The Discoveries

Growing True and Straight

After long involvement with the Occult one becomes aware that much Occult activity seems to centre on health and healing. Many of the 'alternative' therapies (Acupuncture, Hypnosis, Homoeopathy, Herbalism, Aromatherapy, etc.) have their foundations in Occult or Magical lore and principles, it only being in recent years that a 'scientific' rationale has been found for them. Even surgery was originally a technique practised by the Priesthood, a body rooted in the traditions of Magic.
A preoccupation with health and healing appears as one of the principal characteristics of many of the Occultists, Magicians, and Alchemists of history. Healing has attracted that attention because it is an intrinsic part of the 'right way to be'. And despite all the sensationalist utterances of those on the 'outside', a pre-eminent concern of the majority of Occultists has always been to attain knowledge of this idealised 'right way'.

To comprehend the centrality of well-being more fully you'll find it helpful to turn now to the Visions, in particular 'In Windswept Fields' and the background thereto.
The experience described therein, that ultimately led to "In Windswept Fields", also gave birth to a series of discussions within the Fellowship from which came the notion of 'growing true and straight', of its application in our daily lives, and of its relationship to health and the 'right way to be'.

Here we seem to find the functioning of a universal principle, applicable at every level of existence, that is superior even to the perceived cycles of Life and Death, of Growth and Decay. Such 'fluctuations' are subordinate to the overall evolution of Life, with which we identify by our unconscious pursuit of health, growth, and regeneration, and which we unconsciously manifest with our creative impulses. The whole of which can be neatly summarised in the phrase 'growing true and straight'.

The conscious realisation of this evolutionary 'urge to Life', whereby we may actively and consciously pursue the imperative of 'growing true and straight', enables the whole process, hitherto dependent upon randomness, chance, and natural selection, finally to be directed by intelligent deliberation.
However, if we are to consciously and intelligently direct the process of 'growing true and straight', then we must first identify not only those things that assist in the process, but also those things that hinder it; those things that stunt, twist, and distort.

And here the focus returns to the matter of health and well-being. For, if good health is a consequence of 'growing true and straight', then the opposite of 'growing true and straight' must, consequently, be ill health (that which is not 'growing true and straight' is stunted, twisted, and distorted. The sufferer of chronic ill health can, similarly, be said to be stunted, twisted, and distorted, very often on more than one level).

Identifying good health as being an effect of living in the 'right way', it follows that ill health is an effect of not living in the 'right way'. (Care must be exercised here not to make the error in reasoning that would cause one to jump to the conclusion that therefore 'not living in the right way' is the only cause of ill health.)

In physical (i.e., outer) activity, there is little ambiguity about what is right, and what is wrong. We know that if we stick our hand in a fire it'll be burned. We know that if we eat rotten food we'll get sick. We know that if we hit our thumb with a hammer it'll hurt like hell. These sorts of things are not disputed. Clearly, sticking limbs in fires, eating contaminated food, crushing parts of our bodies, etc., are, in a sense, examples of living wrongly, but at a very simplistic and mundane level.
Current Western health-care enables us to identify, ever more accurately, other activities that are 'wrong', in the sense that they will render us liable to ill health or injury in one form or another.

These are not disputed because cause and effect are relatively direct and easy to identify. Moreover, it is now the consensus view, at least in the Western nations, that anyone who pursues activities knowing them to be 'wrong' (i.e., invoking ill health or injury) is, to say the least, foolish, and even 'anti-social'. Western health-care agencies go to great lengths to instruct and guide us in 'living in the right way', as it were. (Curiously, there is a whole class of activities where such concern appears to be deliberately suspended. That may be because it is perceived that the risks are outweighed by some greater benefit; we refer, of course, to 'sports'. Yet even in sports can be witnessed the curious trend of 'society' seeking to eliminate or minimise the 'risk' aspects of a given activity. This seems somewhat perverse, for surely it is the risk inherent in those activities that make them attractive in the first place!)

However, our 'outer activities' cannot conveniently be separated from our inner state of being, for often those outer activities, be they right or wrong, are a reflection of what's happening in our inner state. If we fail to make this connection, then all our efforts to conduct outer activities in the 'right way' will be to little avail, for they will be thwarted by the stunting, twisting, and distorting that occurs within.
The 'rampaging dog', the 'gale-force wind', and the 'crop blight', are as much metaphor as is 'reaching for the Sun'. They occur within us, in our mental and emotional life, at least as much as they do in our outer activities, if not more.

That is to say, although we can easily identify those outer activities that are inimical to good health, unless we can also identify, and appropriately deal with, the underlying compulsions to pursue such activities, we shall be no further forward. Moreover, it appears that the driving force for those compulsions derives, not from some external agency, but from within the very fabric of our being.
Even as we aspire to reach for the Sun, we find ourselves, with equal tenacity, wanting to grovel in the shit! Current theories attribute much of this 'grovelling' to the effects of early childhood experiences.
It cannot be disputed that such experiences can shape a person's life, but to argue that henceforward the individual is completely incapable of re-shaping their life is a denial of Life itself. Rather than using experiences from infancy as an excuse for unacceptable behaviour, should we not instead be using those experiences as lessons for what not to do, and how not to behave?

This duality (of aspiration vs. 'grovelling') has been observed and described by many philosophers and prophets, often being represented as the age-old struggle between Light and Dark, or Good and Evil.
Yet is not the phenomenon, rather than being one of parallel forces in eternal opposition or conflict, actually just an effect of transition? For such transition is implicit within the evolutionary process, and our growing awareness of it points, more than anything does, to the evolutionary nature of consciousness.

It is the leaving behind of the things of childhood as we struggle through adolescence to maturity, and it must necessarily be a continuing process, for that maturity is an ever-moving goal. Thus, it may be argued that the conflict between two supposed forces is actually an effect of a serial process; that given, we need not concern ourselves with 'first causes' so much as with the perpetuation of that which is effected by those 'first causes'.
For if the effects of the 'birth pangs' of our 'ever-becoming' are such as to cause us to retreat back into the womb as it were, then our personal evolution ceases; we stop 'growing true and straight'; we cease to reach for the Sun.

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