Navigate the Chapters of this Book

CHAPTER I - The Psychological Causes of Disease - Part 5

Our discussion has necessarily been sketchy for all that I am here attempting to do is to give indications as to the lines along which the new art of healing must eventually run, and to give certain hints which will point the way to the cause of the prevalent diseases, and so enable the wise to negate effects.  This brevity and this system of imparting knowledge through the medium of hints is essentially occult, and will be the only mode of dealing with this relatively dangerous subject until such time as a sound medical, surgical and neurological training of a technical nature is combined with an equally sound psychological understanding, plus a measure of spiritual vision.  The ideal physician and surgeon is the man who is also a metaphysician; to the lack of this combination much of the present difficulty and confusion can be ascribed.  The metaphysical healer today is so engrossed by that which is not the body that he is far less useful to the sick, diseased and damaged human being than is the practical physician.  The average metaphysician, no matter by what label he calls himself, has a closed mind; he overemphasises the divine possibilities to the exclusion of the material or physical probabilities.  Complete spiritual healing will be divinely possible ultimately; but this is not materially possible at certain given moments in time and space and with people at widely differing points on the ladder of evolution.  Right timing and a sound knowledge of the working of the Law of Karma, plus a large measure of intuitive perception, are essential to the high art of spiritual healing.  To this must be added the knowledge that the form nature and the physical [111] body are not essentially the major considerations or of the vast importance that some may think.

Various cultists and healers usually take the position that it is of major importance that the physical vehicle be rendered free from disease and clutched away from the processes of death.  It might, however, be desirable (and it often is) that the disease be permitted to do its work and death open the door to the escape of the soul from imprisonment.  The time comes inevitably to all incarnated beings when the soul demands liberation from the body and from form life, and nature has her own wise ways of doing this.  Disease and death must be recognised as liberating factors when they come as the result of right timing by the soul.  It must be realised by students that the physical form is an aggregate of atoms, built into organisms and finally into a coherent body, and that this body is held together by the will of the soul.  Withdraw that will onto its own plane or (as it is occultly expressed) "let the soul's eye turn in another direction" and, in this present cycle, disease and death will inevitably supervene.  This is not mental error, or failure to recognise divinity, or succumbing to evil.  It is, in reality, the resolution of the form nature into its component parts and basic essence.  Disease is essentially an aspect of death.  It is the process by which the material nature and the substantial form prepares itself for separation from the soul.

It must be borne in mind however that where there is illness or discomfort or disease which is not related to the final dissolution, the causes thereof are to be found in many factors; they can be found in the surroundings, for a number of diseases are environmental and epidemic; in the tuning in of the individual to streams of poison emanating from world hate, or from psychological complexes with some of which we have already dealt, and in the diseases [112] (if I might so call them) which are indigenous to the matter of which humanity has chosen to construct its physical vehicle, isolating it and separating it from the general substance of manifestation, and thus creating a type of matter which is consecrated to the task of forming the outer expression of the inward reality.  This constitutes, therefore, a unique and peculiar aspect of the universal substance, perfected to a certain point in the last solar system and of a necessarily higher order than the substance which vibrates creatively to the call of the three subhuman kingdoms in nature.

The Causes of Disease Summarised

In every occult consideration of disease it must be accepted as a basic proposition that all disease is a result of the misuse of force in some earlier life or in this.  This is fundamental.  In connection with this I would remind you of some statements I have earlier made on this matter.

1. Ninety per cent of the causes of disease are to be found in the etheric and astral bodies.  Wrong use of mental energy and misapplied desire are paramount factors, yet with the bulk of humanity still in the Atlantean stages of consciousness, only five per cent of the prevalent diseases are due to mental causes.  The percentage varies with the development of the race and its evolution.  Disease is therefore the working out into manifestation of undesirable, subjective conditions—vital, emotional and mental.

2. Everything concerning the health of man can be approached from three angles:

a. That of the personality life...of this we are learning much.

[113]

b. That of humanity as a whole..this is beginning to be appreciated.

c. That of the planetary life....of this we can know little.

3. All disease is caused by lack of harmony between form and life, between soul and personality; this lack of harmony runs through all the kingdoms in nature.

4. The bulk of diseases are of:

a. Group origin.

b. The result of infection.

c. Malnutrition, physically, subjectively and occultly understood.

5. Diseases for the masses, for the average citizen, for the intelligentsia and for disciples differ widely and have differing fields of expression.

a. The three major groups of diseases for the first two classes are:

Tuberculosis.

The social diseases.

Cancer.

b. The two major diseases for the intelligentsia and for disciples are:

Heart complaints.

Nervous diseases.

6. Disease is a fact in nature.  When this is accepted, men will begin to work with the Law of Liberation, with right thought, leading to right attitudes and orientation, and with the principle of nonresistance.  Of this nonresistance, the overpowering willingness to die which is so frequently a characteristic of the final stage immediately preceding death is the lowest manifestation.  It is nonresistance which psychologically governs coma.

[114]

7. The Law of Cause and Effect, or of Karma, governs all disease.  This embraces individual, group, national and total human karma.

If you will pause at this point and review what I have re-stated, and if you will reread and reflect upon the four Laws and the four Rules you will possess the needed groundwork upon which to proceed with our future studies, beginning with the diseases incident to the life of discipleship.  Some of this I have already dealt with in the second volume of A Treatise on the Seven Rays (pages 520-625).  There the approach was largely from the angle of the mystic, whereas I am here going to touch upon the problems of the accepted disciple.

4. DISEASES DUE TO THE LIFE OF DISCIPLESHIP

Earlier I told you that disease originated in the four following causes:

1. It is the result of blocking the free life of the soul.

2. It is caused by three influences or sources of contamination:

a. Ancient mistakes, so-called sins and errors of the individual concerned, committed in this life or another earlier incarnation.

b. Human taints and predispositions, inherited in common with all the rest of humanity.

c. Planetary evil, incident to the point achieved by the planetary Logos and conditioned by planetary Karma.

3. It is conditioned by the forces emanating from the plane upon which the man's consciousness is primarily focussed.

[115]

4. The five major types of disease, with their allied and subsidiary effects, can and do produce results where the disciple is concerned; he is not immune until after the third initiation.

A. The Diseases of Mystics.

However, the disciple is seldom tubercular (except when karmically conditioned), nor is he prone to succumb to the social diseases except as they may affect him physically through his sacrificial life of service.  Contagion can affect him but not seriously so.  Cancer may claim him as a victim, but he is more liable to succumb to heart complaints and to nervous trouble of some kind or another.  The straight mystic succumbs more to purely psychological situations connected with the integrated personality, and therefore incident to his being focussed largely on the astral plane.  The disciple is more prone to mental difficulties and to those complaints which are concerned with energy and are due to fusion—either completed or in process—of soul and personality.

The first cause which I listed earlier in this treatise was summed up in the statement that disease is the result of the blocking of the free life and the inpouring energy of the soul.  This blockage is brought about by the mystic when he succumbs to his own thoughtforms, created constantly in response to his mounting aspiration.  These become barriers between him and the free life of the soul and block his contact and the consequent resulting inflow of soul energy.

The disciple reverses the entire situation and falls a victim (prior to the third initiation) to the terrific inflow of soul energy—the energy of the second aspect—coming to him from:

[116]

a. His own soul, with which centre of energy fusion is rapidly taking place.

b. His group or the Ashram with which he, as an accepted disciple, is affiliated.

c. His Master, with Whom he has spiritual relation and to Whose vibratory influence he is ever susceptible.

d. The Hierarchy, the energy of which can reach him through the medium of all the three above factors.

All these streams of energy have a definite effect upon the centres of the disciple, according to his ray and his specific polarisation in this incarnation.  As each centre is related to one or other of the glands, and these in their turn condition the blood stream, and also have a specific effect upon the organic structure within the range of their vibratory influence (i.e. the stomach, close to the solar plexus, and the heart, close to the heart centre, etc.), you will see how it is possible that the major diseases from which a disciple can suffer (which are unique and confined primarily to advanced humanity) will be the result of overstimulation or the inflow of energy to one particular centre, producing excessive and localised trouble.

To these conditions the mystic is not so prone unless he is rapidly becoming the practical mystic or occultist.  This is a definite transitional cycle between the mystical attitude and that more definite position which the occultist assumes.  I shall not therefore deal with the diseases to which mystics fall heir, except that I would like to point out one interesting fact:  The mystic is ever conscious of duality.  He is the seeker in search of light, of the soul, of the beloved, of that higher something which he senses as existing and as that which can be found.  He strives after recognition of and by the divine: he is the follower of the [117] vision, a disciple of the Christ, and this conditions his thinking and his aspiration.  He is a devotee and one who loves the apparently unattainable—the Other than himself.

Only when he becomes the occultist does the mystic learn that all the time the magnet which attracted him, and the dualism which coloured his life and thoughts and which gave motive to all he sought to do, was his true self, that one Reality.  He recognises then that assimilation into and identification with that one reality enables duality to be transmuted into unity and the sense of search to be transformed into the effort to become what he essentially is—a Son of God, one with all Sons of God.  Having accomplished that, he finds himself one with the ONE in Whom we live and move and have our being.

Next, I would point out that the lowest expression of the mystical condition, and one with which we are becoming increasingly familiar, is that which is called a "split personality"; when this condition is present, the personal lower self expresses itself through a basic condition of duality and two persons express themselves, apparently, instead of the integrated personality-soul.  This necessarily creates a dangerous psychological condition and one which warrants trained scientific handling.  That is largely lacking at this time, as so few trained psychologists and psychiatrists recognise the fact of the soul.  I mention this as it is of value today, and will be increasingly so in the later years when it will be necessary to trace and comprehend the analogies existing in the human consciousness to great unexplored areas of awareness.  The split personality and the mystic are two aspects of one whole—the aspect which is right, and along the line of high spiritual unfoldment, and the aspect which is a reflection and a distortion of that grade of development which precedes that of trained occultist.  There are many conditions prevalent in humanity [118] at this time which can be subjected to the same reasoning, and one of the modes of healing which will be worked out later is the discovery of the higher correspondences to the lower difficulties and diseases, and the recognition that they are but distortions of a great reality.  This leads to the transference of the attention of the one under the care of the healer to that recognised higher aspect.

The whole Science of Integration is involved in this matter.  This science, if properly understood, will open up an entirely new field of psychological approach to disease, whether physiological or nervous.  A small beginning has already been made along this line by spiritually minded psychologists and educators.  The system of helping people psychologically is definitely along these new lines, and might be expressed as follows:  the average psychologist employs the method (when dealing with nervous cases, with those on the borderland, and with neurotically inclined people) of discovering the deep-seated complexes, the scars, the ancient shocks or the fears which lie behind the experience of the present and which have made the man what he is today.  These conditioning factors can usually be traced back to the subconscious by the process of unearthing the past, of taking into consideration the present environment, of reckoning with heredity, and of studying the effects of education—either academic or based upon life itself.  Then the factor which has been a major handicap, and which has turned the man into a psychological problem, is brought (with his assistance, if possible) to the surface of his consciousness, is then intelligently explained and related to the existing condition, and the man is consequently brought to an understanding of his personality, its problems and its impending opportunity.

The spiritual technique, however, is entirely different.  The personality problem and the process of delving into [119] the subconscious are ignored, because the conditions which are undesirable are regarded as the result of lack of soul contact and of soul control.  The patient (if I might so call him) is taught to take his eyes, and consequently his attention, away from himself, his feelings, his complexes and his fixed ideas and undesirable thoughts, and to focus them upon the soul, the divine Reality within the form, and the Christ consciousness.  This could well be called the process of scientific substitution of a fresh dynamic interest for that which has hitherto held the stage; it brings into functioning activity a cooperative factor whose energy sweeps through the lower life of the personality and carries away wrong psychological tendencies, undesirable complexes, leading to erroneous approaches to life.  This eventually regenerates the mental or thought life, so that the man is conditioned by right thinking under the impulse or the illumination of the soul.  This produces the "dynamic expulsive power of a new affection"; the old idées fixes, the old depressions and miseries, the hindering and handicapping ancient desires—these all disappear, and the man stands free as a soul and master of his life processes.

I have discussed these two conditions at length because it is essential that another law anent healing be understood before we proceed any further.  The discussion about the split personality, the problems of the mystic and the new mode of approach to disease (from the soul angle and the realm of causes, instead of from the personality angle and the realm of effects) can clarify this law in your minds and indicate at least its reasonableness and its valuable application to human need.

LAW IV

Disease, both physical and psychological, has its roots in the good, the beautiful and the true.  It is but a distorted [120] 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 Healer within the form.  The spiritual or third eye then directs the healing force, and all is well.

B. Diseases of Disciples.

We will divide what we have to say anent the diseases of disciples into two parts:  the specific problems of all disciples, and the difficulties incident to soul contact.

We need here to remember that all disciples are susceptible to the major categories of disease.  They are attempting to be one with all humanity, and this includes, therefore, all the ills to which flesh is heir.  They may not, however, succumb to the frailties of the ordinary man, and should remember that diseases of the heart and of the nerves constitute their major problem.  In this connection it might be pointed out that the disciples are found in two major groups:  Those who live above the diaphragm and who are, therefore, prone to heart diseases, to thyroid and throat troubles, and those who are in process of transferring the energies of the centres below the diaphragm into the centres above the diaphragm.  Most of these at this time are transferring solar plexus energies into the heart, and the world agony is profoundly hastening the process.  Stomachic, liver and respiratory troubles accompany this transference.

1. The Specific Problems of Disciples.

These special problems are, as you know, peculiar to those who have lifted themselves in consciousness out of the life of the personality into that of the soul.  They [121] are primarily related to energy, its inflow, its assimilation or non-assimilation, and its rightly directed use.  The other ills to which all flesh is heir at this time in human evolution (for it must be remembered that diseases vary according to the point in evolution and are also cyclic in their appearance), and to which disciples can and do succumb, are not dealt with here; suffice it to say that the three major diseases of humanity to which reference has been made take their toll of disciples, particularly in bringing about the liberation of the soul from its vehicle.  They are, however—little as it may appear—controlled in these cases from soul levels, and the departure is planned to take place as a result of soul decision, and not as a result of the efficiency of the disease.  The reason that these three major diseases, indigenous to the planetary life in which we live and move and have our being, have this power over disciples is that disciples are themselves an integral part of the planetary life, and in the earlier stages of their recognition of this unity they are prone to fall a ready prey to the disease.  This is a fact little known or realised, but explains why disciples and advanced people are susceptible to these diseases.

We could divide these problems into four categories:

1. Those which are connected with the blood or with the life aspect, for "the blood is the life."  These have specific effect upon the heart, but usually of a functional nature only.  Organic disease of the heart arises in more deeply seated causes.

2. Those which are a direct effect of energy, playing upon and through the nervous system, via the directing brain.

3. Those which are related to the respiratory system and have an occult source.

4. Those which are specifically due to the receptivity or the non-receptivity, to the functioning or the non-functioning, [122] and to the influence of the centre.  Necessarily, these fall into seven groups, affecting seven major areas of the body.  For the average disciple, before there is complete soul control and monadic direction, the major directing agent, via the brain, is the vagus nerve, along which the energies (entering via the head centre) are distributed to the rest of the body.  A definite science of the centres and their relation to kundalini has been built up by a certain powerful esoteric school in the orient.  It has in it much truth, but also much error.

I have differentiated between problems and physical reactions and disease because the inflow, distribution and direction of energy do not necessarily produce disease.  Always, however, during the novitiate which precedes all the initiations, they do produce difficulties and problems of some kind or another, either within the consciousness of the disciple or in his relation to those around him.  Hence his environment is affected, and consequently his own reciprocal action.

It should be remembered in this connection that all disciples are energy centres in the body of humanity and are in process of becoming points of focussed, directed energy.  Their function and activity always and inevitably produce effects, results, awakenings, disruptions and reorientations in the lives of those around them.  In the early stages, they produce this unconsciously, and hence frequently the results on those they contact is not desirable, nor is the energy wisely directed, deflected or retained.  Intelligent intent must lie behind all wise direction of energy.  Later, when they are learning consciously to be and are becoming radiatory centres of healing force, consciously directed, this informing and then transmitted energy is more constructively employed along both psychological and physical lines.  Nevertheless, in any case, the disciple becomes [123] an effective influence and can never be what is esoterically called "unnoticed in his place and minus impact on other souls."  His influence, emanation and forceful energy inevitably produce problems and difficulties for him; these are based on the human relations which he has karmically established and the reactions of those he contacts, either for good or for ill.

Essentially the influence of a disciple of the Great White Lodge is fundamentally good and spiritually conditioning; superficially and in its outer effects—particularly where the disciple is concerned—difficult situations, apparent cleavages and the emergence of faults as well as virtues upon the part of those affected make their appearance, and often persist for many lives, until the person thus influenced becomes what is called "occultly reconciled to the emanating energy."  Ponder on this.  The adjustment has to come from the side of those influenced, and not from the disciple.

Let us now consider the four problems from the psychological angle, not the physical:

a. The problems arising from the awakened heart centre of the disciple are perhaps the commonest and frequently some of the most difficult to handle.  These problems are based on living relationships and the interplay of the energy of love with the forces of desire.  In the early stages, this inflowing love-force establishes personality contacts which veer between the stages of wild devotion and utmost hate on the part of the person affected by the disciple's energy.  This produces constant turmoil in the disciple's life, until he has become adjusted to the effects of his energy distribution, and also frequent disruption of relationships and frequent reconciliations.  When the disciple is of sufficient importance to become the organising centre of a group, or is in a position to begin to form, esoterically, his own ashram (prior to taking some of the major initiations), [124] then the difficulty can be very real and most disturbing.  There is, however, little that can be done by the disciple, except to attempt to regulate the outgoing energy of love.  The problem remains fundamentally that of the one affected; the adjustments, as I have remarked above, have to be made from the other side, with the disciple standing ready to cooperate at the first indication of a willingness to recognise relationship and intention to cooperate in group service.  This is a point which both parties—the disciple and the person reacting to his influence—need to consider.  The disciple stands ready; the responsive party usually withdraws or approaches according to the urge of his soul or of his personality—probably the latter in the early stages.  Eventually, however, he stands with the disciple in full cooperative understanding, and the trying time of difficulty is ended.

It is not possible for me to enter into explicit detail in considering these problems connected with the heart and the life energy of the disciple.  They are conditioned by his ray, the initiation for which he is being prepared, and the quality, evolutionary status and the ray of those affected.

There are also difficulties and problems of a more subtle nature arising from the same cause, but not localised in certain definite human relationships.  A disciple serves; he writes and speaks; his words and influence permeate into the masses of men, arousing them to activity of some kind—often good and spiritual, sometimes evil, antagonistic and dangerous.  He has therefore to deal not only with his own reactions to the work he is doing, but also, in a general and specific sense, to deal with the masses whom he is beginning to affect.  This is not an easy thing to do, particularly for an inexperienced worker with the Plan.  He fluctuates between the mental plane, where he normally [125] attempts to function, and the astral plane, where the masses of men are focussed, and this brings him into the realm of glamour and consequent danger.  He goes out in consciousness towards those he seeks to help, but it is sometimes as a soul (and then he frequently overstimulates his hearers), and sometimes as a personality (and then he feeds and enhances their personality reactions).

As time goes on he learns—through the difficulties brought about by the necessary heart approach—to stand firm at the centre, sending forth the note, giving his message, distributing directed love energy, and influencing those around him, but he remains impersonal, a directing agency only and an understanding soul.  This impersonality (which can be defined as a withdrawing of personality energy) produces its own problems, as all disciples well know; there is nothing, however, that they can do about it but wait for time to lead the other person forward into clear understanding of the significance and esoteric meaning of right human relations.  The problem of workers with individuals and with groups is basically connected with the energy of the heart and with the vivifying force of its embodied life.  In connection with this problem and its reactions upon the disciple, certain definite physical difficulties are apt to occur, and with these I will shortly deal.

It should also be pointed out that difficulties of rhythm are apt to occur, and problems connected with the cyclic life of the disciple.  The heart and the blood are esoterically related, and symbolically define the pulsating life of the soul which demonstrates upon the physical plane in the outgoing and the withdrawing dual life of discipleship, each phase of which presents its own problems.  Once a disciple has mastered the rhythm of his outer and inner life, and has organised his reactions so that he extracts the utmost meaning from them but is not conditioned by them, he then [126] enters upon the relatively simple life of the initiate.  Does that phrase astonish you?  You need to remember that the initiate has freed himself, after the second initiation, from the complexities of emotional and astral control.  Glamour can no longer overpower him.  He can stand with steadfastness in spite of all that he may do and feel.  He realises that the cyclic condition is related to the pairs of opposites and is part of the life manifestation of existence itself.  In the process of learning this, he passes through great difficulties.  He, as a soul, subjects himself to a life of outgoing, of magnetic influence and of extroversion.  He may follow this immediately with a life of withdrawal, of apparent lack of interest in his relationships and environment, and with an intense introspective, introverted expression.  Between these two extremes he may flounder distressingly—sometimes for many lives—until he learns to fuse and blend the two expressions.  Then the dual life of the accepted disciple, in its various grades and stages, becomes clear to him; he knows what he is doing.  Constantly and systematically, both outgoing and withdrawing, serving in the world and living the life of reflection, play their useful part.

Many psychological difficulties arise whilst this process is being mastered, leading to psychological cleavages, both deep-seated and superficial.  The goal of all development is integration—integration as a personality, integration with the soul, integration into the Hierarchy, integration with the Whole, until complete unity and identification has been achieved.  In order to master this science of integration whose basic goal is identity with the One Reality, the disciple progresses from one unification to another, making mistakes, arriving often at complete discouragement, identifying himself with that which is undesirable until, as soul-personality, he repudiates the earlier relationships; he pays [127] the penalty again and again of misplaced fervour, distorted aspiration, the overpowering effect of glamour, and the many conditions of psychological and physical disarrangement which must arise whilst cleavages are being healed, right identification achieved and correct orientation established.

Whilst this basic, inescapable and necessary process is taking place, a definite work is going forward in the etheric body.  The disciple is learning to lift the energies, gathered from the lower centres, into the solar plexus and from that centre into the heart centre, thus bringing about a re-focussing of the energies above the diaphragm instead of putting the emphasis below.  This leads frequently to profound complications, because—from the personality angle—the solar plexus centre is the most potent, being the clearing house for the personality forces.  It is that process of decentralisation and "elevation" of the lower consciousness to the higher which produces the main difficulties to which the disciple is subjected.  It is this process also which is going on in the world as a whole today, causing the appalling disruption of human affairs, culture, and civilisation.  The entire focus of humanity's consciousness is being changed; the selfish life (characteristic of the man centred in his desires and consequently in the solar plexus centre) is giving place to the decentralised life of the man who is unselfish (centred in the Self or soul), aware of his relationships and responsibility to the Whole and not to the part.  This sublimation of the lower life into the higher is one of deepest moment to the individual and to the race.  Once the individual disciple, and humanity as well, symbolising the world disciple, have mastered the process of transference in this respect, we shall see the new order of individual service and of world service established, and therefore the coming in of the awaited new order.

[128]

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

Healers would do well to remember this, and to have in mind that disciples and all good men and aspirants share in this universal disease of humanity which must take its toll psychologically or physically or both.  The trouble is of ancient origin and of long established habit and inevitably affects the physical vehicle of the soul.  Exemption from the effects of human ills is no indication of spiritual superiority.  It might simply indicate what one of the Masters has called "the depths of spiritual selfishness and self-satisfaction."  The initiate of the third degree can hold himself exempt, but this is only because he has completely freed himself from glamour and no aspect of the personality life has any further power over him.  All the ray types are equally subjected to these particular problems.  The seventh ray, however, is more susceptible to the problems, difficulties and diseases incident to the blood stream than are any of the other ray types.  The reason is that this is the ray which has [129] to do with the expression and manifestation of life upon the physical plane and with the organisation of the relationship between spirit and matter into form.  It is concerned therefore today, as it seeks to create the new order, with free circulation and with a consequently intended freedom of humanity from the ills and problems of the past.  This is of interest to remember, and students would find it helpful at this time, if they want to cooperate intelligently with the happenings of the day, to collect and study all that I have written about the seventh ray of ceremonial order and magic.

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

It is then a vicious circle, and is all due to wrong direction of force and the inflow of force from one or other of the [130] personality vehicles to its related centre (i.e., the astral force and its relation to the solar plexus), and then the appearance of the problems of health, of character and of influence.  Over-radiatory activity, through the medium of some centre, attracts attention and the disciple becomes the victim of his own achievement.  I shall deal with these at greater length when I take up the diseases which develop from the four categories.

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

c. The problems connected with the respiratory or breathing system are all related to the heart, and therefore concerned with the establishing of right rhythm and right contact with the environment.  The drawing in of the life breath, the sharing of the air with all other human beings, denotes both an individual centre of life and participation also in the general life of all.  To these problems of individual or separative existence and of its opposite, the Sacred Word, the OM, is intimately related.  It might be said [131] in the words of an occult manual on healing, given to advanced disciples, that

"He who lives under the sound of the AUM knows himself.  He who lives sounding the OM knows his brother.  He who knows the SOUND knows all."

Then, in the cryptic and symbolic language of the initiate, the manual goes on:

"The breath of life becomes the cause of death to the one who lives within a shell.  He exists but he is not; the breath then leaves and spirals to the whole.

"He who breathes forth the OM knows not himself alone.  He knows the breath is prana, life, the fluid of connection.  The ills of life are his because they are the lot of man—not generated in a shell, because the shell is not.

"He who is the SOUND and sounding forth knows not disease, knows not the hand of death."

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

[132]

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

The sound of the AUM, the sound of the OM, and the SOUND itself, are all related to vibration and its differing and varied effects.  The secret of the Law of Vibration is progressively revealed as people learn to sound forth the WORD in its three aspects.  Students would do well to ponder on the distinction between the breath and the sound, between the process of breathing and the process of creating vibratory activity.  They are related but distinct from each other.  One is related to Time and the other to Space and (as the Old Commentary puts it) "the sound, the final and yet initiating sound, concerns that which is neither Time nor Space; it lies outside the manifested All, the Source of all that is and yet is naught" (or no-thing.  A.A.B.).

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

d. The problems incident to the activity or inactivity of the centres are perhaps the most important from the standpoint of disease, because the centres govern the glandular [133] system and the glands have a direct relation to the blood stream and they condition also the major and most important areas in the human body; they have both a physiological and a psychological effect upon the personality and its interior and exterior contacts and relations.  The reaction is primarily physical but the effects are largely psychological, and it is therefore this fourth group upon which I shall principally enlarge, dealing with the diseases in disciples and giving some definite instructions upon the centres.  This will indicate more clearly than elsewhere the causes of the many human ills and physical difficulties.

Before proceeding to our next point, try to grasp somewhat more fully the Laws of Healing and the Rules given thus far and repeated here to facilitate your endeavours.

LAW I

All disease is the result of inhibited soul life and 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 II

Disease is the product of, and subject to, three influences:  first, a man's past, wherein he pays the price of ancient error; second, his inheritance, wherein he shares with all mankind those tainted streams of energy which are of group origin; third, he shares with all the natural forms that which the Lord of Life imposes on His body.  These three influences are called "The Ancient Law of Evil Sharing."  This must give place some day to that new "Law of Ancient Dominating Good" which lies behind all that God made.  This law must be brought into activity by the spiritual will of man.

LAW III

Diseases are an effect of the basic centralisation of a man's life energy.  From the plane whereon those energies [134] are focussed, proceed those determining conditions which produce ill health, and which, therefore, work out as disease or as freedom from disease.

LAW IV

Disease, both physical and psychological, has its roots in the good, the beautiful and the true.  It is but a distorted 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 Healer within the form.  The spiritual or third eye then directs the healing force, and all is well.

RULE ONE

The healer must seek to link his soul, his heart, his brain and his hands.  Thus can he pour the vital healing force upon the patient.  This is magnetic work.  It cures disease, or increases the evil state, according to the knowledge of the healer.

The healer must seek to link his soul, his brain, his heart and auric emanation.  Thus can his presence feed the soul life of the patient.  This is the work of radiation.  The hands are needed not.  The soul displays its power.  The patient's soul responds through the response of his aura to the radiation of the healer's aura, flooded with soul energy.

RULE TWO

The healer must achieve magnetic purity, through purity of life.  He must attain that dispelling radiance which shows itself in every man when he links the centres in the head.  When this magnetic field is established, the radiation too goes forth.

RULE THREE

Let the healer train himself to know the inner stage of thought or of desire of the one who seeks his help.  He [135] can thereby know the source from which the trouble comes.  Let him relate the cause and the effect, and know the point exact through which the help must come.

RULE FOUR

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

2. Difficulties Incident to Soul Contact.

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

[136]

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

LAW V

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

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

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

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

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

[137]

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

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

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

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