Edgar Cayce Readings, 3630-1

Time and Place: 3:50 to 4:00 P. M. Eastern War Time. ..., Connecticut.

TEXT

GC: You will go over this body carefully, examine it thoroughly, and tell me the conditions you find at the present time; giving the cause of the existing conditions, also suggestions for help and relief of this body; answering the questions, as I ask them:
EC: Yes. Here we have disturbances that are rather of unusual natures. In many respects the conditions here resemble migraine headaches, yet these reach such proportions at times that there is the lapse of memory, that there is then the incoordination in certain areas where the imaginative and the retentive system are disordered, or so disturbed as to bring these lapses.
We find that these are materially aided, but there have been administrations that in some respects have helped, and in others made the cure worse than the disease.
As in most conditions of the nature of migraine or so-called headaches, the cause is in the colon - where there are patches of adhesions of fecal forces to the walls of the intestine, causing activities that come in general cycles. These may come at times regularly, almost so that you could set this by your clock at times; for it is as the regularity of the system itself.
We would regularly use high colonic irrigations; not attempting to remove all the disturbance here at one treatment but gradually. In the first waters injected, use alkaline Petrolagar - a tablespoonful to each quart of body temperature water - keeping this well stirred while the colonic is being given; rather have the water just one degree below body temperature.
In the last gallon of rinse water, use two tablespoonsful of Glyco-Thymoline to the half a gallon of water, - or a tablespoonful to each quart of water but use as much as a gallon. This, too, should be near body temperature.
Possibly eighteen of such colonics should be given, not too often in the beginning - and do not use them without the Petrolagar being used in the first waters injected and the Glyco-Thymoline in the last waters.
After each colonic, give the body a massage, not only for the abdominal area but all over the body and especially massaging thoroughly the abdominal area. Use this combination of oils:
Use the Radio-Active Appliance to cause the body to sleep of evening. If this is left on over night, don't worry about it. If after the first application or two there is the tendency for this to irritate the body, take it off after using it for an hour - but it will aid in distributing or equalizing circulation throughout the body.
In the diet, while predigested or semi-liquid foods must be taken often, let these not be all; for there will gradually be a change in the effect created throughout the alimentary canal - with these treatments suggested. For the time being we will still have some periods of the violent headaches and one or two periods of the lapses of memory. Yet if these applications are kept consistently and persistently we may bring better conditions and material aid for this body.
Ready for questions.
(Q) Will the treatment suggested also remove the spells of depression?
(A) This is the source of them - as indicated - the toxic forces or poisons, and the lapses, when there are those tendencies for over-anxiety and the feeling sorry for self.
Feel sorry for someone else, not for self! Plenty of individuals in much worse fix than the entity! Try to do something about it, not merely in just thinking about it, but doing something materially - and it'll help you as much as or more than it will help those you try to help, though you may minister to their lacking in the better balance.
We are through with this reading.
Two copies to Self (one for the physiotherapist - Please let us have the name of the one you choose, for giving colonics.)
Copy to Ass'n file (See article [which was enclosed] explaining theory of the Radio-Active Appliance.)

BACKGROUND

11/16/43 Letter from [3630] to EC: "I have just finished reading THERE IS A RIVER which I found absorbingly interesting from cover to cover and which impressed me deeply. I have long been interested in psychic phenomena but the character of your extraordinary gift has made me wonder whether it might perhaps be of personal significance and value for me. For some years I have suffered from a form of cyclic mental illness and I would like to ask you whether you have given readings or would care to give a reading for a trouble of that nature. As I read your book I couldn't help wondering whether a Life Reading, as well, might cast any light upon my trouble.
"If you felt that you could give me a Reading would you wish me to go into a certain amount of detail regarding the nature and course of the illness and previous treatment? I would, of course, be glad to know the day and hour that you might kindly give me so that I could cooperate with you in any way that you might suggest in order to create the most favorable conditions.
"I have also a minor, though bothersome, physical ailment which I thought I had routed but which has recurred after an absence of some months. I would be extremely grateful for help in that matter, too.
"In reading Chapter 21 about Andrew Jackson Davis I thought that you might be interested to know about a man I met when visiting my friend the psychologist, Dr. William McDougall, and his family in England in 1936. You may have met him at Duke University during the years before his death when he was teaching there. Psychical Research was one of his greatest interests and I cannot imagine his not being greatly interested in you. (I knew your old acquaintance, Prof. Munsterberg, years ago when I lived in Cambridge!) The afternoon I arrived at the McDougall's a shoemaker (like A. J. D's father) was brought to see the Doctor by a mutual friend. His name was Arthur Spray and he had discovered, quite by accident, that he was a Healer and, later, that he possessed hypnotic powers to an unusual degree. He used these powers in combination. Then one day a girl came to his shop who had a headache and, in relieving her of her trouble, he discovered that she had, under hypnosis, clairvoyant powers, and that, among other things, she could diagnose illnesses. They therefore set up a partnership - she diagnosing and prescribing and he healing. As you can imagine it was extremely interesting to meet this man, simple, unassuming, with extraordinarily intense eyes. He had just written a little book telling about himself and some of his experiences. I brought home a copy and if you would ever be interested to read it I would be only too glad to loan it to you. I shall look forward to hearing from you and, it goes without saying, I shall want, of course, to make an offering. "After reading Mr. Sugrue's book I feel as if you were all old friends."
11/23/43 Letter from EC: "Dear Miss [3630]: I have yours of the 16th. We will be very glad to try and be of help if it is at all possible, or practical. As you can very well surmise from your reading of the book, with the articles that have been in the magazines from time to time, we have certainly been flooded with requests for readings. Our appointments are quite far in advance.
"Am sending you, under separate cover, the booklet, including the membership blank. As a research organization, one must be a member before we can make a reading. Of course, where one is merely interested in the activities of the Association, they can take a life membership. We are having so many requests for these that we are printing a booklet that tells about this, which will be ready about the first of the year.
"Yes, I met Dr. McDougall in New York, while he was still at Harvard. My youngest son was at Duke as a pupil while Dr. McDougall was there. The interesting thing possibly is that none of the psychologists, just as Dr. McDougall said, 'I don't know just what this is. Just when I think I know what it is, the next experience convinces me that I don't know.'
"Read over the data. We will get in an appointment for you just as soon as possible. We have just about reached the saturation point for the next six months or more.
"I thank you very much for your letter, and I do hope we can in some way be the means of a real service.
"Thanking you, I am..."
11/29/43 Letter from [3630]: "Thank you for your letter of November 23. I can well imagine that you are inundated with appeals for Readings but, from what you said, I am hopeful that I may be able to have one.
"I have read the booklet which you sent with the greatest interest. I shall want, of course, to become an associate member of the Association, and, later, if my health permits, an active member.
"You will see that the applications which I am enclosing are witnessed by my physician, Dr. Beatrice Hinkle. She is the pioneer in psychotherapy in this country, and she shares with me an interest in psychic phenomena as well. As I wrote you, my problem is a periodic depression, an all too common illness about which very little is known. And, as one cannot say whether the root of the trouble lies in the body or in the soul or both, Dr. Hinkle feels that I should ask for all three rdgs. in order to seek as complete an answer as possible.
"I am therefore sending both the applications from the booklet which you sent. I do not know whether you will be able to fulfill this request with your many appointments, but I can only hope with the 'desire of my heart', that it can be achieved.
"The first application is checked for a physical Reading. The second one I am leaving blank as, under the circumstances, I do not know which of the other two Readings should follow next. May I leave that to you? I enclose a check for forty dollars and, if I may have another application blank, will return it with another ck. for twenty dollars.
"I was deeply interested that you had met my friend, Dr. McDougall, and can imagine how greatly your gift must have challenged him.
"With much gratitude for your letter...
"I shall, of course, be very glad to have any of the Association's publications to which I am entitled."
1/22/44 Letter from [3630]: "I have periodic 'sick headaches', waking in the morning with an aching head, particularly concentrated at the back of the neck where it feels sore and congested - often a toxic feeling around eyes. I have a sickish feeling in the stomach the discomfort extending both above and below. There is almost always gas in both stomach and intestine. Sometimes bad taste in the mouth. Thinking it might be imperfect elimination I began taking bran with breakfast last June and had no attack for almost five months. Then they started again growing progressively frequent and more severe in November. Last week the headache and sickish feeling lasted three days and was accompanied for the first time by dizziness. On the fourth day dizziness and headache let up but it was over a week before my gastro-intestinal tract felt normal. For the first time (after the above symptoms had gone) I had soreness in parts of my mouth and I felt as if the whole tract from the throat down were irritated and disturbed. My throat felt thick and coated. My appetite is almost always unimpaired and excellent, as usual, during these attacks, but I never know what to eat or what to avoid. I would be very glad to have advice regarding the cause and prevention and treatment of this condition.
"As I wrote in my first letter I have suffered from periodic depression ever since a severe nervous breakdown 14 years ago. It was getting progressively better up to the time of the menopause in 1939. After the menopause certain severe mental symptoms appeared. Treatment by a gland specialist has successfully cured those specific symptoms. But long intermittent periods of depression still continue. I therefore ask for a searching examination of the body - particularly the glandular system - to see if there is any further physical cause for the persistence of the abnormal mental condition."

REPORTS

3/14/44 Letter from [3630]: "I could not help a feeling of disappointment in the physical reading given me the 30th of January. As I indicated in my correspondence my most profound concern is the cause and cure of the cyclic mental illness from which I have suffered for almost fifteen years during which time I have been unable to lead a normal life in the world. I wrote Mr. Cayce that, as this is an all too prevalent type of illness about which practically nothing is known, I hoped particularly that something might be revealed in the body which would throw light on this disease - especially in the glandular system as certain severe symptoms of the depression had yielded during the past three years to glandular treatment and because the glandular system itself is practically an uncharted continent.
"I was disappointed because the reading devoted itself principally to the headaches which are a minor condition - indeed, as the reading began (according to the record sent me) only ten minutes before the closing of the hour there was not time to go into the all-important, to me, matter of the depressions. The reading erroneously diagnosed the depressions as being caused by the toxic poisons (which, as he said with undoubted truth, caused the headaches). I have never had frequent headaches, or this type of headache, until the last four years. And I must add that, though I have occasionally had severe ones, I have never had one that could be called 'violent', as described in the reading, nor have I had 'lapses of memory' also referred to in the reading. The above exceptions that have been taken to the diagnosis have, of course, been discussed with and corroborated by my doctor. She also commented upon the statement made in the reading: 'Feel sorry for someone else, not for self. Plenty of individuals in worse fix than entity.' She said: 'I do not think feeling sorry for yourself is at all a characteristic of your nature despite your illness. In fact I think it has always been quite the opposite with you. Your concern has been too much with the other person and not yourself.'
"When I received a copy of the Jan. Bulletin and read, in the third paragraph, that Mr. Cayce 'squeezes' in so many readings that each day is a wonder to us all, I was greatly puzzled for I had understood that he restricted himself to two readings a day of an hour each. I know, of course, that he has been besieged with requests and that, as he wrote me, he had about reached the saturation point for many months to come. I can well believe it. But it did not occur to me, when I kept the designated hour in devotion, as I was asked, that my reading would be limited to the last ten minutes of that hour. I can deeply understand how difficult it must be to resist the desire to give something to each one of us who has written him for help. But I do not see how it is possible to do justice to each patient if the time given is so reduced. And if the whole hour is divided into six readings I should think the demands made upon Mr. Cayce himself would be far too taxing. May I be permitted as a member of the Association to express my concern in this matter.
"After an unavoidable delay I have started weekly colonics with a Swedish masseuse, Mrs. Mary Grandstrom, followed by the massage, as directed. I began a fortnight ago and have had no headache for three weeks. I am very hopeful that this treatment will do away with them entirely."
3/18/44 Letter from EC to [3630]: "Thank you very much for your letter of March 14th, and your report on your rdg. and the treatments.
"Apparently you are getting results and I feel very sure, from the experiences of a number of years, that the closer you follow the suggestions as are indicated in your reading, the better will be the results.
"We will appreciate you letting us hear from you again in the next few weeks, and can we be of help in your obtaining the best results, you know we are anxious to do so.
"Will you please send us the address of Mrs. Mary Granstrom. Thanking you kindly, and with every good wish, I remain..."
3/23/44 Letter from EC to Miss [3630]: "You are doubtless looking forward to getting your rdg. this afternoon. After reading over the last two or three letters from you, and the report, I wondered if it wouldn't be a loss of time and an injustice to you and I both, to undertake this reading as a mental and spiritual reading unless you fully understand just what is usually presented from these channels in a mental and spiritual reading. I believe it is the life reading you want, and this constitutes quite a number of questions. I don't know whether you have read the life reading data or not. I am sending it to you and am in hopes that I haven't done wrong. Though it may be several months off before I can give you the appointment for the life rdg., but I believe from your ltrs. and what you say about the things that have happened in your own experiences thus far, that it would be the best to give you a life rdg.
"The mental and spiritual is usually an analysis on the mental and ideal of the individual entity. It is much better for any individual to have quite a list of questions that the ideals and purposes of the entity may be presented to the information in such a way as to indicate as to whether they are in agreement, and their services in other directions along that line of thought or study.
"I hope I haven't done wrong in putting this reading off, but I will give you an appt. just as soon as possible, if after you get this letter you would like for me to go on and make the appt. either for the life rdg. or mental and spiritual, but I believe the life rdg. would be more helpful to you of the two types of readings at this time.
"Thanking you kindly, I remain," Sincerely, Edgar Cayce
4/15/44 Letter from [3630]: "Thank you very much for your letter of March 22. While I was disappointed to learn that there had been no Reading, after all, on that date I agree with you that it was best to give it up if you think it would have given me no enlightenment regarding my illness. Am I right in assuming that the Life Reading is a broad survey of the soul in relation to its development in the past, present and future? If such is the case I shall hope to find some clue as to the CAUSE and PURPOSE and CURE of this illness of mine which has been and is so crippling and prohibitive of normal active life in the world. It must be clear to you from my letters and from my report that these are the questions of supreme importance in my mind. You wrote that the Life Reading 'constitutes quite a number of questions', but you can understand, can you not? that, shrouded as I am for the greater part of the time by this condition, my questions are necessarily limited to the above.
"As you know, I hoped for enlightenment from the Physical Reading, as there is more than a possibility that this most prevalent form of mental illness has a physiological origin. As nothing was indicated in that Reading I can only hope that something may be forthcoming on the spiritual plane. If you think not I shall be glad to have you tell me. I was a little puzzled by your saying that it might be several months before I could have an appt. for the Life Reading. For you have already given me one. In your letter of January 5 you assigned me the hour 3:30 to 4:30 on the afternoon of May 11. Will you kindly let me know whether this is to be cancelled?
"I understand that you have been ill and I am truly sorry. When I last wrote I expressed anxiety for your health because of the great burden put upon you by the many requests which you have had for assistance. Is it true that you divide each (Reading) hour into six Readings, now? I could only assume as much as my Reading was marked 3:50 to 4:00. I cannot but feel that this must be exceedingly taxing for you.
"As I have sent $60.00 for the three Readings am I right in expecting that $20.00 for the Mental and Spiritual Reading, which we have given up, will be returned to me?
"With best wishes and an earnest hope that your health is quite restored, I am," Sincerely yours, [3630]
5/04/44 Letter from EC to Miss [3630]: "The date for your life reading is May 11th, 1944, EWT, between 3:30 and 4:30.
"If you have any questions you would like asked of a vocational, mental or spiritual nature, let us have them as soon as possible. Do keep the period in prayer and meditation.
"We have two booklets which were compiled for the purpose of helping the individual understand the rdg. he will receive. One is called 'Physical Readings,' and the other is called 'Life Readings.' I believe you will find them most helpful. Do send for them and study them carefully. They sell for fifty-cents each.
"Enclosed you will find check for $20.00 - a refund on the Mental and Spiritual reading which you did not get. Thank you for calling this to my attention.
"Thanking you for your cooperation and hoping to be of further service, I am," Sincerely, Edgar Cayce
5/08/44 Questions for the life reading on May 11th from [3630]: "I would like to know whether the Reading can give any enlightenment regarding the prolonged and crippling mental illness from which I am suffering. Does the source of the trouble lie in the mental or spiritual realm? Is there any cure or is there anything I can do to mitigate it?"
5/11/44 See 3630-2.