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Frustrated Idealism
There are, however, 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:
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.
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.
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