8/13/56 [
3258]'s letter to E.C.F.:
Edgar Cayce Foundation
215 67th Street
Virginia Beach, Va.
Attn: Mrs. Mae G. St. Clair:
Dear Mrs. St. Clair:
Thank you very much for your prompt answer to my letter. I am
enclosing $2.00 to cover the cost of copying, handling and
mailing of the question and answers. As I have made a number
of copies of the body of the reading, the question and answer
sheet is all that I really require at present.
I shall be most happy to give you a report on the reading
however confused and disjointed my reportorial writing may
be. I hope that what I write will make some sense and will
be of some help to you.
Regarding the statement on the first page; "The abilities
and the adaptability of the entity to environ and
circumstance are to be considered." I am not quite certain
just how this statement was meant to be taken. I will say,
however, that my adaptability to both environ and
circumstance is very poor. Any changes from my normal
patterns or routines of living throw me quite "out of
stride". I dislike greatly having my set patterns and
routines disrupted for any reason. This condition, I note,
has greatly increased since moving from Illinois to
California four years ago. During the past two years, I have
developed a number of neurotic fears and phobias for which I
can find no logical reason. I have had several sessions with
a well known Psychiatrist in ... and he has been unable to
point out a true cause or reason for this neurosis.
Gradually, I am learning and forcing myself to live with it,
but it is not a situation to my liking.
I did not have the year of reading law as advised in the
reading and this has been much to my regret in many ways. My
judgements are badly tempered. I have lost considerable
financially through this lack of legal knowledge. My mode of
thinking seems to be that of pure blacks and whites, shaded
with very little greys.
On page #2 of the reading, the statement regarding Mars
making for a very positive active life... As mentioned
before, the past few years have been almost the opposite, -
have been living a very negative and inactive life. I have
always worked for others, having had a bad failure in a
business of my own. I would like to own my own business
again, but I am afraid of failure and hesitate doing anything
in that direction at present.
As to the "high mental abilities" found in Mercury. I tend
to discount myself as to mental abilities but my wife and
friends have told me repeatedly that a mind like mine is
going to waste in the line of work I am doing now. I have
even been told by the psychiatrist who treated me that I
should continue my studies and become a psychological
counsellor. He has even offered to help me achieve this
goal. As to the historian, I have never cared much for
history except for the histories of the religions. I would
not have the slightest idea how to go about being a
historian. At one time I had thought of entering the
ministry but of late, I have become what might be termed an
iconoclast and all forms of organized religion are abominable
to me. I am not an atheist in any sense but the God of the
Church and my conception of the Creative Force are so far
removed that I have very little patience with the Pollyanna
platitudes of Religion per se, and the leaders of the church.
I believe my one time interest in entering the ministry was
due to a very brief meeting with a most wonderful monk in the
Episcopal Church, a Brother Juniper, a man whose whole life
was dedicated to making people happy.
In the next paragraph of the reading, the history theme is
again repeated and as I said before, history has never
interested me very much except in the histories of the
religions. Perhaps this interest will be forthcoming at a
later date however.
The paragraph relating to the forces of Jupiter is next. At
one time, I had quite strong inclinations to groups or sects
but of late the neurotic leanings have more or less taken
over and I find myself wanting to avoid groups of any sort,
preferring to study and work alone and on my own.
Uranus brings in the extremes and the emotional side which is
quite true in my case. I am quite an emotional person and I
often go to quite divergent extremes in many cases. I do try
to keep myself free for all studies of a spiritual nature and
am constantly reading and studying all phases of spiritual
development and life. True, my emotional side is kept
greatly repressed for some unknown reason (probably the cause
of the neurosis). I am very much interested in doing
psychological and spiritual counselling and helping people
where I can and a number of my optical customers have come to
me for psychological help and advice which I hardly feel
qualified to give. I do the best I can with them and hope I
have done nothing to worsen their troubles. If I may, I will
relate the story of one young lady who came into my office
one morning asking me to call her a cab as she "was very
ill." She was pale and trembling and I had her sit down
while I got her a glass of water and a mild sedative pill.
I immediately recognized her trouble as being of a purely
emotional nature and we talked for an hour or more. I told
her that I would call her a physician if she wished, but she
said she did not feel the need of medical treatment. Some
time before, she had tried to commit suicide by taking an
overdose of sleeping pills. In telling me this, she gave me
a clue to her troubles, immediately after taking the pills,
she had called the police and told them what she had done.
Her actions were purely and simply a bid for attention and
she was a pretty enough girl that she did not really have to
resort to such tactics to get attention. After talking with
her for over an hour, the color returned to her cheeks and
she was calm. I put her in my car and drove her to the Dr.'s
office where she worked as a receptionist. She had told me
that the Dr. she worked for was out of town and she was alone
in the office. I worried about her all the rest of the day,
knowing she was alone in the office and had access to all
sorts of pills and medicines. However, at five that evening,
she phoned me that after talking with me she had never felt
better. She had gone to a restaurant and the bank alone
(one of her symptoms was extreme claustrophobia) and she said
she was giving me all the credit for helping her. For the
next few days, this girl dropped into my office for a chat in
the morning and I have since lost track of her. I feel very
good to know that in some small way I have been instrumental
in helping someone. This is just one instance among many.
For some reason or other, people with mental or emotional
problems have always been drawn to me. I do not feel
qualified to really work with them until I have cleaned out
my own mental and emotional closet, but still they keep
coming.
As to the previous incarnations as brought out in the
reading. I tried to locate in the records of the City Hall
in Chicago, any record of a person named Harold Zanda, but
could find nothing to indicate such a person. Whereas these
past incarnations are important to study in many ways it is
all but impossible to find any records of the names involved.
The next incarnation, that occurring in the English land
under the name Juano is very significant to me. I am a great
lover of books and an avid reader. I read very little
fiction but am extremely interested in themes dealing with
matters spiritual and psychological and read anything I can
get my hands on along those lines. I have also been told
that I am more than fair and just in dealing with material
and physical things. I am reluctant to charge anything for
minor repairs to my customers, repairs that cost me nothing
in material and a few moments of my time. In that same
incarnation a remark is made that brings in the work of an
advisory council. I am going to work towards that goal and
am starting an extension course at the University of
California towards working for a degree in psychology. In
the State of California, there are no provisions in the law
for psychological counsellors, anyone who so chooses can set
himself up as a consulting psychologist. I do not feel that
this is right in any way and sincerely hope that a law will
soon be enacted covering this important phase of the healing
arts.
The next incarnation, that in the Roman Land under the name.
Pheres means little to me. As a small boy, I was a great
admirer of Peter and the work he did in establishing the
early Church. It is true that I do seek justification for
many of the things I do. My yea's and nay's are more often
"on the fence." Neither one taking precedence over the
other.
The Egyptian incarnation is again significant. "Somewhat
less than able to handle self. The entity worked hardships
as well as aggravating itself." This can be true of the
present incarnation. I do tend to aggravate myself over
very small insignificant events. I know that rather than
being a "victim of circumstance" I create my own circumstance
and am forced to live with it.
The next item, that of the abilities for the present. We
have covered the historian aspect previously, so I will not
go into that. I have made several attempts at writing, but
it has always been of fiction. Wife and friends want me to
continue writing but I get bogged down in detail and after
getting discouraged, I usually give the manuscript up as a
bad job, one that wouldn't have worked out anyway. I
probably have two dozen unfinished manuscripts (fiction)
lying around the house right now. I have written several
manuscripts dealing with the psychological problems of Myopes
(nearsighted people) but have never submitted them for
publication. I have many ideas in mind for writing (non
fiction) but I never seem to get around to working on them.
I call it sheer laziness on my part but deep within, I know
that it is a fear of failure that keeps me from working on my
writings. I do not like to fail in things I attempt, so
rather than submit a manuscript and have it rejected, I
simply do nothing about it. A very poor attitude I agree and
one that I am fighting to overcome.
At one time, I only wanted to study medicine and become a
physician. However, within the past ten years, I have
formulated many opinions regarding the healing arts and
firmly believe that fully 99% of all illness is emotionally
or psychologically induced either directly or indirectly.
The only cure for such illness, therefor, is to get to the
actual root of the problem and until that root is found and
blasted from the subconscious the patient shall always
suffer. Symptoms may disappear but they are only replaced
with other symptoms in a short time. Statistics show that
the greater proportion of our hospital beds are occupied by
persons who are emotionally or psychologically ill. It it my
firm belief that most ills can be cured by right thinking and
right attitudes and through the bringing into the open the
hidden emotional factors that are the root or basic cause of
the illness. Freud discovered this many years ago and his
therapy became known as Psychoanalysis...call it what you
will, any therapy that releases these hidden emotions is
legitimate. When it comes right down to it, Faith is the
keynote here. If a man has faith he can be cured of most any
disease he might suffer from. It is quite true that all
mortal beings must "die", but there is no reason in the world
why they cannot "die" healthy in body rather than ill or
diseased. Sounds complex and a bit contradictory, but I do
not believe it is. If a healer told me to go to the Monterey
beach and eat a teaspoonful of sand and I would be cured, if
I had Faith in that healer, I would become cured, but such
faith is not easily found these days especially when one is
constantly being bombarded from all sides with all sorts of
"Medical advertising." This only serves to make us a more
and more disease conscious nation, a more neurotic nation. I
am not discounting the wonderful things that medicine and
science has done for the world. I merely believe that if we
were less disease conscious there would actually be less
disease. The Dr. who delivered our little girl three months
ago (by cesarian section) is a fine man in his field, but he
confessed to my wife that right after Pres. Eisenhower's
heart attack, he suffered chest pains, palpitations and all
sorts of heart symptoms when actually his heart was as sound
as could be. It goes to show, that no one is immune to any
disease if enough pressure is brought to bear and the aspect
of disease is constantly played up in our newspaper,
television and radio.
Please forgive the long dissertation. When I get started on
my pet subjects. I don't seem to know where to stop. I did
not mean to make this report into a full volume of its own.
Thank you for your kind invitation to visit the Foundation.
I should like very much to do so but my business is such that
I have not had a day's vacation in almost four years.
Someday I do hope to pay you a visit as I think that Edgar
Cayce was one of the greatest men of our time and I have
nothing but admiration for the work he did in helping
mankind. I was most happy to read in Mr. Millard's book
that you have the hospital again.
My very best to Hugh Lynn and all.
Sincerely, [
3258]
Edgar Cayce Readings © 1971, 1993, 1994, 1995 by the Edgar Cayce Foundation