10/11/17 F. W. Sears's letter to EC:
F. W. SEARS, M. P.
LECTURER, WRITER, TEACHER
108 & 110 W. 34th ST.
NEW YORK
My dear Mr. Cayce;
Have just returned from a lecture trip west which immediately
followed my vacation and will answer your letter now before
I take up my season's work which begins next week.
I have not been able to obtain the "wet battery" suggested*
and so have just began to use a Farradic battery with dry
cells.
There are two kinds of batteries, Farradic and Galvanic,
both of which may be used with either dry cells or wet
batteries. As the former and dry cells are a more recent
invention I have been trying to get a Galvanic battery with
wet cells. Have tried everywhere in both N.Y. City and
Chicago for the latter. Have had one promised me here in
N.Y. City but found it was not ready when I returned last
Tuesday so have just began a course of treatment with the
Farradic dry cell and believe it is going to be quite
beneficial.
Now in regard to what you call your "gift" and the inquiry
you make in reference to it.
The world is perfectly familiar with what is known as the
first, second, and third dimensions; i.e., length, breadth
and thickness, but it is not familiar with the fourth
dimension, which is the interpenetrability of matter although
there is ample evidence of it even to the physical senses,
such evidence may be quickly observed by dipping a lump of
sugar, or a cloth of any kind, in water and witnessing the
atoms of water fill the space in between the atoms of sugar
or cloth.
Man is also familiar with the material or physical world but
he is not familiar with the astral world simply because the
latter is made of finer material and interpenetrates the
atoms of the coarser material of the physical world at will,
and also exists outside of such earth material.
At the time of the birth of the physical body "something"
comes and takes possession of it otherwise we have what is
* [GD's note: No copy of Mr. Sears' reading to which he
refers is in the A.R.E. files. Evidently EC wrote asking
his opinion of the information and this was the reply.]
known as a "still birth" or a dead child. This "something"
is the astral body which is more commonly known as the
"soul". At the times of the "death" of the physical body
this astral body simply leaves it and does not come back to
take possession of it again, the connecting cord being
separated.
The astral world, from which the "soul" comes at birth and
to which it returns at death, is all around us and interwoven
with the physical or material world.
Some persons are more sensitive to the astral world than
are others. This is NOT a "gift" but rather a species of
abnormal and unconscious development which may be had by
anyone. Whether or not the effects are "good" depends upon
whether such person uses such development as the master of
it or its slave. The tendency with more persons is to become
the slave to it and in all such cases it not only debilitates
the body but in time it controls the human mind. Such
development simply being the unconscious giving up of the
human body and all of its faculties to some astral body other
than the one to which the human body rightfully belongs, and
permitting its use by such astral body.
When you become unconscious during the time you are using
this "gift" you are simply giving up the use of your physical
body to some astral entity and allowing it to use your body
and its organs to express itself on this material plane.
This astral entity is one who was a physician here in the
material world and who is now a physician on the astral plane
(for we have and need physicians there as well as here, but
those on the astral plane deal with the finer material than
do those on the physical plane; this finer material being
what is usually called here by the name of magnetism,
although that is not what it really is.)
When you lay down to sleep at night your astral body leaves
the physical but remains connected with it by an astral cord.
When it returns and takes possession of your physical body
the consciousness, knowledge or wisdom of your human mind has
not been increased or changed to any material extent; and
this same thing is true when you lay down your physical body
at death. On the astral plane one uses his finer senses
(which correspond to the five physical senses) and is able to
determine things by reason thereof which the physical senses
do not know. That is why your doctor was able to tell me
some things about my physical condition which I had sensed
but of which I was not fully sure before. He was not able
to tell me a lot of other things simply because he had not
learned them either here in the material world nor on the
astral plane.
I am calling attention to these things in order that you may
better understand the correct value of the information given
during these trances of yours.
That your control, or guide (whatever one may wish to call
it) is able to diagnose disease much better by reason of
working with his astral senses than is the vast majority of
physicians, there is not doubt, and to that extent can this
be used by those in need of such assistance. That any
information which it might give for other purposes would be
of any value is another matter and would depend wholly and
entirely upon such guide's development both here and on the
astral plane.*
In view of the fact that to continue to permit your physical
body to be used as the medium through which these messages
may be given, is to devitalize it in most cases and in time
bring on a general debilitated condition unless the work is
done with great care and under the most harmonious
conditions, my advice to you would be to go very slow in any
further development of this "gift" and build up your physical
body to the end that when you do allow yourself to be used as
a medium that you are able, physically and mentally, to do so
without injury to yourself.
I have had a larger experience, probably, in the study of and
in dealing with "nervous" people and the influence of the
astral entities upon them than falls to the lot of the most
experienced "nerve specialist" and know how easy it is for
the average person to get into the currents where he becomes
astralized or obsessed, or both, and how difficult it is for
him to get free from these currents. Nothing but the proper
control of his human mind by his own soul or ego ever
accomplishes this permanently. It is just as necessary to
keep out from under the control of some other astral mind as
it is to keep out from under the control of some other human
mind.
With all good wishes I am
Faithfully [signed] F. W. Sears
* [Handwritten at top of above letter was the word NO in
large letters and circled.] [GD's note: This big pencilled
"NO" is in EC's handwriting. I suspect it means EC did not
agree with Mr. Sears's interpretation of the source of "the
gift".]
Edgar Cayce Readings © 1971, 1993, 1994, 1995 by the Edgar Cayce Foundation