Alice Bailey & Djwhal Khul - Esoteric Healing - II - Racial and National
Diseases







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Esoteric Healing - Chapter II - Causes Emanating from Group Life





3. Racial and National DiseasesIt 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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