healing and what should be accomplished in the difficult task of offsetting conditions already prevalent on earth as the result of past misuse of the natural powers. There must therefore be brought about a healing of those conditions which are present upon our planet on a large scale, and consequently my emphasis will not be upon the specific and the individual. I am laying a foundation also for a discussion of our next theme—the relation of the Law of Karma to disease and death and to humanity as a whole.

In the consideration of racial and national diseases, I do not intend to point out that tuberculosis is distinctively a disease of the middle classes in every country, that diabetes is a major trouble among the rice-eating peoples of the world, and that cancer is rampant in Great Britain, whilst heart disease is a prime cause of death in the United States. Such generalisations are both as true and as false as statistics usually are, and nothing is gained by labouring these points. These difficulties will all be offset in due time through the growth of understanding, by the intuitive diagnosis of disease, and by the magnificent work of scientific and academic medicine, plus a truer comprehension of right living conditions.

I prefer rather to give still wider generalisations which will indicate causes and will not emphasise the consequences of these causes. I seek, therefore, to point out that:

1. The soil of the planet itself is a major cause of disease and of contamination. For untold aeons, the bodies of men and of animals have been laid away in the ground; that soil is consequently impregnated with the germs and the results of disease and this in a far subtler form than is surmised. The germs of ancient known and unknown diseases are to be found in the layers of the soil and the subsoil; these can still produce virulent trouble if presented with proper conditions. Let me state that Nature never intended that bodies would be buried in the ground. The animals die and their bodies return to the dust, but return purified by the rays of the sun and by the breezes which blow and disperse. The sun can cause death as well as life, and the most virulent germs and bacteria cannot retain their potency if submitted to the dry heat of the sun's rays. Moisture and darkness foster disease as it emanates from and is nourished by bodies from whence the life aspect has been drawn. When, in all countries throughout the world, the rule is to submit dead forms to the "ordeal by fire," and when this has become a universal and persistent habit, we shall then see a great diminution of disease and a much healthier world.

2. The psychological condition of a race or of a nation, as we have seen, produces a tendency to disease and to a lowered resistance to the causes of disease; it can engender an ability to absorb evil contamination with facility.

3. Living conditions in many lands also foster disease and ill health. Dark and crowded tenements, underground homes, undernourishment, wrong food, evil habits of life and various occupational diseases—all contribute their quota to the general ill health of humanity. These conditions are universally recognised and much has been done to offset them, but much remains to be done.  

If a full review of the health of the world were to be undertaken and presented to the thinking public— taken in normal conditions and not in war time—the question arises whether there are one hundred thousand perfectly healthy people to be found out of the billions now inhabiting the earth? I think not. If no actual and active disease is present, nevertheless the condition of the teeth, the hearing and the sight leave frequently much to be desired; inherited tendencies and active predispositions cause grave concern, and to all this must be added psychological difficulty, mental diseases and definite brain trouble.

When the work of the doctor and the surgeon in relation to the physical body is recognised as essential and good, when the analysis and conclusions of the psychologist supplement their work, and when the power of right thought comes likewise as an aid, then and only then, shall we enter upon a new era of well-being.

To the various categories of trouble must also be added a whole group of diseases which are more strictly mental in their effect—the cleavages, the insanities, the obsessions, the mental breaks, the aberrations and the hallucinations. To the various healing agencies mentioned above should be added the work undertaken by Members of the spiritual Hierarchy and Their disciples; it takes soul power and knowledge, plus the wisdom of the other healing groups, to produce health among people, to empty our sanitariums, to rid humanity of the basic diseases, of lunacy and obsession, and to prevent crime. This is finally brought about by the right integration of the whole man, through a right comprehension of the nature of energy, and through a correct appreciation of the endocrine system, its glands and their subtle relationships.

At present there is little coherent and integrated work done in unison by the four groups:

1. Physicians and surgeons—orthodox and academic.
2. Psychologists, neurologists and psychiatrists.
3. Mental healers and New Thought workers, plus Unity thinkers and Christian Scientists.
4. Trained disciples and those who work with the souls of men.

When these four groups can be brought into close relation, and can work together for the release of humanity from disease, we shall then arrive at an understanding of the true wonder of the human being. We shall some day have hospitals in which the four phases of this one medical and remedial work will proceed side by side and in the fullest cooperation. Neither group can do a complete task without the others; all are interdependent.

It is the inability of these groups to recognise the good in the other groups striving for the physical well-being of humanity which makes it almost impossible for me to do more specific teaching and more direct talking on these matters. Have you any idea of the wall of antagonistic thinking and speech against which a new or pioneering idea has to batter itself? Have you ever seriously considered the aggregated and crystallised thoughtforms with which all such new ideas (and shall I call them hierarchical proposals) have to contend? Do you appreciate the dead weight of preconceived and ancient determinations which have to be moved before the Hierarchy can cause a new and needed concept to penetrate into the consciousness of the average public?

The field of medicine is a most difficult field in which to work, for the subject is so intimate, and fear enters so strongly into the reactions of those who must be reached. The gulf between the old and established and the new and the spiritually demanded, needs much long and careful bridging. A great deal of the difficulty is, curiously enough, to be found fostered by the newer schools of thought. Orthodox medicine is slow, and rightly slow, in adopting new techniques and methods; it is at times too slow, but the case of the new mode of treatment or diagnosis must be rightly proven and statistically proven before it can be incorporated in the medical curriculum and method; the risks to the human subject are too great, and the good humanitarian physician will not make his patient the subject of experimentation.

The approach of the mental schools and cults, as they erroneously call themselves, has not proceeded so helpfully. This is largely their fault. Schools of thought such as Mental Science, New Thought, Unity, Christian Science, Chiropractic enterprise, the efforts of the Naturopaths and many others, hurt their cause, owing to the large claims which they make and to their unceasing attacks upon orthodox medicine and other channels of proven helpfulness and upon the knowledge (acquired over centuries of experimentation) of the academic schools of medicine and surgery. These cults which are in fact the custodians of needed truths, need above everything else to change their approach and to learn the spiritual nature of compromise in these days of evolutionary unfoldment.

CHAPTER III - Our Karmic Liabilities

We have reached now the concluding phase of our approach to the problem of disease. In our next part we shall deal with the attitudes and temperaments of the patient, taking into consideration his ray and also the state of mind of the healer; all these points are of prime importance when one comes to the consideration of the fine art of healing. It is, however, essential that ill health, acute disease, and death itself should find their place in the overall picture. A particular incarnation is not an isolated event in the life of the soul, but is a part and an aspect of a sequence of experiences which are intended to lead to one, clear, definite goal—the goal of free choice and a deliberate return out of matter to spirit and eventual liberation.

There has been much talk among esotericists anent liberation. The goal held before the neophyte is liberation, freedom, emancipation; this, by and large, is the keynote of life itself. The concept is a transitting out of the realm of the purely selfish and of personal liberation into something much wider and more important. This concept of liberation lies behind the modern use of the word "liberty" but is far wiser, better and deeper in its connotation. Liberty, in the minds of many, is freedom from the imposition of any man's rule, freedom to do as one wishes, to think as one determines and to live as one chooses. This is as it should be, provided that one's wishes, choices, thoughts and desires are free from selfishness and are dedicated to the good of the whole. This is, as yet, very seldom so.

Liberation is much more than all this; it is freedom from the past, freedom to move forward along certain predetermined lines (predetermined by the soul), freedom to express all the divinity of which one is capable as an individual, or which a nation can present to the world.

There have been in the history of the past two thousand years, four great symbolic happenings which have sequentially presented (to those who have eyes to see, ears to hear and minds to interpret) the theme of liberation—and not simply of liberty.

1. The life of Christ Himself. He, for the first time, presented the idea of the sacrifice of the unit, consciously and deliberately offered for the service of the whole. There had been other World Saviours, but the issues involved had not so clearly been expressed, because the mind of man had not been ready to grasp the implications. Service is the keynote of liberation. Christ was the ideal Server.

2. The signing of the Magna Carta. This document was signed at Runnymede, during the reign of King John on June 15th, 1215, A.D. Here the idea of liberation from authority was presented with the emphasis upon the personal liberty and rights of the individual. The growth and development of this basic idea, mental concept and formulated perception falls into four phases or chapters:

1. The signing of the Magna Charta, emphasising personal liberty.
2. The founding of the French Republic with its emphasis upon human liberty.
3. The Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights, determining national policy.
4. The Atlantic Charter and the Four Freedoms, bringing the whole question into the international field, and guaranteeing to men and women everywhere in the world liberty and freedom to develop the divine reality within themselves.

3. The Emancipation of the Slaves. The spiritual idea of human liberty, which had become a recognised ideal, became a demanding desire, and a great symbolic happening took place—the slaves were freed. Like all things which human beings enact, perfection is nonexistent. The Negro is not free in this land of the free, and America will have to clean house in this respect; to put it in clear concise words, the U.S.A. must see to it that the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are facts and not a dream. Only thus can the inevitable working of the Law of Karma be offset. The Negroes are Americans, as well as the New Englanders and all other stocks which are not indigenous in this country, and the Constitution is theirs also. As yet the privileges it confers are withheld by those who are the slaves of selfishness and fear.

4. The Liberation of Humanity by the United Nations. We are participating in a great spectacular and symbolic happening and are watching it in process. The liberation of the individual has moved onward through the symbolic liberation of a section of humanity (the remnants of the first two races, the Lemurian and the Atlantean) to the liberation of millions of human beings, enslaved by the forces of evil, by millions of their fellow men. The ideal has worked through into a practical worldwide effort upon the physical plane and has demanded worldwide sacrifice. It has involved the entire three worlds of human evolution, and for this reason the Christ can now lead His forces and aid human beings to liberate mankind.

What has really been happening, therefore, in the lives of individuals, in the lives of nations and in the life of humanity? A tremendous move to put right most ancient evil, to offset consciously the Law of Cause and Effect by a recognition of the causes in the personal, national and international worlds which have produced the effects under which humanity today suffers.

The Law of Karma is today a great and incontrovertible fact in the consciousness of humanity everywhere. They may not call it by that name, but they are well aware that in all today's events the nations are reaping what they sowed. This great law—at one time a theory—is not a proven fact and a recognised factor in human thinking. The question "Why?" so frequently asked brings in the factor of cause and effect with constant inevitability. The concepts of heredity and of environment are efforts to explain existing human conditions; qualities, racial characteristics, national temperaments and ideals prove the fact of some initiating world of causes. Historical conditions, the relationships between nations, social taboos, religious convictions and tendencies can all be traced to originating causes— some of them most ancient. Everything that is happening in the world today and which is so potently affecting humanity—things of beauty and of horror, modes of living and civilisation and culture, prejudices and likings, scientific attainment and artistic expression and the many ways in which humanity throughout the planet colours existence—are aspects of effects, initiated somewhere, on some level at some time, by human beings, both individually and en masse.

Karma is therefore that which Man—the Heavenly Man in whom we live, humanity as a whole, mankind in groups as nations, and individual man—has instituted, carried forward, endorsed, omitted to do or has done right through the ages until the present moment. Today, the harvest is ripe and mankind is reaping what it has sown, preparatory to a fresh ploughing in the springtime of the New Age, with a fresh sowing of the seed which will (let us pray and hope) produce a better harvest.

(Please see the book Esoteric Healing for more information on racial karma.)

RULE SIX

A careful diagnosis of the disease, based on the ascertained outer symptoms, will be simplified to this extent that, once the organ involved is known and thus isolated, the centre in the etheric body which is in closest relation to it will be subjected to methods of occult healing, though the ordinary, ameliorative, medical or surgical methods will not be withheld.

It is here that the fanatical cultist or healer of today so often goes astray. The old approach to medicine, with its physical investigation and its successful or unsuccessful diagnosis, will still be required until such time that physicians and surgeons have clairvoyant faculty, intuitive perception and spiritual insight, and also until they have worked out a technique for handling energy in relation to the patient. To this will some day be added correct astrological interpretation, immediate recognition of ray types, and then the application of the right healing techniques, as required by the ray which conditions the patient's life expression, plus his point in evolution.

There is present today, in the science of medicine, a situation paralleling that to be found in the realm of religion. The old approach suffices for the masses and is frequently successful both in its ameliorative and preventive aspects, and in its process of diagnosis. This is all that is possible at this time. In the same manner, the old religious presentation suffices to guide the unthinking masses along certain broad lines of controlled living, and to keep clearly in the consciousness of the average man certain uncontrovertible, spiritual facts. Both in the guidance and protection of the masses in their spiritual natures and in the guidance and protection of their physical vehicles, doctors and priests can be divided into various groups—some adhering to old proved techniques, some so fundamentalist in position that they refuse to investigate that which is new and unproven, and some so idealistic, speculative and fanatical that they rush ahead and enter into a world of speculative experiment which may or may not give them the key to the medicine of the future but which certainly puts their patients into the category of what you call "guinea pigs."

The new medicine cannot be scientifically formulated or intelligently presented until such time as the fact of the etheric body is accepted and its existence, as a mechanism of energy supply and as the vital aspect of the outer form, is generally recognised. The shift of the attention of the medical profession will then be away from the outer, tangible, physical effects and to the inner causes, as they are to be found in the centres and their related fields of activity.

Within the areas where a disease is manifested, certain esoteric facts anent the general subject have already been posited by me:

1. That disease, in its immediate cause, can be traced to the individual etheric body when the difficulty is purely local, or to the planetary etheric body (in particular the etheric body of the fourth kingdom in nature) where epidemics are involved, or to such a condition as war, affecting large masses of men.

2. That the etheric body has not hitherto been considered as an existent fact, from the angle of orthodox medicine, though there is a modern drift towards emphasis upon vitality, upon the vital qualities in food, and the giving of vitamin products in order to build up a vital response. This is the first indication of an unrealised need to increase the potency of the vital body.

3. That the condition of the etheric body predisposes the subject to disease or protects it from disease, making man resistant to the impact of deteriorating or epidemic factors, or failing to do so because of inherent etheric weakness.

4. That the etheric body is the mechanism of vital, pranic life, and "sub-stands" or underlies the outer, familiar equipment of the nervous system, which feeds and actuates all parts of the physical organism. The relationship existing between the centres, the nadis and the entire nervous system comprises the field of the new medicine and indicates the new major field of research.

5. That the main causes of all disease are two in nature:

1. They are to be found, first of all, in the stimulation or the nonstimulation of the centres. This simply implies the overactivity or the underactivity of any centre in any part of the body. Where the flow of energy is commensurate to the demands of the physical body at any particular stage of development, then there will be relative freedom from disease.

2. They are to be found, secondly, in the karmic effect of the three planetary diseases: Cancer, Tuberculosis, Syphilitic diseases. Some day medicine will realise that behind every single disease (irrespective of the results of accident or war) lie these three main tendencies in the human body. This is a basic and important statement.

6. That the etheric body is a focussing point for all the interior energies of the body, and therefore the energy transmitted will not be pure vital energy or simple planetary prana but will be qualified by forces coming from the astral or the emotional apparatus, from the mind or from the soul body. These "qualifications of force," indicating as they do the karma of the individual, are in the last analysis the major conditioning forces. They indicate the point of development of the individual and the areas of control in his personality. They therefore indicate the state of his karma. This lifts the whole subject of medicine into the psychological field and posits the entire problem of karmic effects and of ray types.

7. That these conditioning factors make the etheric body what it is in any one incarnation; these factors are, in their turn, the result of activities initiated and carried through in previous incarnations, and thus constitute the patient's karmic liabilities or his karmic freedoms.

8. That the basic energies pouring into the etheric body and conditioning the physical body will be of two major types: the ray energy of the soul and the ray energy of the personality, qualified by the three minor forces or the rays of the mental nature, the astral body and the physical vehicle. This therefore involves five energies which are present in the etheric body which the physician of the future will have to consider.

9. That diagnoses, based upon the recognition of these subjective factors, are not in reality the involved and complicated matter they appear to be today to the student of the advanced occult theories. Medical men in the New Age will eventually know enough to relate these various ray forces to their appropriate centres; hence they will know which type of force is responsible for conditions—good or bad—in any particular area of the body. Some day, when more research and investigation have been carried forward, the science of medicine will be built upon the fact of the vital body and its constituent energies. It will then be discovered that this science will be far simpler and less complicated than present medical science. Today, medicine has reached such a point of complexity that specialists have perforce been needed who can deal with one area of the body and with its effect upon the entire physical vehicle. The average general practitioner cannot cope with the mass of detailed knowledge now gathered re the physical body, its various systems, their interrelation and their effect upon the many organisms which constitute the whole man. Surgery will remain occupied with the anatomical necessities of the human frame; medicine will shift its focus of attention, before long, to the etheric body and its incident circulatory systems of energy, its interlocking relationships and the flow between the seven centres, between the centres themselves and the areas which they control.

10. As the true astrology comes into its own and is developed into a reputable science, the charts of the soul and of the personality can be related to each other; then the etheric body will be checked by correct astrological conclusions, and the physician will be on far surer ground than he now is. The astrology of the past concerned the life of the personality; the astrology of the future will indicate the purpose of the soul, and will completely revolutionise medicine (among other things). It must, however, be lifted out of the hands of those interested in predictional astrology, out of the hands of the thousands who at this time spend much time "casting" horoscopes (seeking to interpret their usually erroneous conclusions), and placed in the hands of trained mathematical scientists and in the hands of those who have given as much time to scientific training along astrological lines as is now given to training a reputable physician, a chemist or a biologist.

11.  These astrological findings will not only be related to the personality and the soul charts, but will also enter the field of medicine, particularly in relation to the etheric body. Today, any astrological investigation done in the field of medicine has relation to physical disease within the physical body; in the future, it will concentrate upon the condition of the etheric vehicle. This is a new and imminent development in astrological research.

The success of modern medicine is today so great that millions of people are kept alive—if not cured—who in earlier days and with less scientific aptitude would normally have died. In this developed skill and knowledge, and in this aptitude in the care of the physical mechanism, is today to be found a major world problem—the problem of the overpopulation of the planet, leading to the herd life of humanity and the consequent economic problem—to mention only one of the incidental difficulties of this success. This "unnatural" preservation of life is the cause of much suffering and is a fruitful source of war, being contrary to the karmic intent of the planetary Logos.

With this vast problem, I cannot here deal. I can only indicate it. It will be solved when the fear of death disappears and when humanity learns the significance of time and the meaning of cycles. It will be simplified when true astrological findings become possible, when man knows the hour of his departure from this outer plane, and masters the technique of "withdrawal" and the methods of abstracting himself consciously from the prison of the body. But much research has to take place first. The fact, however, that the problem is recognised and that speculation and investigation are rife, indicate that the time has come—karmically and from the angle of human evolutionary development— for a study of the etheric body, of the conditioning rays which govern its manifestation in space, and of astrology, which governs its manifestation in time.

It is for this reason that the world today is full of groups in revolt against orthodox medicine—wrongly in revolt, because in their fanatical enthusiasm for their particular approach to the problem of healing, they ignore the beneficent aspects of developed medical science. They thus attempt to throw overboard the contribution of the ages to man's knowledge of the human organism, its interrelations and its care, cure and preservation; they fail to profit from past wisdom, but prefer to set sail upon the sea of research in a spirit of revolt, full of prejudice and totally unequipped for the task in hand.

It might be said that the main contribution which I am making at this time is to indicate the causes of disease and ill health which are not recognised by orthodox medicine, which deals with the effects of these subtle causes as they work out in the physical body and the nervous system. I am not dealing (as I have earlier warned you) with the symptoms of disease, with medical diagnosis or with systems of applied physical means to bring about cures or to ameliorate conditions. These have kept pace with man's growing capacity to discover and to know. Let me reiterate that I am laying the foundation for an approach to the subject of the physical body in health and disease which will deal primarily with the etheric body. This should eventually lead to an accumulation of knowledge anent energy, its focal points and distribution in the etheric body, which will equal that already gained in the field of exact physical knowledge, and that exact knowledge is a fact.

The study of inherited disease indicates a faint recognition of man's karmic liabilities and karmic tendencies. A mistake lies however in the belief that these tendencies are to be found in the germs of life and of substance, brought together at the moment of conception, and therefore that the father or the mother is responsible for the transmission. Such is not the case. The subject in incarnation has—from the angle of the soul—definitely and consciously chosen his parents for what they can contribute to his physical make-up whilst in incarnation. The vital body is therefore of such a nature that the man is predisposed to a particular type of infection or of disease; the physical body is of such a nature that its line of least resistance permits of the appearance and control of that which the vital body makes possible; the incarnating soul produces, in its creative work and in its vital vehicle, a particular constitution to which the parents chosen contribute a definite tendency. The man is therefore nonresistant to certain types of disease. This is determined by the karma of the man.

It is well known to students of the esoteric sciences that the physical body is simply an automaton, responsive to and actuated by a subtler body of energies which are a true expression of the point in evolution. This point in evolution may be that of personality control, through one or other of its bodies, or of soul control. These are facts which the medical profession must grasp, and when it does a great step forward will have been made. Esoteric students are willing to recognise that the physical body is automatic in its response to emotional, mental or soul impression; so closely, however, is the etheric body interwoven with the physical vehicle that it is well nigh impossible to separate the two in consciousness; this will not be proven or possible until the science of etheric energy and the development of clairvoyant perception demonstrate the truth of what I say.

Healers and healing groups work as yet at a great disadvantage; but they can begin now to work, and their work is of a twofold nature:

1. They can, through the power of directed thought, pour energy into the centre which is the determining factor in that area of the physical body where the trouble lies. If, for instance, the patient is suffering from such a difficulty as gastric ulcer, the stimulation of the solar plexus centre may produce a cure, provided that the work done is purely mental and that the results expected are purely physical. Otherwise the emotional nature will share in the stimulation and real difficulty will arise.

2. They can stimulate a centre higher than the one controlling a particular area and thus—by the intensification of the higher centre—reduce the vitality of the lower. If, for instance, there is disease or trouble in connection with the organs of generation (as for instance disease of the prostate gland), then the throat centre should receive attention. It is that centre which must eventually be the recipient of the energy of the lower creative aspect or correspondence. This is called "the technique of the withdrawal of the fire"; by its means what you call overstimulation in certain cases, or inflammation in others, can be stopped.

These two ways of using energy and thought control form the occult basis for the two fundamental methods used in directing energy in diseased areas. They produce, in the one case, an intensification of the life of the associated centre, with a consequent definite effect upon the diseased area; or they lessen the inflow of force in the other case, and thus weaken the quality of the disease. It will be apparent, therefore, that much must be known of the effects of these two basic and different techniques before a healer dare work. Otherwise he might greatly increase the trouble in the diseased area and even succeed (which frequently happens) in killing the patient.

There is another point which I would seek to emphasise. In all healing methods of an esoteric nature, it is essential that sound medical practices of an orthodox kind accompany the subtler modes of help. It is in the wise combination of the two approaches, and in the cooperative work of the orthodox physician and of the occult healer or healing group, that the soundest results will be produced.

Students who attempt to heal will therefore need to realise two things:

1. the nature of the disease, as diagnosed by a good physician
2. the centre which controls the area of the disease.

The safest plan for the average student of healing or for a healing group is to work in cooperation with some reputable doctor and in relation to the centre which controls the diseased area. Initiates, in their healing work, deal with the higher correspondence of the controlling centre, working always through the analogous emotional and mental centres. This is neither possible nor permissible to the ordinary healing group. The higher the centres considered, involved and dealt with, the more potent the results, and therefore the greater care required.

The whole process is one of either stimulating activity or of withdrawing energy, of making more active an allied centre and thus abstracting attention from the centre governing the diseased area or organ, or of balancing the energies flowing between two centres and thus producing an equable and even interplay. The more the neophyte studies this subject of healing the more complex it will appear, until the time comes when he can work in collaboration with some physician who has the inner vision and can see the centres, or with patients who know within themselves their own destiny and can collaborate with some group which has sound occult knowledge, which can ascertain the patient's rays and which knows at least the nature of his disposition or his "indisposition," through consulting his natal chart.

You might ask, therefore, in view of all this, if it is possible for you to do definite healing work that will be effective, sound, right and permissible. The risks of over-or understimulation seem too great; the knowledge of the healer seems too small to permit experiment, and the karma of the patient is necessarily (for the average healer) not yet ascertainable.

To this I would reply that all work of a pioneering and experimental nature has always its own special risks. Many have been the casualties of science, and particularly of medical science, in the early days of modern medicine and surgery. But this never deterred the sincere investigator or slackened the growth of knowledge; in these days of pioneering in the field of occult healing, the same courage must be shown and the same risks assumed. The safeguard from the strictly legal and human angle will be that the patient will be in the hands of a reputable physician for diagnosis and medical care during the time that the occult healer is endeavouring to be of vital helpfulness.

The work of the healer and of the healing groups will therefore be supplementary to the orthodox care; results will have to be carefully watched and noted on both sides.

Any group which is formed for healing should work under certain determined policies, and here are a few which I would suggest as essential to success in this transitional period:

1. The patient to be healed (or helped, if healing is not possible) should always be in the hands of a good and reputable doctor, and if not, should be encouraged to consult one.

2. The nature of the disease should be known to the group, and should be determined by careful, orthodox medical diagnosis.

3. The age of the patient, his birth date and some information anent his circumstances should also be known, so as to provide a focal point of interest, and a magnetic area should be constructed around the patient which will attract the thought-directed energy of the group.

4. The healer or the healing group should have a general grasp of the nature and the anatomy of the body, the placement of the various organs in the body and the position and nature of the centres governing the diseased area or areas. Charts giving this information should be studied.

5. The faculty of imagination and the power of visualisation should be emphasised in a healing group, and the ability should be developed to send streams of energy to the patient and to the area in the patient's body where the trouble lies. 

6. The healer or the healing group must remember that it is not mental energy only with which he works. He, for himself:

1. Creates a thought of healing power.

2. That created focal point of concentrated attention becomes the directing agent for the healing force or prana.

3. This prana is neither mental nor astral in nature. It is pure planetary substance or living essence, and is that substance of which the vital body of the planet is made.

4. The healer or the healing group appropriates as much of this substance as is possible, and by the power of their united thought they direct it to and through the centre involved. Healing work is circulatory, and this must not be forgotten. The pranic energy (thought-directed) is not sent to the centre and there permitted to accumulate. It is passed through the centre, first of all to the organ involved or the area where difficulty is to be found, and then is sent out to the body as a totality. It might be regarded as a system of flushing, with a purificatory and stimulating effect.

It is only possible in these early days of experiment and work along these lines to give certain simple rules. Out of the results achieved experience will come, and the healing group will learn gradually how to work, when to change its methods, and what to notice. From the start of work along these lines, records should be kept. In this aspect of the work the patient will frequently cooperate. Dates, incidental phenomena, changes for the better or the worse should be noted, along with information as is possible anent the patient's general condition. For this reason, I recommend that in the early stages of this work healing be attempted only in connection with those who are well known to the members or who are put in the hands of the healing group by physicians or by those willing to give full information.

People who are so ill that they are not expected to live, or who are suffering from diseases which preclude ultimate recovery, should not be taken into the healing group for treatment, except with ameliorative results in mind. No neophyte knows enough of karma to work with confidence either at the task of health or of release by death. If, however, a patient gets worse whilst the group is working upon his case, he should not be dropped, but a definite and different technique can then be used to ease the path of death. In the next section I intend to touch upon the karma of death.

If you will bear in mind that work in connection with the etheric body (as an instrument of vitality) is today as little known as the science of modern medicine was known in the year 1200 A.D., you will be enabled to work without discouragement and without that undue expectation which today handicaps the neophyte. Assume consciously the position that nothing is as yet really known anent the centres, the areas of energy in the body, and thought direction; realise also that you are engaging upon a great research project. Nothing, literally nothing, has been done in relation to medicine and the science of the centres in any practical way, though certain books upon the relation of the centres to psychological research and equipment and the glandular or endocrine system have played tentatively with the subject. The field of research which I propose to you is an entirely new one. Those among you who enter it may not see the results of what you are attempting to do. Your impatience and your eagerness to help may handicap you; your ignorance may cause you to make mistakes, but, go on; persevere; keep careful records and preserve all correspondence. Then the results will be sure.

1. KARMIC LIABILITIES OF THE INDIVIDUAL

We have already studied (perhaps without realising its implications) our first point under this heading. This concerns the karmic liabilities of the individual, emerging from the subjective vehicles and from the personality as a whole.

As we discussed the psychological causes of disease as they arise in the subtle vehicles in the three worlds or from the disciple's tension as he endeavours to tread the Path, we were in reality concerned entirely with karma or the effect of the inner causes of events, equipment and circumstances upon the physical plane. We saw how the inner bodies, via the etheric body, conditioned the man's outer manifestation, and that disease or health was largely dependent upon them. They are the immediate karmic cause of physical plane existence. If the idea is then extended to include previous incarnations—as must inevitably be the case—then we arrive at the conclusion that the condition of these inner bodies, their limitations and their richness, their defects and their assets, and their general psychic and psychological tendencies are inherited from previous lives, and are therefore responsible for the present earthly situation. We have, consequently, simply pushed the causes of present day conditions still further back, and we could—if we so desired—enter a field of such intricacy and detail that nothing profitable would eventuate. The whole problem of the recovery of past incarnations is one of infinite possibility, and when I use this word "infinite" I immediately put the whole subject out of the control of the finite mind. We are then dealing with something which it is not possible to handle rationally.

Karma was, for infant humanity and for the undeveloped individual, a group matter. The man was a member of a group but without any thought as to the implications and the responsibilities entailed. Later, as the process of individualisation became more effective in character and purpose and more pronounced in temperament, karma became also more personal and definite, and the man in a position to make or work off more causes and effects. The personality not being thoroughly unfolded and integrated, the man was still involved in group life and the interrelations became more extensive. Later on, the personality became the conscious creator of its own causes and the conscious participator in the effects. Upon the Path, the karma of the chosen group, of the individual, and of those with whom the man chooses association through unity of spiritual purpose involves him, and another factor is added to the previous categories of karmic responsibility. Later still, karma in the three worlds is met, overcome and negated; at the same time karma connected with the initiating of causes through world service is added to that which the individual has already experienced, and he shares in the karmic responsibility of the Hierarchy itself.

1. Elementary group karma—of the primitive man.
2. Individual karma of the self-conscious developing man.
3. Karma, related to the life of the disciple.
4. Hierarchical karma.

The stages enumerated above must be added to the well known Karma of Retribution with which the disciple is already familiar; to it must also be added national and racial karma, plus the educational karma which all disciples bring upon themselves when they are desirous of entering an Ashram to prepare for initiation.

There is also the Karma of Reward in contradistinction to that of Retribution; this is a type of karma oft forgotten, but one which will become better known in the coming world cycle. Humanity has worked off much evil karma, and the karma based on causes later to be initiated will not generate such dire effects as that of the past. Not all karma is bad, in spite of what man thinks. Much of it is necessarily punitive and distressing, owing to humanity's ignorance and low stage of development.

When karmic retribution becomes acute and terrible, as it is in today's appalling world experience, it indicates that humanity has reached a point where consequences can be meted out on a large scale and with justice. Very little suffering is attached to karma where there is ignorance, leading to irresponsibility and complete lack of thought and there is attached to affairs but little true sense of guilt. There may be unhappy conditions and distressing circumstances, but the ability to respond to such conditions with commensurate pain is lacking; there is little mental reaction to the processes of karmic retribution. This should be borne in mind. The Aryan race is now, however, so developed mentally and on a large scale that karma is truly horrible and agonising and can express itself through world conditions. At the same time, the present widespread distress indicates the extent and success of human unfoldment and is a most hopeful and promising sign. In this idea, you have the clue as to why the good, the holy and the saintly servers of the race carry—in this world cycle—such a heavy load of karmic ill.

It is consequently quite impossible in the scope of this treatise to deal more fully with this subject of karma as it produces the many types of human ills, including disease—only one of its manifestations. The theme is too vast, too complicated and too widely diffusing in its effect. All that one can do is to posit the fact that past actions and reactions have established in previous lives such a karmic rhythm that today all the aspects of the lower nature are involved; and among the commonest and most ordinary effects, and one in which the great Law of Retribution takes effect, is that of disease. This is a point which healers and metaphysicians, so-called, should most carefully consider.

2. THE SEVEN RAY CAUSES OF KARMA

These carry the cause of all human difficulties, including ill health and disease—individual, national and racial—still further back to the very origin of creation itself. Karma demonstrates in those streams of energy and of primordial substance which pour into and through the created world, including the lower three worlds where work the lunar pitris and the elemental essences of all forms. This primordial karma (if I may so call it) is contributory to the existence of disease. We are told in the ancient books, to which the Masters have access, that the world is constructed of substance which is already tainted with the karma of a previous solar system.

It will be apparent to you that these streams of force, emanating from the Lords of the Seven Rays, are coloured, therefore, and "tainted"—if I may use such a word—by the limitations of these same great Beings; They are Gods, from our point of view, but in reality, Gods in the making, even though much nearer solar divinity than the most advanced human being is near to planetary divinity. They are the "imperfect Gods" spoken of in The Secret Doctrine and are the planetary Logoi of the sacred and non-sacred planets. If the great informing Lives of the planets within our solar system are imperfect, the effect of this imperfection must inevitably affect Their planetary creations, Their bodies of manifestation, and thus introduce a karmic condition over which the individual human being has absolutely no control, but within which he moves and which he shares. It is obviously impossible for me to elucidate this theme.

The "Book of Karma" has in it the following stanzas, and these can serve as an introduction to those dealing with the Seven Ray causes of inharmony and disease. To the intuitive aspirant some meaning will emerge, but he must ever bear in mind that all that I am attempting to do is to put into words— unsatisfactory and quite inadequate—stanzas concerning the conditioning factors in the equipment of those great Beings Whose life force (which we call energy) creates all that is, colours and shapes all manifestations within the worlds, and adds its quota of force to the equipment of every single human being. Every man appropriates this energy to the measure of his need, and his need is the sign of his development.

The stanzas I have selected are from The Book of Imperfections, part 14:

"The seven imperfections issued forth and tainted substance from the highest sphere unto the lowest. The seven perfections followed next, and the two—that which is whole and sound and that which is known as detail and unwholesome in an awful sense—met upon the plane of physical life. (The etheric plane)

And there they fought, swinging into the conflict all that they were and had, all that was seen and all that was unseen within the triple ring. (The three lower worlds)

The seven imperfections entered the seven races of men, each in their own place; they coloured the seven points within each race. (The seven planetary centres, transmitting imperfect energy.) 

The seven perfections hovered o'er each race, over each man within each race and over each point within each man. And thus the conflict grew from the outermost to the innermost, from the greatest One to the littlest ones. Seven the imperfections. Seven the perfect wholes; seven the ways to oust the dark of imperfection and demonstrate the clear cold light, the white electric light of perfect wholeness."

All that you can gain from the above, my brother, is a concept of agelong conflict, of seven great energies which manifest as dualities and which produce when anchored within one body (whether that of a planet, a man or an atom) an area or cycle of distress, as it is called; this distress produces the evolutionary urge and is itself the cause of manifestation, whilst its effect (which is karma) is the liberation ultimately of the perfect and the good. These things are not easy to comprehend. It must be remembered that the seven imperfections are related to the sevenfold nature of the One in Whom we live and move and have our being, and that these seven imperfect energies hold within themselves the perfect will-to-good, more potent in the long run than the will-to-harm.

These energies pour through the seven centres of the planetary body and are—as far as we are concerned—the seven ray energies. In relation to the will-to-harm which can and does demonstrate as disease in all the four kingdoms in nature, you have the reason why I instituted, among the esoteric students for whom I have made myself responsible, the development of harmlessness. It is the major agent for the offsetting of karma. I will here give you Law IX. and thus complete a group of laws which, when followed, will be found essential to the curing of disease and the maintenance of health.

LAW IX

Perfection calls imperfection to the surface. Good drives evil always from the form of man in time and space. The method used by the Perfect One and that employed by Good is harmlessness. This is not negative but perfect poise, a completed point of view and divine understanding.

You will have noticed that what I have said in this connection removes the whole subject of disease into a distant world of origins—a world into which man is as yet unable to penetrate. It is for this reason that I have devoted so much time to the consideration of the causes of disease; more than half of what I have to say is to be found in this first part of our discussion. We have nearly concluded this, and face what many will regard as the more useful and practical part of the teaching anent this subject. It has never been my intention to deal with the pathology of disease or the symptoms of the many forms of ill health which ravage mankind. I seek mainly to lay the stress upon the subjective reasons for the majority of ills which attack the human frame. My purpose is, however, sound. The overemphasis which people put upon disease is bewildering to the soul, for it places the transient, constantly changing form-nature in a position of undue prominence, whereas—from the angle of the soul—the vicissitudes of the body are only of importance just in so far as they contribute to the enrichment of soul experience.

The factor that is of importance is the causes, initiated by man from life to life; these work out in the appearance of disease, in the emergence of some disastrous consequence in circumstance and in event, and in the general conditioning of some particular incarnation. It is with these causes that man must learn to deal, to recognise them, and to trace the conditioning energy to the appropriate effect, dealing primarily then with the task of negating the cause by the opposition of a trained will. Karma is not an inevitable, inescapable and dire happening. It can be offset; but this offsetting, particularly where disease is concerned, will include four lines of activity:

1. Determining the nature of the cause and the area in consciousness where it originated.

2. Developing those qualities which are the polar opposite of the effective cause.

3. Practising harmlessness so as to arrest the expression of the cause and to prevent any further implementing of the unfortunate condition.

4. Taking the necessary physical steps which will produce the conditions which the soul desires.

            These steps will include:

1. A mental acquiescence and an acceptance of the fact of the effect—in the case which we are considering in relation to karma—disease.
2. Wise action along the lines of orthodox medical procedure.
3. The assistance of a healing group or a healer for aid in inner spiritual healing.
4. Clear vision as to the outcome. This may lead to preparation for a more useful physical plane life or preparation for the great transition called death.

Behind all wise thinking and wise activity must be the acceptance of the existence of certain general conditions which work out as physical ill health during this world cycle, and not only for the human kingdom but also for the three sub-human kingdoms. The Law of Imperfection exists because the Great Realities (to be found in all the phenomenal world) are likewise in process of development and of evolutionary unfoldment. Therefore, until They, as spiritual Beings, have developed "sublime control"—as it is called—over the substance of Their phenomenal forms, those forms will fall short of divine perfection. Disease is only a form of transient imperfection, and death is just a method for refocussing energy, prior to a forward moving activity, leading steadily and always towards betterment. 

The comprehension of the seven stanzas which I now propose to give you will lead eventually to the isolation of the seven psychological causes of disease, inherent in the substance of all forms in this world cycle, because all forms are infused with the life energy of the "imperfect Gods." The seven Spirits, we are told in the Scriptures of the world, are "before the Throne of God"; this signifies that They are not yet in a position to mount the Throne, symbolically speaking, owing to the fact that They have not yet achieved complete divine expression. These Lords of the Seven Rays are greater and more advanced in the spiritual scale than are those great Lives who form the Council of the Lord of the World in Shamballa. They are the Representatives of the seven ray Energies Who inform the seven sacred planets but are not yet as divinely developed as They are.

The problem of humanity in respect to imperfection is complicated, not only by the fact that the seven informing vitalising Energies are "tainted with imperfection," but also by the fact that the Lord of the World is Himself, from the angle of a Solar Logos for instance, far from perfect; this is the reason why our planet, the Earth, is not a sacred planet. We are told that Sanat Kumara is the divine prisoner of this planet, held here until the "last weary pilgrim has found his way home." This is His heavy karma even whilst it is an expression of His desire and of His joy; the "weary pilgrims" are the atoms (human or otherwise) in His body, and they are tainted with imperfection because of His imperfections; their complete "healing" will set the term for His release. Bear in mind, therefore, that the stanzas—seven in number—now to be given, indicate the quality of the descending energies and the taints which these energies carry and convey to all forms which are vitalised by the life of our planetary Logos.

The Seven Ray Causes of Inharmony and Disease

1. "The Great One set Himself to follow by Himself alone His chosen path. He brooked no interference. He hardened in His courses. From plane to plane, this hardening proceeded; it grew and stiffened. His will was set, and crystal-like, brilliant, brittle and hard. The power to crystallise was His. He brought not will-to-live but will-to-die. Death was His gift to life. Infusion and diffusion pleased Him not. He loved and sought abstraction."

As far as we can understand the significance of this stanza in relation to our theme of disease, the imperfection of this divine energy produces a peculiar attitude which expresses itself in the power to crystallise, to harden, to bring about attrition and cause the great abstracting process which we call death. Other results are the many crystallising processes going on in the physical form, all atrophying processes, and old age.

2. "The Great One poured His life throughout all parts and every aspect of manifestation. From the centre to the periphery and from the periphery to the centre He rushed, carrying abundance of life, energising all forms of Himself, producing excess of movement, endless extension, abundant growth and undue haste. He knew not what He wanted because He wanted all, desired all, attracted all and gave to all too much."

The imperfection of this great energy with its building, vitalising and cohering potency, was and is the power to overstimulate, to produce accretion, to pile together, to build too many forms, to attract too many atoms and to bring about those conditions which lead to what has been called (esoterically) "the suffocation of the life"—another form of dying, but dying this time as a result of excessive vitality, affecting the blood stream, producing building within the forms already built, and frequently creating an etheric vehicle which is too potent for the outer exoteric physical form. Other results are, for instance, the appearance of tumors, of cancers, of growths, and the overdevelopment of bodily aspects, overlarge organs and supernumerary bodily parts.

3. "The Great One gathered here and there. He chose and He rejected. This power He refused and this power He accepted. He had no purpose linked to the six purposes of His six Brothers. He acquired a form and liked it not; threw it away and chose another. He had no settled point or plan but lived in glamour and liked it well. He smothered both the good and the bad, though using both. Excess in one direction could be seen and starvation in another. Both these extremes governed His choice of living substance, He threw together those that suited not each other, then saw the end was sorrow and deceit. Patterns He made, but purpose suited not. He gave up in despair."

The main effect of this imperfect "maneuvering" and manipulation, as it has been called, is largely astral in nature, producing consequent physical ill health and the undesirable effects which we have already studied in this treatise. It is because this third ray energy is the energy of substance itself that its imperfections demonstrate profusely in the human tendency to disease. Glamour results from the excessive use of this third ray energy for selfish and personal ends and manifests primarily upon the sixth or astral plane. As a result of this manipulation of desire, and the wild maneuvering for its satisfaction along material lines, you have such diseases as the gastric and intestinal disorders and the various stomach troubles which devastate civilised humanity—far more than the savage races. Certain brain disorders also are effects, and low vitality.

4. "The Great One fought and entered into combat. All that He met appeared to Him a subject for display of power. Within the fourth He found a field of battle and settled down to fight. He saw the right and knew the wrong and vibrated between the two, fighting first one and then the other, but missing all the time that midway point where battle is not known. There harmony, ease, rest and peaceful silence will be found. He weakened all the forms which used His strength and power. Yet all the time He sought for beauty; searched for loveliness; and yearned for peace. Despair overtook Him in His courses, and with despair the will-to-live could not survive. Yet all the time the loveliness was there."

Here we have a strong indication as to the reason why humanity (the fourth kingdom in nature) succumbs with such rapidity and such ease to disease. The conflicts to which humanity is so constantly summoned, both in group form and as individuals, lead—until understood and used as a means to triumph and progress—to a condition of constant devitalisation. Where this is present, resistance to disease fades out and practically all forms of ill health and bodily ills become possible. Diffusion of energy leads to a constant lessening of this resistance. As a result you have debility, quick and bad reaction to the disease indigenous in the planet itself, and a rapid taking on of infections and of contagious diseases. It is this energy which lies behind what we call epidemics, and influenza is one of its main expressions.

5. "The Great One arose in His wrath and separated Himself. He swept aside the great dualities and saw primarily the field of multiplicity. He produced cleavage on every hand. He wrought with potent thought for separative action. He established barriers with joy. He brooked no understanding; He knew no unity, for He was cold, austere, ascetic and forever cruel. He stood between the tender, loving centre of all lives and the outer court of writhing, living men. Yet He stood not at the midway point, and naught He did sufficed to heal the breach. He widened all cleavages, erected barriers, and sought to make still wider gaps."

It has been most difficult to describe the nature of the imperfection of the energy of the Lord of the fifth ray. In the activity of this energy which demonstrates primarily upon the fifth or mental plane will be found eventually the source of many psychological disorders and mental trouble. Cleavage is the outstanding characteristic—cleavage within the individual or between the individual and his group, rendering him anti-social. I have dealt with this in an Esoteric Psychology II and need not further enlarge upon the difficulties here. Other results are certain forms of insanities, brain lesions and those gaps in the relation of the physical body to the subtle bodies which show as imbecilities and psychological troubles. Another form of disease, emerging as a result of this fifth ray force is migraine, which is caused by a lack of relationship between the energy around the pineal gland and that around the pituitary body.

6. "The Great One loved Himself in others and in all forms. On every hand, He saw objects of His devotion and ever they proved to be Himself. Into these others He ever poured Himself, asking response and never getting it. Surely and with certainty the outlines of the forms so loved were lost, grew dim and disappeared. The objects of His love slowly faded out. Only a world of shadows, of mist and fog remain. And as He looked upon Himself, He said: Lord of Glamour, that am I, and the Angel of Bewilderment. Naught is clear to me. I love yet all seems wrong! I know that love is right and the spirit of the universe. What then is wrong?"

Curiously enough, it is the potency of this sixth ray force (as it feeds desire) which is responsible for much of the ills and diseases of humanity which are based upon the misuse of the mission and function of sex. Desire, bewilderment, weakness, perversions and the one-pointed development of sexual and other satisfactions grow out of the misuse of this energy. The bewilderment growing out of desire leads to a violently demanded satisfaction and the taking of those steps—some right and some wrong— which lead to satisfaction. The results cover a wide field, all the way from sadistic cruelty and lust to those marriages which are based on physical desire and to those conditions which lead to the many forms of sexual disease. A clue to this whole world-wide problem lies in the words of an ancient writing which says that "the imperfection of the Lord of the Sixth Ray opened the door to an erroneous marriage between the poles."

7. "The Great One gathered to Himself His forces and affirmed His intention to create. He created that which is outer and can be seen. He saw His creations and liked them not and so withdrew His attention; then the creations He had made died and disappeared. He had no lasting success and saw naught but failure as He travelled on the outer path of life. He comprehended not the need of forms. To some He gave an over-plus of life, to some too little; and so both kinds died and failed to show the beauty of the Lord who gave them life but failed to give them understanding. He knew not then that love sustains."

The effects of this ray force are most peculiar and will be a great deal more prevalent than heretofore, as this ray is now coming into power. It is this energy which is largely responsible for infections and contagious diseases. The keynote of the work of the seventh ray is to bring together life and matter upon the physical plane. This, however, when viewed from the angle of imperfection, is a bringing together (if you can understand the implications) of Life, the lives and the general livingness of the creative process. This is symbolised by the promiscuity and the endless moving interplay of all life within all lives. The result is therefore the activity of all germs and bacteria within the medium which will best nurture them.

These are abstruse and difficult concepts, but they should be pondered upon, and deep reflection will lead to understanding. All disease and ill health are the result of the activity or the inactivity of one or other of the seven types of energy as they play upon the human body. All physical ills emerge out of the impact of these imperfect energies as they make their impact upon, enter into and pass through the centres in the body. All depends upon the condition of the seven centres in the human body; through these the impersonal energies play, carrying life, disease or death, stimulating the imperfections in the body or bringing healing to the body. All depends, as far as the human being is concerned, upon the condition of the physical body, the age of the soul and the karmic possibilities.

I would ask you not to misinterpret the significance of the word "imperfection" which I have used so constantly in relation to the great Beings Who express a divinity unattainable by humanity at any time upon this particular planet. You must bear in mind that this solar system is the second, and that in the first solar system the emphasis was laid upon intelligent materiality; the goal of the highest initiate was to attain complete control over matter, to unfold the mind principle and to evidence a definite materialism. In these so distant aeons that marked attainment, whereas in this solar system it marks defeat for humanity. This system, including all the planets along with our Earth, has a different goal, and the second divine aspect, that of love, has to be manifested, and manifested through the medium of matter impregnated with the qualities developed in system one. What was perfection at that time is not so now. Therefore, the Great Beings which are the sumtotal of all that is, are working through and in substance, which is already tinged or tainted with that which must be left behind and subjected to no further unfoldment.

These are the imperfections which we are considering—the seven aspects of intelligent materiality; it is here that disease has its seat and expression. We are told that the physical body is not a principle; in the last solar system it was. In this, the principles are different and it is in the clash between what is and what will be (what wills-to-be) that we have, upon the physical plane, the causes of disease and death. Ponder on these matters and bear in mind that you must see the picture upon a large scale, as large a scale as possible, if there is to be a true understanding of some of the causes of physical ills and disease.

CHAPTER IV - Some Questions Answered

Most questions asked by the neophyte would remain unasked if he had more patience and understood better what he was studying. Beginners need to await developments in themselves and expand their consciousness normally under instruction.

On the Nature of Congestion

Congestion is perhaps best defined as the arresting of the free flow of the force through the centres or centre and throughout the body. It exists in two forms:

1. That congestion which produces its effect within the centre itself, and therefore and consequently, upon the gland. It is inhibited, either as it pours into the centre (when it does not affect the gland except in a negative sense), or as it leaves it (when its effect will be positive in some way or another). When the difficulty takes place as it pours into the centre, then the energy is thrown back upon its originating source—either the astral or mental bodies—and you have a psychological inhibition. There is no impetus from within to which the allied gland can respond. When the difficulty is in the outlet into the physical body, you will have no free flow of force, the gland related to the centre will be definitely affected, and either be overstimulated by the nonrhythmic flow or undernourished. This in turn affects the glandular secretion and later the blood stream.

2. That congestion which takes place as the energy or the life force flows throughout the physical body, and as it flows finds there certain forms of weakness, various diseased areas and regions where its flow is impeded or too rapidly circulated. The flow of energy can be arrested in certain areas and can nourish also diseased areas in the body, or can also cure and cleanse them. A temporary congestion can be of beneficent value as well as a malefic force.

On Ascertaining the Location of Congestion

There are three ways whereby the healer can ascertain the presence and the location of congestion and any other form of difficulty-producing objective disease:

1. There is, first of all, clairvoyance which enables the healer to see visually where the difficulty lies. This form of diagnosis is not always accurate and can be "coloured" by conditions present in the healer himself. 

2. There is a form of direct perception, a process of "clear knowing," which is a soul faculty and infallible, once a person has been rightly trained in its use. It is a blend of mental and spiritual perception and is definite knowledge, or an intuition, if you like, which enables the healer unerringly to put his finger on the place of difficulty and to know its cause, its effect and its end.

3. There is also a more physical method, which is based on sensitivity in the lower nature, which enables the healer to register in his own body the same difficulty of which the patient is aware. This is called "occult transference" and should only be employed by those who know how to absorb and to dissipate. In this case, the healer can also feel the cause of the disease through the pouring in of energy to the etheric counterpart of the physical plane disease, or as an extreme emotionalism or sensitive response in the astral counterpart.

On the Dual Cause of Congestion

Let me make one or two concise statements and then explain.

1. First, subjective condition alone cannot cause an outer congestion. The soul has arranged to express itself through the medium of a body which has certain predispositions.

2. Second, the subjective is a causative factor when in collaboration with the inherited tendencies of the physical body; therefore, all congestion cannot be avoided, for the subjective life determines the condition and the physical body is predisposed to certain diseases. This is the will of the soul. Might I point out that at this stage of human evolution, no subjective conditions are ever right?

3. Third, an outer condition alone cannot be a causative factor. If I am right in my major premises, then the observations of the medical world will need to be readjusted to the facts. The causative factor exists in the meeting of the inner and the outer existing factors.

Let me make the matter a little clearer, for confusion may be caused by the idea that disease is the result of two causes—an inner cause and an outer cause. The subjective situation is the initiating cause. Some psychological factor, leading to a wrong use of energy, sets in motion those inner tendencies which find their way out, as vital determining factors, on to the physical plane. There they come into contact with the physical body or expression which has certain predispositions, certain inherited weaknesses, certain glandular deficiencies—all of which were part of the needed equipment whereby the soul determined that certain needed lessons should he mastered. The relation established between the outer and the inner forces is the basic cause (expressing itself in two causes) which produces some form of disease. It is again the negative and the positive aspects brought into a relation which produces a third factor: the manifestation of some form of disease.

If you speak of perfect physical conditions, I know of no such conditions or of any physical body or physical environment to which such a term could be applied. There must be both the inner psychological situation and cause, which is the subjective reality (on a tiny scale), and the outer physical condition, manifesting as a weakness or as imperfections; these, in their turn, are a tendency from a previous life, a predisposition, an hereditary lesion or a latent difficulty, based on earlier life interests or malpractice. Bring these two major determining factors together and—under the law—you will inevitably have some visible manifestation of physical disease or difficulty; this can be serious or relatively unimportant; it can be dangerous to life or capable of providing only temporary discomfort. 

There must be, as you perceive, two existing factors, and these, when related and stimulated, produce the appearance of disease. It should be remembered that the question of the soul's choosing of a body and the type of vehicle wherein certain types of lessons can be learned and certain educative experiences mastered, is a little-understood theme. In connection with this, I would remind you that disease is often a mode of clearance and ultimately beneficent in its effects. It is the working out into manifestation of an inner undesirable factor, and when the inner and the outer causes are brought out into the clear light of day they can be handled, understood and often dissipated and ended through the tribulation of disease and suffering. But this is a hard saying.

On Certain Types of Disease

Arthritis and diabetes are both diseases which have their origin in the astral body, but if I might put it so inadequately, arthritis is primarily more objective than diabetes, being the result of the satisfaction of physical desire as it expresses itself through food, either in this life or the previous one. There would be little or no arthritis if the race ate with correctness and understood the proper food values and effects. Diabetes is more definitely the result of wrong inner desires, and is not so definitely the result of wrong outer desires. These may originate in this life, as I have said above, or be inherited from a previous existence. In this latter case, the incarnating soul chooses a family in which to be born, which will endow it with a body having a tendency or a natural predisposition to this disease.

Syphilis and arthritis fall into the category of diseases which are largely based upon the satisfaction of physical desire. Cancer and diabetes are more definitely in the class of diseases which are connected with inner emotional desires and the violent suppressed wish-life of many. The infectious diseases, such as measles and scarlet fever, smallpox or cholera are, curiously enough, definitely group diseases and are definitely allied with the mental nature. This will surprise you but so it is.

A student with some insight into occult causes might suppose that when people are changing their focus of attention from the physical nature to the emotional, or from the emotional to the mental, that they become liable to acquire the ancient diseases, such as syphilis and cancer, which the Lemurians acquired. This is not so.

I would remind you that people do not incur these diseases because they made a shift in their consciousness, but through misuse of certain God-given powers. The shift in awareness and the disease are not remotely related to each other. I would remind you, as well, that today people are a blend of the three states of energy which we call physical, emotional and mental, which are the Lemurian, the Atlantean and the Aryan states of consciousness. Scarcely anyone today is a pure type, i.e., predominantly one or the other. They are usually a mixture of all three. You will find it difficult to find a person or a patient "changing his focus of attention from physical to emotional." He will be either emotional or mental, and at brief times, and from a purely physiological standpoint, physical.

The clearest lines of demarcation are to be seen in the case of disciples who are definitely and consciously endeavouring to shift their focus of attention on to the mental plane. Nevertheless, they live predominantly in a region which we call kama-manasic, which means both astral and mental. It is an intermediate level of consciousness. Only broad generalisations are therefore possible. Such a generalisation is that syphilitic conditions are more generally physical in their origin than cancer. Clear lines of demarcation are not possible, and you must always remember that certain diseases may work out in a particular incarnation which have their origin in a very distant past; the seeds of the condition have lain dormant in the so-called permanent atom for ages. They may not be rooted in the tenor or quality of the present life at all. Suddenly they spring to life and influence the present incarnation, and incidentally, proffer opportunity for release.

On Fever

Fever is simply indication of trouble and is a basic way of purification and of elimination. It is an indicator and not a disease in itself. Ponder on this, and apply it on all planes, for physical plane fever has its astral and mental counterparts. It is overexcessive energy which burns up and, in burning, relieves and cures (either through the subjugation of the germ or group of energies which caused it or by the releasing power of death). Over-emotionalism is an astral correspondence of physical fever and indicates a rampant germ of desire which must be dealt with before the fever can subside. An overactive mind which is ill-regulated, very busy but futile in accomplishment, is the mental correspondence.

On the Cure of Cancer

In all disease of malignant nature, there is a vital core or a living spot of energy which is absorbing, slowly or quickly, as the case may be, the life force in the man. In the early stages of such a disease as cancer, the vital core is not found until the malignant condition is established so potently that it is exceedingly difficult to do anything helpful. Yet the cure is only possible in these early developments and then the cure can be effected, but only again if the will of the patient is invoked. Little can be done in cancer cases unless there is the intelligent cooperation of the one to be healed, for the only method (which I may later elaborate) is to blend the directed will of the patient and of the healing group together into one functioning unit of force. When this has been done, then the invoked and concentrated energy will follow thought, under the ancient law, and so stimulate the area surrounding the cancer (that is, the healthy tissue) that the absorption of the weakened, diseased tissue by the stronger tissue can take place. If the energy is directed to the cancer itself, the cancerous condition will be stimulated and the trouble many times increased.

The curing of cancer in the early stages falls therefore into two parts:

1. The stimulating of the healthy tissue. 
2. The building in of new tissue to replace the diseased tissue which is being gradually absorbed and driven out.

Cancer always makes its appearance before there is transmutation of the emotional force, for the reason that there are few disciples (and therefore still fewer of the ordinary and majority of people) who have so transmuted emotion. This condition of freedom from emotion is so seldom to be found that—at this stage of the world's history—it may be said that it does not exist.

No one who is an integrated and actively functioning person is ever as prone to such a disease as cancer, or any disease, as is the emotional type; he is far more prone to heart trouble. A full active life usually prevents such a disease as cancer, but not always. As the forces of life run more slowly, as old age creeps on, cancer often appears, proving the truth of my primary contention. In days such as these, wherein cancer is the second great agent of destruction and mortality (and if I am right that cancer is a planetary disease), then almost anyone is liable to it. Fear is the great predisposing factor. Inertia and emotionalism are, likewise.

On Euthanasia

Some students are concerned over the organised effort to legalise euthanasia, and wonder about the placing of power of life and death in the hands of the physician. At the same time, they are aware that there is involved also the humane factor, in cases where no surcease can be given to prolonged suffering. To them I would say:

The problem which a consideration of the proposed practice of euthanasia involves will not exist when continuity of consciousness (which negates death) is achieved. That means that the time will come, in the racial development, when the soul will know that its term of physical life is over and will prepare itself to withdraw, in full consciousness, from the form. It will know that the service of the form is no longer required and that it must be discarded. It will know that its sense of awareness, being focussed in the mind nature, is strong enough and vital enough to carry it through the process and the episode of abstraction.

When that consciousness has been developed in man, and the process has come to be recognised by the medical profession and the scientific students of the human mechanism, then the whole attitude to death and its processes, involving as they do pain and suffering, will be altered materially. Then the man whose time has come to die may avail himself of certain methods of release which, from the average point of view, might be regarded as involving euthanasia. Modes of abstraction will be studied and applied when death is near, and the process will be regarded as soul withdrawal, as a process of liberation and release.

On Germs

We use the word "germ" to indicate the source of some disease or the origin of some form. We talk of a germ or seed of life; we refer to the germ of an idea; we indicate that intangible point of energy which results later in some kind of manifested form. It may be a thoughtform, a human being, or a disease, yet the same word has to suffice for all three. How oft have I told you that all is energy and there is naught else. A germ is a point of energy having within it certain living potentialities, causing certain effects upon the surrounding field of energy, and producing certain forms of expression which are recognisable upon the physical plane. But all that is referred to is, in the last analysis, some form of active energy that forms part of the energy available upon and within and around the planet Earth.

In relation to disease, a germ still remains a point of energy, but it might be regarded as energy which is not functioning correctly in relation to the particular form which has become susceptible to its activity or aware of its presence.

Germs are the first effect of an original cause. Some few form a part of the planetary evil, which means that they have a deep-seated and mental origin and one of such magnitude that the finite minds of men cannot yet grasp them. Such causes, for instance, may have their effects as a fierce and fiery and hot devotion to an idea or a person, or they may work out as an equally fierce and fiery fever in the physical body, and to this fever, according to its symptoms, a technical name will be given by the medical profession. The originating cause is the same, and the effects in the personality will differ according to the focus of the attention or where the emphasis of the life is laid. Ponder on this for I have given a hint here of real importance.

When I used these words, "the focus of attention," I did not refer to any mental attitude or to an attentive mind, but to the impact of life force in any given direction, any locality and any aspect of the human body, where the directed life energy goes. Germs are living organisms, great or small. They find their way into the human mechanism through the medium of the life force which, in its turn, uses the heart and the blood stream as its agents of distribution. In the same way, the energy of consciousness uses the nervous system and the brain as its distributing agency. Where there is inherent or inherited weakness, there the life force is not properly focussed, and there will be found some form of congestion, or some form of arrested development, or some form of predisposition to disease. When this is the case, germs can find a fruitful place in which to display their malignant activity. When the vitality is great and the life force has free and unimpeded circulation, then there will not be these predispositions, the germ cannot find a lodging, and there will not be the risk of infection.

For instance, scarlet fever is contagious, but not all those exposed to it succumb. The ability to throw off infection and immunity from contagious diseases is largely a matter of vitality (perhaps vitality in particular areas of the body where the focus of the attention and the emphasis of the life force may be found). It can also be based upon the activity of the blood corpuscles, which serves to keep the blood stream in good condition.

This focus and emphasis is the same in connection with animals, for it is not the focus of the mind but of the life energy within the physical body. This, when present and positive, protects. When it is negative and weak, it leaves the physical body (human and animal) open to the dangers of infection.

On the Vital Body

"What are the principal factors that can be complied with in order to build a strong healthy vital body? Is it possible for a person with a rather weak vital body to strengthen it? May not a so-called weak vital body be a healthy one at the same time, the weakness manifesting in non-staying power and a slowness in recovery from fatigue?"

When you say a weak vital body I presume you mean one which is loosely coordinated with the physical vehicle and loosely connected, and which has therefore a weak hold upon the outer form, for it is the close integration of the etheric body with the physical form which is the cause of all its staying power. You are right in your belief that one can be perfectly healthy but have little resistance to fatigue.

The principal factors in re-establishing or making a better etheric control are:

1. Sunshine.
2. Careful diet, with the emphasis upon the proteins and vitamins.
3. The avoidance of fatigue and worry.

Against all the above, at this time, climate, world conditions, environment and our civilisation militate, and the individual has therefore to resign himself to a state of affairs which lies outside his individual control. A normal, sane, regulated life is the best means for establishing a better measure of vitality. You need to remember, however, that where there is a devitalised etheric body, and conditions are such that a re-establishment of a vital control seems difficult or impossible, there must be recognition of karmic limitations and a willingness to submit to them and leave affairs to work themselves out. This particular life is not the only one there is. Frequently, therefore, in any particular incarnation, conditions cannot be changed, and are prolonged by inner rebellion and revolt. A disciple has to learn the lesson of going on, as the expression is, in spite of and not because of circumstances.

On Prana

You can discover much on the nature of prana if in the books A Treatise on Cosmic Fire and The Light of the Soul. Suffice it to say that:

1. There is nothing in manifestation except energy taking, using, actuating and dissipating forms.

2. This energy is divided into three types of so-called electrical phenomena:

            Fire by Friction, Solar Fire and Electrical Fire.

3. Prana is the name given to the energy which is drawn upon the physical plane from the etheric aspect of all phenomenal life. That etheric aspect of the divine energy is a synthesis of energies. If the energy in which an individual primarily lives and moves and has the focus of his being is, for instance, predominantly astral, then the major expression of energy in his equipment will be astral or emotional feeling energy. He will react all the time to physical energy or prana and to astral energy or the many sentient emotional forces. These work out pre-eminently through the spleen, the solar plexus and the throat, and affect in different ways the physical spleen, the stomach and the thyroid gland.

4. Interest in these two types of energy, when evidenced by an individual, is based on the fact that they are the two in which he himself is habitually immersed and to which he most easily and normally responds.

5. The current of energy used in healing will be a synthesis of the energies with which the healer normally works, with that type of energy predominating which is, for him, the paramount energy of his life. The average unintelligent healer is usually simply a transmitter of prana itself, which is the energy of the planet. This combines with the etheric physical energies of the patient, passing through the healer's body. These stimulate the patient sufficiently so that he is enabled to throw off the enfeebling disease.

Some healers can work with that type of force and with emotional energy blended, and produce activity, therefore, not only in the patient's physical body but also in his astral body. This brings about serious difficulties at times and often hinders true physical healing, on account of the astral turmoil produced. Mental healers blend soul energy with the two above mentioned forces and this produces a synthesis of the personality forces. Carried forward intelligently, this synthesis brings about the healing of the person through the production of definite organisation and alignment.

Soul healing supersedes the three above mentioned methods, and produces the pouring into and through the mechanism of the patient of pure soul energy. It was in this way that Christ worked, and there are few today to work this way. It must be held before you, however, as an objective.

Physical healing by prana is very common. It is often temporarily effective, but it concerns and deals only with effects and never touches causes. The disease can therefore be abated, but never cured. The power to heal mentally is on the increase and produces relatively permanent effects, but astral healing is rare and very seldom successful. The potency of the astral nature of the healer and also of the patient, and its usually unregulated condition, is too great for effective work, owing to the polarisation of humanity at this time and to the lack of correct emotional poise and control.

On Oriental and Occidental Bodies

The question is also often in the minds of some healers whether there is a difference in the causes of disease and the effects as experienced in oriental or occidental bodies. To them I would say:

Humanity is one and the same all over the world, and both eastern and western bodies are prone to the same diseases and manifest the same symptoms; all suffer from tuberculosis, from cancer and the sexual taints; all die frequently from pneumonia and influenza. Through sanitation and other curative methods, carried out on a large scale, ancient diseases (inherited from old Atlantis) such as bubonic plague and cholera, are being slowly stamped out. They still crop out in the East owing to the strength of the ancient civilisations, the lack of food, of sanitation, and the dense crowding. They are also climatic diseases and perish in the colder air of the north. Certain diseases are the result of wrong diet, used over unnumbered centuries.

One of the main reasons for any apparent difference may lie also in the greater age of the oriental races. The diseases of old age, and those of youth or middle age, have their variations, and Asia and its peoples are very, very old. The body stock is wearing out fast. Yet the Japanese show no sign of that old age. India is far older than Europe, but the Chinese and Japanese stock is older still, yet they demonstrate no such sign of effete old age. The reason for this lies in the very different type of emotional body as found in the Aryan or Atlantean. The whole question is incalculably difficult. I might answer your question, however, very briefly, by saying that there is no difference whatever in the basic causes of disease in the East and the West. They are the same for the whole human family.

On the Nervous System

In the right understanding of the relationship of the etheric or vital body (with its major and minor centres and its network of nadis) to the nervous system of the human body, two great aspects of soul activity can be grasped.

1. First, that aspect of soul life which enables the soul to motivate and force into incarnation and activity the physical mechanism, the body, through the galvanising activity of what we call Life.

2. Second, that aspect of soul life which preserves the physical vehicle in health through the free play of the pranic currents. The above is an attempt to express a great truth in as simple a fashion as possible. The true significance of the above statement embodies the next great step in the field of true psychology and of healing

A human being is a combination of various types of force. There is the force or energy of matter itself which might be regarded as the energy aspect, in its totality, of the cells or atoms of the body. The word "cell" itself suggests, in its usual connotation, an imprisoned life, and life and energy are, for the esotericist, synonymous terms. This is the third aspect of divinity, expressing itself in humanity. There is also the dual energy which the soul embodies or transmits; this might be likened to two streams of energy, which merge and blend to form one stream when detached from the body, and which divide into two when they enter into matter and form. They bring to matter, or to the aggregated cell lives, the contribution of quality—consciousness and pure life. It might be stated also that:

a. The stream of life-energy finds its way to the heart, the physical heart, and there (via the physical permanent atom) it energises coherently the entire physical body, using the blood stream as its major agency and channel of contact and communication between this central powerhouse of life and the periphery. As we well know, the blood is the life. This life activity is the factor which gathers together and holds in form all the living atoms and cells of the body. When that life thread is withdrawn by the soul at death, the living atoms separate, the body falls apart and disintegration ensues, with the atomic lives returning to the reservoir of power, to the bosom of living matter from whence they came.

b. The stream of energy which conveys the soul quality of intelligence, plus love-wisdom, and which constitutes what we understand as the consciousness, with its powers to contact, to sense and to rationalise, only penetrates as far as the physical brain. There this second aspect concentrates itself or anchors itself in the region of the pineal gland. From there in ever increasing potency, as the processes of incarnation and experience are pursued, the soul begins to control, galvanise into purposeful activity, and to use the physical body. Remember that, to the soul, the body is only its response apparatus on the physical plane and a medium of expression.

c.  It might also be pointed out, as a third necessary statement, that the soul pours its consciously directed energy into the dense physical body through the medium of the etheric or vital body. This instrument is composed of:

1. Seven major centres of force and forty-nine minor centres. The major centres are found in the head and up the spinal column. The minor centres are to be found scattered all over the body.

2. The etheric network which is composed of streams of energy, connects all the centres into two systems—one major and one minor—and radiates out from these centres all over the entire body.

3. The nadis are infinitesimally small threads of energy or force fibres which radiate out from every part of the network and underlie every part of the triple nervous system. They are found in their millions, and produce the sensitive response apparatus through which we work and of which the mechanism of the five senses is one of the externalisations.

The controlling power station will be found to vary according to the point in evolution reached: 

1. Low-grade humanity uses the solar plexus as the point where the basic energy is localised temporarily. There will also be found a slight activity in the ajna centre.
2. Average humanity works partly through the solar plexus centre but largely through the ajna centre and the throat centre.
3. High-grade human beings, the intelligentsia and world aspirants use the head centre, plus the ajna centre, the throat, heart, and solar plexus.

d.  Finally it might be said that the physical apparatus which is the direct result of the inner activity of the centres, network and nadis, is the heart, the endocrine system and the brain. Into this general plan, very sketchily outlined above, all ancient medicine (particularly the Tibetan, the Chinese, and the Hindu), with our modern western science, fits. The correlation of the western and eastern techniques still remains to be made, and much will be gained thereby.

On Diet

No set diet could be entirely correct for a group of people on differing rays, of different temperaments and equipment and at various ages. Individuals are every one of them unlike on some points; they require to find out what it is that they, as individuals, need, in what manner their bodily requirements can best be met, and what type of substances can enable them best to serve. Each person must find this out for himself. There is no group diet. No enforced elimination of meat is required or strict vegetarian diet compulsory. There are phases of life and sometimes entire incarnations wherein an aspirant subjects himself to a discipline of food, just as there may be other phases or an entire life wherein a strict celibacy is temporarily enforced. But there are other life cycles and incarnations wherein the disciple's interest and his service lie in other directions. There are later incarnations where there is no constant thought about the physical body, and a man works free of the diet complex and lives without concentration upon the form life, eating that food which is available and upon which he can best sustain his life efficiency. In preparation for certain initiations, a vegetable diet has in the past been deemed essential. But this may not always be the case, and many disciples prematurely regard themselves as in preparation for initiation.

On the Spleen

The spleen is the most important agent of the life force, but it is the life force inherent in matter itself, independently of form. It is therefore closely related to the planetary physical body. It is the externalisation of a very important centre.

There are three centres in the body (with allied externalisations) which are basically essential to life:

1. The heart centre and the physical heart itself. In these the life principle (the Spirit aspect) is located.

2. The head centre and the brain in which the consciousness principle (the Soul aspect) is located.

3. The pranic centre and the spleen, in which the life of matter itself (the Matter aspect) is located. 

You must bear in mind that the dense physical body is not a principle. It is atomic matter which is held in form by etheric substance, under the control of the soul. It is automatic in its response, and reacts to the outer world of impacts and inner impulses, but has no initiatory life of its own. It is composed of units of energy, as is all else in nature, and has its own individual life; its focus for the distribution of energy for this life is the spleen.

In the spleen, the negative life of matter and the living energy of the positive etheric body, are brought together, and then a "spark," as it is called, is made between the inner living bodies of man (through the medium of the etheric body) and the physical plane. It is a reflection on the lowest rung of the evolutionary ladder, as far as man is concerned, and corresponds to the relation of soul and body or— on a higher turn of the spiral—of spirit and matter.

On the Vagus Nerve

There are two powerful centres connected with the vagus nerve:

1. Heart centre
2. Centre at the base of the spine

These two, when brought under the control of the soul, functioning through the head centre (the brahmarandra), produce the raising of the kundalini fire. This, when taking place, swings the entire nervous system into a special form of rhythmic activity and responsiveness, and it is through the stimulation and the control of the vagus nerve that this is accomplished. It is not the vagus nerve which is instrumental in raising the kundalini fire, but the reverse situation. When the head, the heart and the centre at the base of the spine are in magnetic and dynamic rapport, producing a radiatory effect, then they affect the vagus nerve and the fires of the body are unified and raised, producing purification and the "opening of all doors."

On the Eye

There is a certain school of scientific theorists who are working on the theory that the eye is the declarative factor in the human body and the rule or the key to its right understanding. They have already demonstrated much in connection with its declarative powers, where disease is concerned. They are on right lines. Nevertheless, the science with which they are working is so embryonic as yet that their conclusions are not fully demonstrated nor entirely reliable. In the immediate future, when our planetary life is somewhat calmer, the whole subject of Vision and the registration by the eye of the inner worlds will receive an enormous impetus, and conditions— hitherto undreamed of—will be revealed. Man will enter into a new life and a higher era of understanding. The teaching concerning the iris of the eye is an indication of this.

Why not read up on the eye a little and note its occult correspondences to the created world, and to the whole problem of light? The eyes and the soul are closely related and—speaking in the language of occultism—the right eye is the representative of the soul, and therefore the agent of buddhi, whilst the left eye is the representative of the personality, and the agent of the lower concrete mind.

On Psychological Causes of Disease

Do "psychological causes of disease" register in brain symptoms before reflexing to other parts of the body?

A sentence in The Light of the Soul has a bearing here: "The brain, for instance, is the 'shadow' or the external organ of the mind, and it will be found by the investigator that the contents of the brain cavity have a correspondence to the aspects of the human mechanism found upon the mental plane."

Bear in mind that the life force works through the heart, utilising the blood stream, whilst the consciousness aspect works through the brain, using the nervous system. This is the first and most important point to grasp. Psychological causes of disease register in the brain or (if of a very low order) in the solar plexus. They do not, however, make their presence felt as symptoms of disease in these places where they thus register. They are energies or forces which—when brought into contact with the energies of the body—produce, as a result (and not before this point) those conditions to which we give the name of disease. The psychological causes are forms of energy, working out through the appropriate centres in the body, and these, in their turn, condition the glandular system. The secretion or hormone, generated under this esoteric stimulation, finds its way into the blood stream, and the result of all this interaction can be either good health, as it expresses sound psychological causes, or poor health, as it expresses the reverse.

It is the internal relation between the subtler energies, working through certain centres, plus the related endocrine system, with its relation to the blood stream, that constitutes both the possibility of disease and its cure. But this recognition is still academically lacking. Much of the inherent psychology is grasped, but a gap still exists between the physical and the etheric bodies, and little recognition of the etheric body is yet academically accorded. There is yet no real understanding of the relation between the inner psyche and the outer form, via the etheric body. The study of the glands has somewhat helped, but medical science must go a step further and relate the glandular system to the inner centres.

On Problems of Melancholia

These problems of melancholia are difficult to place and are due to a wide variety of causes. I will list them here, and the list may at some time serve you.

1. A sense of frustration, a thwarted wish-life, or a recognition of a basic life failure.

2. A sense of dramatics, and a desire to figure importantly on the little stage of a person's life. This can often be quite unrealised and have a truly subconscious origin, or it can be a carefully cultivated habit or attitude.

3. A devitalised condition, largely of an etheric nature, which robs life of all joy and desire and presents always a sense of futility. Many women passing through the menopause experience this.

4. A certain form of breakdown in the cells found in a particular area of the brain.

5. Based on fear of insanity and of death—a baseless fear which has never materialised but which does constitute an idée fixe, so that the person is the victim of a well developed thoughtform.

6. A tuning-in, through oversensitivity, on the suffering and massed pain of the world. Disciples can be temporarily overcome by this.

7. This condition is very seldom brought about by any form of obsession such as "an earthbound entity or a living vampire-like person." A very few such cases have been known, but they are too rare to be considered a factor.

8. Sometimes a person tunes in on a state of massed melancholia, such as can be found in our sanitariums or asylums. The condition has then nothing really to do with him, but being sensitive, he identifies himself with those who are suffering from acute melancholia.

9. Melancholia, as a symptom of disease (not of brain disease) is also fairly frequent and will disappear when the disease is under proper treatment.

On the Full Moon and Psychoses

One of the departments of esoteric medicine in the future will concern itself with the law of cycles, lunar and solar. It will then be demonstrated as a fact, what has always been suspected and is now generally recognised, that the period of the full moon has a definite effect upon unbalanced people, upon the dreaming state and frequently conditions quite drastically, the neurotic and erotic conditions so prevalent at this time.

The tremendous increase in insanity and imbalance today is due to three major causes:

1. The transitional period of today producing a clash between the Aquarian and the Piscean forces, has led to a condition which makes it very difficult for sensitive people to live normally at all. To express the idea in symbol: It is almost as if the race, after habituating itself to live on the earth, had now to accustom itself to live in water. I am talking from the standpoint of the form.

2. The intense spiritual and mental stimulation which is being applied today to the masses by the planetary Hierarchy. The intent is to bring to an end old forms of living, to create new forms through the process of adjustment, and thus bring in a new civilisation based on a more subjective culture. I would ask you to ponder on this last sentence.

3. The pouring in of more light from the astral plane (at present unrecognised) and also the tremendous increase of ordinary physical plane illumination. This produces oversensitivity. The work done by the prevailing use of electric light and the general glare in which humanity now lives, will exact its toll from the race until the human mechanism has adjusted itself to light. Remember that this general use of light is less than one hundred years old and is an occult effect with far reaching results.

I mention these three things because they are responsible for much of the predisposition to sensitivity of an abnormal kind. Occult students well know that at the time of the full moon certain high contacts are easier than at other times, but it is right here, my brother, that the difficulty lies.

At the time of the full moon (over a period of five days) the moon and the planet are the recipients of more reflected light from the sun than at any other time. For this there is a subjective cause. I can only explain it to you by a symbol which may convey truth to you or which may act as a blind. Symbolically speaking, the period of intensest meditation of our planetary Logos comes around at the full moon period each month; just as you have your daily meditation so He in His high place, has His cyclic point of contact. This produces the pouring in of radiance and the entering in of energy both subjective and objective. For all true students, therefore, their work on the mental plane is facilitated; they are enabled then to meditate more successfully and to attain realisation with greater ease. They definitely share in the achievement of the Lord of Shamballa.

The moon, as you know, is a shell, an ancient form through which the planetary Logos at one time sought expression. It is slowly disintegrating physically but not astrally as yet, and is therefore still closely linked with the astral body of the planetary Logos and therefore with the astral bodies of all people. Its influence is consequently more potent at the time of the full moon upon all who are unbalanced. This lack of equilibrium, which it really is, will eventually be found to exist between the astral body, the etheric body and the physical mechanism.

People who are definitely aspirants and people who are definitely mental, can profit by these full moon cycles; those who are definitely unbalanced, positively astral, and emotional, and frequently swept by uncontrolled desire, are hindered, overstimulated, and psychically upset by these same cycles. The veil of illusion is lit up at that time with a consequent result of hallucination, astral visions, psychic urges, and those misinterpretations of life, of overemphasis upon aspects of life which we call phobias, lunacy, etc.

I would like to make a suggestion here, which is not possible for me to prove to you, but which the future will substantiate. The major diseases called mental, seldom have anything to do with the mind itself.

They are:

1. Diseases of the brain

2. Disorders of the solar plexus

3. Astral domination

4. Premature clairvoyance and clairaudience

5. Obsession

6. Absence of mind

7. Soullessness

This is, of course, a wide generalisation and has no reference to that category of diseases in which both mind and brain are involved. The diseases of mystics are also in a different category. These latter diseases involve the brain of course, indicate mental imbalance, produce various types of heart disease and the diverse neurotic tendencies with which the saints of the world were so often afflicted.

One thing I will add, however, for your encouragement. As the race, as a whole, becomes governed by the solar Lord, the sun god, the Soul, then the cycles of the moon will steadily lose their baleful effect and there will be a dying out of the various neurotic complaints and mental diseases today so prevalent. The time is not yet. It is not easy for me to give more information concerning the moon and its phases, as it constitutes one of the major mysteries to be revealed at the third initiation.

On Distribution of Force; Blood Transfusion

Questions

1. How can a more harmonious distribution of force be accomplished for the benefit of all?
2. Can you give us some more specific instructions and indicate to us some esoteric methods, suitable to our stage of development in connection with this problem of distribution?
3. Has the fact of blood transfusion...any correspondence in some process of the transfusion of subtle energies on the inner planes?
4. Are there some special means, besides what we are already trying to do, by which those of us who are on the second ray could more effectively transfuse our love quality into brothers on the first ray, and vice versa?
5. What is the interrelation and the cooperation among the ray lives and particularly between the first and second ray entities?
6. How can the example of the close cooperation and friendship between the Masters M. and K.H. be of practical help and inspiration to us?

Answers

1. A harmonious distribution of forces varies in its arrangement and consequently in its outer effect not only according to ray types but according to the age of the soul, and the individual status upon the Path. There is a difference in this arrangement in the subtle bodies of the probationary disciple and of the accepting disciple, and of the accepted disciple and for each grade upon the path of initiation. This arrangement is brought about in three ways or is subject to three forms of developing influences.

1. Through the life of aspiration, as registered in the physical brain consciousness.

2. Through the spontaneous awakening of the centres and in their right geometrical progression. This I have referred to in some of my books, but more cannot be given as it is one of the secrets of the first initiation. The rearranging and the readjustment proceeds during the whole period of the Path, technically understood.

3. Through the decentralisation of the whole inner conscious life. The server becomes:

1. The mystical extrovert.
2. The "one who steps aside from the centre."
3. The "one who lives upon the periphery of the heart."
4. The "one who hovers over the central lotus."
5. The "distant one who sees from far away, yet lives within the form of all that is."

2. The second question is somewhat answered in the above brief statement. I am doing what I can in my personal instructions (Discipleship in the New Age) to all of you to bring about two things: 

1. Clear the field of the personality life so that the higher energies can have freer play.
2. Bring about those conditions and orientations which will produce harmony within, and consequently and equally, harmonious relations without. I would remind you, however, that the inner harmony of one brother in a group may not be adequate to produce harmony in another brother or in the group.

3. Blood transfusion is symbolic of two things: First, that the blood is the life, and secondly, that there is but one Life permeating all forms, and therefore transferable under right conditions. It is also a synthetic act of service. Ponder on this.

4. Your question gives me an opportunity to point out that even an understanding of, and interest in, the ray types (as represented for instance in a group) may itself lead to a subtle separative attitude. There is no necessity for any Son of God in incarnation upon the physical plane or in the three worlds to "transfuse" his ray quality into his brother. These ray qualities are shared by all alike, and a brother's own soul—differing in no way from another soul—will effect the needed transmutation or transfusion into the personality life. One may facilitate the process by providing those conditions of harmony and peace wherein a brother is faced with as few contrary attitudes as possible, and where the interplay of love may produce an effective stimulation. But this is not transfusion. What exists in you exists in all, and the love quality (above all other qualities) is the dominant characteristic of all rays.

5. This question is not only one of the mysteries of the occult sciences, but it is of far too vast a nature in its implications and too complicated a problem for me to deal with in this place.

6. The relationship of the two Masters you mention can be studied in two ways:

1. Through a consideration of the effective working relation which exists between the groups of disciples working under Them.

2. Through a study of those people (and they are many) who have a first ray personality and a second ray ego, or vice versa.

In the last analysis, my brother, we bring about the correct distribution of force, leading to harmonious relations, when we seek to live selflessly. For the probationer, this means an imposed selfless activity upon the physical plane. For the accepted disciple, it involves a life free from all selfish, self-centered emotion, and of these self-pity and self-dramatisation are outstanding examples; for the initiate it means a mental attitude which is devoid of selfish thought, and free from the dramatisations in thought of the ego.

On Suffering

Suffering, in the last analysis, is only possible when the soul is identified with the body, or rather, when the spiritual aspect of the soul (in the body) is identified with the animal soul, which informs and vitalises the form and constitutes its temporary life. During unconsciousness, the animal soul is aware of pain and suffering, and those who nurse and watch know this well, but there is no real pain or true distress because the real man, the spiritual soul, has been driven away either by excessive pain (as in true unconsciousness) or by narcotics.

The suffering of the soul, when the personality goes astray, is only a symbolic form of words. There is no pain or true suffering, and frequently no knowledge of the happening, for the vibration is not high enough to penetrate into that high plane where dwells the soul. Where, however, there is such knowledge, the soul experiences, if I might so express it, a sense of lost opportunity, and therefore a sense of frustration, but it is not more than that, for the patience of the soul, as of the Hierarchy, is illimitable. Just because we speak symbolically and say the soul suffers, you must not interpret it in ordinary terms.

The suffering of Christ or of the planetary Logos or of God Himself, is not comprehensible in terms of personality reaction. We use the words, but they really mean "detached and isolated identification." Wrong identification is the cause of pain and leads to suffering, distress and various effects. Right identification leads to understanding and comprehension of the psychological attitudes of the sufferer, but to no true pain or distress as we normally understand it.

On Planetary Energy

The sumtotal of energy remains the same for as long as a planet persists, with its forms and life expression. It is part of the great storehouse of energy. It is the use and the effect of this energy, as it is appropriated by a form or forms of some kind, which we note as it is attracted from its own place to a place where normally it would not be functioning. There it creates situations and produces difficulties which are closely connected with a man's karma and destiny. There is a great abstracting energy which we call Death, whose influence at a given time proves more potent than the united influences of the body atoms and cells. It produces the tendency to withdraw and finally to abstract the soul energy which avails itself of these potencies in the process of discarding a vehicle on some plane or another. It might be said that the seeds of death (the germ of death) are latent in the planet and in the forms. When powerful enough to be recognised, we call them germs, but this connotes a definite stage of almost tangible proof. When unduly potent, they produce acute disease and consequent death; when more feeble in effect, we call them illness and note their purificatory effect. These contaminations (as they can be called, though it is by no means a good name) are only such when that aggregate of energies which we call a man is brought in contact with these contaminating influences or types of ancient energies, and the reaction or the response is, from the angle of the comfort of the physical body, bad.

On Transmutation of Desire

The point to be borne in mind is that desire dominates and controls action when the life force is focussed in the desire nature, as it predominantly is with the majority of people. But planned mental control is only possible when the life is focussed on the mental plane. When this is the case, desire will not require suppression, because the power of the focussed attention will be elsewhere and there will consequently be no furious desire to suppress. Suppression is an effort by the man focussed in the astral body to bring in the will aspect of the mind. But this he seldom does. The desire may pass off through the intense effort the man is making to achieve some mental consciousness, but no suppression takes place really, nor is the will evoked. When a man's life is run and controlled by the mind from mental levels, then transmutation does take place; transmutation (whereby the astral nature is changed and altered) may be of a spiritual nature or simply of an expedient nature. Desire may be transmuted into spiritual aspiration or into an attitude which is in conformity to the will of the mind which is expressing it. Hence the necessity for careful analysis of motive and of objectives.

On Karma

I have already suggested to you that the entire question of karma is as yet imperfectly comprehended. A great Law of Cause and Effect exists, but one particular aspect of it has never been emphasised, and the knowledge of humanity on the subject of karma is very elementary. Karma has always been interpreted in terms of disaster, and consequences that are painful, of error, of penalty, and of evil happenings, both for the individual and for the group. Yet, such is the beauty of human nature, and much that is done is of such a fine quality and so selfless and so happily oriented, that the evil is frequently offset by the good. There is everywhere, little as it may be realised, an abundance of good karma of a potency (under the same Law) equal to that which is regarded as bad. Of this, small mention is ever made. This good karma brings into activity forces which may work out as healing energies in any specific case. Upon these energies for good, which have been earned and are operating, the healer can always count. This is my first point. Ponder upon it.

Karma is a determining factor, but unless a healer is an advanced initiate and so able to work effectively and intelligently on the causal levels whereon souls dwell, it is impossible for him to decide whether any specific case will yield to healing treatment or not. Therefore, the healer or practising disciple assumes in his mind the possibility of cure (which may be possible or not) and of the patient's good karma, and proceeds to apply all possible aid. This is my second point.

My third point is to suggest to you and to all engaged in the healing art that much of the so-called disaster, involved in disease and in death (particularly the latter) is to be found in a wrong attitude toward death, and to an overestimation of the beneficence of form life. The release of a soul through disease and death is not necessarily an unhappy occurrence. A new and better attitude to the phenomenon of death is essential, is possible and near.  

Will you be astonished also if I state that under the Law it is quite possible to "interfere with karma"? The great Laws can be transcended and frequently have been in the past, and increasingly will be in the future. The Law of Gravitation is frequently offset and daily transcended when an aeroplane is in flight. The energy of faith can set in motion superior energies which can negate or retard disease. The whole subject of faith, and its vital significance and potency, is as little understood as is the Law of Karma. This is a tremendous subject, and I cannot further enlarge upon it. But I have said enough to offer you food for thought.

As regards the lengthening of the span of life during the past century of scientific attainment, I would point out that true techniques and the possibilities of organised soul action are always parodied and falsely demonstrated on the physical plane by the earlier scientific activities which are right in motive but which are only a symbol, on the outer sphere of life, of coming and usually future soul action. The life span will eventually be shortened or lengthened at will by souls who consciously serve, and use the mechanism of the body as the instrument whereby the Plan is served.

In conclusion, however, and in apparent but no real negation of all that I have said above, let me repeat that the healer will give of his best to the one he seeks to heal. Having no clairvoyant power in the majority of cases, and being time-conscious and under the influence of karma, he will do his utmost along the lines of his own training and in accordance with the instructions given in this treatise on healing. I suggest that you grasp that the objective before any healer at this time and at this given point in the evolutionary unfoldment of the race is the need, when so asked, to aid in the bringing about of health to the body and its sustained experience in life. You need also to realise that much that is believed, accepted and taught by the metaphysicians today is based on wrong premises, such as the nature of matter, the time equation, the value of form existence, and the fear of death. Seek to eliminate these attitudes from your consciousness, and you will arrive at a truer perspective as to the healing art.

No request for real aid must ever be refused, however. A deaf ear must not be turned to trouble, either physical, mental or psychological. But I would call to your attention the fact that success in healing may not always mean release from disease and the so-called physical cure of the patient. It might simply involve, if physically successful, the postponement of the plan of the soul for the person. Success might mean the correction of wrong inner attitudes, of erroneous lines of thought, and at the same time leave the physical body as it was. It might mean the placing of the patient (through wise teaching and patience) en rapport with his soul and the consequent reorienting of the life to the eternal verities. It might consist in the proper preparation of the person for the tremendous purpose which we call Death, and thus bring about the relief of pain in this way.

The whole science of healing will shift eventually and increasingly into the realm of preventive medicine and the psychological adjustment of the individual within his group, and the providing of right living conditions, correct dieting and housing for the peoples. That, however, takes much time, and whilst the race is on its way to the newer modes of living, with their resultant effects of better health and a more correct comprehension of the laws of health, all who stand in the world as magnetic centres must proceed, according to the light that is in them, to work with people, in order to help them, to heal them, and to aid them in making needed adjustments. Nothing should stop your service along this line, not even the realisation of limitation and of ignorance. Do all you can to encourage and to sympathise, to point out undesirable attitudes, to end wrong ways of living, and change poor modes of psychological expression as far as you see them and to the best of your ability. Remember, nevertheless, that your best way may be far short of your future capacities, and remain ready ever to change your point of view when a higher and a better way is presented to you. Above everything else in life, give to all who seek your aid the fullest measure of love, for love releases, love adjusts and interprets, and love heals, on all three planes.

On Group Illnesses

In the last analysis, most of the ills of the body are rooted in some response to group activity. It will be necessary for us to grasp the fact that the phrase "group life and activity" must include not only past heredity, or inherited group tendencies, but also may indicate present world contacts, which weaken or increase resistance far more than is generally believed possible. One of the causes of cancer, which was not so prevalent in the earlier and more leisured days of the racial life—for then the HERD instinct was not so powerful as it is today—is due to the increased stimulation of the body. This stimulation is caused by our close contact in our daily lives with each other through our massed group existence, particularly in our urban centres. If cells are living organisms (which they are), they respond to group life, to massed cell emanation and radiation. This constant stream of energy pouring from the aggregate of bodily cells in massed humanity may produce in certain types of people an overstimulation in some part of bodily cell structure. This usually occurs where there is a weakness in the etheric or vital body, which means that cell defenses are impaired and the result is frequently a cancer or a general cancerous condition. This is the fundamental cause, though modern investigation is occupied with secondary causes and effects of this etheric weakness. I shall consider this later in more detail. It will be obvious to you that when we begin to deal with the vital body and to consider it with greater understanding and knowledge, we shall be able to handle such diseases as cancer far more effectively.

On Using the Mind and the Imagination to Develop Group Consciousness

When a member of a group, such as a group for healing, speaks of developing group consciousness, he refers to his particular group of brothers, and to his group as a unit of several souls. Forget not that such a unit is in itself a separative concept from the angle of the greater whole, but it serves a useful purpose in training the group members to think in those wider terms. It serves as a stepping stone away from the consciousness of the isolated personality.

If you can indeed feel, think and function as one complete unit—several personalities and one soul—it will then be relatively easy to extend the concept to a broader inclusiveness, to broaden your horizon and thus become inclusive in a much wider sense.

The using of the mind to this end involves an aptitude to learn the distinction between analysis and criticism. This is a hard and well-nigh impossible thing for many to learn. Traces of illumination of this subject will show themselves if the group persists in all earnestness. The members have to learn to respond, as a group, to the same spiritual, mental and human ideas, and thus swing—as a "telepathic unit"—into one united train of thought. They have, as a group, to be preoccupied with the same things which are indicated by the soul of the group, and not by one person in the group, as is apt to be the case. They have to learn, as a group, to hold the mind steady in the light—the group mind, and not their individual minds.

In using the imagination to this end, you have to cultivate the power to ignore the outer forms and to concentrate on the inner lines of light which unite brother to brother, group to group, and kingdom to kingdom in the expression of the Life of God Himself. It is the creative use of the imagination which produces an integrated group etheric body and which enables you to see this group body of force and light as one complete form and as one expression of the group intelligence, will and purpose—but not the will or purpose of the dominant mind or minds in the group. Thus these can work out on the physical plane in right expression. However, when the group members are primarily occupied with their own ideas, their plans, their problems, and how they can use whatever light and knowledge may be received, they negate any possibility of such creative use of the united imagination. To become entirely free from this will take much careful cultivation and self-surrender to the soul.