Hi everyone, this is Austin Bridges welcoming you to the L/L Research Podcast, In the Now, Episode #48. L/L Research is a nonprofit organization dedicated to freely sharing spiritually-oriented information and fostering community. Towards this end we have two websites: the archive website, LLResearch.org and the community website, Bring4th.org.

During each episode, those of us here at L/L Research form a panel to consider questions from spiritual seekers. Our panel consists of Jim McCarty, husband to the late Carla Rueckert, scribe for the Ra contact and president of L/L Research, along with Gary Bean and myself, who are working hard to keep the mission of L/L Research alive and well. Each of us is a devoted seeker and student of the Law of One.

We intend this podcast to be a platform of discussion as we consider questions from spiritual seekers that often challenge us to articulate our own perspective. Our replies to these questions are not final and authoritative. Instead, they are generally subjective interpretations stemming from our own studies and life experiences. We always ask each who listens to exercise their own discernment and listen for their own resonance in determining what is true for them.

If you would like to submit a question for this show, please do so. Our humble podcast relies on your questions. You may either send an email to or go to LLResearch.org/podcast for further instructions.

Again, I am Austin and we’re embarking on a new episode of L/L Research’s podcast, In the Now. Gary and Jim, you ready to record this podcast?

Indeed.

I believe so.

All righty. Our show today is provided by Lily. She has some great questions regarding the topic of healing, so we’ll probably spend the entire show today going over her questions. Lily writes:

“Why is healing such a central theme in Ra’s teaching? As we go through the human experience everyone sooner or later will encounter some type of health issues. According to Ra, sickness is not an accident and healing means much more than simple relief from psychic pain or recovery from a bodily function. The journey to seek/provide healing affords ample opportunities to grow spiritually and to serve.”

She then provides a list of things for us to go over, but let’s first address that first question which is, “Why is healing such a central theme in Ra’s teachings?”

I think that Gary won the coin toss today, so start us off, Gary.

I think that to begin to tackle that question you have to understand what Ra’s teaching is. So, what is Ra teaching? Ra is teaching the Law of One. What does the Law of One say? Well, it says that the ultimate truth is that all is one. Moreover, it says that in that oneness, all is whole, complete, and perfect. Yet, our perceptions and experiences in third densities skew, obscure, and distort this. Through our misapprehension of the Law of One, we create energy blockages and imbalances. Those blockages manifest in various ways in mind, body, and sometimes spirit. Oftentimes these imbalances and tangles are long-lasting. They continue to confound as we experience their symptoms without understanding their causes. This is one way to describe suffering.

How then do we move from this illusory state of blockages and imbalances to the oneness, wholeness, completion, and perfection that already exists. Healing is one word for this, as is the word “‘transformation.” Healing can apply to a specific distortion. For example, one can heal a cold or a broken heart or an unprocessed trauma. But healing in general may be seen as another term describing the journey of the individual soul moving from illusion to truth; from separation to unity; from fear to love. When we are healing, we are healing the original distortion of separation itself—separation from the One Creator.

That’s it for me.

Thank you, Gary. How about you, Jim?

Yeah, good job, Gary. Well, in this particular illusion, we have what’s called a veil of forgetting that separates our conscious mind and our subconscious mind. In our subconscious mind are the choices we’ve made prior to the incarnation as to the lessons we want to learn. The lessons are infinite in their nuances and in their direction. Apparently, there are thousands of incarnations we span making one choice or another to learn more—maybe a strength under difficult circumstances; maybe how to love the unlovable; maybe how to be resourceful when there seems to be nothing to call upon in your life and you’ve got nothing but difficulty.

Anyway, there’s lots of things that we can learn and want to learn and those are in our subconscious mind. When we are in the illusion with the veil of forgetting, we can’t see these things clearly. But we have kind of a bias, shall we say, that goes from our subconscious mind to our conscious mind that helps us to see catalyst, hopefully, in a certain way so that we can learn the lessons that we programmed that catalyst for.

Now, two different people or three or four more can look at the very same catalyst and see different things there because we don’t all have the same program. We are all unique. We’re hoping to see a certain aspect of the lessons that we wish to learn appear in our catalyst so that we can learn those lessons over a period of time, or a period of an incarnation. However, a lot times—especially on this planet where we have a great number of people who’ve been through the third density a number of times and are trying still to earn that graduation to the fourth density—we have difficulty in perceiving correctly what we are hoping to learn. In fact, many times our catalyst is just not used at all, and we go blithely through our lives skipping along on the surface and looking for, you know, money, power, position, family, and so forth, and never seeing anything beyond that.

Oftentimes what will occur is that when the catalyst isn’t perceived by the mind and used well, then it’s given to the body. The body then has this distortion or what we call a disease that has the purpose of catching our attention where we didn’t catch the first time the catalyst appeared to us. Maybe when we look at our body malfunctioning we will finally tune in to the fact that there is something going on that we need to pay more attention to.

So, I think Ra talks so much about healing because here in the third density we have a lot of distortion and a lot of disease, but not so much appreciation for what it is we’re trying to do. Even in our medical profession, as we’re going to get to a little later, we misperceive how to really deal with these distortions and diseases.

So, Austin, what do you think about that?

I think that was an excellent summary of what healing is according to Ra and why Ra might focus on it so much. I had an answer prepared, but as usual, it was a lot in alignment with both of your responses, especially with Gary’s. I think I would be repeating almost word for word what Gary said without adding a whole lot of nuance.

But, like Jim said, it’s a good point that there’s a large need for healing here in third density. So, that microcosm of healing the individual body that might have an ailment or a wound, can make a lot of use out of the concept of healing. But I also think, like Gary was saying, that healing can be broadened into a greater context of just our entire spiritual journey and becoming more whole and complete again. Healing being making whole that is illusory or is an illusion of separation from the Creator.

I was going to try to say ‘illusarorally’ or something like that, but…

It’s a new word!

Yeah, I don’t know if that’s a real word…

Go get it.

Going for the adverb.

But I think that both of your answers were great and sum up Lily’s question here, so I don’t have a whole lot more to add. So, I guess we’ll just keep on going to Lily’s list of specific topics for us to discuss.

The first thing she brings up is:

“Physical manifestation versus metaphysical causes of ill health—how we view it mechanically as taught by science, versus consciously as taught by Ra and other spiritual teachings.”

Jim, how about you start us off with this one?

So, do we want to do both the mechanical and the metaphysical or just one or the other?

I think she’s asking for a ‘versus’ sort of comparison.

Oh, okay. Well, mechanically, our modern medical professions look at diseases in the form of germs and bacteria. For example, there’s a bug in the air and it’s going around. Or they may not really know what causes certain medical issues to occur. For example, Steve had this minor heart attack but no one really knows what exactly caused it. What causes a narrowing of the arteries? Is it our diet? Is it just genetics? What exactly is it? We’re looking for a thing to explain it and not looking for a metaphysical thing to explain it.

When we look at these situations of disease, distortion, or discomfort metaphysically, we look at it as something we have contributed to mentally or emotionally in our lives because we haven’t perceived our catalyst well. We haven’t perceived what it is we need to be doing. Perhaps we’re not in harmony with ourselves. We’re feeling depressed or slightly irritated, angry, or frustrated, and over a long period of time maybe we’re not getting our sleep and things just keep snowballing. So, we tend to look at what is happening in our lives. What’s happening to us mentally and emotionally and how can we bring balance back to our lives?

A lot of times diet is a very important part of this because diet, as Ra said, can be a way of using a symbolic representation of what’s going on either mentally or emotionally or spiritually. So, from a metaphysical point of view, we tend to take responsibility for our health or lack of health ourselves. We don’t blame a disease on a bug or a little secondary creature somewhere that may be existing in our body to do this when we’re not thinking correctly. You know, we all carry around millions of little creatures. Remember Fox’s presentation? We have hundreds of thousands of bugs in us. They’re not doing anything usually, but if we’re not thinking correctly, you know, they can be utilized, too, to point out the fact that we’ve got something going on.

So, metaphysically we take responsibility for our health ourselves.

Awesome. You just referenced Fox’s presentation from Homecoming. That will be on our website if you’d like to look at it pretty soon under Homecoming 2016 in the archives. It’s about our relationship with microbial second density creatures, which I think is relevant.

Gary, what do you have to say about the physical manifestation versus metaphysical causes of ill health?

So, another great question, Lily. All these questions are excellent.

My very limited understanding is that science sees the body as a machine, like Jim was saying, and this machine malfunctions or manifests disease due to other mechanical sources—chemical imbalance, environmental input, genetic predisposition, effects of habitual activities, and so forth. Mainstream medicine does, I believe, recognize some linkage between mind and body. For instance, the way that mentally created stress manifests in the body through increased blood pressure, weakened immune system, etc. But by and large, mainstream medicine doesn’t see the body as a teaching tool, or as a mirror for catalyst unprocessed by the mind.

From the metaphysical perspective, specifically Ra’s perspective, they say in #81.14:

“The body is the creature of the mind and is the instrument of manifestation for the fruits of mind and spirit. Therefore, you may see the body as providing the athanor through which the alchemist manifests gold.”

That is a larger explanation of the workings of the body that goes beyond just strictly healing. The body, in other words, is manifesting our lessons and making visible to us that which we need to learn.

One means of doing this is to manifest, as mentioned, catalyst which has not been successfully processed and integrated by the mind. For instance, lack of forgiveness manifests as cancer. Another way that the body does this is to manifest pre-incarnationally chosen distortions. For instance, a congenital disability for a soul who wants to experience such a limitation for growth. In either case, metaphysics would suggest that one seek deeper understanding of the self, whether to heal the arising distortion or to affirm the instructive and helpful nature of the distortion.

Whereas, allopathic medicine would not generally suggest deeper understanding of the self, but rather various mechanical ways to attempt to alleviate symptoms or fix the mechanically-perceived cause. For instance, by taking pharmaceuticals or having surgery or making changes to diet and activity, etc. In short, I might say that orthodox medicine sees proximate causes, whereas metaphysics sees underlying causes. This is only a very general statement, of course, because orthodox medicine can in some cases get to root causes. It’s important to remember that your doctor is an allopathic healer, as Ra indicated in #64.15—which is a wonderful Q & A to read when considering this question. Your doctor is, in fact, a healer. Even through their “mechanical” means, one can undergo changes or can—through that process and the symbolism of it—learn the lesson that they intended to learn. As Jim said, by maybe making changes in diet, one could affect inner changes in consciousness, and so forth.

But, back to you, Austin.

Thank you. Again, two excellent answers. Whenever I contemplate this question, which is whenever I get sick basically, I always think about session #34.7 from the Ra material where Don asks:

“Do what we call contagious diseases play any part in this process with respect to the unmanifested self?”

And Ra’s response is:

“I am Ra. These so-called contagious diseases are those entities of second density which offer an opportunity for this type of catalyst. If this catalyst is unneeded, then these second-density creatures, as you would call them, do not have an effect. In each of these generalizations you may please note that there are anomalies so that we cannot speak to every circumstance but only to the general run, or way of things, as you experience them. ”

Certainly there are more types of illness than besides those brought upon by contagious disease, but I think this is an interesting dynamic in considering how physical manifestations might be affected by metaphysical causes. Ra talks about the contagious disease offering an opportunity for the catalyst to the individual. So, hypothetically, I suppose, you could take two people who have identical immune systems and expose them to the exact same amount of the exact same contagious disease. If one of them is in alignment with that type of catalyst or if they could use the type of catalyst offered by the disease, then they might contract that disease. And if the other person would have no need or use for this type of catalyst, then they would not contract this disease.

One thought I sometimes have is that maybe these two people simply wouldn’t have the same type of immune systems. Maybe the catalyst that we might need might affect our immune systems in some way and that our actual physical antibodies, or the other mysterious ways the immune system might work, are sort of creating the physical opening for types of disease that might be useful for us.

Perhaps the hypothetical situation is impossible and that these two people might not even have the same immune systems. But, I don’t really have as much insight as Gary or Jim had to say. I just sort of had that hypothetical scenario and how possibly our metaphysical environment, which is created by our mental and emotional health and environment, might have some physical effects on what we physically contract.

Science and medicine are definitely correct in seeing a physical connection in how we get sick. There are obvious correlations that are very well proven. Somehow these metaphysical dynamics have to affect the physical correlations as well and not just sort of magically get sick. But, it’s a mysterious thing to me. I think Gary and Jim did a great job of addressing it.

So, any further thoughts before we move on to Lily’s next point?

Not from me.

Just quickly, what you were saying brought to mind the fact that something can transpire in the body that does not necessarily have deeper metaphysical or life lesson sort of causes. It can be purely physical or environmental or mechanical. I think there was an instance where Ra was talking about maybe one of the group experiencing something of this nature. But say, for instance, I don’t know, you come into contact with something that’s radioactive and then your skin burns because of it or cancer develops or something and it was just strictly the effect of what happens when a physical body comes into a physical substance like something that’s radioactive. I don’t know, I just wanted to throw that out there.

That actually makes me think of something that I had forgotten to even bring up. Let’s take the example of cancer like you just said. In the Ra material, Ra talks about cancer having a correlation to anger and how if anger goes unutilized as catalyst, it will then manifest as this extra cell growth in the body. I think some people sometimes interpret that to mean that all cancer is a result of unprocessed anger.

Yeah.

I did think that at first, too, when I read that, but upon closer inspection, Ra doesn’t ever hint that it is the only cause of cancer. They don’t necessarily word it to make you think that it is a cause of cancer, but they never make it an exclusive thing. Cancer can be the result of unprocessed anger, but perhaps there can be other causes of cancer, and that some of them might be more physical, like impurities in the air. Somebody could get cancer because they live in a very polluted area that has a lot of carcinogens in the air. Their spiritual life might have some effect on whether they contract cancer or not, but the carcinogens are shown to have strong effect on how we contract cancer.

I think there are examples we can provide. Like, Gary, one of your favorite spiritual teachers, Ramana Maharshi, he actually contracted cancer, I believe, didn’t he?

Yeah, I think that’s what killed him in the end.

Yeah, and if you read his words, it’s impossible to imagine there being any sense of anger within this man.

No.

He was completely released of the suffering and restrictions of the ego from our density. So, who knows what was at play there with him getting cancer, but I highly doubt it was anger. So, that’s just an example of how things might be more complex and mysterious than we think. Ra even said in the Q & A that I referenced that this is a generalization. There are always anomalies and those anomalies might be larger in number than we might think.

So, going on to Lily’s second point of inquiry: Seeking healing. And two points under that, that we can seek healing without spiritual awareness or everyday phenomenon in the mainstream or be with spiritual awareness, the ideal path.

So, thoughts on seeking healing, Gary?

Well, I think the with/without spiritual awareness question or how one goes about seeking healing might be seen through the same lens that Ra identified in #64.16 when they described three different ways that an entity will process catalyst or respond to a situation or make a choice, and so forth. They say:

“If the entity is polarized towards service to others…”

…which Lily might say is with spiritual awareness…

“…analysis properly proceeds along lines of consideration of which path offers the most opportunity for service to others. For the negatively-polarized entity, the antithesis is the case and the third category, for the unpolarized entity…”

…what Lily might say without spiritual awareness…

“…the considerations are random and most likely in the direction of the distortion towards comfort.”

So, in terms of healing specifically, he or she who seeks healing with spiritual awareness will likely attempt not only to fix or cure the issue and alleviate the symptoms, but they will also try to understand the cause and try to learn and grow from the experience. Whereas entities seeking healing without spiritual awareness will probably fall into that third category that Ra describes when they say, “the direction of this distortion towards comfort.” In other words, they’ll just be seeking to get rid of it in order to be comfortable, which is okay, of course, in and of itself. We all want to be comfortable, but you know, they won’t move deeper than that. They see only in this physical issue that it needs to be resolved in order to be comfortable. That’s it for me.

Thank you, Gary. Any comments on seeking healing, Jim?

Well, I haven’t got a whole lot to add to what Gary said. He did a really good job of covering the field here. Again, you know, the main thing most people are concerned with when they have a disease and go to a doctor is to, as Gary said, seek comfort. They want a quick cure, you know. Let’s get it done as quickly as possible and hopefully the insurance will cover it. You know, just be done with it. We don’t usually think about what might be a deeper cause to our illnesses.

I think along the spiritual path we are really trying to look down deeper and to see everything that goes on in our lives—our health and our ill health—just what is the cause of everything? What is the meaning of this life, you know, what does it mean to me? How am I learning from it? Where am I going? How am I growing? So, health just fits into that and our illness is a way of pointing out that we’re not well, so we try to look to see what the ill health configuration might mean symbolically in a way of pre-incarnative lessons.

Usually the lessons that we’ve chosen, there’s really just a handful, just keep repeating so that we’ll finally catch on, you know. We miss one bus, there’s going to be another bus come by and bring us the same message because even if we’re fairly tuned-in to what’s going on, we don’t always catch the problem the first time around. So, we just need to keep looking at what’s going on and try to figure out what it means, and then make a conscious effort on our own part. It might include going to an allopathic doctor to look for the healing to see what he’s got to offer and then we probably would also look for alternative paths as well. We try to find out whatever is available to us in the way of healing and then consult that intuition or the inner voice and see what feels right.

You know we include meditation. We would try to meditate on what’s going on, we’d think a lot about our lives and try to find a handle here or there that makes sense because we do have those handles around if we really tuned in to what’s happening in our lives, we have a way of perceiving when something’s out of kilter and just a little bit of an idea of why.

So, I’d say the difference between the without and with spiritual awareness is that one is conscious and one is not so conscious. Austin, what do you have to say?

Yeah, that’s a good point. I think that if somebody is seeking healing in an unconscious sense, perhaps they will find a doctor that is able to heal them in some sort of mechanical sense until their ailment goes away. But then you pointed out that, you said the bus keeps coming. Maybe they’ll have another illness similar or even different, but symbolizing the same sort of ill health that will manifest again in some other way.

If somebody is seeking healing in a conscious sense, they might be looking for a deeper root. I think this can even be shown in example in strictly material allopathic healing. Let’s say someone has continuous symptoms that keep popping up and they keep going to the doctor and asking the doctor to treat their symptoms. Then someday they realize that there must be something deeper behind this, so they decide to go to the doctor and ask him about what the root causes of this might be, or they might examine their life and find out what the root causes might be. Maybe they’ll find some sort of lifestyle changes that they can enact or they can change their diet and all these things are a result of how they live their life rather than just random diseases popping up. And even that in a sense is spiritual awareness of seeking because then you are looking to pay more respect to your body and the vessel that you have that is carrying your consciousness through this life.

So, there are different ways to look at it, but I think you guys both did a pretty good job of showing how those two types of seeking of healing might differ. So, are we good to move on to the next point?

Okay.

I want to add really quickly that people have done work correlating the way that certain mental patterns or thoughts match physical distortions. Louise Hay is one that comes to mind. She wrote a whole book where she particular conditions with the corresponding root cause. I can’t vouch for how accurate that all is, but I just wanmted to point out that people have and are doing this type of work that make these connections if anyone needs that sort of help.

I remember that book. My mom had it when I was younger. It’s like a blue book and it’s just like an index of physical ailments and then their supposed metaphysical connections.

Yeah.

All righty. So the next topic is providing healing, which is split into two portions:

A. How mainstream health professionals provide healing.

B. How spiritual healers and practitioners provide healing.

So, let’s jump to Jim to kick this one off.

Okay, well, Carla went through a lot of doctors and so I’m fairly well familiar with what the allopathic medicine has to offer. Usually it is medicine of some sort or another. There’s a prescription for everything and as Ra says, though, that’s usually not the most efficient way because it tends to treat the symptoms. Sometimes a surgery is necessary, depending upon the type of disease or ailment. You know, if you’ve got some sort of a malfunction in your heart, like our friend, Steve, who is going to have surgery to have a stent put in. That’s one way of approaching the situation. I would guess that sometimes if we would let our diseases or distortions go long enough, it might be necessary to include prescriptions or surgeries to go along with the more spiritual type of healing.

Occasionally medical doctors will also suggest diet changes, although that’s sort of rare, and physical therapy to begin to exercise certain parts of the body that have had problems in the past, usually as a result of a surgery or trying to get your strength back.

But spiritual healers have all kinds of ways of providing relief from disease and distortions. I guess some of the first spiritual healers any of us may have come in contact with are some of the more fundamental religions that would have the laying on of the hands where the one, usually a minister or a preacher of some sort, would lay his hands on you and whatever disease or distortion you might have would then perhaps be healed. Ra mentioned once that if the healers of that nature, the fundamental Christian type, actually were aware of more of the principles that govern our mental wellness that they might be more effective because actually what they’re trying to do is abridge free will, the mental situation, by offering a certain healing in a certain way. But that works if you have practitioners or believers that are willing to accept that abridgement of free will.

I guess laying on of hands has kind of evolved in different sorts of ways of providing the healing. Reiki, I think, is one which uses the hands, except that you don’t touch the person. The energy flows out from the hands and works on the various energy centers to regain balance for the one needing the healing. Crystals are used a lot by healers, too. I believe this is really where they get into what Ra talked about as the interruption of the red/violet ray which is the protective shell around the body and is around the aura as well. It tends to hold whatever condition we’ve got, whether it’s, you know, a healthy condition or disease in some degree, tends to hold it in position until a healer will come along and have the ability to, as Ra said, contact Intelligent Infinity to the extent that they are able to interrupt the red/violet shell. That’s what the pyramid did also was to interrupt that shell so healing take place and that the entity then would be able to contact his higher self to see if the lessons that it had set out to learn had been learned and if a new configuration, a novel configuration, could be accepted by the mind and then the red/violet ray would be brought back into its protective nature and the new, healthier situation would then take precedence.

So, Gary, how do you think about that? What do you think about that?

I think you covered the bases really well. I don’t have much to add to yours. I spoke a bit about this in the first question. I think I have one single more thought to offer, which is that I think that one key difference that I didn’t previously note is that the spiritual healer and practitioner will likely have a greater awareness of the fact that it is in all cases the patient who heals him or herself—the healer acting only as a facilitator. But, no, nothing more to add. Austin?

I’ve got a little bit to say. It’s sort of a tough idea to address because the idea of spiritual healing is so foreign to medical and scientific modalities of healings. And I know that this statement might be kind of controversial in the New Age circles, but I do think that the medical and scientific community are quite successful in what they do as far as healing goes. If we look at the evolution of surgery over the years, the precision and effectiveness of surgeons and the success rate of surgery has increased dramatically.

While there’s definitely some sort of corrupt influence over the pharmaceutical industry and how doctors prescribe medication, there are still some medications that are quite effective at treating symptoms, as well as in actually healing ailments through chemical or physical means. The effectiveness of those types of treatments have to go beyond the mind’s willingness and ability to heal itself. Otherwise, no medication would perform above the placebo level, which is the benchmark for medication to even be considered valid. It has to show that it can heal more than the person’s mind alone can heal itself. It seems that they know that the mind alone can heal because there is the placebo effect and they measure it successfully. They don’t really acknowledge that is a weird thing to happen if the chemical and physical means are the only way of healing, but they at least acknowledge it in the sense that their medicines have to go above and beyond the mind’s ability itself.

This is where I get caught up and there has to be an actual effectiveness of mainstream health professionals because they’ve set up their system to support that effectiveness and to ensure that effectiveness. And despite the fact there is some corruption that has seeped into that and it’s rife with monetary influence, it is still effective. So, how is this effective when we know that the root of the healing comes from within and that healers are providing an opportunity for healing more than an actual healing itself?

I would suspect that possibly the chemical and physical means that mainstream healers provide do certainly have physical effectiveness as I talked about and they might heal in a physical sense, but then like I mentioned earlier, it might re-manifest in other ways if the actual spiritual/emotional root cause is not addressed by either the healer or the patient. And like Gary mentioned earlier, the practitioners of allopathic healing or mainstream healing are, in fact, healers themselves and many of themselves got into the profession because they wanted to help people and because they wanted to heal people. If a patient goes to such a healer with an openness to be healed, then I think there’s sort of a doubling effect with the physical means and intense material knowledge that a doctor has. If it’s coupled with the spiritual openness of the person and the healer themselves, then maybe that method of healing is far more effective than just one or the other. If they’re coupled together, then perhaps that is the ideal form of healing. So, we’re coming up to our time. We have maybe a couple minutes left.

Do we?

Yeah. So, do we want to address this last question really quickly?

Sure.

Yeah.

All righty. So, Lily’s last question is:

“Is our medical system or we, as a collective whole in this area, evolving spiritually in the twenty-first century, such as developed countries versus developing countries, East versus West and the global village?”

Gary, what do you think?

I don’t think I can speak to this question very well. I haven’t studied this and I don’t have an overview. Moreover, the cross-section of people with whom I interact is a fairly biased sampling of humanity. Through L/L Research, I’m often interacting with very spiritually-awakened individuals and I’m not out there on the streets in this country, figurative streets, and even less aware of developments in other countries.

That said, it seems that there is a growing awareness that there are other valid modalities of healing. As the years go by, I’m always running into alternative means of healing. I think of past life regression and Reiki and distance healing and mediumship healing as happens through John of God and that one science where they read the iris—my wife and I went to one and I forget what’s called.

Iridology.

Iridology, yeah, that’s the one. And in closing and in considering this question, I’m reminded of #64.15 when Ra says:

“In turn this mechanical concept of the body complex has created the continuing proliferation of distortions towards what you would call ill-health due to the strong chemicals used to control, and hide, bodily distortions.”

And here’s the salient point…

“There is a realization among many of your peoples that there are more efficacious methods of healing, not excluding the allopathic, but also including the many other avenues of healing.”

So, Ra can tap into our brains, see what we’re thinking and feeling, apparently, and do a global survey a lot more easily than any of us can. And they say there is a realization among many of our peoples. So, I presume that is a global phenomenon and will only increase, not only as people desire it, but as people work with existing alternative means and people creatively find new means of healing, I think. Where there will, there generally speaking or ultimately speaking, is a way.

Jim, what do you think?

Well, I approached it from the angle of what do I know is happening in the medical community that might be different, and showing that the medical mind is expanding some in some areas. I think in some places therapeutic touch or healing hands is practiced by nurses, both male and female, in a hospital situation where it is recognized that some people do have an ability to touch a patient in a gentle way. Maybe a slight massage can bring about a release of stress or of concern and sometimes to reduce even blood pressure or just the general well-being of the patient. So, that’s definitely something different.

I know when Morris, our friend, went through his chemotherapy and radiation therapy for his cancer, that his taste buds were pretty much destroyed. He was advised by one of the medical practitioners that they had found that acupuncture was helpful in restoring some of the salivary glands that had been destroyed by radiation. So Morris went and got some treatments and he sent a picture of himself with a pincushion sticking out of his, you know, his neck and jaw area. He unfortunately didn’t get a lot of relief from it, but the important thing here as far as we’re discussing it, is that it was recommended in the medical community that he give that a try because they don’t have anything that will do it for sure. So, they gave that a try.

I think diet is a very important thing for all of us. It is a symbol of how we look at ourselves as to how we feed ourselves, so it symbolizes the respect we feel for ourselves. I think that diets are more important now in the medical community as well. And I think that there’s for a long time there’s been a recognition of psychosomatic diseases that the mind has a role in causing certain sorts of diseases. It’s been to such an extent that it’s actually got this new designation of the field as psychosomatic.

So, I’m not sure exactly how they go about healing the psychosomatic diseases other than using some hypnosis. I think a lot of traditional hypnotherapists and psychiatrists began in this area of trying to heal problems that were mentally caused by going back to the time where they were first initiated within the person’s experience and see if they can bring that to light and bringing it to light maybe resolve the situation that helped cause it. So, I think hypnosis has helped a great deal in this area too.

Austin, have you got anything to add there?

Just that I think that I’m realizing that I’m more cynical than both of you. Those are very good answers. And I definitely don’t disagree with any of that. My initial thought to Lily’s question though was that I really wish I could give a resounding ,”Yes, our medical system is evolving spiritually in the twenty-first century, but, and while I do think there are changes, my own perception, which is very limited, probably more limited than what Gary described of himself. I haven’t been to a hospital or a doctor in maybe decades, it’s been too long. But what I see and what I read and know about the medical community and the scientific community that is a very big part of the medical community is that there is still an extremely strong rejection of the idea of spiritual healing and spiritual energies and just spirituality in general.

It’s a very material paradigm and the professionals and scientists, the major medical journals that are funded by universities and the giants in the field are just strong guardians of this paradigm of material thinking, such like if we talk about acupuncture like Jim was talking about, they do definitely acknowledge that there is an effective acupuncture, that it is helpful, but the original theory behind acupuncture is that there’s energy that moves through the body and that we’re tapping into sort of energy streams in the body and when you that far, that medical community will shut you down immediately and say, “Absolutely not! That is not what acupuncture is doing. It’s just something more material. It’s, you know, stimulating nerves and stuff like that.”

So, if you take examples of that, they might acknowledge that there are some benefits to alternative forms of healing. But there is this strong denial of there being any idea of spiritual healing. There is growing awareness of how our mentality and our attitudes might affect our immune systems and things like that, but they definitely do not go so far as to acknowledge spiritual healing or more integral forms of thinking. But there is some progress outside of the mainstream, which is a very hopeful thing, especially through the Integral Institute and integral medicine. It’s not necessarily acknowledged in mainstream medical fields, but it is a growing field in itself and will hopefully begin to have more and more influence over our society as a whole and how we look at healing.

So, those were extremely excellent questions. Do either of you have anything more to add for Lily?

I think I’m done.

Briefly, I don’t know how representative it is, but my own family doctor, in describing an alternative method that I was trying for the acid reflux in the throat I have been experiencing—I tried apple raw apple cider vinegar and had some great short-term success with it—said that it didn’t quite make sense to him because apple cider vinegar is very acidic and it was acid that was causing my throat problem, but he said that when he encounters these sorts of situations with patients, he says if they find something that’s working for them, even if he can’t explain that, he doesn’t necessarily discourage them. You know, in other words, he was humbly admitting that he didn’t have all the answers and there might be other solutions to the problems. I don’t know how prevalent that is in the medical community.

And also, I’m pretty sure that looking at things like the Mayo Clinic has become a prominent resource for those seeking more information about conditions and treatments and diagnoses and what not. Under each of the conditions the Mayo Clinic lists online, their final section will include a section on alternative medicine. They don’t get into Reiki, of course, or anything of a strictly energetic nature, but they are expanding beyond the borders a little bit more. So maybe that’s indicative of what’s happening in the medical community. I cannot say.

I hope you are right. My mom would be very happy to hear that apple cider vinegar story because she uses apple cider vinegar for everything.

I think it’s pretty much a panacea.

Whether she needs to clean something or heal some sort of ailment or pretty much anything, it is apple cider vinegar. It’s the only thing she needs in her life.

Tell her it’s already extended my life by ten years, so it’s working.

Jim, any final thoughts for our listeners?

Well, we thank everybody for listening. Thank people for sending in the questions, especially Lily today, great job. Love everybody. I think if you keep a happy heart you’ve probably got a healthy heart, so start with loving yourself and love everybody around you and maybe we’ll make each other well that way.

You’ve been listening to L/L Research’s weekly podcast, In the Now. If you’ve enjoyed the show, please visit our websites: LLResearch.org and Bring4th.org. Thanks so much for listening and a special thank you to those who submitted questions.

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