Leprosy, the causation of which was the unbridled misuse of the creative life forces in ancient Lemuria and Atlantis, is one of the most terrible of all diseases. "An intimate tie binds the generator to that which is generated. Past generations are utilized in the construction of the future body; they are woven into the body as a tendency to some ailment, affecting either disposition or the life forces. This poison of past lives must somewhere be changed into healthfulness. This struggle comes through infections. Epidemics of races are materialized evils of the past. The Plague of Black Death takes its heaviest toll in countries where the practice of black magic flourished in incantations and passion charms." (Paracelsus.)

   There is perhaps no more interesting phase of rebirth than that which reveals the past causation of disease. All disease is the result of some previously existing cause. Again quoting the celebrated Swiss physician, Paracelsus, who has given so much light on the problem of disease in relation to reincarnation, we read: "No physician should presume to know the hour of recovery because it is not given man to judge the offense of another and the inner temple containing mysteries in which no uninitiated stranger is permitted to spy. If the trial is over, God will send the healer; if the patient recovers it is a sign the help was sent by God. If no recovery takes place, God did not send the physician."

   Leprosy and cancer are "fire diseases" and have their matrix in the desire body. Both maladies are the consequence of an ungoverned desire nature in either present or past incarnations. Cancer takes the heavy toll in modern life that leprosy did in the past, and for like reasons.

   Both the mind and the body of man are composed of rotating and revolving atoms. The stronger control the weaker. Mind is superior to matter, such is nature's law.

   During health, the atoms of the body rotate positively from left to right. In a diseased matrix, as of cancer or leprosy for instance, they rotate negatively from right to left. In the latter case the rate of rotation is slower and the atoms also differ in color from those in a state of health. Negative mind atoms breed destruction, poverty, disease, anarchy and death. Positive mind atoms manifest peace, health, happiness, harmony and plenty. All things either evolve or "de-volve." Death is a dissolution of the body atoms. Life is evolution, and the goal of its interrelated cycles is spiritualized man.

   During the Old Testament Dispensation leprosy was referred to as the "finger of God." People in general knew of its ancient origin and had become familiar with its terrible and inexorable expiation. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth — the function you misuse becomes your enemy. Thus they understood the Jehovistic law which regulated man's relation to his own body.

   The New Dispensation under Christ has brought grace to supersede Law, Love to overcome and replace fear. "And being moved with compassion, He stretched forth His hand and touched him.... saith unto him, I will, be thou made clean." And the leper, banned and isolated because of what mortal concept termed incurable and untouchable, was enabled through his faith, humility, and devotion to the Master to sever the bonds of the past and to come forth clean.

   That this cleansing is symbolic of an exalted spiritual preparation is evidenced by the fact that in the Gospel of Matthew it occurs shortly after the giving of the Sermon on the Mount, and so belongs to the high phases of esoteric teaching. Mark includes it among the first works succeeding the Rite of the Baptism, and Luke places it immediately following the profoundly esoteric work of the Draught of the Fishes.

   Not all the lepers who approached the great Healer were made whole again, as we shall see in the case of the Ten Lepers recorded by Luke. We can only understand this fact in the light of past causation. Some were not yet ready to break their bonds. No one can perform this office for us. Others can only point the way, we must do the work individually. It was not difficult for the Master to read the aura of a penitent before Him and so to know when he was ready for his freedom from just debts.

   In this instance, the Master gave a demonstration of the fact familiar to all esotericists: that man decrees his own sickness and his own time of healing. Ten lepers approached the Master and asked His mercy. His love and compassionate tenderness enveloped them all equally, but only one returned healed.

   Paracelsus attests to the universality of the Law of Healing when he declares, "No disease is incurable save when death is present. In the wisdom of the future all disease will have an end. Regenerative processes in illness are due to the Eternal in man."

   The healing of the Ten Lepers is recorded only in the Gospel of Luke. Ten (10) is the number of equilibrium and Luke's Gospel is an important treatise on this subject for the esotericist.

   There has been much controversy among biblical scholars as to the extent of the belief in demoniac possession current in Palestine during the time of Christ. The esotericist understands, however, and not without historical foundation, that demonology was a familiar subject to the Jews of that day, as was also the knowledge of its sinister and far-reaching effects. Members of the Sanhedrin were required to understand the workings of magic so as to be able to deal with questions concerning it. Demoniac possession was included in this category and was also well known as a cause of disease. Rabbis and priests were instructed in the arts of exorcism. So much was this the case that the word "Jew" was almost synonymous with "magician" throughout the Roman Empire, and this helps us to understand the charges of sorcery so often brought against the early Christian communities.

   Obsession was so prevalent and its increase so marked in the entire ancient world (not in Palestine only) that prominent among the seven great reasons for the coming of Christ at this particular time was this one, to break the spell between man and evil discarnates and elemental spirits by cleansing and purifying the currents of the desire realm, and thus make humanity amenable to a new and higher evolutionary impulse. The casting out of demons consequently occupies a conspicuous place in the healing ministry of the Messiah and its importance is stressed as an essential of His disciples' high training.

   The writers of the Gospels set obsession apart as an entirely different malady from any other described. Obsessions are still a prevailing malady among primitive peoples and are recognized often as such by modern missionaries, many of whom have discovered the power of exorcism in the use of the name of Christ Jesus. Miss Mildred Cable, a missionary in China, has made many interesting observations relative to obsession, as the following quotation gives evidence:

   Our first woman patient in Hwochou Opium Refuge became interested in the Gospel, and on her return home destroyed her images, reserving however the beautifully carved idol shrines which she placed in her son's room. About six months later we were sent for by special messenger to see the son's wife who had occupied this room. When we arrived the girl was chanting the weird minor note of the possessed, the voice, as in every case I have seen, clearly distinguishing it from madness. This can perhaps best be described as a voice distinct from the personality of the one under possession. It seems as though the demon used the organs of speech of the victim for the conveyance of its own voice. She refused to wear clothes or to take food, and by her violence terrorized the community. Immediately upon our entering the room, she ceased her chanting and slowly pointing her finger at us, remained in this posture for some time. As we knelt upon the kang to pray, she trembled and said, "The room is full of givei," (a term used by the common people to indicate discarnates who receive from every family certain propitiatory offerings). "As soon as one goes another comes," she said. We endeavored to calm her and made her join us in repeating, "Lord Jesus, save me." After considerable effort she succeeded in pronouncing the words and when she had done so, we commanded the demon to leave her, whereupon her body trembled and she sneezed some fifty or sixty times, then suddenly came to herself, asked for her clothes and food and seeming perfectly well resumed her work. So persistently did she reiterate the statement that the demons were using the idol shrine as a refuge, that during the proceedings just mentioned, her parents willingly handed over to the Christians present these valuable carvings, and joined with them in their destruction. From this time onward she was perfectly well, a normal and healthy young woman.

   Among the individual healings by Christ Jesus recorded in the New Testament seven are of demoniacs: five men, one boy, and one girl. In each of these cases the Master used different and specific methods in obtaining cures which are well worth the careful study of the spiritual healer. As mentioned before, Christ was engaged not only in healing the sick but was at the same time instructing His disciples in the performance of the same works which He did, and when He sent them forth two by two into wider fields of service He gave them power over unclean spirits. (Mark 6:7.)

   The first act of exorcism is recorded by both Mark and Luke and was among the earliest events in the healing ministry. This occurred on Sunday in Capernaum of Galilee, in the synagogue. Capernaum has been called the city of Jesus because He adopted it as His home when He was driven from Nazareth. It was also the home town of four of His closest Disciples and the scene of many of His most far-reaching works.

   The words in which the Master addressed the demoniac shows that He spoke not to the man himself but to some other being who abode temporarily within the man.

   It is indeed noteworthy that all the obsessing entities knew the Christ, recognized His power over them, and felt that they must acknowledge themselves subject to Him at all times. This entity calls out: "Let us alone; what have we to do with thee, Thou Jesus of Nazareth?" But in response to the firm command of Christ, "Hold thy peace and come out of him," the entity obeyed His words and according to Luke, the physician, left the man unhurt. Whereupon the people who saw this, talked together of a new authority, and the law of healing introduced by the Christ, for, said they, "He commandeth even the unclean spirits and they obey Him."

   In this case, the obsessing spirit seems to have been a human intelligence, still clinging to the earth and the pleasures of the senses, which it could enjoy only by usurping the sense organs of an embodied ego. It could therefore use the human larynx to produce speech, and used in ways recognizably human, though malevolent, the body which it had taken.

 — Corinne Heline