Esoteric Healing (A Treatise on the Seven Rays) by Alice A. Bailey

There are probably more individuals and groups of people in the world of every shade of belief and capacity, devoted to the idea of healing than to any other single human need. Yet healing is an exact, and an exacting, science; and in modern society no physician or surgeon may practice the ancient profession of healing without the personal qualifications legally recognised by the State for the protection of the public. No doubt prayer and invocation can be effective under certain circumstances, particularly when the one who serves is pure and harmless in motive, and has enough understanding to cooperate with the soul purposes of the individual, so permitting the healing energy of the soul to flow more freely and effectively through the personality, or to proceed with the process of withdrawal, if that is its immediate purpose.
Esoteric healing, however, includes far more than this; it is a science based on a number of requirements, including knowledge of the constitution of man and the nature of the various bodies, both dense and subtle. To this practical knowledge, the science of occultism contributes vital information of the energy factors, the karmic and ray influences, the psychology and astrology of the soul, and the laws and rules fundamental to the safe and successful practice of esoteric healing.
With all this to encompass in understanding and in application, little wonder that this science is as yet in its infancy, still in the experimental stages, and with other aspects of esotericism due for major development only as the soul in man takes a stronger hold of all personality affairs.
In this book the seven ray techniques of healing are described; the laws and rules of healing are enumerated and discussed; the requirements for healing are given in detail; and basic causes of disease are shown. We learn, for example, that much disease can be karmic in origin; that certain diseases are inherent in the soil and in the substance of the planet; and that many others are psychological, arising in the emotional or mental bodies. Hence the need for a total and comprehensive understanding both of the patient and of the correct and safe methods of healing.
We are also given a true understanding of death as the abstraction, or the withdrawal, of the soul from the body to continue life on its own plane without the limitation of the body, until a new cycle of incarnation and experience in form is necessary.
In the effort to apply the teaching given in "Esoteric Healing", those whose destiny lies in this area of human service will begin to unfold the spiritual faculty necessary for the healing of the whole man. And this will increasingly concern groups of workers using the magnetic and radiatory power of group energy and invocation. The right practice of esoteric healing conforms, therefore, to the new age development of group consciousness, and the establishment of right energy relationships which underlie all aspects of esoteric training in the world today. Not only the potential healer, but all occultists will learn much from a study of "Esoteric Healing".