1/17/35 My dear friend Cayce:
Now, don't answer this letter, because after all, you are
too good, to take your time and that of your steno, and among
hundred others, or among your duties, etc., write me long,
interesting letters. I read your letter and like to read
what you say, your arguments, your expressions, and
impulsively I take the typewriter begin to hit the keys, and
here I am, again, banging, banging to you. So, as it is read
this when you have time - don't reply, it is not necessary.
For that matter in some temperamental moment I could chat and
chat with you - then be quiet, and all of a sudden burst in
with a question. It seems, I am learning to know myself - a
task, and a slow process. When I know myself, I will be
turning myself inside out and the outside in and it will be
again the constant bugaboo of beginning and end, and the
circle of life, with beginning and with end, yet without
beginning and without end.
As I write, it seems, some idea, some picture of that MAN
which I see when I am under ether (and I have experienced
this twice) comes to me and wants to either assist me, or
just watches me. I guess, it must be a mental impression, of
that man that appears powerful to me, as a very intelligent
being that wants to be with me. You once said this was my
angel - it may be my hidden guidance, that I am seeking - a
light, a something or may be a nothing - yet I continue
impulsively to express my ideas, what I experience,
consciously, and I don't know what it is. A puzzle eh? - but
yet as you say you can know your own experiences and perhaps
not be able to express it, that's why I have faith in what
you do because your ideals are in unison with mine.
At that, I may say - well, what's the use? Yet if I could
find an experience, if I could see what you see, and create a
power, for once or twice to experience a rarity based on the
examples you say must be followed in "meditation" then I
would feel better - perhaps it would bring a change in my
being, in my life, because, I would have seen. I need not
the fear, and I want not fear, but I want light, some sublime
experience, something that will guide me and tell me - here
is the way, and that I may say - Eureka, I found it!
To night again I am reading meditation and if you have
anything around there that will help me be LIKE YOU ARE
or will help us commune, during my sleep or in some way or
manner, that will bring me to a realization, gee whiskers,
I would feel like a king! Then, something tell me, well -
may be it is not your time, may be God doesn't want you to
experience, but then why does it impulse me to write and
seek? There seems to be a fight of some kind. And I say
fight, because in your letter you make me ask you this -
How do you know Cayce, that the soul doesn't die? If it
doesn't die, why then doesn't express itself in some way or
manner to enable me - MAN - to know that it is a reality, to
believe? Washington crossed the Delaware - history says so
and men attest to this, so I believe he did, but at that I
didn't see it, and all I know that as one of men physical
actions or movements, some other man will convince me and
prove it to me, and I will say yes, he crossed the Delaware,
yet something in back of me, will say "you liar". See the
confusion here? You understand me, don't you?
I cannot be convinced by faith, because faith may be an
attribute of fear, and faith may make me believe that red is
blue and blue is red, yet the director of my being goes ahead
and injects into my conscious mind, such evil as to make me
doubt my faith? Why? If the director, if the creator, if
the unknown being is intelligent why doesn't he make me be
capable of reasoning with myself, or why does he use me as
his tool or his play boy. Well, may be he has a reason - but
gee whiskers, is it fair?
That example of the seed, is okay with me - it seems life is
an unknown beginning, and an undetermined end, yet we
experience life, we know, we are living, and then I wonder
how happy is the baby in the crib - does he know he is
living, or is he just acting upon some impulse which like
electricity doesn't know what it is, itself, yet it is
directed by some being, and that being, will have to
invariably be directed by another being and the other
being by another and on, and on, and on, and on.
We experience life as I say, and we don't know what happened
before we were born, nor what happened after we disintegrated
- why such confusion, why are we martyrs of the directorship
of that guiding being, nature, God, the supreme artifice, the
deity?
And if I am not reasoning or if I am puzzled, why don't I see
something while I am asking, while I am searching - may be I
have to keep searching, and when death comes - then I may say
to myself, within myself - I see, I found it, but then it
will be too late, I wouldn't be among man, in the world, and
I will be in the puzzling unknown...
That's why I should like to be able to do rare things, along
the line you are doing, things that will enable me to see
more, to be better, to help others, help myself and to be
a being among my fellowmen, for their benefit and for my
satisfaction. Why not? If my ego drives me to seek, to
find, to look for what I don't know, then it is guided by
God, and he knows best.
That's that. [
531]
P.S. You don't know yourself how you do certain things,
but somehow you experience some things - in your dreams
or trances - you come back, wake up and have accomplished
something, and something that is of VALUE something that
makes you be more and faithful, so my friend if you
experience those things and I am a seeker of light, of
knowledge, if I want to dig into the mysteries of the
unknown, if I want to solve the puzzle, do you know of some
way that I can come to that realization, and say - I did
something - yet I don't know how I did it. Then having done
it once, PROVES that I can do it again and again and again.
P.S. No. 2 Another thought. There is always an interval
in things, a time, a moment, the millionth part of a second,
when things change - when we change from unknown being into
life, when we change from life to death - there is a
continuity and there has to be a time, within which time,
that changes go into effect - sort of an in-between interval,
short as it may be. Sometimes I wonder, if it is that
"inbetween" interval GOD? So quick, so rapid, that he
doesn't permit men to know. Last time I was under gas, some
few months ago, the doctor took me to the hospital at around
11 o'clock. They had to open two boils in my leg. I went
under the ether, and began to dream with this man, who asked
me to count, or rather he wanted to show me something. All I
know is that when I got up, the first thing I said: "Oh, God
that is impossible." I was speaking to the man, to that
which Called God, to that supreme being or perhaps to an
imaginary impression of my mind, dormant at that time and
affected by ether, yet I had a delightful experience, trying
to count with God, 1929, 1928, 1930, 1931, 1932, 1933, fast,
faster, until I came to 1934, and then I woke up - what
happened between the time I ended counting and the short time
when I woke up?
There was an interval, an obscure moment, the short moment
of the winking of an eye but if that was a continuity, it was
to me an unknown, a darkness, an undefined thing - yet I am
thankful to God, that I returned, to know that I was living,
that I didn't continue in a dream which may have ended (or
may have continued - this is problematic) even if I had
disintegrated, and never had returned to earth to write you
this type of letters and ask you these questions, that may
make you think I am not all there, eh?
1/23/35 EC's letter:
Dear [
531]: I can't help but say something about yours of
the 17th. While you asked me not to answer your letter,
still some of the things you speak of I feel I might able,
in saying a word, to get you straight. It is true, you
cannot wholly profit by my experience or anyone else's
experience, but it is true the knowledge of such experiences
that, we may say, brings the awareness of such things being
possible. Oftentimes, one may try to have an experience and
by the very trying prevent it from coming about. Do you
understand me? Very much in the same manner as trying to
work an example in math. One will try and try, and then when
they have quit trying, all of a sudden something happens and
it is easy to work out. Or, as another illustration, one
will try to recall a name or an address of some individual
whom they know very well they should be able to remember,
and they will finally quit trying, - and it is there.
The real activity, then, of an individual, is to keep
themselves at all times as near as possible in attune with
the Infinite, which means just doing and being those things
that God has indicated to us in the attitude that we should
remember in reference to our fellow man; for, until we see
the God Spirit in our fellow man - even in those we feel
dislike us, we will never be well enough in accord to receive
a great deal of instructions from Him.
I am sure (I may have told you this before) you will not find
anything that will work better than the information or data
on meditation than the reading of the 14th, 15th, 16th and
17th chapters of St. John, and as you read them, don't look
on them as being history, nor as a mere phenomena; rather, as
you experience the truth as is conveyed there is within your
own self, hear the voice of the Master speaking. Know that
it isn't just to His followers that were about Him that he is
speaking, but that He is speaking to [
531] - now!
Now, as to FAITH - we have a real lesson, I think, on faith,
[Lesson IV, SFG I] and I am supposed to try to teach a class
tonight something about the lesson, "Faith". Faith is an
attribute, you know, of the soul. We don't have faith in
individuals. We have CONFIDENCE. Confidence, of course,
may be an out-growth of knowledge. "Faith," (not merely
blind faith), as the writer has said, "is the substance of
things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen." Confidence
may beget faith, or confidence may be broken down, for it is
only confidence when fear enters in. We may doubt our own
selves, or we may doubt our fellow man, and that is only our
lack of confidence; but faith is of those things that we
cannot see, yet we act as if they exist. To illustrate, we
cannot see electricity; we know by experience that such
things exist. Consequently, we prepare our houses, we put
the wires in, we push the switch and the light comes on from
some unseen power. The force or power that is electricity
is the same force or power we call God, and there is ever
such a current - either constructive or destructive,
dependent upon how we use it.
Your experience in counting back is quite interesting. That
has been one of the most unusual things that everyone has
remarked about in the manner in which the Life Reading
information is gotten. It begins with the present day and
counts back. Just what is accomplished by this, we have not
wholly determined, as yet. Once in a while we find times
when it remarks on some particular change that came about in
the individual's life, and just whether that is what it is
doing or not, I do not know. We use words, phrases and terms
to express ourselves, but they so seldom convey just the
meaning that we are trying to give.
With kindest personal regards and best wishes, I am
Ever the same, Edgar Cayce EC:MD
2/04/35 Mr. [
531] sent money for cousin [
791]'s rdg., also
his own acct.:
I am in correspondence with Mrs. Merritt but her crackers
taste different - they are not always the same, and if she
does what I tell her she can get somewhere. Did not hear
from Mrs. Phar, not even acknowledgement, while I am
corresponding with Mr. Bisey on his Atomidine. I am taking
it and going to the Osteopath, I think we can place that
Atomidine abroad. Just got a letter from Dominican Republic
who are interested. Am busy. Haven't heard from Dave Kahn
for sometime and I often think of him - I like this fellow
lots. Say - I forgot, almost. The other day I tried to get
in contact with the infinite, and almost accomplished
something that is if my experience was something. I
visualized sort of a second sight picture - four faces were
seen, in a light, and I got kind of scared, because it was
something like between a dream and a visualization. Don't
know, but I'll get there. May be am all wrong, but I'll try
hard enough.
So long.
3/24/35 See his Ck. Physical
531-5. This rdg. also gives
advice as to his life and work.
Edgar Cayce Readings © 1971, 1993, 1994, 1995 by the Edgar Cayce Foundation