6/30/32 GD's note: Thursday 8:00 P.M. at his home on Arctic
Crescent, Virginia Beach, for the First Annual Congress of
the A.R.E., EC gave at talk on the subject HOW TO DEVELOP
YOUR PSYCHIC POWERS, using
5752-1 and 5752-2 as the basis:
HOW TO DEVELOP YOUR PSYCHIC ABILITY - By Edgar Cayce
Unfortunately, we have all come to think of "psychic" as
something very unusual, especially since the dictionary gives
as one definition of psychic as follows: "having abnormal
powers, especially the power of automatic writing or of
conversing in a trance."
If we understood the real meaning of psychic forces, however,
we would have a different conception as to the significance
of developing such powers within ourselves. Whether we wish
to acknowledge it or not, all of us have psychic forces.
Whether we want to develop them or not is a different
question.
When people go about to develop any special ability or
faculty, we know that they go into training with that object
in view. One training for the prize ring has certain things
that must not be done. In order to develop the ability to
use some portion or function of the physical body, specific
preparation must be made. One developing the voice trains
that special ability or faculty. Certain rules must be
followed in order to sing, to play the violin or piano.
What is that faculty which goes through the process of being
trained? Is it simply a portion of the physical body?
As we begin to develop such faculties or abilities latent
within every individual - such as discernment of color,
or the differentiation in how to apply it to visualize or
picturize for others something we have seen in nature - these
faculties partake of more than just the ability to draw the
hand across the palette, the canvas or a piece of paper.
Something within is being expressed. What gives the
expression? Our psychic forces!
Now let me give you just what "psychic" means and say how it
should be properly used. Do not think that every person you
hear spoken of as "psychic" has something very peculiar about
him; for you are afflicted with the same condition! You are
just as peculiar as he; possibly more so.
Webster gives this primary definition of psychic or
psychical: "Of or pertaining to the human soul. Of or
pertaining to the living principle in man. Sometimes
pertaining to the human soul in its relationship to sense, or
to appetite, and the outer visible world as distinct from the
spiritual or the rational faculties." The second definition
is "Of or pertaining to the mind, the mental contrasted
within the physical body."
Perception of the physical mind must come through the
senses. Development of a faculty within means development
of the acuteness of a sense. We know that what we seek
to understand or comprehend reaches us physically through
the five senses. As we draw comparisons, we get the
differentiation and the ability to evaluate tone or color.
Just as a photographic print has to go through a certain
process in being made, so in perception we develop the
power or ability to discern with the faculty we possess.
People are sometimes afflicted with psychic blindness,
consisting of an inability to recognize objects as they are
seen. I once knew a man who saw everything upside down. He
could not see any other way; everything was upside down to
him. He was psychically blind!
There are also those who are psychically deaf, which consists
of an inability to comprehend the significance of harmony
or sounds heard. We have seen people who were able to hear
over a telephone but could not hear while sitting in a room
talking with anyone; or they could hear while riding on a
train but not while walking down the street. That is because
some portion of the psychic functioning in the body is
deficient.
Then we know from these things that there is a definite
faculty within our bodies which we may call psychic forces,
or psychic powers. This faculty pertains to the soul and
also to something physical. Hence the great difference in
the French and in the Grecian definition of psychic. To
the French it means "animal" or "carnal"; while the Grecian
meaning is "of the soul life." These two meanings are just
as foreign to each other as possible! No wonder we find so
many different meanings of the word as used by others!
When we used a word, what do we mean to imply or convey to
others? This depends upon the ability of those listening
- and also upon our ability to describe, through psychic
forces, or through the development obtained through psychic
forces. Only like begets like; only like can understand
like. It is very hard for an engineer to describe to a
musician just what his work is like, or for the musician
to describe his work to an engineer. This is because of
individual training of physical faculties - but also the
portion which gives a perfect understanding or comprehension
of those physical faculties: that is, the psychic force.
There is also such a thing as psychic medicine, that
department of science which treats of mental disease. If
the psychic forces are not developed, there's something wrong
with the mental abilities, something wrong with the abilities
to comprehend. Because the ability to feed our souls (and
that is why we are here) depends upon our ability to supply
ourselves from our surroundings with that which will enable
us to develop the power of comprehension within.
If you are a musician, you can easily understand what is
meant by psychic rhythm. It is the rhythmic form in which
the mind tends to perceive monotonously repeated stimulation.
That's why we pray and why we should also pray audibly,
because the sound stimulates the ability to awaken
our senses, in order to arouse the forces which will
strengthen the psychic abilities within.
Another definition of psychic forces would be found by
comparing the finite and the infinite. These convey
entirely different impressions to our minds.
The finite mind pertains wholly to our faculties or abilities
- which may feed the soul, provided we give it whatever may
build to sustain its life. But the infinite mind, about
which the first question would be, "How can you know the
infinite?" cannot be discerned through reason. It is the
finite mind which tries to reason, to distinguish and to
define by comparison - processes which are only a portion of
the faculties called psychic forces. Thus infinite mind is
outside the realm of ordinary reasoning. We can comprehend
the infinite only by a faculty that is superior to reason.
That faculty is the psychic force. One must enter a state
in which the finite self no longer exists!
So often we pray as did the old lady who prayed for the hill
to be moved; and every morning she looked out and said, "It
is still there. I knew it would be."
We haven't gotten out of our finite reasoning self, so
that the infinite can come in and aid. We must develop the
faculty BETWEEN the finite and the infinite, so that the
infinite may become a portion of us. We seek to become
one with the infinite by the reduction of our soul to its
simplest self - its divine essence - and realize this union
and identity.
Now, we might well go back and question how man developed
this PERSONALITY (finite) and how he lost his INDIVIDUALITY,
by losing the place he occupied with his Creator, in the
beginning. This individuality is ever seeking to find
expression through the faculties with which man has been
endowed; for through these there may come expressions of
the infinite, or God, into our lives.
We know that we have gradually lost our association, by our
inability to close off our outer finite selves. In other
words, we have thought so much about ourselves and the
supplying of the needs of the physical, that we have
gratified the fleshly desires until we have forgotten there
is still an association of our soul with its Maker. That
association is what we may choose to term PSYCHIC FORCES,
or psychic abilities.
No one would deny that such faculties may be used by those
who lose their physical consciousness; or that they may be
discerned in a gathering which has been attuned to influences
from within or without.
When we attempt to be very close to - or even on speaking
terms with - our God, do we expect an answer? When we pray,
do we always expect to get an answer? We must lose the
finite self and be willing to be used, in whatsoever way or
manner He sees fit. "Enoch walked with God, and he was not;
for God took him." He was not found among his brethren,
because his faith was counted to him for righteousness. If
our faith or if our abilities for that psychic faculty we all
possess have been so abused and we have allowed them to be
ridiculed because we see visions or hear things; then we have
built a barrier which prevents the faculties latent within
each individual from developing us toward the Infinite.
All that tends to purify and elevate the mind will assist
us in this attainment, and will facilitate the approach and
reoccurrence of these happy conditions. There are, then,
different roads by which this end may be reached. The love
of beauty which exalts the poet; that devotion to the One;
that ascent of present science which makes the ambition of
the philosopher; that love and those prayers by which some
devout and ardent soul tends in its moral purity towards
perfection - these all are the great highways conducting to
the heights above the actual and the particular, where we may
stand in the immediate presence of the Infinite which shines
out from the depths of the soul.
The adherence to and developing of the ability to see
and appreciate the beautiful, the pure, and the lovely in
everything and everybody we contact - everything within the
scope of what affects our body, mind and heart - will develop
in us the abilities to be in closer attunement with the
Infinite. And this is developing our psychic abilities
within.
The answer comes to each one of us, as to whether these
abilities are worth developing or not. If we have the
proper conception of what psychic means, then we know it
is a faculty which exists - has existed, and is ours by
birthright; because we are sons and daughters of God. We
have the ability to make association with the Spirit; for
"God is Spirit and seeks such to worship Him." John 4:23
