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CHAPTER III - Our Karmic Liabilities - Part 1

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS

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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 (particularly in the Eastern presentation of the Path to Reality) 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 [260] 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 Charta.  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:

a. The signing of the Magna Charta, emphasising personal liberty.

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b. The founding of the French Republic with its emphasis upon human liberty.

c. The Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights, determining national policy.

d. 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.

The ideal has gradually become clarified so that today the mass of men everywhere know what are the basic essentials of happiness.

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 (which is our theme today) 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 [262] 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 [263] 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.

The outstanding evidence of the Law of Cause and Effect is the Jewish race.  All nations prove this Law, but I choose to refer to the Hebrew peoples because their history is so well known and their future and their destiny are subjects of worldwide, universal concern.  The Jews have always had a symbolic significance; they sum up in themselves—as a nation, down the ages—the depths of human evil and the heights of human divinity.  Their aggressive history as narrated in the Old Testament is on a par with present-day German accomplishment; yet Christ was a Jew and it was the Hebrew race which produced Him.  Let this never be forgotten.  The Jews were great aggressors; they despoiled the Egyptians and they took the Promised Land at the point of the sword, sparing neither man, woman nor child.  Their religious history has been built around a materialistic Jehovah, possessive, greedy and endorsing and encouraging aggression.  Their history is symbolic of the history of all aggressors, rationalising themselves into the belief that they are carrying out divine purpose, wresting away from people their property in a spirit of self-defense and finding some [264] reason, adequate to them, to excuse the iniquity of their action.  Palestine was taken by the Jews because it was "a land flowing with milk and honey," and the claim was made that the act was undertaken in obedience to divine command.  Later, the symbolism gets most interesting.  They divided into two halves:  the Israelites with headquarters at Samaria, and the Jews (meaning two or three special tribes out of the twelve) locating around Jerusalem.  Dualism ran through their religious beliefs; they were schooled by the Sadducees or the Pharisees, and these two groups were in constant conflict.  Christ came as a member of the Jewish race and they renounced Him.

Today the law is working, and the Jews are paying the price, factually and symbolically, for all they have done in the past.  They are demonstrating the far-reaching effects of the Law.  Factually and symbolically, they stand for culture and civilisation; factually and symbolically, they are humanity; factually and symbolically, they stand as they have ever chosen to stand, for separation.  They regard themselves as the chosen people and have an innate consciousness of that high destiny, forgetting their symbolic role and that it is Humanity which is the chosen people and not one small and unimportant fraction of the race.  Factually and symbolically, they long for unity and cooperation, yet know not how to cooperate; factually and symbolically, they are the "Eternal Pilgrim"; they are mankind, wandering through the mazes of the three worlds of human evolution, and gazing with longing eyes towards a promised land; factually and symbolically, they resemble the mass of men, refusing to comprehend the underlying spiritual purpose of all material phenomena, rejecting the Christ within (as they did centuries ago the Christ within their borders), grasping for material good and steadily rejecting the things of the spirit.  They demand the so-called restitution of Palestine, [265] wresting it away from those who have inhabited it for many centuries; and by their continued emphasis upon material possession they lose sight of the true solution, which is that, symbolically and factually again, they must be assimilated into all the nations, and fused with all the races, thus demonstrating recognition of the One Humanity.

It is interesting to note that the Jews who inhabited southern Palestine, and whose chief city was Jerusalem, have succeeded in doing this and have fused with and been assimilated by the British, the Dutch and the French in a way that the Israelites, ruled from Samaria, have never done.  I commend this to you for your consideration.

If the Jewish race would recall, therefore, their high symbolic destiny, and if the rest of humanity would see themselves in the Jewish people, and if both groups would emphasise the fact of human stock and cease thinking of themselves in terms of national and racial units, the karma of humanity would radically change from the retributive karma of the present to the recompensing good karma of the future.

Regarding this question from the long range vision (looking backward historically as well as forward hopefully), the problem is one to which the Jews themselves must make the larger contribution.  They have never yet faced candidly and honestly (as a race) the problem of why the many nations, from the time of the Egyptians, have neither liked nor wanted them.  It has always been the same down the centuries.  Yet there must be some reason, inherent in the people themselves, when the reaction is so general and universal.  Their approach to their direful problem has been one of supplication, or of distressed complaint, or of unhappy despair.  Their demand has been for the Gentile nations to put the matter right, and many Gentiles have attempted to do so.  Until, however, the Jews themselves [266] face up to the situation and admit that there may be for them the working out of the retributive aspect of the Law of Cause and Effect, and until they endeavour to ascertain what it is in them, as a race, which has initiated their ancient and dire fate, this basic world issue will remain as it has been since the very night of time.  That within the race there are and have been great, good, just and spiritual men is unalterably true.  A generalisation is never a complete expression of the truth.  But, viewing the problem of the Jews in time and space, in history and today, the points which I have made will bear careful consideration by the Jews.

What I have said in no way mitigates the guilt of those who have so sorely abused the Jews.  You have a proverb, have you not? that "two blacks do not make a white."  The behaviour of the nations towards the Jews, culminating in the atrocities of the second quarter of the twentieth century, have no excuse.  The law must inevitably work.  Though much that has happened to the Jews originated in their past history and in their pronounced attitude of separativeness and nonassimilability, and in their emphasis upon material good, yet the agents who have brought the evil karma upon them equally incur the retributive aspect of the same law; the situation has now assumed the form of a vicious circle of error and wrong doing, of retribution and revenge, and in view of this the time must come when together the nations will confer upon this problem, and together they will cooperate to bring to an end the wrong attitudes on both sides.  All karma of evil nature is solved by the presentation of an accepting will, a cooperative love, a frank acknowledgment of responsibility and a skillful adjustment of united joint activity to bring about the good of humanity as a whole, and not just the good of an individual nation or people or race.  The Jewish problem will not be solved [267] by taking possession of Palestine, by plaint and demand and by financial manipulations.  That would be but the prolongation of ancient wrong and material possessiveness.  The problem will be solved by the willingness of the Jew to conform to the civilisation, the cultural background and the standards of living of the nation to which—by the fact of birth and education—he is related and with which he should assimilate.  It will come by the relinquishment of pride of race and of the concept of selectivity; it will come by renouncing dogmas and customs which are intrinsically obsolete and which create points of constant irritation to the matrix within which the Jew finds himself; it will come when selfishness in business relations and the pronounced manipulative tendencies of the Hebrew people are exchanged for more selfless and honest forms of activity.

The Jew, owing to his rays and point of development, is outstandingly creative and artistic.  This he must recognise and not seek as he now does to dominate in all fields, to grasp all opportunities away from other people, and so better himself and his own people at the expense of others.  Release from the present situation will come when the Jew forgets that he is a Jew and becomes in his inmost consciousness an Italian, an American, a Britisher, a German or a Pole.  This is not so at this time.  The Jewish problem will be solved by intermarriage; that of the Negro will not.  This will mean concession and compromise on the part of the orthodox Jews—not the concession of expediency but the concession of conviction.

Let me point out also that just as the Kabbalah and the Talmud are secondary lines of esoteric approach to truth, and materialistic in their technique (embodying much of the magical work of relating one grade of matter to the substance of another grade), so the Old Testament is emphatically a secondary Scripture, and spiritually does not rank [268] with the Bhagavad-Gita, the ancient Scriptures of the East and the New Testament.  Its emphasis is material and its effect is to impress a purely materialistic Jehovah upon world consciousness.  The general theme of the Old Testament is the recovery of the highest expression of the divine wisdom in the first solar system; that system embodied the creative work of the third aspect of divinity—that of active intelligence, expressing itself through matter.  In this solar system, the created world is intended to be the expression of the second aspect, of the love of God.  This the Jew has never grasped, for the love expressed in the Old Testament is the separative, possessive love of Jehovah for a distinct unit within the fourth or human kingdom.  St. Paul summed up the attitude which humanity should assume in the words:  "There is neither Jew nor Gentile."  The evil karma of the Jew today is intended to end his isolation, to bring him to the point of relinquishing material goals, of renouncing a nationality that has a tendency to be somewhat parasitic within the boundaries of other nations, and to express inclusive love, instead of separative unhappiness.

And what of the Gentile attitude?  It is absolutely necessary that the nations meet the Jew more than half way when he arrives at altering—slowly and gradually—his nationalistic orthodoxy.  It is essential that they cease from fear and persecution, from hatred and from placing barriers to cooperation.  The growing anti-Semitic feeling in the world is inexcusable in the sight of God and man.  I refer not here to the abominable cruelties of the obsessed German people.  Behind that lies a history of Atlantean relationships into which it is needless for me to enter because I could not prove to you the truth of my statements.  I refer to the history of the past two thousand years and to the everyday behaviour of Gentile people everywhere.  There must be a definite effort upon the part of the nationals of [269] every country to assimilate the Jews, to inter-marry with them, and to refuse to recognise as barriers old habits of thought and ancient bad relations.  Men everywhere must regard it as a blot upon their national integrity if there is the appearance within their borders of the old duality—Jew and Gentile.  There is neither Jew nor Gentile; there is only Humanity.  This war (1914-1945) should be regarded as having brought to a conclusion the ancient enmity between Jew and Gentile, and the two groups have now the opportunity to originate a newer and happier measure of living and a truly cooperative relation on either side.  The process of assimilation will be slow, for the situation is of so ancient a date that habits of thought, customary attitudes and separative customs are well established and hard to overcome.  But the needed changes can be made if goodwill directs the spoken word, the written presentation and the mode of living together.  The Hierarchy sees no distinction.  The Head of the Hierarchy, though not in a Jewish body at this time, achieved the highest spiritual goal for humanity whilst in a Jewish vehicle.  The Hierarchy is also sending into Jewish bodies certain disciples who will work with full intent at the changing of the situation.  There are Jews today, a few in number, who do not think in terms of being Jews; who are not preoccupied with the Jewish problem to the exclusion of all else, and who are endeavouring to fuse all people into one humanity, thus bridging the gap.

Again, I say, that the Masters of the Wisdom see neither Jew nor Gentile, but only souls and sons of God.

In dealing with the subject of karma as a factor—decisive and lasting in both disease and health—one of the criticisms to which my approach is subjected is that I deal too much with generalities and that I give no specific and detailed analysis of particular diseases, particularly of the great [270] basic diseases which today take such a toll of humanity and which are not fundamentally being curbed.  I do not deal with their symptoms or their cure, and I indicate not techniques whereby they may be handled.  This I feel is a criticism with which I should deal, so that you may proceed with your study under no misapprehension.  This is an appropriate point at which to stop and meet this contention.  Karma is necessarily a topic which is general and not specific; it is not yet accepted in the occult sense by the general public.  It must be considered along broad lines until such time that the Law of Cause and Effect is accepted as a major conditioning factor in the human consciousness, not only on a large scale but in relation to individual lives.  Of this Law, the public is yet, as a whole, ignorant.

It will be obvious to you that it is entirely needless for me to deal with the symptomatic aspect of diseases and with the facts that have been so ably ascertained by orthodox medical science.  We have been for some time considering the causes of such diseases, and I propose to deal with occult methods of producing cures—where such cures are permissible under the Law of Karma and where the healer is willing to work in an occult manner.  I have attempted to make clear to you that the fundamental cause is related to energy, to its presence in excess as it pours through the centres, or to its deficiency.  Here lie the two main factors in the production of disease.  It is essential that those of you who are interested in the study of disease and its healing should admit this and permit it to form the basis of your approach.  I have indicated that medicine and medical treatments of the future will start with this fact as their prime determination.  The factual nature of medical discovery is not disowned by me.  I seek to carry the matter forward from that point, and it is no part of my programme to ignore the wise discoveries of modern medical science, nor am I [271] on the side of those groups of people who run down and refuse to admit the findings of modern medicine.  This I have earlier emphasised.  I want to indicate the trend of future medical research, which will be to seek for the seat of the trouble in the realm of vitality (as it may be called by orthodox investigators), and which we would regard as in the realm of the etheric body.  Let me here make a practical statement which might be regarded as the next Rule in this treatise:

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.

I am handicapped greatly as a I seek to lay the foundation for this new approach to medicine.  I am handicapped by the idealistic pronouncements of the pioneers in the new fields of nature healing, by the naturopaths, and by the [272] premises of Christian Science and the Unity Schools.  All that I can do (if you are to profit by my presentation) is to lay down certain broad and general assumptions which will govern the medical men of the future.  But in the interim period between the old and the new eras, men will wander in a fog of speculation; a great conflict will be engineered between the fundamentalist schools and the speculators and the investigators of the new ideas, and temporarily the "noble middle path" of the Buddha will be forgotten.

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 surest and least speculative field in medical practice is that which is concerned with the surgical relief of the patient; it is founded on a sure knowledge of anatomy, its diagnosis of requirements can be intelligently controlled, and [273] its practice (when in the hands of a sound and reputable surgeon) can and frequently does produce a cure or a real prolongation of life.  However, even in that field little is known about the results of an operation as it may affect the etheric body and (consequently) the nervous system through the intermediate system of the "nadis" or the etheric counterpart of the nerves.  I would instance the removal of some organ.  Definite results must necessarily be present and a period of difficult adjustment must inevitably take place within the subtle mechanism of the patient.  The area of the body which has received surgical treatment, and particularly the centre in closest relation to it, must be affected, for the circulatory flow of energy, emanating from the centre, will find itself "short circuited," if I could use such a phrase.  This flow, which has hitherto passed through the area of surgical attention, must work its way to all parts of the body, via the "nadis"; these, as you know, underlie and feed the needed energy to the nervous system.  Old channels for the flow of energy will have been removed, as the result of operative measures, major or minor.  New channels or lines of force, bridging the "mutilated" area, will have to be established and a basic adjustment will have to be made within the vital mechanism of the patient.  Along this line there is practically nothing as yet known.  It is not even yet in the field of advanced research.

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.

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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:

a. 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 [275] 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.

b. 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 [276] 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. [277] This will mark a tremendous advance in wise and useful approach; it will produce a basic simplification; it will lead to more correct methods of healing, particularly as clairvoyant vision is developed and becomes recognised by science, and known to be an extension of a normal sense.

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.

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Another difficulty which I have to face (as I seek to present to you the medicine of the future) is that I think in terms of cycles and you think in terms of a few brief years.  What I am in reality attempting to do is to indicate the lines along which medical research will trend during the next two hundred years.  The effort of the present day approach is how to cure a person here and now; this is a natural reaction, and advanced thinkers seek to be able to do this at this time through the medium of so-called esoteric and mental modes of healing.  Yet little is known of the make-up of the vital body and practically no background of research in this field exists.  Modern medicine is of very ancient origin.  Over the centuries it has grown and developed until modern skill, modern research, modern techniques and modern methods of healing and of cure are amazingly successful.  This is oft forgotten in the emphasis laid by the adherents of new and untried schools upon the failures to cure, which they attribute to wrong methods and fail to allow for karmic limitations.  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 [279] 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.

Naturopaths of many kinds, professors of methods of healing by electricity or light and colour, food dietitians with infallible cures for all diseases, the many who practice systems founded on the Abrams mode of diagnosis, and many advocates of the chiropractic methods, as well as the various healing systems which are completely divorced from medicine but which undertake to bring about cures, are all indicative of new and hopeful trends; they are nevertheless extremely experimental in nature, and are so fanatically endorsed, so exclusive of all recognised methods of healing aid (except their own), so violently opposed to all the findings [280] [280] of the past, and so unwilling to cooperate with orthodox medicine that, in many cases, they constitute a definite and real danger to the public.  It is largely their own faulty approach which is responsible for this; their undoubted ignorance of the nature of the human body, their attack on existent medical practices (even of proven value), and their biassed belief in the infallibility of their experimental techniques, have brought them under the attack of the rigidly orthodox medical practitioners and of the fundamentalists within the ring-pass-not of academic medicine.  Yet within the ranks of medicine are many enlightened men who would gladly cooperate if the small and vociferous cults would relinquish their exclusiveness and be willing to cooperate and accept that which the divine instinct in man down the ages has taught in connection with the healing of the human body.  It will be through the collaboration of the new experimental schools and the older and proven methods that the medicine of the future will be developed.  The value of all the many groups—good and indifferent—lies in the fact that they point the way towards new trends and indicate the lines along which the medicine of the future can enrich itself and become better adapted to man's need.  They are too experimental as yet to be trustworthy, and are not yet scientifically proved.  They are pioneering groups, and have a real contribution to make, but this will only be possible if they refuse to divorce themselves from the past and are willing to compromise in the present.  Academic medicine is the result of the God-given gifts of the human mind; it is a proven divine expression and a most beneficent force in the world, in spite of human weakness, commercial exploitation and many mistakes.  It is the same with religion.  Both of these great sciences must eliminate the reactionary and fundamentalist positions, and then proceed with an [281] open mind into the new ways of approach to divinity and of approach to physical well-being.

It might therefore 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 [282] [282] 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.  This is again a needed repetition.

Medical science, through its study of the nervous system and its recognition of the power of thought over the physical body, is moving rapidly in a right direction.  When it admits, in relation to the physical body, that "energy follows thought," and then begins to experiment with the concept of thought currents (as they are erroneously called) which are directed to certain areas of the etheric body—where the esotericists posit the existence of energy points or centres—much will then be discovered.  Christian Science had a sound conception in its original basic concept of the mind as a permanently existent factor; its overemphasis upon the mind, its idealistic presentation of human nature, [283] its expectancy of man's capacity to demonstrate today and immediately as a fully manifested son of God (with no intermediate or necessary unfoldments), and its contradictory position of using the energy of the mind for mainly physical requirements have soundly negated its basic tenets.  Otherwise Man might have been permanently deluded.  Had Christian Science fulfilled the original intention of the group of initiates who sought to influence humanity through its agency, and had it developed the idea correctly that energy follows thought, medical science would have greatly benefited.

Its presentation was both too high and too low, and a great opportunity was lost.  Christian Science has failed from the angle of the Hierarchy, and its usefulness has been largely negated.

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 [284] (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:  the nature of the disease, as diagnosed by a good physician, and 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 [285] 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 [286] 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 [287] 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.