We come now to a consideration of the rapidly increasing and typical Atlantean disease which we call cancer. We have spoken of one basic widespread disease related to the physical body; we have dealt superficially with another which is a product of the desire nature. Cancer, in our [238] present cycle, the Aryan, is definitely a result of the activity of the lower concrete mind and of the stimulation of the etheric body which the mind can bring about. It is a major disease incident to stimulation, as far as the Aryan masses are concerned, just as heart disease is also a disease of stimulation, affecting very largely the advanced types of humanity who - through interest in business and leadership - often sacrifice their lives and pay the penalty of misused and over-concentrated energy by developing various forms of acute heart trouble.

Disciples and initiates are prone also to suffer from this disease, owing to the awakening into violent activity of the heart center. In the one case, the life energy flowing through the heart is employed past all human tolerance in handling human affairs; in the other, the heart center opens up and the strain put upon the organ of the heart is too great, and heart disease supervenes. A third cause of heart disease is due to the premature or deliberately planned lifting of the energy of the solar plexus to the heart, thus putting an unexpected strain upon it.

I am dealing naturally in broad generalizations; later evidence will go to show the types of activity which will evoke corresponding difficulty within the heart. Heart disease will increase greatly as we enter into the new root-race, particularly during the interim wherein the fact of the centers, their nature and qualities, is admitted and they consequently become the objective of trained attention. Energy follows thought, and this mental focusing upon the centers will inevitably produce over-stimulation of all the centers, and this in spite of care and a carefully developed Science of the Centers. It is something which cannot be avoided, owing to the nervous and uneven unfoldment of man. Later, this stimulation will be regulated and [239] controlled, and the heart will be subjected only to a general strain, along with all the other centers.

Cancer is a disease most definitely related to the centers, and it will be found that the center in the area wherein the cancer exists is over-active, with a consequent increase of energy pouring through the related bodily substance. This energy and the over-stimulation of a center can be due not only to the activity of the center and its consequent radiation, but also the suppression imposed by the mind upon any activity of a particular center. This brings about a damming up of energy, and again we have the creation of too much concentrated energy in any particular area. One of the main sources of cancer as related to the sacral center, and therefore to the sex organs, has been the well-intentioned suppression of the sex life, and of all thought connected with the sex life, by misguided aspirants; they are those who find the teaching - monastic and celibate - of the Middle Ages the line of least resistance. In that period of time, good people taught that sex was evil and wicked, something not to be mentioned, and a potent source of trouble. Normal reactions, instead of being controlled and transmuted into creative activity, were violently suppressed and all thoughts anent the sex life were refused expression. Nevertheless, energy follows the direction of thought, with the result that that particularly magnetic type of energy attracted an increasing number of cells and atoms to itself; therein is found the source of the tumors, growths and cancers so prevalent today. The same thing can be said about the violent inhibition imposed by an aspirant upon all emotional reactions and feelings. In their effort to control the astral body, these people resort to a process of direct inhibition and suppression. That suppression makes of the solar plexus center a great reservoir of drastically retained energy. Transmutation of the emotions into aspiration and love and directed [240] control is not present, and the existence of this vibrant reservoir of power brings about cancer of the stomach, of the liver, and sometimes of the entire area of the abdomen. I simply mention these causes (over-activity of a center and the retention of energy, unexpressed and inhibited) as fruitful sources of cancer.

All diseases - except those due to accidents, wounds resulting in infections, and epidemics - can in the last analysis be [241] traced to some condition of the centers, and therefore to energy running wild, to energy over-active and misdirected or insufficient and lacking altogether, or retained instead of used and transmuted into a higher corresponding center of energy. The mystery of the blood still remains to be solved, and will receive increasing attention as time goes on. The anemias, so prevalent today, are also due to excess of energy.

I can only lay down general indications, state causes, and then leave to the intelligent investigators the task of studying effects, after accepting as a possible hypothesis the suggestions I have made. A proper study of the ductless glands (and later of the entire glandular structure of the body) and of the blood stream will establish them as the paramount source of physical difficulty; inevitably, though slowly and patiently, the investigators will be forced back upon the centers and will come to include in their calculations a subjective nervous system (the entire subjective system of nadis which underlie the nerves throughout the body), and will demonstrate that these factors are responsible for the major diseases and the many subsidiary diseases and obscure complaints which plague humanity. The open-minded investigator, however, who starts with an acceptance of the fact of the centers, regarding them as possibly present and eventually capable of demonstration, will make far more rapid progress; diseases will then be brought under control by a system of laya-yoga (the science of the centers) which will be the sublimated form of the laya-yoga of Atlantean days. Then the advanced student will control the centers by the power of thought. In the yoga of the future, through meditation and alignment and right practices, the centers will be brought under the direct control of the soul - a very different thing to the control of the centers by the mind and one for which the masses of men are not yet ready. To this the [242] Science of the Breath will be added - not breathing exercises as now taught, with often such dangerous results, but a breathing rhythm imposed by the mind through which the soul can work, and which will not require anything more than the simple rhythmic physical breath but which will reorganize the subtler bodies and bring the centers into ordered activity, according to ray and point in evolution.

It is only the necessity of indicating the major sources of diseases and not overlooking them, even if the subject is too esoteric for the average intelligence to grasp, that has led me to include our second point: