You will note also from the above how this taint, as might well be expected, has its roots in the astral or sentient body, the body of sensation. It is for this reason that I have included it. It would be an interesting experiment in analysis if these various well-known difficulties, diseases and complaints could be classified under their originating impulses. So few of them have a mental origin, in spite of all that Christian Science or Mental Science may say to the contrary. Perhaps I should say, rather, that they are not based on wrong human thought, though all evil can be aggravated and intensified by wrong thought. Many or perhaps most of the [65] complaints from which average man suffers are based upon astral causes or upon some clearly defined desire. A formulated desire is one that finds expression in some form of activity. Of these homosexuality is one of the clearest to define. The other diseases to which humanity is heir are sometimes not so easy to clarify and define. The man or woman is a victim but the cause producing the illness or difficulty - physical or psychological - lies hid in a long past which the victim (with his limited knowledge) is unable to investigate, nor can he arrive at the cause producing the effect. All that he can affirm is that, in all probability, desire was the initiating impulse. What human beings are today and what they suffer is the result of their long past, and the past presupposes long and well-established habits. Such habits are inevitably the result of one of two factors:

1. Desire, dominating and controlling action, or
2. Mental control which substitutes for desire a planned campaign which will run counter in many cases to the normally sensed, defined desire.

You will note consequently the emphasis I have laid upon the astral body as a promoter of wrong physical conditions, and the necessity for astral understanding and control on the part of the patient, if there is to be a true overcoming of disease. Will you understand me if I say that the true overcoming may mean an acceptance of the Way of Death as the way out, should it come normally, or of healing, if the causes [66] which are the initial impulses are exhausted? Ponder on this.

We have considered our second point under the healing of diseases which arise in the emotional or desire nature. Our first point deals with uncontrolled emotion. I would remind you of our premise that we would only consider the ills to which advanced humanity, the aspirants and disciples of all degrees are prone. We will not deal (in this short treatise) with the whole gamut of diseases which affect humanity as a whole, or down the ages. The more advanced the aspirant, the greater probability there is that the diseases from which he suffers will be pronounced and powerfully demonstrating, on account of the inflow to a greater [67] or less degree of the stimulating force of the soul. Subsidiary to the five major groups of diseases to which I earlier referred, and working out in connection with them in the human frame, are a group of symptoms which are loosely covered by the terms: fevers, tumors, congested areas, plus general debility and the auto-intoxication which lies behind so many symptoms. I would have you remember this with care and bear steadily in mind that I am here only generalizing, but that this generalization is basic and therefore of importance.