Healing

Mental healing

The mental healing was first promoted by the "Christian Science". Christian Science is a system of religious thought and practice developed by Mary Baker Eddy based on her study of the Bible. The major teachings of Christian Science include the belief that spiritual reality is the only reality and all else is illusion or "error" and, therefore sickness and disease are not real but the result of fear, ignorance, or sin. They believe that the recognition and understanding of the spiritual nature of reality allows for healing through prayer or introspection.

and later by other movements such as "Mental Science" and "Metaphysical Thought". The theory behind this technique is that illnesses comes merely as the result of wrong thinking and the entertaining of negative thoughts. On this, Blavatsky wrote:

"Is it true that all our diseases are the result of wrong beliefs? The child, who has no belief, no knowledge or conception, true or false, on the subject of disease, catches scarlet fever through the transference of germs not through that of thought. But “Christian Science” goes further than that. At a lecture, in London, it was distinctly asserted that every physical disease arises from, and is the direct effect of, a mental disease or vice: e.g., “Bright’s disease of the kidneys is always produced in persons who are untruthful, and who practise deception.” Query, Would not, in this case, the whole black fraternity of Loyola, every diplomat, advocate and lawyer, as the majority of tradesmen and merchants, be incurably afflicted with this terrible evil? Shall we be next told that cancer on the tongue or in the throat is produced by those who backbite and slander their fellow men? It would be well-deserved Karma, were it so. Unfortunately, some recent cases of this dreadful disease, carrying off two of the best, most noble-hearted and truthful men living, would give a glaring denial to such an assertion."

Anyway, HPB goes on to say:

"Disease, mental characteristics and shortcomings, are always effects produced by causes: the natural effect of Karma, the unerring Law of Retribution"

Blavatsky is not denying that "mental healing" may have an effect. She warns about two things: 1) That being excessively concerned with the body (or with any aspect of the personality for that matter) generates a karmic problem in the future. And 2) That by mental healing we are not solving the problem but delaying its natural karmic effect, or simply transferring it to other aspects of our nature:

[T]hrough too much attention to her body she [a "Christian Scientist"] is reaping a temporary enjoyment now, for which, in subsequent lives, she will have to pay, [and] again, by using her mind so strangely to cure her body she may have removed her infirmities from the plane of matter to that of the mind . . . [W]hat the extreme practice of mental curing does is to stave off for a time an amount of Karma which will, later on, reach us. We prefer to let it work out naturally through the material part of us and to expel it quickly if we may with even mineral remedies. But for all that we have no quarrel with mental healing at all, but leave each one to his or her own judgment. It is not mental Science itself—thousands of years old—that we doubt, but the Scientists, whether Mental or Christian.

One rule the Christian Scientists of the XIXth century had was that they could not charge for their services, otherwise (they said) their power would become demonic instead of Christian. Of course, our culture is too advanced today to believe such nonsense. But HPB was saying the same thing. When we use any kind of psychic forces for money, we start attracting the wrong kind of elementals:

They deal with these forces for pay, and that is enough to call to them all the wickedness of time.

One of their main techniques was to deny any "negative thought" and to work with affirmations. HPB said:

[S]ins, wickedness, diseases, etc., are not denied by Jesus, nor are their opposites, virtue, goodness and health, anywhere affirmed. Otherwise, where would be the raison d’être for his alleged coming to save the world from the original sin? . . . By denying disease and evil [the "Christian Scientist"] is simply flying into the face of fact and encouraging the unwary mystic to ignore instead of killing his sinful nature.

In a jokingly way Mme. Blavatsky wrote that if this view were correct, it would bring some blessings. One of them being that non-Christian countries would not see themselves invaded by missionaries trying to convert them:

Missionaries, in fact, would become useless—and this would become blessing number two. For henceforth they would have but to meet in small groups and send currents of Will beyond the “black waters” to obtain all they are striving for. Let them deny that the heathens are not Christians, and affirm that they are baptized, even without contact. Thus the whole world would be saved, and private capital likewise.

[F]irst a word of warning. As the preparation for the new cycle proceeds, as the forerunners of the new subrace make their appearance on the American continent, the latent and occult powers in man are beginning to germinate and grow. Hence the rapid growth of such movements as Christian Science, Mind Cure, Metaphysical Healing, Spiritual Healing, and so forth. All these movements represent nothing but different phases of the exercise of these growing powers—as yet not understood and therefore but too often ignorantly misused. Understand once for all that there is nothing “spiritual” or “divine” in any of these manifestations. The cures effected by them are due simply to the unconscious exercise of occult power on the lower planes of nature—usually of prana or life-currents. The conflicting theories of all these schools are based on misunderstood and misapplied metaphysics, often on grotesquely absurd logical fallacies. . . . Already these so-called sciences of “Healing” are being used to gain a livelihood. Soon some sharp person will find out that by the same process the minds of others can be influenced in many directions, and the selfish motive of personal gain and money-getting having been once allowed to creep in, the one-time “healer” may be insensibly led on to use his power to acquire wealth or some other object of his desire. This is one of the dangers of the new cycle, aggravated enormously by the pressure of competition and the struggle for existence.. . . What I said last year remains true today, that is, that the Ethics of Theosophy are more important than any divulgement of psychic laws and facts. The latter relate wholly to the material and evanescent part of the septenary man, but the Ethics sink into and take hold of the real man—the reincarnating Ego. THIRD LETTER OF H. P. BLAVATSKY TO THE AMERICAN CONVENTION

Online resources

Articles

• Another View of Metaphysical Healing by Ursula N. Gestefeld (reply to W. Q. Judge's article Of "Metaphysical Healing")
• Affirmations and Denials by William Q. Judge (follow up to W. Q. Judge's article Of "Metaphysical Healing")
• Of "Metaphysical Healing" by William Q. Judge