Healing, Dreams, and Edgar Cayce

In this post, I address the complex and controversial topic of healing. My perspective is not shared by everyone, but maybe you will gain some new insights from my thoughts that help you in your life. As a young man, the information that others shared with me though lectures and books helped me change my life for the better. I did not miss a day of work the last twenty years of my working career because of illness. In retirement I power walk daily, and I am not on any medications for a health condition. I attribute my many years of good health to the adoption of the perspective I share in this post.

 

Healing can be physical, mental, and spiritual. Some who are atheists may argue that that spiritual aspect does not exist, and healing is simply a physical process, which can be affected by the mind. Of course, there are people who appear to be healthy physically, but are suffering from a mental disease. Their healing is brought about by restoring their mind to what is considered a healthy state.

 

The physical ailments and diseases seem easier to understand. The body is not able to function properly, and various measures exist such as blood pressure, heart rate, and breathing to determine the state of the body’s health. In addition, a variety of measures of the chemical composition of the blood help a physician determine the health of the body.

 

Science has made great strides in diagnosing diseases, and many labels are used to describe an underlying condition. However, determining the cause of a disease is a different story. Many autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis are not well understood, and their causes remain elusive.

 

In recent decades, interest in alternative medicine has grown as many have sought help when traditional medicine has not provided answers. People have turned to homeopathy, acupuncture, meditation and other techniques and practices to obtain relief from their ailments.  Many treatments that are considered alternative medicine are found in the psychic readings of Edgar Cayce. In fact, some consider him the father of modern holistic medicine. He recommended special diets, exercises, spinal adjustments, intestinal cleansing, electrical treatments, and other natural treatments. Most important, he advised the person receiving the reading to establish a spiritual purpose and to meditate daily.

 

Cayce saw physical effects caused by mental and spiritual issues in the person’s life. In many cases, he stated that the body could not be healed until changes were made in the person’s relationship to their Creator. This often involved changing their perspective on life and their fellow humans. Cayce remarked that one could not heal heart disease and maintain hate for their neighbor.

 

Although many physicians now acknowledge a relationship between mind and body and attribute the mind as the cause of certain symptoms, only a few diseases are thought to be psychosomatic in origin. For the most part, the search is for a physical cause for a disease and little attention is paid to the persons mental and spiritual state.

 

I think it is not an exaggeration to say that medical doctors (MDs) overwhelmingly treat symptoms with an enormous reliance on drugs. Often the drugs work; at least they get rid of the symptoms. But ever more powerful drugs are also creating harmful side effects, so another drug is prescribed to reduce the negative side effects of the first. But the second drug has its side effects, so the patient must choose among the unpleasant effects: the original symptoms or the side effects of drugs to treat those symptoms. Lost among the drugs is the cause of the disease.

 

Antibiotics have been over prescribed to the point that super bugs have been created. And one must ask the question: Who oversees health care in this country? If you have spent any time in a doctor’s office, you will have seen pharmaceutical reps promoting their latest drugs. And you cannot watch a TV program on cable without the onslaught of drugs advertised to help you with some serious condition. The side effects are mentioned, but usually so rapidly you would be hard pressed to remember them.

 

I am not saying that all prescription drugs are bad, or that doctors do not care about healing their patients. But I believe the focus is wrong, and it starts with the training of doctors in the medical schools. I will elaborate more on this later in this post and in another.

 

Another problem is that medical care in this country is a business. It is big business with enormous expenditures and profits. The industry has been effective in convincing people that any kind of universal coverage would harm the quality of their health care. This is the representation even though the US is far down the list for quality of health care. We spend far more per capita than other countries and get less for it.

 

I believe that one reason for the situation is our approach to health care. It is reactive and not proactive. We do little to promote lifestyles that will lead to good health. Obesity is a national problem. But the problem is not simply with bad diets and lack of exercise; stress and lack of a spiritual focus are equally important. Simply put, we do not view the whole person when we consider health. Good health and a long life require more than just having a good diet and getting regular exercise.

 

I recall a discussion I had many years ago with a business colleague. He was a man in his early fifties and had just been told by his doctor he needed a triple heart bypass. The doctor told him there were three main controllable causes of heart disease: bad diet, lack of exercise, and stress. The last one, stress, was his problem. Heart disease is one disease where a causal relation with stress is recognized. I suspect there are many more that are not yet recognized.

 

In his readings, Cayce stressed balance in one’s life: balancing the physical, mental, and spiritual. If one of these areas is out of balance, our overall health will suffer. We are integrated systems where thoughts and beliefs matter. Cayce was fond of saying “mind is the builder.” The life you live, including your physical body, is the result. As medicine is practiced today, the focus is almost entirely on treating physical symptoms without understanding the root cause.

 

Now, Edgar Cayce is no longer alive, and even if he were alive, few people would be able to obtain a reading. Fortunately, he provided a solution that everyone can pursue. When I started reading about Cayce in my twenties, I was struck by two of his claims: we could do what he did in our dreams and every significant event in our lives in foreshadowed in our dreams. This led me to begin to record and interpret my dreams.

 

The following example will illustrate just how powerful this can be. Before I retired, I began to have pain in my lower right hip. At first, I ignored it a temporary situation, but it did not improve as the weeks passed. Then one night I had a brief dream about my hip. A man who appeared to be an advisor said, “The problem is deep; you should see an osteopath.” Fortunately, I had a neighbor who, along with his wife, was under the care of a female osteopath not far away. I made an appointment and explained the problem. She did an adjustment on me that day and for several weeks at weekly intervals. The pain lessened and in a short time was gone. I go to her for monthly spinal adjustments for neck and lower back issues. Now, more than ten years later, my lower right hip is without pain. I may get an occasional twinge, but my monthly adjustment prevents any return of the previous pain.

 

Several of my neighbors who are also retired have had hip replacement surgery for similar problems. Now, I don’t know if their problems were identical, but I suspect that they only saw MDs for their problem, who have no training in osteopathy or chiropractic medicine. This is not my first experience with limitations of medical training for MDs. In my mid-twenties, I went to my family doctor with a problem relating to a cyst. He was honest and said he did not think he could treat it properly, so he sent me to a surgeon.

 

I made an appointment with the recommended surgeon. While in the waiting room, I heard the doctor ask an assistant if they had checked me for health insurance. She said she forgot to check, and he berated her loudly. When he came into the waiting room, I assured him I had insurance. He did a cursory examination and said I should schedule surgery with the receptionist. I was already convinced I did not want him cutting on me, so left the office without scheduling anything. I have never had any problems since and never had surgery or any other treatment for the condition.

 

I believe there are many fine doctors who care a great deal about their patients. Unfortunately, some go into medicine only because of the promise of a high income, particularly for some of the specialties. I have had similar problems with dentists. I once had a dentist recommend very extensive and expensive work that was not necessary, which I confirmed with visits to two other dentists.

 

I am not blind to the enormous strides in technology that are responsible for keeping people alive who would have died only a few decades ago. Modern medicine really shines here with its ability to perform organ transplants and reconstruct horribly damaged bodies from accidents or war. If I break my arm or suffer a severe cut, I am not going to an alternative medicine specialist. I am going to a surgeon. But I am not going to a surgeon if my problem is with my immune system.

 

If medical care continues to be operated as a very profitable business, we are not likely to see any focus on the human being who is the recipient of medical care. For doctors to treat the whole person, they will have to spend much more time with each patient. They will need relief from the enormous cost of a medical education, so they do not feel pressure to see ever more patients to repay medical education loans.

 

I believe the education of doctors is inadequate, especially in understanding the origin of disease. When it comes to a topic such as dreams, a doctor’s knowledge may be a few bits of information they recall about Freud, whose theories are outdated and do not deal with the whole person as a spiritual being. There are still psychiatrists who are practicing Freudians, but my own dreams have shown me he was limited and wrong in some of his beliefs. I believe that Carl Jung presents a far more accurate picture of the purpose and function of dreams, which is also like the Cayce view of dreams.

 

The subconscious mind is a vast area for research, and little progress has been made by science since the theories of Freud and Jung. This may be the greatest unexplored area of human nature, and I believe an understanding of this area solves many of the problems humanity faces, particularly in the field of health. Scientists have already seen and routinely use this power when they evaluate the efficacy of drugs. The placebo effect is a real effect, and sometimes participants who receive a placebo in an evaluation will score as high as those who receive the drug. It is because they think they have taken the drug and believe they will experience certain results. Studies in hypnosis have shown that remarkable results can be achieved by suggestion under the right conditions.

 

My dreams continuously monitor my health. I have provided one simple example here; many more examples are provided in my dream books. They show that dreams are a feedback mechanism that is constantly reporting on the thoughts we have, actions we take, and condition of our health. Disease does not just happen one day; it may suddenly be discovered by a doctor’s visit or from a medical test. But the disease has been developing long before the conscious mind is aware of it. The subconscious mind is aware of it and is trying to bring it to your attention through dreams long before you receive the medical diagnosis.

 

I am not recommending that people stop seeing their doctors or give up their prescription medications. I think for most people it would be disastrous. I share a view espoused by Seth in the book The Nature of Personal Reality by Jane Roberts: many people firmly people that doctors and drugs are the only way to heal. They believe they must see a doctor and take the prescribed medicine to get better. Since that is their belief, which comes from many years of indoctrination, they must continue with it. If they were to suddenly drop that approach without a change in their beliefs, they could find themselves in real trouble.

 

A real change in your beliefs, one so substantial that you can experience healing, is not a superficial thing. I believe this is the reason that often people are not healed by faith healers. They think they believe that God will heal them, but some doubt in their mind prevents the healing. You cannot finesse yourself; you can pretend you believe, hope to believe, or want to believe, but that is not the same as believing. Some who have achieved miraculous healings had to spend many weeks or months in deep meditation trying to reach that point of surrender within themselves to achieve results. Others were not able to regardless of their desire to be healed.

 

Champion athletes do not say, I hope I can win this event or complete my exercise without error. They see it as reality without any shred of doubt. They see it as done. The higher levels of mind are activated by the singleness of purpose without any doubt. The healing of illness through faith is no different. If you want to heal without drugs, begin the journey of knowing yourself: beliefs, desires, and fears. As you begin a spiritual journey into yourself, you will find that certain old habits and needs begin to drop away. You will find improvement in your physical heath because of changes in your mental and spiritual life. At some point you may no longer need the drugs you had been taking, but that process will occur naturally.

 

You have the power and means to heal yourself. Begin to examine your dreams to get an assessment of your overall health. If you are on the wrong track for a healing, your dreams will point that out. If a drug you are taking is harmful rather than beneficial, your dreams will warn you. If you need to see a doctor, your dreams will guide you to the right doctor or type of doctor. But if you believe that only doctors can help you and that prescription drugs are the answer, you will be locked into that paradigm for the remainder of your life.

 

In my next post, I will relate the stories of my encounters with a famous faith healer and a man who received a health reading from Edgar Cayce.