CHAPTER XVI

THE HEALING MIRACLES OF THE CHRIST

For nearly two thousand years the miracles of the Christ have been the source of great theological controversies; and among materialists, the cause of the most outspoken incredulity. Evolution furnishes us with an argument in favor of their truth. If the unfolding of spirit and the refining of matter are facts in consciousness and matter, in other words, if evolution be true, then, as Professor Huxley has said, there must be those as far beyond us as we are beyond the black beetle. If, owing to His advanced place in evolution, to His Supreme Self-Sacrifice, to His boundless Compassion, the Christ, called in India the Lord Maitreya, if He possessed in His Own right and as an outcome of ages of evolution, the full knowledge of and the power to use the seven forces in Nature, then may we use evolution to explain His dealings with the sick bodies. His work was not supernatural, but it was superphysical as well as physical; it was not limited to purely sense knowledge, but it dealt with the finer bodies equally. He had absolute knowledge of the person to be healed, whether it was a physical ailment, or an immoral life, or a life-long infirmity the cause of which had been set in motion in past lives. Such cures were not miracles, not unique facts without law or reason to explain them, but resulted from the possession of occult knowledge, such as we must all have in time as a result of evolution.

Three facts force themselves upon us as we study the healings recorded of the Christ.

  • First: That He had absolute knowledge of the patient's inner life, and control of the power to cure him.

  • Second: That every cure was instantaneous.

  • Third: That faith on the part of the patient or those bringing him was required.

    They brought to the Christ a man sick of the palsy, lying on a bed. Seeing their faith, He said unto the man, Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee. And the Christ, knowing the thoughts of some in the multitude, answered them by saying: Why think ye evil in your hearts? But that ye may know that the Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins (He said to the sick man), Arise, take up thy bed and go unto thine house. And he arose, and departed to his house.
    (St. Matt., IX, 2-7.)

    Here is exemplified, first, the faith of those who brought the man; second, instantaneous cure; third, full knowledge of the man's past life; that it had been sinful was implied in his own words.

    Again: There came a leper and worshipped Him, saying, Lord, if Thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean. And Christ put forth His hand and touched him, saying: I will; be thou clean. Go thy way, shew thyself to the priest and offer the gift that Moses commanded as a testimony.
    (Ibid., VIII., 3-4.)
    Here the faith of the man fairly overflowed, so great and strong was it. But also the Christ reminded him of the Law laid down by the father of his race, that to perfect and complete his own part in the cure he must bring a gift-offering to the priest of the Temple.

    And there came to Him a centurion saying: Lord, I am not worthy that Thou shouldst come under my roof, but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed. And when the Christ heard this, He said to His followers: Verily, I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel. And He turned to the centurion and said Go thy way; and as thou has believed, so be it done unto thee. And the servant was healed in the self-same hour.
    (St. Matt., VIII., 6-13.)

    Let it be noted that the Christ did not need the faith as an offering to Himself; it was an element required as a part of the asking. The one who asks for help for himself or for another must have faith. Why was faith so important? Why not some other quality? Is faith the innermost link with the healing force, with the healer, with the Masters of Wisdom, with God Himself? What is faith?

    And behold there was a man with his hand withered, and He said unto him: Stretch forth thine hand. The action of obediently stretching forth implied faith. He conformed and immediately it was restored whole as the other.
    (Ibid., XII, 13.)

    And there came to Him a certain man, kneeling down to Him, saying, Lord, help my son; he is a lunatic, extremely destructive, and I brought him to thy disciples and they could not cure him. And the Christ turned to his disciples and answered, O faithless, how long shall I suffer you? Bring him to Me. And He said to the father: If thou canst believe, all things are possible. And the father replied, Lord, I believe. Help Thou my unbelief. And He rebuked the devil in the child, and it departed out of him, and the child was cured from that hour. And the disciples came to Him privately and asked: Why could we not cast him out? And the Christ replied: Because of your unbelief. I say unto you, if ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, nothing shall be impossible unto you.
    (St. Matt., XVII., 14-20.)

    What, then, is this all important faith factor in the one who comes, or in those who bring the patient for this deeply occult and instantaneous healing?

    St. Paul says of faith that it "is the substance of thing hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." "The substance of things hoped for." From this we may infer that whatever the thing is that is hoped for, it has a form of material substance through which it expresses itself as hope. But, in what substance can a "hope" take form? Again, we are thrown back upon the halo type of matter, the inexhaustible ether in man's three bodies, in which can be, is built - as photography is now beginning to demonstrate - our hopes, our fears, our joyful aspirations and sorrowful glooms. Each of these various types of thoughts and emotions, according to occult science, builds itself a form of its own vibratory kind, of the appropriate elemental essence in the ethers, and these thought-forms can be seen, are seen sometimes, even by untrained students.

    Paracelsus speaks of faith yet more plainly. "If I know that divine Wisdom can accomplish a certain thing through me, I have true faith; if I merely believe that it might be possible, such a belief is no knowledge, and confers no faith. Faith renders the spirit strong; doubt is the destroyer. Faith is the inner consciousness of power."

    Here we can see that doubt may be spoken of as the negative pole of faith. Doubt does not concentrate energy into building a health image; it scatters, it causes chaos in the "substance."

    Cardinal Newman says of faith, that "while it is illuminative, it is not operative; it bestows light - it does not impart power." Perhaps the power to make it operative it the aroused alertness of the man himself which, if such alertness is lying dormant, furnishes no connection between faith and its opposite, and though existent, faith will then remain inoperative.

    From these testimonies we may gather that faith belongs to the realm of the oversoul; that it is of the nature of spirit, that it is not an objective sense process, but is deeply subjective, being of the substance of the essence of the spiritual nature. It does not pertain to doctrines, but is a superphysical element in consciousness, which requires that an energized etheric thought-form of health shall be supplied by the patient or by those bringing him, together with a full conviction that the cure is accomplished as soon as the Word is spoken.

    Faith would seem to be as yet latent, potential in the majority of humanity. It would appear to have its basis in that stage of evolution when doubt of the existence of superphysical activities has to a large degree been overcome, and knowledge has taken its place.

    We will attempt to add another definition to those already offered and say Faith is the Word Symbol for the instantaneous wholeness of realization of an absolute fact, of an unshakeable certainty. In other words, Faith as exemplified in healing, means that the whole inner and outer being, the mind, the emotions, the heart, is filled with an immovable conviction of a Superhuman power that will, and can, and is, accomplishing the end it seeks, and the whole nature is swathed in the peace of it. Those who have this faith can become true healers.

    And blind Bartimeus sat by the highway begging and when he heard that it was the Christ who was coming, he began to cry out: Son of David, have mercy upon me. The people tried to quiet him, but all the more he cried: Have mercy upon me. And the Christ stood still and commanded the man to be brought and said: What wilt thou that I should do unto thee? And the blind man said: Lord, that I receive my sight. And the Christ said: Go thy way. Thy faith has made thee whole; and immediately he received his sight, and followed him.
    (St. Mark, X 46-52.)

    It is not difficult to imagine that for years the desire for sight, and a thought image of himself as possessing it, had been the continual secret cry of the blind man's soul, and hearing of the healing work of the Christ, he knew that he could be cured if he could only reach Him. He needed but to be told of His near approach, to have his faith brought into active use; to have a wholeness of realization instantaneously established through the "I am" consciousness and its bodies, instantly polarizing the atomic etheric centers of the sightless eyes, and making it possible by the aid of the power of the Christ, for the fullness of the Health Life to flow in through them, vitalizing them with perfect health. Can we, with the explanation that have preceded this, get a glimpse of some of the processes of instantaneous cure?

    Etheric vibrations are now scientifically established as being beyond the normal physical. Recognizing all the other factors as having their part in the cure, we may reasonably assume that these super-etheric vibrations affect and control for the time with their own tremendously higher activity, all the matter within their own radius; and under the impetus of the word of the Christ the would crowd into the physical and etheric sight centers all the electronic matter needed, and would throw out, shake out with equal instantaneousness all effete, inert, obstructive matter. Because of this higher vibratory action temporarily aroused, and responded to in the physical atoms and molecules, there would be seen from our dense physical viewpoint, an instantaneous cure, a so-called miracle. But seen from the etheric viewpoint, such instantaneous would be its normal mode of motion.

    To show that this is not an improbable view, we will apply it to Sir J. J. Thompson's statement regarding positive electricity,
    (Harpers Magazine, September, 1914.)
    in which, speaking of the positive-ray method of detecting particles called corpuscles or electrons, he says: that the time taken by a particle to pass from discharge tube and be registered on the photographic plate is far less than the millionth part of an second. He further states that the positive rays are deflected by magnetic forces. Now the positive rays exists everywhere in the ether, and under the law of attraction will deflect toward the strongest magnet. If that magnet should be a human faith or an angel helper, then instantaneous polarization would take place and the Health Life would flow in, instantly. The more advanced the stage of evolution of the patient, the more potent the power of the helper, as illustrated by the great healing work of the Christ.

    Then if the Healing Intelligence were working in the etheric, the root matter of the bodies, restoring or replacing diseased bone, muscle, nerve, they could by multiplication of electronic discharges at the point of disease, throw out, push out the old matter and replace it with the new, and suitably selected health-charged material; the cure to ordinary sight would seem instantaneous and miraculous and yet would but be the natural action of definitely health-charged electrons in etheric matter. When we look out over the world and see its immensity, and its helplessness under its weight of pain, then we realize that only a great leader, a World Teacher, a Divine Healer, such as the Christ, can Himself administer relief to all and teach us true methods. As Mrs. Annie Besant has said, we need a leader, one greater than ourselves who, seeing these mighty problems of world pain that to us now are insoluble, will point us to the road along which we may walk to their solution.

    And when He, the Christ, shall come again, as He has promised, He will teach us, if we are worthy, the higher mysteries of healing.

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