HEALING AND THE LIFE FORCE

　I would like you to know of this great power which is in your midst, power which enables you not only to heal the sick but to touch the souls of those who are ready to be awakened to an understanding of the great eternal truths. This is the whole reason for healing. If you put right what is wrong with the physical body and you do not touch the spirit, then the healing has failed. But if you touch the spirit then the healing has succeeded, for you have helped to fan the divine spark which can now grow in illumination and strength.

　This always is the purpose behind the work of healing. Healers were born into this world in order to help the plan of the Great Spirit, to bring realisation of eternal truths and eternal realities to so many of the children who do not know who they are, why they are born into your world, and what it is they must do before they leave it. That is the greatest work of all. If you succeed in awakening one soul, then your life on earth has not been in vainーone soul, and that is enough to justify your existence.

　I rejoice that the work is growing and that more and more are turning their thoughts towards the power of the spirit. When those we love meet with troubles we always come to their aid as best we can. When it is sickness, then a greater force is applied to help. But you must remember that every effect has a cause. Whatever help is given from our world cannot be interposed between cause and effect. We can help, but we cannot eradicate the effect that is due to a definite cause. You are souls expressing yourselves through bodies. There are laws which control the body as there are laws which control the soul. If, as a result of the operation of the law, something happens to the body, that is cause and effect. By spirit power we can help, but we cannot eradicate the cause that is due to an operation of the law.

　We cannot work miracles. We cannot alter the natural sequence. The Great Spirit is always at work, never absent from the universe which divine power has created. Nothing happens without the knowledge of the natural laws which

encompass all things. The sick man who is healed, when all other avenues are closed, is the best living testimony to spirit power. He recognises that he has been brought face to face with a power greater than anything he has en-countered on earth.

　If his soul is touched, which it should be, and I believe there is no successful healing until that happens, then he has come into his own and he has begun to fulfil the purpose of his being. There are many people, both outside your move-ment and inside it, who do not understand the underlying fundamental purpose. The varying phenomena are impor-tant in the part they play, but they are only toys, designed to direct the attention. You cannot play with toys forever. You must grow from childhood to manhood. And when you grow you should not require the toys that are given to amuse children and hold their interest.

　There are many forms of healing, starting from the purely magnetic, which can be physical, to the psychic, which can be non-spiritual, to the highest, which is spiritual, when, if the instrument can so attune himself and the patient is ready, healing can be achieved without any touch of any kind. You can, by the sheer magnetism of a healthy body, transfer that magnetic power and not touch our side of life. You can reach the halfway house, by which most of your absent healing is done. Then, as I have said, there is the final attain-ment, in which a healing can be performed without any touch at all, by the attunement between the instrument and the forces operating so that healing is instantaneous.

　The divine power is within every soul. You can tap that power because you have access to the armoury of the spirit within yourself, for the Great Spirit is within you. Just as the physical body, obeying the natural law, will always attempt to heal itself, so you, as a spiritual being, if you follow the natural law, could heal yourself.

　Health is wholeness of body, mind and spirit. It is the harmony of the three essential ingredients of man while he is on earth. If any ingredient is not functioning properly, then there is a lack of alignment and you have sickness, disease. The way to achieve the harmony is for each aspect of man's expression on earth to fulfil its allotted part. The power of the spirit performs its beneficent task and none can gainsay it. Those who seek to deny it, or to thwart it, always have to face the consequences.

　You are witnessing the same power in miniature that is responsible for the whole of creation, for the energy residing in the ocean, in the pull of gravitation, in the movements of the planets, in the multitudinous manifestations of growth in human, animal, vegetable and in every kind of life. Healing is part of the life force. That which gave life to the body is the spirit. Matter does not possess life of itself. Matter has no consciousness apart from spirit which endows it with life. The principle that enables you to live is the same principle which flows through you in the healing to bring those won-drous results to the afflicted, the stricken and the diseased.

　Thus, in a way, you share with the Great Spirit the respon-sibility of utilising the infinite powers of creation itself. Any who seek to tamper with this must regret it. In times of old, the great sin was against the holy ghost, the holy spirit, the power of the spirit. As you open out to receive its fullest influx, so you automatically receive the benediction that flows with it and which emanates primarily from the author of all being.

　There is a great work to be done in a world that is sick, physically, mentally and spiritually. A part of our task and your task is to drive out that sickness of body, mind and spirit, to bring an understanding of love's purpose to those who are wandering in the mists of confusion, groping to find their way. That is the supreme purpose of all medium-ship. To give a message to one whose heart is heavy with sorrow, whose eyes are filled with tears of sadness, that is good and helpful and important. To give healing to one who is racked with pain, tortured by illness, or afflicted by disease, that is merciful and very necessary.

　These are the precursors; they are the means, not the end. The thing is to awaken and touch the dormant soul, so that it comes into its own. If the soul is awakened and begins to understand the purpose of its incarnation on earth, then you have fulfilled your part in the vast scheme of regenerating your world, which is the whole reason for our collabora-tion. That is the key that unlocks the door. It is more impor-tant that a soul shall come into its own than a body should be healed, or that a mourner shall be comforted, because that is truly fulfilling the divine purpose. You have not succeeded until that is done.

　If you bend your energies to that task and realise that behind all aspects of mediumship and communication that is the important part, then you are fulfilling your own destiny, for that is the reason you were born into this world. Spirit power is infinite; it has no limitation, except that imposed by the instrument through which it comes. With-out the instruments the power cannot be expressed. They have to broaden and deepen their capacity and concurrently develop their spiritual natures, which determines the amount of power coming through them. Then there are tremendous forces which can be unleashed through them. There are no limits. The spirit potential has no bounds. Always from our world elevated beings are at work experimenting with the instruments at their command, striving to obtain the greatest combinations of force, to produce better and quicker results. We have not reached finality in our world. We can only do the best with the material at our disposal.

　The spread of knowledge of healing takes a long, long time. The whole method by which the power of the spirit works in your world is not to ensure any speedy or mass-conversion, but to allow this divine power to work its will on one person, one child, one being at a time, to achieve results and establish, as it were, a spiritual bridgehead that will be consolidated and made permanent. It must be that the power of the spirit, in all its diverse manifestations, not only in healing, but in other forms, will prove itself, its efficacy, as souls are ready to be helped, either with healing, with teaching, with demonstration. But the crucial point is they must be ready to be helped.

　You break a law and you disturb the alignment of matter, mind and spirit. Spirit power in healing will work to re-stimulate the divine energy within the individual so that true alignment is once more achieved. Gradually, as more and more of these spiritual triumphs are achieved and know-ledge of spiritual triumphs is broadcast and knowledge of spiritual realities is understood, there will be a twofold result; there will be less disease and it will be easier fospirit power to fulfil its purpose.

　It is not part of the plan of the Great Spirit that attempts at achieving health should be made by the sacrifice of any living creature. There are alternative, natural methods by which all diseases can be arrested, helped and even cured. As long as man ignores natural methods of healing and persists in using animals, who were not placed on earth for that purpose, he will fail to promote health and well-being. True health is harmony, the correct alignment of mind, spirit and body, each functioning efficiently as three parts one whole. You do not achieve this by wreaking cruelty on

animals, by taking substances from them which were never intended for human use. You will achieve health when man learns to live in harmony with the natural laws of the universe. Then he will die physically, not from disease, but from old age, because his body has served its purpose and he is ripe spiritually for the next phase of his existence.

　If the body suffers, it is because neither the mind nor the spirit has found itself. When the spirit is right and the mind is right, the body is right. All that happens in the body reflects what happens to the mind and spirit. They call it psychosomatic now, but labels do not matter, it is the eternal truths that count. If the soul is sick, the body is sick; if the soul is healthy, the body must be healthy. Healing bodies, that is not important; touching souls, that is im-portant.

　If you make the body well and the soul is not touched, you have failed, we have failed and the individual has lost his way. He has had his chance but has not taken it, for the object of his sickness is to reveal to him the purpose of life and what he must do to fulfil his being. So touching souls is all that matters. Truth is truth, it cannot be altered. This is the truth. There is the Great Spirit within every child, and the Great Spirit desires to find expression because only in doing so can you derive from life the richness which should be yours. It is as simple as that. If you don't

express the spirit you are not fulfilling yourself.

　This is the reason for suffering, this is the reason for sorrow, this is why it is only in the darkness that find light. What emerges is the beginning of what should be a tremendous spiritual adventure. And that is what the Great Spirit intended earthly life should be, a tremendous, con-tinuous spiritual adventure in which all would derive the fullness of its wisdom and grandeur, its beauty and lustre, its dignity, its nobility, its immeasurable wealth. This is what earthly life should be, but it is not. Materialism pre-vails, selfishness dominates, greed is at the helm, not service, not co-operation, not the desire to uplift, not the wish to help.  

　You can rejoice that the opportunities of service are pre-sented on a road that opens out wider and wider. Yes, it is good to free the body from pain, to soothe the ailing mind, to touch the soul, and help the prisoner to be free. That is what matters, for once the soul finds itself and reforges that link with the divine power, then the individual begins to live. If the healer removes the blockage, the divine power can flow through the channel. The blockages are ignorance, wrong living, wrong thinking, pride, vanity, jealousy and frustration. Man must learn to live according to the natural law, in harmony with the Great Spirit, with himself and with all others who share the world with him,

　Suffering is not the whole of the story, only part of it. You cannot have a world without suffering. It is a condition of evolution that there must be suffering and difficulty. You are not in a perfect world. You do not have perfect physical bodies; you have incipient perfection within the soul. The whole purpose of life is for this incipient perfection slowly to grow and to evolve closer to the source which gave it birth. Within that gigantic, cosmic scheme there is an interplay of forces which are all part of the evolutionary scheme. Life is not static. Life is a constant movement in which there is development all the time in ever-increasing circles or spirals. It is only when you realise the purpose of life that you have an inkling of how the whole scheme works.

　None receives healing until the soul is ready to receive it. That is why even with the best healers there are failures. The failure is not a criticism of the healing. The soul of the patient is not ready to receive it. All is governed by natural law. There are no tricks; no healer has the power to alter, vary, change, or deflect the working of the law.

　Strive to achieve the greatest possible attainment with the power of the spirit; that is all I can urge you to do. The more you can blend your souls with the souls of those who use you, the greater will be the results that you achieve. The work will go on. People are always difficult. It is not a perfect world. If you were perfect you would not be here, so you must be tolerant. If you think you are in advance, it is your responsibility to be more tolerant.

　Never be weary in serving others. Service is the coin of the spirit; service is the entire currency of the Great Spirit. You have the strength you require for all your tasks, but choose that which must be done today and forget that which can be left for tomorrow. If the strength is limited,

eke it out. Better to do that than to dissipate it and be com-pelled to rest.

　It is only a body, just a machine which has its limitations. Any machine which has tasks imposed upon it beyond its limitations must break down. There is no machine in the whole of your world which is subject to so much work and with so little rest as your physical bodies. These are the precious temples of the spirit. They must be watched and guarded and husbanded.

　I know that all who are engaged in service, no matter what the field, get weary and tired and depressed sometimes. It seems as if the battle cannot go on. But it can and it will, for spiritual truths and spiritual realities will prevail in the end. The greed, the selfishness, the cruelty, the harshness, the severities, the wickedness, all these must and will be extirpated, so that there can be peace on earth, not only between man and man, but between man and the rest of creation which moves forward together in concert and in unity.

　It is not only man that is born to be free. The whole of creation was born to be free, none of it to be enslaved or tortured or exploited by man who was given the responsi-bility of dominion over them. And always the price must be paid, the law of cause and effect must come into opera-tion. Man cannot betray the divinity which gave him birth and allows him to have any being at all.

　All life is inseparable. There are no deep divisions, though there may be material differences. Life is one. Spirit is one, and spirit is the God which is within all forms of being. I only wish that the veil could be lifted from your eyes and you could see the radiant beings who co-operate with you. Every difficulty is a challenge which you must meet and overcome, thus proving that the power of the spirit is stronger than the power of matter.