This psychic reading given by Edgar Cayce at the office of the Association, Arctic Crescent, Virginia Beach, Va., this 26th day of December, 1943, in accordance with request made by the self, Mrs. [3471], new Associate Member of the Ass'n for Research and Enlightenment, Inc., recommended by the article in Coronet.

Present: Edgar Cayce; Gertrude Cayce, Conductor; Gladys Davis, Steno. (Notes read to and transcribed by Jeanette Fitch.) Harmon Bro.

TEXT

1. EC: Cregier Avenue - yes, where the trees are.
2. Yes, we have the body here, [3471].
3. As we find, there are conditions that disturb the better physical forces of the body. These arise from poor eliminations in varied forms through the body. The results of same are a neuritic-neurotic condition. Thus the areas through the hips and the pelvic bone cause the greater distress, cause - as it will be found - the body has strained or sprained the pelvic center or pelvic axis in the 4th lumbar and the coccyx end of the spine.
4. First we would have a cleansing of the body by the use of a series of Castor Oil Packs. We would apply these for an hour each day for three days in succession each week - say Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays. Use three thicknesses of flannel saturated with hot Castor Oil, applying on the liver and the caecum area; not across the abdomen, but down the right side, covering the lacteal duct and the caecum and appendicial area. Then apply the electric pad, not so hot as to cause discomfort but very warm.
5. When the Pack is taken off, sponge the body off with a weak soda water.
6. After the third day, take internally two tablespoonsful of Olive Oil. Rest then until the next Monday and repeat the whole procedure.
7. During these periods, let the diet be semi-liquids; not too great a quantity, but body-building forces.
8. After the third series of the Packs, each three-day period followed with the Olive Oil internally, have a colonic irrigation scientifically given.
9. Then the body would be ready for the corrections osteopathically in the coccyx end of the spine and the 4th lumbar. Yes, coordinate the 9th dorsal, the 3rd and 2nd and 1st cervical but make corrections. About six treatments would be required here. If there is trouble in correcting the areas, apply wet heat; preferably of an alkaline nature, or four to five thicknesses of cotton cloth saturated with Glyco-Thymoline. Keep this heated with salt heat, not with an electric pad. This may be placed over the coccyx and the lower lumbar and throughout the sacral. Corrections may then be easily made. Keep the pelvic bone well balanced. This is judged preferably by the length in the feet.
10. Do these and we will find we will make for better conditions for this body.
11. Ready for questions.
12. We are through with this reading.

    Two copies to Self (one for osteopath - Dr. D. A. Musselman, 58 East Washington St., Chicago, Illinois)
    Copy to Ass'n file
    (See directions [which were enclosed] for preparing hot Castor Oil Packs.)

BACKGROUND

1. 12/03/43 She wrote: "I have been having such weakening pain for about 4 yrs. in my hips, lower back, and legs and feet. It stayed in my right hip from 1940 until this spring, then it went into my left hip and almost crippled me too much to walk. I had my tonsils removed this summer, in July, and was seemingly much better. Then in the last 3 wks. it is becoming quite severe again. I am extremely unhappy. I can't decide whether my ill health makes me unhappy or whether the unhappiness makes me ill... [She expressed great hope that the reading would clear things for her. A peculiar experience of seeing a light all around her had taken place on her walk to work - when she got home EC's letter was waiting for her giving her an appointment]... I have spent so much money with doctors and they seem to believe I am just a neurotic woman. This pain is VERY real and if they had to suffer it they would change their minds."
2. 12/13/43 She submitted questions as to cause, saying: "...This spring the pain settled in my left hip and got worse until I walked with a decided limp, as the front muscle of my leg seemed to be drawn until I could not walk straight. The pain would run down in my knees, then my feet. In Dec. 1941 I had a terrible time for 3 wks. with brachial neuralgia, left shoulder and arm, leaving two fingers quite numb. I have not been free from pain for so long and my sleep doesn't refresh me...it hurts terribly when I lie down. I can lie only on my back and face. The pain tears at me when I lie on my side. I have always been tormented with a weakness that gripped me for long period of time and I would feel like a normal human being only at short intervals. It was an almost super-human task to carry on just the routine tasks of my home and caring for my family at those periods of weakness; sometimes several days; sometimes weeks in duration; some times months. I am attractive and successful in almost anything I undertake when the 'normal' times occur, then when I am overwhelmed with that weakness I act abnormal and avoid people until almost everyone avoids me thereafter. Even my own children are irritated to the point now where they think it is all imagination, when it is so very real and terrible... This is the last thing there is any use to try. If you can't help me, I can't see any further."

REPORTS

1. 1/22/44 [3471]'s letter to EC: "I have followed your directions exactly and am now ready for the adjustments from Dr. Musselman, which he will start Monday, January 24. That is the first day he can take me. He is a fine person. That pain has subsided to a great extent and I have been able to rest much better. I, also, am to have the second colonic irrigation Monday, since the condition there was so bad the person giving the irrigation thought it would be too severe to do it all at once. It seems it was in a terrible condition. I surely thank you and this is something I have wished for the world but had no idea any person or persons existed that could do it for 'Man.' Why can't poor humanity have a sure guide. It will surely spread from the 'germ' your life provides and cover the world. God surely will help so sincere a person.
   "I am sending another check for $20.00 for a Life reading. I realize so many people need your immediate help in physical readings, as I did, that you probably cannot do this now but I also know you will do it as soon as you can. I am under great tension in my work and want to know whether to stay in the work I am doing or change work.
   "I am in government work, in correspondence in claims for lost bonds. I don't care much for any government work I have done. Is that just my restless nature or is there work I can do and be happy doing?
   "If I am not to change work I want to know how to adjust to this work and how to do the best work and much more of it.
   "I want to know what to do and just how to do it to fit into the world where I belong.
   "In these turbulent times I have a frantic feeling that I MUST arrange things and earn money enough so that my son in the Army can come back and start life anew without the soul sickness I have seen so many others experience..."
2. 2/22/44 Margueritte Harmon Bro's letter: "...You will be interested in a report from Dr. Musselman yesterday. Later he will send you carefully documented reports on all your patients who have come under his care. He is most grateful for Harmon's help on some cases and will also write him. He said one woman [3471] came to him looking as if she were on the last lap. She told him she had planned suicide before you gave her reading. Her reading told her to do several things before starting osteopathy, but she wanted the treatments right away. Dr. Musselman said they would follow the readings EXACTLY. So they did. And when he got to the treatment he was able to make corrections he never dreamed possible. The woman is now a going concern. "Probably Dr. Musselman is the best known osteopath in the city and it makes me very happy to see him following instructions so honestly and open-mindedly. A doctor like that can greatly augment your part which, of course, is the main part..."
3. 3/26/44 [3471]'s letter to EC: "I am about to make a request that you may not be able to grant but I hope you can.
   "Is it at all possible to give me the reading soon instead of next September 15?
   "I am not making it with the idea of getting something ahead of other people. The need seems great to me. Of course others think that too. I am going to leave the decision to you and if you consider I am asking too much, I shall wait. First: I am terribly afraid I shall have to quit the work I am doing. The tension of trying to meet high production requirements together with the strain on my eyes and health in general in examining evidence presented in applications for replacement of lost bonds, are becoming almost more than I can stand. It gets worse with me instead of better. Second: I don't like the monotony of Government work but have always made myself adapt to whatever I had to do regardless of my dislikes. My determination seems insufficient now. My work is definitely deteriorating and falling below volume requirements. Third: I can not give up and live with my children. I am too young. I can't ruin their lives. I would have to go to my daughter and husband as my son is in the armed forces.
   "Questions: 1. Is there work I can do that will interest me; which will be easier and in which I can be successful and still accomplish something at least as helpful to the world as the work I am doing? 2. I am studying Lewis Hotel Training in an effort to switch my mind to something entirely foreign to my work. Should I take it seriously and go into that type of work? 3. I have wanted to sell insurance, is that feasible? 4. I also have tried in a small way to write stories. Do I have enough talent to try that seriously? (I have written for my own amusement). 5. How shall I adjust my attitude toward my children so that I will do the best thing for each of them? (My daughter and husband and my son and his wife) I seem to have whined with ill health all their lives until they have very unpleasant memories of their childhood. How do I go about erasing those impressions and giving them worthwhile memories? 6. I have a very pleasant friendship with a man of my age. I wish it to develop into marriage. Is it possible? 7. If I am to stay in government work, what shall I do that I can be successful in doing and just how shall I go about getting it? 8. If this is all due to maladjustment, please give me definite instructions as to adjusting to my work. What recreation shall I plan and how shall I go about arranging it?
   "My health is gradually improving under the treatment you outlined. I am more grateful than I can tell you. Dr. Musselman is one of the finest characters I have ever met. He is a truly human person. He has helped me in every way possible and has made his charges lower for me. He tells me to go ahead and do the things necessary for my health and pay him when I can. It was necessary to change my glasses and was quite expensive. He told me to get the glasses as I needed them so much."
   "I have had to have several of the irrigations since the colon was in bad shape.
   "I was given sulpha drugs for kidney infection before I learned of your work. I have thought maybe that is what has destroyed my 'bull-dog determination' to hang on and do my work in spite of ill health. I am not saying that in a boasting way. I have always depended on that to carry me through anything and now when I find I can't summon it to see me through, I am just plain 'scared.'
   "I am so glad you took a rest in Florida and you should do it oftener.
   "I feel I am imposing on you and still I don't know what else to do.
   "I received the little Associate Membership card and thank you people. I would love to change it to Active Membership but do not have the extra money and could do none of the things necessary to help in that capacity. Maybe later I shall be 'up to it' financially as well as in strength. I hope so.
   "I surely thank you people for the bulletins and all the other papers I receive and enjoy them and also profit by them...
   "P.S. If I leave Government work, shall I take the retirement on disability or just ask for the payment in full?"
4. 5/27/44 [3471]'s letter to EC: "I wonder if you are ill again. I have had no answer to my letter and am afraid you are not well. I hope you are not working so hard you are overdoing. If it is not going to be possible for you to give me the Life Reading before September 15, please let me know as I shall need a physical check reading. I am so dreadfully weak. Dr. Musselman said my whole body has no 'tone'. No resistance, and I get so exhausted after working steadily for a week that I am almost helpless and have to take time off from work. Dr. Musselman says that he adjusts those bad places and the muscles just don't hold it in place. My general health is better but the weakness and dizziness persists. If I can't get help someway I shall have to quit my work and I have no way of support. I thought maybe the life reading would show me some other way I could make my living at something not so straining. Please help me if you can. Doctors just don't know why I get so weak. I am not weak muscularly. I just seem to be exhausted. It has bothered me all my life and my parents called me lazy. I am more dead than alive this May. I have no energy left after work to make friends and I am alone too much. Please let me know something..."
5. 6/12/44 GD's note to [3471]: "Mr. Cayce is making an appointment for your Check Physical Reading for the afternoon of July 24th, 3:30 to 4:30 o'clock, EWT. I hope this will be soon enough to be of help. Please let us hear about two weeks before that date, giving the exact address at which you will be while observing the hour appointed, also submitting the questions that both you and Dr. Musselman wish to have asked in the reading concerning your condition.
   "We will leave the Life Reading appointment as it is, September 15th, unless you advise us otherwise.
   "I sincerely trust that the Check Reading will offer helpful suggestions."
6. 6/23/44 [3471]'s letter to EC: "First: I want to know the reason for this peculiar weakness that has always tortured me. Both Dr. Musselman and I want to know the cause and exactly what treatment to use. He is giving me thyroid and wants to know if that is the correct treatment. He describes it by saying the body has no 'tone'.
   "Second: I want to know what to do to cure the pain in my hips and back or will the adjustments gradually correct it?
   "The weakness changes me from a normal human being to a peculiar person. It has always tortured me but now, of course, it is much worse. It is difficult for me to handle things (I fumble). My legs just don't carry me where I think I am going. I feel rather dizzy; things seem to swim before my eyes when I walk. My tongue actually seems thick and I cannot talk clearly. People think I am just slovenly in my speech. Sometimes it is difficult to think quickly and I am afraid to cross the street in traffic. The best description I can give of it is to say that it seems to me I am partly paralyzed inside my body when that strikes. Dr. Musselman adjusts the back and then in a few days has to do it all over again as it will not stay. I suffer so much from the pain in my back and hips when lying in bed.
   "I am much better since starting the treatments and taking the irrigations but this weakness does not improve.
   "I shall be in my apartment ... Cregier Avenue on July 24. I shall stay at home that day and keep quiet and try to help all I can.
   "If I understand correctly, this reading is $10. I also want you to give me another check reading when you think is the best time. You have helped more than anyone else and I am sure you can follow it up and help me overcome it completely."
7. 7/16/44 [3471]'s letter to EC: "This pain in my hips and back is getting worse. Some of the time my hips seem to lock when I walk and give me so much pain. The pain is so bad this morning I had to get up earlier than I needed. I wanted to rest longer. Is it arthritis and if so what treatment do I need. The doctors speak of adhesions that must be broken up and the x-ray shows a sort of 'spur' growing in the backbone and they say it presses on nerves. Can this be corrected or will it gradually get worse and I be bedridden.
   "The weakness and this pain are the two things I need advice on worse than other things.
   "Do my teeth cause this and if so must they be extracted (all or part)..."
8. 7/24/44 See 3471-2.
9. 11/20/74 Note from William McGarey, M.D. to E.C.F.: "This is just a note. I've been going over the Myasthenia Gravis file, and after studying this particular reading [3471-1 & 3471-2], I do not believe it is proper to list it as Myasthenia Gravis. The individual had weakness, but that was due to factors other than those which cause the real honest-to-goodness Myasthenia Gravis..."

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