4.
The Sabian Procedures

The Healing Regimen

Under the Solar Mysteries any sort of spiritual assistance in a case of difficulty must be requested by the person in need before it can be given. An exception is provided by children or incompetents for whom others are responsible, and thus are endowed with the right to make the appeal, and by instances of ties so close that concern for a loved one is in no true respect a coercion. In Sabian procedures the healing functions are given their focus through the written requests presented in the prescribed form of a healing slip. This may be any piece of paper or other material on which it is possible to write, and that will burn or disintegrate in water when the time comes to dispose of it. In size it should approximate an ordinary business or calling card. On it should be put the date, a statement of the need in as simple and unspecific a form or with as much detail as may be wished by the person submitting it, and his usual or accustomed signature. Ink should be used, and this should be of the type containing iron or what commonly is found in the blue-black sort available everywhere. The minute metal content is important as an effective substitute for the blood demanded in ancient and medieval times. The slips should not be addressed to any power or agency divine or human, either in fact or mind, but should be permitted to speak in uncompromising impersonality for the inner and necessarily impartial core of a personal and eternal ongoing. Each slip should deal with a single problem or deficiency, but as many may be written and presented as are necessary to cover every detail of the help asked.

Healing slips are to be placed near the bed every night, and with morning are to be destroyed by fire or water. If there is no adequate privacy for the open display of the slips during the night they may be placed where they will be protected from the casual eye. The student in the inner Sabian work will use his private shrine at all times, both for his own slips and those of others, and this special repository may be in the form of a small Christian or Buddhist altar if the seeker is Catholic in his tastes.

An additional healing slip should be written weekly and if possible brought or sent to a Sabian healing meeting. Alternatively it may be sent to the Administrator, Esoteric Secretary or to any Sabian worker who conducts the healing ritual privately in connection with his work in consciousness. When practical all slips put in the mail should be timed to reach their destination on Tuesday, and unless convenience dictates otherwise all healing meetings should be held on that day.

Anyone requesting healing, in addition to writing his daily and weekly slips, is asked to devote a moment to special meditation on his need at least once during each waking hour when the meditative effort will not interfere with everyday activity and responsibility. He will be able to facilitate the healing process very appreciably through this repetitive centering of his thoughts and aspiration at the laya center of the more genuine self-realization.

A Sabian aspirant on the healing list may have recourse in addition to a practitioner of mental or divine healing, and he may resort to any sort of physical or psychological therapy to which he may be drawn. Prayer according to religious belief, or the use of affirmations in supplement to the healing requests, is entirely proper. To ask for healing from many sources is no more objectionable than consulting several specialists in many various areas of life. However, it is apt to be altogether fatal to results to ask for help in even one channel of divine orientation that is not approached with full faith and deep respect.

Any person who wishes may employ the regimen of healing slips entirely by himself, and in this connection perform the healing ritual in his own behalf. By the same token he may invite any others to participate in healing effort for their benefit as well as his own by asking them for the proper slips, and by inviting them to join him in the ritual, entirely as he chooses.

At a Sabian healing meeting the slips should be placed in a bowl or other receptacle suitable for the procedure to be followed, or they may be laid out in a place where their privacy is protected. They may be placed before a Christian or Buddhist altar if no prejudices are quickened on the part of participants in the service. All details in connection with the slips should be completed before the start of the ritual, and just before the dismissal they may be burned ceremoniously. If not destroyed by fire during the meeting they should be torn in fine pieces and soaked to illegibility in water immediately afterwards.

Where healing meetings are held regularly it helps the focus of therapeutic consciousness if a glass jar of unrefined petroleum is kept on the premises. Its contents should remain undisturbed and unused for any objective purpose, but it may be moved about in any way and as often as convenient. When oil so employed is no longer needed or desired in connection with the healing regimen it should be burned or soaked into the ground.

Healing slips should never be read by anybody receiving them or participating in the ritual, and they should never be sealed in a special envelope. Because of possible confusion with them, as thus protected in their privacy, no Sabian communication should ever be placed on very small pieces of paper.

A person is said to be on the healing list when his request is sent to the Administrator, Esoteric Secretary or to any member of the Assembly conducting one or another healing function for the group in connection with healing quadrangles. In such a case an initial statement of the need must be made, together with regular reports on progress or lack of progress, in addition to sending the healing slips. This information is needed for the quadrangle meditation, and it is supplied to the quadrangles in conjunction with a first name. If possible, however, it is given to workers who do not know the individual for whom the spiritual assistance is requested. The procedure is quite apart from bringing or sending healing slips to the healing meetings. When any aspirant acting as an individual does work in consciousness for others he may or may not require a statement of the need, entirely as he wishes.

A participation in the healing meeting without writing slips, but with an inward or unspoken affirmation of the need during the period of silence in the ritual, is not only acceptable but often is fully as effective. It is helpful to supplement the slips with this inner statement of desired ends during the meditative quiet of any Sabian gathering, or whenever it is convenient to spend a few moments of meditation in an edifice open for prayer or quiet communion with God.

The thank offerings of those who request spiritual healing are monetary when the services of an individual healer are asked, or when the appeal to the Sabian Assembly is in connection with specific personal problems. In the case of the Assembly these contributions are handled precisely as other gifts, whether received through a collection at some meeting or sent to the Chancellor or other proper person, and are applied to the furtherance of its general vision. However, when an aspirant asks healing as a detail of his discipline, as when he seeks amelioration of individual financial situation in order to be able to offer at least the minimum costs to the project of carrying him on the roll, the thank offering is psychological or an intangible of which money cannot possibly be a token.

Home | About | Blue Letters | Marc Edmund Jones | Greetings from Members | MEJ Books | Contact





Copyright © 1976-2014. All rights reserved.