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Esoteric Healing - Chapter VIII - The Laws and Rules Enumerated and Applied
Rule Four which accompanies Law VII is of major importance. This is because of its extreme simplicity, and because, if comprehended and followed, it forms a bridging rule between the subjective and the objective methods of handling disease. The law which we have just considered was also exceedingly simple and direct, and in its implications related to the subjective nature and the objective form. Students should not be deceived by simplicity and by plain, direct statements. There is a tendency to regard esoteric teaching as necessarily abstruse and indirect, requiring always the use of the "esoteric sense" (whatever is meant by that) in order to arrive at understanding. Yet the more advanced the teaching, very frequently the more simply is it expressed. Abstruseness is related to the ignorance of the student - not to the mode of presentation of the teacher. This rule runs as follows: [630]

Rule Four
A careful diagnosis of disease, based on the ascertained outer symptoms, will be simplified to this extent - that once the organ involved is known and thus isolated, the center in the etheric body which is in closest relation to it will be subjected to methods of occult healing, though the ordinary ameliorative, medical or surgical methods will not be withheld.

This rule requires little elucidation, for it is composed of clear, concise instructions. Let us list these instructions:

  1. There must be careful diagnosis, based on the ascertained outer symptoms.
  2. The organ which is the seat of the trouble must be located. Both these activities concern the dense physical body.
  3. The center in the etheric body closest to the area of the trouble will next receive attention.
  4. Methods of occult healing are then employed, directed to the stimulation, or the reverse, of the center involved.
  5. Simultaneously, all outer orthodox methods are employed.

It is on this question of careful diagnosis that most modern so-called healers go astray. They do not know enough about the physical body, about the pathology of disease, about the primary or secondary symptoms, to determine the nature of the difficulty; this is because the usual healer has not had medical training, and at the same time he is not psychically equipped to arrive at a true diagnosis in an occult manner. He therefore falls back on the general assumption that the patient is sick, that the seat of the trouble appears to be in such or such an area of the physical body, that the patient complains of certain pains and aches, and that if the patient can be rendered acquiescent enough, [631] if he can grasp (along with the healer) the fact of his divinity - and who can, my brother? - then if he has faith in the healer, he can assuredly be healed.

The outstanding thing usually to note is the ignorance of both the patient and the healer; the thing to be deplored is the assumption of the healer that, if a healing does follow, it is due entirely to the healing methods followed, whereas the patient would, in all probability, have recovered in any case. The healing may have been hastened by the factor of faith, and faith is simply the focusing of the patient's energy in line with the injunction of the healer, and a consequent "display" of that energy in the diseased area in obedience to the law that "energy follows thought." The "explosion" (if I may use so forcible a word) of the energy of faith on the part of the two people involved - the healer and the patient - occultly and occasionally produces sufficient energy stimulation to bring about a cure where a cure in any case was inevitable. It has simply been a hastening process. This is not, however, a true occult healing and no true occult healing methods were employed or involved. Psychologically, the same thing can be seen taking place in the case of a "conversion," as the Fundamentalist School of Christianity calls it. The faith of the person and the faith of the evangelist, plus the faith of the audience (where there is one) bring about a psychological healing along the line of resolving cleavages, or produce an at-one-ment, even if only of a temporary nature.

It must be increasingly borne in mind that there is nothing in the created world but energy in motion, and that every thought directs some aspects of that energy, though always within the sphere of influence of some greater thinking, directing energy. The healer's faith and the patient's faith are both examples of energy in motion, and at present usually the only energies employed in every case [632] of healing. Orthodox medicine also works with the same energies, supplementing its orthodox methods with the patient's faith in the physician and in his scientific knowledge.

I am not here going to enlarge further on the injunction to use medical and surgical methods whenever possible. I have touched upon this subject several times in the course of this teaching upon healing. It is essential that people should realize that the ascertained knowledges of medicine and surgery are just as much an expression of divine experience and understanding as the hopeful, assertive, yet fumbling methods of so-called divine healing - if not more so at present. Though much of the orthodox methods remain experimental, they are less so than the methods of the modern healers, and much of their scientific knowledge is proven and real. It should be used, and confidence can be expressed in it. The perfect healing combination is that of the medical man and the spiritual healer, each working in his own field, and both having faith in each other; this is not now the case. There is no need to call in divine aid to set bones which the surgeon is well equipped to do, or to clear up infection which the physician knows well how to handle. The healer can help and can hasten the healing process, but the orthodox physician can also hasten the work of the healer. Both groups need each other.

I realize that what I have said here will please neither the spiritual healer nor the orthodox medical man. It is time, however, that they learn to appreciate each other and to work in cooperation. In the last analysis, the spiritual healer and the new modes of mental healing have relatively little to contribute in comparison with the work and the knowledge of the member of the orthodox profession. The debt of the world to its doctors and surgeons is very great. The debt to healers is decidedly not so great; they oft also poison the channel by bitterness and constant [633] criticism of the physician and of orthodox medicine. Surety of knowledge and experience prevents a similar attitude in the orthodox group, plus the realization that even the spiritual healer will call in the doctor in times of emergency.
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