This psychic reading given by Edgar Cayce at the office of the Association, Arctic Crescent, Virginia Beach, Va., this 1st day of October, 1941, in accordance with request made by those present.

Present: Edgar Cayce; Gertrude Cayce, Conductor; Gladys Davis, Steno. Esther Wynne, Florence Edmonds, Frances Y. Morrow, Hannah Miller, Ruth LeNoir, Mae Verhoeven, Sallie Jones and others.

TEXT

1. GC: You will have before you the Glad Helpers Prayer Group, members of which are present in this room, and their study of the endocrine system of the human body. You will answer the questions they submit, as I ask them.
2. EC: Yes, we have the group as gathered here, as a group, as individuals, and their study of the endocrine system. Ready for questions.
3. (Q) Please consider the outlines, copy of which I hold in my hand, and make such corrections and additions that may be necessary.
   (A) These - corrections or the activities - are not to be from here. This is the work of the group as individuals, from that they have gained that has proven helpful in their OWN minds and may prove helpful to others!
4. (Q) Please give a discourse on each of the seven major glandular centers, as I call them, that will help us and others to have a better understanding of their functions physically and mentally during the adolescent period, the adult period and the changing period; also mentally and spiritually during meditation, opening of the door, the baptism of the Holy Spirit: First, - Pituitary.
   (A) This, as has been indicated, is the way along the system. (This is going backward - we should begin with the first cause, if an understanding is to be maintained!) These, they pass along the way; that has to do with the correlating of physical, mental and spiritual understanding. It is the growth of body and mind, the opening of which is the arousing in the adolescent to the disputations that become the conflicting influences in the experience of the individual entity.
   It is the door, as interpreted by some, through which physically all of the reflex actions respond through the various forces of the nerve system. It is that to and through which the mental activities come that produce the influences in the imaginative system as well as the racial prejudices as termed the predominating influences - or the blood force itself.
   In the spiritual, it is that to which the singleness in the adult brings the awakening to its capabilities, its possibilities, its ultimate hope and desire.
   It is that which in the change period brings the physical influence in which there there is the correlating by experience, through the changing influences in body as related to its OWN findings and its individual intent and purpose. Or, as may be termed, it is physically the ripening of the fruit of the experience of the body; as to whether it has been material-mindedness or of spiritual import.
   And in the mental it is that which gives judgement and understanding, tolerance AND relationships to the determining factors. Hence we find some grow old gracefully, some tolerantly, some fussily and some very meanly. All of these, then, are the expressions of that which has been the dominant force that began from its first active influence that passed from its innate to the animate, to its full completion in the individual experience of the entity.
   This is the influence also, or the activities spoken of, as the door upon and through which the old men may dream dreams, the young men may see visions.
   All of these are the expressions of this activity in its relationships, correlated with other influences and glands that are of the physical as well as the mental natures in the body.
5. We are through for the present.

BACKGROUND

1. Subject of 281-58 - "Glad Helpers."

REPORTS

1. PITUITARY BODY (Copied from Gray's Anatomy) - Function: Extracts give a substance which causes constriction of the blood vessels with rise of arterial blood-pressure. This substance seems to have a stimulating effect on most of the smooth muscles, acting directly upon the muscle causing contraction. It also increases the secretion of the urine; of the mammary glands when in functional activity; and of the cerebrospinal fluid. Many authors regard the pars nervosa and the pars intermedia as the posterior lobe.
   The pars anterior exercises a stimulating effect on the growth of the skeleton and probably on connective tissues in general.
   Enlargement of the hypophysis and the cavity of the sella turcica are found in the rare disease ACROMEGALY, which is characterized by gradual enlargement of the face, hands, and feet, with headache and often a peculiar type of blindness. The blindness is due to the pressure of the enlarging hypophysis on the optic chiasma.
   THE DUCTLESS GLANDS (Gray's Anatomy) - Certain organs very similar to secreting glands, but differing in one essential particular, viz., they do not possess any ducts by which their secretion is discharged - that is to say they are capable of forming, from materials brought to them, INTERNAL SECRETION in the blood, substances which have a certain influence upon the nutritive and other changes going on in the body. This secretion is carried into the blood stream, either directly by the veins or indirectly through the medium of the lymphatics.
   These glands include the THYROID, the PARATHYROIDS and the THYMUS: the PITUITARY BODY and the PINEAL BODY; the chromaphil and cortical systems to which belong the SUPRARENALS, the PARAGANGLIA and AORTIC GLANDS, the GLOMUS CAROTICUM and perhaps the GLOMUS COCCYGEUM. The SPLEEN is usually included in this list and somtimes the LYMPH and HEMOLYMPH NODES described with the lymphatic system. Other glands as the liver, pancreas and sexual glands give off internal secretions, as do the gastric and intestinal mucous membranes.
2. 8/29/42 See rdg. 2803-1, example of glands affecting entire body.
3. 3/06/43 See 281-63 on glands.

Edgar Cayce Readings © 1971, 1993, 1994, 1995 by the Edgar Cayce Foundation