In considering the Causes of Disease, I find it necessary to speak a word in connection with conditions - external and internal. It will be apparent to the casual thinker that many diseases and many causes of death are due to environing conditions for which he is in no way responsible. These range all the way from purely external occurrences to hereditary predispositions. They might be listed as follows:

1. Accidents, which may be due to personal negligence, group happenings, the carelessness of other people, and the results of fighting, as in labor strikes or war. They can also be brought about by attacks from the animal or the snake world, accidental poisonings and many other causes.
2. Infections coming to a man from outside and not as the result of his own peculiar blood condition. Such infections are the various so-called infectious and contagious diseases, and prevalent epidemics. These may come to a man in the line of duty, through his daily contacts, or through a widespread condition of disease in his environment.
3. Diseases due to malnutrition, particularly when found in the young. This state of undernourishment predisposes the body to disease, lowers the resistance and the vitality, and offsets the "fighting powers" of the man, leading to premature death.
4. Heredity. There are, as you well know, certain forms of hereditary weaknesses, which either predispose a person to certain illnesses and consequent death, or produce in him those conditions which lead to a steady weakening [19] of his hold on life; there are also those tendencies which constitute a form of dangerous appetite, which lead to undesirable habits, a letting down of the morale, and are dangerous to the will of the person, rendering him futile to fight these predispositions. He succumbs to them and pays the price of such habits, which is disease and death.

These four types of disease and causes of death account for much that we see happening around us in people's lives, but they are not to be classed definitely under any of the psychological causes of disease, and will only be considered, and that very briefly, under the section dealing with group life and its predisposing causes of disease. Infectious diseases are there dealt with, but such situations as arise out of an automobile or railroad accident, for instance, are not to be considered as coming under the heading of causes producing disease. That the work of the healer may be involved in these cases is quite true, but the work to be done is somewhat different to that accomplished when dealing with those diseases which have their roots in some subtle body or other, or in the results of group disease, etc. The ills growing out of malnutrition and the wrong feeding of our modern life and civilization will not here be considered. For these no child is individually responsible. I am concerned with the diseases arising in wrong internal conditions.

The responsibility of a child for his living conditions is practically nil, unless you admit karma as a predisposing factor, and its power to produce those readjustments which emerge out of the past and affect the present. I shall deal with this more fully under our third point, dealing with our karmic liabilities. I would only suggest here that the whole subject of disease could be treated from the angle of karma and be definite and conclusive in its value [20] had there been right teaching on this abstruse subject from the time that it was given out in the West. But the truth as it has come to us from the East has been as much distorted by the Eastern theologian as the doctrines of the At-one-ment and of the Virgin Birth have been misinterpreted and taught by the Western theologian. The real truth bears little resemblance to our modern formulations. I am, therefore, seriously handicapped when dealing with the subject of disease from the angle of karma. It is difficult for me to convey to you anything of the truth, as it really exists, owing to the preconceived ideas as to the ancient Law of Cause and Effect which are necessarily in your mind. When I say to you that the doctrine of Emergent Evolution and the modern theories of the work of a catalyst upon two substances which - when brought into relation with each other under the effect of the catalyst produce a third and different substance - carry in them much of the truth anent karma, will you understand? I question it. When I say to you that the emphasis given to the Law of Karma as it explains apparent injustices and stresses always the appearance of pain, disease, and suffering gives only a partial presentation of the basic cosmic truth, is your mind in any way clarified? When I point out that the Law of Karma, rightly understood and rightly wielded, can bring that which produces happiness, good, and freedom from pain more easily than it brings pain, with its chain of consequences, do you feel able to grasp the significance of what I am saying?