The Service of Healing

by Archbishop Charles W. Leadbeater (1847 - 1934)

Published in 1925
These questions first appeared in The Liberal Catholic magazine.
Question: Some of us have noticed at our Healing Services a considerable difference
in the power flowing through the differ. ent Priests: Would their personalities affect or
alter the Healing Force in any way?
Bishop Leadbeater: Each Priest gives a personal touch to the force, but there is more
in it than that, I think. One type or aspect or ray of it would flow more easily through
one person, and another through a person of different type; their personalities would
make them more easily able to receive a special type of force. Would they not be
something like a string tuned up to a certain pitch? A string after all can only give one
rate of vibration unless you mute it; so we should be tuned to a certain rate of spiritual
vibration, would answer to that and be a channel for that. The string would respond to
the one vibration and not to any other. The quality of our nature, either of our ray or of
our temperament, which is a sort of sub-ray, would make us channels for one type
chiefly of that Healing Force. There does seem to be a good deal of difference in the
power transmitted by our Priests. Some seem to pour out a good all-round example of
the force, while others, I think, were specialising somewhat. I had already heard in
talking to various people that different patients felt the influence of the Priests quite
differently. Several of them told me that A. was the strongest in influence; but then on
the other hand some said that they felt B. or C. more, as the case might be.
The force in any case comes from the Christ; we ask for His power and we receive it,
but it is a special section of it that we draw upon. Under Him the Christ has many
Angels, and the forces assigned to them are all His force. We called upon the
Archangel Raphael, and I presume that that gigantic Figure which appeared was a
Representative of Him. He certainly seemed to be a Representative of that .type and
Ray, but all the Rays would converge in the Christ above. This great Healing Angel
used the force which we called down, and directed it in. some cases to people sitting
in the Congregation who had not applied to be cured. I was very much impressed with
the strength of it all on the first occasion we held the Service, the force seemed
powerful enough to do anything; and it is all to be had apparently by a simple process
of Invocation.
We know so little as yet about the whole question of Healing, but I think we should
try to know more. Weare, as it were, pioneers in this matter, and it seems to me that all
through the centuries no one has ever approached Healing from a scientific standpoint
at all. They have taken it as a miraculous interposition by the Deity, and therefore,
being done by Him, it had to be perfect. Either He cured or He did not cure, and if He
cured the cure had to be instantaneous. Now in many cases cures are not
instantaneous; but it does not follow from that that the people are not affected whether
strongly or less strongly by the outpouring of the Divine Power. It may be that we
1

shall be able to help our successors to make rules and to find out the laws which
govern such matters.

Question: From what level does the healing power descend?

Bishop Leadbeater: It is a physical matter. Patients may receive spiritual or mental
upliftment, but the actual cure is done in the physical body.

Question: But is not the Healing Power poured into the higher vehicles of the patient,
and from them into the physical body?
Bishop Leadbeater: No, that is not the method used. Even if a person is mentally illwhich means insane, practically-it is not so much with the mental body as with the
links betWeen the astral and the mental and the astral and the etheric bodies that one
has to deal; for in most cases of insanity it is the links which are wrong, not the bodies
themselves. There might easily be cases, however, in which a man might have a
wrong thought or a wrong emotion which would have to be cleared aw~y before
healing could take place. But on the whole the Healing Force pours straight down
through our hands into the etheric body of the person with whom we are dealing; and
although we probably affect him at the same time mentally and spiritually that
additional force would flow from our own higher vehicles into his. The main inflow of
the Healing Force upon the patient takes place at the etheric level, and the greater part
of the power is consequently veiled in etheric matter.
A very great deal of force is poured down, although we do not, I am afraid, use it very
economically, because we do not as yet know much about it. We appear simply to
flood the patients with this force with a certain effort to direct it to definite parts of the
body when information is given to us of what is wrong. But as far as my own
experience of our Healing Services has gone, the stream of power has seemed to me to
be so strong that it has been difficult to direct it very much. The power simply rushes
through the patient like a Niagara, and anything that is in the way would be combed
out.

Question: If you cure people, will not their karma have tofind another way to work
itself out upon them?
Bishop Leadbeater: Karma will find a way, you may be sure. But of course karma is
not vindictive; it is only seeking for a balance, and if we call in an extra force it has to
take that into account in adjusting the balance. The effects produced the first time that
we held the Healing Service were in some ways curious. I was taking the Service
myself, and whether I cured anyone else or not I certainly imported a' very unusual
amount of vitality into my own body. I expected to be quite prostrate with fatigue the
next day as a result of the exertion; for we had to stand for about tWo and a half hours
during the afternoon-and to stand bending over people continually is as tiring a thing

as one can possibly do. Instead of that I felt quite unusually alert, so that it is certain
that some of the vitality that was poured down stayed on its way. I did not consciously
keep any of it back; I did my best to pour it all out on the patients.

Question: I suppose the agent in a Healing Service, or in doing healing work

generally, would increase his power through the exercise of it.
Bishop Leadbeater: Certainly he would become a better channel through practising
being a channel. Mr. Hickson, for instance, has an advantage over all of us in that he
has had all that experience. He has thoroughly educated himself in healing work.
Weare not especially adapted as far as we know to that; but on the other hand we have
the advantage of Ordination and Consecration, of certain spiritual forces which cannot
be at Mr. Hickson's disposal to the same extent. That ought to be in our favour; bur the
fact that we are not used to this particular force, and do not know exactly what we are
doing with it, might counteract that to some extent.

Question: What does the Healing Angel look like?

Bishop Leadbeater: He is a very tall and dignified Person age, whose consciousness
appears to function normally on the Spiritual or Nirvanic plane, although he pours his
forces down to the etheric level; his aura glows chiefly with green and purple, and it is
interesting to note that the purple forces flow through the Bishop at the Exorcism
which precedes the Anointing, while the green forces are those of healing. Another
powerful factor in the Service is the singing of the Veni Creator, the traditional call to
God the Holy Ghost. Whenever that is sung the Church fills with a red glow, like a
glorious sunset shining through a faint mist, and it certainly gives much additional
power to our Healing Services. The consciousness of the great Healing Angel has
been most interesting to watch, but very difficult to explain physically. An Angel has a
mind which works in many cQffipartments, and apparently the Angel at the back is
working through all his compartments simultaneously. Now after all one can see an
Angel's thoughts just as one can see anyone else's-only one sees a bewildering number
of them because his consciousness is so complex. This great Angel unquestionably has
a department of \his thought which is working all the time with cases, not our cases at
all. He appears to give only a part of his attention to us, and that is quite enough as
you have observed, to flood us very effectually.
While the Angel was working in our Church, working hard and incessantly, he was
also equally present in a number of other places, at least thirty or forty, but all
connected in some way with the curing of disease. All these scenes somehow reflected
themselves in little compartments in his aura like a number of vividly coloured
moving pictures. One was that of a surgeon performing an operation, a scene in which
all the people were dressed in white. The surgeon made some mistake, cut something
which he did not mean to cut, or ought not to have cut, and was all unnerved and full
of sick horror; but instantly the Angel sent him a flash of blinding lightning that was
somehow like the waving of a sword, and in a moment that steadied his nerves and
showed him what to do, so that the patient's life was saved.

In another picture some nuns were kneeling round the bed of one who may have been
their Mother Superior and who was evidently near to dying. But their prayers wove a
lovely coloured network about the figure on the bed; and the Angel took advantage of
that, and poured vitality into the network so gently and carefully that the Mother
Superior did not die, but presently a little colour came into her cheeks, and she raised
herself in the bed and held out her hand, blessing the praying nuns. Then they all
kissed her hand one by one, and went away weeping joyously! and the Mother
Superior drank something from a bowl into which the Angel poured his light, and then
she sank into a healthy sleep, and is now rapidly recovering. Our Blessed Lady Mary
was also helping in that case, for She stood near the dying nun, and flooded the room
with Her wonderful blue peace. But what seemed strange was that all these events,
and ,many more, were happening at the same time, and the Angel was taking part
equally in all of them, and they were all mirrored iri different parts of his
consciousness.
There was yet another case of which I saw only the endthat of a shipwrecked sailor, or
rather a ship's officer, I think, who was cast up on a desolate island, very badly hurt
and almost dying. Yet he could not be allowed to die because of the perpetual earnest
prayers of his wife and little daughter far away at home, whose karma was such that
they had not deserved the sorrow of losing him. So he had to be strengthened and
nursed back to health by a number of what seemed almost miraculous little
coincidences-a fruit falling from a tree and rolling within his
reach, a hawk chased by an eagle dropping a fish actually upon him, and the sea
casting up on the beach near him other small things that were of use to him. Also the
Angel helped the praying daughter to materialise beside him and comfort him, and
enabled her to remember her visit to him when she woke, and relate it to her mother as
a dream which she felt to be true; so that when they heard of the loss of the ship they
were not dismayed, but were quite sure that he had been saved, and would presently
be rescued and brought back to them. Evidently the work of a Healing Angel is much
more extensive and varied than we had ever thought.
All this to me was entirely unexpected, because I had not realized that there were
Angels who took part in such work. Of course you will see that this opens up all kinds
of possibilities; the work of Angels may perhaps touch our lives at more points than
we realise. It may well be that Angels watch over the sick with general blessing and
strengthening, for in the great Angel's consciousness I saw a number of still, sheeted
forms lying side by side-probably a ward in a hospital-and the Angel was brooding
over them and pouring out influence upon them. Sick people are often wonderfully
cheerful under their troubles; and I have wondered after this experience whether
Angels were not to a large extent responsible for that cheerfulness. Anyhow there is a
great deal going on round us of which we know very little. I myself caught a glimpse
of a new line; and I shall try humbly and respectfully to cultivate the acquaintance of
this Angel, because I know nothing at all about this side of Angelic work; and it may
be that people will desire our Healing Services regularly.
God hath sent me to heal thee and thy daughter, for I am Raphael, one of the seven
holy Angels which present the prayers of the saints, and go in and out before the glory
of the Holy One.

Then they were troubled and fell upon their faces; for they feared. But the Angel said
unto them: Fear not; it shall go well with you. Not of any favour of mine, but of the
will of our God I came; therefore praise Him for ever and give Him thanks, .for I go
up to Him that sent me.