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RATIONALE OF SPIRITUAL HEALING 131 That the cures wrought by Jesus were effected by the application of certain fixed principles, which, when properly formulated, constitute an intelligible transcendental mode or science of cure, there can be little doubt. His practical metaphysics are not an impenetrable and incommunicable secret. The knowledge of its leading principles is attainable by the spiritually enlightened mind to-day, and that knowledge will invest us with the power to do the works that he did. It was the practical application of the Messianic method of cure, described in symbolic language in the Kabala. In the Sohar, or Book of Light, of Rabbi Simon Ben Jochai, it is said : “In the garden of Eden (which was in the lower region of the spiritual world, corresponding to the soul region in man) there is one palace which is called the palace of the sick. The Messiah goes into this palace and invokes all the sufferings, and pains, and afflictions of Israel to come upon Him, and they all came upon Him. Now if He did not remove them thus, and take them upon Himself, no man could endure the sufferings of Israel, due as a punishment for transgressing the Law: as it is written, 'Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows'.” (Isa. liü, 4). (See Ginsburg's KABALA).
This remarkable passage from the Kabala gives no foundation for the current doctrine of vicarious atonement, which was wholly foreign to the Jewish mind, but gives the key to a method of healing practised by Jesus, and perhaps also by the mystic
