6/15/36 Thomas Sugrue's booklet THERE IS A RIVER preface
to book then being planned on Edgar Cayce's life and work.
[Used also under
1800-26 Reports.]
THERE IS A RIVER By Thomas Sugrue
(Copy was autographed with the inscription, "For Gertrude
Cayce from her third son, Tom."
Being the Preface to a Volume, Now in Preparation, on the
Life and Work of Edgar Cayce...
Published by THE ASSOCIATION FOR RESEARCH AND ENLIGHTENMENT,
INCORPORATED, Virginia Beach, Virginia
"There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the
city of God..." Psalms 46
It is not here my purpose to strike on the bandor of time
more notes than were awarded, in the beginning of my plan,
these minutia of preface. I had intended to announce in
brief the purpose of my efforts, the effect toward which
sentence and paragraph and chapter are aimed. But it seems,
as with all things in which man and his mind properly have no
business, that I am entangled. Such simplicities as were
clear to me in their birth have clouded on the pages where
they were to mature. Their dress in words cannot be a
Grecian gown, simple and caught at the middle with a golden
clasp. They demand designs with which I am not now, nor ever
will be, familiar. Yet in the face of challenge I can but
cross their desires with language, and hope they will come
forth fulfilled.
The story of Edgar Cayce is not the chronicle of a man born,
appointed to a destiny, and fulfilling it. It is not a
biography built upon facts, garnished with anecdote, and
served with similitude and interpretation. It has more to
itself than that. It demands, in its telling, the scope and
poetry of legend, the depth and preciseness of history, the
clarity of science, the exactness of mathematics, and the
vision of religion. Such abilities do not come in the same
human package. The mind with which I had hoped to mate the
matter of this tale has no solution for its meanings, its
ramifications, its subtleties and myriad implications. Only
by the inflation of a vast insolence, and loud singing to
drown the voice of fear, can this venture hope to pass
through the dark valley of verb and come out walking.
There is contained in the life of every man, whatever his
caste in the system of human intelligence, a mystery as great
as the universe: a formula so intricately woven, so
cunningly patterned, that even his soul, groping through
ages of thought, can but feebly guess at the solution. The
architecture of his skeleton, the chemistry of his flesh, are
phenomena which he has never more than vaguely understood.
Of his mind he has no knowledge at all, except that it
operates - objectively upon the life which besets him from
without subjectively upon the death which gathers within. He
has no certain knowledge of how to deal with either of these
exigencies, and in puzzlement he blends them, to his further
bewilderment. He labors in the life without him; in order to
preserve the life within him; yet the execution of this labor
is the matter upon which the death that grows within him
feeds. His existence is a paradox: he moves inexorably
toward extinction, laboring that he may preserve himself for
it. He works that he may live that he may die.
To the beast and the flower this is not an irrational
procedure. There are other beasts and other flowers,
descendants of those which return to earth. Nor does it
seem unreasonable to the average man that people in China
occasionally die. It is when this fact of cessation presents
itself to the individual that mind fails to follow the
pathways of matter. It is something with which reason,
however fortified by evidence, will have nothing to do. It
will sanction all things but its end. To this it presents
argument; of this it is afraid. The first man with a soul,
trapped in his cave by fever, or age, balked at it. To him
had come a revelation: that he was lord of the earth. He
would not relinquish his scepter.
So made for himself, this man in the cave, a comforter. He
told himself of another life, beyond the winds and the seas
and the rivers and the forests: a life wherein there was
always harvest, and where age could not enter in. He told
it, before he died, to his sons and daughters and wife, and
said he would meet them there. They believed him, and they
were happy.
We, too, have believed that story, and we have been happy
because of it. We have examined the architecture of our
skeletons and the chemistry of our flesh, and have found no
answer to them. We have divided our minds into squares and
circles and put names upon them, but nothing has come of it.
We have questioned each other closely about the thoughts that
have been engendered within us, and have found no cause for
joy. In the end we have accepted the word of the witnesses
of death, who have told us that peace comes to the faces of
those who are about to travel into nothingness. With this
as our guide we have carried our ancestors and our lovers and
our friends to their graves, and have prayed for them. We
have built churches, and taken to ourselves religion. We
have made our hope into a belief, and our belief into a
social structure. We have taught others to believe as we
believe, for in numbers there is strength. We do not wish
to go into this nothingness alone.
Yet when the city lights have receded and the doors of our
churches are closed we stand alone with doubt. We can gaze
through telescopes at stars greater than our sun, and
speculate on other worlds in the space toward which some
day we will be propelled. We can see upon the blackboard of
a schoolroom scrawling numbers which prove that space and
matter and life and death are one. We can pass swiftly
through the air, or over our lands, or through the seas, or
even underground. We can receive from the hands of the
chemist substances which restore our health. We can hear in
our homes the voices of men a thousand miles away. But from
none of these can we receive surcease from our end, from
none of these can we gain knowledge to illumine our doubt.
With this we must grapple alone.
The facts are few. At some unspecified time we emerge into a
world with which we are not familiar, and with which we are
not equipped to cope. At another unspecified time we leave
it. We are, when we die, somewhat larger in body than when
we are born, but this has no bearing on our contemplation of
the two events. Before birth we had nothing to do with our
bodies, and after death we have nothing to do with them.
What, then, are we? We are apparently our thoughts. When we
do not have them we do not exist. When we have them we are
alive. We do not remember having had any before our birth,
nor for some time thereafter. As we die they flee from us.
Yet they are we. How then can they flee from us? We must,
perforce, go with them. But where?
They may be, these thoughts, only another of our senses.
These, we know, die. They pass away slowly, painlessly,
leaving us without feeling, without sight, without hearing,
without taste, without smell. When we are young they are
strong and alert. They pick up the world for us, and bring
it to our minds. When their work is done they begin to
sleep, and then to die. Our eyes grow dim, our touch is
muddy, our ears and our taste buds and our noses are
untrustworthy. We can no longer smell spring in the air,
nor feel it against our feet, nor sight it through the bark
of trees. We grow old, and only remembrance of things makes
them real.
As my fingers strike the keys of the typewriter which is
translating these thought impulses into words, tiny cells are
brushed off my finger ends. These cells, which were a part
of me, are destroyed. So soon as they leave me, however,
trophic nerves, which carry impulses throughout the body,
send an SOS to headquarters. Immediately the blood supply
is marshalled for service, cells are put into swift-flowing
streams, and dropped into the empty spaces. The tissue is
repaired, and I have no knowledge that damage was done.
If I suffered from anesthetic leprosy this repair would not
take place. My trophic nerves would not send any message,
and my body would be unaware that help was needed. No cells
would replace those worn off by the keys, and when I had
completed the life of Edgar Cayce my fingers would be stubs.
That is what happens to our senses. As life proceeds from
the simplicities of childhood to the complexities of
adolescence, maturity, and senility, we become confused. An
odor that was once the perfume of the roses becomes a snarl
of memories, a heap of circumstances and happenings in which
the perfume of roses was in some way concerned. Our senses,
besides being duller, are no longer straightforward in their
accounting to us. Our eyes no longer see a house in which we
live. They see a kaleidoscope of happenings and events and
people that have had to do with us in that house. Our taste
buds no longer tell us that we are drinking Rhine wine.
They tell us instead that we are sitting on a sidewalk in
Budapest, watching the Danube and the people who are passing
by. The senses have given over to their own death. They
are immersed in a pile of memories, recognizing things only
because of the remembrances these things incur.
Likewise the mind, struggling to extricate itself from this
mass of wreckage, becomes confused. Desperate to escape, it
denies itself: it says it has no part in the wreckage, it
calls what is past the subconscious. It divides and
redivides itself, making excuses for its incompetencies,
tracing its mistakes to prenatal influence and heredity,
blaming its dullness on environment, seeking to escape
through a process of mental suasion that depends for its
rationality upon irrationality. In the end it comes face
to face with itself again, having rounded the block in its
flight and arrived, panting and exhausted, precisely at the
point where it began. It is inevitably itself, existing
without effort, but unsure of its future. The doubt remains.
All of these things are known to each of us, and each of us,
now and again, ponders them. In our youth we talk of them to
other persons, until we perceive that these other persons are
precisely as muddled as we are, and as fearful. Then we take
the task within us, and thereafter turn it over and exercise
it, frequently at first, then with less and less regularity,
and finally at only those times when the hand of the potter
seems about the crush us in the mold.
It was my fortune when, in my now quite faraway youth I was
putting these things to myself and others, that a listener
happened in who was not of the common herd. He seemed,
though as young as I, to be unworried. He smiled tolerantly
at my voiced heresies - wild cries of fear that I tried to
make into shouts of courage. To my inchoate philosophies he
made quiet answer, puncturing their tender shells with barbs
of what I forthwith considered genius. I took him to my
bosom. Through long nights of the 1926 winter in Lexington,
Virginia, in our tiny rooms in Lees Dormitory, when we should
have been preparing lessons for the stern masters of
Washington and Lee University, we talked of the doubt.
He said he knew, this bespecaled young man who so willingly
gave up sleep to instruct me. I asked him how he knew. Then
for days he would not talk to me, and I saw him brooding over
his books, staring at me occasionally with opaque eyes,
staring at me occasionally with eyes that shot into me and
stabbed at my nerves. Then one night he told me how he knew.
"My father," he said, "is a psychic medium."
It is now a long time since that happened, and I do not
remember much except that we stayed up all night, and that
at breakfast we were still talking. I wanted to know, but
I did not believe. I was a Roman Catholic Irishman from
Connecticut. He, Hugh Lynn Cayce, was a Christian Church
member from Virginia. There was no valid reason why we
should like each other, why we should be together. It was,
I thought afterward, almost indecent.
But he said he knew, and he talked of a God Who was merciful,
Who was understanding, Who saw eye to eye with my blundering
desires in life. So we forsook sleep on other nights, and
talked again, and again.
He told me of a man, his father, who lay down to sleep and
spoke with the voice of authority: who cured the halt and
the lame and the sick and the blind; who told the story of
the world before history began; who traced in the minds of
those who came to ask him, other lives on earth and the
promise of more lives to be; who spoke of the Old Testament
and the New Testament as truth; who made heaven and salvation
a reward for the strong, not a dull fortress in an
inconceivable land manned by the wimpering and the cowardly
who had prayed and given alms and fled from battle.
So in that spring I went with the boy to Virginia Beach,
Virginia, to see his father. I expected a dark-haired,
sharp-eyed, stalwart man who walked with gods and spoke in
the language of metaphysics. I met a mild, amiable, soft
spoken man who on the first day changed his cigarette brand
to suit mine, who allowed me to teach him the intricacies of
rummy, and who asked me to go fishing with him. He took me
down town and bought me a soda, introduced me to the village
barber, and played three sets of tennis with me. I went to
bed in his house that night with complete peace. Such a nice
man, I knew, would not let the devil get me.
All that, too, seems a long time ago. He has been my friend
now for nearly ten years. I am so conversant with his life
and with his work that I begin where I began myself, and
explain it step by step, seems a confusing and arduous task.
Perhaps I should have done it long ago, before I was so lost
in the trees that I could not see the forest. Perhaps I
should not ever have attempted it.
Yet there is, in my files, an envelope labeled, "Readings;"
and there is, in my mind and in my heart, a certain peace.
These things are due to Edgar Cayce. Since that day when we
played rummy and discussed cigarettes and drank soda and
played tennis, no one of the questions which arise in the
dark hours to plague the minds and hearts of men has troubled
me. The soundness of my body, the temper of my mind, the
quiet of my soul, are due to him. He has slept for me many
times, with the sun across his face, and he has told me who
I am and what I ought to be, and who I was in the years that
are history and legend.
He has informed me of the reasons for my ills and my
frettings; and given me ointments for their heal. He has
calmed me when I was unruly, and praised me when I was meek.
He has set my feet again and again on the highway of
humility, and held over and over again that mirror before my
face in which is reflected the charge of my existence.
These things he did when asleep. Waking, he has given me
roof and sustenence, friendship and company. We have walked
together through the canyons of Manhattan and over the sands
of Virginia Beach. We have whiled away the hours on golf
courses, and on the shaded porches of his home. He has
listened to my troubles, and unburdened himself to me. There
is not any man for whom I hold greater love. He is, in
brief, my friend. I believe in him; I believe in his labors;
I believe in his gifts.
Therefore this task has come to me. I had hoped that someone
more worthy would be appointed. I know that I am inadequate,
that never in my life will a more difficult problem be set
before me. It deserves better hands. Yet the time has come
for its fulfillment, and no other workman is at hand. I have
taken it gladly; it is my honor.
To those who know Edgar Cayce and his work I have this to
say: the breadth of the assignment has not escaped me. I
know that on any one of the innumerable subjects which have
coursed through his 25,000 readings a book could be written.
These books, in time, will be written. My job is to break
the ground, to lay down with as much completeness and
exactitude as is possible the fundamentals of Edgar Cayce,
his life, and his work. Much must be excluded. Things that
were momentus in their days of happening seem, in
perspective, shadowy details that stray into dull byways.
The outline, massive in years and importance, remains. It
is this which I hope to get solidly planted between covers.
The rest, in due course, will follow.
To those who come upon Edgar Cayce for the first time let
this be warning: it is no tale to take in stride. Whatever
else it gives you, it will give you pause. There is not in
the chapters which will follow any program of ballyhoo, any
attempt to sell a product. This is a document for the
purpose of record. Those who would quibble, who would
point the finger of their intelligence in scorn, who would
call questions and cry for proof, had best leave off and
take again to their school books. Here is a river for those
who wish to bathe; but those who enter it had best know how
to swim.
Thomas Sugrue
June 15, 1936
New York City
6/30/36 See
294-185, Par. 18-A, 19-A, EC's dreams regarding
earth changes, spiritual development, etc.
8/12/36 See
1249-1, Par. 9-A regarding getting scientific
aspect of EC's work.
9/13/36 See
262-100 regarding A.R.E. Study Group work and
Manual for teachers, study group leaders, etc. [See Source
File Key #262 for Supplement comprising study group material
used for group leaders in Sept.-Oct. 1936, re 262-100.]
9/29/36 See
1210-2, Par. 6-A giving definition of "Seekers"
and how to reach them.
10/03/36 EC's letter to [
2118]:
Dear Mrs. [
2118]:
I've wanted to write you ever since receiving yours of the
23rd, and I only wish now I knew how to say just how much
I appreciate your interest...most of all, somehow I feel,
Mrs. [
2118], you have gotten a better concept of what my real
inner desire is to do and be, than most anyone I know; or at
least you express it in such a beautiful way that it presents
to my own concept just what I would like to put into words.
We had the reply from Mrs. [
1267] and I'm hoping, trusting
and praying with her that the suggestions as given will prove
to be as valuable to her as such information has been to so
many hundreds of others. We sent to you a copy of the
reading.
I assure you it has been quite gratifying to us to have so
many wonderful reports continually. Very recently there was
a young lady [
852] visiting us who had only a few months ago
been given up by ten physicians, who said it was impossible
for her to get well...for they didn't know what was the
matter with her, and acknowledged it. Yet she is now in
almost perfect health, nineteen years old and with all the
opportunities and enthusiasm that goes with young womanhood,
with a desire to finish her schooling and to prepare herself
for something very definite as her life's work. This to me
seems to be real worth while, and it's certainly without any
thought of any cism, ism, or cult...only the love of a
merciful Father that may be manifested in the lives and
experiences of our fellow man, and that they as individuals
may become more and more conscious of that oneness with that
divinity.
I am most happy to know that you enjoyed the introduction to
the book Mr. Sugrue is writing, and I appreciate more than I
can tell you your thought of preparing the book for those who
are in some ways, at least, less fortunate than we who have
our eyesight...that they, too, might read this.
I want to ask you a question... I hope you do not think it's
impertinent, and if I may I would like to ask that you act
on it if you think favorably of it:
For some years I have been very well acquainted with Mr.
[
437] who is President of the ..., Inc. He it was that
introduced the Miracle Man some years ago in the silent
pictures, and he has spoken several times of trying to obtain
a story that would carry something similar, something more
up-to-date, yet carrying the same thought that possibly
"There Is a River." And that we have, if man will only take
hold, a connection with divinity that may manifest itself in
our relationships with our fellow man. Somehow I have gotten
the idea that this preface, "There Is A River" might be made
into such a movie. Not with any names, of course, but so it
might carry something that would be very much worth while,
helping to eliminate much of that which has grown up as
cults, cisms, class, hatreds on account of creed or cult.
I believe it can be presented as Mr. Sugrue has written of
himself, in such a way that it would be good. What do you
think of it? Read it over again and let me know. And then
if you think well of it, drop a line to Mr. [
437], telling
him what you think of it...and it might be that we can in
that way be of a great help to a great number of people.
Yes, Hugh Lynn met some of the group who distribute the
pamphlet, "The Next Three Years," when we were in N.Y. last
spring. And as has been our policy, we try to pass on that
we have found in our own experience to be worthwhile, for
individuals to use as they may think best. I understand that
the same thing doesn't appeal to everyone, but I hope that a
great many of our members will be able to get a good deal out
of the various papers and data we have sent out from time to
time.
Hugh Lynn is undertaking locally to review some of the books
that have been written on the subject, pro and con. And
while he hasn't had his first meeting yet, apparently he has
aroused a bit of interest. The course is to open Thursday
evening.
Our groups in Norfolk are growing; more interest I think is
being shown, and other groups are being formed from time to
time.
Thank you again for your letter and for the real help and
joy you have given me in writing this. I trust that I may
be hopeful to any and all whom you may interest in writing
us, and hope you will let us hear from you whenever you have
the opportunity.
Please remember me to Katherine when you write. With kindest
personal regards and love from each and every one here, I am
Sincerely, [EC:GD]
10/06/36 Mrs. [
2118]'s letter to EC:
Dear Mr. Cayce:
I have just received your very kind letter. Yes, I believe
I am fully aware of the noble purpose of your life & work.
That is why I have never forgotten you & have never ceased
to speak of you to those sufficiently attuned to appreciate
spiritual strivings & manifestations.
Too well do I know that the field of psychic research has
also its host of imposters, who feed upon a gullible public,
or some suffering groper after light. These make it all but
impossible for the rarely endowed psychic to make himself
felt or understood or to even win a respected place among
thinking people. It is an uphill road for such as you - but
you are not the kind to lose heart or courage or to fail to
live up to the light within you.
The case you wrote about in your letter proves your great
value as one endowed with almost superhuman power for good.
I am one who has great faith in the healing power of the
Spirit - whence it comes or how, mysterious as it may seem to
most people, seems to me to be but the natural emanations of
Divinity - or Divine Love. The great sorrow is that so few
know how to find the fountain-source of all those freely
flowing healing waters.
You who seem to have found the way are certainly doing your
share to helping others to do the same; so much for what I
think of you!
As to your request for my opinion, etc., on the subject of
dramatizing Mr. Sugrue's "There Is A River" for the ...
Pictures, I should off-hand have to say that I would have to
read & re-read Mr. Sugrue's interpretation before I could
give you a fair opinion on the subject at all. This much I
will say & this may suffice you, that ever since I met you
the thought was strong in my mind that it would be a valuable
contribution on the part of some scenario - writers well
versed in the field of psychic phenomena, to write just such
a story as yours, leaving out as you say any names, etc.,
the idea being to popularize & for educational purposes to
familiarize the lay mind with the whole vast subject of
psychic phenomena, & to offset the popular misconceptions &
fraudulent practices of so-called discredited mediums, etc.;
also to help do away with all types of prejudices: racial &
religious hatreds, etc.
So I am sympathetic with the purpose you have in mind. I am
only not sufficiently acquainted with Mr. Sugrue's workable
knowledge of the field, or his ability as a dramatist or
playright, for it would have to be made a living, thrilling
vital production to effect the desired result.
Nor do I feel that I could or would be the proper judge of
Mr. Sugrue's literary gifts; he may be ideally suited for
all I know. Yet I would not be in a position to judge his
spiritual understanding or for that matter anyone else's. A
play no doubt could be written & if well done it could be a
tremendous power for good. If inadequately done it could do
much harm to the cause.
I do not want to close this letter without thanking you for
the Reading for Mrs. [
1267]. She is deeply touched by the
fasts & suggestions you gave her & will act upon them. I
shall advise you later of the results.
I am mailing under separate cover for your research library
a few books that may be of interest, one of them being
Dr. Meyer's books that you requested, etc.
Kindly convey my warmest feelings to your dear ones & to
Miss Gladys. To my great regret I cannot of course attend
Hugh Lynn's book reviews, would that the distance were not
so great. I wish him every possible success.
Very cordially yours, Mrs. [
2118]
10/12/36 EC's reply to [
2118]
Dear Mrs. [
2118]
We were very happy to have yours of the 6th, and I wish to
express my appreciation also for the package of books that
you forwarded for the library of the Association. I'm sure
that you will hear from Hugh Lynn, as he handles these, but I
just wanted you to know how I feel about it also.
Yes, there seems to be so much imposition upon the public in
psychic matters...and there are so many questionable and
unkind things said from others at times, and then at others
the Work seems to fail to bring that we know individuals are
seeking. Yet with a study of these experiences we are so
often shown the futility of any one group or individual
feeling or thinking that it has the only truth. For it is
evident that truth, like our understanding of our
associations with Creative Forces or God, is a growth. And
it is indeed true, as was said by one of the writers of the
Holy Writ, "We grow in grace, in knowledge and understanding
of God."
And the only way, when we observe circumstances, experiences
about us, is by practice; putting into practical application
in our dealings with our fellow man that which is our concept
of the God we worship. And as one of our group members, who
has been studying for some years along with the Work, said
the other day, we usually find this to be true; "Everybody
else is right but me," which is, of course, just opposite to
what most of us say or preach, that think we have gotten hold
of something.
I do hope that the information for Mrs. [
1267] proves of
great value. We have had and do have at times apparently a
series of very unusual, exceptional cases, where apparently
there is little to be done except the spiritual understanding
that may be given to those that are left or those that are
laboring with the individuals who apparently are suffering
from no cause of their own. And yet to me it would be a very
sad thing indeed if those suggestions given in these readings
were not at least true and tenetable under the circumstance;
that is, that we are constantly meeting our own selves.
I want to thank you again for your wonderful expressions of
appreciation of my sincerity. I THINK I am; I know I'm
trying to be just as honest with others as I would like for
them to be with me, and I ask others to do just that, no
more, no less.
Also I appreciate what you say about the little pamphlet,
"There Is A River." I'm sure you are quite right, that such
an undertaking would require a very delicate yet a very
positive handling. And I realize that most of the cinema
companies are looking for popular subjects. And when it
comes to presenting anything that is of an educational
nature, it is not only quite an undertaking but it oftimes
puts them in jeopardy to a very unstable public. Yet if such
could be presented in the right way, I do believe it would be
very worth while. I do not say this because it is something
in which I have an especial interest, but because of the
interest I have in my fellow men coming to know that they,
too, may know of their relationship to the Creative Forces or
God.
When you have thought it over, it will be very lovely if you
will drop either Mr. Sugrue or Mr. Goetz a line expressing
your feelings or reaction to the subject matter. I'm sure it
would be a help in the right direction, if this is worth
presenting. And I appreciate your interest.
I certainly trust that Mrs. [
1267] is finding help, and I
will be more than happy to hear from you as to just what her
reaction to the information is.
Thanking you again and again for your wonderful help, and
asking to be remembered to all of your loved ones...and with
very best from each and every one here, I am
Sincerely, [EC:GD]
P.S. Do you happen to know our very good friends, Mr. and
Mrs. [
619] & [
601] at Detroit, Mich.? If you do not, I
would certainly like for you to get in touch with them if
you are ever in Detroit.
10/25/36 See
257-172, Par. 32-A--41-A in re proposed trip of
EC to N.Y., advising to help those who seek and who are in
need, not those just curious.
11/23/36 See
294-8, Par. R22, Myra Kingsley's update on
EC's horoscope predicting "low ebb" vibrations and warnings
in the coming year. In closing she wrote: "I wish to say
that my reading [Life Reading
1293-1] from you was one of the
really profound experiences of my own life and has given me a
new, and better, thing to work for."
9/29/39 See
5749-11, Par 3-A referring to this preface to
THERE IS A RIVER.
Edgar Cayce Readings © 1971, 1993, 1994, 1995 by the Edgar Cayce Foundation