11/25/49 Thomas Sugrue's letter:
1208 Juniper Street, N.W.,
Washington, D.C.,
Dear Eileen: -
Well, there are miracles and miracles, but I'll settle for
the one I saw last Monday afternoon at three o'clock - The
Return of the Shanachie, or perhaps it should be entitled,
The Rejection of Eileen ni Houlihan. It was a grand thing,
and it made me realize that once we volunteer such things as
the task, the time, and the place are beyond our selection.
So if I'm to get up and walk now, so it will be, and if not,
then I'm better off for my job in a sitting position.
Allan will be here Monday, about the time you receive this,
and we'll have a long talk and decide whether to give our
victims the privilege of the handkerchief, or shoot 'em dead
with their eyes open. It will be good to have him here, even
for a day; it will brighten the conversational tone of the
city, which ordinarily revolves on a jukebox tune - "How much
will it cost me, sir, and to whom do I make out the check?"
As a symbol of your wish (I hope) to return to our company,
you left behind in the Seymour the booklet outlining the
purpose of the Association's present campaign for funds. I
believe Hugh Lynn mailed it to you. I wonder if he thanked
you for setting a precedent which worked out quite well.
Every lady thereafter who entered was required to kiss both
of us. They didn't seem to mind, which made it all the more
pleasant.
Our conversation, rambling from such exotic flowers as JR to
such stubborn old Jesuits as JB, managed to sidestep much of
what I had in mind to say to you about the plans which Hugh
Lynn and I hope will at long last begin to unroll. Also, I
mentioned some people whom you might help us with, but
neglected to point out that they are people already on our
list - people who have had readings or who have investigated
the work of the Association. We are not going beyond the
2,000 names on our New York list. These are being given out
to workers who either take a geographical area or select
people they know, or choose folk in their profession. For
instance, Bill Sloane had your name, but I took it from him,
as there was no need for that sort of approach to you. I had
something else in mind. Since there are only two of us, Hugh
Lynn and myself, in the center of the little atom bomb we are
trying to create, a third element, or mesotron, is needed. A
red-headed woman of wit and beauty, with psychic power, will
either make the nucleus secure or blast it to the far corners
of the universe. Either way it's an exciting thought.
Anyhow, I thought I'd tell you the background of our work in
the present and our hope in the future. You'll see that the
future couldn't very well exist without you in it somewhere,
since by your efforts, your interest, and your work you
already are in it. It's like walking toward a peak for many
years, and then, on attaining it, finding you already there,
throwing snowballs at the people below.
At college Hugh Lynn and I read everything that was available
on the old wisdom and psychic phenomena, and the coming age.
In addition we had the readings. We lined this up against
the world as it was from 1926 to 1930 and decided there was
no purpose in life for us but to do what we could to prepare
the ground for a spiritual renaissance among people of
intelligence and perception. For a few years we thought we
had the beginnings of a center at Virginia Beach. We were
disappointed when the men who put money into the Cayce
Hospital decided on an orthodox type of school as an
accompaniment. We wanted a small school for the study of
psychic phenomena and the examination of the esoteric
tradition in religion from an objective point of view.
Atlantic University had a short life, as did the Cayce
hospital, and we were back where we started - with a dream.
We then divided the job; I went out on the rim, in the world,
and Hugh Lynn remained at the axis, in Virginia Beach.
During the long years of the depression and World War II we
did what we could. The intellectuals with whom I worked were
for the most part too clouded by ego to perceive the
spiritual wave which is forming from the pressure of world
events, and the simple, good people with whom Hugh Lynn
worked lacked still the intellectual development which, added
to their unspoiled nature, would give them a wide and
inclusive viewpoint. Things are a little better with both
types of people now, and we felt, with his father gone, that
the time has come to begin. There is not, in fact, too much
time left. Something must be done.
In a small way our plan has already begun. Each year since
1931, when the Association was founded, we have had a
Congress at Virginia Beach in June. For the past two years
this congress has been run as a school, with regular classes
each day for the week of its duration. The classes have been
conducted on the plan we originally devised - examining
facets and aspects of the spiritual and psychic life with
information drawn from the general basin of literature and
tradition, and with the Cayce readings on these facets and
aspects as commentary.
The next step is to extend the school through the whole
summer, with courses arranged to suit the normal vacation
period of individuals. The Beach provides an ideal campus
for this plan - people like to go there for a few weeks or a
month during the hot season; cottages and hotels provide
ideal dormitories and dining-halls. The Association has
merely to set up a curriculum and provide the classrooms and
the teachers. Once the catalogue is available students can
plan their vacation according to the periods set for the
courses they wish to take.
Before we can begin this extension of the school, however, we
must get our basic commentary, our Mishnah and Talmud, in a
condition where it is available for study and research. This
commentary, the 30,000 [15,000] Cayce readings, now exists on
carbon sheets rapidly deteriorating. We need to microfilm
all of it. Then it will be available for study, not only at
the Beach but where ever else it is desired, and photostats
of any or all the sheets can be made quickly by anyone
wishing to study a particular subject - arthritis,
immortality, marriage, leukemia, the Gospel of St. John, etc. The
medical information will be assembled and studied by doctors,
and we hope eventually that it will be used by men in
research medicine; there is a great deal of information, for
instance, on the relation of the endocrine glands to disease.
The readings on telepathy, clairvoyance, and man's psychic
powers in general, will be gathered and studied along with
every thing printed and known on these subjects. The
religious and mystical information will be paralleled with
all the known systems, both Oriental and Occidental, and
students will be exposed to all of it.
Our point of view in all of this will be taken from the
warning repeated in hundreds of readings - no cult or sect or
ism, no system or "revelation," must be permitted to go out
from the Cayce records. The readings must be used to
coordinate, to synthesize, to expose the broad basis of
spiritual truth as opposed to the narrow boundaries of
organized groups.
What we will have, then, if we succeed, is a center for the
gathering of information in psychic phenomena, and with
laboratories for experimentation; and alongside this a
theater for the exposition of spiritual truth. Each of these
divisions, of course, will complement the other. The third
point, the human body with its ills - reflections of psychic
and spiritual disturbances - will, we hope, develop as a spa
perhaps, or a physiotherapy clinic, or even, once again, a
sanatorium-hospital.
What we want to do is give people guidance in the spiritual
field, information and interpretation in the
parapsychological field, and help in the physical body. The
three together will stimulate them to seek along the proper
lines for inner peace, mental stimulation, and unfoldment of
the soul faculties.
These activities will reflect themselves in publications,
naturally. The Edgar Cayce press will issue some books;
others, we hope, will come from houses in the trade field.
Our small publication, the Searchlight, will grow into a
magazine. Our book-selling department will be a help to
anyone interested in the spiritual life, since we plan to use
it as a guide. One of the steps we want to make soon is
this: one by one, as they appear from the varied houses in
the trade, we wish to recommend to our list new editions of
the great books in religion, mysticism, and parapsychology.
We do not want to set up a list of great books, or recommend
old books hard to get. We want to suggest new books as they
appear, though, as in the case of the Vedas or The Cloud of
Unknowing, they will be basic books long known but constantly
re-interpreted and re-edited. In parapsychology, of course,
there will be fresh volumes appearing, like Warcollier's and
Rhine's. I'd like to form a committee among publishers - you
and Eugene Exman and Bill Sloane occur to me - to keep an eye
out for such books and recommend them. Our list is growing
all the time and soon will represent a formidable possibility
for sales. But we must never use it too often or betray it
with a bad or meretricious book.
All of this has its focal point for the present in the
campaign to raise a sum necessary for microfilming the 30,000
[15,000] readings. The sum is $90,000 and part of it will
come from the 2,000 people in New York who have had readings
or been interested in the Cayce work. Some of these people
are a little hard to reach, and it is they who have the
largest bank accounts. In a sense it does not matter whether
they give - the little people in the long run will take up
any slack the well-heeled leave. But they should not be
ignored; they should be presented with the opportunity to
participate in a plan that goes far beyond preserving the
Cayce records. Some of these, a few perhaps, are among the
folk you know. Hugh Lynn and I wonder if you, after talking
with him, would choose a few and invite them to meet with us,
so that we can tell them pretty much what I've outlined in
this letter. I'll be up in New York again before Christmas
whenever Hugh Lynn arranges a few meetings. If you'll invite
a few folk we'll meet them and have a chat - at your place or
ours - and then they will KNOW, and they can do what they
like.
One way or the other I wanted you to know the plan. Other
ways might have opened up; more worthy people than two
graying school pals could have volunteered. Except for
yourself I know of none who came forward WITHOUT the taint of
a sect or ism or religious body or personal point of view.
That is why I think it was not only appropriate, but symbolic
and intuitive, when on Monday last you kissed us both. And
remember Red Riding Hood, your cloak was not even rumpled.
But your soul, I hope, was ravished.
Allan and I will separately inform you of our talk. After
that I hope to see you before long. Stay resurrected; with
ACTH still working I may join you soon.
[signed]
Tom Sugrue
[handwriting by GD]
1/10/50 GD's note: Today announcement cards were sent to all
A.R.E. lecture plates in NYC and to approximately 250 of
Eileen Garrett's CREATIVE AGE PRESS list:
The Edgar Cayce Foundation
in cooperation with the New York Study Groups
of the Association for Research and Enlightenment
Virginia Beach, Va.
presents
EILEEN J. GARRETT
Author and Lecturer
Thursday evening, January 26, 8:15 o'clock
Willkie Memorial Hall, 20 W. 40th St., N.Y.C.
Subject: NEW HORIZONS
The work of the Edgar Cayce Foundation will be presented.
No admission charge Invite your friends
11/20/52 She lectured before A.R.E. group in NYC on title:
ADVENTURES IN THE SUPERNORMAL.
5/26/60
Parapsychology Foundation, Inc.
29 West 57th Street
New York 19, N.Y.
PLaza 1-5940
Eileen J. Garrett, President
The Parapsychology Foundation is preparing for publication a
Biographical Directory of men and women who are or have been
active in parapsychology and psychic research. Because of
your work in this or related fields, we suggest that you fill
out the enclosed questionnaire, so that we may include your
biography in the Directory. A postage-paid envelope is
enclosed for your return of the questionnaire to the
Foundation as quickly as possible.
We would much appreciate your cooperation. As you know,
there is at present no equivalent directory available. The
officers of the Foundation believe that this Directory will
serve two purposes. It will list, in one volume and for the
first time, the men and women of many backgrounds and
disciplines who have contributed to knowledge in this and
related fields, so that colleagues will be known to one
another in spite of their varied occupations and interests.
The Biographical Directory will also serve to indicate, by
the very manner of its listing, how widely parapsychology has
drawn from and contributed to other scientific studies.
We earnestly seek your assistance.
Sincerely yours,
Martin Ebon
Administrative Secretary
[GD's note:
6/14/60 I sent filled out questionnaire and
10/15/50 Searchlight, CHRONOLOGY OF EC.]
THE A.R.E. JOURNAL Vol. V November, 1970 Number 6
IN MEMORIAM
Eileen Garrett
March 17, 1893 - September 15, 1970
The world of parapsychology and psychic investigation has
been greatly enriched by the life and work of the late Mrs.
Garrett, famous medium, writer, editor and publisher. The
Parapsychology Foundation which she established is a living
memorial to her dedication to research in PSI.
A natural sensitive, she was born in Beau Park, County Meath,
Ireland. She developed her psychic capacities under the
direction of James Hewat McKenzie at the British College of
Psychic Science. Over the years she participated in
experiments in nearly every major phase of parapsychology in
Great Britain, Europe and the United States. She sponsored
international gatherings of parapsychologists, and was
responsible for securing funds for extensive research in the
field.
Mrs. Garrett made a special study of apparent psychological,
physiological, and biochemical correlates of mediumistic
phenomena. She was the author of many books and articles
based on inquiry into the nature and workings of the human
mind. A warm friend of Edgar Cayce and the A.R.E., Eileen
Garrett lives in her work and our memory.
