What is Physical Regeneration?

The renewal and perpetuation of the body by the indwelling spirit, from perfect health to the overcoming of death. Troward names three stages: keeping the body in perfect health, reversing the effects of age, and perpetuating it without passing through death. He presents it as the logical end of evolution, differing from spiritual healing only in degree.

The place of the doctrine in Troward's system

The Creative Process in the Individual follows the work of Spirit in a single line, from the first self-contemplation of the Universal Mind to the forming of worlds, and then on to the individual human being. In that human being the creative process can for the first time go on consciously. Physical Regeneration is where this argument ends. If Spirit is the life and substance of every form, and if the individual can learn to work with Spirit on purpose, then the body is not shut out of that cooperation. The same power that built the body in the first place can keep renewing it.

Evolution become conscious

Troward separates two phases of the cosmic process. In the first, Spirit works on its own initiative to produce higher and higher forms, up to the point where a being appears that can know itself. In the second, further progress depends on that being's own recognition of the principle that produced it. Evolution does not stop with man. It turns inward and becomes a matter of conscious realisation. Physical Regeneration is the fruit of this second phase. It is not handed down from outside. It grows out of a person's own understanding of their relation to the Originating Spirit.

Degree, not kind

Troward ties the doctrine to experience. Cures of disease "by the invisible power of the Spirit are steadily increasing in number," he writes, and he draws the conclusion plainly: "The difference between the healing of disease and the renewal of the entire organism and the perpetuation of life is only a difference of degree and not of kind." When a single ailment is cured by a right mental and spiritual attitude, the life-principle has been allowed to reassert its own perfect pattern in one place. Regeneration is the same action made permanent and complete across the whole body. So the student does not need a separate theory for it. The growing number of such cures shows the working of a principle "to which we can logically set no limits."

The stages

Troward names the three stages himself. The spiritual ego in ourselves, "as proceeding direct from the Universal Spirit," should be able:

1. To keep the body in perfect health, by combining the working of spiritual and physical laws in it harmoniously. 2. To renew the body, "thus eradicating the effects of old age." 3. To perpetuate this renewed body "as long as the individual might desire."

He calls "eternal life in an immortal physical body" the "logical dénouement of our evolution." For the last stage he turns to the Bible. St. Paul, he notes, "expressly states that we shall not all die, but that some shall be transmuted into the Resurrection body without passing through physical death," and the Old Testament gives two instances, Enoch and Elijah. The goal, in his words, "is not the putting off of the body, but its inclusion as part of the conscious life of the Spirit."

How the body is renewed

The renewal works through the natural order, not against it. Spirit produces something out of nothing, Troward says, but "in accordance with the natural order of substance of the particular world in which it is working." The builder of the body is the sub-conscious mind, which "acts in accordance with the aggregate of suggestion impressed upon it by the conscious mind." So the change begins in the mode of thought: contemplate "a Law of Life as inherent in the very Being of the Spirit," and a corresponding outward form follows, "without in any way violating the order of the universe."

The safeguards

Troward is a careful teacher, and his safeguards are specific. The attainment cannot be forced: reliance on "personal force of will" is "fore-doomed to ultimate failure." The one who attains power over the body uses it "only to meet actual requirements," and his reverence for the Law of Harmony rules out any wish "to play psychic pranks with it." Nor does the work mean leaving ordinary life. What is wanted is such a realisation of the Universal Principle "that our commonest actions will be hallowed by the Divine Presence." While our spiritual power is still weak the growth may be slow, so "we must not allow ourselves to be discouraged," knowing the growth is "slowly but surely taking place."

Here and now

None of this pushes the hope into a distant age. "Why, then, should not regeneration be accomplished here and now?" Troward asks, and he holds that the attainment "is not an impossibility, nor is it necessarily relegated to some far off future." It comes through ordinary life, for "the grand dénouement will be only the natural result of our daily habit of walking with God." He is equally plain that "for the rank and file of us the death of the body seems to be by far the more probable event," and whoever passes over holding the principle takes it with him, "bound to bear fruit sooner or later in a joyous Resurrection."

"Regeneration" comes from the Late Latin regeneratio, from re- ("again") and generare ("to beget, produce"), which is related to genus ("birth, origin"). In Christian Latin the word meant spiritual rebirth, as in the "washing of regeneration" of Titus 3:5. Troward deliberately extends this meaning to the body. The rebirth that begins in consciousness is meant to work its way out into the physical form. "Physical" comes from the Greek physis, "nature" or "growth," so taken together the phrase suggests nature being born again from its own spiritual root.

Troward offers no technique for forcing results. He describes an attitude to be built up over time. His teaching points to these ways of working:

- Recognition before effort. Each day, call to mind that the life in the body is the Originating Spirit itself, specialised in this one person. Think of the body as something constantly being formed from within, not as a fixed mechanism wearing down. - Treat healing as training. Bring any present ailment to the spiritual law calmly and with expectation. Each small restoration builds the conviction that the larger regeneration rests on. - Replace the idea of decline. Notice and let go of the race-belief "that physical death is under all conditions a necessary law of Nature," and of the habit of measuring the future by past experience. Troward's maxim is that "Principle is not bound by Precedent." Put in their place the idea of steady renewal from an unchanging source. - Begin now, and do not be discouraged. The best place and time to begin, Troward says, "are Here and Now." Growth may be slow at present, so hold the thought, knowing that it is doing its creative work. The advance "may be almost imperceptible from one day to another, but it will be perceptible at longer intervals." - Stay faithful to ordinary life. Keep doing your duties, keep your relationships, and use sensible care. The teaching is meant to perfect life in the world, not to excuse anyone from it.

"It is a promise of physical immortality on demand." Troward rests regeneration on the Law of Growth, not on wishing. The body is built up by growth, and its formation is "slow or rapid in exact proportion to the individual spirit's vitalizing conception." He could imagine a conception strong enough to produce the form at once, but "at present we must allow for the weakness of our spiritual power."

"It belongs only to a distant future." Troward says the reverse. Many who grasp the great central idea of a joyous immortal life in spirit, soul and body relegate it, he writes, "to some dim and distant future, entirely disconnected from the present law of our being." His answer is that "the Bible contemplates such a dénouement of human evolution as a present possibility."

"It is a different and more mysterious power than healing." He insists the difference is only one of degree. The law that heals a single ailment is the same law that would renew the whole organism.

"It means rejecting the body or escaping matter." The reverse is true. The aim is to transmute the body, not to leave it. For Troward, "as Spirit is the Alpha of the Creative Process, so solid material Form is its Omega."

"It can be reached by willpower or mental force." Troward contrasts the true method, which is receptive recognition of the Divine Ideal, with strained personal effort. He says the latter defeats itself.

"It requires giving up medical care or practical prudence." Nothing in the teaching asks a student to neglect sensible action. The work is inward and goes alongside ordinary responsibility.