The Edinburgh Lectures on Mental Science

By Thomas Troward, Late Divisional Judge, Punjab, 1904

XI. HEALING - 1

The subject of healing has been elaborately treated by many writers and
fully deserves all the attention that has been given to it, but the object
of these lectures is rather to ground the student in those general
principles on which all conscious use of the creative power of thought is
based, than to lay down formal rules for specific applications of it. I
will therefore examine the broad principles which appear to be common to
the various methods of mental healing which are in use, each of which
derives its efficacy, not from the peculiarity of the method, but from it
being such a method as allows the higher laws of Nature to come into play.
Now the principle universally laid down by all mental healers, in whatever
various terms they may explain it, is that the basis of all healing is a
change in belief. The sequence from which this results is as follows:–the
subjective mind is the creative faculty within us, and creates whatever the
objective mind impresses upon it; the objective mind, or intellect,
impresses its thought upon it; the thought is the expression of the belief;
hence whatever the subjective mind creates is the reproduction externally
of our beliefs. Accordingly our whole object is to change our beliefs, and
we cannot do this without some solid ground of conviction of the falsity of
our old beliefs and of the truth of our new ones, and this ground we find
in that law of causation which I have endeavoured to explain. The wrong
belief which externalizes as sickness is the belief that some secondary
cause, which is really only a condition, is a primary cause. The knowledge
of the law shows that there is only one primary cause, and this is the
factor which in our own individuality we call subjective or sub-conscious
mind. For this reason I have insisted on the difference between placing an
idea in the sub-conscious mind, that is, on the plane of the absolute and
without reference to time and space, and placing the same idea in the
conscious intellectual mind which only perceives things as related to time
and space. Now the only conception you can have of yourself in the
absolute, or unconditioned, is as purely living Spirit, not hampered by
conditions of any sort, and therefore not subject to illness; and when this
idea is firmly impressed on the sub-conscious mind, it will externalize it.
The reason why this process is not always successful at the first attempt
is that all our life we have been holding the false belief in sickness as a
substantial entity in itself and thus being a primary cause, instead of
being merely a negative condition resulting from the obsence of a
primary cause; and a belief which has become ingrained from childhood
cannot be eradicated at a moment’s notice. We often find, therefore, that
for some time after a treatment there is an improvement in the patient’s
health, and then the old symptoms return. This is because the new belief in
his own creative faculty has not yet had time to penetrate down to the
innermost depths of the subconscious mind, but has only partially entered
it. Each succeeding treatment strengthens the sub-conscious mind in its
hold of the new belief until at last a permanent cure is effected. This is
the method of self-treatment based on the patient’s own knowledge of the
law of his being.

But “there is not in all men this knowledge,” or at any rate not such a
full recognition of it as will enable them to give successful treatment to
themselves, and in these cases the intervention of the healer becomes
necessary. The only difference between the healer and the patient is that
the healer has learnt how to control the less self-conscious modes of the
spirit by the more self-conscious mode, while the patient has not yet
attained to this knowledge; and what the healer does is to substitute his
own objective or conscious mentality, which is will joined to intellect,
for that of the patient, and in this way to find entrance to his
sub-conscious mind and impress upon it the suggestion of perfect health.

The question then arises, how can the healer substitute his own conscious
mind for that of the patient? and the answer shows the practical
application of those very abstract principles which I have laid down in the
earlier sections. Our ordinary conception of ourselves is that of an
individual personality which ends where another personality begins, in
other words that the two personalities are entirely separate. This is an
error. There is no such hard and fast line of demarcation between
personalities, and the boundaries between one and another can be increased
or reduced in rigidity according to will, in fact they may be temporarily
removed so completely that, for the time being, the two personalities
become merged into one. Now the action which takes place between healer and
patient depends on this principle. The patient is asked by the healer to
put himself in a receptive mental attitude, which means that he is to
exercise his volition for the purpose of removing the barrier of his own
objective personality and thus affording entrance to the mental power of
the healer. On his side also the healer does the same thing, only with this
difference, that while the patient withdraws the barrier on his side with
the intention of admitting a flowing-in, the healer does so with the
intention of allowing a flowing-out: and thus by the joint action of the
two minds the barriers of both personalities are removed and the direction
of the flow of volition is determined, that is to say, it flows from the
healer as actively willing to give, towards the patient as passively
willing to receive, according to the universal law of Nature that the flow
must always be from the plenum to the vacuum. This mutual removal of
the external mental barrier between healer and patient is what is termed
establishing a rapport between them, and here we find one most valuable
practical application of the principle laid down earlier in this book, that
pure spirit is present in its entirety at every point simultaneously. It is
for this reason that as soon as the healer realizes that the barriers of
external personality between himself and his patient have been removed, he
can then speak to the sub-conscious mind of the patient as though it were
his own, for both being pure spirit the thought of their identity makes
them identical, and both are concentrated into a single entity at a single
point upon which the conscious mind of the healer can be brought to bear,
according to the universal principle of the control of the subjective mind
by the objective mind through suggestion. It is for this reason I have
insisted on the distinction between pure spirit, or spirit conceived of
apart from extension in any matrix and the conception of it as so extended.
If we concentrate our mind upon the diseased condition of the patient we
are thinking of him as a separate personality, and are not fixing our mind
upon that conception of him as pure spirit which will afford us effectual
entry to his springs of being. We must therefore withdraw our thought from
the contemplation of symptoms, and indeed from his corporeal personality
altogether, and must think of him as a purely spiritual individuality, and
as such entirely free from subjection to any conditions, and consequently
as voluntarily externalizing the conditions most expressive of the vitality
and intelligence which pure spirit is. Thinking of him thus, we then make
mental affirmation that he shall build up outwardly the correspondence of
that perfect vitality which he knows himself to be inwardly; and this
suggestion being impressed by the healer’s conscious thought, while the
patient’s conscious thought is at the same time impressing the fact that he
is receiving the active thought of the healer, the result is that the
patient’s sub-conscious mind becomes thoroughly imbued with the recognition
of its own life-giving power, and according to the recognized law of
subjective mentality proceeds to work out this suggestion into external
manifestation, and thus health is substituted for sickness.

It must be understood that the purpose of the process here described is to
strengthen the subject’s individuality, not to dominate it. To use it for
domination is inversion, bringing its appropriate penalty to the
operator.