MY INVESTIGATION INTO occult teaching had the important result of leading me to a wider grasp of Eastern religious thought. To compare the type of literature that I had perused with the Eastern scriptures was to contrast the stuffy air of a humid room with the vast fragrance of a spring landscape. I exulted in the mental freedom and mystical beauty of the Upanishads and Bhagavadgita of Hinduism, the Buddhist Dhammapada, and the Tao Teh King of Lao Tzu. The overwhelming spaciousness of the Gita was the verbal counterpart of my great mystical experience; it was free and vibrant with life. To this day the Bhagavadgita has remained my favourite book with the sole exception of the Bible.
Eastern religion has long practised the deep inner silence, and in consequence can co-operate with the forces of life by waiting in patience. It is not limited by concepts of time or space, but is aware of eternity, a state that transcends the flux of the world we live in. As a result it has achieved a tranquillity and rest that are far removed from the obsessive concern for outer action that characterises the West. There is a breadth and tolerance in the pages of the Gita that have no equal in any Western text. As a result Eastern religion has little desire to convert others to its view; it is aware that each person is fulfilling his own destiny according to his own pattern of life and the gifts native to him.
But this expansive timeless tolerance also has its limitations. It has little concern for history, and it deals with exalted intellectual concepts rather than with finite people. Eastern religion has so deep a grasp of man's inner psychology that the West seems by contrast merely to skim the surface. But there is correspondingly less concern in the East about social justice and the proper husbanding of the earth. It became evident to me that the spirit of Christ illuminates the whole scheme of Eastern religious thought, but He did not effectively enter the world through it. In other words, the incarnation of Christ and its redeeming effect on the whole created universe was untouched in this approach to reality. The result was the witness of isolated saints who had attained the acme of spiritual illumination surrounded by a mass of countless unenlightened people, many of whom lived in the most appalling poverty and squalor. I began to understand how much East and West needed each other's insights. The West needed the Hindu-Buddhists' emphasis of inner development, especially the practice of contemplation, whereas the East desperately required an incarnational theology to lift up the earth from squalor to the glory of spiritual fulfilment. I knew that the way to God was not by individual self-development and self-realisation but by self-sacrifice for the sake of the world and its resurrection from the dead. Once again Christ was all in all, but He was often made clearer in the breadth of Eastern thought than in the arid dogmatism of much Christian theology, which had all too often erred in the direction of intellectual deduction rather than in direct mystical apprehension and its practical fulfilment.
While my mind was being thus cultivated, I was being initiated into the ministry of healing. Schooled as I was in orthodox allopathic medicine, there was an in-built hostility to any alleged therapy that was not fully tractable to reason. But just as my dereliction had led me to unusual paths of psychological speculation, so my increasing humility made me more receptive to eccentric approaches to healing. It was through the agency of a very fine psychic healer that I was first induced to quit the role of interested observer and start practising the laying-on of hands myself. This healer had the most powerfully developed psychic gifts that I had ever witnessed, but, in addition, he was deeply spiritual in his concern for others. He was a fine teacher, and many people I knew owed much to him. He had little respect for the medical profession and none at all for the Church, at whose hands he had received many rebuffs. There is a tendency amongst certain highly bigoted religionists to attribute all healing gifts that do not fall within the range of religious orthodoxy to demonic influence. While I would agree that certain highly unpleasant people do have remarkable psychic gifts, including the one of contact healing, it is arrogant and unjust to dismiss all psychic healers as evil. Jesus Himself was accused by the religionists of His day of casting out devils by the power of the devil (Mark 3:22-27). His answer, that the devil does not destroy his own works, is worth remembering. Anyone who has even a superficial healing gift is at least potentially on the side of God. But assuredly there is more to healing than the mere amelioration of a bodily malady. If the healer tries to influence others selfishly, his gift can indeed assume a demonic form. But if he leads them towards self-understanding and service for others, he is certainly an agent of light, whatever his religious beliefs. Jesus Himself warned us about people who say "Lord, Lord" but do not act according to God's will. They will not be recognised even if they do remarkable things using the name of Christ (Matthew 7:21-23). What matters is the love and compassion they have to those in need. "In as much as you have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me" (Matthew 25:40).
The memory of my first reaction to practising contact healing still amuses me. I felt as if I were behaving unprofessionally, and I told only a few people about it. To assure myself that I was not really a charlatan, I resolved never to charge anything for my service, a resolve I have mercifully been able to fulfil to this day. It is certainly better not to charge for any spiritual gift, but rather to have some additional employment to supply the means for existence.
I hired a small suite in a poor state of repair, and put my whole body into painting and renovating it - a remarkable achievement for me! At last it was ready for use, and the first patient arrived. I soon learnt that my real gift was the forging of a rapid, close relationship with the person who came to see me. The laying-on of hands was used, if at all, only as the culmination of the interview, and I always followed it by a brief period of silent prayer. On more than one occasion a bodily improvement occurred that caused me to raise my medical eyebrows, but I knew enough about the vagaries of the natural course of chronic diseases not to become over-enthusiastic about this. This was doubly fortunate, for I never looked for results to maintain my faith, and at the same time I saw healing in a far greater context than the mere restoration of bodily health. I began to see the salvation that plays such an important role in the Judeo-Christian tradition as the healing of the whole personality under the guidance of the Spirit of God, who resurrects the soul, mind, and body of the person, and is indeed the integrating centre of the whole personality.
My healing ministry expanded into counselling and spiritual direction, with the laying-on of hands as a sacramental act of dedication. The ministry of healing is man's noblest work of collaboration with God: it includes scientific medicine, psychological understanding, the healing gifts of the Spirit, and the sacraments of the Church. All are God given, and none is pre-eminent over the others. I was later to include the deliverance of deceased personalities who were obsessing those of the living as an occasional part of my healing ministry.
Meanwhile I was studying the works of C. G. Jung in depth, and to these I added the insights of contemporary existential and humanistic psychologists. The writings of Abraham Maslow, Viktor Frankl, and Roberto Assagioli were of great importance. Of the psychoanalytic school Jung was pre-eminent in stressing the reality of the spiritual side of man's conscious life. Frankl, an Austrian Jew who had spent three years in Auschwitz, Dachau, and two other German concentration camps and had had time to meditate on the meaning of his life which seemed to be miraculously preserved in the face of the carnage around him, introduced into psychology the importance of meaning as the basis of fulfilled living. He called his system "Logotherapy." Maslow recognised the spiritual dimension as the final flowering of the full personality of man in the process he called "self-actualisation". The most important of all to me was the still little-known Italian psychiatrist Assagioli, who used meditation in psychotherapy and who understood the importance of the will as no other psychologist had previously done. He had a profound knowledge of Eastern religion, and incorporated Raja Yoga techniques into his system, which he called "Psychosynthesis".
Through the beautiful writings of Martin Buber I began to make contact once more with Judaism, and especially the eighteenth century mystical movement Hasidism. Great spirituality was, as it were, on my very doorstep, and I had overlooked it in my remote searches. To be sure, I could never return to the restricted, enclosed atmosphere of traditional Judaism, but I did begin to grasp the essential truth of the Jewish insight into God the creator of all things, that when He created them, He saw that they were good. It is this joyous affirmation of life that has not only preserved the Jews despite indescribably terrible suffering, but has given them an influence in the world out of all proportion to their numerical strength. Well was it said that salvation comes of the Jews (John 4:22). The life of Jesus is both the culmination of the Jewish insight into God and its universalisation to all men. The whole meaning of creation, redemption, and sanctification is reflected in His life, through which all creation returns as redeemed free agents sanctified by His Spirit to the Father.
My addresses on spiritual and psychological topics were by this time becoming increasingly well received. At first I spoke to lay groups interested in esoteric teachings, but soon I found myself more and more in clerical company. I found a strong point of contact with members of Anglican religious communities, and I started to give lectures in churches. I could see well enough how the Holy Spirit was moving me inexorably towards a full Christian commitment despite my suspicion of organised religion. I was nevertheless delighted that I, and especially the teaching that came from me, were fully acceptable to many mainstream Christians. It proved the great liberalisation of thought that the Church had undergone since the days of my childhood and adolescence. My theme was the abundance of life - both on earth and in eternity - that a full understanding of Christ can give man. However much I tried to be detached in my psychological thinking, I could never remain long without mentioning Christ, in Whom the fullness of the Godhead dwelt bodily, as a presage of the day when the remainder of mankind would also partake fully of the divine nature that was at present lying dormant within it. This joyous theme filled me with spiritual radiance as I proclaimed it, and my audience responded encouragingly. It was not long before I was invited to conduct retreats, a form of spiritual communication I particularly value, as the group remains entire for at least two days before the members disperse once more. During this time both teaching and communion can really begin to penetrate into the depths of the retreatants' minds.
It was evident that the Holy Spirit was impelling me to active church membership. At the same time I began to see the Church in a more sympathetic light. It was becoming more receptive to ideas that previously would have been regarded with the deepest suspicion, and in its breadth it had a place even for my insights. On the other hand, my own earlier uncritical sympathy for radical views in politics and religion, which I had re-echoed almost automatically in my younger days, began to wane. While I could never be a reactionary, I began to see the full effect of atheistic thinking in even stable, democratic societies. Man swings all too easily from a dogmatic puritanical type of religion to a spineless type of liberalism which culminates in destructive anarchy. The first is the death of all real religious freedom - the freedom conferred by the Holy Spirit - while the second leads to social and moral corruption, which in turn invokes the power of dictatorship to curb it. It is evident that a religious tradition should side neither with the conservative nor the radical elements of society, but should seek to use the insights of both for the proper growth of man and the glory of God. Far from opting out of politics and social conflicts, the truly spiritual man should be deeply involved in them in order to ennoble his particular political party and bring it into the realm of divine order.
I saw the Church, despite its spiritual failings and its past episodes of persecution, cruelty, obscurantism, and fanaticism, as the ultimate bulwark against barbarism. Once God and the transcendent are eliminated from man's range of thought, and man himself becomes the measure of all things, aspiration fails, and people become mere chattels in the hands of their more unscrupulous fellows. The Church is the repository of divine revelation; even if it has often betrayed its custodianship, it has always been sustained by the blessed company of saints and martyrs. If anything that I taught was to be of permanent value - remembering that I spoke not of myself but from the Holy Spirit who inspired me - it would be held and received best by an institution that had the elements of spirituality within it, even if its members did not frequently avail themselves of them.
I also saw that the constant carping criticism of the Church for its various failings - spiritual, intellectual, and social - was unhelpful of change. How much finer it would be to join and help from within rather than to criticise from outside where one was both impregnable and useless! In fact, one only gains through giving of oneself. The motivation for becoming a church member must be love, not the desire to get something for oneself. In the past many people were regular church-goers because they had little else to do with the rather dreary Sundays of those times. The sermon was as much an object of entertainment as the word of the Holy Spirit, while the ritual of the church had theatrical overtones. Nowadays radio and television are the mass media of entertainment, and worship must indeed be in spirit and in truth. Furthermore, the social approbation that accompanied church-going is now a thing of the past. Those who are really "with it" have little use for God - except in a crisis, when they cease to be "with it" and become humble mortals once more! The result of all this has not been a weakening of religious witness so much as a winnowing out of the chaff from the wheat. But if the wheat is to be cultivated and yield a good harvest, it must be fed on spiritual truth and not empty ritual and words. This is the challenge that confronts the Church. I felt that I, at least, could make my contribution to it.
As regards worship, I was happy in all the main denominations. I valued the beauty of the Catholic liturgy and also the Protestant insight into the priesthood of all believers. In the end my choice lay between the Church of England and the Religious Society of Friends. The Quakers, though small in number, were the only group whose witness seemed to me to have been consistently Christian. Their opposition to slavery, injustice, and war was absolute, their honesty profound, and their form of silent contemplative worship corresponded exactly with my own concept of prayer. But in the end I felt that a broader, more comprehensive, more sacramental tradition would be the right one for my particular gifts, and so I became an Anglican. As usual I entered into this new commitment with fear and trepidation, for I was afraid of sacrificing my spiritual freedom and enclosing myself in a narrow credal type of religion. I was to learn that by entering a major denomination of broad sympathies I was finding a real home in a discipline that bore the imprint of Catholic spirituality tested over the centuries, while at the same time enjoying the freedom of private judgment germane to the Protestant tradition. Allowing for the inadequacy of any credal statement to do justice to the supreme majesty of God, I found that the two basic creeds of the Church, when interpreted mystically, gave as good an account of the nature and action of Christ as could be put into intellectual formulation. Such an explicit creed can be less burdensome than the implicit beliefs of many spiritual groups and societies who pride themselves on their complete freedom from dogma. In fact, no one could happily remain within the proximity of such a group who did not subscribe to its general attitude. In other words, all spiritual groups and societies are bound by a common dogma, and those that formulate this directly often have a greater freedom of action than those who do not face the issue except by indirect emotional pressure.
I found I had to surrender or modify none of my previous metaphysical views; on the contrary, these were often strengthened and confirmed by my deeper understanding of the Bible and by the teachings of the Fathers of the Church. At the same time I gathered great support from the fellowship of many fine people, who, even if they could not follow me in deeper speculation, at least were in unity with me over the important issues confronting the world. The sacraments of the Church were a source of spiritual renewal, and the great peace I derived from the Eucharist widened my understanding of communal prayer. But the most noteworthy result of my total commitment to Christ was a deepening of my spiritual life. This manifested itself outwardly by augmented spiritual gifts of speaking and healing and inwardly by greater composure and joy in everyday life and an increased intensity of prayer.
So my life has progressed. The professional side has flourished mightily; in ordinary circumstances its activities - teaching, writing, and hospital work - would have been sufficient to occupy my time. But it is balanced almost exactly by the "spiritual" side (as if any work done with devotion is not spiritual), which embraces the ministry of healing, delivering many addresses to diverse groups of people, conducting retreats, and giving instruction about meditation and prayer. At one time I dreaded being asked how I spent my spare time; now I am no longer embarrassed, for I have none. Yet I am not fatigued, and my health, praise be to God, has remained excellent. Over the past eighteen years I have had occasion to spend only four days away from work on account of illness.
All truly spiritual activities are forms of recreation to me, and the inner peace that comes through the practice of meditation and prayer is a very real way of resting while working. I did have one valuable hobby, piano playing, but this was willingly sacrificed when I entered the healing ministry; the unavailability of time made this sad decision inevitable. But its fruits are permanent: a real understanding and enjoyment of a vast range of music that would have been impossible without practical knowledge of an instrument. Art has always inspired me to a deeper knowledge of God, and no form of art is more eloquent and evocative than music.
When I consider, from the vantage point of middle age, how my life has unfolded, I am full of gratitude and wonder. It has indeed been precarious living. But everything I have attained has been given to me through silent listening and waiting. Whenever I have asserted myself, I have failed to achieve what I desired and have become desperately unhappy. The prodigality of God's goodness to me is a source of great thanksgiving. But from him to whom much is given, much is expected. This candid autobiographical account is a payment of part of the debt I owe. It is no small thing to expose oneself to the gaze of an indifferent, if not hostile reader in the hope that the path to life trodden by one particular aspirant may be of help to others also on the way.
Let it not be thought that the course has been completed. The summons to full service is only now being decisively obeyed.