Chapter 8 Concluding Remarks
“To lay the foundation for a future structure of knowledge, and to initiate a true system of spiritual healing taught to would‑be healers.” -D.K.
The main contribution of Esoteric Healing to the modern medical literature is to present and emphasize the “inner” predisposing conditions related to health, death and disease for the purpose of suggesting therapeutic and preventive approaches that would guide the healing and medical practice in the near and distant future. The stated purpose of the book is not to cover the pathophysiological aspects of specific diseases and conditions.
However, the reader of Esoteric Healing is faced with three formidable barriers that may preclude a fair consideration and a true understanding of this important textbook. These are: the complexity of the subject matter itself, the peculiar mode of presentation, and the “political” views expressed from the perspective of the spiritual Hierarchy.
The subject of causal inference in epidemiological research is very complex. Therefore, when more than half of a book is dedicated to the “basic causes” of disease, the reader should be warned about the difficulties inherent in the subject itself. For instance, “heredity” is considered from the “psychological”(i.e., the result of previous incarnations and individual karma), the “group” (i.e., inherited karmic predisposition for syphilis and sexually transmitted diseases [STD], tuberculosis [TB] and cancer [CA]), and the “planetary” (i.e., inherent in the substance and “soil” of the planet) perspectives. How do these concepts relate to chromosome-based hereditary and the communicable “congenital” diseases and predispositions is left to the reader to fully understand. Even more confusing, STD, TB and CA are also referred to as “planetary” diseases throughout the book.
The second major barrier is related to the peculiar mode of presentation. The book is the result of a series of spiritual instructions received from 1942 until some time before 1950. D.K. sequentially “paints” a synthesis of ideas rather than drawing a logically consistent picture. In fact, D.K. advises to “learn by absorption more than by analysis.” Each lesson adds a new brush stroke of details and insights, building on and retouching the ideas previously presented. This is not the orthodox way to introduce ideas for scientific consideration in the medical profession. Furthermore, the text is not always consistent and unambiguous in the use of significant terms, such as, “psychological” (the soul versus the traditional interpretation); “nervous” (mental conditions versus neurological diseases); and others. Groups of symptoms are mostly unorthodox and the classification of diseases is not always consistent (e.g., “insanity” for “nervous” diseases). Even the very crucial Rules of Healing are inconsistently numbered throughout the book.
The reasons of this peculiar mode of presentation are made clearer as the reader slowly makes progress in studying the subject (p. 658). First, D.K. is safeguarding information that, if misused and misappropriated by the unready, may prove very dangerous. Second, the active effort required from the reader is part of an authentication process. Only those possessing the “right” key may decode the ambiguities and apparent inconsistencies throughout the text. The “right” key is very simple, though: right motivation to serve in true love for others. Of course, intellectual development to master conceptual abstractions is assumed.
Superficially, statements such as: 1) “Cancer is definitely the result of the activity of the lower concrete mind and of the stimulation of the etheric body which the mind can bring about” (p. 238); 2) “I repeat that disease is not the result of thought” (p. 95); and 3) “the roots of [cancer] are deep-seated in the emotional or desire nature, and are grounded in the astral body” (p. 58) do seem contradictory. Furthermore, it is stated that, “cancer is primarily a disease of inhibition… producing an over-development of the cellular life, through over-stimulation”(p. 59). Then, given that gastric ulcer predisposes to gastric cancer, why is it stated that “if the patient is suffering from such a difficulty as gastric ulcer, the stimulation of the solar plexus center may produce a cure?” (p. 283)
The earnest reader and student of Esoteric Healing is faced with these and many other paradoxical statements. They serve as koans or riddles to prove discernment, right motivation and love of humanity.
The third major barrier is related to the modern standards of “politically correct” views, at least in the United States. Some views presented in the textbook touching on the Jewish problem, homosexuality, masculine polarization of the human Hierarchy, and the exponents of “New Age” healing modalities (Christian Science, Mental Science and others) are likely to be strongly repudiated by some. Any attempt to reinterpret and clarify may actually bring more confusion to the discussion of the issues at hand.
Therefore, the reader of this treatise is well advised to hold judgment until harmlessness rules: “perfect poise, a completed point of view and divine understanding” (Law IX). In any case, the reader should also bear in mind some words from the “Extract from a Statement by the Tibetan” prefacing all the books, including Esoteric Healing:
“If [the books] present truth in such a way that it follows sequentially upon that already offered in the world teachings, if the information given raises the aspiration and the will‑to‑serve from the plane of the emotions to that of the mind (the plane whereon the Masters can be found) then they will have served their purpose. If the teaching conveyed calls forth a response from the illumined mind of the worker in the world, and brings a flashing forth of his intuition, then let that teaching be accepted. But not otherwise. If the statements meet with eventual corroboration, or are deemed true under the test of the Law of Correspondences, then that is well and good. But should this not be so, let not the student accept what is said.”
This introductory study guide aims at provoking thought and at providing a panoramic view of the field of esoteric healing to aid the unfamiliar reader in discerning its general pattern and outline. We are mindful of the forthcoming Conclave of the spiritual Hierarchy in the year 2025 and it is our purpose to use this opportunity to make an impact upon the thinkers of the race about this new and undiscovered field of esoteric healing. Although there are basic sciences that still need to be developed before esoteric healing can thrive, such as esoteric anatomy, esoteric psychology and medical astrology, hopefully the Plan will unfold as foreseen by wiser Minds and esoteric healing may become integrated into the practice of preventive medicine in the not so distant future.
Of course, the reader is free to accept or reject the ideas conveyed herein. However, in either case, knowledge has been gained, and knowledge always carries responsibility with it. We firmly believe that truth is the absolute criterion of reality. May the future stand revealed.
Appendices
Laws and Rules
Law I. All disease is the result of inhibited soul life. 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 has made. This law must be brought into activity by the spiritual will of man.
RULE ONE. Let the healer train himself to know the inner stage of thought or of desire of the one who seeks his help. He can thereby know the source from whence the trouble comes. Let him relate the cause and the effect and know the point exact through which relief must come.
Law III. Disease is an effect of the basic centralization of a man’s life energy. From the plane whereon those energies are focussed proceed those determining conditions which produce ill health. These 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 projection 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 true Healer within the form. The spiritual or third eye then directs the healing force and all is well.
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 has linked the centres in the head. When this magnetic field is established, the radiation then goes forth.
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 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 seeks 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.
RULE THREE. Let the healer concentrate the needed energy within the needed center. Let that center correspond to the center 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.
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.
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.
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.
Law VIII. Disease and death are the results of two active forces. One is the will of the soul, which says to its instrument: I draw the essence back. The other is the magnetic power of the planetary life, which says to the life within the atomic structure: The hour of reabsorption has arrived. Return to me. Thus, under cyclic law, do all forms act.
RULE FIVE. 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.
Law IX. Perfection calls imperfection to the surface. Good drives evil from the form of man in time and space. The method used by the Perfect One and that employed by Good is harmlessness. This is not negativity but perfect poise, a completed point of view and divine understanding.
RULE SIX. The healer or the healing group must keep the will in leash. It is not will that must be used, but love.
Source: Treatise on the Seven Rays IV: Esoteric Healing, authored by Djwhual Khul, the Tibetan Master, and penned by Alice A. Bailey (Lucis Trust Publishing Co., 1953). Esoteric Healing
Causes of Disease
Causes of Disease and Death: General Multi-factorial Framework
- Planetary Causes
- 1.1 Seven Ray Causes of Disease
- 1.2 Soil (seeds and germs)
- 1.2.1 Human heritage of diseases from Lemuria (Venereal) and Atlantis (Cancer and Tuberculosis)
- 1.2.2 Other diseases
- 1.3 Cataclysms and other “obscure planetary conditions”
- Group Causes
- 2.1 National: wars
- 2.2 Social determinants:
- 2.2.1 poverty (“economic maladjustments”): malnutrition, overcrowding
- 2.2.2 occupational and environmental diseases (mining, air/water pollution)
- 2.3 Infectious: epidemics (influenza)
- Individual Causes
- 3.1 Karmic (genetic, congenital, accidents)
- 3.2 Psychological: organic diseases and mental illnesses, arising mostly from emotional factors, and impacting the etheric body, producing:
- 3.2.1 Diseases of the brain and the nervous and endocrine systems
- 3.2.2 Diseases of the heart and the respiratory and circulatory systems
- 3.2.3 Other diseases arising from psychological causes
- 3.1 Age
- 3.1.1 Natural aging
- 3.1.2 Age of the soul (“diseases of the mystics”)
On Inoculations
“What is the standing or value of inoculation or vaccination from an occult or esoteric standpoint?” This question is often in the minds of healers as they ask the further question which is the real basis of their interest, “Does it affect the subtler bodies? How?”
There is no occult standard or value in inoculation, any more than there is an occult standard or value in giving a hypodermic injection. The entire question concerning serums and inoculations has been tremendously overemphasised by the so-called occult students. The human body, at [323] the present time, is the recipient of such a vast amount of substance, extraneously precipitated into the interior of the body, that the whole subject is of vaster import, yet of lesser importance, than men think. Such is the paradox which I present to you. Wrong food of every kind, the inhalation of smoke down the centuries, the breathing in of tainted air, the taking of medicines and pills and tablets of every possible description, the rifling of the vegetable and mineral kingdoms in search of their ingredients, and the injection of mineral substances, of drugs and of serums, till one wonders sometimes at the remarkable assimilative powers of the human frame.
In all fairness, however, I would remind you that, as far as the physical well-being of man is concerned, these methods and techniques of the West have resulted in the production of a healthier race than in the East, in a very definite prolongation of human life, and in the elimination of many dire physical scourges which used to take their toll of man. This I, an Oriental, do admit. I have stated the situation thus in order to expand your view from the specific to the whole.
In relation to disease and inoculation, I would remind you that there are three groups of diseases which are not peculiar to man, but which are indigenous in the planet itself. These diseases are found in widely differing forms, in all the kingdoms in nature. These three families or groups of diseases are:
- The great cancer group of diseases.
- The syphilitic group.
- Tuberculosis.
Most of the objections made by doctors with occult tendencies are based unconsciously on a feeling that there [324] should be higher methods of controlling diseases in man than by injecting into the human body substance taken from the bodies of animals. That is most surely and definitely correct, and some day it will be demonstrated. Another reaction on their part is one of sensitive disgust, again largely unrecognised. A more vital objection should be based on the suffering entailed on the animals providing the vaccine and other substances.
The effect on the inner bodies is practically nil, and far less than the diseases themselves. Herein lies for the future a most interesting question. How far do diseased conditions in the human body carry through and affect the inner bodies from the structural angle? It is a question I do not intend to answer. The controlling of modern disease is being handled by modern medicine primarily in three ways: through the science of sanitation, through preventive medicine, and through inoculation. These are the lower correspondences to methods of activity emanating from the astral plane, from the etheric levels, and from the earth itself.
The science of sanitation, the use of water, and the growing knowledge of hydrotherapy are the precipitation on earth of certain inner activities on the astral plane of a most definite nature. From the angle of the aspirant, these methods are called purification.
The science of prevention (both of diseases and of death) is the precipitation on earth of certain modes of procedure on the etheric plane whereby forces are correctly used and certain destructive agencies are controlled and prevented from going the destructive way.
The science of inoculation is purely physical in origin and concerns only the animal body. This latter science will shortly be superseded by a higher technique, but the time is not yet.
Mantras
ST. FRANCIS’S PRAYER
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace, Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy;
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
MANTRA OF UNIFICATION
The sons of men are one and I am one with them. I seek to love, not hate; I seek to serve and not exact due service; I seek to heal, not hurt.
Let pain bring due reward of light and love. Let the soul control the outer form, and life, and all events, And bring to light the Love that underlies the happenings of the time.
Let vision come and insight. Let the future stand revealed. Let inner union demonstrate the outer cleavages be gone. Let love prevail. Let all men love.
INVOCATION OF LIGHT AND LOVE
From the point of Light within the Mind of God Let light stream forth into the minds of men Let Light descend on Earth
From the point of Love within the Heart of God Let love stream forth into the hearts of men May Peace return to Earth
From the center where the Will of God is known Let purpose guide the little wills of men The purpose which the Masters know and serve
From the center which we call the race of men Let the Plan of Love and Light work out And may it seal the door where evil dwells
Let Light and Love and Power restore the Plan on Earth
AQUARIAN MANTRA FOR HEALING
May the liberating Light of the Lord Buddha
The infinite Love of the Spirit of Peace, and
The unfathomable Power of the Avatar of Synthesis
Restore the healing Plan of God on Earth.
The reader may visit AgniYoga.info for more information.
2023 Update
Source: Emory University has been chosen as the inaugural recipient of a $24.8 million funding over three years from the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), a new federal agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The funding will support the work of Philip Santangelo, PhD, a professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Emory and Georgia Institute of Technology.
The research aims to address incurable, debilitating diseases like certain types of cancer, lupus, and some viral and bacterial infections that involve dysregulation of the immune system. Conventional methods of immune modulation, such as vaccines, antibodies, small molecules, and cell-based therapies, have their limitations in engaging immunity and manufacturing complexity.
The Santangelo Lab intends to develop a novel class of mRNA-based drugs to precisely control gene activity in individual immune cells. This approach doesn’t modify DNA but can potentially offer a breakthrough in treating cancers, autoimmune disorders, and infectious diseases.
The research plan has two parallel pathways. First, mRNA-based drugs will directly target immune cells within the body, causing the expression of critical target proteins and carefully modulating gene activity for improved immune function. The second approach uses a fully functional cell-based therapy, combining messenger RNA-expressed antigens and gene modulators outside the body to prevent and treat diseases. These pathways can be used independently or together to enhance vaccines and standard treatments.
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.
[JB] “Precision medicine” is a trend in modern medicine. Precision medicine, also known as personalized medicine, is a medical model that proposes the customization of healthcare, with decisions and treatments being tailored to the individual patient in whatever ways possible. This approach takes into account individual differences in people’s genes, environments, and lifestyles.
The goal of precision medicine is to ensure that the right patient gets the right treatment at the right time. This is achieved by using genetic understanding and diagnostic testing to better understand how an individual’s unique molecular and genetic profile makes them susceptible to certain diseases. This can also give clues about how they might respond to treatments.
For example, in cancer treatment, precision medicine uses specific information about a person’s tumor to help diagnose, plan treatment, find out how well treatment is working, or make a prognosis. Genomic testing is often used to identify specific genes, proteins, and other factors unique to the tumor.
However, while the promise of precision medicine has been realized in some areas (like oncology), it’s still a growing field and much research is needed to fully realize its potential across all areas of health and disease.
Although genetic understanding and diagnostic testing will certainly aid in better understanding how an individual’s unique molecular and genetic profile may make individuals susceptible to certain diseases, it certainly does not simplify the practice of medicine, and may as well distract from the study of the karmic and psychological causes of diseases proposed in this study guide. The permanent atoms may carry the spiritual genetic information necessary for epigenetic transformation of the information encoded in the physical chromosomes.
Epigenetics is the study of changes in gene expression or cellular phenotype that do not involve alterations to the underlying DNA sequence. It’s a complex field of study that looks at how your behaviors and environment can cause changes that affect the way your genes work.
The term epigenetics comes from the Greek word ‘epigenesis’, which refers to the influence of genetic processes on development. Unlike genetics, based on changes to the DNA sequence (the genotype), the changes in gene expression or cellular phenotype of epigenetics have other causes.
Epigenetic changes are a regular and natural occurrence but can also be influenced by several factors including age, the environment, lifestyle, and disease state. These changes can switch genes on or off and determine which proteins are transcribed. They can be influenced in a variety of ways, such as through exposure to certain environmental factors, like smoking or diet, or as a result of aging.
One of the key aspects of epigenetics is that, in certain situations, epigenetic changes can be passed down from generation to generation. However, it’s also important to note that just because something is epigenetic, doesn’t mean it’s always heritable.
Examples of mechanisms that produce such changes are DNA methylation and histone modification, each of which alters how genes are expressed without altering the underlying DNA sequence.
Epigenetic research holds the potential for significant breakthroughs in many areas, including early detection of disease, disease prevention, and creating precision therapies for conditions like cancer, immune disorders, mental disorders, and more.