Occult science in medicine

by Franz Hartmann

So-called “faith” is in most cases illusive, and consists merely in an accepted or pretended belief in the correctness of certain opinions or theories. The true faith of the spiritual man is a living spiritual and divine power, resulting from the certitude of the spiritual perception of the eternal law of cause and effect. As we most certainly are convinced that day follows upon the night, and night after day, so the Adept-physician, knowing the spiritual, moral and physical causes of diseases, and appreciating the flow of their evolution and progress, knows the effects created by such causes, and controls the means for their cure. No one can destroy effects caused by the law of divine justice. If he hinders the manifestation of divine law in one way, it will manifest itself in another way, such is the action of divine law in nature; but he who lives in the truth and in whom divine truth becomes manifest, is thereby raised superior to nature, for he enters into that from which nature took its origin. This uplifting and all-saving power is the true faith in man which can cure all diseases.

“There is neither good nor bad luck; but every effect is due to a cause. Each one receives his reward according to the way he walks and acts. God has made all men out of only one substance, and given to all the same power to live, and all human beings are therefore equals in God. The sun and the rain, winter and summer, are the same for everybody; but not everybody looks at the sun with the same eyes. God loves all mankind alike; but not all men love God with the same kind of love. Each of God’s children has the same inheritance; but one squanders, while another preserves it. That which God has made equal is rendered unequal by the actions of men. Each man taking his cross upon himself finds therein his reward. Every misfortune is a fortune, because divine goodness gives to everyone that which he most needs for his future development; the suffering begins only when discontent, the result of the non-recognition of eternal law, steps in. The greater the obstacle to combat, the greater will be the victory.” (“Philosophia,” V.)

The art of medicine has not been instituted for the purpose of defying the laws of God; but for the purpose of aiding in the restoration of the harmony, whose disturbance caused disease, and this restoration takes place through obedience to the law. There is no more a “forgiveness of the sin of disease” than there is a forgiveness of moral sins. The cure takes place by means of a re-entering into harmony with the laws of nature, which after all are the laws of God manifested in the natural realm. Neither is the health restored or sins pardoned for the purpose that man with lessened fear of punishment may go and sin again; but after the effects of the discords are overcome, he obtains again the power to sin, so that he may have a fresh opportunity for overcoming temptation and thus attain mastery over himself during his life upon this earth. He who is master over himself is his own law and not subject to any disharmony, and it is this which Paracelsus expressed in his favourite motto:

“Non sit alterius qui suus esse potest,”

which may be translated, “He who is master over himself belongs to nothing else but himself”: for that Self which conquers “self” is God, the Will of Divine Wisdom, the Lord over All.

V.

THE MEDICINE OF THE FUTURE.

There is no doubt that the average physician of the present age occupies on the whole a much higher position than was occupied by the average physician of the last centuries when the wisdom of the ancients had become a forgotten truth, and modern science was in its infancy. Although there were even during the middle ages physicians of deep insight, and in possession of a profound knowledge of the mysteries of Nature, such as the modern profession may acquire again by slow growth within the next centuries, the popular medicine of these times was a mixture of ignorance and quackery, the remnants of which are still to be found in our days. Of this class of the physicians of those times Paracelsus says:—

“There are a great many among them who have no other object but to satisfy their greed, so that one has to be ashamed to belong to a profession in which so much swindling takes place. They speculate on the ignorance of the people, and he who succeeds in amassing the greatest amount of money by robbing them is looked upon as the leading physician. Mutual love and charity is entirely out of fashion, and the practice of medicine is degraded to the standard of a common trade, in which the only object is to take as much money as one can obtain, and those who have the gift of the gab, and clamour the loudest, succeed best in cheating mankind; for as long as the world is filled with fools, the biggest fool will necessarily be the ruler, if he only succeeds in making himself conspicuous.” (“Defensio,” V.)

The science of medicine is not to blame for the existence of such a state of things; but it is one of the attributes of human animal nature, and we leave it to the intelligent observer to judge whether this nature has changed a great deal since the time of Paracelsus, or whether there is still an army of quacks, legalized or illegal, who have written the motto “Mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur” upon their flag. Official science has undoubtedly progressed during this century, but merely intellectual acquisitions do not necessarily make a man wiser; the greatest scoundrels have been men of great intellectuality without spirituality. Wisdom consists in the self-recognition of truth, and there are many who are “ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of truth.”[53]