The burden of detoxification of the alcohol and its elimination is almost entirely

placed on the liver which can dispose of about one ounce of alcohol per hour.
Little or no alcohol is excreted by the kidneys and lungs. This places a heavy
load on the liver and, what is more important, on the solar plexus chakra, a centre
that is already stimulated and out of control in most of humanity.

It is true to say that alcohol is a food of a high energy level which is completely
without vitamins. But it is not true to say that the liver will not degenerate if the
alcoholic eats enough other food containing a sufficiency of vitamins. The truth is
that recent scientific evidence shows that alcohol affects every cell that it comes
into contact with.* This finding is quiet confirmation of an esoteric teaching of long
standing that alcohol is a general poison especially for Man on the Path. C. W.
Leadbeater, the great theosophical clairvoyant of the early part of this century
could observe, clairvoyantly, the effects of alcohol on the body and taught, 80 years
ago that its effects were those of a general poison. It was also he who taught that
cigarette smoking was a health hazard, 60 years before the Royal College of
Physicians issued the first official announcement that there was a correlation
between cigarette smoking and cancer.

Leadbeater also observed the precincts of drinking houses from the level of the astral
plane and the effects of astral forces and entities on alcoholic imbibers.

It is a pity that this brilliant clairvoyant's observations have not been taken more
seriously of late by the mediocre core of the present Theosophical Society especially
with regard to his and Annie Besant's work in the field of Occult Chemistry.

* Scientific American, March, 1976. § Occult Chemistry by C. W. Leadbeater and Annie

Besant.

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