This is the final presentation in the series on the Etheric Envelope. The conclusions that have been drawn about this envelope are influenced by the work of several researchers at the beginning of the 20th Century. This includes the usual suspects such as Leadbeater and Besant, but also several dedicated researchers, who were excited by the prospect that there were subtler bodies surrounding the human frame and that these could be investigated by clairvoyant as well as scientific methods.
What was generally concluded by researchers, when it came to understanding the workings of the etheric envelope or double, as it was often referred to, is that this envelope had a major impact on physical well-being. It was also discovered that this envelope was sandwiched between the monad’s physical envelope and its emotional body.
As mentioned, several methods of conducting such research were open to investigators. First, they used direct clairvoyant observation at different levels. Depending on which chakra was employed, vision was obtained, through the navel into the Emotional World, the brow chakra for the Mental World and through the eyes, to study the etheric environment surrounding an object, be it organic or inorganic.
Both mesmerism and hypnotism might also, with adequate safeguards, be employed to make available latent etheric faculties. The use of photography may in the future become an important medium of study, the salts used in the photographic plate being sensitive to wavelengths and degrees of light beyond the reach of the normal eye. A further method of research, using ultraviolet light, also offers great promise. Studies into the effects of extruding ectoplasm, though interesting in themselves, have the potential to be highly injurious to the medium and other sitters in a séance, who provided this materialised energy. The whole process was concluded, by investigators at the time, to be creepy. It seems fairly certain, however, that the highest spiritual teachers of the present day do not look with favour on the séance-room. Yet it may be argued that in other ages the use of vestal virgins, soothsayers, “prophets” and other mediums, received the sanction and approval of high occult authorities. Dogmatic conclusions should not be drawn, but I feel that it is safe to say that the methods of investigation into etheric phenomena would not chime with current sensitivities. However, we owe a debt of gratitude to these fearless investigators, especially the mediums, who gave their time and energy to bring about a greater understanding of such phenomena.
The possibility of utilising knowledge of etheric phenomena for purposes of healing would appear to be almost limitless. For many cases of disease, physical, emotional and mental, the employment of vital or magnetic healing and also mesmerism and hypnotism, would seem to be in line with the general progress of thought in this direction. In particular, the use of mesmerism to produce anaesthesia for surgical or other purposes, in place of ether, gas, or chloroform, would appear to possess many benefits and few risks. However, this would need further investigation using current technologies and where are we going to find a scientist that are prepared to stick their heads above the parapet and risk their reputations, for what we would think would yield significant benefits to Humanity? I know of dentists and surgeons who use hypnosis to carry out procedures. Mesmerism would be the next logical extension.
There has been a tradition in “faith” healing that stretches back to the dawn of the human species. In this series of presentations, we can begin to fathom a mechanism by which such healing may be occurring. At the moment, we use a vast array of drugs to treat medical conditions. While this has undoubtedly benefited humanity, it has come at a cost. The principal reason for this is that allopathic medicine regards the physical organism as a biochemical soup. Its chosen remedy to improve the “flavour” of that soup is to add various “herbs” and “spices”. However, soups don’t make themselves. There is a cook. That cook is your monad that operates through a series of four envelopes, starting with the lower causal, through the mental, emotional and finally to the etheric envelope. The soup in the pot needs to be stirred and it is the etheric envelope that is the spoon doing the stirring. To cook the ingredients in the pot you need energy. We have discussed that there are three sources of this energy, Fohat, Prana and Kundalini. Keeping with our analogy, think of this energy as electric, gas and a wood-burning stove. So, you need sources of energy and you need a way of moving that energy into the pot. This is the role of the etheric envelope.
One branch of treatment has received many endorsements, yet is regarded with extreme scepticism by science and that is homoeopathy. How can you dilute an active ingredient out of existence and yet still retain its effect in water or an alcoholic medium, in the case of Bach remedies? Understand the mode of operation of etheric energy and suddenly what seemed illogical, becomes worthy of greater investigation.
A recognition of the fact that the vitality of the body is derived, not from food, but direct from the atmosphere, may well lead to a radical change in the dietetic treatment of sick people and also to a much greater use of fasting as a curative remedy. Those who are familiar with the fasting literature will no doubt be aware that several writers on this interesting subject have already deduced, from actual observation, that the connection between the assimilation of food and the acquirement of vital energy is very far from being simple or direct.
It is now generally recognised that the use of electricity for curative purposes has not fulfilled all that was at first hoped for. Electro-shock treatment was a barbaric practice. It was used on my mother when she had a nervous breakdown. All it did for her was blast open her navel chakra and etheric vision and what she saw was very unsavoury indeed. She had the presence of mind not to report what she saw to the doctors, so she was discharged; it was deemed that the electro-convulsive therapy had done its job. If they only knew the truth. It may be that a deeper knowledge of etheric phenomena will be of assistance in devising better methods of utilising electricity for curative purposes. The association of electricity with etheric matter, of which the Etheric Double is composed, is a phenomenon, which will hold great cures in the future.
When acknowledged and better understood, the etheric envelope, with its life-giving principles, will become the major focus of further investigations into human health. The body is regarded as a secondary principle. Students of esoterics, however, should remember the warning that Humanity will not be permitted to release the almost incalculable forces latent in atomic matter until it is assured that such forces will be used beneficently, and not for destruction, as has unfortunately happened in the case of so many discoveries in the past. Having said that, something did go wrong in the 1940s, when due to intense efforts by scientists, Devas of the 5th Ray allowed the knowledge of how to split the atom to be revealed. We think we found this knowledge. No, it was gifted to us, as all knowledge is. However, this class of deva has been banned from interacting with us for the foreseeable future and the so-called discoveries we witness today, are the residual threads left on the mental and causal planes, which scientists are still tapping into. We got atomic energy 40 years too early and what resulted was not pretty.
It is inevitable that the discovery of the etheric grades of matter will open up new vistas in chemistry and physics and may even be beneficial in the production of food substances of all kinds, electrical conductors or insulators, materials for clothing and many other substances used in daily life. At the moment, hydrocarbons are the standard currency of our modern existence. I wonder what will be possible when we synthesise materials, starting from an etheric perspective.
Finally, both on its intrinsic account and also as a steppingstone to the knowledge of even higher things, a recognition by scientists of the existence of the etheric body and a study of its constitution and behaviour may prove a firm foundation on which may be raised a vast superstructure of knowledge of ultra-physical things. To paraphrase the Idyll of the White Lotus, by Mabel Collins (1884), that which is to come is grander, more majestically mysterious, than the past. By slow and imperceptible progress, the teachers of humanity drink their lives from purer sources and take their message more directly from the soul of existence. Life has in it, more than the imagination of humanity can conceive. The real blossom of life grows above the stature of humanity and its bulb drinks deep from the river of life. In the heart of that flower, humanity will read the secrets of the controlling forces of the physical plane and will see, written within it, the science of mystic strength. Humanity will learn how to expound spiritual truths and to enter into the life of its highest self, and Humanity can learn also how to hold within itself the glory of that higher self and yet retain life upon this planet so long as it shall last if need be; to retain life in the vigour of personhood, till our entire work is completed and we have been taught to all who look for the light in these three truths:-
1. The soul of Humanity is immortal and its future is the future of a thing whose growth and splendour have no limit.
2. The principle, which gives life is in us and about us, is undying and eternally beneficent, it is not heard or seen or smelt, but is perceived by those of us who desire perception.
3. Each person is their absolute lawgiver, the dispenser of glory or gloom to themselves; the decreer of their life, their reward, their punishment.
These truths, which are as great as life itself, are as simple as the simplest mind of Humanity. Let the food of knowledge be given to all those who are hungry for it.