Health and Disease: theosophical

quotations
Abbreviations:
BCW
H.P. Blavatsky Collected Writings, Theosophical Publishing House, 1950-91
The Dialogues of G. de Purucker, A.L. Conger (ed.), Theosophical
Dia
University Press (TUP), 1948
Echoes Echoes of the Orient, W.Q. Judge, Point Loma Publications (PLP), 1975-87
EST
Esoteric Teachings, G. de Purucker, PLP, 1987
FSO
Fountain-Source of Occultism, G. de Purucker, TUP, 1974
GPE
Golden Precepts of Esotericism, G. de Purucker, TUP, 3rd ed., 1979
SD
The Secret Doctrine, H.P. Blavatsky, TUP, 1977 (1888)
SOP
Studies in Occult Philosophy, G. de Purucker, TUP, 1973
To Light a Thousand Lamps: A theosophic vision, Grace F. Knoche, TUP,
TLTL
2001
TPM
Theosophy: The path of the mystic, Katherine Tingley, TUP, 3rd ed., 1977
WoS
Wind of the Spirit, G. de Purucker, TUP, 2nd ed., 1984

The cause of disease

[T]here is not an accident in our lives, not a misshapen day, or a misfortune, that
could not be traced back to our own doings in this or in another life. (SD 1:643-4)
Both health and disease are karmically the consequences of the characters and
tendencies which we ourselves have impressed upon the life-atoms composing the
various sheaths in which we, the human egos, are clothed during earth life: impressed
upon them by our thoughts, our feelings, our desires and our habits. ...
A man in one life may have a disease and exhaust the karmic causes which brought
it about, and in the next life be perfectly free from it, or he may not be free it all
depends upon his karma. We have the same life-atoms and the same astral monad as
before, both of course modified according to the karma previously engendered. ...
Just as the child grows into the adult by slow stages, so does a man pass from
incarnation to incarnation, continuously the same in essential being, although in each
new life undergoing a change, let us hope, for the better. We are making ourselves now
very largely what we shall be ten years hence. We may have conquered a disease that
we are today suffering from, or we may have a disease then that at present we do not
have. In either case we ourselves are responsible. Disease, therefore, is the working
out of karma, for everything that comes to a man is the consequence, the flowering, of
seeds sown in the past. ...
In the case of a fine and unselfish character who has a weak physical vehicle, he has
won his freedom so far as the inner man is concerned; but so far as the life-atoms are

concerned which he still has to use, he has not yet cleansed them of the preceding stain
which that same spirit-soul brought upon them. ...
To say that selfishness is the cause of all disease is too general a statement. To be
more specific, it is the form of selfishness called passion, whether conscious or
unconscious, which is the fruitful cause of disease unconquered violent passion, such
as hatred, anger, lust, etc. Any such passion, mental or physical, shakes the lower
constitution of man; it escapes from the control of the guiding hand of the higher part of
his being, changing the direction of flow of the pranic life-currents, condensing them
here, rarefying them there. It thus interferes with the normal, easy workings of nature,
which in this connection means health. In fact, selfishness is at the root not merely of
most disease, but of most evil-doing, and both are originally caused not by
unconquerable but by unconquered passions.
The symptoms of disease, which only too often are treated as being the disease
itself, are not infrequently the efforts of the forces of health to throw the poison out of the
body. A disease should be understood as a purifying process because the end will be a
cleansing. It should be welcomed in the sense of a quiet understanding of the situation,
and without either fear or an attempt to complicate or hinder the process. But many
people have an idea that the curing of disease consists in damming it back, shutting the
doors against its egress out of the system. Such damming back, however, allows the
roots of the disease to take firmer hold and spread and accumulate energy, so that
when it reappears as it inevitably will for its roots have not been extirpated its
reaction upon the body is more violent than it would have been if the disease had been
allowed to take its course. ...
In many instances diseases may be a heaven-sent blessing: they cure egoism, they
teach patience, and bring in their train the realization of the need for living rightly. If we
with our ungoverned emotions had bodies which could not be diseased, they might well
be weakened and killed by excesses. Diseases actually are warnings to reform our
thoughts and to live in accordance with natures laws.
A new cycle in medicine entered the world in the latter half of the nineteenth century:
no longer were human beings dosed until they died with mighty draughts of this and
mighty potions of that. Doctors were beginning to see that it is nature that cures, and
that the wise physician is a guide and an eliminator rather than a doser. Nevertheless,
because of the still imperfect knowledge which physicians have, diseases in their acute
stages often kill. Their course is too rapid for the human system to withstand the strain.
On the other hand, the medical practitioners of the distant future will understand so well
what diseases are, and the methods of curing them indeed, how to prevent them
that they will lead a disease out so gently that it will appear to vanish while actually it is
manifesting itself, even as the body today very often throws off a sickness by its own
unaided powers. ... They will understand the virtues of simples and how certain juices of
plants and mineral extracts can be used ...
[T]here is no certain knowledge as to the meaning and cause of disease, with the
result that new systems of medical practice are constantly being introduced. For
example, some advocate the use of stimulants and narcotics; others, eliminative and
suppressive measures, with respect merely to symptoms. I might add that there is more
justification for these and other methods in vogue in certain of the regular schools of
medicine, than there is for those opposed to all medical practice, such as the schools of
so-called mental or faith healing. It is a very dangerous thing indeed by the use of
affirmations and denials, or by methods of intense psychologic thinking, to dam back
elemental forces working their way outwards through the human constitution.
Consequently, however imperfect medical science may be today, it nevertheless treats

the body with material means, which are the least harmful. ...
We must remember that everything that happens to a man is the working of karma,
and that diseases are the result of inharmonious thoughts and emotions of this or of a
past life now working themselves out through the body. More particularly, all diseases
are brought about through the instrumentality of elementals. This is the ancient
teaching, and was the belief of the entire world until the West, in its supreme wisdom,
began to look upon this consensus of opinion of the human race as founded upon
superstition.
In the New Testament, ... diseases are ascribed to the operation of devils or demons
a mistranslation which is grotesque. These daimonia, as the Greek word runs, are
simply the lowest order of animate and sensate creatures commonly called in
theosophy elementals forming the lowest step of the hierarchical ladder ... Between
elemental and god there is a wide range of difference in evolutionary progress, but no
difference in essence or in origin, man occupying an intermediate stage on this ladder of
life.
All diseases, therefore, from epilepsy or cancer to a common cold, from tuberculosis
to a toothache, from rheumatism to any other physical ailment, are brought about
through elementals working as the instruments of the karmic law. And the same applies
to mental diseases: an outburst of anger, a raging temper, persistent melancholia, and
the manias of various kinds, all are elemental in origin. Homicidal mania is an example
in point; essentially it is quite unhuman as well as being inhuman it is elemental. In
this case an elemental has control of the human temple, and has for the time being
dispossessed the rightful human dweller therein. Such a state is due to weakness and
self-indulgence.
Epilepsy is likewise due to an elemental, which is a nature spirit, an energy center, a
consciousness center, of an unevolved kind which in this case has usurped temporarily
the position normally occupied by the human soul in the body. Epileptics, in actual fact,
are moon-struck when they suffer an attack. In this connection it may be of interest to
note that one of the ancient Mesopotamian gods, spoken of in the early Christian and
Jewish scriptures, is Beel-Zebub, usually translated as Lord of the Flies. Zebub does
mean flies, but the fly is mystically symbolic of an astral animate entity, and hence was
taken as representative of the character and antics of the elementals. Therefore, Lord of
Flies simply means Lord of the Elementals of the elemental forces and powers; and
that lord is the moon.
In antiquity and during the Middle Ages, epilepsy was known as the sacred illness
on account of its marked psychological element which contrasts it so strongly with other
more purely physical afflictions. It was believed that elementals of a higher grade,
possessing a larger psychological sphere of activity, were concerned in the falling
sickness. ...
Epileptic seizures are in reality no worse than any other outbreak of disease, for, as
indicated, every disease can be traced to the same causes: an originating series of
thoughts and emotions, eventuating in the present life in a distortion and an
inharmonious interaction of the pranic currents in the body. According to the character
of the emotions and thoughts, so is the disease.
In regard to cancer, there is one fundamental cause branching into two: deep-seated
selfishness, first; and next, acting on this general background, unregulated
emotionalism, the causes of which may have been sown ages back in other lives. The
combined power of these two vital-astral currents weakens or even destroys resistance,
and so directs the currents of life that they leave certain portions of the body where they
are naturally in check, and center on others where they run riot. However, by control of

the emotions and by self-forgetfulness, it is possible to help nature modify the course
and development of the disease. Many more people would suffer from cancerous
growths on the body if nature did not automatically gather together its forces of
resistance intellectual, emotional, moral, physiological, and what not and thus cause
the body to react so strongly that the resistance wards off the attack.
[W]e should understand cancer better if we realized that all growths, malignant or
benign, are physiological memories of the method of propagation which the early third
root-race used unconsciously. Then such growths were normal and natural; now they
are abnormal at best and malignant at the worst. ...
There is, however, a sure preventive of all diseases which partake of both a
physiological and a psychological character, and that is the practicing of the age-old
virtues, such as the paramitas.
As diseases are the karmic result of past errors of living, of working inharmoniously
with nature, the way of health is to work with nature; and this is possible because we
are an integral part of it. ... Heal the soul and you heal the body. (FSO 403-9)

Pranas or vital essences

The function and the character of the pranas in the human body are reckoned as ten
and even twelve in esotericism, yet they also are spoken of as being seven ... However,
we use the term prana as a generalizing word to signify the aggregate of psycho-vitalastral fluids which the pranas really are. We may otherwise call them the vital essences.
Even in mediaeval Europe which of course drew its ideas from ancient Greek and
Roman writings pretty much the same conception of the human body, as being an
entity infilled with vital spirits and with humors, prevailed until a relatively recent time,
when these were rejected by medical science, which laughed at the superstitions of our
forefathers. Nevertheless, these vital spirits and humors corresponded, however
imperfectly, to the pranic fluids of ancient Hindu teaching considered to be both
ethereal essences and physical humors. From early mediaeval times up to the recent
present, medicine consistently taught that normal physical health in the human body
was maintained when these vital spirits and humors were operating in equilibrium, and
that disease and even death were products of their malfunctioning. The archaic ages
were unanimous in their agreement on these points. ...
All the different pranas of the akashic vital stream really make up the completely
imbodied man, because they are the vital fields, or what are sometimes spoken of as
the nervous fluids, in and through which the finer spiritual, intellectual, and psychical
essences work and manifest themselves. When all the pranas are properly balanced,
and no one or more of them is either over-stimulated or sub-active, then the man is
healthy throughout his entire constitution. This is why any attempt to meddle with these
pranic currents by yoga or psychic practice brings about a change in the human
constitution, which practice when conducted through ignorant experimentation, as is
almost always the case, will invariably result in disease and very likely in subsequent
death, or else in psychical and mental disturbance.
The various pranas are not merely vital winds, as the term is commonly translated,
but are streams or flows of psycho-astral substance which work in the body as
substantial energies. They are all formed of excessively minute particles or atomic units
or entities, which indeed are the same as the life-atoms.
In the last analysis, a mans body is built out of these pranic streams of atomic

particles. Furthermore, all the pranas which manifest themselves in the human body are
the psycho-astral-physical expression of corresponding and causative currents of vitality
in the auric egg. Indeed, they are the vital energic form which the auric egg takes on the
physical plane; and the auras, which these pranas exude, producing something like a
vapor or mist around the body, are their psychomagnetic atmosphere. In other words,
the pranas are the vehicle of expression for all the higher attributes and qualities of the
human constitution.
The pranas find their respective fields of action in the auric egg, from which they
manifest in the physical body, which is the most material concretion of the grosser
aspects of the auric egg. Corresponding to the various physical organs, including the
different nervous ganglia or plexuses, there are equivalently active centers or foci or
ganglia in the auric egg; and indeed, these latter are the originants or auric causes
which produce their effects as corresponding centers or organs in the physical body.
Thus it is that the physical body receives the seven or ten pranas from the auric egg
which, in its turn, receives them from the monadic centers in the human constitution
ranging from the atman down to the physical body. Due to the unceasing activity of the
forces or energies at work in man, these forces flow forth from the different monadic foci
of his constitution as streams of vitality, i.e. currents of life-atoms, into the various layers
of the auric egg. These streams of vital force actually compose the auric egg, with its
compounded vital fluids and their characteristic auric qualities or swabhavas; and
thence from the various layers of the auric egg these pranic auras are reflected into the
different organs or centers or chakras of the physical body.
Thus, then, the complete man during incarnation, when viewed as an objective entity,
presents a most marvelous picture of interacting and continuously coruscating streams
of pranic vitality, which in the higher ranges are like currents of flowing light, and in their
lower ranges are like streams of quasi-material vitality. ...
[M]an during incarnation is like a pillar of dazzling light, of which the top portion
seems to vanish into the colorless glory of infinity, while the intermediate and lower
parts grow progressively more concrete and more pronounced in color until, when the
body is reached, the pranas become gross and heavy and furnish the combined
swabhava of the imbodied animal monad. ...
[E]ven the loftiest activities of the human being, such as consciousness, intellection,
intuition, etc., are merely different ways of describing the swabhavas of the divine and
spiritual pranic forces pouring forth from the monads in the human constitution which
are on its higher planes. ... It is the highest which produce the lower; so that the vital
flows or fluids on the manifested planes, and therefore in and through the physical body,
are but the expression of the higher vitality manifesting itself on the lower and lowest
planes. (FSO 555-9)

The purpose of suffering

If we conceive that justice and harmony are inherent in the universal order and that
nature ever works to restore disturbed equilibrium, we must conclude that everyone,
barring none, is reaping the quality of experience that belongs to him. When we are
beset with trials beyond our control, perhaps our higher self is rejoicing at the
opportunity offered us to learn valued lessons, nurture compassion and, possibly, in
these particular circumstances to be of quiet help to those around us in greater need
than we. Have we not all discovered, usually after many years, that the harshest

passages of our life yielded lasting gifts? Blessings in disguise is the common phrase,
suggesting an intuitive recognition that pain and sorrow hold hidden beauties, not least
in our deepened love and understanding for those in travail.
Having suffered the illness and death of many close friends, I have thought often, If
only I had the power to heal; if only I could bring surcease of pain. As I have grown
older I have come to realize that this may not be the wisest and most compassionate
way to help. I have come to understand that the kindest and most effective way to
sustain another is to help him find the courage and the love and the confidence to meet
his karma creatively. Of course we should use the medical aids that are normally
available, but let us allow our friend the honor and the dignity of recognizing that he has
the capacity to handle his karma with understanding. Maybe his body will die earlier
than the norm, but in meeting the karma that is his, he is accepting consciously the
privilege of working through a heavy karmic experience for a beneficent purpose. There
is solace and strength for both the dying and the living in being able to take this
attitude. ...
How do we know what the soul must undergo to be truly free? How do we know that
the terrible suffering, which may in a sense be worse for the bystander than for the one
going through it, is not the very karma that the soul has been yearning for? But to shrug
off anothers pain is diabolic and leads to hardness of heart. Such an attitude is to miss
the whole purpose of life. We must relieve suffering as far as we can; in every possible
way we must share our sympathy and understanding not by lifting the burden from
anothers shoulders, but by helping him to meet and carry his lifes challenges with
greater confidence in himself and in the larger perspective.
When we reflect on the meaning of disabling affliction, be it physical, psychological,
or mental often calling for infinite resources of patience and love we are bound to
ask why? ... Millions of people today are carrying a burden of private sorrow and asking
themselves where is the justice and mercy in a universe supposedly administered by an
all-loving God? It is cold comfort indeed to anguished parents to be told it is Gods will,
the decree of Allah, or the working out of old karma. ...
Certainly no one can say categorically that a child born with a congenital
malformation is paying for some misdeed in a previous life or lives. It may well be the
case; but equally it may not be so at all. Is it not conceivable, for example, that a
returning entity for we are primarily spirit-souls, not bodies could be far enough
advanced interiorly to choose the karma of severe deprivation in order to gain a
profound empathy with all who suffer? Is it not also possible that a reincarnating ego, in
need of temporary respite from certain mental and emotional pressures, selects a
retarded vehicle for an incarnation? Again, it could be that cruelty or selfishness had
been so ingrained in the character that the surest means of removing the warp is to take
birth in an impaired body so that empathy and compassion might be burned deep into
the soul and the nature gentled.
Judge not that ye be not judged only one able to read the spiritual history of an
individual would be able to determine just what lines of karma had been traced in lives
long gone that culminated in the precise conditions which the reincarnating ego now
finds itself handling or not handling in this life. All of us have been weaving grandeur
and baseness into the tapestry of our soul; but when we intuit, as many do, that we are
linked with our divine parent and that whatever we experience of joy or pain is an
intrinsic part of our destiny that we have been building for cycles beyond number, we
know that there is a fitness and a beauty in even the most heartrending of
circumstances. ...
Even when someones life is heavy with trial, to feel that he or she has a very bad

karma this time round is to hold a totally mistaken view from the standpoint of the
human soul or reincarnating ego. Purucker said it well: we are our own karma,
meaning by this that everything that comes to us, in character or in circumstance, is an
outflowing of ourselves our past. If we or those we love have trying and painful
circumstances to go through, ill health, personal reverses, or the like, this is not bad
karma. Admittedly, it may be an extremely difficult karma to meet, but if in the long run it
furthers the progress of the soul, it must be counted beneficent.
This is one of the most helpful ideas because many today are feeling crushed under
the weight of lifes burdens. When we realize that we are our karma, then we know that
whatever is unrolling before us is really ourselves having the opportunity to learn and to
grow and to deepen our perceptions and our understanding. As our sympathies expand
beyond the periphery of our personal problems and we observe the humor and dignity
with which others, seemingly less favored than ourselves, face their life situation, we
may discover that those of us who have the most difficulty in handling our character
failings are the more disadvantaged. A bit of self-examination is therapeutic, reminding
us that we are all fellow climbers, and that those who appear to be making little
progress may well be clearing the way of obstacles for themselves and for others
behind them that otherwise might have proved insurmountable.
Of course, it is easy to philosophize when one has reasonably sound health and
comfortable circumstances. But what of the poverty-stricken, and those doomed to die
of disease or starvation? Shall we say it is their karma and they will have to work
through it, with better luck, hopefully, next life? Such an attitude would be reprehensible.
Obviously, it is their karma or they wouldnt have to meet those conditions; but how can
we isolate their karma from our own? We are one family, and all of us have had a share
in creating the present difficult circumstances. Besides, is it not also our karma to be
profoundly concerned, and if at all possible to help alleviate the awful misery that exists
in so many parts of our globe? There is some consolation in the fact that the world
conscience is awakening and becoming more sensitive and acute, so that an increasing
number of self-sacrificing and knowledgeable men and women are already dedicating
their lives to practical humanitarian service. (TLTL 64-70)

Magnetic healing and hypnotism

A person in health is charged with positive vitality prana, od, aura, electromagnetism, or whatever else you prefer to call it: one in ill-health is negatively charged:
the positive vitality, or health element, may be discharged by an effort of the healers will
into the receptive nervous system of the patient: they touch each other, the fluid passes,
equilibrium is restored in the sick mans system, the miracle of healing is wrought, and
the lame walk, the blind see, deaf hear, dumb speak, and humours of long standing
vanish in a moment! Now, if besides health, power of will, knowledge of science, and
benevolent compassion on the healers part, there be also faith, passivity, and the
requisite attractive polarity, on that of the patient, the effect is the more rapid and
amazing. Or, if faith be lacking and still there be the necessary polaric receptivity, the
cure is still possible. And again, if there be in the patient alone a faith supreme and
unshakable in the power of a healer, of a holy relic, of the touch of a shrine, of the
waters of a well, of a pilgrimage to a certain place and a bath in some sacred river, of
any given ceremonies, or repetition of charms or an amulet worn about the neck in
either of these or many more agencies that might be named, then the patient will cure

himself by the sole power of his predisposed faith. And this rallying power of Natures
forces goes in the medical books under the name of Vis Medicatrix Naturae the
Healing Power of Nature.
It is of supreme importance that the one who attempts to heal disease should have
an absolute and implicit faith (a) in his science; (b) in himself. To project from himself the
healing aura he must concentrate all his thought for the moment upon his patient, and
WILL with iron determination that the disease shall depart and a healthy nervous
circulation be re-established in the sufferers system. It matters nothing what may be his
religious belief, nor whether he invoke the name of Jesus, Rama, Mohammed, or
Buddha; he must believe in his own power and science, and the invocation of the name
of the founder of his particular sect only helps to give him the confidence requisite to
ensure success. Last year in Ceylon, Colonel Olcott healed more than fifty paralyptics,
in each case using the name of Lord Buddha. But if he had not had the knowledge he
has of mesmeric science, and full confidence in his psychic power and the revered Guru
whose pupil he is, he might have vainly spoken his simple religious formula to his
patients. He was treating Buddhists, and therefore the invocation of Sakya Munis name
was in their cases as necessary as was the use of the name of Jesus to Pre Gassner
and the other many healers of the Romish Church who have cured the sick from time to
time. And a further reason for his using it was that the cunning Jesuits of Colombo were
preparing to convince the simple-minded Singhalese that their new spring near Kelanie
had been endowed with exceptionally miraculous healing powers by the Virgin Mary.
Those who may, after reading our remarks, feel a call to heal the sick, should bear in
mind the fact that all the curative magnetism that is forced by their will into the bodies of
their patients, comes out of their own systems. What they have, they can give; no more.
And as the maintenance of ones own health is a prime duty, they should never attempt
healing unless they have a surplus of vitality to spare, over and above what may be
needed to carry themselves through their round of duties and keep their systems well
up to tone. Otherwise they would soon break down and become themselves invalids.
Only the other day a benevolent healer of London died from his imprudent waste of his
vital forces. For the same reason, healing should not be attempted to any extent after
one has passed middle life: the constitution has not then the same recuperative
capacity as in youth. (BCW 4:383-6)
If a person is a natural born magnetiser as Colonel Olcott was in a small way, or as
Mesmer in a fairly large way, then such a person can cure by magnetic or so-called
mesmeric passes by stroking the afflicted organ or part of the body, sometimes without
any motion, but an intense mental concentration to that end.
If the healer or practitioner is not such a born or innately endowed magnetiser, his
success is either nil or poor. The whole explanation lies in the successful conveying of
prana or vitality from his own healthy body to the diseased body or diseased organ or
part, which healthy vitality or life-force expels or changes the inharmonious vibrations
from the afflicted part, and restores harmony therein, thus bringing about health. Such
cures can be permanent; usually they are temporary ...
[I]f the magnetiser is physically healthy, mentally well-balanced, and most important
of all, morally and intellectually clean, there is no harm whatsoever in these healings by
mesmeric magnetism, but not by hypnotism ...; if the practitioner is unclean morally,
intellectually unsound, even in his view of right and wrong, or again if the practitioner
himself is not properly physically healthy, diseases can even be transplanted, or
transferred, in germ, and even death can be brought about, by evil magic thus worked,
which last case is plain murder, and very difficult to trace. But there is nothing wrong in
healing sick and ailing people, whether by regular surgical and medical practice, or by a

highminded, healthy, and compassionate vital healer, even if the latter acts in
ignorance of the philosophical rationale. This last case is not damming back karma,
because karma already is exhausting itself in the diseased person, and the healing is
merely helping nature to bring restoration of health, to re-establish normal conditions in
the sufferer.
But karma is dammed back, and therefore the healing of any kind becomes positively
pernicious and wrong, in cases where the healer attempts to act upon the will, the
conscience, or the moral integrity, of the sick person, the patient, the sufferer, by
hypnotizing the mind and will power and conscience of the sufferer into the belief that
sickness does not exist, or that the sufferer is a victim of fate, instead of being the
sufferer from his own evil past. ... If the mind, especially the will power, or moral
integrity, of the patient is touched by the practitioner, this at once becomes black magic,
tends to reproduce wrong ideas in the patient, thus damming back the disease,
although this practice likewise can temporarily heal because of the hypnotic condition of
the will power and mind induced in the patient under an illusory, quasi-philosophical,
wrong teaching. Thus in this last case karma working itself out is dammed at its source,
the disease is forced back into the constitution, the body may be benefitted; but the
disease lies latent, for ultimately all disease originates in wrong thoughts bringing about
wrong feelings and wrong actions ... But the merely vital magnetiser does not do this.
He treats the suffering body alone, as the ordinary physician and surgeon does, helps to
restore harmony in the pranic currents of the sufferers body, but does not touch the will
power or moral nature of the sufferer; and consequently his work is not evil I mean in
the case of an upright good man who practises or heals ...
And finally, the best way of all these drugless healing methods or processes,
commonly called vital healing or by some similar term, or healing by passes, etc., is
the case where the sufferer himself is brought into a state of mind of hope, selfconfidence, the higher kind of resignation bringing peace and inner quiet in its train, all
of which helps the body back to a condition of harmony, thus aiding the natural healing
processes in the sufferers body itself. This is why some kinds of faith-healing are the
best because they do not touch the will or the mind except to bring about inner peace,
resignation to the inevitable, and the instilling into the sufferers mind of a condition of
hope, of vital energy, and a happier outlook, all of which tends to help the sufferers
body. ...
The whole situation is extremely complicated. ... Even a black magician can heal a
body if it is to the black magicians profit to do so; but in this case the body is healed at
the expense of the soul, so to speak, and possibly even new diseases are planted in the
sufferers body in seed or in germ, because the mind and will are distorted, bringing
about mental currents from within the sufferer poisoning the sufferers own pranas.
Thus the secret lies, as you see, in arousing the sufferers own innate powers of
resistance, of vitality, etc., and thus making these dominant, thus making the body heal
itself; and not in overpowering the sufferers will, or imagination, or moral instincts,
resulting in making these recessive, numb, or asleep. The former is good and white, the
latter is bad and black. ...
Some healings are good, some healings are bad, some healers are good, some are
bad, some are frauds. (SOP 622-5)
Hypnotic practice is almost always bad ... because it weakens the will of the subject
instead of evoking the will from within outwards into action thus building up a structure
of inner life and power. ...
[I]n some local things, like stroking with the hand on an affected part of the body to
relieve pain such as a headache, this is really not so much hypnotic sleep in minor

degree as a kind of mesmerism or animal magnetization, soothing the nerves but not
weakening the will, the healthy body quieting, soothing the tangled and angry nerves of
the invalid. And this is not bad if no attempt is made ... to affect the will of the subject or
his body as a whole ... [I]n the first place it is not hypnotism purely speaking, as this
word is popularly understood, and in the second place it is purely local and the benefits
are derived from the clean, strong magnetism of the operator. [I]f the animal magnetism
is healthy and clean, probably no harm is done and the patient can receive temporary
relief, although it is not permanent because the cause is not eliminated. (SOP 652-3)
Psychologization and suggestion and hypnotism and any other of these efforts are
really mental-psychological drugs; they are not even palliatives; they are stupefactions.
Their use stupefies and deadens for a time; but nothing is permanently cured, nothing is
permanently healed; for the reason that moral disease, such as drunkenness, bestiality,
sensuality, drug-taking, whatever it may be all these things that it has been proposed
to hypnotize or psychologize people for or against ... originate and always will
originate, in weakness, in desires, in thoughts, in feelings, leading one and all to
corresponding acts. (SOP 412)
Autosuggestion ... is always right ... if it means merely suggesting to oneself night
and day and all the time pictures of spiritual and moral and intellectual strength, selfcontrol, and improvement things of beauty, of glory, of holiness, of purity, of charity, of
kindliness; in short, all the great and noble virtues. (SOP 406)

Homeopathy
Even Russia abolished the law forbidding the homeopathic physicians to prepare
their own medicines, so far back as in 1843. In nearly every large town, the world over,
there are homeopathic societies. In Europe alone in 1850 there were already over 3,000
practicing homeopathists, two-thirds of whom belonged to Germany, France and Great
Britain; and there are numerous dispensaries, hospitals and wealthy curative
establishments appropriated to this method of treatment in every large town ... At this
very day, a revolution is taking place in science, owing to the proofs given by the
famous Professor Jaeger of Stuttgart of the marvellous efficacy of the infinitesimal
homeopathic doses. Homeopathy is on the eve of being demonstrated as the most
potent of curative agents. ...
At the incipient stage of every useful innovation, its success only increases the
enmity of the opponents. In 1813, when after the withdrawal of the allied armies the
typhus patients became so numerous in Leipzig that it was found necessary to divide
them among the physicians of that city, of the 73 allotted to Dr. Hahnemann, the founder
of the homeopathic system of medicine, and by him treated on that method, all
recovered except one, a very old man; while the patients under the cure of the allopaths
died in the proportion of 8 men in 10. To show their appreciation of the services
rendered, the authorities, at the instigation of the apothecaries, who conspired to make
the former revive against Dr. Hahnemann an old law exiled the doctor ... [A]fter having
been the object of ceaseless attacks for over thirty years from those whose pecuniary
interests were opposed to the beneficent innovation as those of our modern allopaths
are opposed now to mesmerism in addition to homeopathy he lived to see Leipzig
atoning for its sins and repairing the injury done to his reputation by erecting a statue to

him in one of the city squares. (BCW 4:75-6)

If in each of our branches we were able to establish a homeopathic dispensary with
the addition of mesmeric healing, such as has already been done with great success in
Bombay, we might contribute towards putting the science of medicine in this country on
a sounder basis, and be the means of incalculable benefit to the people at large. (BCW
6:336)

Vaccination
[N]obody will contract any disease whatsoever unless the germs of that disease are
already in the system, their being there because of a proclivity towards that disease, this
proclivity itself being due to karmic causes. Thus inoculating an otherwise healthy man
of this type with the antitoxin-virus of some loathsome disease not only weakens the
body of this otherwise healthy man, but because of this weakness predisposes his
system towards reception of the latent disease, despite the efforts of the body to react
protectively against it; and, furthermore, because of weakening the body it predisposes
it likewise, on account of this ensuing weakness, to other possible invasions of still other
diseases. ...
The proper way ... is to take all natural, cleanly, sane, and normal preventive
measures, both in the individual and in the collective fields, especially sanitary and
hygienic measures, paying due and proper attention to exercise, diet, and personal
cleanliness of all kinds. Then, if one contracts a disease, it becomes a duty to try to
recover health in every cleanly and sane manner possible, and it is perfectly right so to
do. It is extremely doubtful in my opinion if it is either right or wise in any case
whatsoever to inoculate human beings with the disgusting virus drawn from the
diseased bodies of either man or beast for this purpose. I am convinced such
inoculation brings along with it ten devils worse than the disease itself. (SOP 550-1)
In regard to vaccines and serums it is claimed that by their use many diseases have
been virtually wiped out, or at least brought under control. However, statistics show that
new and strange diseases have appeared, and that these act virulently. Any method of
treatment which has to do with injecting into the blood stream the secretions coming
from some other diseased body is unwholesome: probably in the long run producing a
larger number of mysterious diseases than the cases which the practice might possibly
benefit. ...
The physicians of the distant future will heal in a very different way. They will
understand the virtues of simples and how certain juices of plants and mineral extracts
can be used; and these will be much less harmful when injected than are those extracts
taken from the bodies of unfortunate beasts. We hear a great deal about the successes
of this latter method, but very little about the failures. (FSO 659)
Karma ... will visit all those who develop the most awful results in the future,
generated at those public exhibitions [of mesmerism/hypnotism] for the amusement of
the profane. Let them only think of dangers bred, of new forms of diseases, mental and
physical, begotten by such insane handling of psychic will! This is as bad on the moral
plane as the artificial introduction of animal matter into the human blood, by the
infamous Brown-Sequard method, is on the physical. (BCW 12:226-7) [Brown-Squard
advocated the hypodermic injection of a fluid prepared from the testicles of sheep as a

means of prolonging human life. It was known derisively as the Brown-Squard elixir.]
We theosophists call this elixir blasphemy against nature and bestiality, if not black
magic. (BCW 11:459fn)

Diet
What ... is the true theosophic diet? It is that which best agrees with you, taken in
moderation, neither too much nor too little. If your constitution and temperament will
permit vegetarianism, then that will give less heat to the blood; and, if it is practiced from
the sincere conviction that it is not true brotherhood to destroy living creatures so highly
organized as animals, then so much the better. But if you refrain from meat in order to
develop your psychic powers and senses, and continue the same sort of thoughts you
have always had, neither cultivating nor practicing the highest altruism, the
vegetarianism is in vain.
The inner nature has a diet out of our thoughts and motives. If those are low or gross
or selfish, it is equivalent to feeding that nature upon gross food. True theosophic diet is
therefore not of either meat or wine; it is unselfish thoughts and deeds, untiring devotion
to the welfare of the gredat orphan Humanity, absolute abnegation of self, unutterable
aspiration to the Divine ... (Echoes 1:94)
[W]icked or gross thoughts are more hurtful than the eating of a ton of flesh. (Echoes
1:446)
Alcohol is pernicious at all times and in all circumstances and never should be used
except in certain very rare cases of illness, and then only in strict moderation. ... Even
the fumes of alcohol are bad ... [T]o take alcohol even in moderate doses has a
deleterious effect on certain centers of the nervous system. It dulls and stupefies these
centers and the faculties that function through them which it is the aim of all esoteric
training to awaken. (EST 1:104-5fn)
Wine and spirits are supposed to contain and preserve the bad magnetism of all the
men who helped in their fabrication; the meat of each animal, to preserve the psychic
characteristics of its kind. (BCW 9:160)
The use of wine, spirits, liquors of any kind, or any narcotic or intoxicating drug, is
strictly prohibited [in the Esoteric Section]. ... All such substances have a directly
pernicious action upon the brain, and especially upon the third eye, or pineal gland ...
They prevent absolutely the development of the third eye, called in the East the Eye of
Siva.
The moderate use of tobacco is not prohibited, for it is not an intoxicant; but its
abuse, like that of everything else even pure water or bread is prejudicial.
As to diet: The eating of meat is not prohibited, but if the student can maintain health
on vegetables or fish, such diet is recommended. The eating of meat strengthens the
passional nature, and the desire to acquire possessions, and therefore increases the
difficulty of the struggle with the lower nature. (BCW 12:496)

Psychophysical practices

Today in the West there are many practitioners of yoga whose goal is to restore
physical health and alleviate, where possible, some of the unusually stressful conditions
people are experiencing in these crucial times. We would be well advised, however, to
stop short before undertaking sophisticated breathing and other techniques that could, if
unwisely pursued, interfere with the proper functioning of the pranas. Prana is a
Sanskrit term for the five or seven life-breaths that circulate through and maintain the
body in health.
The Chinese for centuries have taught that sound physical and psychic health
depends upon the balance of yin and yang. If one, however unknowingly, upsets the
natural rhythmic flow of the chi their term for prana through the twelve primary
meridians or energy channels of the body, imbalance of the yin/yang may result. In
other words, when there is interference with the natural lines of force, a misalignment of
pranic balance may occur, often with serious consequences. Rather than concentrate
on the psychic and physical aspects of the constitution, far better to focus attention on
the spiritual and higher mental and moral faculties. When inner balance is achieved and
normal health measures are observed, the physical will in time follow suit (unless, as
may happen, stronger karmic impediments must be worked through).
Much emphasis also is placed on finding ones inner center, and rightly so. This
centering of oneself is a private individual process of self-naughting, self-stripping, as
the mystics call it, emptying the nature of externals and becoming one with our essential
self. It may take a lifetime, or several lifetimes, to achieve in fullness no outer
circumstances will be as effective as losing the self that we may find the self.
Since the 1960s groups have sprung up all over the world sponsoring selftranscendence courses that offer various methods of achieving alternative states of
consciousness: how to rouse the kundalini or serpent fire seated near the base of the
spine; how to activate the chakras, how to meditate by focusing on a triangle, candle
flame, crystal, lighted bulb, or by repetition of a mantra. These and other psychophysical
practices are carried out in the hope of attaining nirvanic consciousness. I would not
advocate any of these methods, not because they are essentially faulty, but because
they can prove deleterious on account of our ingrained selfish proclivities.
Today the hunger for new and better ways to live is very strong. People long to find
meaning in a seemingly meaningless succession of crises and are experimenting with
alternative routes, anything that is different from what they grew up with. This is part of
the spiritual and psychic awakening going on worldwide, but to adopt without careful
screening any method of self-development, especially those that promise instant
results, is a high-risk venture. Where there is instability in the character (and who of us
is perfectly pure in heart and in motive?), the invasion of our psyche by baneful
influences from the lowest levels of the astral light could be detrimental both to physical
and mental health. Besides, concentration of mental and psychic energy on the
transient elements of the nature has the drawback of diverting attention away from
essentials to externals. This cannot have the beneficial effect that the altruistic and
nonself-centered approach of raja yoga has on the aspirant. All of this is old wisdom
which many today are beginning to intuit and apply to their lives.
In the Bhagavad-Gita there is a phrase: atmanam atmana pasya see the self by
means of the self. This may be interpreted in two ways: see the limited self, the
personality, by means of the glowing self or atman within; or, see the atman within, the
light of the true self, by means of the awakening personal self. The ideal is to have an
unimpeded flow of energy, of consciousness, between our atmic source and the
personality. When we seek first to offer ourselves to the noblest within, we quicken the
fires of our highest chakra, the atmic center, which in turn will radiate its influence on all

the other chakras.

Viewing the seven principles of the human constitution as a pillar of light, each
principle being sevenfold, supposing we try to reach to atman, we may fairly soon reach
the subatman of our psychic center. But if we have concentrated too pointedly on that
level there is every possibility with certain natures, not only of becoming deflected from
our goal but, unhappily, of getting our principles out of alignment.
If without strain or any sense of pride we offer ourself deeply and sincerely in the
service of our inmost self, then the light from the highest atman the atmic subprinciple
of our atman will illumine our whole being from above downwards. We will remain in
alignment because our psychic and intellectual and other centers will be irradiated with
the supreme atmic light, and there will be a transforming influence on our lives.
The popularization of meditation practices in the West has had certain positive
results and helped many to handle their deep-seated anxieties. Stilling the mind and
calming the emotions for a few moments every day is therapeutic: by deliberately
dropping our worries, we become free inwardly and can refocus ourselves for our lifes
task. On the other hand, high-powered promotion of meditation may be self-defeating.
For example, one is put off at the start when money is charged for a mantra that
purports to raise one to cosmic awareness. No one needs a mantra in order to lift his
consciousness unto the hills of the spirit and receive the benediction of momentary
communion with the highest within.
There are ways and ways to meditate, and ways and ways to attain a higher
awareness. When we become inwardly still, our inner voice may be heard in those quiet
yet clear intimations that move the soul. Every night upon retiring we can open the way
for the intuition by stripping the nature of all resentments and irritations, ridding the heart
of all arrogant and unkind thoughts and feelings about others. If we have slipped a little
during the day, let us acknowledge it with the will to do better. We then enter into
harmony with our real self, and the consciousness is freed to go where it will. This is a
mystery which we do not really understand, but the wonder is that in the morning we
wake up refreshed in spirit, with a new and warmer feeling for others, and often with
answers to perplexing questions.
To follow this simple practice is restorative on all planes, and we will be adding to
rather than detracting from the harmony of our surroundings. Whatever course of selfbetterment one pursues, sacrifice is required: we cannot hope to gain access to the
higher realms of being if we have not earned the right of entry. Only those who come
clean of anger, resentment, and selfish desire are fit recipients of the keys to natures
wisdom. To expect otherwise is to run the risk of opening the door to elemental forces of
a low kind that may be difficult to eject from the consciousness. Prayer, aspiration,
meditation are effective in that they set up a vibratory response throughout all nature;
the more ardent the aspirant, the greater power do they have to activate noble (or
ignoble) energies both within the individual and in the auric envelope surrounding earth.
...
The finest type of meditation is a turning of the soul toward the light within in
aspiration to be of greater service, without exaggerated longing for some special
revelation. Any method of meditation that helps us to lessen our self-centeredness is
beneficial; if it increases egocentricity, it is harmful. ...
The most fruitful meditation, therefore, is an absorption of thought and aspiration in
the noblest ideal we can envision. We will not need to worry about specific postures,
techniques, or gurus; there will be a natural inflow of light into the nature, for our inner
master, our real guru, is our Self. (TLTL 106-12)

Healing the soul

Every sage and seer has taught the same thing: cleanse the temple of the holy spirit,
drive out the demons of the lower nature. ...
Inharmonious thoughts not only poison the air, but they also poison your very
bloodstream, poison your body; and disease is the resultant. What are inharmonious
thoughts? They are selfish thoughts, evil thoughts, mean thoughts, thoughts out of tune;
and they arise in a heart which lacks love. Perfect love in the human heart tends to build
up a strong body, psychologically clean, because the inside of you is psychologically
and morally clean, harmonious in its workings, for in this case, the mind, the soul, the
spirit the true man are harmonious in their workings. ...
The greatest preventive of disease is a selfless soul working through a selfless mind
a self-forgetful heart. Nothing brings disease upon a human being so quickly as
selfishness with its concomitant temptations, and the succumbing to those
temptations. ...
Do not be the slave of the vagrant mental tramps that run through your mind. ...
When the thoughts chase through the mind as unruly steeds do not struggle and waste
your force. Picture to yourself the things opposite to those you hate. Picture the things
that you really inwardly love, really love in your heart, and which you know are helpful.
... The secret is inner visualization ...
If you find yourself gloomy, if you are ashamed of thoughts that are in your mind, do
not struggle with them, do not fight them, forget them. ... If you are obsessed by ...
uglinesses, picture to yourself scenes of beauty. ... See things of a high and noble
character and visualize them forcefully. Visualize to yourself a success in fine things.
Visualize things of beauty, of inward splendor. (GPE 42-6)
Visualize! You touch a mystic law when you create in imagination the picture of
mighty things, for you open a door to new powers within yourself. Something in the way
of potent energies is awakened and called into life and strength both without you and
within. If you aspire, visualize your aspirations. Make a mind-picture of your spiritual
ideals, a picture of the spiritual life as you know it to be, and carry that picture with you
day by day. Cherish it as a companion. ... Before you know it the ideal has become the
real and you have taken your place as a creator, truly, in the great, divine scheme of
life. (TPM 46-7)
[B]eing whole and in health ... mean the same thing; the two words, health and
wholeness, come from the same root. ...
When a man is whole, he is well, he is healed; and this more than anything else is
the work of the Theosophical Society, spiritually, morally, and intellectually speaking: to
make men whole, to make every one of the seven principles in the constitution of the
normal human being active, so that there shall be a divine fire running through the man,
through the spiritual and intellectual and psychical and astral and physical and best of
all for us humans, the moral, the child of the spiritual. Then we are whole, we are in
health, for our whole being is in harmony.
Thus, then, the work of the Theosophical Society is so to change the hearts and
minds of men that their lives shall be changed, and therefore the lives of the peoples of
the earth. What is this but healing at its roots instead of healing the symptoms? The
god-wisdom goes to the very root of the disease, and cuts it; and the successful
theosophist is not he who can preach the most and say the most in the most fascinating
way, but he who lives his theosophy. Theosophist is who Theosophy does. (WoS

240)
[T]he term healer was commonly used among the ancients of one who brought the
supreme blessing of peace of mind and harmony of soul to his fellow human beings.
When these exist in the life, and throughout the lifetime, they bring in their train physical
well-being. Therefore, follow the example of the Buddha, and of Jesus called the Christ.
Be kindly, be charitable in thought, judge not your fellows, learn to forgive, learn to love,
for love is harmony. ... We should send out currents of good-will, of kindly feeling, of
helpfulness, and if we keep these up through a number of years, if we watch carefully
we will see that our character grows more kindly, richer, mellower, more lovable; and our
own health will be much better. (Dia 2:13-4)

Compiled by David Pratt. May 2006. Last revised: Jun 2016.

Karma
Sevenfold constitution of nature and man
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