Читать книгу An Overview of the Edgar Cayce Material - Kevin J. Todeschi - Страница 6

The information from the readings on health includes simple suggestions about what each of us can do to stay well. The nature of many of these recommendations indicates that Cayce’s understanding of healthcare was really ahead of its time. These basic health principles include such items as: maintaining a well-balanced diet, the need for regular exercise, the role of attitudes and emotions in achieving and maintaining good health, the importance of relaxation and recreation as part of a balanced lifestyle, and the desirability of keeping the physical body cleansed—both on the inside and on the outside. Cayce’s approach to staying well had its roots in health maintenance and preventive medicine rather than simply the treatment of illnesses as they arose. He was one of the first individuals in the Western Hemisphere to recommend a nutritious diet consisting mainly of vegetables, fish, and fowl, plus sufficient water each day to promote internal cleansing. Cayce recommended these guidelines and others while much of the country had a diet consisting of great quantities of red meat and starches. Yet Cayce’s contribution to health and physical well-being was not limited simply to proper diet and regular exercise.

Decades ago, he emphasized the importance that attitudes and emotions play in personal well-being. In support of this idea, clinical medicine has discovered how positive attitudes enhance the healing process. Both Cayce and modern medicine agree that humor and joy play key roles in facilitating wellness. It has also been found that certain kinds of negative attitudes or stresses can lead to illness. For example, Cayce’s readings suggest that persistent anger—conscious or unconscious—may play a part in the onset of disease.

The Cayce information on health offers important insights into how each of us can stay well. The readings make recommendations for a variety of health concerns—from acne, diet, hemorrhoids, longevity, and warts to arthritis, cancer, epilepsy, mental illness, and psoriasis. Nearly every condition that existed between the turn of the century and 1945—whether it was childbirth, fractures, or a vitamin deficiency—is represented in the files of the Cayce material. Interestingly enough, modern-day research has found that many of the recommended treatments given decades ago by the sleeping Cayce to specific individuals seem to be applicable today on a much wider scale. The information on psoriasis and scleroderma are two of the most notable examples. For both of these diseases, the Cayce regimen involves specific dietary changes, particular spinal adjustments, and other natural remedies and procedures. In recent years, following the Cayce program has helped hundreds of people with these two ailments.

The readings were given between 1901 and 1944, and many were ahead of their time in foreseeing future approaches to healthcare. In addition to insights into energy medicine, the role of attitudes and emotions, and the effects of prayer and spiritual healing, Cayce often saw advances in the way we treat “dis-ease.” For example, in 1927 he stated that, “The day may yet arrive when one may take a drop of blood and diagnose the condition of any physical body,” (283-2) and certainly today this is commonplace.

Cayce also saw total health as involving coordination among the physical, mental, and spiritual components of life. Any complete approach to health needed to consider an individual’s entire being rather than simply the illness. Because of this concept it has been said that the beginnings of present-day holistic health started from the readings of Edgar Cayce.

The health recommendations in the Cayce files draw upon every aspect of medicine, including allopathic, osteopathic, chiropractic, and naturopathic. Treatment suggestions include everything from massage, exercise and diet to spinal adjustments, physiotherapies, and even surgery. In fact, Cayce proposed that ultimately the many schools of medicine should learn how to work together.

For a person asking for physical help the reading was given much like the others. Cayce would put himself to sleep on his couch while his secretary, Gladys Davis, sat nearby with her steno pad and prepared to write down everything that was said. The one conducting the reading, usually Cayce’s wife, Gertrude, would give him the proper suggestion for obtaining the information that was needed. For physical readings her suggestion to the sleeping Cayce went something like this:

“You will have before you the body of [Gertrude would then say the person’s name], who is located at _____________ [the city and address]. You will go over the body carefully, examine it thoroughly, and tell me the conditions you find at the present time; giving the cause of the existing conditions, also the suggestions for the help and relief for this body. You will speak distinctly at a normal rate of speech. You will answer the questions that may be asked.”

Then, while he was sleeping, Cayce would generally respond with, “Yes, we have the body here.” If he had ever given a prior reading for the person, he would add, “This we have had before”—even if the individual’s last reading had been thirty years earlier! Cayce would often pick up right where he had left off, as if no time had passed. He spoke in his own voice and referred to the person as if the individual were in the same room, even though Cayce was usually in Virginia Beach and the patient could be a thousand or more miles away. He would then give a general description of the person’s condition, including information about the blood supply, the nervous system, and the organs involved in the difficulty. Finally, he would outline detailed methods of treatment, and respond to questions as they were asked.

If the person getting the reading was in the room with Edgar Cayce, it was found that he or she only needed to think of the question and Cayce could answer it without it even being asked!

Although approximately 9,000 readings deal with the principles of healing and holism, the major components of the readings’ approach to wellness can be incorporated into the acronym “CARE”: circulation, assimilation, relaxation, and elimination. The importance of each of these components is as follows:

Without proper circulation, the body’s ability to heal itself is severely impaired. Facilitating the blood circulation—through exercise, massage, and manipulative therapies, such as chiropractic and osteopathic adjustments—bolsters the natural healing process.

Assimilation is the second key word. It is the body’s ability to digest and distribute food. One aspect of assimilation takes into account an individual’s diet, which the readings suggest should consist of 20% acid-producing to 80% alkaline-producing foods, as well as eight glasses of water daily. But assimilation is also influenced by the methods in which foods are prepared and the ways in which they are combined. For example, although both grain cereals and citrus fruits are to be included in a healthy diet, the readings suggest that they are never to be eaten during the same meal because of their effect on the body’s digestion.

The third key word is relaxation, which includes not only getting enough sleep but also setting time aside for the purpose of recreation. Cayce said to one person:

“ . . . these [conditions] arose as a result of what might be called occupational disturbances; not enough [time] in the sun, not enough of hard work. Plenty of brain work, but the body is supposed to coordinate the spiritual, mental and physical. He who does not give recreation a place in his life, and the proper tone to each phase—well, he just fools self and will some day ... be paying the price.”