This psychic reading given by Edgar Cayce at his home on Arctic Crescent, Virginia Beach, Va., this 10th day of October, 1932, in accordance with request made by self - Mr. [849], Active member of the Ass'n for Research & Enlightenment, Inc.

Present: Edgar Cayce; Gertrude Cayce, Conductor; Gladys Davis, Steno. L. B. Cayce.

TEXT

1. EC: Yes, we have the body here, [849] - this we have had before.
2. Now, many are the changes that have come about in the physical and mental forces of this body since last we had it here. There are conditions physical that are disturbing the better functioning of the body. These have their inception in some discrepancies or conditions in the physical reactions of the body, as well as there being much mental reaction that under the existent physical disturbance aggravates the condition, as well as the aggravated condition producing or causing much of the mental disturbance.
3. So, in considering conditions that would be helpful, or toward the bettering of those forces for the body, all these must be taken into consideration for administering that which would not become detrimental either mentally or physically to the better or greater developments for the body, physically, mentally, spiritually.
4. There are evidences seen of disturbances that have in times back had reference to the lymph and muco-membrane circulation, from that condition in the blood supply where, under high mental strain, the nerve energy works or functions under great tension; and elements of the material nature about the body, of certain character or characteristics, bring irritation of a nature that becomes at times rather, in its reaction, more of a nervous reaction than of just physical, but as we find - it is rather the physical disturbances and irritations that cause the greater mental worries, and the nervous irritations that affect the body physically and mentally.
5. This is seen particularly in the circulations through the head, the neck, having their inception from the source of the nerve and blood supply, receiving its inception and impulse from that as assimilated in system, aggravated by the surrounding conditions; as of impure air ladened with chemical and matter, in gas, dust, and the like, that irritates the membranes of the throat, the head, the nasal cavities, and more or less the whole digestive system, through the intake or breathing of same into the system.
6. These conditions, then, make for those high nerve tensions, as well as being at that period, when the body mentally is passing through that period of adjustments in self, in impulse, from an astrological, and the deeper environ and hereditary influence combined, but taking on rather the greater impulses that come with the body's mentality adjusting itself with custom, necessity, and prenatal influences, or as bred in the bone and fibre of the entity; not from that as may be called the wholly maternal influence, but that rather as builded in self as to activities regarding circumstance, surroundings, environs, as related to individuals, peoples, and the motivating influences in peoples' lives, and WHAT the body, mental body or soul body, has done - and is in a physical body to do - concerning that, in the light of its present experience.
7. Then, in meeting these, as suggested, there must be consideration given that all may have that that will not clash one with another, but allow the entity, the forces of the inner self, to correlate, coordinate, ALL forces in the body, and the mental body to be directed by the spiritual forces of the inner man.
8. For the physical man, then, we would apply as this:
9. At least once each week we would have a thorough massage, or Turkish bath - with a massage following same that would release and relieve those tensions all along the cerebro-spinal system. Such an application should be on those periods or dates when the greater amount of time may be had for rest following same.
10. We would also have this prepared to be used as an inhalant for the nostrils and in throat. Put this in a glass container with glass cork, or stopper, at least twice the size of the quantity, or an eight ounce container for four ounces of the solution. This will act as an antiseptic, and will allay that irritation in the muco-membranes of the face, nasal cavities, even through the antrums and the throat and lungs. This we would inhale at least three or four times at each treatment, deep into the head and into the lung. Shake and then inhale. This may be done of mornings and evenings, or whenever the body comes to its rooms or wherever this may be kept:
11. To 4 ounces of pure grain alcohol, add:

    Oil of Eucalyptus......................20 minims,
Rectified Creosote......................5 minims,
Rectified Oil of Turp..................10 minims,
Tincture of Benzoin....................10 minims,
Canadian Balsam.........................3 minims,
Tolu in solution.......................30 minims.

    Keep this corked at all times. Do not drink it, but inhale the fumes from it.
12. In meeting those nerve energies that need a stimuli to normalcy, we would have THIS prepared only to be used when there is especially the nerve energies under strain. This may be used once a day, or two or three times a day if necessary. It is not habit-forming, nor is it other than a stimuli for the system to adjust itself to meet the needs, and is not a sedative. Though sedatives are used in the compound, they are in such quantities and combined in such a manner (if compounded properly) as to act rather as a stimuli than sedative:
13. To 2 ounces of simple syrup, add:

    Tincture of Valerian....................1 ounce,
Elixir of Calisaya..................1 1/2 ounces,
Essence of Wild Ginseng................10 minims,
10% solution Bromide of Potassium......10 minims,
10% solution Iodide of Potassium.......15 minims,
Tincture of Capsici.....................2 minims.

    Shake a solution together before the dose is taken, which would be half a teaspoonful in a glass, or half a glass of water. Because this is bitter or unpleasant don't hesitate to take it, for this will give relief to the nerve forces of the body.
14. Be mindful of the diet, that the body is rather consistent with the reactions of the body, that assimilation and digestion takes place properly.
15. Do not use minerals as the basis of that taken as cathartic, or the like; rather vegetable compounds, or that as may be had in Castoria, or similar compounds. Take these only when necessary.
16. That the activities and hours of the body require the varied form of diet according to the hours, and the needs for the system are changed often, do not come to rely upon coffee, tea, or those of ANY alcoholic content, as the stimuli necessary for action; rather take, when such is needed, those of milk, and the like. These will soon, with the determination to work against, or with these, bring much clearer and much better effect for the body.
17. As to the mental attitudes, and the considerations for others, for self, for its social, its moral, its mental relations, gradually build for self that as the entity's ideal, as a standard for self, in the light of that known of the life of that one held as the IDEAL of the body, and make these into those of axioms, or lines. The entity will find that cynicism will be replaced rather by wit; that of the scoffer will be gradually replaced by that of the seeker. Not that the body seeks to become the moralist, or the exception; rather build to that within self, in its spiritual-mental relations, as to WHAT the entity believes, and WHY the entity believes such, in the light of the knowledge that is AT hand! Reason, yes; faith, more; but ACTIVITY, mentally AND physically, STILL more; for practicality is that which will appeal, not only to self but to those wherever, whenever, the entity contacts same. Under such a program the entity may build that wherein it may be its natural, REAL self, and above all be self and what self stands for! for there be no name under heaven whereby men may be saved, either in this life or lives to come, save in the name of Him that IS the Way; and the way of the Cross leads to light, life, to all.
18. Ready for questions.
19. (Q) Should the entity use his spare hours in writing, as he feels inclined to do, or should he wait until he feels better physically and do more reading and social visiting at present?
    (A) Better that those periods of rest be budgeted, in that more social visiting, more reading, more writing, may be done, but in decency and order. FIRST let the writing be, "What is my moral, social, physical STANDARD, in the light of that I know?" in axiom, in line, in short paragraphs, but put them in black and white! Then the next day, or that next period, read them over! IF they're necessary to be changed, change them, but do not tear the first up! Change them, put them away; they will become stepping-stones for great things, if the right - or the straight and narrow path - is chosen as to all relationships.
20. (Q) Is there anything in the spiritual element of the entity causing the present condition, any conflict of forces that might be rectified?
    (A) As suggested, these are present; for, as has been seen, these periods are especially weighty upon the entity. After ten days, or two weeks - this apparently seems short, but how long the preparation for this? At least three years! After that, in two to three years, the entity should be at the higher turning point. KNOW, then, and be ABLE, then, to give an answer for the faith that lieth within!
21. We are through.

    Copy to Self
    Copy to File

BACKGROUND

1. See previous Physical readings. Also see 9/27/32 letter under 849-9 Life Rdg. Reports requesting another Ck. Physical and giving details of his condition and his feelings about it.
2. 10/06/32 [849]'s letter to EC:
   My dear Mr. Cayce:-
   Since a reporter never knows when he will again get a chance to write a letter I seize this moment to send you the application and the questions - and on Monday, my day off, I will be at home in Apt. ..., Hotel ..., ... Street and ... West, and then, while you are getting the reading, I will write you a letter in answer to yours - this is just information. You see I must run in a few minutes to Madison Square Garden for the Democratic Mayoralty convention - to write humorous paragraphs on it - and as I'll probably be there all night I want to be sure this gets off in time.
   My general physical condition is this: - a tight feeling on the head, with pains along and up and down the temples; they come a few hours after I get up and usually recede before bed-time when I relax; a slight nausea in the stomach at times, a nervous tendency to bolt food, a feeling of being bloated after eating and an increased nervousness of a physical sort - hands trembling and face hot and sometimes itch, after eating; a stiffness across the back above the hips on arising, and on occasions pains in that region, just over the kidneys. I sleep well but of late have awakened with a nervous feeling at early hours in the morning. My appetite is good, I smoke moderately and take alcohol in moderation, not seeking it. Generally, I am just nervous, and I feel that a tonic, perhaps a diet and maybe a manipulation of series of baths will fix me up just right. If you want to you can read the condition as I set it forth - but anyhow the questions are as follows - I give you leave, of course, to change them as you desire.
   1. What is the cause of the tight feeling about the head, the pains in the region of the temple, and its resultant effect on the general nervous system of the body?
   2. Is the slight nausea in the stomach at times, the bloated feeling and the nervousness after eating caused by a nervous or physical condition? How can it be remedied?
   3. Have such things as diet, tobacco, hours of sleep, the sort of work the entity is doing anything to do with the present general condition of nervousness and weakness, or is it entirely mental?
   4. Should the entity use his spare hours in writing, as he feels inclined to do, or should he wait until he feels better physically and do more reading and social visiting at present?
   5. Is there anything in the spiritual element of the entity causing the present condition, any conflict of forces that might be rectified?
   6. In the general course and plan of the entity's life at present is there anything that should be altered or changed? Is the present existence at tangent to the natural plan as it should be, and is this effecting the physical and nervous systems?
   7. Any further advice?
   I have many things to discuss in a letter, but when I am thinking at the same time of an assignment and watching the clock I can't be very coherent, so I'll say adio now until Monday, with love and best wishes - and hopes for a good reading - [849]
   When my soon expected raise comes - we'll fill in the 1st part of the applications.

REPORTS

1. 10/17/32 [849]'s ltr. to EC:
   My dear Mr. Cayce:-
   I have chosen today, because it is my day off, to begin my new sort of life, I shall start with a bath this afternoon, and then run around to [257]'s druggist and collect my medicines. I haven't quite figured out all that is in the reading (having only read it a dozen times) but that will be part of my disciplining and reconstruction too; the document shall by my Bible, and I hope I shall hope to someday get all that it is telling me.
   If you are giving that sort of reading to all your clients these days you are more of a success then you ever were. It is clear, concise, to the point and self-explanatory. You have in the past given me some splendid readings, but none that comes close to this one. My own feelings and troubles were described to me better than I might have described them myself - and the causes of these feelings not only confirmed my own suspicions but harked back to things I had forgotten about. As for the cures suggested, I mentioned in my letter to you that I would probably be told to take baths and massages, and sure enough I was. Physically, the diagnosis was perfect, and yet it was the other angle that pleased me most - for it was no less accurate, and I was so glad to find that what I suspected myself is true.
   As you said yourself the reading is self-explanatory. There are warnings which I had already posted on my mind; and there have been convictions and enlightenments that bear out all that was said about what is happening to me and what the result will be. I had not seen a reading of any sort in so long that I could not feeling the same glow of wonder and happiness that permeated my soul when I first heard you give one, years ago. Not that there was a lack of faith, or any diminution of interest - but one gets to take things for granted after a while, and only something of this sort sets me back on my heels with admiration and a sort of terror and awe of such power.
   I talked with [257] over the phone about it and went up to see him Saturday night, but he left just before I arrived on a sudden trip to the west. So I gave the reading to [2126] to take to the druggist and I will get the things this afternoon. [257] also told me that he hoped to have you up here next week, so I put in a cheer for the plan. I do hope you can come, and I suggested to [257] that we do all we can to give you a rest - with the theater and other recreations - and not let too many people keep you continually telling the story of your life when you'd like to be seeing some entertaining play or looking at the city from the top of the Empire State Building (something that never fails to thrill me). Mentally and spiritually I feel already cured, though the annoying physical manifestations are still with me. I am also beginning today to write down my thoughts (though I'm so excited now I shall have to wait until evening to be coherent), and in addition to setting my mind straight it will be a habit that will eventually result in more than a few paragraphs and sentences.
   My job is becoming more of a part of my subconscious mind and less a worry to my conscious being, so I have time to straighten out the whole tangle and, I hope, stand again in the open air of thought and see the show as it is.
   I hope you'll be feeling better when you get this, and will come up and see us. We children who come to the city are always proud as peacocks, and like to show the father of our careers what we've done. You sent both [257] and myself here, and we both feel that we are being honored by a visit from our spiritual father when you come.
   Love to all, and thanks a million times for again (as you always do) putting me gently back on the correct track, pointing my nose in the proper direction and giving me a shove toward my goal. [849]
2. 11/28/32 [849]'s ltr. to EC:
   My dear Mr. Cayce:-
   I've had [5436] with me for a whole week, so naturally everything but my duties at the office have been at a standstill. However, I am pleased to report that Dodd, Mead and Company will furnish you all the copies you want at $1.25 each, of "Spiritual Reconstruction." You can send your order to them direct - at 449 Fourth Avenue.
   [5436] came down for what I suspected was a week-end visit, but when he arrived I discovered he was going to work on his thesis in the Morgan and Public libraries, I had a cot moved in here and for the week just past I led a strenuous life, working in the daytime and trying to be a good host in the evening. It's much nicer to get up in the morning, for me.
   And that reminds me. I took the last treatment on my book of tickets from Reilly today, and at the same time joined a Y down the street. They have a masseur there, and I figured that it would be a lot better for me (since I'm still young) to take my exercise in the gymnasium rather than a steam room, and let the masseur work on my neck once a week. It is all very much cheaper than Mr. Reilly, and will be more enjoyable. One of the boys at the office joined with me, and we intend to start tomorrow. That's why I made a determined effort to get a letter off to you and another to Hugh Lynn tonight, I may not be able to write tomorrow. My failure to get around to see you the morning we planned to visit that monolith that eluded us in the mists, is accounted for by the fact that I slept in the outer room and left a call. One of boys answered the phone (in his sleep I guess) and rolled over and back to Morpheus without calling me. I woke just in time to get to work, and as I remember it I was chased out immediately on some wild goose chase that occupied me the rest of the day. I still intend to take you up on that building - it's become one of the great intentions of my life.
   You can judge how I'm feeling physically by the fact that I have sufficient energy to actually join a gymnasium. I don't intend ever to get lax in taking care of my body again. I think it has a lot to do with my mental fogginess, and right now - when I am in the darkest (before dawn) stage of the muddle I need a good stomach and dependable liver to see me through.
   I quoted some Swinburne for Hugh Lynn. I can do no less than quote some Swinburne for you:
   From too much love of living, From hope and fear set free, We thank with brief thanksgiving, Whatever gods may be That no life lives forever; That dead men rise up never; That even the weariest river Winds somewhere safe to sea. Then star nor sun shall waken, Nor any change of light: Nor sound of waters shaken Nor any sound or sight; Nor wintry leaves nor vernal, Nor days nor things diurnal; Only the sleep eternal In the eternal night.
   So why worry for anything on earth but what we love; why work for anything, fight for anything, die for anything, unless we love it? I do not love cheap things, small people, petty ambitions. There is little enough of me, and I must harbor that for those I love - because they are like the things I want to do. [849]
3. 12/01/32 EC's letter:
   Yes, I missed you, and missed not seeing you. Toward the latter part of my stay there, however, I was so busy that I didn't know whether I was walking on my feet or hands.
   Many thanks for your contributions from Swinburne. I understand that Hugh Lynn has asked for a contribution from you for the Bulletin. I certainly hope you find the time to get a few lines in. No doubt he has written you about this.
   I'm glad to say we are all well here. We had quite a storm over the week-end, with considerable damage done to the walkway along the beach; one of the highest seas they have ever had at this place. While the walk itself didn't fold up, much of the under girding did and took out the supports. It didn't drop down, for the pinions run pretty well into the ground on the piling, but it certainly took every bit of sand off the beach. It is quite evident that at one time this shore line was very much more of a tropical region than at present; not unlikely that many of the tracks we can see in the clay were made by elephants, lions, maybe tigers, hippopatumuses and all those things. Today it is very fair, has turned warm again, and is just fine.
   Nothing strange or new; still that air of expectancy everywhere. As long as the hope can spring eternal anew within the human breast, we may look up and lift up our eyes to the skies from whence help comes.
   Let us hear from you. Keep the proper hold on yourself, knowing that all things work together for good to those that love His coming - but don't leave out the last! All send love and best wishes.
   Ever the same,
4. 12/12/32 [849]'s letter to EC:
   My dear Mr. Cayce:-
   It seems incredible that Christmas is upon us again. I am still reluctant to give up summer, and it seems I just took a good breath of autumn and away it went. I know it's because I never get into the country during the seasons that it seems so, and my work is a day by day immersion in something, so that from 1:30 on until the work is done I live in some person's life or in some situation, and then the day is gone before I've had a chance to realize that God and His world still go on about me. In the average man's life it is only once or twice that a situation arises which makes him forget about all the sweet and simple things of everyday existence, whereas everyday I have to live those moments, as they happen in other people's lives. When I have had a surfeit of them I shall have two alternatives - to either become a blase newspaper man or go back to the country and enjoy a hundredfold the simple things. I'm sure it will be the latter, and I shall be better able then to write of simple people, simple happenings, simple lives - and after all it is these things that matter and that make enduring literature - don't you think? By the time I'm thirty I shall have peeped into every conceivable sort of life and situation, and perhaps then, if I can travel a bit and see the same sort of things in other climes, my training for literature will be complete in its fundamentals. Then I can sit down in a little town and take the post graduate course, which is slower, more laborious, and seemingly duller - yet much more important and meaningful. In the end I trust there will be a proper balance, and the results of my alchemy will prove to be somewhat near a pure and durable metal.
   From the above I am sure you can get my present attitude and mental and physical condition. I am better all around, and with the lively Christmas season coming on all seems well. I often wonder how people who live in an unchanging climate exist. Without the lift that comes to me with the first smell of earth in spring, the first breath of ripening summer, the first gray mist and falling leaf of autumn, the first snowflake and clean smell of winter, I could not exist. I'd love to have seen the storm you described. Such things are godly, and I feel a great spiritual uplift when I see them, and a humility that comes whenever man sees the greatness of nature and the puniness of his own strength. I feel so good when a new muscle ripples in my arm or leg at the gym, but when a wind sweeps up the street and stings my face I know how little that muscle means - just as I know how little my mind means when I look up at night and see the stars, and wonder about the universe and the mind that planned it.
   That piece about the beginning of man [12/32 A.R.E. Bul. based on 364-1 thru 364-13.] was superb - like the one about the last supper, [11/32 A.R.E. Bul. quoting EC rdg. 5749-1.] it stirred me so that I immediately wanted more, and began to imagine all sorts of stories built on the facts. Well, if the world holds together long enough all that will come to pass. Right now I am glad in the feeling that if the world splits in under me I'd be able to tread air and help to pull it together again. Silly, but such a nice feeling.
5. 6/33 Letters see under 849-2 Reports in re prostatitis flareup and 2/05/36 See his next Ck. Physical - 849-13.
6. 8/02/33 [849]'s letter to EC:
   My dear Eddie:-
   This heat is reminiscent of Virginia Beach. Packages of cigarettes seem to crumple without being touched, and the cigarettes shed tobacco and smell pungently before they are lighted. In our office sleeves are rolled and collars open at the throat. Perspiration runs from every pore and everything smells of its composition - desks smell like wood, phone books like paper and people like people.
   All that is reminiscent of the beach - only there is no cool breeze, no ocean and no tanned young ladies in bathing suits and backless linen dresses. Only a shower bath and the faint smell of trees from the park.
   As I remember it, you cautioned me in your letter [See under 849-2 Reports] about letting my knee be drained. It was only once. At present it is much better, though not entirely well by any means. I returned to work a week ago Monday, though of course I stay in the office and do only rewrite and obituaries. I get about on two canes and am becoming adept at this method of transportation. I work from eleven a.m. to six p.m. and then go home and bake my knee. I expect it will be all right in another month. For a while work was painful because my muscles were weak and I had lost a great deal of weight, but my strength and flesh are both returning, despite the heat.
   I suppose you have [903] and her children somewhere at the beach. If you see her say that Jack Cominsky says she will have a hard time getting back into his good graces when she returns - her sin being epistleory silence. He called me up to tell me about it, seeming grieved. He said he had called [257] at his [257]'s mother's house, and was informed that [257] was in conference twenty-four hours a day. We both wondered who the other fellow was.
   That's about all the gossip I have for you. My mind isn't adequate for anything more serious than idle talk, but I thought I would let you know that although my number is up I haven't given in yet.
   Love to all,
7. 8/08/33 EC's letter to [849]:
   Dear [849]-
   I was indeed very happy to have yours of the 2nd. I had been intending to write, for I was a little bit anxious - not hearing from you for some time; but for a couple of weeks I was quite "under the weather" myself. In fact, for a few days I was really uneasy. However, I'm glad to say that I'm feeling a great deal better. During that time, of course, my correspondence (if not the appointments) got far behind; consequently, I didn't get a letter off to you.
   We have had very unusual weather at the Beach this summer. We have had a few days of warm weather, but very few. The greater part of the time it has been real cool; in fact, I think I have seen the coldest day in July this year that I've ever experienced in my short stay at this particular period.
   I've been quite anxious about you, [849]. While I'm sure the man who has charge of your condition knows much more about the physical body and the anatomy than I'll ever know, I have seen so many cases come for information through the years - where just such conditions have arisen, as with you, that have made very unsatisfactory results. I'm not saying this, please understand, to be pessimistic about it all; for, if I'm anything, I'm an optimist. But, with your baking of the knee (which is fine), once in a while - maybe once a week - apply this: Heat a tablespoonful of olive oil and and add to it a tablespoonful of tincture of myrrh. Massage this into that knee and the joint, all that it will take up. I don't mean just rubbing it on, but massage it so that it is absorbed into the knee.
   To be sure, this will make the necessity of keeping up your eliminations so as to take off many more drosses then ordinarily, but you'll get this trouble cleared out of your system. Don't let it localize in the joints, because - you once draw off the serum that forms the cushion, especially on the knee, and you'll be walking on crutches - much less canes!
   I'm still hoping that you're going to have the opportunity to get down before the summer is over, for a few days at the Beach; or did your being out preclude any such arrangements, or if you do get off will you have to go home? Know that we would like to have you down this way.
8. 9/11/33 Mr. [849]'s letter:
   I am getting better in somewhat of a hurry now. With the acute stage of the illness past I began to take diathermy treatments and after two weeks have tossed away one cane and only use the other as a safeguard in the street. The physiotherapist says I will be walking in another ten days normally and that makes me very happy. I was getting tired of this condition and my mind was feeling the strain of a constant effort to amuse itself without company, recreation or physical exercise.
   Forgive me for delaying my answer so long - there was nothing to say and I was a dull fellow. I am proud to report unshaken faith, no cynicism and a great deal of enthusiasm and optimism for the coming winter. I'm still very weak and underweight, but far from dead.
   I hope the storm's damage wasn't too great - and I dare all the powers that be to make it three in a row - they've kept me from the beach for two successive years, and that is two too much. Can I hope to see some or all of the family this winter? and what is this rumor about Mrs. House and Thomas returning to the beach? My love to one and all, and say to them for me that sweet are the uses of adversity - my body will mend and meanwhile my mind has profited, my heart is strong and my soul at peace.
9. 6/19/34 Mr. [849]'s letter before sailing in about ten days as a roving reporter:
   dear eddie...
   ...and now that i am sitting down to it i wonder, after all, what there is to say...
   ...some men begin life with little purpose and wander through it aimlessly, until some bright goal attracts them and turns their energy into a single, one-way path...others are born with a purpose, and go through life calmly climbing over everything which might in the slightest deter the from that purpose...and some people, of course, just fritter away their lives wondering why the world does not do better by them...
   ...i was, i know, born with a purpose...or at least if i was not born with it then it entered into me shortly thereafter ...and i have gone along stepping over everything which might in the slightest deter me from that one purpose of telling the world some stories...
   ...sometimes i have not known exactly why i avoided something, or why i accepted other things, or why i shunned the obviously good and investigated the obviously bad...but i have believed in some inner guidance and i have been sensible enough to laugh at the cry of devils within me...the devils within me have always been pretty well in hand, and if they occasionally stuck their attractively horned heads out for a peek at the world then they were not strangers in a strange land...i have not been a stone thrower and i have not been frightened by those addicted to this habit...
   ...i would like very much to make clear to you how i feel about life, and how i have always felt about it, in a few sentences. i do not know whether i can accomplish that or not...cabell, in one of his books, approached it nicely, when he said..."into the drift of new days i forbear to pry after dreams as large and ardent as those which swayed my faraway youth-time. what is done seems well done. what is to be i must meet, god willing, without any whining." yet that does not exactly fit me...rather have i accepted everything which has come to me in life in the spirit in which it was given, keeping everything against a day when everything will have a use...i have shunned neither the good nor the bad...and those who have injured me i have treasured as those who have helped me...for everything that is positive there is something that is negative, and to seek in one field is to be narrow and prejudiced, and to have a meal made up entirely of one sort of grain is to have a very dull meal...
   ...i have believed everything and disbelieved nothing... beyond the heart which beats within me there is something i do not understand, and out of respect for it i make pretense to no positive knowledge...i strive merely to know more and more of the incongruities and emotions and ills and unhappiness of life...that i may weave it all together in some pattern which my brothers will understand...to go beyond the veil and seek what will only be revealed to me when my heart stops does not, in a positive way, attract me...i like to dally with it in a spirit of sport...knowing that i cannot win and content with the fun of guessing...no man's work will i take about anything that pertains to the beyond...and few few men's word will i take about anything in the here.
   ...so you see that all that i have seen and heard has, in the final analysis, had little effect on my purposes...it has all helped that purpose to move toward its fulfillment, but it has changed the direction of it not a whit...and i am now, at the age of 27 years, precisely where i was when i first became conscious of myself as a human being...i want to write stories for the amusement and edification of other people... and that is all...
   ...you have wondered, perhaps, what i really thought of your work and why in the world i did not move more specifically toward certain ways which it indicated...toward at least a closer connection with it in the recent past...my purpose answers that...
   ...i had to follow that purpose, and all that i learned from you and your work (and it was a great deal) merely became integrated in that purpose...i labored and fought and dreamed for that purpose...and i was in the middle of the ring fighting for it for three years...
   ...that particular battle is over now, and i am in training for the next fight...that is why i am setting these things down for you...and why i want you to understand in just what manner my mind words and my life proceeds...it is necessary, i think to an understanding of what is to follow...
   ...for you too, have a purpose, and one that demands your presence in a certain manner of living to the exclusion of all else...essentially each must pursue his own purpose makes it impossible for us to be closely allied in our work...it has been a part of the seeking of your purpose to help me... it is a part of the seeking of mine to help you...only i am a lot younger in the chase and am only just beginning to be of any help to anyone...
   ...now then, i have charted my pursuit carefully, insofar as i dare presume on the future...another year of travel...a three months leave of absence to write the first novel...a job as staff writer for the magazine or a steady job as contributor...until such time as my fiction frees me for that purpose alone...
   ...but perhaps none of that will be allowed...you and others who now and again take on the veil of prophecy contend that we are in for parlous times...and that is where you and i come together again...for i have been pursuing my purpose and learning a trade...and when the time comes for all shoulders to urge commonly at the wheel yours and mine will fit very nicely together...
   ...i have not forgotten a single word that you said or gave in your readings...that came to my attention...i remember all the prophecies and i have kept in mind what is before us... i have kept the faith with my purpose and with yours...i do not know what is before us but i know we will both meet it "without any whining"...
   ...only i love you very much and i believe very much in your purpose and in your work...sometimes you have strayed as i have strayed,...and many times we have both been led astray by false guides and iniquitous interlopers...but always we have come back to the high road...and that is why now we can understand each other...
   ...another year...give me that...and you and i will get together and have some readings...another year...things will be breaking in heaven and on earth...but the pursuit will go on...
   ...i wanted to explain everything in a few words, but i cannot...all i can say is that i seem to understand...i have a great knowledge of some sort which tells me that the truth of the matter is walking beside me all the time, veiled... we are very good friends...we do not quarrel at all...only it is understood that at any moment i may have to give up the pursuit and turn my energy to something for the common good...because it seems we have come dangerously close to the end of the world without saving ourselves quite...and it is really a race as to whether we will get there first...or prove ourselves in the very fire of the last white night...
   ...death and i have been walking hand in hand...he has helped me with my work...we are at our ease in this pursuit...and it seems to me that we will join with you before very long now and start digging in the same pit... ...but i do hope it will be all right for all of us...and i want you to pray for that at your congress...i will pray for it too...under the southern cross...
   [849]
10. 3/09/35 He obtained 849-11, a Mental-Spiritual in re his his life and work.
11. 10/03/35 He obtained a Ck. Life in re proposed marriage to Miss [1102] - See 849-12.

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