Quest Magazine

By Nelda Samarel

Originally printed in the July - August 2006 issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Samarel, Nelda. "Therapeutic Touch: Healing Based on Theosophy and Science." Quest  94.4 (JULY-AUGUST 2006):127-131.

Therapeutic Touch (TT) is quite familiar to many theosophists, and for good reason. Developed in the early 1970s by two life-long theosophists, TT is taught and practiced in Theosophical Society lodges throughout the United States and the world.

The persons most influential in developing the technique are the late Dora Kunz, a gifted clairvoyant and healer and past president of the Theosophical Society in America; and Dolores Krieger, Ph.D., R.N., professor emeritus at New York University Graduate School of Nursing. For over three decades, both professionals and the lay public have used TT in homes and in health care settings. Drawing on a natural potential that can be developed in all individuals, the TT technique is gentle, simple to learn, and easy to use. It harmonizes with other approaches to health and can be used very effectively in combination with traditional health care practice.

TT is neither faith healing nor "laying-on of hands." It is a contemporary interpretation of several ancient healing practices. Although derived from these ancient practices, it differs from them in several significant ways. TT is not done within a religious context, nor does it require a professed faith or belief in its efficacy by the practitioner or the recipient. Another significant difference between TT and the laying-on of hands is that TT requires no direct skin-to-skin physical contact between practitioner and recipient. It is an energetic method of healing, based on a postulated re-patterning of energy, a process in which the practitioner uses the hands as a focus to enable people to move toward increased health.

The positive effects of TT are manifested physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. Research findings have documented its effectiveness in bringing about a state of deep relaxation, resulting in a decrease in physical and psychological stress. In addition to easing disorders caused by stress and chronic tension, TT is particularly effective in relieving pain, accelerating the healing process, and generally increasing feelings of well-being at all levels.

What is Therapeutic Touch?

What exactly is this healing phenomenon? TT may be defined as a holistic process based on the natural potential to use the hands to consciously re-pattern energy with the intent to heal. TT is holistic in that it affects our entire constitution, not merely the physical dimension, but the emotional, mental, and spiritual dimensions, as well. As a process, it is ongoing, dynamic, and continuous; the effects of the treatment are cumulative and increase over time. Every person has the natural potential to heal others; healing is not a "gift," it may be taught and learned. With sufficient practice, every person may heal using only the hands as the instruments for healing. A key concept of TT and a vital and integral part of the method is the conscious intent of the practitioner. In fact, research has demonstrated that, without a healing intent, the method is not effective. We are all aware that, when we suffer physically, emotionally, mentally, or spiritually, the simple presence of another compassionate human being is of great comfort. When our full attention is given to this effort, that is, when our conscious intent and motivation to assist is added to our physical presence, whatever we do is profoundly more effective.

According to theosophical teachings, human beings are energy fields and, according to modern science, energy is in constant motion. It is the pattern and rhythm of that motion, the vibration of energy, which determines our relative health or illness. TT works on the pattern, or flow of the recipient's energy.

The objective of TT is, of course, to heal. However, to heal is not to cure. To cure is to make healthy, to be rid of all symptoms and to restore health. It is possible to be cured of a cold or a headache. It is not possible to be cured of terminal cancer, or of a chronic and debilitating illness. Although all individuals may not be cured, all may be healed.

The word heal is derived from the Old English haelen, to make whole again. To make a person whole is to assist them to a condition where all dimensions—physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual—are working synchronously. Furthermore, it is implied that this is the natural state of being; this is the way we initially were and are meant to be; to make whole again. Healing, then, means to restore energetic order and balance to all dimensions of the human being. When order and balance are restored, it is possible for a person to do whatever it is they must do, fully and to the best of their ability. The person with a cold who is healed is then free to rid themselves of all bodily symptoms of the cold; the person with a headache no longer experiences headache pain. The person with a terminal illness who is healed becomes free to do what they need to do, that is, free to live the remainder of life with quality and to die with dignity and peace.

When all dimensions of the human are working in synchrony, healing occurs naturally. The TT practitioner assists the recipient to move to that state where healing may occur. Thus, the recipient heals himself; the practitioner merely places the recipient in the best possible condition for healing to occur.

Theoretical Assumptions Underlying the Practice of TT

An assumption is a premise, a statement that is assumed to be true because it has not been researched or validated. There are seven assumptions underlying the practice of TT. Three are posited from the scientific perspective and four are posited from the theosophical perspective.

Assumptions from the Scientific Perspective

Controlled clinical trials for TT, to date, have tested only its efficacy and safety because no way of testing its mechanism of action has been available. However, these assumptions regarding the mechanism of action have held true for thirty years.

The first assumption is that the human being is an energy field. We do not have energy fields; we are energy fields. In our WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) world, many question the reality of unseen energy fields. However, we all accept the presence of energy fields, whether or not we see them. For example, sound is an energy field. We do not see the sound waves, but readily accept the reality of the invisible waves created by one's vocal cords traveling through the atmosphere to reach another's ear drum, creating what we experience as the sound of another's voice. We readily accept the reality of the unseen gravitational energy field, invisible as it is. When we are holding an object and let go, there is no doubt as to what will happen to the object; we never wonder if the object will remain where it is in mid-air, travel upward, or sideways. Based on our knowledge of the gravitational field, we can predict with surety that the object will fall to the floor. The human field, while not visually perceived by most people, is a reality. The basis of TT is that this field may be perceived by touch. The concept of the human as an energy field is entirely consistent with modern physics, whereas Newtonian physics posits a WYSIWYG universe.

The second assumption underlying the practice of TT is that illness is an imbalance in the human energy field, which is in constant motion, as are all energy fields. This dynamism is orderly; it is patterned, balanced, and symmetrical. In the individual who is fully evolved physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually, the energy field is perfectly patterned or ordered, totally balanced, and completely symmetrical. Of course, other than the great teachers of the world (such as Buddha or Christ) none of us are fully evolved. Our energy fields are, therefore, never totally balanced and completely symmetrical.

However, if the pattern, balance, or symmetry of one's field is considerably disturbed, this disturbance or arrhythmia may manifest in a variety of ways: physically, we may get a cold, headache, or other physical ailment; emotionally, we may feel agitated or depressed; mentally, we may find ourselves having negative thought patterns or an inability to think clearly; and spiritually, we may question our own beliefs. It is posited that, when the energy flow is restored to its normal state of balance and harmony, health will be restored.

Several points need to be considered with regard to the assumption that illness is an imbalance in the energy field. First, this may imply that the energy imbalance precedes and causes the illness. It is entirely possible, however, that an illness may precede and cause the energy imbalance as, for example, in the case of a so-called accident. If a normally healthy individual falls, and fractures a leg, the fall and the broken leg will cause the subsequent energy imbalance. However, if this individual is "accident-prone," suffered frequent mishaps, it is likely that an energy imbalance is be the cause.

Another consideration, from a somewhat different viewpoint, is derived from the framework under which TT was developed. Shaped within the theosophical worldview, the development of TT was also influenced by the theory of Unitary Human Beings, articulated by Martha Rogers in her Introduction to the Theoretical Basis of Nursing. It is the conceptual model used to guide the nursing curriculum at New York University. According to this model, the linear model of our universe is flawed and, therefore, cause and effect cannot be known definitively. And so we do not see causal relationships, but rather reciprocal relationships (97). Applied to TT, we would say that there is a manifest illness. We cannot assume whether the energy field imbalance caused the illness or the illness caused the imbalance. However, we can say that there is a direct relationship between the energy field imbalance and the illness; one cannot appear without the other; modifying one will, therefore, modify the other.

The final consideration with regard to this second assumption is that the direct relationship between illness and energy field imbalance does not negate germ theory. Germ theory is the theory that foreign organisms, bacteria for example, cause physical illness and to restore health, medical care may be required, including medication. There is no conflict whatsoever between energy field theory and germ theory. Let us use the example of an individual with a streptococcus throat infection (strep throat). What is the cause of this problem? Is it an energy field imbalance or the streptococcus bacteria? Should this person be treated with TT to correct an energy field imbalance or with antibiotics to eradicate the causative bacteria? Clearly, medication is required to eradicate the bacterial infection and it would be dangerous to do otherwise. However, we may consider the reason this individual succumbed to a particular infection when others sharing the same space have not. An energy field imbalance has compromised this individual's immune system making him more susceptible to foreign organisms and to infection. This person will recover much more quickly when treated with TT, but still requires an antibiotic to eradicate the causative bacteria. This last consideration leads to an essential mandate regarding treatment with TT: it is not a substitute for medical care; rather, it is an adjunct to medical care.

The third assumption underlying the practice of TT is that the human being is an open system. The term system, that is, a set of things working together, or an interconnecting network, implies that we are unified wholes. Not only is each component of the physical body linked and interdependent, but also similarly, each dimension (physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual) is linked and interdependent.

An open system is one that is in constant interaction with its environment. According to General Systems Theory, every system that is living is open and interacting with its environment; a closed system cannot live.

We all have experienced this openness with our environments. For example, when entering a new place, perhaps a room where we never have been, we immediately feel "at home" with the place or the people and want to remain there. A colloquialism often used to describe this is that the place has "good vibes." The opposite experience occurs when we enter a new environment and, for no apparent reason, feel uncomfortable with the place and the people and want to leave. The colloquialism used here would be that the situation has "bad vibes."

We generally feel good and uplifted when around peaceful, joyous people and feel uncomfortable when with angry or restless people. There is no choice but to be open to our environments; it is not possible to close ourselves off from the energy fields around us, or to close our fields so others do not affect them. Our skin, our perceived boundary, is not a boundary at all. In fact, our boundaries are undefined.

Without this third assumption, TT could not be effective. The first two assumptions, that humans are energy fields and that illness is an imbalance in the energy field, are insufficient. If the recipient's energy field is not open, the TT practitioner could not have any effect on it.

Assumptions from the Theosophical Perspective 

Many wonder why TT is taught and practiced worldwide in theosophical lodges and ps. Not only was TT developed by two lifelong theosophists, but it reflects the theosophical world view and is, therefore, consistent with theosophical doctrine and practice. From the perspective of the theosophical world view, there are four assumptions underlying the practice of TT.

The first assumption is that there is but one reality, an underlying Unity of all existence. In other words, all life, in fact, the whole manifest universe, emanates from one source. All existence is interconnected. Metaphorically, we are all sparks of the one flame. If there is only One, it follows that matter and energy are two expressions of that One; and that they are equivalent. Therefore, any change in the subtle energy field affects the grosser physical, and likewise, any change in the physical affects the more subtle energy. Thus, when TT alters the subtle human energy field, effects may be experienced in the physical body.

The second assumption is that an innate intelligence or wisdom prevails throughout the universe. Our universe is patterned, ordered, and purposeful, with an inherent harmony, a tendency toward equilibrium. The pattern and order in the universe is undeniable. The sun rises in the east and sets in the west. Furthermore, the time of sunrise and sunset may be accurately predicted. Acorns that fall from oak trees germinate and produce new oak trees, not maple or elm trees. The seasons follow one after the other in an orderly cycle. The tendency toward equilibrium is a manifestation of the law of karma, the Great Law that restores balance in the universe. It is the Great Equalizer, restoring equilibrium or, as Plato described it, the Good (Allegory of the Cave, Republic VII). Healing is a natural consequence of this tendency toward equilibrium, toward the Good. Our bodies, emotions, minds, and spirits enjoy this natural tendency toward the Good, and TT merely enhances this natural tendency toward order and health.

The third assumption is also related to karma, the law of adjustment, of cause and effect. We are not in a position to know what karma is and how it plays out. If an individual is ill and suffering, perhaps it is their karma to experience the healing effects of TT. Perhaps the fact that this suffering individual crossed my path is my karma in order to provide me with the opportunity to learn and to grow through our mutual interaction. Of course, we cannot eradicate another person's karma, but we may influence or mitigate it. We can help smooth out scars of past experiences (samskaras), through facilitating the person's inner change. Regardless of how we may speculate, TT provides the opportunity to alleviate suffering in others, to act in compassion.

The fourth assumption is that consciousness is primary. It conceives, directs, and governs gross physical matter. And so, our conscious intent, if properly directed, can affect the subtler energies, resulting in changes physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.

A Compassionate Universe

When practitioners provide TT, they are instruments of compassion; when I provide TT for another, I do not feel compassion, I am compassion. Our universe is compassionate, and when I am doing TT, the universe is acting through me; I am simply acting as an instrument of the universal healing energy, fulfilling the universal dharma of compassion. If it is the karma of the person receiving TT to achieve greater health, it will happen. If it is that person's karma to suffer from some physical, emotional, or mental affliction, perhaps the TT may assist them to have the strength and insight to better deal with their illness. Whatever the result, we cannot place a value on the outcome, nor can we desire any specific outcome. As Dora Kunz frequently reminded the nurses she taught for decades, TT is offered with no attachment to the result, knowing that "the outcome is not in our hands."

Some people ask, "What do theosophists do other than meditate and sit around discussing?" An outgrowth of both the theosophical worldview and modern physics, TT is a compassionate intervention used worldwide to alleviate suffering. TT is an example of theosophy in action.

Therapeutic Touch

As generally taught and practiced, TT consists of five steps usually performed while the recipient is seated in a chair with eyes closed and feet flat on the floor.

1. Centering: The practitioner assumes a meditative state of awareness, achieving a calm, focused state of being and mentally making the specific intention to assist the recipient. Because this state of awareness is maintained throughout the entire treatment, TT is often thought of as a moving meditation.
2. Assessing: Practitioners move their hands, at a distance of two to four inches, over the recipient's body from head to feet, assessing whether the energy is flowing in a balanced, unbroken, evenly distributed manner, or whether there is a need for balancing, which may include, but is not limited to, areas of blocked energy, energy imbalance, energy deficit, or energy congestion.
3. Balancing: With a brushing motion, the practitioner clears blocked energy, energy imbalances, or congestion to achieve a more balanced energy flow in the recipient.
4. Energy transfer: If the recipient is experiencing energy depletion, the practitioner consciously serves as an energy transmitter. The energy is transmitted and transformed, through the practitioner, and passed on to the recipient. It is important to note that the practitioner does not act as an energy generator sending personal energy, but as a transmitter of universal energy.
5. Stopping: It is important to know when to end a treatment. These steps are not discrete, but fluid. For example, the practitioner reassesses from time to time, rebalances, and may combine several steps. The emphasis of TT is on system balance and, therefore, when the recipient's energy field seems balanced or improved, the practitioner ends the treatment.

A typical TT treatment lasts approximately 10-20 minutes, although treatments may extend up to 30 minutes or more. For more detailed information, see Therapeutic Touch: A Practical Guide.

References

Macrae, Janet. Therapeutic Touch: A Practical Guide. NY: Alfred A.Knopf, 1988

Plato. The Dialogues of Plato. Tr. B. Jowett. New York: Random House. 1937

Rogers, Martha. An Introduction to the Theoretical Basis of Nursing. Philadelphia: F.A. Davis Company, 1970.

Biography

Nelda Samarel is the Director of the Krotona School of Theosophy in Ojai, CA and Western District Director of the Theosophical Society in America. A practitioner and teacher of Therapeutic Touch for over twenty-five years, Nelda has taught TT throughout the world, received national funding to research its effectiveness, and published several articles on the subject in professional journals.

By Edward Tick

Originally printed in the July - August 2005 issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Tick, Edward. "Anne Frank and Uncle Willy." Quest  93.4 (JULY-AUGUST 2005):130-135

Last year my wife Kate and I traveled to the Netherlands with our children Gabriel and Sappho. We made this trip in honor of our son, who was graduating high school and leaving home for art school. Kate and I wanted to give Gabe a rite of passage by taking him to see Vermeer, Rembrandt, Van Gogh, and the worlds that had produced them.

We arrived in Amsterdam on the Friday evening following Easter. While taking a respite in a quiet canal-side cafe, we realized we were near Anne Frank's house. A short stroll brought us to 265 Princengraft, a building snuggled into a residential section of Amsterdam that overlooked a picturesque canal. Though it was the evening of the Jewish Sabbath, to our surprise the museum was open. We felt grateful to be able to honor the Sabbath and begin our tour of Amsterdam in this manner.

Men, women, and children of various ethnic backgrounds walked in a heavy, attentive, prayerful silence through stark rooms still darkened by blackout shades. This was the place where Anne, her parents Otto and Edith, her sister Margot, Fritz Pfeffer, and the Van Pels family—Hermann, Auguste, and their son Peter—hid together from the Nazis for more than two years. Large pictures from the 1940s show daily life in Amsterdam and then in contrast, the life in the concentration camps under the Nazis. Excerpts from Ann's diary are displayed on the walls: "One day this terrible war will be over. The time will come when we will be people again, and not just Jews."

Visitors are taken back in time when entering the kitchen and common room where they had "to whisper, tread lightly during the day, otherwise the people in the warehouse [below] might hear us." Coming to the front office that served as a bathing area on Saturday afternoons Anne wrote that she and her sister "scrub ourselves in the dark, while the one who isn't in the bath looks out the window through a chink in the curtains." Finally there is the bedroom where the movie magazine cutouts still hang that Anne used in a desperate attempt to bring some glitter to her shadowy, shut-in existence. Similarly, the board game Peter received for his birthday lies where he and Ann used to play.

A visit to these rooms brings the Holocaust of World War II and the present-day global warfare against civilians up-close and personal. These rooms stage the brute reality in which the Frank family lived and the moral tragedy humanity has inherited, a tragedy in which goodness and innocence struggle to survive ultimate evil. We are all familiar with Anne's famous words, "In spite of all that has happened, I still believe that people are basically good at heart," and we gain strength from this brave twelve year-old girl. But there are aspects of this tragedy that are not popularly known.

In these lonely rooms Anne and her companions learned about the gas chambers. She wrote, "The English radio says they're being gassed. I feel terribly upset." And at the end of the Annex tour, a video reports Anne's death due to typhus and deprivation in Bergen-Belsen in March 1945. The last witnesses to see her alive testify that her innocent, loving, and hopeful spirit had succumbed to a devouring hopeless despair. It is difficult to put that end together with Anne's inspiring writing.

Sadly, this story has become our common legacy. It symbolizes not only the 6 million Jews and 6 million non-Jews that the Nazis exterminated, but also the many millions of civilians who died or were murdered in purges, genocides, wars, and epidemics throughout the last century. It has happened all over: in Soviet Russia, Viet Nam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Bosnia, the Middle East, Africa, the World Trade Center—up through the present Iraqi war. The huge numbers of anonymous dead are impossible to imagine or personalize when we try to comprehend such massive slaughter. Anne Frank's diary gives us one story, which we relive vicariously when we read it or watch the play or movie versions. In this way, we practice our duty to "Never Forget," to partake in the ritual of remembrance for people who lost so much. Such remembrance is meant to serve the world as a sanctified safeguard against such slaughter happening again.

In the last room of the museum stands a pedestal. On the pedestal lies a book called L'Zachar, In Memoriam. Eight hundred fifty-eight pages long, with a hundred and thirty names on each page, it carries the names of the 103,000 Dutch Jews killed in the Holocaust. In Memoriam was published in The Hague in 1995. It stands open to page 208 where Anne's is only one in nine columns of the names of all the members of the Frank clan killed by the Nazis. The page is slightly smudged by the thousands of visitors who touched it like a holy relic at the end of their pilgrimage through her house. I saw the book, touched it, and ached over it. But Anne's hand was not the only one of the dead to rest upon my shoulder. This visit to Anne Frank's house brought an old family mystery to the surface, as well.

My paternal grandparents and most of their relatives migrated to America in the early 1900s. But I had one great-uncle who remained in Europe, fleeing to Denmark. He kept in contact with our American family until the Nazi takeover of Europe, and then was never heard from again. We have always feared we lost him and other blood relations in the camps. I thought my missing great-uncle was named Willy and that he was my grandmother Minnie Wasserman's brother. Willy had fled from Russia to Copenhagen around the time Minnie came to New York. Family rumors stated that he had relocated to Amsterdam. Laying before me was a list of Nazi victims; perhaps there was evidence in this book that would reveal the fate of my lost great-uncle.

With trembling fingers I leafed through the pages of In Memoriam. There, on page 799, was Willy Leopold Wasserman, who died at age 56 in Auschwitz. He was about the same age as my grandmother. I fell into a chair and wept in my wife's arms. When my heart quieted, I spoke with the museum staff about how to find out if Willy was indeed my uncle and, if so, how I could learn about his life and reconstruct this lost piece of family history.

The non-Jewish man staffing the information desk compassionately spoke of his visit to Hiroshima where he too cried to his depths. We affirmed together that the Anne Frank House, Hiroshima, and the atrocity site at My Lai, that I visit annually when I lead groups to Viet Nam, are among the great peace memorials of the world. He wished me "Shalom." A Jewish staffer— ironically, she was named Anne—told me how to research Dutch Jewish records. She informed me that discoveries like mine had occasionally happened to others. Then she left to photocopy the page with Uncle Willy's name for me. She returned a few minutes later with the memorial book, which she held out to me. She said the staff and director wanted me to have a copy of it. I was overwhelmed, befuddled, and humbled. Silently, we held hands.

I carried the book against my heart as we walked back to our hotel. I called my father immediately and asked him to begin researching from his end. I set the book on a chair, as an altar next to my bed, and opened it to Uncle Willy's name. As I awaited my father's answers, I prayed that Willy Leopold Wasserman was my lost uncle—giving me a bloodline that stretched into the gas chambers—and I prayed that he was not.

Over the next two days my father and I exchanged a flurry of phone calls and e-mails that zipped between Amsterdam and Florida as we struggled to discern whether Willy was our lost relative, the lost piece of our family history. Was the blood of my family spilled in the camps? Had my uncle's spirit cried out to me to fight against the evil that causes these losses?

I've always felt keenly that when any person is attacked for his or her membership in another race or religion, then the same thing can happen to me, that evil is can strike any of us indiscriminately, arbitrarily, with utmost cruelty and meaninglessness. Regardless of Anne Frank's beautiful and innocent vision, evil exists in this world we share. The famous psychoanalyst Bruno Bettlehiem, himself a survivor of Dachau and Buchenwald, responded to Anne Frank's sweet vision with, "If all men are good, there never was an Auschwitz."

It is common for members of groups that have experienced oppression or extermination to feel survivor's guilt. Even when we are historically or geographically removed from the direct experience, we identify, suffer, idealize, and search for ways to carry the legacy. Dr. Stephanie Mines, another Jewish psychotherapist specializing in treating severe trauma, said, "I grew up with Anne Frank in my heart. She is my model, my heroine, and my inspiration. For years I thought I might be her reincarnation." Willy being a blood relation would justify my collective survivor's guilt, granting me direct permission to feel as I do—that I am a survivor of war, trauma, and Holocaust.

As much as I wanted Willy to be my uncle, I wanted him not to be my uncle. As a Jew, I contemplate my relatives and their communities who were victims of the Holocaust and Russian pogroms. My family has survived such tragedies and more. Those are enough. The legacy of annihilation is replete with both profound suffering and with ambivalence. We all wish to escape, to cling to what Michael Ortiz Hill calls "the fetish or certainty . . . that my life and my death are possessions of mine." Nobody wants their line to stretch into the furnaces of hell, for nothing else so completely destroys this belief.

But what about those whose names and stories we do not know? Anne Frank's legacy makes the Holocaust personal by allowing us to intimately share the lives of a handful of victims, but how do the others impact us? What is their legacy? What are our spiritual, religious, and cultural relationships and responsibilities to all the anonymous dead? Ethnic groups that inherit holocaust and genocide sometimes think that the quest to annihilate their race or religion was aimed personally and especially at them. But history since World War II makes it apparent that genocidal slaughter is a world problem that concerns every national, ethnic, racial, and religious group on this planet. Terrorism has put the final exclamation point on the lesson that humanity has received since the beginning of the practice of mass impersonal death. Impersonal vulnerability is everyone's modern-world legacy.

We know we live in an era of holocaust and genocide but are barely capable of remaining sensitive and responsive before so many anonymous deaths. We shake our heads, look the other way, our faces sadden, our hearts constrict when we hear large statistics of mass deaths. Soon we go numb, as we do from watching too much war coverage on TV. For this reason, a visit to Anne's house is most relevant for our times. It shows us how the human spirit responds to or is broken by terror, whether that terror is generated by attacks from outside or propaganda and dictatorial control from within one's own government.

During the 1930s and 1940s, Anne Frank, her family, and all the other Jews under Nazi occupation were subjected to a new and terrible form of terror. Other forms of terror came, not much later, to Russia, Japan, African nations, the Balkans. On a September morning in 2001, three thousand of the people who went to work in the World Trade Center never again emerged, and we Americans became terrified as never before. We, too, experienced helpless shock and the unremitting fear that meaningless, unexpected, and anonymous suffering and annihilation might happen to us or our loved ones at any time.

The flurry of e-mails with pointed questions demonstrated that Willy Wasserman was not my blood uncle. My lost uncle came from my grandfather's, not my grandmother's line. He was from my mother's branch, not my father's. And his last name was Waldman, not Wasserman. In the end it didn't matter. I experienced the discovery—and the loss—of Willy Wasserman as if he were my uncle. I was touched by one of the anonymous dead and he is anonymous no more. Willy Leopold Wasserman was born on November 8, 1888. He was from Bautzen. He married Alice Berta Rosentiel, who was 11 months older and from Luxemburg. They arrived in Auschwitz together. Both in their mid-50s, they must have failed the selection and been put to death on the day they got off the cattle cars. They both died in Auschwitz on October 19, 1944.

The story of Uncle Willy teaches me about our relationship with other anonymous victims of modern wars. From World War II and the Holocaust up through this most recent war against Iraq, we have created untold numbers of unknown dead. Though their names and histories may not be known, the world and our individual souls are weighed down with their suffering and pain. We become culturally, psychologically, and spiritually more unhealthy to the degree that we deny their memories. Whether it is personal or historical, we all have a significant relationship with and responsibility to these lost souls. We must find ways to honor them, give their sacrifice meaning, and end the worldwide slaughter without adding to it, whenever and wherever it occurs.

For our own sakes and for the souls of the dead, our challenge is a form of the spiritual movement that in Hebrew is called Teshuvah, which means Return. The concept of Return is the essential impulse behind spiritual healing. It is the governing principle of Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement. We must return these millions and millions of soul-numbing statistical deaths back to individual and personal status—give them their with names, faces, and stories—as In Memoriam begins to do for Dutch Jews. These anonymous dead must become real people again.

In this spirit of making the losses personal, in May 2003 thousands of Austrian schoolchildren researched and documented the lives of individual Jews, gypsies, or disabled persons exterminated in Austria during the Holocaust and wrote letters to them. In a public ceremony in Vienna on the anniversary of the 1945 liberation of the Mauthausen concentration camp, many of these letters were tied to balloons and released. This gesture helped rescue the anonymous dead. It also helped contemporary Austrians deal with a painful part of their own history which they were forced to confront, when the world criticized their election of a former Nazi operative to lead their country.

In this same spirit, one moving gesture of the recent anti-war movement occurred when protestors carried on placards and buttons the names of individual Iraqi women and children endangered by our bombing. Again anonymous and distant victims became real people. War became personal, not just through our personal losses, but also through the deaths we've caused. Such personalization is a form of spiritual action. It humanizes what would otherwise be unknown corpses. It fulfills Ezekiel's vision of preaching to the dry bones until they fill with breath again.

I cannot believe that my experience with Willy Wasserman was just coincidence. Some spiritual traditions teach that souls are alive after death, that when people die violently their souls wander restlessly until they are given rituals or remembrance. If souls are alive it may be possible for any one of the millions of anonymous dead to choose and call out to any one of us, demanding an encounter that changes our lives. Anne Frank, of course, is not anonymous. The publication of her diary by her father, the family's lone survivor, guaranteed that we would know her. We respond to Anne's memory precisely because she has become an individual we can see, picture, imagine in her daily particulars, and therefore know in a personal way. But what about all the others?

In Homer's Odyssey, Odysseus poured fresh blood for the shades in Hades to drink so they could instruct him. In an ancient custom of several traditions, survivors made animal sacrifices to the spirits of the dead so they'd come back to life and speak with the living. Who are the living sacrifices that enable the dead to speak today? Willy Leopold Wasserman emerged from the shadowy past and touched me in Anne Frank's home. He stepped out of the anonymous ranks of 103,000 murdered Dutch Jews and made my visit personal. My family's pilgrimage brought him the flesh and "blood" he needed in order to speak.

We the living, who carry the memories of the dead and make meaning of their sacrifices, are their lifeblood. By seeking, feeling, hearing their spirits, we allow them to speak to us, touch us, and teach us. Through a name, a place, a date, a wife's name, the anonymous dead become personal and individual once again. They come back to life within us and we become their living relatives. Thus Willy Leopold Wasserman has become my uncle. I light memorial candles in his name. Thus he lives again in us all. Together, we can give meaning to Willy Wasserman's life and the lives of each one of those listed In Memoriam.

Edward Tick has had a private practice in psychotherapy since 1975. His practice includes extensive and innovative work with survivors of severe trauma, especially war, sexual and substance abuse, severe mental and emotional disorders. men's issues, and psychosiritual healing. This is his first contribution to Quest magazine.

By Franz Hartmann

Originally printed in the JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2006 issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Hartmann, Franz. "The Dangers of Occultism." Quest  94.1 (JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2006):7-10.

An excellent article about "True and False Yoga," written by Marie Russak in the Adyar Bulletin of August 1908, has again forcibly called my attention to the disastrous results arising from meddling with occult practices without understanding their real nature. I have before my eyes a long list of friends and personal acquaintances, who within the last few years have become victims of their "psychic researches," for which they were not yet ripe and in which they persisted in spite of all warnings. Some of them became insane, some incurably diseased, others obsessed and morally depraved, and not a few of them ended by suicide. They were not unintelligent or uneducated people; on the contrary, one of them was a great and well known scientist and inventor, noble minded and generous; several were writers or poets of some distinction and a few even public lecturers on Theosophical subjects and on Spiritualism—things, however, of which they had very little personal experience and of which they knew only from reading.

H. P. Blavatsky has repeatedly said that for the purpose of obtaining occult knowledge one has first to become a "Theosophist." This is not to be understood as if a person could not attain occult knowledge without having first his name inscribed as a member of the Theosophical Society, or as if by doing so he would become immediately ripe for receiving magical powers; but it means what the great Shankaracharya teaches in his Tattwa Bodha, namely, that the first requisite for obtaining real knowledge is the discernment between the "lasting and not lasting,"—between the high and the low, the real and unreal, the true and the false—to distinguish between one's own permanent Self and the evanescent personality to which that higher Self is bound during its terrestrial and astral life.

In other words, we must realize that which is spiritual and divine within ourselves and in every other thing, before the portals of profound occult knowledge can be opened for us and we become initiated into the divine mysteries of nature. We must be able to raise our consciousness to a higher plane, before we can be able to perceive and actually know that which belongs to that plane and to avoid the snares and pitfalls which await those who walk with closed eyes in the dangerous precincts of the astral plane.

But with the advent of the Theosophical Society and the revival of the Theosophical movement a certain amount of promulgation of occult teachings was unavoidably connected. The spiritualistic movement had already paved the way; its phenomena had brought consternation among the learned and attracted the ignorant crowd. It became necessary to divulge some of the occult secrets which had been hidden for ages, and to explain some of the mysterious laws of nature, for the purpose of destroying certain misconceptions which had been caused by the establishment of a communication between mortals and what were supposed to be the immortal spirits of the departed. It was necessary to explain the nature of some of these astral entities, and thus to stem the tide of a wave of superstition which seemed to invade the world while the wave of materialism was receding and clericalism losing its hold.

Thus, what I may call a new era of occultism and psychism was inaugurated as a side issue of the Theosophical movement; occult phenomena, whether spurious or genuine, alike attracted the general attention of the public. The occult teachings, calculated at first only for such as were supposed to make proper use of them, soon became public property and were extensively misunderstood. Curiosity, the great motor power of the human mind and the first guide on the road to knowledge, was aroused. Many were those who by means of having their attention called to the higher truths of religion, were induced to lead a higher life, owing to the Theosophical teachings which they received; but there were and still are also many desirous of coming into possession of celestial powers, only for the purpose of applying them for the gratification of their passions or selfish desires; because, as the proverb says: "Extremes touch each other, and there is only a step from the sublime to the ridiculous".

Every great movement, when it becomes popular, oversteps its boundaries and devastation begins. The tree of occultism, overflowing with life, produced many excrescences; hypnotism and mental suggestion appeared upon the scene and their miracles worked both ways; for, the best kind of medicine for effecting a cure may, if misapplied, also become a poison that kills, and the two, great enemies of mankind, stupidity and selfishness, are always ready to misapply the gifts which they receive. There are not a few who are willing to pledge their souls to the demons of hell, if they thereby could come into possession of infernal powers. If magic were to become the property of popular science, no man, woman or child would be sure of his life or safe against obsession; for, as the fanatical vivisectionist would not hesitate to destroy the whole of our animal creation for the purpose of giving support to some of his scientific theories, so the scientist of the future, without moral support, if endowed with occult powers, would not hesitate to experiment with the souls of human beings for the purpose of gratifying his curiosity and ambition for making discoveries. The ignorance and scepticism of the majority of the learned is at present the best protection against such evils for the majority of mankind.

But we will not enter at this moment into a discussion of the history of psychological crime or its prospect in the future, but merely turn our attention to the consequences of human folly and misunderstood truth.

If you remove a part of an anthill, its inhabitants become greatly disturbed. The sunlight, suddenly shining into its subterranean passages, which heretofore rested in darkness, seems to create a great deal of confusion, and you see the ants hurriedly running to and fro in all directions without any apparent object. Thus the light of the Theosophical teachings, made popular by the advent of the Theosophical movement, caused a great stir among those who had thus far rested in the blissful sleep of agnosticism or were enjoying the happy dreams of theological superstitions. The teachings given out by H. P. Blavatsky and her followers made a great impression upon the public mind. Soon new movements were originated by persons who appropriated to themselves this or that portion of those teachings, which they only half understood. Thus the existence of the Theosophical Society gave occasion to the formation of different other societies and sects, which partly, though in a deformed shape, taught the same truths as the former, although they repudiated the original fountain from which their wisdom was drawn; for it is and ever will be a fact in nature that fanatical sectarianism is intimately bound up with fanatical intolerance; acting upon the maxim: "Dare not to touch any other food but that which comes out of my kitchen, even if the other is of the same meat and has been cooked in the same style."

Some of these societies, being based upon a financial scheme for making money, pretending to be able to employ divine powers in their service and to have the will of God at their command for the purpose of procuring for their adherents physical health and worldly benefits, met with great success; for the multitudes will always rush to that camp, where they think that a mine of gold has been discovered and where they are expecting a share; and the holding out promises of making salvation easy has always been the fundamental power of every clerical institution. However, we will not quarrel with these sects; however mistaken their theories and however deplorable the entire want of intelligence among some of their leaders, they too were the outgrowth of our times, the products of the law of necessity, and they had to fill a certain place in the progress of human evolution, and to certain of their guides the testimony may be given, that in spite of their ignorance and self conceit, they after all believed themselves in what they taught, and that they consequently "meant well."

And now came a glorious harvest time for divers, chevaliers d'industrie, adventurers, conscious frauds and humbugs speculating on the contents of the pockets of gullible people by pretending to be able to teach persons, at so many dollars a head, how to put themselves in possession of supernatural powers. "Occult Societies" were formed with the evident object of desecrating that which is holy and making the high subservient to the low. They met the financial success which usually awaits those who know how to use the ignorance and greed of others to their own advantage; but how many of their deluded followers became victims of black magic will never be known. These victims were not all uncultured persons; there were some of them known to me as men of superior intellect, who seriously believed themselves to be earnest seekers for truth and tried all sorts of yoga practices for the purpose of "seeing what would come of it." What came was insanity, prostration of the nervous system, loss of vitality and death. I have given the description of one such case in the Occult Review, March 1906. No end of tales, some of them amusing and ridiculous, others tragical, might be told about the experiences of people seeking to obtain occult or magical powers who fell into the hands of cranks or charlatans. It is quite surprising to see how many otherwise intelligent people are ready to pledge implicit obedience to orders supposed to come from some unknown superiors, even if these orders are purely nonsensical. The game of "Unknown Superiors" was already in the seventeenth century successfully played among the order of the "Illuminates" whose system was based upon mutual espionage and secret supervision; it was organized after the pattern of the Jesuitical orders and existed until it become a real danger to the State. Some years ago the sending out of spurious Mahatma letters was quite the fashion in certain places, and all sorts of lies were employed to make the seekers for wisdom believe in their genuineness. When I was in Hamburg a lady came to me with what she claimed to be a letter from a Mahatma. She said she had been sent by some members of the society to which she belonged, to show me that letter and ask my opinion about it. It was an anonymous letter, containing some common pious phrases and demanding implicit obedience to all orders issuing from the writer—especially such orders as requested the payment of money. I answered that I should consider a person very foolish if he were to act blindly upon orders contained in an anonymous letter. The lady retired, but instead of reporting my answer she, as I afterwards found out, said that as soon as I looked at that letter I immediately recognized it as coming from a Mahatma; that my eyes were filled with tears of emotion (!) and that I recommended the strictest obedience. The fact was that the writer of the letter was that lady's husband, and that he wanted to obtain my endorsement to strengthen the faith of his gullible followers.

The history of human stupidity is without end; inexhaustible is the army of the credulous, willing to commit all sorts of folly, if they are made to believe that thereby they may obtain superiority over the rest of mankind. They are ready to sacrifice everything except the egotism resulting from the delusion of self.

But we will now direct our attention to another class of "occult schools," which are more dangerous, as their guides are invisible and belong to the inhabitants of the astral plane. One such case has been graphically described by C. W. Leadbeater in an article entitled "A Vision and the Facts behind it," contained in the Theosophist of April, 1909.

Here I might give account, from my own experience, of a number of cases where well intentioned and intelligent people met financial and physical ruin by placing implicit confidence in the teachings and directions of invisible "spiritual" guides. I will select only the following two.

Some of our readers will perhaps remember that a few years ago a dozen students of Theosophy, being dissatisfied with the slow progress which they were making in becoming spiritual, formed an "inner circle" at Budapest in which they soon become witnesses of the most surprising phenomena. They had materializations and the ghosts represented themselves to be the twelve apostles, and each " apostle" accepted one of these students as his disciples. All that had heretofore been taught by H. P. Blavatsky and the Indian Sages was now by these apostles declared to be nonsense, self sacrifice and asceticism made ridiculous, and contrary directions, enjoining strict secrecy, were given. Finally "Jesus Christ" himself appeared in person; they were ordered to go to Madagascar and, being partly obsessed by these spooks, they actually went there, expecting "further orders." There they lived for a while in the swamps, contrary to all the laws of hygiene, but soon one after another they fell victims to the climate. Out of the twelve seven died and the rest returned, perhaps wiser, but surely poorer men.

Another case is the following, and I regret to have to leave out names on account of personal considerations. In Hamburg I was introduced into a society of "occultists," counting among its visitors persons of some distinction. They had their "Masters," which they held in great veneration, and these "Masters" produced their phenomena and gave their communications through the wife of the husband who owned the house where the circle met. This lady seemed to be in a state of chronic obsession, often lying for weeks in a state of semi-trance, during which she declared that her own spirit was absent and that the "Masters" had taken possession of her. The most remarkable phenomena took place at that house; noises, as if cannon balls were being rolled over the wooden floor, were heard, and made the walls shake; lights appeared at night so strong as to make the neighbors believe that the house was on fire; handfuls of sand were thrown in the faces of visitors, photographs of scenery of living and dead persons, elementals and monsters were taken on plates without the use of a camera; but the most astonishing phenomenon was the almost instantaneous traveling of living people to long distances and through walls and closed windows, such as I have described in my article on "Magical Metathesis" in the Occult Review, July 1906.

What surprised me still more, was the fact that these spirits seemed to be well acquainted with the contents of Madame Blavatsky's Secret Doctrine and other books on Theosophy, which those people had never read, while on the other hand the communications received, which were held very secret and sacred, being shown to only the very select, contained the greatest vagaries, descriptions of the "realm of Pluto," the infernal regions within the interior of the earth, and the like. These "Masters" not only directed the "spiritual progress" of their disciples, but also their external affairs, and the disciples always acted according to the orders received. The end was that the husband of that lady first entirely neglected and finally gave up his business, and afterwards—also "by order of the Masters" —sold his house at a great sacrifice. The family were reduced to poverty and having become destitute they finally abandoned their "occult research".

All such failures go to show that there is a desire for progress and spiritual evolution within the human heart, and that everybody consciously or unconsciously strives to attain it, however erroneous may be the ways and means which are taken for that purpose. The unguided aspirant for occult knowledge resembles a fly that falls into a basin of water and tries to save itself by swimming now in this and then in that direction, often changing its course even when nearing the shore and finally getting drowned.

But where is that guidance to be found? There are innumerable "seekers for truth" and "students of Theosophy" wishing for guides and continually clamoring for "more instructions," without ever thinking of following those instructions which they have already received. They are at all times looking at external things in the hope of finding that which can be found only internally; regardless of the often repeated saying: "Within yourselves deliverance must be found".

The first step on the way to Initiation is purification of the heart and mind, because the light of Divine Wisdom cannot manifest itself in a place clouded with impure thoughts and filled with selfish desires. No one has ever made the second step without making the first one, and all efforts to drag the high into the service of the low lead only to degradation, misfortune and evil. Therefore the real practice of occultism consists in the control of one's lower thoughts and emotions, which can be done only by the aid of one's own higher nature; because only the higher has power over the lower; "self" cannot overcome "itself," and for this purpose it is necessary to acquire that discernment between the eternal and true, and that which is temporal and illusive, of which we spoke in the beginning of this article.

Thus it appears that instead of running after bogus "Masters" and pseudo adepts and being led by the nose by humbugs and frauds of this or the astral plane, it would be better to cultivate high thoughts and elevating selfless aspirations, from which good actions are the natural outcome. If his consciousness is thus firmly established on a higher plane, the student of Theosophy will be ready to receive further light; and the Great Souls who are watching over the progress of humanity will not fail to come to the aid of those who keep the divine ideal before their eyes and seek to realize it within their hearts.

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