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Esoteric Healing - Chapter II - Causes Emanating from Group Life
3. Racial and National Diseases It must be apparent to you by now that I am principally concerned with indicating factors which are the result of the past history of the race rather than with giving you a specific and detailed account of the diseases which are allied [250] to the various nations. This, in fact, it would not be possible to do, owing to the overlapping and paralleling which goes on in every department of natural life. Above everything else, I seek to make clear what must be done along the line of preventive healing and what should be accomplished in the difficult task of offsetting conditions already prevalent on earth as the result of past misuse of the natural powers. There must therefore be brought about a healing of those conditions which are present upon our planet on a large scale, and consequently my emphasis will not be upon the specific and the individual. I am laying a foundation also for a discussion of our next theme - the relation of the Law of Karma to disease and death and to humanity as a whole. In the consideration of racial and national diseases, I do not intend to point out that tuberculosis is distinctively a disease of the middle classes in every country, that diabetes is a major trouble among the rice-eating peoples of the world, and that cancer is rampant in Great Britain, whilst heart disease is a prime cause of death in the United States. Such generalizations are both as true and as false as statistics usually are, and nothing is gained by laboring these points. These difficulties will all be offset in due time through the growth of understanding, by the intuitive diagnosis of disease, and by the magnificent work of scientific and academic medicine, plus a truer comprehension of right living conditions. I prefer rather to give still wider generalizations which will indicate causes and will not emphasize the consequences of these causes. I seek, therefore, to point out that: The soil of the planet itself is a major cause of disease and of contamination. For untold aeons, the bodies of men and of animals have been laid away in the ground; that soil is consequently impregnated with the germs and [251] the results of disease and this in a far subtler form than is surmised. The germs of ancient known and unknown diseases are to be found in the layers of the soil and the subsoil; these can still produce virulent trouble if presented with proper conditions. Let me state that Nature never intended that bodies would be buried in the ground. The animals die and their bodies return to the dust, but return purified by the rays of the sun and by the breezes which blow and disperse. The sun can cause death as well as life, and the most virulent germs and bacteria cannot retain their potency if submitted to the dry heat of the sun's rays. Moisture and darkness foster disease as it emanates from and is nourished by bodies from whence the life aspect has been drawn. When, in all countries throughout the world, the rule is to submit dead forms to the "ordeal by fire," and when this has become a universal and persistent habit, we shall then see a great diminution of disease and a much healthier world. The psychological condition of a race or of a nation, as we have seen, produces a tendency to disease and to a lowered resistance to the causes of disease; it can engender an ability to absorb evil contamination with facility. On this I need not further enlarge. Living conditions in many lands also foster disease and ill health. Dark and crowded tenements, underground homes, undernourishment, wrong food, evil habits of life and various occupational diseases - all contribute their quota to the general ill health of humanity. These conditions are universally recognized and much has been done to offset them, but much remains to be done. One of the good effects of the world war will be to force the needed changes, the required rebuilding, and the scientific nourishment of the youth of the race. National physical [252] ills vary according to the predisposing occupations of the people; the diseases of an agricultural race will differ widely from those of a highly industrialized race; the physical predispositions of a sailor vary greatly from those of an office worker in one of our large cities. These items of information are again but the platitudes of the social worker in the many cities and lands. Certain diseases appear to be purely local; others seem universal in their effects; certain diseases are gradually dying out, and new diseases are appearing; certain forms of disease are forever with us; others seem to be cyclic in their appearance; some diseases are endemic whilst others are epidemic. How can this vast array of disease and forms of bodily ills come to be? How is it that some races are prone to succumb to one form of physical ill whilst other races are resistant to it? Climatic conditions produce certain typical diseases which remain strictly local and are not found elsewhere in the world. Cancer, tuberculosis, syphilis, spinal meningitis, pneumonia and heart disease, as well as scrofula (using that term in its old sense to indicate certain forms of skin disease), arc rampant throughout the world, taking their toll of millions; even though these diseases can be traced to certain great racial periods, they are now general in their effect. The clue to this can be found if students will remember that though the Atlantean racial period lies thousands of years away, a great majority of people today are basically Atlantean in their consciousness, and are therefore prone to the diseases of that civilization. If a full review of the health of the world were to be undertaken and presented to the thinking public - taken in normal conditions and not in war time - the question arises whether there are one hundred thousand perfectly healthy [253] people to be found out of the billions now inhabiting the earth? I think not. If no actual and active disease is present, nevertheless the condition of the teeth, the hearing and the sight leave frequently much to be desired; inherited tendencies and active predispositions cause grave concern, and to all this must be added psychological difficulty, mental diseases and definite brain trouble. All this presents an appalling picture. Against the ills which it discloses, medicine is today battling; scientists are searching for alleviations and cures and for sound and lasting methods of eradication, research students are investigating the latent germs, and health experts are seeking new ways to meet the onslaught of disease. Sanitation, compulsory inoculation, frequent inspection, pure food laws, legal requirements and better housing conditions are all brought into this battle by the farseeing humanitarian. Yet still disease is rampant; more hospitals are required and the death rate soars. To these practical agencies, Mental Science, New Thought, Unity and Christian Science offer their aid, and seek quite honestly to bring the power of the mind to bear upon the problem. At the present stage, these agencies and groups largely are in the hands of fanatics and devoted, unintelligent people; they refuse all compromise and seem unable to recognize that the knowledge accumulated by medicine and by those who work scientifically with the human body is as God-given as their, as yet, unproved ideal. Later, the truths for which these groups stand will be added to the work of the psychologist and the physician; when this has been done, we shall see a great improvement. When the work of the doctor and the surgeon in relation to the physical body is recognized as essential and good, when the analysis and conclusions of the psychologist supplement their work, and when the power of right thought comes likewise as an [254] aid, then and only then, shall we enter upon a new era of well-being.
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