The Essential Edgar Cayce (18 page)

We are through for the present.

A SUMMARY
of Edgar Cayce’s Approach to Healthy Living

While some of the most remarkable Cayce readings about the physical body involves cures for serious illnesses, his greatest contribution may well have been in helping people to
stay
healthy. Maintaining health requires the careful, consistent application of certain fundamental principles, among them the need for balance, and an awareness of the creative power of our attitudes and emotions in shaping the condition of our physical bodies. But healthy living also means having positive, supportive, loving relationships with other people. And the key to such relationships is to first have a strong relationship with the spiritual forces within ourselves.

CHAPTER FOUR

HOLISTIC HEALING

ALTHOUGH EDGAR CAYCE IS WELL KNOWN FOR SOME OF HIS unorthodox remedies for treating various ailments, we cannot understand his approach to holistic healing in a cookbook fashion. Not only are there individual differences from person to person; there is also the crucial need to treat the attitudes, motivations, and emotions of the patient.

To understand Cayce’s holistic healing, let’s examine his underlying principles about healing and the integration of body, mind, and spirit. When we understand those principles, then his suggestions for treatment are much more likely to be effective. The first reading in this chapter, 1120-2, is typical of the many thousands of readings Cayce gave in spelling out how the various systems of the body coordinate and how they can be brought into better alignment with each other.

The second reading, 1189-2, looks at psychosomatic illness and health—that is, the interplay of body, mind, and spirit to create our physical condition. The recipient suffered from chronic fatigue, and Cayce gave an especially eloquent discourse on how the various aspects of ourselves interact to influence health.

Next is a series of excerpts from a wide variety of readings—a “sampler” of sorts. Although Edgar Cayce gave readings on hundreds of different ailments, the
essential
scope of this book allows us just a glance at his work. The excerpts demonstrate how he approached four everyday ailments: the common cold, headache, indigestion, and sinusitis. As a bonus, a lengthy excerpt about rejuvenation is included because of Cayce’s optimistic outlook about the body’s potential for longevity.

COORDINATING BODY SYSTEMS

Most people interested in Edgar Cayce’s work probably have never read one of the health readings in its entirety. Our knowledge of his pioneering vision of the body is based almost entirely on excerpts or books written by experts
about
the material. But there’s much to be gained by carefully studying a complete reading.

Each reading, of course, was geared to the particular needs of the recipient; each focused on a specific malady and recommended treatment tailored to the individual. But despite the fact that each health reading was customized, reading 1120-2 contains useful information for nearly all of us. It’s an example of Cayce the health adviser at his best. This reading’s universal value lies in the fact that the twenty-nine-year-old man’s symptoms resemble those so many people suffer in today’s stressful world, and that it demonstrates so clearly Cayce’s model for how the body works.

The man, who received a first reading some months earlier, now was requesting additional advice because of chronic fatigue and periodic headaches. (Cayce saw clairvoyantly that the symptoms all traced back to imbalances in the man’s second and third dorsal, or thoracic, vertebrae, just a few inches below the base of the neck.) Getting such a reading from a psychic was, no doubt, an unconventional and controversial move, and Cayce even warns that his theories will likely be disputed, presumably by the man’s regular doctor.

The reading begins with a rather positive picture: The man is in generally good health. However, his bothersome symptoms, if left uncorrected, later could develop into much more serious problems. The very structure of the reading reveals a key element in Cayce’s model of how the body works when he addresses the status of three principal systems:

The circulatory system (or “blood supply”).
When the circulation of the blood is hindered, it affects the body’s capacity to assimilate both oxygen and nutrients. What’s more, the circulatory system (including the lymph system) must be working effectively for the body to properly rid itself of waste products. (Cayce often used the word
emunctory,
which means “waste removal.”)

The nervous system (or the “nerve forces”).
There are two primary subsystems involved: the
cerebrospinal,
which includes large portions of the brain, spinal cord, and nerves connected to the spinal cord, and which make both sensory awareness and voluntary control of the muscles possible; and the
autonomic nervous system,
which, although it has control centers located in the brain, generally operates outside of conscious awareness. The autonomic system, in turn, has two subsystems: the
sympathetic,
which largely relates to the activation of internal organs; and the
parasympathetic,
which is more concerned with the quieting and regenerative processes in the body.

In the readings, Cayce was concerned especially with the junction points where the cerebrospinal and sympathetic interact—the
ganglia
alongside the vertebrae of the spinal column. When there is misalignment, or
subluxation,
of these vertebrae, the resulting imbalance between the two systems can produce a wide variety of problems for the internal organs. The reading presents a succinct primer on the topic, and it shows why Cayce so often recommended osteopathy or chiropractic adjustments.

The array of internal organs.
Edgar Cayce usually hones in on just a few organs that are related to the disturbance especially. Surprisingly, in some health readings the organs mentioned seemingly have nothing to do with the problem at hand since no pain or discomfort has been experienced there; for example, the liver and kidneys are mentioned in a high percentage of the readings.

Anyone studying Cayce’s material likely will find that it’s not so easy to get through the descriptions and diagnoses for these three systems. But don’t be dismayed if you don’t entirely understand what Cayce is saying; instead, look for key themes. One of them certainly is the
interconnectedness
of the systems, which is becoming accepted more widely in medical circles today, overshadowing a long-standing tradition that the body’s systems operate independently. Now we have the new field of
psychoneuroimmunology,
demonstrating that the mind, nervous system, and immune system are directly linked.

Another key theme in Edgar Cayce’s health model is that many ailments are a
reflex—
that is, a reaction to something that’s out of balance elsewhere in the body. Notice, for example, how Mr. 1120’s digestive problem are described as a reflex instead of a problem with the organs themselves.

Even without the same symptoms, there is solid advice to us all in this reading about maintaining balance overall to promote health. Furthermore, we see clearly how Cayce understood the body, and we see the type of strategy he used to treat it.

THE READING

THIS PSYCHIC READING, 1120-2,
WAS GIVEN BY EDGAR CAYCE ON APRIL 17, 1936.
The conductor was Gertrude Cayce.

EC:
Yes, we have the body here, [1120], present in this room.

Now, as we find, the general physical forces of the body in many ways appear to be well. And the reactions in most of same are good. Yet we find there are hindrances, disturbances and impulses the correction of which now would not only be a helpfulness to those conditions that disturb the body at times in a greater degree than is shown in the immediate, but would assist in preventing disturbances that would be of a much more violent nature to deal with—if allowed to become more and more a condition to be reckoned with by a perfectly normal functioning body.

These have to do, as we find, with impingements that exist in the nervous system, as will be seen by their effect upon the body as well as in the disturbances or nature of same as produced.

Then, these are the conditions as we find them with this body, [1120] we are speaking of:

First,
in the blood supply,
from the disturbed condition in the nervous system (that is, the cerebrospinal impulse), (more than the sympathetic) there are hindrances with the
manners
of assimilation. Thus there are those tendencies for a slowing of the circulation in its return from the extremities, or through the arteries into the veins.

Hence we have in the metabolism of the system an unbalancing, but with the corrections of that which has produced same in the first there would be a more helpful condition in creating a normal equilibrium.

In the nerve forces themselves of the body,
we find: As has been indicated, here is the basis or the cause of the disturbances.

In some time back there was a hindrance in the ganglia of the 2nd and 3rd dorsal, that has produced there the tendency for a lack of proper incentive for its coordination with the vegetative or sympathetic nerve system as
well
as an excess of activity in the deeper nerves as from the junction there of the cerebrospinal and sympathetic with the organs of assimilation.

Let it be understood, then, by the body, the manner in which this disturbance arising there affects the system (for it will be disputed to the body):

Each segment connects with a centralized area between the sympathetic and the cerebrospinal systems, or in the spinal cord impulse itself. In
specific
centers there runs a connecting link between the segments. And such a one exists in this particular center as we have indicated.

In each of those areas called a ganglion there is a bursa, or a small portion of nerve tissue that acts as a regulator or a conductor, or as a director of impulses from the nerve forces to the organs of the body that are affected by this portion of the nervous system.

Not that any one organ, any one functioning of an organ, receives all its impulse from one ganglion or one center along the spine; but that these slowing up by a deficiency in the activity because of pressure produce—as here—a lesion, or an attempt of the blood flow (that is, the lymph and emunctory flow) to shield any injured portion or any pressure. This ofttimes increases the amount of pressure to other portions of the body.

Hence we have an incoordination with the activities in other portions of the body. But with the correction or removal of pressure from such an area, the affected portions will be relieved; that is, as in this body here, the effects to the sensory forces—as the throat, the nasal passages, the eyes, that are affected by this lack of the blood flow.

For, remember, though the heart beats—it is governed, or the circulation is governed by nerve impulse that acts as a supervisor or an overseer would, in conducting to the activity of the system that which not only supplies the nutriment for its individual functioning but also the eliminations of drosses from such used activity, as well as supplying nutriment from that assimilated by the circulation in its entirety for the recuperation and rebuilding.

And remember, these conditions are constantly going on in the system at all times.

What, then, are the conditions produced by this subluxation, in this particular body?

There are times, even with the full-blooded circulation or full quantity that exists, when the outer portions of the body (that is, through the superficial circulation) become as deadened for a period; a few moments is sufficient to make for pallidness to the body; easily tired by walking of any great amount; easily tired at times—or even more so—(than by walking at certain periods) by sitting around; or worrying about or being overanxious about conditions brings headaches, fullness in the throat, upsetting at times of the digestive forces and the reactions to the whole of the assimilating system, as
well
as producing for the general forces of the body a tendency towards acidity throughout the system. So, the eliminations even through the alimentary canal become involved.

Now, in taking those things that assist in producing a stimulation to either the eliminations or to cause a balance in the acidity and alkalinity of the body, or so that we make for an increased flow or a draining of conditions through the lymph flow through the head or soft tissue of throat and head, the condition is allayed. But the
causes
of these effects, the causes of those things that upset the digestive forces, the causes of that which has made for a disturbance through the eye, the ear, nose, throat, in their relative relation one to another, arise from those areas indicated—as we find.

In the functioning of the organs themselves:

As to the brain forces, when there is a
physical
coordination as related to their activity with the system, we find that—as we have indicated for the body through its
mental
development—the body’s mental abilities and associations are able to segregate, able to make for definite impressions upon activities in given directions. But if these are hindered by the tiring that comes on, or those disturbances through the organs’ functioning as indicated, these naturally will become
laggard
—or the abilities of the body will become hindered.

In the throat, bronchi, lungs and larynx—as we have indicated—there occurs at times, as a tendency from this improper pulsation, and especially from the specific ganglia referred to, the more susceptibility of the body to congestions through such areas; though organically these are very good.

Heart’s activity is as we have indicated.