The Edgar Cayce Handbook for Health Through Drugless Therapy. Harold J. Reilly

with supportive material from the world of science, which by now has confirmed many of the basic concepts in the Edgar Cayce readings. Harold J. Reilly began working with these concepts more than forty-five years ago.

      Probably you will not read this book by starting at the beginning and going right through it. Perhaps you will look first for your own particular need. If so, you will discover that Dr. Reilly and Mrs. Brod have organized the material under precise chapter headings, and their cross-references will be invaluable guides both to your problems and to the Cayce-Reilly treatments.

      When you have started your own body working on your specific need, you’ll want to go back and read the whole book. You’ll find a variety of material which can help you and which you’ll want to share with your friends. You’ll discover that the three people who put this book together obviously enjoyed it—Dr. Harold Reilly, Betty Billings, who assists him in his work, and Ruth Hagy Brod, who researched the material and helped Dr. Reilly write this book. It becomes very clear that these people believed very sincerely in the material they wrote about and that their personal experiences and experiences with hundreds of others confirm their conclusions.

      The famous phrase with which Edgar Cayce from a trance state opened thousands of psychic readings, “Yes, we have the body,” begins to make real sense in this book. We must begin where we are. If we cannot heal ourselves, how can we be channels of healing for our fellow human beings? Here, completely blended, are the ingredients for the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual balance that everyone seeks.

      —Hugh Lynn Cayce

      Introduction

       Talk to Dr. Reitty aboutit. He has had experiences with thousands of cases. [He] is the one that does just as the information suggests that gets real results, whether it appears to be in accord with what other people have told them or not. (5162-1, reports)

      —Edgar Cayce

      . . . at least one week out of each month should be spent in beautifying, preserving, rectifying the body—if the body would keep young, in mind, in body, in purpose. This doesn ‘t mean that the entity should spend a whole week at nothing else. (3420-1)

      I. About Edgar Cayce

      Although hundreds of books have been written about Edgar Cayce, for some of you this may be the first introduction to the man who has been called the “sleeping prophet of Virginia Beach,” “America’s most mysterious man,” “religious seer,” and medical telepathist or clairvoyant.

      Many of his contemporaries knew the “waking” Edgar Cayce as a gifted professional photographer. Others (predominantly children) admired him as a warm and friendly Sunday school teacher. His family knew him as a wonderful husband and father. However, the “sleeping” Edgar Cayce was an entirely different figure—a psychic known to thousands of people from all walks of life who had cause to be grateful for his help. Indeed, many of them believed that he alone had either saved or changed their lives when all seemed lost. The “sleeping” Edgar Cayce was a medical diagnostician, a prophet, and a devoted proponent of the Bible.

      Even as a child on a farm near Hopkinsville, Kentucky, where he was born on March 18, 1877, Edgar Cayce displayed powers of perception which seemed to extend beyond the normal range of the five senses. At the age of six or seven he told his parents that he was able to see and talk to “visions,” sometimes of relatives who had recently died. His parents attributed this to the overactive imagination of a lonely child who had been influenced by the dramatic language of the revival meetings that were popular in that section of the country. Later, by sleeping with his head on his schoolbooks, he developed some form of photographic memory that helped him advance rapidly in the country school. This gift faded, however, and Edgar was only able to complete the seventh grade before he had to go to work.

      By the age of twenty-one he had become the salesman for a wholesale stationery company. At this time he developed a gradual paralysis of the throat muscles, which threatened to cause the loss of his voice. When doctors were unable to find a physical cause for this condition, hypnosis was tried but failed to have any permanent effect. As a last resort Edgar asked a friend to help him reenter the same kind of hypnotic sleep that had enabled him to memorize his schoolbooks as a child. His friend gave him the necessary suggestion and, once he was in a self-induced trance, Edgar came to grips with his own problem. Speaking from an unconscious state, he recommended medication and manipulative therapy, which successfully restored his voice and repaired his system.

      One of the young M.D.s, Dr. Wesley Ketchum, submitted a report on this unorthodox procedure to a clinical research society in Boston. On October 9, 1910, The New York Times carried two pages of headlines and pictures. From that day on troubled people from all over the country sought help from the “wonder man.”

       —Introduction

      A group of physicians from Hopkinsville and Bowling Green, Kentucky, took advantage of his unique talent to diagnose their own patients. They soon discovered that Cayce needed to be given only the name and address of a patient, wherever he was, to be able to tune in telepathically to that individual’s mind and body as easily as if they were both in the same room. He needed no other information regarding any patient.

      One of the young M.D.s, Dr. Wesley Ketchum, submitted a report on this unorthodox procedure to a clinical research society in Boston. On October 9, 1910, The New York Times carried two pages of headlines and pictures. From that day on troubled people from all over the country sought help from the “wonder man.”

      When Edgar Cayce died on January 3, 1945, in Virginia Beach, Virginia, he left documented stenographic records of the telepathic clairvoyant statements he had given for more than 6,000 different people over a period of forty-three years. The Association for Research and Enlightenment, Inc. (the A.R.E.), a psychical research society, was formed by Cayce in 1931 to preserve and research this data. Its library in Virginia Beach contains copies of 14,145 of Edgar Cayce’s psychic readings, stenographically recorded. Of this number 9,541, or about 67 percent, describe the physical disabilities of several thousand persons and suggest treatment for their ailments.

      For a great many physicians, medical studies of treatment patterns for a number of major physical diseases seemed to suggest the advisability of testing Edgar Cayce’s theories. With this in mind, the physical readings have been made available to a clinic in Phoenix, Arizona. Through written reports and conferences, information on results of treatments have been made available to M.D.s and osteopaths.

      The Edgar Cayce readings constitute one of the largest and most impressive records of psychic perception ever to emanate from a single individual. Together with their relevant records, correspondence, and reports, they have been cross-indexed under thousands of subject headings and placed at the disposal of psychologists, physicians, students, writers, and investigators who still come, in increasing numbers, to examine them.

      The A.R.E. continues to make the information available in its library, through distribution of The Complete Edgar Cayce Readings on CD-ROM, on its Web site (www.edgarcayce.org), and through its many publications. The organization also initiates investigation and experiments into the readings and promotes conferences, seminars, and lectures.

      Dr. Harold J. Reilly’s forty-five years of clinical experience with the readings constitute an invaluable addition to the record.

      II. About Harold J. Reilly

      Dr. Harold J. Reilly was one of the leading exponents of drugless, natural physical therapy. He was recognized as one of the most outstanding physiotherapists in the world, and doctors came from all over the globe to study with him.

      Dr. Reilly was born on the Lower East Side of New York City in 1895 and grew up in the Van Ness section of the Bronx, the eldest of seven brothers and sisters—all of whom became physiotherapists with the exception of one sister.