The Causes of Disease
Summarized ,
From the Tibetan’s Esoteric
Healing,
In
considering the Causes of Disease, I find it necessary to speak a word in
connection with conditions - external and internal. It will be apparent to the
casual thinker that many diseases and many causes of death are due to
environing conditions for which he is in no way responsible. These range all
the way from purely external occurrences to hereditary predispositions. They
might be listed as follows:
1.
Accidents,
which may be due to personal
negligence, group happenings, the carelessness of other people, and the results
of fighting, as in labor strikes or war. They can also be brought about by
attacks from the animal or the snake world, accidental poisonings and many
other causes.
2.
Infections
coming to a man from outside and
not as the result of his own peculiar blood condition. Such infections are the
various so-called infectious and contagious diseases, and prevalent epidemics.
These may come to a man in the line of duty, through his daily contacts, or
through a widespread condition of disease in his environment.
3.
Diseases due to malnutrition,
particularly
when found in the young. This state of undernourishment predisposes the body to
disease, lowers the resistance and the vitality, and offsets the "fighting
powers" of the man, leading to premature death.
4.
Heredity.
There are, as you well know,
certain forms of hereditary weaknesses, which either predispose a person to
certain illnesses and consequent death, or produce in him those conditions
which lead to a steady weakening [19] of his hold on life; there are also those
tendencies which constitute a form of dangerous appetite, which lead to
undesirable habits, a letting down of the morale, and are dangerous to the will
of the person, rendering him futile to fight these predispositions. He succumbs
to them and pays the price of such habits, which is disease and death.
These
four types of disease and causes of death account for much that we see
happening around us in people's lives, but they are not to be classed
definitely under any of the psychological causes of disease, and will only be
considered, and that very briefly, under the section dealing with group life
and its predisposing causes of disease. Infectious diseases are there dealt
with, but such situations as arise out of an automobile or railroad accident,
for instance, are not to be considered as coming under the heading of causes
producing disease. That the work of the healer may be involved in these cases
is quite true, but the work to be done is somewhat different to that
accomplished when dealing with those diseases which have their roots in some
subtle body or other, or in the results of group disease, etc. The ills growing
out of malnutrition and the wrong feeding of our modern life and civilization
will not here be considered. For these no child is individually responsible. I
am concerned with the diseases arising in wrong internal conditions.
Basic
Occult Causes of Disease
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 non-resistance.
Of this non-resistance, the overpowering willingness to die which is so
frequently a characteristic of the final stage immediately preceding death is
the lowest manifestation. It is non-resistance which psychologically governs
coma.