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CHAPTER I - The Psychological Causes of Disease - Part 2

Creative Artists. All advanced humanity. The Intelligentsia.

5.

Solar...

Pancreas...

Stomach...

Astral force.

Astral....

Astral body.

 

plexus.

 

Liver.

Emotion.

centres.

 

 

 

 

Gall bladder.

Desire.

 

 

 

 

 

Nervous

Touch.

 

 

 

 

 

system.

 

 

 

Average humanity. Ordinary people.

6.

Sacral..

Gonads....

Sex organs.

Life force..

Physical...

Etheric body.

 

centre.

 

 

Physical

plane.

 

 

 

 

 

plane force.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Vital energy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Animal life.

 

 

Low grade animal type of men.

7.

Base

Adrenals.

Kidneys...

Will energy.

The Mother

 

 

of spine.

 

Spinal

Universal life.

of the

 

 

Muladhara.

 

column.

Kundalini.

World.

 

 

[46]

This tabulation is simply an outline and, like the tabulation of the principles and their correspondences, as given by H.P.B. in the third volume of The Secret Doctrine, 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:

1. The soul.

2. The subtler bodies of the mind and the emotions, which are simply qualified energy centres.

3. The vital body with its seven major centres of force.

4. The endocrine system, which is an effect of the seven centres, and the determining controlling factor in the physical body of man.

5. The nervous system in its three divisions.

6. 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, [47] 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:

1. 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.

2. 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.

3. The physician, who, taking into consideration the conclusions of the two above experts, diagnoses the [48] 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:

1. Individual disease, due to interior conditions in a man's own equipment, to his mental state, or to an emotional [49] condition which can produce serious ills.  This is inherited from the past.

2. 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.

3. Diseases which are, curiously enough, accidental.  To these a man falls heir when, for instance, he succumbs to some infectious or contagious complaint.

4. 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.

5. 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 above is a generalisation which may be found useful.

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:

[50]

 

Centre

Ray

Quality

Origin

1. Head Centre

1st

The Divine Will.

Monadic

2. Ajna Centre

7th

Organisation.

Atmic

 

 

Direction.

 

3. Heart Centre

2nd

Love-Wisdom.

Buddhic

 

 

Group love.

 

4. Throat Centre

5th

Creativity.

Mental

5. Solar Plexus

6th

Emotion.  Desire.

Astral

6. Sacral Centre

3rd

Reproduction.

Etheric

7. Base of Spine

4th

Harmony.

Physical

 

 

Union through conflict.

 

 

Note:  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.

[51]

 

Astral Force

 

Centre

 

Bad Aspect

 

Disease

 

Good Aspect

 

First ray.

 

Head

 

Self-pity.

 

Cancer.

 

Sacrifice.

 

Will or Power.

 

 

The Dramatic I.

 

 

Dedication of the I.

 

Second ray.

 

Heart

 

Self-love.

 

Heart trouble.

 

Soul Love.

 

Love-Wisdom.

 

 

Personality.

 

Stomach trouble.

 

Group Love.

 

Third ray.

 

Sacral

 

Sexuality.

 

Social diseases.

 

Parental love.

 

Activity.

 

 

Over-activity.

 

 

Group life.

 

Fourth ray

 

Ajna

 

Selfishness.

 

Insanities.

 

Mysticism.

 

Harmony.

 

 

Dogmatism.

 

 

 

Fifth ray.

 

Throat

 

Lower psychism.

 

Wrong metabolism.

 

Creativity

 

Knowledge.

 

 

 

Certain Cancers.

 

Sensitivity.

 

 

 

 

 

Inspiration

 

Sixth ray.

 

Solar Plexus

 

Emotionalism.

 

Nervous diseases.

 

Aspiration.

 

Devotion.

 

 

 

Gastritis

 

Right direction.

 

 

 

 

Liver trouble.

 

 

Seventh ray.

 

Base of the

 

Self-interest.

 

Heart diseases.

 

White Magic.

 

Organisation.

 

spine

 

Pure selfishness.

 

Tumors.

 

 

 

 

Black Magic.

 

 

 

[52]

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.

1. There would be required the positive analysis of the astral forces as they express the personality.

2. 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:

[53]

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

2. A negative analysis of those aspects of soul energy which are not present.

3. A synthetic analysis, based on both the above, but combining also the record of positive soul expression.

In these tabulations and statements I have given you much food for thought.

B. Desire, Inhibited or Rampant.

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.

[54]

I should like here, in this connection, to give you the third of the Laws which govern the sacred art of healing.

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:

1. Disease is the result of the blocking of the free flow of the life of the SOUL.

2. It is the product, or 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.

3. It is conditioned by the forces emanating from that plane whereon a man's consciousness is primarily centred.

To the above statements should be added a further fact, already mentioned, that:

[55]

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

a. Tuberculosis.

b. The syphilitic diseases.

c. Cancer.

d. Heart difficulties.

e. 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:

1. From his own past; i.e., effects which are the result of causes initiated in earlier incarnations.

2. From the general racial heritage of humanity.

3. 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 [56] 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 marvellously 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:  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.  Secondly, he must [57] have a clear grasp of the patient's inner emphasis; this last aids him in the diagnosis of the first.

This statement brings me to the formulation of the third Rule for Healers.

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.