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CHAPTER VIII - The Laws and Rules Enumerated and Applied - Part 1

Note:  Certain of the Rules are related to certain of the Laws and will be considered by me in their rightful relationship.  I have asked A.A.B. to give here a list of the ten laws and—where a rule is related to a particular law—to give it with that law.  The rules are renumbered and do not follow in the order earlier given.

LAW I

All disease is the result of inhibited soul life.  This 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.

LAW I

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 some day to that new "Law of Ancient Dominating Good" which lies behind all that God has made.  This law must be brought into activity by the spiritual will of man.

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RULE ONE

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 whence the trouble comes.  Let him relate the cause and the effect and know the point exact through which relief must come.

LAW III

Disease is 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.  These 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 reflection 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 true Healer within the form.  The spiritual or third eye then directs the healing force and all is well.

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 then goes forth.

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 forces twixt themselves [534] 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 seeks 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.

RULE THREE

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.

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.

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.

RULE FOUR

A careful diagnosis of 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.

LAW VIII

Disease and death are the results of two active forces.  One is the will of the soul, which says to its instrument: [535] I draw the essence back.  The 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.

RULE FIVE

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.

LAW IX

Perfection calls imperfection to the surface.  Good drives evil 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 negativity but perfect poise, a completed point of view and divine understanding.

RULE SIX

The healer or the healing group must keep the will in leash.  It is not will that must be used, but love.

LAW X

Hearken, O Disciple, to the call which comes from the Son to the Mother, and then obey.  The Word goes forth that form has served its purpose.  The principle of mind then organises itself and then repeats that Word. The waiting form responds and drops away.  The soul stands free.

Respond, O Rising One, to the call which comes within the sphere of obligation; recognise the call emerging from the Ashram or from the Council Chamber where waits the Lord [536] of Life Himself. The Sound goes forth.  Both soul and form together must renounce the principle of life and thus permit the Monad to stand free.  The soul responds.  The form then shatters the connection.  Life is now liberated, owning the quality of conscious knowledge and the fruit of all experience.  These are the gifts of soul and form combined.

Note:  This last law is the enunciation of a new law which is substituted for the Law of Death, and which has reference only to those upon the later stages of the Path of Discipleship and the stages upon the Path of Initiation.

Application of the Laws and Rules

In the last few pages I greatly clarified the issue of indicating—even at the risk of somewhat discouraging you—certain of the essential requirements of the healer in the New Age, and also certain of the contacts which he will have to make with facility and promptness when attempting to heal.  I likewise defined for you the nature of Law.  This was preliminary to a consideration of the Laws to which the healer must conform and the Rules which he will automatically and intuitively obey.  We might consider these Laws and Rules in relation to the healer and also in relation to each other, for several of the Rules are closely related to a Law which controls the healer.

From the definition of law, as given above, it will be apparent to you that in the last analysis disease, death, untruth, falsity and despair are inherent in the planet itself, because our planetary Logos (as I earlier stated when aiding H.P.B. in writing the Secret Doctrine) is an "imperfect God."  After the present great world crisis, incident to our planetary Logos having moved forward upon the cosmic Path, and therefore having taken a cosmic initiation, His imperfections are demonstrably lessened:  there will be less distress and disease on earth once the necessary planetary [537] adjustments have been made.  This you yourselves will not see take place, for adjustments on such a large scale take centuries to effect.  What I have, therefore, to say upon the future healing of disease will not be of practical value for a long time to come, but the theory and the indications of possibility must be considered and discussed.  Also, for a long time, medical practice and surgical knowledge will play their useful parts in preventive medicine, alleviative practices and curative processes.  To these increasingly will be added many psychological methods of healing, and these will go hand in hand with the two above; to these again the services of the spiritual healers will be added.  In this way, a rounded-out approach to the whole man will be steadily developed, and the need for this is today recognised by forward thinking physicians everywhere.  Thus, and also through the method of trial and error, much will be learnt.

The healing processes I outline and indicate through these Laws and Rules are basically new.  They are not based on affirmations, as in Christian Science and other mental healing cults; they are not posited on affirmed origins and on claiming results which will only be possible when the race has reached a far higher standard of perfection than is at present seen or that is immediately capable of development.  As I have several times said in this treatise, there is nothing fundamentally wrong in the claims made by these groups and organisations anent the man who has arrived at soul expression and at realisation of the Christ consciousness.  What is wrong is the claim that the ordinary man (obviously not at this advanced point in evolution) can perform these miracles of healing either in himself or for others.  Very few people have as yet reached this point, and the healer in these cults and organisations who has done so is a rarity indeed.  The healer in the New Age will recognise limitation and conditioning circumstances, plus destiny.  This predisposes the [538] development within him of knowledge-giving powers.  He is also spiritually aware that the healing of the physical body is not always the highest spiritual good; the overestimation and serious, anxious care of the form life, of the physical vehicle, is not of major importance.

The healer in the New Age does not and will not work directly with the physical body at all; being an occultist, he will regard that body as not a principle.  He works practically entirely with the etheric body and with the vital energies, leaving those energies to make their impact on the automaton of the physical body according to directed intent; they will then produce their effect according to the response of that body, conditioned as it will be by many factors.  These energies, directed via the etheric body of the patient, or emanating from that body, may bring about a cure if the destiny of the patient permits, or they may so stimulate the area of the disease that the disease will be brought to a crisis and the patient will die.  This often happens under the ministrations of cultist healers who are ignorant of the laws of healing and who base their activities on a realisation of a present (though usually unexpressed) divinity.

A much higher measure of spiritual perception and of mental understanding is required before the system I propose becomes effective.  All that I give in my writings is largely of a pioneer nature, and this should be remembered.

Let us now study Law One; it has no Rule attached or related to it, as it is a basic statement, indicating the major underlying theory upon which the healer will work.

LAW I

All disease is the result of inhibited soul life.  This 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,

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This law indicates that, owing to the fact that the threefold lower man is not under control of his soul, disease can destroy him.  Because the free flow of the energy pouring from the soul is inhibited and limited, disease can find place in the physical body.  The physical organism is correctly supplied with the creative regenerating energy of the true man, the soul on its own plane.  Where there is complete unobstructed inflow from the soul to the seven vitalising centres, you have the perfect health which the initiate of the fourth degree demonstrates, unless some disciplinary, experimental or initiating karma is being tried out in his case.  However, as a general rule apart from these or planetary conditions, an initiate of high degree needs no healer; there is nothing in him requiring healing.

What must the healer do when, faced with a patient, he realises the inhibited condition which the disease evidences?  Does he, under the law, work with the soul of the patient?  Does he seek to get that soul (on its own plane) to affect definitely the man, superintending the transfer of energy from the soul to the mind, and from the mind to the astral body, and from thence to the etheric vehicle?  By no means.  In cases of real and serious illness, the condition of the patient is usually such that it is not possible for him to make the needed response to such attempted ministrations of the healer, either consciously or unconsciously.  Any mental exertion is quite beyond his power, and he could not, therefore, cooperate with the effort of his soul to transfer energy; the activity of his astral body is usually concentrated in the formulation of a great desire to live and to get rid of the disease, unless the illness is so acute that the patient has reached the stage where he simply does not care and the will-to-live is rapidly leaving him.  To these difficulties must be added the fact that very few people are so completely integrated that they can function as whole personalities, in [540] response to soul stimulation.  They are usually polarised in one or another of their three bodies, and this fact again presents a potent limiting condition to the healer.  Again, and very frequently, the man is so intensely preoccupied with discomfort and pain present in the dense physical body, that the higher impressions which might come through from mind or soul bodies are quite unable to do so.  What then must the trained and instructed healer do?

He must realise, first of all, that the etheric body is the factor of major importance and the main vehicle with which he must deal.  He therefore concentrates upon that body of energy.  This involves the necessity of ascertaining certain facts, and then making certain points of contact effectively useful.

The first fact to be ascertained is the potency with which the soul has gripped and is still gripping its personality. The healer is aware that because the patient is still alive, the soul is definitely present through the medium of the head and heart centres of the etheric body, thus anchoring both the consciousness and the life principles.  If the patient is unconscious, the difficulties of the healer are greatly increased in some cases, though lightened in others.  If the principle of consciousness is withdrawn from the head centre in the vital body, then the healer knows that death may supervene and his way is this much clearer, particularly if there is a dimming of the light of life in the heart.  If consciousness is still powerfully present, he realises that there is still the possibility of cure, and can then, with greater confidence, proceed with the work to be done.  In this statement, I am dealing with the average person.  In the case of initiates, it is somewhat different, because they frequently remain fully conscious through the death process.

You will, therefore, realise the basic necessity for the healer in the New Age to be either clairvoyant or—far better [541] still—to have true spiritual perception with its quality of infallibility.  His first task is to investigate or "occultly see" the etheric body of the patient, and thus arrive at the following knowledge:

1. The potency with which the soul influences its etheric body.  This is indicated by the point of light in the head centre and the area which it irradiates.

2. The condition of the etheric centre which controls or governs the area within which the physical trouble is to be found.

3. The relation of the centres above the diaphragm to those below, because this will give him a general indication of the point in evolution of the man to be healed.

Having ascertained these points to the best of his ability, he will then, under the law of "inhibited soul life," seek by the power of his own soul (working on the higher levels of the mental plane and through his head centre) to stimulate the point of soul life in the etheric body of the patient.  He will do this with a view of attracting, if possible, a fuller inflow of the soul energy of the patient into the head centre, in order that the life thread may carry a fuller supply of life to the heart.  In this manner, the patient's own "livingness" will bring about the desired cure; he will be healed apparently by nature itself, or by the natural and normal way of adequate vitality, and so enabled to throw off the disease.

When the healer, therefore, recognises and works with this law, the following points of contact are recognised and used:

1. The soul of the patient, anchored within his etheric body.

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2. The soul of the healer, occupied with the stimulation of that point of soul contact, via the following triangle of energy:

This relates the vital body of the healer to that of the patient, via both their head centres and the heart of the patient, because there the life principle is focussed and is closely involved and affected by whatever occurs.

3. When this triangle of energy is functioning smoothly and a measure of response is coming from the head centre of the patient, evoking greater soul contact and producing a resultant inflow of soul energy into the head centre and from thence to the heart centre, then—by an act of the will and the use of an invocative mantram—the healer will seek to implement this increased flow of life, via the heart, to the diseased area, using the centre which controls that area of the physical body, whichever this may be.  This has to be done with the greatest possible care, so that the flow is not too sudden, and therefore destructive in its effects; particular care has also to be evidenced in the cases of disease of the heart:  embolisms, for instance, which prove fatal are frequently due to a violent expression on the part of the patient of the will-to-live, bringing on a flooding inflow of the life principle.  This makes its impact too suddenly upon the heart, causing equally sudden movement in the blood stream, and thus of the embolism, producing death.  I am putting this into entirely untechnical terms [543] and laying myself open to expert criticism, but I am doing so in order to convey to the lay reader a general idea of the risks involved, and thus produce caution in the enthusiast.

This law covers certain fundamental premises, and there is little more than I can profitably say anent its implications.  Much will be learnt by accepting the premises and working upon their implications.  What I have said is very far from being what I could have said, but I have here given the student a simple and working understanding of certain essential and basic concepts.  We will now pass on to a consideration of the second Law and of Rule One.

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 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 the new "Law of Ancient Dominating Good" which lies behind all that God has made. This law must be brought into activity by the spiritual will of man.

This Law is most comprehensive in its statements and really constitutes a summation of two laws, one of which is controlling at this time and one which will eventually control.  Let us, for the sake of clarity, and because people usually read so carelessly, divide this law up into its various statements, and thus gain a better idea of its implications:

1. Disease is a product of and subject to three influences:

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

b. His inheritance, wherein he shares with all mankind those tainted streams of energy which are of group origin.

c. His sharing with all natural forms that which the Lord of Life imposes on His body.

2. These three types of energy are called the "Ancient Law of Evil Sharing."

3. The "Law of Ancient Dominating Good" lies behind all that God has made.

4. This law will some day supersede the "Ancient Law of Evil Sharing."

5. It will be brought into activity by the spiritual will of man.

This law throws a man in his thinking back to the basic law of karma which, as you know, there is no avoiding, and which the modern healer in the present healing cults and organisations consistently overlooks.  With these influences and predisposing causes we have already dealt, and there is no need further to elaborate them here, beyond remarking that one of the most helpful things for a patient to remember and for the healer to bear in mind is that disease has its roots in the past (a group past or an individual past) and may, in the last analysis, be a beneficent way of paying off ancient debts.  This induces in the patient a constructive attitude of acquiescence—not an acquiescence which leads to non-action, but one which produces a sense of responsibility for right action.  This right action will lead either to full payment of the penalty through the well-known process of death or to the success of the steps taken to induce health.  In the case of the healer, it will lead to a recognition of potent forces working through the patient and a willingness [545] for the destined fate to take place; in both cases the feverish anxiety so often present will not intervene between the healer's intention and the patient, preventing sound happenings.

The second important thing is for the patient to remember, if his condition permits, that what he is enduring is the fate and the lot of the majority, and that he is not alone.  A right handling of ill health is a major factor in breaking down separateness and a sense of aloneness and isolation; that is why the effects of bad health, when rightly handled, lead to a sweetening of the disposition and a broadening of the sympathies.  Sharing and a sense of general participation has usually to be learnt the hard way—such again is the law.  In this law we have the clue to that which will ultimately sweep disease from the earth.  Let me put it quite simply.  When the majority of the inhabitants of the earth are being rapidly oriented towards good, towards righteousness, as the Bible expresses it, and when the bulk of human beings are inclined towards goodwill (the second major expression of soul contact and influence in the individual's life and in the life of mankind—the first being the sense of responsibility), then ill health will persistently, even if only gradually, disappear and die out and finally be nonexistent.  Slowly, very slowly, this is already happening—not yet in the disappearance of disease, but in the bringing about of a more correct orientation.  What this really means is that the channel of contact between the individual and his soul and the soul of humanity is becoming more direct and unimpeded.  Alignment is being brought about.  You can see again, therefore, why the emphasis in the life of the healer must be laid upon contact and alignment, and why so few succeed.  There is little if any contact to be found among healers today, and little direct consciousness of the necessity, [546] and no real understanding of the techniques to be followed. It is wise to grasp this important point, for it will negate disappointment.  Disease is not going to disappear miraculously and suddenly from a world in the immediate period, heralding the New Age. If it did, the implications would be that the Law of Karma no longer controlled, and this is not the case.

The final sentence of this second law gives a basic indication of the time period:  the Law of Dominating Good will be brought into activity by the spiritual will of man. What does this mean?  It means that only when truly large numbers of men are controlled by the Spiritual Triad, have built the antahkarana and can therefore use the spiritual will, can disease be stamped out and only good control. It will of course be a gradual process, and in the early stages almost imperceptible.  Again, why is this?  Because evil, crime and disease are the result of the great heresy of separateness, and because hate and not love controls.  Forget not that he who loveth not his brother is a murderer—ever the symbol of hate.  As yet, the sense of universality and of identity with all is not to be found, except in advanced disciples and initiates; the mass consciousness and the demonstration of the herd instinct must not be confounded with the sense of Oneness which marks the right oriented person.  In the New Age, teaching anent the antahkarana and the constitution of man, principally from the angle of the "three periodical bodies," and not so much from that of the lower threefold man, will be emphasised, particularly in the higher schools of learning, thereby laying a sound foundation for the esoteric schools which will be slowly emerging.  A new perspective upon humanity will be thereby attained.  The nature of the spiritual will will be taught in contradistinction to that of the selfish personal will; [547] by its means tremendous new potencies will be released, and safely released, into daily life.

Up to the present time, even disciples have little idea of the exceeding power of the triadal will.  It might be here affirmed that those healers who have triadal consciousness and can exercise the potency of the monadic life and will, via the Spiritual Triad, will always be successful healers; they will make no mistakes, for they will have accurate spiritual perception; this will give them knowledge as to the possibility of cure, and by the use of the will they can then work safely and with power on the head centre of the patient.  They will necessarily confine their healing powers to those who live focussed in the head.  They will stimulate the soul, there anchored, into effective activity, thus promoting a true self-healing.

You will note from all the above how relatively simple these Laws are when carefully considered, and how beautifully they are related to each other.  The mastering and grasping of one facilitates the understanding of the next.

Forget not that the head centre is the one through which the will works, and with this in your mind, relate the information given you anent Law One in the early part of this instruction to that which I have here given you.  If these laws are studied deeply by those who seek to learn to heal spiritually, and if the healer endeavours to make his life conform to the rules, a definite pattern of healing and an emerging technique will take shape in his mind and greatly increase his effective service.  You will note also that I am not giving rules and laws which deal with specific diseases.  This, I fear, will greatly disappoint many earnest workers.  They would like me to indicate what should be done, for instance, to cure cancer of the liver, or pneumonia or gastric ulcer or forms of heart disease.  This I do not intend to do.  My work is far more basic than that.  I am concerned [548] with causes, and primarily with the etheric body as the distributor of energies or as the withholder of these energies when transformed into forces; I deal with the state of consciousness of the healer and with the theories which he should embrace, with his understanding of the relationship of the soul to its vehicles of expression (particularly, in the case of healing, to the vital body), and with the controlling fact of the centres found in every area of the body, either freely distributing energy and preserving the body in good health or—through undevelopment and inhibited activity—bringing about those conditions in which disease becomes possible and probable.

You can see, therefore, how the healing process is simplified when we recognise causes and realise that they are responsible for the functioning of the body on the outer plane.  The healer has always to remember the following sequence of facts:

1. The fact of the soul, working through

2. The mind and the astral body, whose energies condition

3. The etheric vehicle, a vortex of energies focussed through numerous centres, both major and minor.

4. The seven major centres, controlling definite areas of the body via

a. The nadis

b. The nerves.

c. The endocrine system

d. The blood stream.

These four groups of conditioned aspects of the man concern life and consciousness, or the two major aspects of the soul when in manifestation upon the physical plane.

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Orthodox medicine has been to date necessarily confined to the objective symptoms and their immediate apparent cause, and therefore to effects and not to real causes.  The healing with which I am concerned is directed towards the reorganising and the revitalising of the etheric body, with the intent of getting behind the outer formal indications of wrong conditions to that vehicle of energies which—if correctly functioning and in right alignment—will preserve the physical body in good condition and keep it free from disease.  The knowledge required by the healer in the New Age is therefore more basic and less detailed.  He deals with areas and not with organs; he is concerned with energies and their distributing points, and not with the details of the physical body, with the construction of the organs and their malfunctioning.  He will deal with the seven etheric centres, with the nadis through which they affect and stimulate (apart from radiation) the nervous system; he will watch with care the nervous system and the blood stream which the centres affect through radiation on to and through the hormones there to be found.  But the keynote of all his work will be directed distribution, and the centre of his attention will be the channels of this distribution—the entire system of etheric centres.

I would beg you to reflect upon all this information with studious care.  The keynote to good health, esoterically speaking, is sharing or distribution, just as it is the keynote to the general well-being of humanity.  The economic ills of mankind closely correspond to disease in the individual. There is lack of a free flow of the necessities of life to the points of distribution; these points of distribution are idle:  the direction of the distribution is faulty, and only through a sane and worldwide grasp of the New Age principle of sharing will human ills be cured; only by the right distribution of energy will the ills of the physical body of individual [550] man also be cured.  This is a fundamental (I would say the fundamental principle) of all spiritual healing.  In the last analysis also this presupposes an eventual and scientific recognition of the etheric body of the planet, and consequently of man.

We come now to a consideration of Rule One.

RULE ONE

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 whence the trouble comes.  Let him relate the cause and the effect and know the point exact through which relief must come.

It will be apparent to you that the first rule which the healer has to master must necessarily be important.  It is basic and essential in its implications if a cure is to be effected or if the healer is not to waste time in attempting the impossible.  There are four injunctions in this rule:

1. The healer must train himself to know whether the patient is mentally or astrally (emotionally) focussed.

2. He can and must, therefore, ascertain the psychological basis of the existent trouble.

3. He will be able then to ascertain the location of the effect (the disease) through perception of the underlying cause.

4. This will enable him to know

a. The area affected.

b. The centre in the etheric body controlling that area.

You will also realise why I started my analysis of disease and healing by a presentation of the psychological causes.  [551] This first rule is related to that entire section of the teaching and is, as you can see, intensely practical.

When the personality polarisation is known, two major facts emerge:  the point of approach will be either through the head centre or the heart centre IF the patient is highly developed—which presumably the healer can be supposed to know from character indications and the effectiveness of his life.  Or the approach can be through the throat centre or the solar plexus centre if the patient is an ordinary and average advanced person; if he is quite undeveloped and relatively a low grade human being, the exact point through which relief will come will be the solar plexus centre or the sacral centre.  It is interesting to note that when a man is so low in the evolutionary scale that he must be etherically reached via the sacral centre, he is often quite easily cured and will respond more rapidly to what is oft called "etheric manipulation" than will other types.  One reason for this is that his mind and his emotions present no real obstacles, and all available energies can be directed unimpeded to the diseased area.

If the healer is clairvoyant, he can with facility ascertain the point of entry of the healing forces, because the "entering light" will then be the brightest, the light of the centre itself will convey the needed information.  If he is a very advanced healer, he will not use any form of psychic perception but will react immediately upon contact to an impression so powerful, coming from the patient, that it cannot be denied and is probably entirely correct and to be depended upon.  It must be remembered, however, that owing to the integrity of the human soul, and to the fact that every soul is in its own nature a Master, there will be always a margin of error where the healer is concerned, even if he is an initiate-healer; there will be evidence to him of a point where the spiritual man (of which the patient is only [552] a reflection) controls, and beyond which—except as a soul on an equal basis with the patient's soul—he cannot and dare not go.  There are conditions, for instance, in which an advanced disciple or a high initiate (for definite purpose of vacating his physical vehicle) may be permitting the forces of disintegration, of limitation and of destruction to be breaking down and destroying his physical outer form.  When this is the case, the healer may not be aware of the intention; he will, however, be aware of opposition and will be forced to desist from his efforts to heal.

When the patient is a strictly mental type, and the approach to the healing process must be through a higher centre, the head centre, the healer will be wise to gain the conscious cooperation of the patient so that their two wills will function in unison; this will entail a positive relationship between the two.  When the patient is not so highly developed, the healer will have to strive for a spirit of hopeful acquiescence in the man; the emotional nature will be stronger in this case than in the more advanced type and the task of the healer consequently harder.  He will have, very frequently, to combat anxiety, emotional reactions of diverse kinds, fear and forebodings.  The psychological condition will therefore be fluid, and the healer will have much to do to aid the patient to preserve a constancy of emotional reaction and to become calm and quiescent.  This quiet reaction has to be attained if the healing energies are to pass effectively to the right centre and its controlled area. This can be brought about by the establishing of a harmonious rapport between the healer and the patient, prior to any healing process.  Healers in the New Age will also establish their own clientele, just as physicians do today, and so learn to know the constitution and the temperament of those they may be called upon to help; they will also educate them in certain healing processes and techniques [553] in preparation for their use later, if needed; this time, however, still lies far ahead.

When the patient is an undeveloped human being and low down in the evolutionary scale, he will be controlled psychologically by the consecrated personality of the healer and by the imposition of the healers' will upon the etheric body of the patient.  This does not mean the imposition of the energy of the will upon a negative person, thereby impelling the patient to action and imperilling even the very small measure of freewill which he possesses; it means the imposition of the authority of knowledge and of spiritual stabilisation upon the patient, thereby instilling confidence and a willingness to be obedient.

You have here the first steps which the healer must take in dealing with the patient and with the psyche, the lower psyche of the patient.  They are three in number:

1. Gaining the cooperation of the personality of the advanced man; it is only the personality which requires healing.

2. Bringing about a condition of hopeful acquiescence on the part of the personality of the average man; he is not as yet capable of intelligent cooperation, but he can so handle himself that he reduces personality hindrances to a minimum.

3. Inducing confident obedience to the suggestions of the healer.  This is all that the undeveloped man can do.

It will be obvious to you that broad generalisations such as the above do not cover every type of man and the many intermediate types and stages.  The healer will need to be a true lover of his fellowmen and a trained psychologist as well; this means that he will have to practice as a soul and also as a perceptive mind.

[554]

Another point should here be noted.  One problem which the healer will have to face with mental types will be the tendency to preserve all energies coming from the soul either in the head, or at least above the diaphragm; this does not mean that all the areas of the body below the diaphragm are not habitually supplied with the needed energies, but that there the functioning is largely automatic and the man is not in the habit of consciously directing energy to the centre and the area it controls, when below the diaphragm.  It may be necessary to instruct him so to do, if he is attempting to collaborate with the healer and seeks to bring about a cure.  His mental focus and the activity of the head centre will be a great help, provided he accepts instruction in the art of energy direction.  This he can usually do if not too ill or too preoccupied with the preservation of a conscious contact with his body.  When he is unable to focus his attention, either through pain or through lack of physical consciousness or profound weakness, the healer will have to work primarily as soul with soul, and trust that the rapport between the patient's soul and the etheric body will be adequate to promote a cure, if that is the destiny of the man.

Where the source of the trouble lies in the emotional or astral body, the task of the healer is not so easy; he has then to work, focussed as a soul in his head centre, but directing the needed energy and controlling the patient's emotional nature via his correctly oriented solar plexus centre.  I refer here to the healer's solar plexus centre, which is one which he does not as a general rule employ as a point of focus or attention in his own life.  The healer has a gained facility in the use of all his centres at will, regarding them as distributing points of directed energy.  This directed energy, I would have you note, is not directed towards healing, but is the soul energy of the healer directed towards [555] bringing some centre in the patient's body under control, owing to the emotionalism which the patient displays, and towards reorganising it as a centre for reception of the healing energies emanating from the patient's soul—a very different matter and one which must be most carefully borne in mind.

The healer, therefore, uses two centres, normally speaking:  his own head centre and that centre in his own body which corresponds to the area which is diseased and its controlling centre.  There has to be in every successful healing the establishing of a sympathetic relationship.  As an ancient book in the Masters' Archives puts it:  "Soul to soul, the two are one; point to point, together must they suffer; place to place, they find themselves allied, and thus the dual stream of energy results in cure."

One of the major difficulties with which the healer is faced, particularly if relatively inexperienced, is the result of this established sympathetic relation.  There is apt to occur what we might call "transference."  The healer takes on or takes over the condition of disease or discomfort, not in fact but symptomatically.  This can incapacitate him or at least intercept the free activity of the healing process. It is a glamour and an illusion and is based on the healer's achieved capacity to identify himself with his patient; it also is founded on his anxiety and great desire to bring relief.  The healer has become so preoccupied with the patient's need, and so decentralised from his own identified and positive consciousness, that inadvertently he has become negative and temporarily unprotected.  The cure for this, if the healer discovers in himself this tendency, is to work through the heart centre as well as the head centre, and thus keep a steady flow of the positive energy of love pouring out towards the patient.  This will insulate him from the disease, but not from the patient.  He can do this by working [556] through the heart centre within the brahmarandra (the head centre) and greatly increase the potency of his healing work; however, it presupposes a high degree of development on the healer's part.  The average spiritual healer will have to link up head and heart centres by a definite act of the will.  He will then realise that the love pouring from him to the patient will prevent any return of the undesirable emanations from the patient which have been flowing towards him; this because if such a flow existed, it would militate against the patient being healed.

The healer who responds to the inner urge to heal will face, as you can see, a very severe course of training before his own equipment—personality, etheric body and its centres—are brought into such submission to the soul that they offer no obstruction to the healing art.  He has therefore to learn in connection with himself:

1. Rapid alignment between soul, mind, head centre and physical brain.

2. The use of the mind, illumined by the soul, in the psychological diagnosis of the causes of the disease which he proposes to handle.

3. Methods for establishing a sympathetic rapport with the patient.

4. Modes of protecting himself from any transference brought about through this rapport.

5. The establishing of a right relation with the patient of either cooperation, acquiescence or spiritual control.

6. Physical diagnosis and the locating of the area to which relief must come, via the controlling centre.

7. The art of cooperation with the patient's soul so that his etheric body focusses all its inflowing energies in order to bring relief to the diseased area.  This involves the direct activity of the healer's etheric body in connection [557] with a renewed activity on the part of the patient's etheric body.

8. The technique of withdrawing his healing power when that of the patient is adequate to the undertaking.

I feel that I have here given you all that you need for immediate study and reflection.  I have shown you that the healing art is not a vague mystical process, or wishful thinking and simple good intentions.  I have indicated that it presupposes the mastering of the science of soul contact, first of all:  the constant practice of alignment, and the comprehension of the Science of the Centres, or—literally—a modern form of Laya-Yoga. Healers in the future will undergo years of drastic training, and this need cause no surprise, for the ordinary medical profession calls for years of hard study and work.  Many healers in the New Age will combine orthodox study and knowledge with the art of spiritual healing.

When trained healers, with perception, with a full working knowledge of the etheric body, with an understanding of the energies which compose it or which it does or can transmit, of the subtle constitution of man and of the methods of directing energies from one point and location to another, can work with full medical knowledge or in full collaboration with the orthodox physician or surgeon, then tremendous changes will be brought about.  Great enlightenment will reach the race of man.

It is for this that we must prepare—not primarily for the healing of the physical body, but because of the expansion of the consciousness of the race that this new and esoteric study will bring about.

We have dealt with a number of fundamental realities which it is essential that all healers—endeavouring to work with the new type of esoteric healing—must master; what [558] I said, therefore, is of major importance.  Each point made by me could form the basis of prolonged discussion, but (in this treatise) that is not possible, for I seek only to give indication of future possibilities.  I seek also to foment distrust in the present approach of the metaphysical world to this subject of disease and its cure, and to undermine—if I may use so drastic an expression—the confidence of the public in the so-called New Age modes of healing, in the methods of the Christian Scientist, of Mental Science, and of all those schools of thought which deal with healing from the angle of affirmation—affirmation of man's divinity and the claim that that inherent and innate divinity guarantees his healing.  This claim is a glamour and a delusion, as I have oft sought to show.

Today we deal with a law which (if properly understood) proves how inadequate is the approach of the modern metaphysician to this subject and—though it puts our instructions on healing on a sound basis—it postpones the era of truly occult healing quite definitely to a more distant time.  This third law runs as follows:

LAW III

Disease is 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.  These, therefore, work out as disease or as freedom from disease.

This law indicates that one of the primary determinations at which the healer must arrive is that of the level of consciousness from which the predominating energy in the etheric body emanates.  I would remind you here that in The Secret Doctrine, H.P.B. states that a plane and a state of consciousness are synonymous terms, and entirely interchangeable; in all my writing I seek to emphasise not [559] the level of matter or substance (a plane, as it is called), but the consciousness which expresses itself in that environing area of conscious substance.