Quest Magazine

The Quest for the Father in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

 Originally printed in the July - August 2004issue of Quest magazine.
Citation: Algeo, John. "Harry Potter's Four Fathers." Quest  92.4 (JULY - AUGUST 2004):145-149.

By John Algeo

The Harry Potter stories have enchanted readers—both children and adults—all over the world since the first book appeared just seven years ago. Why have these books captured the imagination of people differing widely in maturity and culture? They have done so because, like all great literature, the Harry Potter stories speak to people of all ages by presenting universal truths—not by preaching but in a subliminal, parable-like way.

The theme of the third book in the series, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, is Harry's search for his father. The quest for a father, or the Father, is one we all participate in. The surface-level story begins in the first book, when Harry was orphaned as an infant. His mother and father were murdered by the evil wizard Voldemort, whose own body was destroyed when he attempted to murder the infant Harry as well. But Harry survived and was given to his mother's sister and her husband (Petunia and Vernon Dursley) to rear. When Harry reached the age of eleven, he was sent, according to arrangements made by his parents before his birth, to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry to prepare him for a career as a wizard.

Harry is happy at the school, where he progresses in his studies and becomes a star in the wizard sport, Quidditch, which is played in the air on broomsticks. He spends each summer, however, with his aunt and uncle in their house on Privet Drive, Little Wingeing, Surrey. They are Muggles (that is, non-wizards) but also are prejudiced, ignorant, and mean-spirited. These summers are miserable times for Harry because in the Dursleys' house he is a Cinderlad, ill-treated by his relatives, deprived of contact with his school friends, and forbidden to engage in his studies or favorite pursuits.

Harry's real life is at Hogwarts, where each year he has a quest to perform, and sometimes more than one, all of which are aspects of a single great quest: the quest for self-knowledge—the quest to discover who and what he is. In the third book, Harry's specific quest is somehow to find his dead father embodied in what today we call a "father figure."

Harry's passionate love for his father is introduced early in the book, when Aunt Marge, his uncle's sister, arrives for a visit at the Dursleys' toward the end of the summer. Aunt Marge breeds bulldogs and picks on Harry unmercifully:

She jerked her head at Harry . . . .

"This one's got a mean, runty look about him. You get that with dogs. I had Colonel Fubster drown one last year. Ratty little thing it was. Weak. Underbred. . . .

"It all comes down to blood . . . . Bad blood will out. Now, I'm not saying nothing against your family, Petunia [the sister of Harry's mother] . . . but your sister was a bad egg. They turn up in the best families. Then she ran off with a wastrel and here's the result right in front of us. . . .

"This Potter," said Aunt Marge loudly, seizing the brandy bottle and splashing more into her glass and over the tablecloth, . . . "A no-account, good-for-nothing, lazy scrounger who—"

"He was not," said Harry suddenly. The table went very quiet. Harry was shaking all over. He had never felt so angry in his life. (26—7)

But Aunt Marge continues to insult Harry's parents as she swells with fury. But then she begins to swell all over. Her whole body swells up as though it were full of hot air, and it floats up to the ceiling like an over inflated blimp. Harry, unconsciously, has put a spell on Aunt Marge so that her physical form mirrors the emotions and empty falsehoods she was expressing.

That is the introduction of the Father theme in this third novel, and from it we know that Harry's love for his father, whom he greatly resembles in appearance and character, is so strong that Harry will brook no unjust criticisms of him. Later in the novel, when Harry is back at Hogwarts School, he has a run-in with one of his teachers, Professor Snape, who was a schoolmate and rival of Harry's father and between whom there was bad blood:

"How extraordinarily like your father you are, Potter," Snape said suddenly, his eyes glinting. "He, too, was exceedingly arrogant. A small amount of talent on the Quidditch pitch made him think he was a cut above the rest of us, too. Strutting around the place with his friends and admirers —the resemblance between you is uncanny."

"My dad didn't strut," said Harry, before he could stop himself. "And nor do I."

"Your father didn't set much store by rules, either. . . . Rules were for lesser mortals . . . . His head was so swollen—"

"SHUT UP!"

Harry was suddenly on his feet. Rage such as he had not felt since his last night in Privet Drive was thundering through him. He didn't care that Snape's face had gone rigid, the black eyes flashing dangerously.

"What did you say to me, Potter?"

"I told you to shut up about my dad!" Harry yelled. "I know the truth, all right? He saved your life! . . . You wouldn't even be here if it weren't for my dad!"

Snape's sallow skin had gone the colour of sour milk. (209—10)

Any unjust criticism of Harry's father provokes a violent response from him because he has constructed an ideal figure of his father, a figure he himself is trying to live up to. Harry has put his dead father on a pedestal and honors him with intense devotion. In one of the recurring visions Harry has of his parents' death, he sees his father heroically battling the evil wizard Voldemort, trying to give his wife time to escape with their infant son, Harry himself.

James Potter, Harry's father, was indeed brave, intelligent, loyal, and accomplished. But in his younger years he was also something of a hellion and a scamp. He was, that is, a bright, independent, and normal young man. Harry is, however, seeking an ideal image of his father, and he embodies it in four persons, each of whom reflects some particular characteristic of the father image and each of whom also has his own limitations. A subordinate theme of the book is that no person is perfect, but all—however good and admirable in some ways—have imperfections of some kind. That is the nature of human beings, even wizard human beings.

A Albus Dumbledore as Intuition

The first of the four father figures is the Headmaster at Hogwarts, Albus Dumbledore, who might more appropriately be called a grandfather figure, for he was a teacher at Hogwarts in James Potter's day. Dumbledore (whose given name, "Albus," means "white" in Latin) is reputed to be the greatest and best wizard of the time: "Harry happened to agree . . . that the safest place on earth was wherever Albus Dumbledore happened to be. Didn't people always say that Dumbledore was the only person Lord Voldemort has ever been afraid of?" (55).

But Dumbledore, though wise and powerful, is not omniscient or omnipotent. He could not save Harry's mother and father from being killed by Voldemort. And he cannot save a poor Hippogriff (a beast that is half horse and half eagle) from being put down because it was goaded by a nasty boy into a violent response, nor can he save Harry's godfather, Sirius Black, from being sent back to prison and death for a crime he did not commit. Dumbledore tells Harry, "I have no power to make other men see the truth," and in response, Harry stared up into the grave face and felt as though the ground beneath him was falling sharply away. He had grown used to the idea that Dumbledore could solve anything. He had expected Dumbledore to pull some amazing solution out of the air. But no —their last hope was gone" (287—8).

But actually no, their last hope is not gone, and Dumbledore does pull something out of the air. He says to Harry's friend Hermione, "What we need . . . is more time." That cryptic remark with its special emphasis was a message to Hermione that she and Harry have what they need to save both the Hippogriff and Sirius Black. Hermione, who is the most industrious student at Hogwarts, has been taking several courses at the same time. As a special privilege as the best student at the school, she was allowed secretly to use a Time-Turner, which is a device that allows the user to travel back in time. At the end of a class, she simply turned the time back before the start of that class and went to a different class instead, thus doubling the number of courses she was in.

With his cryptic remark, Dumbledore suggested to Hermione that she and Harry could go back in time and save the Hippogriff from being beheaded and then use the Hippogriff to fly Sirius Black away from his persecutors and to safety. That's the way all the Great-Souled Teachers work. They do not tell us what to do or how to do it; they do not direct. They suggest; they give little hints or clues, which we are expected to act upon on our own initiative and in our own way. The Great-Souled Teachers do not give us instruction. They give us intuition. And that is Dumbledore's role.

Albus Dumbledore is the Father, or Grandfather, of Intuition. He is the embodiment of Buddhi.

A Remus Lupin as Knowledge

The second of Harry's four father figures is Remus Lupin. His name is significant because he is a werewolf, a man-wolf, who was bitten by a wolf in his childhood and therefore turns into a wolf at every full moon. In Roman mythology, Remus was the brother of Romulus, both of whom were suckled by a she-wolf as babes; and "Lupin" is from Latin lupinus, meaning "of a wolf."

Remus Lupin teaches the course in Defence against the Dark Arts, which Harry takes during his third year at Hogwarts. The dark creatures that Harry is most terrified of are the Dementors. They are guards at the wizard prison of Azkaban, from which Harry's godfather, Sirius Black, has escaped. But the Dementors are not normal guards. They are sightless creatures who suck out all happiness and hope from their victims, leaving them in mindless despair. The Dementors are personifications of psychotic depression. Their ultimate weapon is to suck the very soul out of their victims. Because the Dementors play upon the fears of humans, Harry, having been attacked by Voldemort as an infant, is especially susceptible to them.

Remus Lupin tells Harry that what the boy fears most of all is fear itself, and then teaches him a defense against fear and the Dementors. It is the Patronus Charm. This charm "conjures up a Patronus . . . which is a kind of Anti-Dementor—a guardian which acts as a shield between you and the Dementor" (176). The Patronus is an embodiment of the most intense happiness the user of the charm has ever experienced. Harry wants to know what the Patronus looks like, but Lupin tells him that each is unique to the wizard who conjures it. It is a very difficult charm to work, and even some of the most skilled wizards are unable to use it successfully. The word patronus is Latin for "protector" or "defender," but it is based on the Latin word pater, "father."

Because Remus Lupin is a man-wolf, he combines the human and the bestial. In that, he is like the mind, which is also twofold, human and animal. In his human phase, Remus is helpful and mild; in his wolf phase, he is vicious. Because he knows he is both man and wolf, both human and beast, he is wise, full of the knowledge of both the higher, light side and the lower, dark side of life.

Incidentally, Remus is also the first one to prescribe chocolate for Harry as a remedy for shock or whatever else ails him. The nurse at Hogwarts discovers this and remarks approvingly: "Did he now? . . . So we've finally got a Defence against the Dark Arts teacher who knows his remedies."

Remus Lupin is the Father of Knowledge. He is the embodiment of Manas.

A Sirius Black as Devotion

The third of Harry's four father figures is Sirius Black, who was James Potter's best friend, best man at his wedding, and godfather to Harry. But Sirius was framed as the betrayer of James and his wife, Lily, and also as a mass murderer. For those supposed crimes he was sent to the prison of Azkaban. But whereas most prisoners in that most feared of all prisons go mad within a short time, deprived of all hope and overcome by fear of the Dementors, Sirius Black had control over his emotions. Because he did not succumb to fear, he survived in Azkaban and eventually managed to escape, in order to hunt down James and Lily's actual betrayer, who was also the real mass murderer, and also to protect his godchild, Harry.

Sirius Black and James Potter were also close friends with Remus Lupin. To be companion for Lupin and help to control him when he entered his wolf phase at the full moon, they both became Animagi, wizards who can assume an animal form at will. Sirius Black became a huge black dog. The dog is proverbially man's best friend, and Sirius was James Potter's best and devoted friend.

Sirius is also the name of the brightest star in the sky, located in the constellation Canis Major (Latin for "big dog"), and Sirius is therefore called "the Dog Star." The name Sirius comes from Greek seirios, meaning "the scorcher"; it was so called because the time of the year when this star rises with the sun is the hottest season or midsummer, also known as the "dog days." Heat is associated with active emotion, and warmth with devotion. In ancient Egypt, the first rising of Sirius in the morning sky marked the beginning of the Nile flood, on which the agricultural richness of the land depended. Water is traditionally associated with life and emotion, and rising water with rising emotions.

Sirius Black was energized by his emotions and especially his devotion to friends. Although he usually controlled those emotions, not they him, they did sometimes run away with him. In his school days, he was the initiator of the high jinx that created an enmity between another student, Severus Snape, and James Potter, which still affects Harry's relationship with Snape, who is one of his teachers. But Sirius loves Harry and is a devoted godfather to him. He gave Harry great hope and happiness when he invited him to come to live with him rather than with the boy's Muggle relatives. In turn, Harry's devotion to him results in Sirius Black's freedom from being the "Prisoner of Azkaban."

Sirius Black is the Father of Emotion and Devotion. He is the embodiment of Bhakti.

A James Potter as Active Will

The ultimate of Harry's four father figures is his own biological father, James Potter. It was Harry's spirited defense of his father's name and reputation that triggered the events of the third book in the saga. Harry is the spitting image of his father, except for his eyes, which are those of his mother. Harry is consequently especially identified with James as his ultimate father figure. And he responds to critical challenges as his father would have.

For example, when Remus Lupin and Sirius Black have captured Peter Pettigrew, who actually betrayed Harry's father and mother and also was the mass murderer, they intend to kill him. But Harry intervenes to save his life and explains to the culprit, "I'm not doing this for you. I'm doing it because I don't reckon my dad would've wanted his best friends to become killers—just for you" (275). And Dumbledore later confirms that reckoning: "I knew your father very well, both at Hogwarts and later, Harry . . . . He would have saved Pettigrew too, I am sure of it" (311). And when Sirius Black leaves Hogwarts and the dreaded Dementors for freedom, his farewell words to Harry are "We'll see each other again . . . . You are—truly your father's son, Harry."

But the real identity of Harry with his father James comes when he successfully uses the Patronus charm. Harry and Hermione have used her Time-Turner to go back several hours in order to rescue the Hippogriff and to use it to free Sirius Black. They have the Hippogriff and are biding their time, waiting for the proper moment to free Sirius. Harry scouts around to see whether the coast is clear for them to move, and as he looks out over a lake he sees, on its other side, the Dementors about to overcome Sirius Black and himself (as he was at that earlier time). He knows that the only way to save them both is with the Patronus charm, which he has never been able to work well. But at that moment he knows that he must use it and that it must work because he survived that earlier attack.

So Harry evokes a Patronus—a magnificent, huge, luminous white stag, which gallops across the lake and scatters the Dementors. The Harry of that earlier time saw the Patronus coming to save him and then returning to the distant figure on the far side of the lake, and he thought that figure was his father. But of course it was himself from another hour, come back to be his own savior as well as the savior of Sirius Black.

The stag form of the Patronus is also connected with Harry's father, for as an Animagus James Potter transformed into a stag, and in that transformation was called "Prongs" because of his antlers. As Chevalier and Gheerbrant show in their Dictionary of Symbols, stags are important symbols in shamanic cultures and in Celtic myth; they represent creation and renewal, as well as the sun and light. Harry's Patronus stag was a brilliantly white animal, a fitting complement to Sirius's black dog. The Church Father Origen likened Christ in his active role in the world to a stag. The stag is swift to act, leaping and speeding. Alchemically, it is mercury or masculine will.

The earlier Harry, who witnessed his later self sending the Patronus and who mistook that self for his father, comes to realize that it was he himself who saved himself. He later talks with Dumbledore about it:

"It was stupid, thinking it was him," he muttered. "I mean, I knew he was dead."

"You think the dead we have loved ever truly leave us? You think that we don't recall them more clearly than ever in times of great trouble? Your father is alive in you, Harry, and shows himself most plainly when you have need of him. How else could you produce that particular Patronus? Prongs rode again last night. . . . So you did see your father last night, Harry —you found him inside yourself." (312)

H. P. Blavatsky talks about much the same thing in The Key to Theosophy:

James Potter is the Father of Active Will. For Harry, he is the embodiment of Atma, the Higher Self, the "Father in heaven." As an Anglican liturgical reading addresses God: "We are the clay, you are the potter." And that Potter is Harry's Father and Father of us all.

References

Blavatsky, Helena Petrovna. The Key to Theosophy. London: Theosophical Publishing Company, 1889.
Chevalier, Jean, and Alain Gheerbrant. A Dictionary of Symbols. London: Penguin, 1996.
Rowling, J. K. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. London: Bloomsbury, 1999.

John Algeo, PhD served for nine years as president of the Theosophical Society in America and is now international vice president of the Theosophical Society. He is author of the Quest book Reincarnation Explored and now editor of The Letters of H.P. Blavatsky 1861-1879. He is widely published in Theosophical magazines.

Originally printed in the July - August 2004 issue of Quest magazine.
Citation: Abdill, Edward. "The Secret Gateway." Quest  92.4 (JULY - AUGUST 2004):128-132.

By Edward Abdill

The Voice of the Silence by H. P. Blavatsky is an extraordinary book. In effect, it is a guidepost for living a life that is said to lead one ultimately to enlightenment. The book is not for everyone. In fact, HPB dedicated it "to the few." Reading only the first few verses reveals why only a small number of people would take the book seriously.

The preliminary verses tell us that we must become indifferent to the objects of perception and seek out the thought producer. Surely that is no simple task. Few would have any interest in trying it, particularly when they realize the hardships, dangers, and self sacrifice required to reach the goal set before us.

In the short piece entitled "There Is a Road," HPB mentions a secret gateway. The essay is not included in The Voice of the Silence, but both point in the same direction. While The Voice of the Silence describes the steps along the path, "There Is a Road" simply points toward that path and assures us that although it is steep and thorny, with effort we can reach the goal. This little piece highlights both the hardships and the possibility of overcoming them. It reads:

There is a Road, steep and thorny, beset with perils of every kind, but yet a Road. And it leads to the very heart of the universe.

I can tell you how to find those who will show you the secret gateway that opens inwardly only, and closes fast behind the neophyte forevermore.

There is no danger that dauntless courage cannot conquer.
There is no trial that spotless purity cannot pass through.
There is no difficulty that strong intellect cannot surmount.

For those who win onward, there is reward past all telling: the power to bless and to save humanity. For those who fail, there are other lives in which success may come.

Throughout the spiritual literature of the world, the road, path, or journey is often used as a metaphor for a way of life. Just as a physical road is useless unless traveled, so is the metaphorical way of life useless unless lived. In The Voice of the Silence we read: "Thou canst not travel on the Path before thou hast become that Path itself." (Fragment I, verse 58) There is no actual path or road apart from our own evolving self. There is only a way of living, and the experiences that change us.

In one sense there are really only two roads. The one that most of us choose is the sensate one. That is the road that winds through feelings of every description. Our experience on this road tells us that we are our feelings. This road is not wrong. We learn as we travel it, but we learn ever so slowly over many lives.

The other road is often symbolized in myths and legends as one that is traversed at the risk of death. Yet the reward at the end is worth all the trials that the journey requires. Where is that road? Why is it so perilous, and why is the gateway to it secret?

This less-traveled road is the one whose gate opens "inwardly only and closes fast behind the neophyte forevermore." It opens inwardly to our thoughts, feelings, desires, hopes, aspirations, and ideals. It also opens to a reality beyond all that, beyond the "me" with which we identify. It opens to who and what we truly we are.

We might think that we know who we are, but do we? Perhaps we are like the man who was frantically trying to get on another flight after his was canceled. There was a long line at the counter where an agent was rapidly working to rebook everyone. The man dashed to the front of the line and told the agent that he absolutely had to be put on the next flight. The agent politely told him that he would have to stand in line with everyone else. In his desperation, he shouted, "Do you have any idea who I am?" At that the agent picked up the mike and announced, "We have a gentleman here who seems to have lost his identity. If anyone can help him recover it, please report to gate A36."

If the gate that opens inwardly is simply a gate to the self with which we are familiar, it certainly does not close fast behind us forevermore. There is hardly anyone whose personal nature has not been modified to some extent over years. Sometimes our experience changes us. Sometimes through psychoanalysis we make major changes. As we grow older, friends often notice that we have mellowed. The familiar self can be modified. We can go in and out the gate to that self, modifying the "me" or not as we please or as circumstances force us to change. Moreover, there is nothing secret about that kind of gate.

The gate that closes permanently behind us is not a gate to self-analysis. It is not a gate to new ideas or theories about ourselves and the world, not even Theosophical theories. Rather, it is a gate that opens to a totally new state of consciousness, to the first experience of the Inner Self. That experience is qualitatively different from the everyday experience of "me." It is an impersonal state in which there is no longer a sense of self and other, no longer duality, but only the Eternal. So long as we identify with some state within us and say, "This is I," there is the duality of subject and object. There is the self that observes and the object, or state of consciousness, that is observed. In The Voice of the Silence we read:

When waxing stronger, thy Soul glides forth from her secure retreat: and breaking loose from the protecting shrine, extends her silver thread and rushes onward: when beholding her image on the waves of Space she whispers, "This is I,"— declare, O Disciple, that thy soul is caught in the webs of delusion." (Fragment I, verse 16)

The gateway that leads to the experience of the Inner Self is secret because it is totally unknown until experienced. Until then, we have only theories about it, words, concepts, ideas, and creeds.

When that Inner Self is experienced, when for a fleeting forever we are that SELF, there is no time. There is no self. There is only Eternity. Once that reality flashes upon our mind, the gateway closes fast forevermore, because no matter how difficult life may become in the future, we can never forget that at the depth of our being we are rooted in the Eternal.

It is said that when we are born we get a flash of the life to come. In a fleeting instant we understand what it is that we must try to do in that lifetime. The flash is but a preview of our goal, not the goal itself. A lifetime of pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow, and challenges of every sort lie before us. Just as that flash preview comes at the beginning of a life, so does the flash awakening of the Inner Self come at the beginning of a new kind of life. At that moment we have no more reached the goal than the infant has done in the flash preview of the life about to be lived.

Speaking of an experience such as that in meditation, Blavatsky writes:

In his hours of silent meditation the student will find that there is one space of silence within him where he can find refuge from the thoughts and desires, from the turmoil of the senses, and the delusions of the mind. By sinking his consciousness deep into his heart he can reach this place—at first only when he is alone in silence and darkness. But when the need for the silence has grown great enough, he will turn to seek it even in the midst of the struggle with self, and he will find it. Only he must not let go of his outer self, or his body; he must learn to retire into this citadel when the battle grows fierce, but to do so without losing sight of the battle; without allowing himself to fancy that by so doing he has won the victory. That victory is won only when all is silence without as within the inner citadel. Fighting thus, from within that silence, the student will find that he has solved the first great paradox. (Collected Writings, Vol. VIII, p. 128)

We have not reached "the very heart of the universe." Rather, we have seen that ahead of us lies a steep and thorny road. Only gradually, through challenging experiences, do we discover just how steep and thorny it is.

One of the first things we may notice on the road is that throughout life our mind and emotions have become powerfully conditioned. For the most part we automatically react to circumstances that come before us. Like a cat that hisses at someone who has abused it, we "hiss" at certain people who have annoyed us. We react emotionally to ideas that threaten our views. If someone upsets us, we remember it. When we meet again, the memory of the upset comes into our mind and we react to it. We do not really see people as they are now. Instead, we see our memory and react to it.

Our mind and emotions have been running us, although we may be totally unaware of it. While the Inner Self sleeps, it can do nothing. For us it does not exist. We are only aware of our mental and emotional states and our often feeble attempts to change them. Simply working on ourselves from within the "me" is much like rearranging the furniture in our home. We may make things more attractive by doing that, but it is still the same old house and the same old furniture.

Once the Inner Self is awakened, we realize that it is from there that we must gain mastery over our whole nature. From there we must rein in the mind, purify it, sharpen it, direct it in totally new ways, and make it so crystal clear that it will carry out the will of the Inner Self.

This is a gigantic task. Why? Because our habitual way of thinking and acting has built up a powerful momentum that can only be changed with great effort over time. Commenting on "self-purification," Master KH explained to Sinnett that it is not the work of a moment but the work of a series of lives. Alluding to psychological inertia, he adds that we must "undo the effects of a long number of years spent in objects diametrically opposed to the real goal." (Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom, First Series, letter 6).

If we are among the few who long for union with the Eternal, what must we do to obtain it? HPB tells us to begin by becoming aware that we are not only ignorant of our true nature but constantly self-deceived. Next, she says, we need a deep conviction that with effort we can obtain intuitive and certain knowledge. Third, she adds, we must have an "indomitable determination" to get that knowledge and face it. Such knowledge is unobtainable by rational thought alone. It is the awakening of the Divine nature within.

The determination that HPB mentions is the driving force that keeps us on the road to knowledge. If the inner will is weak, if we give up when the road gets steep and thorny, truth and self-knowledge will elude us.

Armed with an indomitable determination to see ourselves as we are, faults and all, we can begin the long and arduous self-transforming journey. Unfortunately, there are no clear, detailed maps, only guideposts that point toward the ultimate goal. No map will do, because although the goal is the same for all, the route is unique to each traveler. The route is our life.

One of the clearest guideposts for living is one that was given to Madame Blavatsky by one of her teachers. It has been called the Golden Stairs, and it reads as follows:

A clean life, an open mind, a pure heart, an eager intellect, an unveiled spiritual perception, a brotherliness for one's co-disciple, a readiness to give and receive advice and instruction, a loyal sense of duty to the Teacher, a willing obedience to the behest of Truth, once we have placed our confidence in and believe that Teacher to be in possession of it, a courageous endurance of personal injustice, a brave declaration of principles, a valiant defense of those who are unjustly attacked, and a constant eye to the ideal of human progression and perfection which the Sacred Science depicts. These are the golden stairs up the steps of which the learner may climb to the Temple of Divine Wisdom.

On the surface, the statement is clear and easy to understand. Yet to live in accordance with the Golden Stairs requires far more than a superficial understanding of what is required. One might meditate on these qualifications for years, gradually gaining deeper insight into their meaning as one attempts to understand and live them.

There is another guidepost for living called the Three Limbs of the Theosophical Life. Those three limbs are study, meditation, and service. Once again, there are depths of meaning in those three qualifications.

Most people think that study is linked to an acquisition of knowledge. Often students read texts, remember what they read, and are convinced that they have studied. On one level, they are right. We must know certain facts if we are to function in the world. Yet the kind of study required to reach the secret gateway is far more than that. Simply accepting what is written about a spiritual principle is of little use. We need to go beyond the written word to the level of insight. By pondering the concepts that we sense are true, by stretching the mind, we may experience a flash of understanding that changes us.

The kind of study just described is in fact a type of meditation. Meditation is not a thinking process. It is an action of the mind. In study, our meditation is on a spiritual principle that we seek to understand. In meditation proper, we try to come into union with the Eternal. Both study and meditation take our focus away from the "me." Both can lead to insight and transformative change.

Although the quality of service is listed separately, it is in fact the consequence of the first two qualifications. Study, meditation, and service are inseparably linked. Through study and meditation we come to experience a closer unity with humanity itself. This results in compassion, which motivates true service. Many people of goodwill volunteer their services to help others. This is a good and useful thing to do. Yet if we seek to serve because we want praise and admiration from others, then our service is motivated by self-interest. Real service is an attitude of mind and a way of life. It is doing what is right, regardless of personal inconvenience. The simple act of smiling at a supermarket clerk who seems to be unhappy is service.

Whenever we do what we can to bring joy and harmony into the life of a fellow being, human or other, we are serving. Those who render true service do so because it is part of their nature. They can do no other.

All valid guideposts point toward the secret gateway. They point, but they cannot lead us to that gateway and road beyond. Ultimately, it is only our own innermost Divine nature that can lead us to the gateway. That Divine reality shines through every human being, but in most it shines feebly. That is because our egos are like clouds. Some are dark and threatening. Some are pleasant and fluffy, but each cloud, each ego, blocks the sunlight in varying degrees.

In some individuals, known as adepts, the light shines on the world through a cloudless sky. That light can also influence and guide us, but only if we dissipate the clouds of ego. If we deeply long to alleviate suffering in all its forms, if we are motivated by compassion and altruism, we are automatically within the stream of influence radiating from the adepts.

To reach the gateway and the road that leads to reward past telling, we must be driven by compassion. We must have an iron, never-failing determination and yet be gentle and humble. We must be clad with the armor of courage, take up the shield of purity, and wield the sword of intellect. If we try to do that, I believe that we can and will enter the stream of influence from the adepts and contribute to it.

By passing through the secret gateway and following the steep and thorny road, we may come at last to SELF knowledge. Only then will we be free. Only then, will we reap the reward past telling, the power to bless and save humanity.

Reference

• Blavatsky, H. P. The Voice of the Silence. Adyar, Madras: Theosophical Publishing House, 1888
• Jinarajadasa, C. Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom. Adyar, Chennai: Theosophical Publishing House, 1988.

Edward Abdill served six years on the National Board of Directors of the Theosophical Society in America. He lectures in Spanish and English and has spoken throughout the United States, in Australia, Brazil, England, and the New Zealand. His video course on "Foundations of the Ageless Wisdom" is used internationally.

By Sue Wright

Originally printed in the July - August 2006 issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Wright, Sue. "Therapeutic Touch: The Healing Journey'." Quest  94.4 (JULY-AUGUST 2006):133-137.

Plato taught by his example that man possesses within himself the power to cure the diseases of his body, that in the end, every man is his own priest, and every man is his own physician. Wisdom is a universal medicine and is the only remedy for ignorance, the great sickness of mankind. This is the doctrine of the mystics, the doctrine which they learned in the old temples, the doctrine which someday must be the foundation of all enlightened therapy.

--Healing: The Divine Art by Manly Palmer Hall

The Journey on the Path Begins

Who steps onto the path of healing? Do you undertake the journey as a healer or as one who seeks healing? Most often, the answer is both for healers who learn how to help others learn about themselves in the process of healing. Are there still others who wished to be healers, yet have had no opportunity to fulfill that desire? What does it mean to be a healer? Where does the urge to take up this journey come from?

From the early to mid-twentieth century, prevailing conditions in the modern technologically-based Western countries did not offer much support for those who wished to practice healing. The dominant paradigm for health, disease, pain, and suffering was one in which the mind and body were considered separate entities. Science and the physical world were highly valued over the realms of the emotional and mental.

In a very real way, we were stepping away from ourselves. With health care relying increasingly on technology, in many cases we spent more time interacting with machines rather than with the living and the breathing. The balance had shifted too much in one direction, and when scales are tipped too far in one direction, they can move no further.

Western medicine's development over the past couple of centuries has placed greater emphasis on curing than on healing. To cure is to eradicate the disease process. Most physicians consider death the enemy, to be avoided at all costs. This seems a demoralizing position to take; for if physicians view death as failure they must fail a hundred percent of the time.

This attitude contrasts sharply with that encountered in both modern and ancient Eastern societies. Ayurevedic, Chinese, and Tibetan views about health, disease, and healing, for the living and the dying, are based on a framework we would consider more holistic, in which the duality of mind and body, of matter and energy do not exist. In these systems, healing is valued over curing. And birth, life, and death are seen as part of the universal cycle.

The most universal definition for healing is a move toward wholeness and order. This may mean something as simple as relief of pain; it might mean a moment of insight that leads to a greater understanding of one's self. Today, many seek to reexamine those ancient systems, to move toward learning, or perhaps relearning, a more holistic point of view that extends across disciplines, from physics to biology to health care.

Given that these systems were developed over thousands of years through empirical observation, including the study of anatomy, observation of the influence of emotions, thoughts, the cycles of nature, diet and many other factors, there is a vast amount of valuable knowledge to be gained. Incorporating this complex reality into a viable means of scientific inquiry has proved daunting

The Energetic Perspective

In the West, we most readily understand energy that can be measured objectively; primarily electrical, magnetic, and thermal energy. For example, we measure patterns of electrical energy in the heart and brain as EKGs and EEGs, and thermograms are scans of subtle temperature changes over areas of the body. We have used pulsed electromagnetic fields for decades to speed bone healing in cases of complex or slow-healing fractures.

Most of the ancient systems of health care—and, increasingly, modern holistic systems—view life as energetically based, and the physical body, emotions, thoughts, and the inner self (also known as higher self, soul, or spirit) as forms of subtle energy.

A National Institutes of Health (NIH) study found at least fifty-two names for this energy in various cultures and other languages. The Chinese call it chi, the Indians prana, while other names include mana, ether, orgone, biomagnetic, and zeropoint.

Perhaps because these subtle energy forms can neither be perceived with normal eyesight nor measured by a machine (as there are none), but only measured subjectively, many in the West have been slow to accept their reality. Critics say, "if this (subtle) energy exists, why isn't there a machine to measure it?" The answer lies in the human perceptual system itself. In Beyond Biofeedback, researcher Dr. Elmer Green of the Menninger Foundation states,

[some energies] have not been detected with scientific instruments because these instruments have no parts above the [physical] level. Humans have all the parts and can therefore detect a greater spectrum of energies. Instruments are made of minerals and lack the transducer components needed for detection. In other words, living beings are coupled to the cosmos better than scientific devices, which are, after all, quite limited tools.

All living things-people, animals, plants, and others-are bioenergetic entities existing in the physical world as systems of energy fields, constantly interacting with each other and the environment. These energetic fields permeate space. The physical body can be seen as the densest localization of energy. Other types of energy making up these systems include intuition, emotional, mental, and vital or etheric energy. In humans, localized concentration of these energies creates the complex human energy field (HEF), a whole, dynamic, and interdependent system.

Consciousness inhabits this energy, adding form, motion, and order. This energy is dynamic and governed by order and compassion. There is also a higher level of energy—the inner self-that exists and sees the order and the unity in this universe. The inner self can be defined as the highest representation of Self. All forms of energy, all levels of consciousness—physical, etheric, emotional, and mental—and the inner self are all aspects of the human energy field. Visually, this energy radiates out of us like ripples on a pond.

When a person is healthy, there is order and a continual exchange of energy within the environment; when there is disorder in the energy, the result is disease. Over time, energy patterns develop that affect health in both positive and negative ways. These patterns are complex and result from the interaction of too many variables to name, but they include DNA, environmental factors, one's experiences, and the conditioning one adopts throughout a lifetime. These habitual patterns are associated with changes in the order and flow within the energy system.

It is also important to remember that the organs, glands, nervous and lymph systems are part of the energetic system. When the energy that supplies one of these systems is disordered or disrupted, the body's organs and systems are less able to defend against disease and injury. In the same way, if our emotional and mental energy is disrupted, we are less able to cope and feel stressed, which in turn has a negative impact on our physical systems and a negative cycle ensues. When our energy systems are clear and balanced, we are in a better position to deal with stressors we encounter on all levels. Understanding the nature of these relationships and connections helps us understand the nature of disease, guiding us toward more effective treatment.

By the time a disease can be diagnosed medically, the energy in these interrelated systems has ceased flowing harmoniously, indicating that something is not working in our lives. If we don't pay attention to these initial, subtle energetic messages, the warnings will become more severe until we do take notice. Once we become aware of this, we can regard illness in a more positive light, as long as we act upon these warning signs and make the appropriate changes necessary to heal.

Energy is within and around us all the time, but our consciousness enables us to activate it and make it vital. In reference to the energetic framework, Dora Kunz said, 

The application of such a perspective may have outcomes that change our perception of human relationships, since every thought or emotion is an energy that may affect the energy field of others. Every thought, action, and emotion can thus be seen as an energetic pattern with distinct characteristics-a pattern that we may unconsciously radiate or deliberately direct at another person. In fact, illness and health have characteristic patterns of energy flow within each individual. Such dynamic patterns of energy may be likened to the ripple formation caused when a pebble is dropped into water. (213-261)

As this knowledge is disseminated more broadly and interventions based on a holistic, energetic perspective become more readily available, people in need have more options available to them. This alternative path offers many more choices for healing to those seeking help, especially those dissatisfied with traditional allopathic medicine.

In the middle of last century, alternative paths for those who felt compassion and a desire to help others were not as clear. At that time, the people who designated themselves as "healers" were mostly religious leaders, their beliefs based in Christianity. Their desire to help and heal was primarily expressed through prayer; their ability to heal seen as a rare gift from God, one that could not readily be taught to others.

In the 1960s, Dora Kunz, past president of the Theosophical Society in America and a clairvoyant, observed many of these religious healers. Based on her observations, Dora felt that it was possible for virtually anyone to learn to be a healer provided they had a desire to help others, an ability to quiet the mind, and compassion. Based on these beliefs, she and Dolores Krieger developed Therapeutic Touch (TT), which they defined as a modern interpretation of several ancient healing modalities, including the laying on of hands. It is the use of consciously directed energy towards the purpose of healing.

Developed in 1972, TT was a new idea for its day. Kunz and Krieger decided to teach nurses. Dora would say about herself "I am a practical girl," and teaching TT to nurses was practical. Most nurses already possessed compassion and a desire to help, and the patients they cared for were people who could most benefit from TT.

Today, more than thirty years since its inception, it is clear that TT has struck a chord and its practitioners now come from all walks of life. Many people who were looking for a way to be of service—a way to heal and be healed—found the right path for themselves when they found TT.

This is poignantly illustrated in an example of Dora's work. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, this country was in the early grip of the AIDS crisis. Dora began holding a weekly TT practice group that included many AIDS patients. To that point, AIDS' mortality was considered a hundred percent, but more significantly, many of those living with AIDS had witnessed their friends and lovers die agonizing deaths. They carried those pictures with them, along with fear of their own deaths. What Dora and TT gave them was not necessarily extended life, but rather new pictures of a peaceful death for themselves and those they helped. This provided a truly a healing experience on many levels for all concerned.

Challenges and Rewards on the Healing Path

The intrepid healer will face many challenges along the path. This is true whether one chooses to practice TT, as this author has, or to practice other forms of healing.

Therapeutic Touch has been described as both "a technique for healing and an inner journey" for the healer. Through the discipline of "ping" in TT practice and through meditation, the healer strengthens the connection with our highest level of consciousness, the inner self. The path to the inner self becomes clearer, engendering a stronger sense of peace, a deeper realization of the order and compassion of the universe, and greater certainty in one's intuitive insights. While some healers describe the strengthening of the inner self-connection as "going deeper," Krieger has referred to the process as going "inth."

Healers have the privilege of being with others in the most significant, often vulnerable, parts of their lives: birth, serious illness, and death. For some, the challenge is staying ped in the presence of another's pain and suffering. The difficulty is multiplied when the healer feels connected to the patient on a deeper emotional level. The healer's strong identification with a patient's pain is often accompanied by a stronger desire to help. Yet, this increased desire to help often results in the opposite effect if the healer is no longer engaged in the healing interaction from a ped place. Instead, the healer can get hooked into responding to the patient's pain, lose connection with the inner self, and thus lose focus on the intention of bringing order and compassion to the healing.

For many healers, the tendency to get hooked into a patient's pain and suffering stems from a pattern that started in their own childhood; a pattern that Dora referred to as the "sensitive child." The sensitive child seems to have blurred boundaries between their own emotions and emotions they pick up from others around them. For example, the sensitive child may start to cry in a room with arguing adults, but not know why they feel upset. Typically the sensitive child is sympathetic to others; often at the expense of their own well-being. But because they have an understanding of the pain others experience, they frequently become adult healers.

The other end of the continuum from the sensitive child is not an insensitive child, but rather a child who naturally possesses a "rejection principle," that allows them to be in the midst of the same chaos as the sensitive child, but without internalizing the emotional disturbance.

It is important for every healer to learn where emotional boundaries lie between themselves and others, but this is especially true for the sensitive child. The challenge is to learn to reach out to others from a ped place, offering compassion and understanding, but without incurring the personal cost. The ping process helps healers learn to make this distinction.

Most people will experience a degree of pain and suffering in their lives, some much more so than others. Some people create strong attachments to their pain, which can become habitual over time. Psychologists will often say, "Such people do not want to get well, they are comfortable in an uncomfortable pattern," meaning that to break the pattern would frighten them more than living with the pain they know.

A healer who has broken these patterns and learned from the experience can use the insight gained from personal understanding of pain and illness to help others. The time of suffering can serve as a process of initiation and metamorphosis. Eventually, the healer comes to understand suffering as an opportunity to dissolve old ways of being, and through a connection with the higher consciousness of the inner self, to emerge as someone new.

Not everyone who withdraws into the cocoon of personal suffering is able to awaken and be transformed by it, but the healer who has been able to do this comes away with a greater understanding of the process and the patterns. Then, in a healing interaction, the healer who can stay ped, see the patient's patterns clearly and avoid getting hooked into the patient's emotions can be tremendously helpful. Walking next to the patient through the healing process, the healer can share with them the potential paths to wholeness. With greater understanding of this process, the ped healer can help the patient learn more about themselves and can encourage the individual to follow their own trail in the healing experience, directed by their own inner resources.

Intention and Focus

In the course of a beginning Therapeutic Touch workshop, most people can quiet their minds enough to focus on treating a patient for a few minutes, at which point most patients will feel at least a mild sense of relaxation. A much greater challenge for the healer is treating someone who has severe pain, has suffered through a long illness, or is dealing with issues stemming from childhood abuse. The energetic patterns associated with such complex and severe problems are far more difficult to treat.

In the presence of such problems, the patient will likely lose their sense of self, the sense of "I," and identify more with the pain than with themselves. The physical, emotional, and mental factors that were present when the pattern began can be very disordered and deeply engrained. The healer's challenge in treating someone in this situation is to focus on the clear intention of sending energy through that pattern. The more the healer is ped, the stronger the intention and thus, the stronger the energetic flow transmitted to the patient.

Several common factors can detract from the healer's focus and ability to remain ped. We mentioned identifying with the patient's pain rather than the inner self earlier, but the healer must also stay nonjudgmental, unattached to an outcome, and aware of what might trigger an emotional reaction within themselves as the healer.

Another practice TT healers learn is to assess imbalances and changes in the energy fields. This assessment is key when it comes to intention. Energy flows where intention goes, so when a healer assesses the patient's energy and finds areas of disorder, intention can be focused specifically in that area.

When a healer sends energy to the patient in a general way, the patient will take in some of that energy, but in an assessment, the healer sees where the greatest need for energy is and focuses on sending energy directly through that particular area. In the former situation, the patient would definitely be helped; a positive thing and sufficient reason to administer TT. In the latter, by focusing intention, the healer sends energy through the specific area of disorder. All other factors being equal, the patient in the second instance receives more energy and more positive change in their pattern from the healer's assessment and clear focus.

So the healer's ability to assess imbalance and disorder in the patient's energy—as well as have confidence in this assessment—is a key factor. By quieting the mind and ping themselves, healers put aside distractions and create peace within that allows them to access and interpret their intuitive flashes.

While a healer's hands are important in assessment, the real key to the healing process is intuition. Healers learn to use their hands as sensors, gathering information to foster intuition.

Very often, less experienced healers have lower confidence in their abilities. A healer must understand the impact of internal dialogue and learn to recognize and trust the way their own intuition manifests itself. Repetitive practice is the way to build confidence. It is important for the healer to learn the difference between an intuitive flash and a busy mind. The healer must also put aside fears about "getting it wrong" and any prejudgments based on how a patient looks or acts.

Dora always suggested that beginners assess the patient without prior knowledge of their symptoms. The healer is then able to assess and get feedback from the patient, comparing how and what the patient feels with imbalances the healer might have intuited. Through feedback and practice, healers learn to trust their intuition. (One cautionary note: The purpose of this process is NOT to make a medical diagnosis, but rather to assess energy patterns.)

Conclusion

Why choose the path of the healer? Why choose to seek? Certainly it's not required. It may be difficult to find a teacher. Often it involves going against the beliefs of those around you such as your spouse, children, relatives and friends. Why deal with the looks and giggles from people who think what you're doing is crazy?

To pursue the path despite these factors, you must have a strong internal desire to learn; to explore life in a more meaningful way. By choosing this pain, we create the opportunity to touch our inner self and to make its peace and order a bigger part of daily life. In consciously connecting with our "self," we tap that essence that allows us to release our negative patterns and to connect consciously with everything. As more and more people make this choice together—which begins when each person makes the choice individually—it can change the patterns of conflict in the world. Healing then becomes a shared, lifelong journey of self-discovery, self-empowerment, and transformation for both healer and patient.

References

Green, Elmer. Beyond Biofeedback. New York, NY: Delacorte Press/Seymour Lawrence, 1977.

Kunz, D., and Eric Fields Peper. Spiritual Aspects of the Healing Arts. Wheaton, IL: The Theosophical Publishing House, 1985.