CHAPTER I - The Psychological Causes of Disease - Part 8

are closely "related to each other and constitute an interlocking directorate of energies and forces which are essentially vital, galvanic, dynamic and creative.... Upon them, the entire  interior health of the body depends."  To these three I then added the blood stream as the conveyor throughout the body of

1. The Life Principle,

2. The combined energies of the three above systems,

and pointed out that the great combination of forces which we call the pairs of opposites or the major dualities, govern [190] [190] the underlying causes of health and disease.  In making these statements, I am endeavouring to reduce our entire theme to one of the utmost simplicity.  In so doing, some of the truth is lost, but it is essential that certain broad generalisations are grasped by the student before he begins to study the exceptions and to deal with minutiae and the detail of bodily defects or their opposites.

It has become a truism with students of the occult that the etheric body conditions, controls and determines the life expression of the incarnated individual.  It is a secondary truism that this etheric body is the conveyor of the forces of the personality, through the medium of the centres, and thereby galvanises the physical body into activity.  These forces, routed through the centres, are those of the integrated personality as a whole, or are simply the forces of the astral or emotional body and the mind body; they also transmit the force of the personality ray or the energy of the soul ray, according to the point in evolution reached by the man.  The physical body, therefore, is not a principle.  It is conditioned and does not condition—a point oft forgotten.  It is a victim of personality life or the triumphant expression of soul energy.  It is for this reason that the science of psychology will, during the next two centuries, dominate modern medical science, except in the category of those diseases with which we will deal in our next section—those emanating from group life, such as tuberculosis, venereal diseases and cancer.  Until the race is more definitely group conscious (something as yet far distant) it will not be possible to apply broad psychological generalisations to the diseases indigenous to our planet.  We can, however, consider the handling of similar difficulties which arise in the individual unit; these are based on the conflict of the pairs of opposites and upon the lack of harmony to be found in the three major interlocking, directing systems.

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You have, therefore, three systems to carry in your minds, and one carrier or conveying agent, plus the basic occult fact that certain great opposing energies, working within the body, produce what we call disease.  To the above factors I would add another needed correlation.  I would remind you that we are concerned with forms of life, and that all these forms are creative within themselves, and can create potentially more forms or can provide environments in which these forms can live.  Please note this mode of expressing a fundamental truth.  The basis of all the occult teaching as regards manifestation is that the building forces exist, and that this statement is true whether you are concerned with the Life of a solar system or only with the consciousness of that body in which the human being moves and lives—along sound or unsound lines; we are dealing with the world body in which a human being lives.  Owing to this, we come up against another great natural Law which can be expressed simply as follows:

LAW VI

When the building energies of the soul are active in the body, then there is health, clean interplay and right activity.  When the builders are the lunar lords and those who work under the control of the moon and at the behest of the lower personal self, then you have disease, ill health and death.

This is a profoundly simple rule, but it gives the clue to the causes of disease and to the reason for an established immortality; it will be understood with great clarity and comprehension in a few years' time and will then supersede those idealistic but factually unsound and untrue systems to which we give the name Unity, Mental Science and Christian Science.  These systems present as immediate, demonstrable possibilities the stage of final liberation [192] from the natural and material limitations which today control all forms; they ignore the time factor, and overlook the evolutionary process and also the point of development of the person concerned; their position is based on wishful thinking and on the innate desire of the average human being for comfort and physical harmony, and gloss the innate selfishness of their presentation of truth with the concept that all is to the eternal glory of God.  Unquestionably, disease and physical limitations of any kind will vanish, but this will only happen when the soul of the individual controls and the lower personal self becomes as much an automaton of the soul as the physical body is at this time the automaton of the emotional nature, of the mind, and occasionally (and only very occasionally for the majority of people) of the soul.

Only when the soul, consciously and with the cooperation of the personality, builds the temple of the body, and then keeps it full of light, will disease disappear; this building is, however, a scientific process, and in the early stages of discipleship (which is the time wherein the soul begins to grasp its instrument, the personality) this leads inevitably to conflict, increased strain and frequently aggravated disease and disharmony.  This dis-harmony and dis-ease lead to much necessary trouble and consequent undesirable effects.  These effects will be overcome but—in the interim of adjustment—whilst they are registering and expressing themselves, there will be much distress, physical and psychological, and all the major and minor difficulties to which humanity seems heir.

In undeveloped humanity, the conflict (from the angle of consciousness) is practically nil; you have less susceptibility to the subtler diseases emanating from the three interlocking systems, but at the same time a much greater responsiveness to the three indigenous diseases, to infectious [193] and contagious diseases, and to the great epidemics which sweep through nations and great planetary areas.  As humanity develops, diseases become more personal (if I might express it in this manner) and are not so definitely related to the herd or mass condition.  They arise within the persons themselves, and though they may be related to the mass diseases, they are based on individual causes.

When a man steps out of the general mass and steps upon the probationary path, and thus becomes a candidate for discipleship, then the diseases of the flesh and the inharmony of his entire threefold system, plus the conveying stream, constitute a conscious problem and one which the aspirant must himself tackle—thus revealing to him the need for conscious, creative building.

It is at this point that the doctrine of reincarnation becomes of supreme value; the disciple begins to institute those conditions, to create those forms and build those vehicles which, in another life, will prove more suitable for soul control and more adequate instruments with which to carry forward the perfecting process which the soul demands.  Let me point out that the disciple does not concentrate upon the physical body at any time, or begin with any physical emphasis to work at the elimination of disease or disharmony.  He begins with the psychology which the soul teaches and commences with the causes which are producing the effects upon the physical plane.  It is a slower process, but endures.  Much of the violent auto-suggestion of the systems allied to Christian Science and Unity are only temporary in their effects and are based upon a process of scientific suppression, plus a refusal to recognise existent factors.  They are not based on truth.  In a later life, the suppressed condition will again emerge in ever greater potency and will continue so to do until such time as it is ignored altogether and the life emphasis is laid on soul contact [194] and the life expression is extroverted into service to others.

In connection with physical disease and its relation to the centres (regarding these as focal points for incoming energies from some source or another) it might be useful if certain broad generalisations were made here, remembering that to all of these there may be exceptions, particularly in the case of the health or the non-health of disciples.

1. Each of the seven major centres governs or conditions—from the material angle as well as from that of the soul and of the life principle—the area of the physical body in which it is found, including the multitude of lesser centres of energy and plexi of force which may be found therein.

2. The three great basic and manifesting divisions of divinity are to be found symbolically present in every centre:

a. The life principle, the first aspect, discloses itself when the entire centre is esoterically unfolded or awakened.  It is present all the time in latency, but it is not a dynamic factor producing monadic stimulation until the end of the great cycle of evolution.

b. The quality or soul aspect is gradually disclosed in the process of evolutionary unfoldment and produces, in time and space, the definite effect which the centre has upon its environment.  This quality is dependent upon the ray (either of the personality or the soul) which is the source of the incoming energy, or upon the ray governing the astral body in the case of the little evolved: it is also dependent upon the point in evolution and upon the radiatory influence of other centres.

c. The appearance in the etheric body of a developed or a developing centre indicates the place of the man upon the ladder of evolution, his racial affiliations, and his conscious goal; this latter can range all the [195] way from an emphasis upon the sex life, and consequent activity of the sacral centre, to the goal of the initiate, which brings the head centre into activity.  All this produces a consequent effect upon the surrounding tissue, substance and organic forms within the radius of influence of the centre.  The area of this influence is variable according to the activity of the centre and this is dependent upon the point of development reached by the individual and the preponderant type of energy to which the individual reacts.

3. The incoming energy is transmuted within the centre into forces.  This involves a process of differentiation into secondary energies of the primary energy involved, and is an automatic happening; the rate of transmutation process, the strength of the resultant aggregation of forces, and the subsequent radiatory activity (producing conditioning results upon the dense physical body) are dependent upon the extent of the unfoldment of the particular centre involved and its awakened or unawakened state.

4. The outgoing forces from a centre play upon the etheric counterpart of the entire intricate network of nerves which constitute the nervous system.  These counterparts of identical subjective correspondences are called in the Hindu philosophy, the "nadis"; they constitute an intricate and most extensive network of fluid energies which are an intangible, interior, paralleling system to that of the bodily nerves, which latter system is in fact an externalisation of the inner pattern of energies.  There is as yet no word in the English language or in any European tongue for the ancient word "nadi," because the existence of this subjective system is not yet recognised, and only the materialistic concept of the nerves as a system built up in response to a tangible [196] environment yet holds sway in the West.  The idea of these nerves being the dense physical result of an inner sensitive response apparatus is still undefined and unrecognised by modern Western science.  When recognition is accorded to this subtle substance (composed of threads of energy) underlying the more tangible nerves, we shall have moved forward in our approach to the entire problem of health and disease, and the world of causes will be that much nearer.  This network of nadis forms a definite life pattern which varies according to the personality ray.

5. The nadis, therefore, determine the nature and the quality of the nervous system with its extensive network of nerves and plexi covering the entire physical body.  The nadis, and consequently the network of nerves, are related primarily to two aspects of man's physical equipment—the seven major centres in the etheric body (the substantial body which underlies the dense physical body), and the spinal column with the head.  It must always be remembered that the etheric body is a physical body, though composed of subtler material than the one we can see and touch.  It is made of substance or of that which "substands," or underlies, every part and particle of the dense physical vehicle.  This is a point which will later receive attention from healers and from enlightened medical men in the New Age.  When this relationship existing between the nadis and the nerves, and their joint relationship to the centres and spinal column is recognised, we shall see a great revolution in medical and psychiatric methods.  Experience will tend to show that the more closely the interplay between these two—the nadis and the nerves—can be brought about, the more rapidly will the control of disease also be implemented.

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6. The nadis in the physical body correspond to the life or spirit aspect; the nerves are the correspondence to the soul or quality aspect.  That which demonstrates as their united externalisation is the endocrine system which corresponds to the form or matter aspect.  These three—the nadis, the nervous system and the glands—are the material correspondences to the three divine aspects; they are esoterically responsive to these three aspects and they make the man upon the physical plane what he is.  These three groups are themselves conditioned (via the seven centres, as we have earlier seen) by the astral or mental vehicles, or by the integrated personality, or by the soul which begins to use the personality as a transmitting and transmuting agency, and—at the close of the Path of Discipleship—by the monad, via the antahkarana, using that self-created path as a direct channel of communication to the seven centres and from there to the threefold system of nadis, nerves and glands.

7. These three major systems within the human being express through the medium of the physical body the condition or the state of development of the centres.  The life, the quality and the energy which they represent are conveyed to every part of the physical vehicle via the blood stream.  This, modern science is already recognising as a fact, indicating that the blood stream conveys certain elements released by the glands.  It does not yet recognise the fact of the relationship of the glands to the centres, with the intermediate systems of nadis and nerves.  The next great move in medicine will be to recognise the fact of the etheric body, the physical substance which underlies dense matter.

8. When the centres are awakened throughout the body, there will then be present a highly electric nervous system, responsive with immediacy to the energy carried by [198] the nadis; the result of this will be a well-balanced endocrine system.  The vitality and life pouring through the entire body will then be of such potency that automatically the physical body will be resistant to disease, either innate, hereditary, or of group origin.  In these words I express for you a future probability but not an immediate possibility.  Man will some day have the three systems perfectly coordinated, psychically responsive to the inner pattern of nadis and centres, and consciously integrated with the soul, and later—via the antahkarana—with the Life principle.

9. Today as there is uneven development, with some centres unawakened, others overstimulated, and with the centres below the diaphragm overactive, you have consequently, whole areas of the body where the nadis are in an embryonic state, other areas where they are highly energised but with their flow arrested because some centre along the path of their activity is still unawakened or—if awakened—is still non-radiatory.  These uneven conditions produce potent effects upon the nervous system and upon the glands, leading to overstimulation in some cases, subnormal conditions in others, lack of vitality, overactivity, and other undesirable reactions which inevitably produce disease.  Such diseases either arise from within the body itself as the result of inherent (or should I say indigenous) or hereditary tendencies or predispositions, present in the bodily tissue; or they arise as the result of the radiation or the non-radiation of the centres, which work through the nadis; they can also arise as a result of external impacts or contact (such as infectious or contagious diseases and epidemics).  These, the subject is unable to resist, owing to the lack of development of his centres.

10. To sum all up:  Disease, physical disability of any kind except of course those due to accidents and, to some [199] extent, to planetary conditions inducing epidemics of a peculiarly virulent nature such as war oft produces), and the many differing aspects of ill health can be directly traced to the condition of the centres, as they determine the activity or the non-activity of the nadis; these, in their turn, affect the nervous system, making the endocrine system what it is in the individual man, and the blood stream is responsible for this condition reaching every part of the body.

Effects Produced in Specific Areas

Let us now consider certain of the effects of the above facts, and their effect upon the areas governed by the centres and in which disease appears.

It will be apparent to you that as the energy pours through the centres, via the nadis and the nerves and potently affecting the glandular system and the blood stream, the areas of the body become vitally involved and responsive.  This covers, of course, the head, the throat and the torso.  The energy thus despatched penetrates to every part of the physical vehicle, to every organism and to every cell and atom.  It is the working of the quality of energy upon the body which induces, stimulates, removes or palliates disease.  I am not here referring to the three major indigenous diseases (if I may call them that)—cancer, syphilis and tuberculosis.  With these I will deal later because they are planetary in scope, present in the substance of which all forms are made, and are responsible for producing a host of lesser diseases which are sometimes recognised as affiliates but are frequently not so known.

Those diseases which are loosely called mental diseases, and which are related to the brain, are little understood as yet.  There was very little mental trouble in the last rootrace, the Atlantean; the mind nature was then quiescent and little stimulation was conveyed through mental [200] levels via the head centre to the pineal gland and the brain.  There was very little eye trouble either, and no nasal difficulties, for the ajna centre was unawakened and the third eye rapidly becoming inactive.  The ajna centre is the organ of the integrated personality, the instrument of direction, and is closely related to the pituitary body and the two eyes, as well as to all the frontal areas of the head.  In Atlantean days, personality integration was largely unknown, except in the case of disciples and initiates, and the goal of the initiate then, and the sign of his achievement, was this triple integration.  Today, the goal is that of a still higher fusion—that of the soul and personality.  Speaking in terms of energy, this involves the formation, activity and related interplay of the following triangles of force:

I. 1. The soul, the spiritual man on his own plane.

2. The personality, the threefold integrated man in the three worlds.

3. The head centre.

II. 1. The head centre, the point of the second fusion.

2. The ajna centre, the point of the first fusion.

3. The centre in the medulla oblongata, controlling the spine.

III. 1. The pineal gland, the externalisation of the head centre.

2. The pituitary body, related to the ajna centre.

3. The carotid gland, the externalisation of the third head centre.

All these triplicities, present within the circumference of the head, constitute the mechanism through which:

1. The soul controls its instrument, the personality.

2. The personality directs the activities of the physical body.

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The spinal column (esoterically, the ida, pingala and sushumna channels), the two eyes and the total brain tissue are receptive to, stimulated by, or nonreceptive to these energies in the head.  In the latter case, the entire area is in a quiescent state, spiritually speaking, and the focus of energy is elsewhere.

This deficiency or this stimulation, if unbalanced or if misapplied, will produce some definite type of trouble, frequently of a physiological nature as well as psychological, and in our Aryan times we shall see an increasing amount of diseases of the brain (a constantly increasing mental imbalance), and of eye difficulties, until the nature of the centres and the type of incoming force and their regulation are recognised and carefully and scientifically studied.  Then we shall see the science of the regulation of energy, as it conditions the human being, developed.  In the meantime, there is much difficulty everywhere, and mental diseases, neurotic conditions, insanities and, perhaps even more prevalent, glandular imbalance, are on an expanding arc.  To date, in the West, little is known as to the methods of control or cure, and in the East, where some knowledge can be found, nothing is done, owing to the apathy there present.

The spinal column is primarily intended to be the channel through which the energising of the centres and the distribution of energy to the surrounding areas of the body is carried forward by the intelligent, integrated personality, acting under the conscious direction of the soul.  I refer not here to the bony structure of the spinal column, but to the cord, its esoteric counterpart, and to the nerves which issue from the spine.  Today this planned, directed esoteric control of energy is not present, except in the case of those with the initiate consciousness and certain advanced disciples.  There are inhibitions, blockages, unawakened areas, deficiency of vitality, lack of free flow and consequent lack [202] of development within the whole man; or else there is too much stimulation, a too rapid vibratory activity, a premature awakening of the centres, leading to the overactivity of the atoms and cells governed by any particular centre.  All these conditions, along with others not mentioned, affect the nervous system, condition the glands and produce psychological difficulty and disease in some form or another.  You have the following simple yet suggestive and symbolic diagram of the spinal column and the head, looking at both from the angle of the centres and the glands:

Diagram

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You will note that the spleen is not included in this diagram.  Its function is a peculiar one, being the centre of vitality in relation to the planetary vitality and the radiation from the sun.  It is not controlled in any way from the spinal column.  It must be borne in mind that this diagram is simply an effort to relate in pictorial form the centres, the glands which they condition, and the organs which are affected by both.  It is not intended to be a true picture of any physiological organic relations.

The centre at the base of the spine has a unique function.  It is to the substance of the body, to the physical tissue and to all matter not included in the organs mentioned above, the source of life.  In the perfected man, the two centres (the highest head centre and the basic centre) represent the great duality of spirit and matter, and they then control and govern, in perfect unison, the entire direction of the vehicle of the soul.  Finally, you will have the spiritual aspect of the human being expressing itself perfectly through the related monad and personality (which is brought about by a third great major fusion).  The material man is then responsive to these two, via the head centre (the monad) and the basic centre (the spiritually energised personality).  These two centres will then be in complete rapport, expressing the full nature of the spiritual man.

It is essential that spiritual healers should get clearly in their minds the picture of the areas in the body which are governed by the head centres and the other centres, because within those areas are the various organs which react to disease.  The health of these organs is largely dependent upon the centres, as they condition the glands and as the energy is distributed throughout the body.  A full and balanced flow of energy from the centre into the area which it controls leads to resistance to so-called disease; [204] where there is lack of development and an unbalanced situation, where the centres are concerned, there will be no power to resist.  The healing process in the New Age will start with definitely planned work with the centres, and the general trend of the healing art will then be—as you can easily see—preventive in nature rather than curative.  The whole emphasis will be upon the energy centres, energy currents and the direction of energy to the organs within the radius of the influence of any particular centre.  From a study of the glands (a study so much in its infancy that it hardly merits the word "embryonic") much will be later learned of their relationship to the centres, and much experimental work will be done.  From the standpoint of the esotericist who admits the fact of the centres, the glands are, par excellence, the major determining factor in connection with the general health of an individual; they indicate not only his psychological development far more than is today grasped, but they have (as is suspected by the orthodox medical science) a most potent effect upon the whole organic system; their influence, via the blood stream, reaches into every part of the body and to the extremities.  The glands are the result of the activity of the centres; they are first, last, and all the time effects of inner predisposing causes, and it is through the centres and their affiliated glands that the soul builds the apparatus upon the physical plane which we call the physical man.

Therefore, the group of related factors with which we have been dealing must be carefully studied and grasped by any practicing healer, for he will eventually have to work through his own centres in relation to the patient whose ills he is endeavouring to heal.  He must remember, consequently, three factors:  The centres, their related glands, and the group of organs for which these two are responsible.  You have in the seven areas of the body, governed by the [205] seven major centres and their affiliated glands, the appearance again of the basic trinity of manifestation:

1. Life or spirit..........the energy centre.

2. Soul or quality......the gland.

3. Form or matter.....the organs in any particular area governed by any one centre.

This brings us to another law which the healer must ever have in mind.

LAW VII

When life or energy flows unimpeded and through right direction to its precipitation (the related gland), then the form responds and ill health disappears.

This is a basic law in healing and concerns the true art of relating spiritual energy with form life, and upon this the health and the vitality of the organs depend.  Therefore we come to the next rule which the healer has to master.  This is concisely expressed, and those phrases which convey instruction must be understood and applied intelligently.

RULE FIVE

Let the healer concentrate the needed energy within the needed centre.

Let that centre correspond to the centre which has need.

Let the two synchronise and together augment force.

Thus shall the waiting form be balanced in its work.

Thus shall the two and the one, under right direction, heal.

It will be obvious to you, therefore, that healers at the present time (I refer not here to the medical profession but to the multitude of the many schools of thought) have not yet got back to the basic factor, in spite of all their talk anent love being the healing force.  They are in reality [206] emphasising and dealing with the motive which impels the healer to ply his healing art.  They are concerned with the instrumentality whereby contact can be made with the patient to be healed.  That contact must ever be established in LOVE—fresh, compelling and selfless.  But once that relation is established, the healer must grasp the fact that, as far as he is concerned, he must work scientifically; he must apply knowledge and—after right diagnosis, after right modern therapeutic methods, after due common sense, which includes the best that the tried science of medicine can give—he must then begin to work through his own centre, putting it en rapport with the centre in the patient which governs the distressed area or diseased organ.

As he thus works, the energy which loving intent and skilled knowledge has tapped and brought in is not permitted (during the healing process) to stimulate or affect the healer's own related glands or produce action in the connected area of his own body.  The healer must learn to insulate himself from the energy to be used on behalf of the patient.  He blends it with the energy of the patient's centre, governing the diseased area; the allied gland is then doubly energised (or lessened, as the case may be and diagnosis requires), and the blood stream releases into the diseased tissue that which is needed to cure or prevent the growth of the disease.

In this instruction I have given you much food for thought.  I have emphasised an aspect of scientific esoteric healing which has not before been brought to the attention of students.  I would have you grasp the general picture and get the outlines of process clear; I would have you study the relation between the healer and the patient as he passes out of the stage of just loving and sending out love or of seeing the patient in the light of love, and goes on to the scientific work of augmenting the patient's own spiritual [207] energy. He thus enables him to effect his own cure, consciously or unconsciously.

You have, therefore, the healer, the patient and the reservoir of spiritual energy, plus the scientific process of bringing all three into a close and healing rapport.  This is done via the centre concerned in the equipment of the patient, the corresponding centre in the equipment of the healer, and the direction (by an act of the will of the healer or of the healing group) of the united streams of required specific energy to the area diseased.  This is usually done via the related gland, though it is not always so.

Ponder on these things and see, if you can, the simplicity of the process which is based on loving intent, which isolates the specific area in which the trouble exists, which identifies itself with the spiritual centre of energy in the patient, and which then applies and directs the fused and blended energies.

Effects of Under-Stimulation and Over-Stimulation of the Centres

We have been for some time studying the centres and their relation to the dense physical body.  We have also noted the areas which are conditioned by these centres and the mediating work of the ductless glands.  We have seen that two major predisposing causes of physical trouble, arising within the physical organism, are the understimulation or the overstimulation of the centres.  There are also, as you will recall, three diseases which are inherent in substance itself, and which therefore create basic predispositions within the human body:  cancer, syphilis and tuberculosis.  With these three we are not at this time dealing.  But the condition of the centres produces, basically, all the difficulties, permitting entrance to infections and germs which might not otherwise cause trouble, producing those situations [208] where the diseases inherent in the form nature can be fostered, and making undesirable tendencies powerful.  We might consequently lay down the premise (one which the medical profession will later accept in its entirety) that diseases which are self-engendered (if I may use so curious and inadequate a phrase), and which are not the result of contagion or infection or of accidents, are caused by the failure, the limitation, the deficiency or the excess, and by the overdevelopment or the underdevelopment, of the endocrine system.  This ductless glandular system, via the hormones, affects every part of the physical organism—via the blood stream—and it may therefore be truly posited that when the ductless glands are perfectly balanced and functioning correctly, there will be no diseased areas in the body.  The blood stream will then be kept also in perfect condition.  The clue to perfect physical health as it is expressed by a Master of the Wisdom can consequently be directly traced to His full control of the centres, to their balanced state of energy reception and distribution, and to the effect which they produce upon the entire ductless glandular system.  By this means every area of the body is properly supplied with the needed forces and is thus kept in perfect condition.

Coming midway between the centres and the corresponding endocrine glands, and acting as the agent for the distribution of energy, is the nervous system.  Here, however, difficulty is usually to be found.  There is a lack of adequate flow of energy; the energy distributed by its means to the body, via the centres, is unevenly distributed; some centres receive an undue supply; others receive an inadequate amount; some centres are still unawakened, and therefore are nonreceptive; others are prematurely developed and transmit too much force to the areas they govern.  In esoteric medicine and its philosophical interpretation (which is in the last analysis the effective and practical application [209] of the known facts) it is the cerebro-spinal aspect which conditions and governs the entire nervous system, for it is by means of this aspect and through its agency that the centres work and affect the bodily organism, supplying the body with the needed vital energy; thus the nervous system becomes eventually responsive, via the seven centres, to the seven major energies or the seven ray forces.

In no human being, except a Master, are all the centres properly awakened and functioning in a balanced manner, nor are they properly related through intensive radiation; in no human being is the nervous system correctly responsive to the centres.  There are two reasons for this, and both are related to the cerebro-spinal system:

1. The head centre is not yet awakened, or is only slowly being developed, as the disciple submits himself to training.

2. The flow of energy through the head to the centres up the spine is uneven, owing to the fact that the inflow is uneven, and that the etheric web—between the centres—permits as yet only a very little energy to flow through to all the centres.

It must be remembered that the life of the centres is founded, in the initial stage, upon the inherent life of the organism itself, with the focus of the emanating life to be found in the centre at the base of the spine.  This is a point oft forgotten by esotericists.  This basic centre is the one through which the life of matter itself works; this is the life or energy of the Holy Spirit aspect, the third aspect.  Through its life each atom in the body is fed.  This process of animating the substance of the physical form is started in the prenatal stage; after birth, this type of force is aided and paralleled by the inflow of planetary prana or vital energy from the planetary life itself, via the spleen. [210] This is the essential relating organ between the inherent life of matter itself, as present in the microcosm, and the inherent life in the planet.

As evolution proceeds, there is gradually added to this inherent force an inflow of "qualified" energy which is expressive of the consciousness aspect of divinity, and indicates to the esotericist the state of awareness of the man and also the ray type of his soul.  This inflow comes from the second divine aspect, from the soul or the indwelling Christ.  It might therefore be stated anent the two head centres that:

1. The ajna centre, or the personality centre, focussed between the eyebrows and conditioning the pituitary body, is related to the entire life of the integrated threefold organism.  Through this organism the consciousness must perforce express itself, and the physical, emotional and mental vehicles demonstrate its point in evolution.

2. The head centre (called in the Hindu philosophy, the thousand-petalled lotus) conditions the pineal gland and is related to the life of the soul and—after the third initiation—to the life of the monad; it conveys to the centres the energy of the three major types of spiritual being of which the three forces of the personality are the reflections or physical counterparts.

Later, energy from the spirit aspect, the first or Father aspect, will become available and will pour down through the head centre to the ajna centre, combining personality energy and soul energy.  Then, by an act of the will, it is projected down the spinal column, via the alta major centre, which conditions the carotid gland.  As it passes down the spinal column it vitalises two aspects of the centres; when [211] it reaches the basic centre, it combines with the latent energy of substance itself, and you have, therefore, the union of all three divine energies and the manifestation in man of the three divine aspects.  These combined energies then rush up the central channel in the spinal column, and the third or highest receptive aspect of the centres is energised.  All the centres are thus brought into full expression; all limitations are destroyed; every part of the body is vitalised and material perfection is produced, plus the full play of the enlightened consciousness and also of the life aspect.

The nervous system then comes under the complete control of the spiritual man, and the blood stream is purified and becomes an unimpeded and satisfactory channel for the circulation of that which the energised glands discharge.  This is the esoteric significance of the Biblical words, "The blood is the life," and also of the words "saved by the blood of Christ."  It is not by the blood of a Christ dying two thousand years ago upon the cross in Palestine that man is saved, but by the livingness of the blood of those in whom the Christ life and consciousness, and the quality of the Christ, is perfectly demonstrating and expressed.  Then, when the nature of the indwelling Christ is fully, spontaneously and automatically expressing itself in and through the personality, the three fires of the creative process—the fire of matter, the fire of the soul, and the electric fire of spirit—are blended, and there is then a perfect manifestation on Earth of physical living, of the emotional and mental life, and also of the spiritual life of an incarnated Son of God, a Christ.

It is on this point of understanding that so many worthy people go astray, particularly in the mental science movements, in the Unity movement, and in Christian Science.  Instead of focussing their effort on achieving the pure life [212] of Christ in every day life, and acting as consecrated servers of their fellowmen and as channels for love, and becoming aware only of the consciousness of the whole, they are focussed on affirming a future perfection—mentally and vocally—in order to have good health and physical comfort.  They regard it as their right and due, to be gained by affirmation, and forget the hard work necessary to bring about within themselves those conditions which will make the divine manifested Christ present.  They need to bear in mind that good health will be normal and declarative if the inner consciousness is harmless (and the majority of these people are guilty of a superior spirit of criticism), if they are decentralised from the lower self in the three worlds, and if they are "focussed in heaven, thereby enabling the heavenly Son of Man Who is the Son of God to lead the heavenly life when far from the heavenly realm"—as an old Christian mystic, long forgotten, used to say.  His words have been remembered by the Master M—and thus recalled to my attention.

Another school of thought, branding themselves untruthfully as occultists, are equally in error.  They work, or rather profess to work, with the centres, only fortunately for them nature protects them often from themselves.  They endeavour consciously to vitalise the centres, to burn away the protective web, and to raise the fires of matter before the fire of spirit has combined with the fire of the soul.  They then fall victims to premature stimulation of the fires of substance before the balancing of the forces can take place.  Disease, insanities, and many neurotic conditions, plus serious pathological conditions, then occur.  Some of the glands become overactive; others are overlooked, and the entire glandular system and the dependent nervous system are in a state of complete imbalance.

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Disciples need to learn to focus their attention upon the reality and upon the factors of primary spiritual importance.  When they do this, the energies in the head, the correct use of the spinal area with its "beaded centres," and the awakening of the basic centre and its consequent fusion with the higher energies will be an automatic and perfectly safe happening.

The orderly rhythm of the glandular system and the free, safe use of the controlled nervous system will then be possible; the energies, projected from the centre, via the nadis, will be safely related and brought into a synthetic functioning within the body, and the disciple will experience not only a fully awakened consciousness, and a brain which is ever intelligently receptive, but a constant inflow of spiritual life.  There will then be that perfect balance and perfect health which characterise a Master of the Wisdom.

Knowledge concerning the endocrine or ductless glands is as yet in an embryonic state.  Much is known anent the glands connected with the sacral centre and about the thyroid gland, but to date, naturally, the medical profession does not admit that they are effects of the activity or the nonactivity of the centres, or that a line of least resistance exists between the sacral centre and the throat centre.  Something is known (not much) about the pituitary body, but its extreme importance as it affects the psychological response of the person is not adequately grasped.  Nothing is known, factually speaking, about the pineal or the thymus glands, and this because neither the head centre nor the heart centre is awakened in undeveloped man, or even in the average citizen.  That there is a considerable wealth of knowledge anent the sacral centre (as the source of physical creation) and the conditioning effects of the thyroid gland is due to the fact that both these centres are awakened in the average man, and when the functioning is adequate [214] and the necessary interplay is established, you then have a highly sexed individual who is also a creative artist along some artistic line.  This is very frequently seen, as you well know.  When the ajna centre and its externalisation, the pituitary body, are also active, and the relation between the three centres—sacral, throat and ajna centre—is awakened and beginning to function, and definite conscious relationship is being set up between it and the other centres (dependent upon ray, upon conscious objective and training), then you will have the practical mystic, the humanitarian and the occultist.

Students should remember that there is both an upward and a downward trend of energy within the entire structure of centres, where the aspirant and the disciple are concerned:

1. The upward trend...producing Transmutation.

From the sacral centre to the throat centre.  Physical creation is transmuted into artistic creativity.

From the solar centre to the heart centre.  Individual, emotional consciousness is transmuted into group consciousness.

From the base of the spine to the head centre.  Material force is transmuted into spiritual energy.

From any or all of the five spinal centres to the ajna centre.  Uncoordinated living is transmuted into personality integration.

From the six centres in relationship into the highest head centre.  Personality activity is transmuted into spiritual living.

This is a wide generalisation, and the process is not carried forward in any sequential fashion or smoothly and in order as the tabulation above might suggest.  The process involved is spread over many lives of unconscious transmutation in [215] the earlier stages, and as a result of bitter experience and of conscious effort in the later stages, and becomes increasingly dynamic and effective as the various stages upon the Path area trodden by the aspirant.  The five rays with which a disciple has to work (two major conditioning rays and three subsidiary rays) have a definite active effect; karmic adjustments provide opportunity or hindrance, and the intricacies of the entire process (within the relatively limited experience of the disciple) are so confusing whilst in process that all that he can do is to grasp the general outline as here given and not pay too much attention to the immediate factual detail.

2. The downward trend...producing Transformation.

Once the head centre is awakening and the disciple is consciously active in the work of directing the energies to the centres and thereby governing his personality life, there is a scientific undertaking of energising the centres in a certain ordered rhythm which is again determined by the rays, by circumstance and by karma; thus all the bodily energies are swung into correct spiritual activity.  With the process involved we cannot here deal, beyond pointing out that this downward trend can be roughly regarded as falling into three stages:

1. The stage of energising the creative life, via the throat centre, thus bringing:

a. The head centre and the throat centre,

b. These two and the sacral centre,

c. All three, consciously and simultaneously, into conscious relation.

This relation, when properly established, will solve the individual problem of sex, and without recourse to either inhibition or suppression, but by bringing [216] about right control and making the disciple, at the same time, creative in a worldly sense, and therefore of use to his fellowmen.

2. The stage of energising the conscious life of relationship via the heart centre, thus bringing:

a. The head centre and the heart centre,

b. These two and the solar plexus centre,

c. All three, simultaneously and consciously, into close cooperation.

This serves to establish right human relations, right group relations, and right spiritual relations throughout a man's entire life expression.  Just as the stage of regulating the creative life has a paramount effect upon the physical body, so this stage affects the astral vehicle with great potency; emotional reactions are transformed into aspiration and service; selfish individual love is transformed into group love, and then divinity rules the life.

3. The stage of energising the entire man, via the basic centre thus bringing:

a. The head centre and the basic centre,

b. These two and the ajna centre,

c. All the three, simultaneously and consciously, into rhythmic, coordinated expression.  This is a final stage of great importance, and only takes place in its completeness at the time of the third initiation, that of the Transfiguration.

You can see, therefore, how three important words convey the purpose of the scientific unfoldment and the right direction of the centres:

Transmutation.  Transformation.  Transfiguration.

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