Prayer EC

Circulating File
PRAYER
A compilation of Extracts
from the Edgar Cayce Readings
Edgar Cayce Readings Copyrighted by

Edgar Cayce Foundation
1971, 1993-2007
All Rights Reserved
These readings or parts thereof may not be reproduced

in any form without permission in writing from the
Edgar Cayce Foundation
215 67th Street
Virginia Beach, VA 23451
Printed in U.S.A.
PRAYER CIRCULATING FILE
Edgar Cayce Readings copyright 1971, 1993-2007 by the Edgar Cayce Foundation
2
Prayer
Contents: Pages:
Summary 5
A. Prayer and Meditation 10
B. The Prayerful Attitude 13
C. All Prayer Is Answered 16

D. Advice to Individuals 19
E. Healing:
1. Prayer Healing 21
2. Prayer and Suggested Therapeutics for Abnormal Children 24
3. Prayer for Alcoholics 29
4. Intercessory Prayer 30
5. Prayer for the Dead 34
6. Group Prayer 36
F. Prayer and Peace 38
G. Thanksgiving 41
H. Selected Prayers from the Readings 47
I. “Covenant, Lesson XXIX: Prayer” by Herbert B. Puryear 49
J. “The 40-Day Forgiveness Prayer” by J. Everett Irion 55
K. “June 7, 1981, The Miracle Day” by Barbara Cummiskey 58
L. Related Material:
1. Prayer Group Readings (Readings 281) by A.R.E. Press
2. That Ye May Heal by Mary Ann Woodward
3. Gifts of Healing by Hugh Lynn Cayce
4. Be Still and Know by Mary Ann Woodward
5. Meditation: Gateway to Light by Elsie Sechrist
6. Economic Healing by A.R.E. Press
7. Healing Words: The Power of Prayer and the Practice of Medicine
by Larry Dossey, M.D.
M. Related Circulating Files*:
1. Meditation
2. Peace
*
Circulating Files & Research Bulletins are available from A.R.E. membership services at
(800) 333-4499 or: http://www.edgarcayce.org/circulating_files.asp
3
4
A Summary of the Circulating File on

“Prayer”
Edgar Cayce devoted his life to service. He served his God and Christ through
service to others. His religious convictions and the practice of reading the Bible through
once for every year of his life seem to have had a strong influence on the quality of
information that came through him in the psychic readings he gave.
Prayer and meditation were the mainstays of Edgar Cayce’s personal life. These
were the mediums of decision making, of regaining composure, of meeting crises and
keeping work and play in balance.
The readings contain valuable information about prayer and meditation, but there
is no treatise given, no long dissertation defining prayer. Each reading is an answer to one
individual’s personal need and the questions relating to that need. The questions that were
asked ran the gamut from how to develop spirituality, through decision-making, and need
for healing, to concern for relatives who had died.
At the beginning of each reading as Edgar Cayce became quiet, he was given a
“suggestion” which set the limitations or bounds within which the information would be
given. These suggestions embodied the reasons for requesting the reading and determined
the type of reading to be given. The resulting material related to physical and health
needs, past lives, spiritual development and advice, business advice, and philosophy.
It was the process of asking questions, the thinking and study of those people
surrounding Edgar Cayce that prompted the bulk of the information in the readings. If
there is a seeming gap in the information available on a given subject, one may be sure
that no one thought to ask the question.
We may be grateful as we study the readings that we are recipients of much

beauty, inspiration and spiritual truth left to us through this channel.
Collections have been made of excerpts on various subjects from the readings.
These have been made available in booklets called “Circulating Files” which are
available to members for study and research.
The Circulating File on Prayer is a collection of excerpts from numerous readings

and four complete readings. It speaks of the situations in which we should use prayer in
our daily lives, in our awareness of our relationships with others, in service to others, in
response to worldwide events, and in cooperation with treatment of physical ills. This
collection also gives many examples of ways to pray, and the words to use.
The purpose for prayer, we are told, is our need to attune ourselves to the spiritual
forces. Prayer is ordinarily a cooperative experience of many individuals who are asked
to become of one accord and one mind.
5
As frequently occurs in the readings, a Biblical reference or parable is used as

illustration. One is the comparison of the Pharisee who smites his breast and cries aloud
to God in public and the man who lived the spiritual life quietly, obeying all the laws and
withdrawing into the closet of his inner self to speak with God.
Be not as the Pharisees, who live to be seen of men, who make long
dissertation or prayer to be heard of men. They immediately have their reward in
the physical-mental mind.
Be rather as he that entered the temple and not so much as lifting his eyes,
smote his breast and said, “God be merciful to me, a sinner!”….
Prayer is the concerted effort of the physical consciousness to become attuned

to the consciousness of the Creator, either collectively or individually. Meditation
is emptying self of all that hinders the creative forces from rising along the
natural channels of the physical man to be disseminated through those centers
and sources that created the activities of the physical, the mental, the spiritual
man; properly done must make one stronger mentally, physically . . . As we give
out, so does the whole of man – physically and mentally – become depleted, yet in
entering into the silence, entering into the silence in meditation, with a clean
hand, a clean body, a clean mind, we may receive that strength and power that
fits each individual, each soul, for a greater activity in this material world.
[Reading No. 281-13]
Our prayers are affected by the attitudes we hold toward ourselves and others. The
quality of our attunement to God is also vitally influenced by these same attitudes. Are
we promoting our own will or attempting to align ourselves with His will? Praying
sincerely and earnestly, and waiting for His answer in our consciousness, is the effective
way of prayer.
One may not voice a blessing to God and a curse to one’s brother and expect
rewards. When one holds a grudge, the God within one’s self is fighting the God within
the soul toward whom the grudge is held.
One’s relationship with God, with Christ, as it is expressed in prayer, should carry
love, joy and a longing for the attunement that brings reward.
The readings constantly hold before us the beauty and glory of the relationship
with God that is so often spoken of as attunement. Those that work for attunement with
God, as known to us in Christ, accomplish more through prayer than all of man’s earthly
power and might. When we believe in Him and His promises our petitions will be
answered.
That He hears our prayers and desires to give us the best of Himself is at all times
a constant theme of the readings. For indeed He stands at the door of every consciousness
6
and wilt enter if we but open the door. Our petitions on behalf of our fellowman do not
go unheard.
A theme recurring through the readings is that one must live as one prays. To pray
humbly, sincerely, and persistently is not enough. One must live as one professes to
believe and as one ex presses this belief in prayer. This becomes particularly important in
intercessory prayer.
Those individuals who surround the life of one who needs healing, or other help
through prayer, must become aware of their personal participation in the spiritual life.
There are times when a family must stand aside while others apply the physical treatment
for healing. The family’s participation in the healing process is through the quality of
their lives and the prayer that grows from it.
Do not interfere, then, other than that as is understood and being applied –
but prayer, sincerity AND application of prayer in the lives of those about the
entity. [Reading No. 2633-1]
There is an acceptance of the fact of open communication between those alive in

earth and those who have died, or who have left the earth plane, in the psychic readings
of Edgar Cayce. We are told to pray often for those who have passed on. Those who have
passed through “God’s other door” [#3954-1] are oft listening for the voice of one they
have loved in the earth. This same reading continues with the beautiful thought that our
prayers ascend to the throne of God. There our personal angel stands before the throne to
make intercession.
This throne is not a physical one, but a state of consciousness in which we attain a
oneness with the whole in lending power and strength to each individual for whom we
pray.
The state of being to which one is destined to move after death is often
characterized as light. Sometimes the light is referred to as the final destination,
sometimes as that which illuminates, which guides the way there. In either instance, our
prayers seem to have the quality of directing the light to the one for whom we pray.
Q. Please give a prayer for those who have passed on.

A. Father, in Thy love, Thy mercy, be Thou near those who are in – and have
recently entered – the Borderland. May I aid, when Thou seest that Thou canst
use me. [Reading No. 281-15]
Group prayer is usually understood as growing from the directive as is found in

Matthew 18:20, “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in
the midst of them.” (King James Version) The readings support this interpretation.
7
Join with those that are helping, aiding others. The more oft in prayer for
others, the closer ye draw to Him. For as He gave – as ye do it, as ye pray for
them, as ye meet thy fellow man, so ye meet thy Lord. [Reading No. 2574-1]
An interesting group of readings included in this collection deals with the time
just prior to World War II. The quality of life of one who prays is again stressed as being
important for effective prayer. In this instance, we are told, it goes beyond the individual
to those within a nation, and as one nation in relation to another.
Reading No. 257-244 was given on May 30, 1942, and those listening were told
that the fighting “COULD” be over by September 30, 1942. “But this would require a
united effort on the part of those who pray, more than those who shoot! and they are not
ready for it yet!”
Personal involvement of individual lives to affect the outcome of the war, making
effective prayer, was ever stressed.
What, think ye, has caused or did cause that meeting of the democratic
countries, or the democracies and the totalitarian states? Was it because of the
wisdom of the men that met, or that either of the four there had their own way?
Rather was it not the prayers of the mothers and the fathers of each nation
represented there, that there might not be that destruction of human life which
would be the natural outcome of open conflict?...
For as the people of each nation pray, AND live that prayer, so must the Spirit
work....
“What then,” ye ask, “is to be the outcome? What is there that I can do about
it?”
Let thy daily life be free from criticism, from condemnation, from hate, from
jealousy. And as ye give power to the Spirit of Peace, so may the PRINCE OF
PEACE, the love of God, manifest….
There IS in every land today – through the prayers that have gone up for the
last two years – a more seeking for that at-onement with Creative Forces, a more
seeking for the knowledge and the purposes of God, than there has been for ages.
[World Affairs Series, Reading No. 3976-23]
Giving thanks for each day and its opportunities is another facet of our
relationship with God. It is acknowledging the part He plays in our lives in making
possible our relationships, bringing answers to our needs. To be lacking in thanksgiving
is to build that which is condemning in self, but to give thanks daily is to build greater
spiritual awakening.
Come! Let my heart be lifted in praise and adoration of the wondrous love
that the Father sheds upon the children of men. Come, let all be glad in the
opportunities that are given to serve in His name day by day. Come, let us be
8
joyous in the truth that, “Inasmuch as ye did it unto the least of these my little
ones, Ye did it unto me.” Let the love of the Son be magnified in our lives that
others may know that the joyousness of service brings peace and harmony to our
hearts as we serve. Come! Give thanks unto Him for we would make our own
lives, our own bodies, a dwelling place of the love that the Father would manifest
unto His children. Come, give place to His Holy Name, that there may come
joyousness in the hearts of men at the coming of the Christ into the lives and the
experiences of many. [Prayer Group Series, Reading No. 281-14]
Have Thine own way with me, and let my desires and my meditations give
praise to Thee for those opportunities and privileges Thou, O God, hast granted
in this experience. And may I use those opportunities and experiences for the
glorification of thy activity in the earth, rather than for mine own!
[Reading No. 264-42]
9
Prayer and Meditation
3416-1, Female 39 (housewife), 11/23/43
(Q) How may I best develop myself spiritually?

(A) Through prayer and meditation. Turn ever to Him for as He has given, practice daily
the love of the Christ. For as He gave, “A new commandment I give unto you, that ye
love one another.” Then manifest that in every way. Let everyone that you meet be
happier for having met you, for having spoken to you. This ye can do by spreading joy.
This is the manner to unfold, to develop. Then in thy meditation, present thyself as a
willing channel, to be as the hands, as the eyes, as the voice of thy Master.
2739-2, Male 33 (M.D., Hebrew), 12/30/26
(Q) How may he gain the right spiritual attitude?

(A) By fasting and prayer.
3250-1, Female 55, 9/29/43
(Q) What will help me most in coming to right decisions as to my life?

(A) Prayer and meditation, to be sure. For, as He has given, “Behold I stand at the door
and knock. If ye will open I will enter in.”
Then, in thine own mind, decide as to whether this or that direction is right. Then pray
on it, and leave it alone. Then suddenly ye will have the answer, yes or no.
Then, with that Yes or No, take it again to Him in prayer, “Show me the way.” And yes
or No will again direct thee from deep within.
THAT is practical direction.
As has been pointed out, experiences, visions, mean much to thee. For thou hast seen the
outpouring of the Holy Spirit. It may not be withheld from thee now, if ye seek same.
1158-14, Female 45 (Housewife, Protestant), 11/28/37
(Q) Is it correct when praying to think of God as impersonal force or energy, everywhere
present; or as an intelligent listening mind, which is aware of every individual on earth
and who intimately knows everyone’s needs and how to meet them?
10
(A) Both! For He is also the energies in the finite moving in material manifestation. He
is also the Infinite, with the awareness. And thus as ye attune thy own consciousness, thy
own awareness, the unfoldment of the presence within beareth witness with the presence
without. And as the Son gave, “I and my Father are one,” then ye come to know that ye
and thy Father are one, as ye abide in Him.
Thus we find the manifestations of life, the manifestations of energy, the manifestations
of power that MOVES in material, are the representation, the manifestation of the Infinite
God.
Yet as we look into the infinity of space and time we realize there is then that force, that
influence also that is aware of the needs, and there is also that will, that choice given to
the souls of men that they may be used, that they may be one, that they may apply same
in their own feeble, weak ways perhaps; yet that comes to mean, comes to signify, comes
to manifest in the lives of those that have lost their way, that very influence ye seek in the
knowledge of God.
For until ye become as a savior, as a help to some soul that has lost hope, lost its way, ye
do not fully comprehend the God within, the God without.
281-13, Prayer Group Series, 11/19/32
First, in considering such, it would be well to analyze that difference (that is not always
understood) between meditation and prayer.
As it has been defined or given in an illustrated manner by the Great Teacher, prayer is
the MAKING of one’s conscious self more in attune with the spiritual forces that may
manifest in a material world, and is ORDINARILY given as a COOPERATIVE
experience of MANY individuals when all are asked to come in one accord and one
mind; or, as was illustrated by:
Be not as the Pharisees, who love to be seen of men, who make long dissertation or
prayer to be heard of men. They IMMEDIATELY have their reward in the physical-
mental mind.
Be rather as he that entered the temple and not so much as lifting his eyes, smote his
breast and said, “God be merciful to me a sinner!”
Which man was justified, this man or he that stood to be seen of men and thanked God he
was not as other men, that he paid his tithes, that he did the services required in the
temple, that he stood in awe of no one, he was not even as this heathen who in an uncouth
manner, not with washed hands, not with shaven face attempted to reach the throne of
grace?
(continued on the next page)
11
Here we have drawn for us a comparison in prayer: That which may be the pouring out
of the personality of the individual, or a group who enter in for the purpose of either
outward show to be seen of men; or that enter in even as in the closet of one’s inner self
and pours out self that the inner man may be filled with the Spirit of the Father in His
merciful kindness to men….
Prayer is the concerted effort of the physical consciousness to become attuned to the
consciousness of the Creator, either collectively or individually! MEDITATION is
EMPTYING self of all that hinders the creative forces from rising along the natural
channels of the physical man to be disseminated through those centers and sources that
create the activities of the physical, the mental, the spiritual man; properly done must
make one STRONGER mentally, physically, for has it not been given? He went in the
strength of that meat received for many days? Was it not given by Him who has shown
us the Way, “I have had meat that ye know not of”? As we give out, so does the
WHOLE of man - physically and mentally become depleted, yet in entering into the
silence, entering into the silence in meditation, with a clean hand, a clean body, a clean
mind, we may receive that strength and power that fits each individual, each soul, for a
greater activity in this material world.
“Be not afraid, it is I.” Be sure it is Him we worship that we raise in our inner selves for
the dissemination; for, as He gave, “Ye must eat of my BODY; ye must drink of MY
blood.” Raising then in the inner self that image of the Christ, love of the God-
Consciousness, is MAKING the body so cleansed as to be barred against all powers that
would in any manner hinder.
Be thou CLEAN, in Him.
1861-19, Male 38, 8/22/44
For prayer is supplication for direction, for understanding. Meditation is listening to the
Divine within….
(Q) Why is 2 A.M. the best time to meditate?

(A) For the body-mind, as we find, (if it has slept), the activities - of the physical body
are as it were, in that vibration where it is between the physical, the mental, and spiritual
activities of the body. If it is kept awake, it isn’t a good time to meditate, but sleep, and
then arise, and purposefully - for in prayer, so in meditation, let it be purposefully, and
then don’t abuse it - use it. Life is the manifestation of God - of the Creative Forces. So
in prayer and in meditation. Prayer - He knoweth what ye have need of, but it is that
love, that hope within self, knowing, feeling the desire to approach, thankful, prayerful,
and then listen for direction.
12
The Prayerful Attitude
2142-1, Male 38 (Furniture Business, Protestant), 1/5/32
First set that as an ideal to which the entity WOULD attain, or direct, or measure its
activities with its fellow man. Trust not in the weakness of thine own self, nor the
strength of thine own abilities; rather know that with the WISDOM of the Creative
Forces, in that foolishness do men become confounded. Keep thine own counsel. Keep
thine own heart true, and it must follow that to all others thou wilt also be true. KNOW
in whom thou HAST believed, and know He is able to keep that as is committed unto
Him against any experience that may be thy lot in a material world. PRAY often; seek
that thou wouldst know rather of HIM than of men!
1125-3, Female 61 (Osteopath, Protestant), 9/27/41
Let the approach be made in humbleness of heart, seeking not that as of self but as thy
Lord, thy God, thy Savior would have thee do. Pray sincerely, pray earnestly, until thou
hast thine answer within thine own conscience. This is the best preparation for the ordeal
of kindly, gently, reasonably, meditating, agreeing, disagreeing, as to choices to pursue.
Do that. In that manner may there be no regrets. Otherwise, there will be a shortening of
thy abilities to minister to others, to contribute to the welfare of thy son as well as others.
1173-10, Male 29, 8/13/37
But let the theme of the mental body ever be JESUS, the Savior, the merciful companion
to those who seek to know God’s way with men. For He IS that friend that would ever
guide, direct and ACCOMPANY thee, in trials, temptations, in thy joys as well as
sorrows.
So, take Him with thee as thy companion in thy studies, in thy preparations, in thy
thoughts of others, in thy JOYS. For would ye as a friend to man hear only sorrow as
each and every word of those that sought thee! The heart of God in the Christ seeks the
JOY; as He did in giving His Son that we might know Him the better.
Then, hold fast to that which is good in thy activities day by day; and ye will find life as
abundant, as purposeful, even as He.
13
5749-16, 9/10/41
There is ever, then - in thy material associations, in thy seeking for help, love, health,
understanding for thy brother - SOMETHING, some effort on their part as well as
THINE. But “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there will I be in the
midst of them.”
These are the influences that all must realize, if they would understand, if they would
comprehend, if they would contemplate, if they would seek - that ye cannot give that
which ye do not possess. If ye have that love in the Christ, in the giving ye have the
more; even as He demonstrated in the giving of life that ye might have life more
abundantly, that there might be a closer walk with Him. And as ye walk, ye talk with
Him, He talks with thee.
“Be not afraid, it is I.” Has this come to thee? Has it not oft been thy experience and ye,
in thy doubt, in thy fear of being in His presence, have turned away? “Inasmuch as ye do
it unto the least of thy brethren ye do it unto me.” This is for each of you. This is thy
Lord, as He would approach thee, that ye in thy grace, in thy love, thy mercy as thou
showest to thy brother, may find that love in Him.
1472-19, Female 59 (Writer, Radio Broadcaster, Protestant), 4/14/40
Then, in this era, this age of changes being wrought, it behooves the entity (as everyone),
in its relationships in any manner, to impress upon others in every walk of life - not
impelling by force, but by love - to TRY God; to listen to the voice within; to open self to
the love that is manifested in gentleness and kindness, and not to the lust for power nor to
what others may say, but rather keeping in that attitude which He expressed in that period
of manifestation when He said, “Others may do as they may, but as for me, I will serve a
LIVING God,” not one far off. Not one who may not be touched by the infirmities of
those who are oppressed and cry unto Him; but when ye pray, when ye cry, that prayer,
that cry, must be consistent with the life that is lived in relationship to others day by day.
Indeed man through all periods has with one voice blessed God and with the same cursed
his brother. This, as the entity understands, should not be! Yet it is such in the world
today that is bringing the seeking for might and power.
As to the manners in which the entity applies those influences which it attained or gained
through the periods when it again announced to the children of men the great and mighty
day of the Lord being at hand, - ye are coming to the realization that the fulfilling of that
promise in Him is TODAY; for He IS the way, the truth and the light!
It is no longer, then, afar off; but lo, it is within the heart and mind of each soul, -
EVERYWHERE!
14
For, whosoever WILL may take of the cup of life, and drink - in such measures that the
thirsting is no more for those things that put fear and dread into the hearts of the children
of men.
For it is neither in this temple, that city, nor the other land, but in thine own heart, in thine
own mind.
And THIS ye are to proclaim in thy service through the activities in which ye may be
engaged, of whatever nature; whether as the assistant in the script for thine own
broadcasts, or in that help ye may give to others.
Know, even as He hath given, if ye enter into the closet of thine own consciousness and
THERE give that prayer, that longing, HE will reward thee openly, - as He does thy
brethren
1304-1, Male, Adult, 12/12/36
One may not pray with long prayers of thankfulness for this or that, as in the experience
of others, and still hold a grudge or a feeling of animosity, or a feeling of undue
consideration for other individuals at least attempting - in their own ways - to be of help,
whether in a feeble way or in whatever way. For all power that is in the hands of man
has been LENT, and it is not of man’s knowledge but of God.
Thus when individuals hold a grudge they are fighting the God within themselves against
the God within the individual or soul for whom or towards whom such is held.
319-4, Female 60 (Secretary to School Board, Protestant), 10/5/40
Pray a great deal over the situation; and do not become sorry for self. Do not condemn
anyone.
1742-4, Female 48, 10/23/31
Not in strain, to be sure; forget not, that He oft went aside from His labors - to pray!
1435-1, Female 43 (Housewife, Gentile, Religious Preference not listed), 8/29/37
While He, thy Master, thy Friend, thy Brother, stands ever ready to aid - ye cannot bear
the cross alone. Hence He has given, “Believe in me and ye may ask that ye WILL.” If
thy will then is one with His, there may come into thine experiences the ability to forgive
those who have PURPOSELY wronged thee. For thy prayer may not approach the
throne of mercy lest ye have shown mercy to even those that have wronged thee in their
might or power.
15
All Prayer is Answered
1301-1, Female 40 (Metaphysician, Christian Background) 12/1/36
Thy prayers, thy supplications have been heard, and they are brought before that Throne
of mercy, light, peace and harmony. And as these are manifested in thy experience and
thy associations with thy fellow man, so does that assurance grow in the knowledge and
the wisdom of the Most High.
That thou doest then unto thy brother day by day, that thou doest unto thy Maker.
1842-1, Male 32 (Clergyman, Protestant), 3/14/39
For He indeed stands at the door of every consciousness of man that seeks to know; and
will enter if man will but open.
Let thy activity, then - whether in that capacity as the minister of the Gospel or as the
minister of the gospel of the law - be in that attitude of loving and making for that
intercession for the wish in the experiences of every soul that is seeking to know more of
its relationships to its Maker.
4028-1, Female 42 (Public Accountant), 4/7/44
For all prayer is answered. Don’t tell God how to answer it. Make thy wants known to
Him. Live as if ye expected them to be answered. For He has given, “What ye ask in my
name, believing, that will my Father in heaven give to thee.” Again it has been said, and
truly, the Father will not withhold any good thing from those who love His coming….
(Q) Will the prayer which I have been praying for seven years be answered?
(A) As indicated, all prayers are answered when the individual doesn’t tell God just how
to answer them.
3569-1, Male 20 months, 1/16/44
Not that these are to be as worries, for remember the injunction, - never worry as long as
you can pray. When you can’t pray - you’d better begin to worry! For then you have
something to worry about! (This is for the parents, - not the child!)
281-61, Prayer Group Series (personal message to [241]), 5/13/42
Let that as may disturb be taken to Him, who HEARS prayer and has promised to answer
those who pray in faith, NOTHING doubted.
16
1151-14, Male 49 (Labor-Management Mediator, Protestant), 4/24/38
And know, O son of man, thy prayers, thy meditations, rise as a sweet incense before the
throne of mercy and peace and grace!
Thy efforts in the behalf of thy fellow man WILL not, DO NOT go unheard; nor will they
be unrewarded in thy daily life.
Let then peace, mercy and judgement rest with thee; knowing that the Father is in His
holy temple within thee - and that as ye measure to others, so does it return to thee.
Rail not on those who would despitefully use thee, or attempt to misconstrue thy efforts!
For He, thy Lord, thy Guide, will sustain thee - if ye will carry the whole matter to Him!
Rememberest thou how ye walked by the way and were troubled as to what would befall
those of thy own countrymen, as well as those of the household of Him with Whom ye
walked? and how He quieted thy fears by reminding thee that for this purpose came He
into the earth?
And though it might appear that the day was spent, and the truths He had presented
before those of the land were closed, did He not CONFIRM in thy own consciousness the
fact that those things which had been spoken and done as it were in the secret place
would be proclaimed openly? and thus come as the leaven - as was given of old, by all
the teachers - that would leaven the whole lump? and become the judgements of those in
every phase and walk of life, by which MAN would judge his dealings with his fellow
man?
Hold fast to that, O Friend! For that is thy strength; that is thy bulwark of safety!
731-1, Male 7, 11/15/34
Would that all men would know, much more may be accomplished through the prayer of
those that truly make of themselves one with the Creative Forces that have been
manifested in the earth through Him that gave Himself that men might have the access to
the Father, than through all the power and might of men. Though the worlds shall pass
away, His Word shall NOT pass away. For He has given, “As ye ask in my name,
believing, so shall it be done in thee.” And that thou asketh for, acting and believing in
such measures and manners, shall bring unto thee that peace, that knowledge, that
understanding, which comes only in the acceptance of - and being at one with - His
divine forces that He manifests among men.
1844-3, Male 22, 4/30/41
Let thy associations with those about thee, thy family, thy friends, - yea, those that ye do
not like, - be such as to express a thanksgiving to thy Maker.
17
5368-1, Male 29 (Salesman), 7/20/44
And when ye pray, give thanks daily, for that ye are given in hand by Him, who is the
giver of all good and perfect gifts.
1789-2, Female 32, 3/10/39
But if those who are desirous of being of help will pray ABOUT it, they will receive
direction!
805-4, Female 53 (Realtor, Protestant, Christian Scientist), 10/22/35
May His blessings, that thou hast often sought, be more and more manifest in thy
relationships to thy fellow man. For He will hear those that call upon Him, if they
PROCLAIM IN voice and in act the same note of sincerity.
18
Advice to Individuals
696-3, Female 38 (Writer, Protestant Background), 1/28/35
Give, then, in broader fields of activity, in EVERY channel where those that are seeking
may find; that are wandering, that are lame in body, lame in mind, halt in their manner of
expression, that are blind to the beauties in their own household, their own hearts, their
own minds. These thou may awaken in all thy fields. And as ye do, greater is thy vision
- and He will guide thee, for He hath given His angels charge concerning those that seek
to be a channel of blessing to their fellowman; that purge their hearts, their bodies, of
every selfish motive and give the Christ - CRUCIFIED, GLORIFIED - a place in its
stead.
3509-1, Male 29 (Secretary), 12/14/43
(Q) Career as a pianist was brought to an end through my extreme nervousness and lack
of confidence, and other talents have suffered because of an overpowering fear. What am
I to do?
(A) No doubt overpowering fear. Right about face! Know it is within thee! Defying this
has brought the fear, has brought the anxieties. Turn about, and pray a little oftener. Do
this several weeks, yes - let a whole moon pass, or a period of a moon - 28 days - and
never fail to pray at two o’clock in the morning. Rise and pray - facing east! Ye will be
surprised at how much peace and harmony will come into thy soul. This doesn’t mean
being goody-goody - it means being good for something, but let it be creative and not that
which will eventually turn and rend thee.
5343-1, Female 27, 7/13/44
(Q) I am separated from my husband and have to wait a two-year period before a divorce
is granted. Will that divorce be granted in June 1945 amicably?
(A) Are you sure that you wish it? If ye would turn to thy real inner self and purpose, if
ye really desire it, it can be granted. Is it best? The judgement must be in self. There
were those purposes of why ye were drawn together. Ye have an obligation materially
one to the other. Ye have one mentally. Is it best? Judge your own self. Ye have it, in
that judgement, to either bring him home again, or whole, or in part, as ye do for thy
brethren and others. Pray with them oft. Pray for them, but live like ye pray.
19
5346-1, Male 53, 7/15/44
Here is an entity who would be lost without its companion. Hold fast to same. Cherish,
love and honor and you will find she will continue to be an inspiration to guide, to direct.
Never carry on thy business or thy activities without taking her entirely into thy
confidence. For the judgment of two is better than one, and where two agree and they
ask, believing it may come to pass.
Do not ask for, then, selfish things lest they turn upon thee and destroy thy good
purposes. Ask only as the Lord wills.
1428-1, Male 30 (Meteorologist, Protestant), 9/2/37
(Q) What should the wife’s attitude and actions be in order to help him?
(A) That of a constructive and, most of all, PRAYERFUL attitude. Constructive,
creative; not antagonistic, not constantly arguing about - but sympathetic.
(Q) As given in our joint Reading - “TOGETHER - ASK!” How may we best approach
this, that we may become AWARE of our asking together?
(A) Pray together openly, verbally….
(Q) In the message for [1523] given Nov. 6, 1940, “let that which is done in secret be
proclaimed in thy prayer to the Father.” Please clarify this, that she may better
understand it, and apply it in her daily life.
(A) Read what has just been given! As has been prayed, or the prayer of each, - let this
be together, verbally, openly. DECLARE the purposes! It makes a lot of difference in
attempting to put the desires into words, even in the presence of one another.
585-7, Female 45, 3/1/41
(Q) Any further advice?

(A) Do these things, not just to get them done but be EXPECTANT of helpful results
from same. Do ALL - prayerfully.
20
HEALING
Prayer Healing
1967-1, Male 24, 7/25/39
And, above all, PRAY! Those who are about the body, use, rely upon the spiritual
forces. For the prayer of the righteous shall save the sick.
Know that all strength, all healing of every nature is the changing of the vibrations from
within, - the attuning of the divine within the living tissue of a body to Creative Energies.
This alone is healing. Whether it is accomplished by the use of drugs, the knife or what
not, it is the attuning of the atomic structure of the living cellular force to its spiritual
heritage.
Then, in the prayer of those, - live day by day in the same manner as ye pray - if ye
would bring assistance and help for this body. [Cancer: Cured]
899-1, Female 72, 4/20/35
In giving that as may be helpful to a physical body that has grown in the mental and in
the physical week, and often weary of the material surroundings, it is well that those who
have the ministrations and those that would aid know that the greater help, the greater aid
that may be brought to one so soul-weary is the UNIFIED expression of that Christ-
Consciousness which may arise within the body through the awareness of that divinity in
all. This may bring the greater joy, the greater peace, the greater harmony in this soul’s,
this entity’s experience in the present. [Insanity]
612-1, Female 7 (Hebrew), 7/22/34
Hence, as we would give, do not change in the present; but know rather within self - and
through the self - that those who wait upon, those who wait with, those that administer to
this body, keep that constructive force in the minds and the hearts, that there may not be
that combative force for the life forces in the body to combat in its struggle for
expressions in a material world. For, it has been given, “He will give His angels charge
concerning thee, lest at any time ye dash thy foot against a stone.” But He will bear thee
up, if ye will look to Him. Aid those in their ministrations through thy prayers for them,
as well as for those things that may bring to the activity of this body the awareness of
their relationships to constructive life….
(Q) What can the mother do to assist the doctors?
(A) Pray with them, aiding the body of [612] to meet those necessary emergencies in the
experiences. [Streptococcus]
21
1394-1, Male Child, 7/3/37
As we find in the present, conditions are such that any change in administrations in the
immediate would be rather detrimental.
Rather, as is the experience of those who are anxious regarding the life, the mind, the
body of their loved one, submit this to those that would join in supplication, in prayer for
same; that what is in keeping with the will of the Divine may be accomplished in the
present in the body.
For all healing must be of the Divine - that is aroused to activity even in materiality or
matter, for that which is of the constructive force.
Then let those know, who are so anxious, that others care - and are joining in with them
in this plea for mercy, for health, for that which may be in the wisdom of the Divine to
accomplish in the present in these conditions with [1394].
This is that as may be accomplished as we find; strengthening those who wait, giving
courage to those who doubt, bringing in the consciousness that as WILL aid.
When these conditions have come to the turning - that must come - know that this, under
such a stress, is the better way in the present. [Streptococcus]
323-1, Male Adult (Hebrew), 4/27/33
(Q) What can he do to aid his son K... who is at ... St., ..., Arizona, and who is very ill?
(A) Add only those things that may make for the easing of the conditions that exist; for
these may only be met through prayer, supplication. Much of this has been produced by
other conditions that have entered in, best known to the body itself - if he thinks well.
[Shingles]
552-1, Female 15, 5/16/34
(Q) Any further advice for those in charge of the body?

(A) In that which has been indicated there is seen that there must ever be that prayerful
attitude that at all times in the ministering, in the care, there may be done that which will
not only make for an attitude of helpful hopefulness for the body, for the mental
attributes, for the physical forces, but that there may be gained patience, kindness,
brotherly love, endurance, and - most of all - consistency in the attitude in the activities of
those about the body. [Tuberculosis]
22
282-8, Male 32, 7/6/38
Of course, it is necessary that all that atmosphere of fear be eliminated. This may be
done the better by not only the prayers of others, but the acting towards the entity and the
working in the same manner that they pray!
Ye desire consistency, normalcy in the reactions of the body! Then there must be THAT
acted, and THAT lived by those seeking same for the body! [Mental Illness]
1789-1, Female 32, 1/13/39
And let such an one, who has the care of the body, be one not lacking in prayer and in
love for the fellow man. [Insanity]
5485-1, Female 9, 6/5/29
. . . He will be faithful to give, as has been said, “Ask in my name and ye shall receive -
believing - and it shall be done, even to the desire of thy heart.” [Deafness]
23
Prayer and Suggestive Therapeutics for Abnormal Children
4058-1, Male 13, 4/3/44

Then, as the body goes to sleep, let the parents - together, not separately - give
suggestions for the body. The suggestions should be for a unified activity of mind with
mind, to control the subconscious and to control the activities reacting from the
suggestions to the organs of the sensory system - in prayer, in meditation.
This, too, requires that the parents live that they pray for, and that the suggestions be
made in unison. These words would or should be altered, to be sure, for these must be
responses of those responsible for the body, from their very inner being. But these
thoughts should be included:
FATHER, GOD! IN THY MERCY AND IN THY LOVE, BE THOU PRESENT
WITH US NOW, AS WE SEEK TO GUIDE THE BODY AND MIND OF THIS THY
CHILD IN BECOMING A BETTER CHANNEL OF SERVICE TO THEE AT THIS
TIME.
Then the suggestion to the child, (calling his name): Thy inner self, thy subconscious
self, thy super-conscious self will react to the will of the Father-God; that ye may be a
better channel for His service in the earth.
These suggestions, of course, may alter from time to time, but these should be given
consistently and daily. Give at least an hour each evening to this service. It will bring to
the parents, it will bring to this entity, [4058], the activities for this body to be a physical,
mental and spiritual manifestation of the love, of the promises given the child of men.
[Impaired Speech]
5176-1, Female 7 (Catholic), 6/2/44
The body should fall into a rest or sleep, thus we would use these periods for making the
suggestions, but let the mother or that one responsible, or the two together, from time to
time make the suggestions, prayerfully, that there is improvement, there is the
helpfulness, there is the spirit of the true help coming to the body; but the bodies making
suggestions must live that they seek for this body. [Retarded Mind]
2836-2, Female 2, 1/4/43
Do, in those periods when this is applied, keep that period of meditation and prayer, and
suggestion to the body for the mental and spiritual improvements. [Glandular problems]
24
5310-1, Female 2½, 6/29/44

These are partially, as we find, in the areas from the conditions existent through the
period of gestation and then the soul-entity’s meeting itself, or karmic conditions for the
entity, as well as those responsible for same.
Help can be had. As to the normalcy being produced, it will depend upon the sincerity in
which these suggestions are followed which may be made by those responsible for the
entity in the material manifestation.
Thus, we would prepare this first: the low Wet Cell Appliance….
Keep in the open as much as practical.
And each day let the mother, with the father, make those suggestions together, with the
body or over the body, as it were; each of them with the hand upon the body as it would
sleep, make those prayers, those intercessions as this, in their own words:
FATHER, GOD! IN THY LOVE, IN THY MERCY, BE THOU NEAR UNTO US IN
THIS HOUR! HEAL THOU OUR HEARTS, OUR MINDS AND THE BODY OF
THIS, THY MAID SERVANT. THY WILL, O GOD, BE DONE IN EACH OF US!
THROUGH THY PROMISES WE ASK AND SEEK THIS HELP.
This is not to be hurried through with but to be lived day by day. [Mind: Retarded]
5022-1, Male 9, 4/10/44

This [treatment] can be given one night by the mother, the next night by the father, but let
it be one or the other of these. It is worth the time for self.
Then attach the Radio-Active Appliance, and as the body goes to sleep, make the
suggestions.
Then take thy troubles to thy Maker, and in thy suggestions appeal to the divine within
this developing body.
Begin first to prepare self by reading Exodus 19:5. Know that this is speaking to each of
you - the parents. Then read Exodus 20, especially the first 18 verses giving the
commandments, and these are to be not merely literally but spiritually applied in self.
Then read Deuteronomy 30 and apply these admonitions in self.
This will give the parents the background, the purpose and the ideal for which and
through which they would prepare themselves to give the suggestions necessary for this
body.
Do that.
Fail, and it will ever be a canker in the mind and purpose in one or the other or in each of
you if ye delegate it to someone else - for ye will lose thine own self and ye will one time
find conditions reversed. [Retarded Mind]
25
1371-2, Female 14, 2/13/38
(Q) Is she giving her treatments correctly?

(A) These are very good, but keep persistent and the more prayerful when these are
administered.
In making the suggestions as the body is losing itself in sleep or slumber, make these not
for that as would be directed by the mother in that as SHE would like for the body to be,
but that the body may build that purpose, may FILL that purpose for which it entered in
this experience, in the way, the manner, the directing forces of divine influence may act
with the bodily forces of [1371]. [Nervous System: Incoordination]
1371-3 Female 14, 11/6/38
(Q) Is she responding properly to the suggestions given by the mother at night?
(A) There are times when there is a wonderful response. There are others when this is not
so well. But be persistent and very prayerful and meditative; and we will find this will
increase in its effectiveness as the adjustments are made, and as there is accomplished the
alleviation of activities through the cerebrospinal and sympathetic system.
[Nervous System: Incoordination]
3789-1 Female 7, 11/22/26
At least once each day, for ten to fifteen minutes, as the body lies to rest, to sleep, the
constant talking to the body, in that subdued yet positive manner, of the body physical
building to meet the needs of the body in a physical and mental manner, for the perfect
development of body mentally and physically, and add to this, whoever directs this -
mother or father, or both - one one time, on the next - the consecration of self in prayer,
that the power will be awakened in self to awaken this being in its best self.
[Glandular problems]
1647-1, Male 5 months (Protestant Background), 7/27/38
(Q) Give bedtime prayer for child suitable to bring out the best qualifications for this
entity?
(A) “LORD, THOU KNOWEST THY CHILDREN! THOU CALLEST THEM BY
NAME! AS WE DEDICATE THE LIFE AND THE ACTIVITIES OF THE ENTITY,
[1647], TO THEE, WILT THOU, O LORD, OPEN OUR MINDS AND HEARTS TO
THOSE THINGS THAT ARE NECESSARY FOR THE DIRECTING OF THIS BODY
AND MIND AND SOUL - INTO THOSE FIELDS AND ACTIVITIES IN WHICH THE
GREATER BLESSINGS MAY COME TO THOSE WHOM THIS ENTITY MAY
SERVE!
“KEEP HIM, DIRECT HIM - FOR THOU HAST PROMISED THAT WHAT WE ASK
IN HIS NAME, BELIEVING, THAT THOU WILT DO: THAT JESUS, THE CHRIST,
MAY BE GLORIFIED AMONG THE CHILDREN OF MEN.” [Child training: General]
26
Index of Reading 4013-1, Male 14
CHILDREN: ABNORMAL
Healing: Spiritual: Children: Abnormal Par. 6--8
Home & Marriage: Parenthood: Children:

Abnormal Par. 5--9
Karma: Physical: Children: Abnormal Par. 4, 9
SPEECH: IMPAIRED
Suggestive Therapeutics: Children: Abnormal Par. 6--8
27
Background of Reading 4013-1 M 14

B1. 11/26/43 Grandmother [5177]'s questions submitted:
1. What is the cause of his not talking? 2. Will he ever be able to talk? 3. Is there any
karmic reason for his condition? 4. How can this be remedied?
Text of Reading 4013-1 M 14

This Psychic Reading given by Edgar Cayce at the office of the Association, Arctic
Crescent, Virginia Beach, Va., this 21st day of March, 1944, in accordance with request
made by the grandmother - Mrs. [5177], new Associate Member of the Ass'n for
Research and Enlightenment, Inc.
PRESENT
Edgar Cayce; Gertrude Cayce, Conductor; Gladys Davis, Steno. (Notes read to and
transcribed by Jeanette Fitch.)
READING
Time of Reading 11: 05 to 11: 10 A. M. Eastern War Time. New York, N.Y.
1. GC: You will go over this body carefully, examine it thoroughly, and tell me the
conditions you find at the present time; giving the cause of the existing conditions, also
suggestions for help and relief of this body; answering the questions, as I ask them:
2. EC: Yes. We have the body here.
3. As we find disturbances here indicate - as they are active principles through the
sensory organisms of the body and the sensory system - an incoordination between the
impulses, the brain reflexes, and the spiritual forces of the body.
4. Thus the condition is karmic in its reaction.
5. Those who are responsible for the body-physical need not feel that this responsibility
can be delegated to someone else, even though others may be physically better able to
cope with or to train the body for its present conditions.
6. These disturbances might be helped if there would be the daily prayer together of those
responsible for the body; not one day and then skip one, but each day for a period of three
hundred sixty-five days. As the body goes to sleep let those responsible for the body-
physical meet over the body, or with the body, and in prayer make suggestions to the
body as it sleeps.
7. True this should have been begun six years ago but it still may aid.
8. Do not begin unless there is sincerity in both parents of this entity.
9. Otherwise, let others give that instruction, that help - for the body is meeting itself; but
so must those responsible for this entity meet themselves….
28
Prayer for Alcoholics
1439-2, Male 38 (Car Salesman), 12/21/37

(Q) Can those assisting do anything to prevent the body from indulging in stimulants?
(A) They can pray like the devil!
And this is not a blasphemous statement, as it may appear - to some. For if there is any
busier body, with those influences that have to do with the spirit of indulgence of any
nature, than that ye call satan or the devil, who is it?
Then it behooves those who have the interest of such a body at heart to not only pray for
him but WITH him; and in just as earnest, just as sincere, just as continuous a manner as
the spirit of ANY indulgence works upon those who have become subject to such
influences either through physical, mental or material conditions!
For the POWER of prayer is NOT met even by satan or the devil himself.
Hence with that attitude of being as persistent as the desire for indulgence, or as
persistent as the devil, ye will find ye will bring a strength. But if ye do so doubting, ye
are already half lost.
For the DESIRES of the body are to do RIGHT! Then aid those desires in the right
direction; for the power of right EXCEEDS - ever and always. Do that, then.
Like the devil himself - PRAY!
496-1, Male 35, 1/23/34

And, if the mental and spiritual forces are acted upon by those that have an interest in the
welfare of the mental and spiritual reactions of this body, [496], through the power of
intercession by meditation and prayer, to counteract the forces from without that are
working with this body, there may be brought an awakening within - in correcting these
conditions - and an awareness that there is a worth while experience for self in the
activities of the entity’s manifestation of life, and will bring the abilities to be active in
directions that would make for a change that will not only be helpful, hopeful, but worth
while….
(Q) In what manner may his sister [439] help him?
(A) By making the stronger intercession in prayer, and in getting or asking others to aid
in and with her in same. For, where there is that intercession made through the combined
efforts of many, the greater may be that directed influence towards the activity of any
soul, any mental being.

(Q) How can I aid him to stop drinking?
(A) Pray!
29
Intercessory Prayer
2633-1, Female (Age unknown, hospitalized), 12/5/41
GC: You will go over this body carefully, examine it thoroughly, and tell me the
conditions you find at the present time; giving the cause of the existing conditions, also
suggestions for help and relief of this body. You will answer the questions, as I ask them.
EC: Yes.
Now, as we find, the conditions, the circumstances that surround this body, [2633], are
such that there should not be any interference in the administrations which have been and
are being made.
We would only suggest that those close to and responsible for the body should apply
themselves, their lives, their activities, prayerfully, sincerely, that there be accomplished
those purposes of the Creative Forces, God, with this body.
These are the administrations we would give here.
Do not interfere, then, other than that as is understood and being applied - but prayer,
sincerity AND application of prayer in the lives of those about the entity.
We are through for the present.
Report #1 re [2633]’s reading: 12/10/41 [2413]'s letter to EC:

Mr. Edgar Cayce Virginia Beach, Va.
Dear Mr. Cayce:
Enclosed please find my check for $20.00 for a reading on [2633] and want to say that I
am very much disappointed in the reading as you mention nothing but “prayer”.
I would appreciate it very much if you would please be good enough to explain the
reading that would give the cause, and also suggestions for help and relief, and there was
nothing mentioned about this.
With best regards, I am Very truly yours, [2413]
Report #2 re [2633]’s reading: 12/16/41 EC's letter to [2413]:

Thank you for yours of the 10th with enclosures. Do not wonder at your request for an
explanation of the information Miss [2633] - yet hardly know just how to explain.
Possibly if I tell you of a few experiences have had only in the last week of similar cases
you may be able to draw a conclusion of your own. Evidently, Miss [2633] was not
aware that the reading was to be given. Then, too, her being in the Hospital, the
information was not given to interfere with the application being made, thus suggested
that as would help under any condition.
30
But to explain - few days ago a lady from Washington D.C. phoned me asking for a
reading for her sister [2631]. She too was in a hospital, I told her would give same if she
would talk with her sister about it telling her was doing this and have her consent for
same. The information was given, sent to her. Yesterday received word from her sister
like this “information received, gave it to the nurse asking her to do that suggested - she
said will have to have consent of the Dr., but he refused, but Sister asked for what had
been said, and has been growing steadily better since talked with her, now Dr. says he
will do what was suggested as there must be something in the attitude of the lady.”
Another Mother from same town phoned for her daughter [2634] told her as the other,
please have the consent of the daughter, but said she is unconscious. I told her to tell her
any way - prayerfully, she did, in three days the fever had left, she is still on the improve
as she says this morning.
There is needs then there be some activity, oral or mental, on the part of the person
wishing help. Am not trying to build an Alibi, Mr. [2413], not at all, but in one case
might be coincidental could hardly be so two days running.
Do hope Miss [2633] is better and all is well. There is answer to prayer, am sure you
feel that.
Thank you and with all good wishes, Edgar Cayce
1835-1, Female 59, 3/2/39
EC: Yes, we have the body - and those conditions that are disturbing forces and
influences with same.
As we find, rather than a great deal of material or physical application, the needs here are
the care and the attention as may be given by those about the body, - in making such an
intercession as to arouse within the body-consciousness the relations of the body-mental
and spiritual to the Creative Forces or Influences; and the desire on the part of the entity
to so apply same in this material experience as to become and to be a channel through
which this consciousness, this awareness may be helpful in the experiences of others.
With this awareness aroused, through those about or acquainted with the entity, or who
are capable and willing to show that true application of that as He gave, “Love one
another,” these as we find are those influences, those forces that may bring the better
physical, mental and spiritual forces about this entity in the present, - [1835].
Then, let those who care for same use every effort to bring about this, in the experience
of this body in the present.
31
972-1 Male 35 (hospitalized), 8/18/35
And, most of all, let the Creative Forces be called upon, through those channels that make
for intercession, as it were, through creating the proper atmosphere in prayer and
meditation.
This, necessarily, would be through those most anxious concerning the condition and its
outcome.
1515-1, Male 64, 1/8/38
Background correspondence preceding Reading:

12/26/37 Wife's letter: “My husband, who is a physician, has been ill for the past four
and a half months with a heart condition which we are told is not organic but is due to
some focus of infection. Fourteen of the best doctors in N.Y. and Baltimore have been
trying to find out what that focus is but so far have been unsuccessful... He has no faith
whatsoever in anything psychic...”
Text of Reading:
Now as we find, many conditions are to be taken into consideration; the adverse feelings
of the body and the activities of the body.
To attempt to make for material applications direct would cause such a disturbance as to
become a very detrimental influence, owing to the very nature of the disturbance.
Hence those whose anxiety prompts the activities in this direction should be very mindful
that only the highest constructive, spiritual influences are made materially manifest in the
dealing with the conditions surrounding this body.
Hence, only suggestion of a constructive nature; and not overindulgence nor of the nature
of such anxiety as to bring resentment by the body in respect its physical condition.
Hence, silent prayer; that the influences, the environs may be such that [1515] may
complete the purposes for his entrance into this experience in service to his fellow man,
in the way that divine guidance may choose for him at this time.
If such an attitude is held, if such an attitude is manifested in the conversation, in the

dealings with the body, then there may be created that environ - by the very nature of
GOOD in its every form held as respecting the body - to bring the better mental, physical
and spiritual environment for the body.
That then may accomplish much more than in any attempt to influence or direct the
mental activities in channels of force that are adverse forces for the body.
We are through for the present.
32
Reports of Reading 1515-1 M 64
Dear Mrs. [...]:

It is very unusual for a Physical Reading through Mr. Cayce to make ONLY the
suggestion for prayer. Usually such specific directions are indicated for modes of
treatment. However, I'm sure in this particular case - from that given - that the greater
influence upon your husband to DO those things necessary may come from an unseen
source.
Thus I am moved to tell you about our Glad Helpers group in Norfolk; a group
composed of individuals who devote about two hours a day in prayer and meditation for
those who seek such help through them as merely the channels….
Since such a great burden (if you look at it in that manner) is put upon you to hold the
right attitude and try to help your husband from the unseen instead of being outwardly
anxious and solicitous, I feel that perhaps you would be glad to have our group join in
praying with you for the Father's will to be done through your husband - and that you
may be given strength to do your part in bringing this about. I'm sure this group would
be glad to help in this manner, and I will submit your name and your husband's - asking
their help in your problem - as soon as I hear from you, if you wish it so.
Trusting that we may be of a service, and asking that His blessings be with you in your
present need and guide you in every expression, I am
Sincerely, Gladys Davis Secretary to Mr. Cayce
33
Prayer For The Dead
3954-1, Female 71, 11/5/43
Then fret not thyself over others, but keep the faith. Walk in the Way. Keep the lights
burning ever, and others will find the Way - who in the present appear to be far in arrears
with appreciations of the glory and love of the heavenly Father.
Yea, pray oft for those who have passed on. This is part of thy consciousness. It is well.
For, God is God of the living. Those who have passed through God’s other door are oft
listening, listening for the voice of those they have loved in the earth. The nearest and
dearest thing they have been conscious of in earthly consciousness. And the prayers of
others that are still in the earth may ascend to the throne of God, and the angel of each
entity stands before the throne to make intercession. Not as a physical throne, no; but
that consciousness in which we may be so attuned that we become one with the whole in
lending power and strength to each entity for whom ye speak and pray.
For, where two or three are gathered together in His name, He is in the midst of them.
What meaneth this? If one be absent from the body, He is present with His Lord. What
Lord? If you have been the ideal, that one to whom another would pay homage, you are
then something of the channel, of the ideal. Then thy prayers direct such an one closer to
that throne of love and mercy, that pool of light, yea that river of God.
5369-2, Male 63 (Ordained Lutheran Minister), 7/19/44
(Q) How may I best help my son, [3507], supposedly killed in action November 13,
1942, in the Solomons area?
(A) There is little that can be helped in the present. Should there be the message from the
natives where he was cared for, and is being cared for, then there may be help. Nothing
may be contributed other than the prayer, the hope at the present time.
2783-1, Female 58 (Housewife, Widow, Protestant), 7/13/42
(Q) Please explain the seeming communications I have had from Harold Lockwood, an
actor who died in 1918, whom I never knew in life.
(A) As self is a “sensitive,” at times, and as Lockwood and others seek expression, these
oft become close to the borderline. Ye may help Lockwood by thy prayer, that he be
released from the earthbound hope.
3416-1, Female 39 (Housewife), 11/23/43
(Q) The entity has had the experience of awaking at night and feeling the presence of her
brother - would appreciate an explanation of this.
34
(A) This is a reality.
(Q) On June 2, 1942, the entity heard her brother calling her - was this the exact time that
he passed on?
(A) Not the exact time, but when the entity could - and found the attunement such as to
speak with thee.
(Q) Was there something he wanted her to know?

(A) Much that he needs of thee. Forget not to pray for and with him; not seeking to hold
him but that he, too, may walk the way to the light, in and through the experience. For
this is well. Those who have passed on need the prayers of those who live aright. For the
prayers of those who would be righteous in spirit may save many who have erred, even in
the flesh.
2280-1, Female 57 (Housewife, Christian Scientist), 6/5/40
(Q) Can you tell me if my older son, who passed away last May, died of natural causes or
was he killed?
(A) An accident.
(Q) Can I be of any help to my sons now? If so, how?

(A) Prayer for those who are seeking a way, THE way to the light, aids ever.
As ye meditate - as ye pray - for as thy body is indeed the temple of the living God, there
He hath promised to meet thee - then as ye meet Him, thy Maker, thy Lord - pray that
there may be the light, the help needed, that they may be guided in that way and manner
which will bring all together in the way as HE, thy Lord, would have it.
2524-5, Male 43 (Engineer, Christian Scientist), 1/13/44
(Q) Regarding my brother [2564] (who passed from the earth life about eighteen months
ago), is it indicated that he is happy?
(A) As was his purpose, so is the activity. As indicated through the experience given thee
in His word, pray for and with him if ye would help.
(Q) Please give a prayer for those who have passed on.
(A) FATHER, IN THY LOVE, THY MERCY, BE THOU NEAR THOSE WHO ARE
IN - AND HAVE RECENTLY ENTERED - THE BORDERLAND. MAY I AID,
WHEN THOU SEEST THAT THOU CANST USE ME.
35
Group Prayer
2574-1, Female 53 (Housewife, Christian Service, Volunteer), 8/14/41
(Q) Any suggestions as to how I may best aid in the healing group work of the
Association for Research and Enlightenment, Inc.?
(A) Join with those that are helping, aiding others. The more oft in prayer for others, the
closer ye draw to Him. For as He gave, - as ye do it, as ye pray for them, as ye meet thy
fellow man, so ye meet thy Lord.
It becomes then the more necessary for each soul to come to the awareness that as they
speak, as they pass their fellow man, they are passing their Lord. For He, too, served on
the Cross for them. And that is significant to each soul, as an individual entity, in its
opportunity for expression. For the Lord hath seen fit to show His face, His love to such.
Would ye do less?
Thus as ye meet, as ye pray with all - as in this group - for others, ye help thyself, ye
glorify thy Savior, thy Brother.
Yet a little while and He will come again and speak to those who will listen. For as ye
comprehend from His message to His brethren, and the prayer to the Father: “Father, I
ask that I may have that glory with thee before the world was, and that where I am these
may be also.”
That is to thee, and to all who love His coming.
1089-2, Male 20, 12/30/35
(Q) Is there anything that others can do, in the way of suggestions or help - as the
Association?
(A) Only that as may be, that others may join at those periods when the body - mentally,
physically - consecrates itself in prayer, in meditation.
For EACH soul must find its OWN position, its OWN association. And when found, it
gives the body HEALTH, STRENGTH, VITALITY, and those necessary influences for
meeting material problems day by day.
688-4, Female 61 (Widow, Podiatrist, Christian Background), 5/5/36
(Q) In group healing work is my idea regarding the need of four or six being present
correct, as man and woman contribute one and the scripture gives, “Where two or three
are gathered,” etc.?
36
(A) As negative and positive forces are manifest, and as negative and positive forces in
nature manifest in the various forms of vibratory forces that motivate healing forces,
these then naturally become as a MAGNIFIED force of the basic influence and principle
that manifests.
Yet the POWER is found as within, and it is poured out in group for the healing of many.
899-1, Female 72, 4/2035
And let those each day aid through those groups that would make such ministrations
through the spiritual influences within theirselves that make for cooperative forces and
themselves a channel….
(Q) Is her condition due directly from a physical cause or a mental or emotional one?
(A) It is a combination of same. For those reactions in the physical forces have brought
about the mental incoordination, see? while the mental incoordination makes for more of
the nerve end reactions, that set the body on fire at times - as it were. But these
ministrations indicated will produce the quieting effect, as indicated, and especially more
so by the prayers of those that would be channels may there be brought aid and
harmonious conditions in the mental and physical body….
(Q) How can the Christ-Consciousness be aroused within her?

(A) Through the cooperative forces of individuals who give themselves as channels for
such an activity.
(Q) Any other suggestions for the body at this time?

(A) These we would do in the present. And let the meditation and the prayer ever be, of
those that would aid:
“RAISE THOU, O GOD, IN THIS BODY, THAT WHICH IS THE BEST AS THOU
SEEST FIT; THAT THERE MAY BE THE HARMONY THAT COMES IN THY
LOVE FOR THIS SOUL.”
37
Prayers and Peace
1598-2, Male 67 (Missionary, Writer, Protestant), 5/29/38
In relationships to world conditions:

Any who seek such information, as we have indicated, had best be in the position to do
something about same. For that given becomes then not only a duty but an obligation
upon the part of those to whom such may be given, in the nature of the relationships that
exist.
As has been given, however, that which has prevented and does prevent the whole of
civilization becoming a turmoil is the attempt of those who have the ideals of the Prince
of Peace at HEART! And as of old, the prayers of ten may save a city; the prayers of
twenty-five may save a nation - as the prayers and activities of ONE may! but in union
there is strength.
Then if that purpose would be kept, then it must ever be kept in mind that we ARE our
brother’s keeper!
473-2, Study Group Readings, 3/5/35
As the glory of thy strength in the Lord has made thee to see, hast made thee to trust, hast
strengthened thy faith, so may the prayer of the righteous save the sick, so may the prayer
of him that seeks to be a channel of blessing draw a brother close to the Lord.
257-211, Male 46 (Sales Mgr., Hebrew), 9/25/39
(Q) What conditions will we see come before war is ended?

(A) This again is a problem, and depends - as we have indicated - upon whether
individuals, peoples, groups, masses, live as they pray; or pray as they sincerely in their
hearts desire.
(Q) Based on present conditions, will the Forces advise us when the fighting will stop?
(A) This is dependent upon many things. It COULD be over - it is possible for it to be
over - by the 30th of September. But this would require a united effort on the part of
those who pray, more than those who shoot! And they are not ready for it yet!
(Q) Could I in any way help the thought of the people to turn to prayer?
38
(A) Read what has just been given, as to what thy attitude should be in thy conversation
and in thy dealings with all in high and low places, and we will find there MUST be that
spiritual awakening. It isn't the attempt to force the issue with anyone. God has given
man a free will. Man must come to the acknowledging of his needs first.
This may be AROUSED by those who IN their dealings with those IN authority remind
them of the source of all things.
1949-1, Male 45, (Lieutenant Commander, Retired [Engineer, Mathematician,

Oceanographer]), 7/6/39
(Q) Am I likely to be recalled to active service in the navy within 2 or 3 years?

(A) The only likelihood will be in '41. This, too - if the people pray, and live as they pray
- will pass.
3976-20, World Affairs Readings, 9/27/38
And know that all stand as one before the judgement bar of the Creator.
Hence prayer, and more prayer; and as we have given, LIVE toward one another as a
nation, as a brother nation to the others - on EITHER side - as ye pray!
Do not pray one way and live another! Be consistent, be persistent.
What, think ye, has caused or did cause that meeting of the democratic countries, or the
democracies and the totalitarian states? Was it because of the wisdom of the men that
met, or that either of the four there had their own way? Rather was it not the prayers of
the mothers and the fathers of each nation represented there, that there might not be that
destruction of human life which would be the natural outcome of open conflict?...
[Versailles Treaty?, Munich Agreement?]
For as the people of each nation pray, AND then live that prayer, so must the Spirit
work….
“What then,” ye ask, “is to be the outcome? What is there that I can do about it?”
Let thy daily life be free from criticism, from condemnation, from hate, from jealousy.
And as ye give power to the Spirit of Peace, so may the PRINCE OF PEACE, the love of
God, manifest….
There IS in every land today - through the prayers that have gone up for the last two years
- a more seeking for that at-onement with Creative Forces, a more seeking for the
knowledge and the purposes of God, than there has been for ages.
39
Let thy voice be raised, then, as in praise to thy Maker; not in word alone but rather in the
manner in which ye meet thy fellow men day by day. For the prayer, and the living
ofsame by those sixty and four who are here gathered, may even save America from
being invaded - if that is what ye desire.
For the Lord CAN, the Lord WILL, the Lord DOES preserve those who in
RIGHTEOUSNESS ask. “Ask and ye shall receive; knock and it shall be opened unto
you.”…
Then, all ye who are gathered here, - Do not entrust this to someone else, but “I - even I!”
Let rather thy cry be: “LORD, HERE AM I! USE ME IN THE WAY AND MANNER
THAT THOU SEEST BEST FIT; THAT WE MAY PRESERVE THE FAITH WE
HAVE IN THE LORD, THE SAVIOR, JESUS THE CHRIST; THAT WE MAY STILL
BE AS ONE BROTHERHOOD; AS ONE KNOWING THOU ART NEAR; AS ONE
MANIFESTING THY POWER, O GOD; NOT OF OURSELVES, BUT THAT
OTHERS MAY SEE THY GLORY, - EVEN THE ONE NEXT TO ME. EVEN
THOUGH HE MAY CURSE, MAY SWEAR, MAY DO THOSE THINGS THAT ARE
UNSEEMLY, LET THY POWER BE MANIFESTED, O GOD; THAT JESUS, THY
SON, MAY INDEED COME INTO THE EARTH; THAT ALL MEN MAY KNOW
THAT HE IS THE LORD OF MY HEART, MY MIND, MY BODY, MY HOME, MY
COUNTY, MY STATE, MY NATION!”
It must begin, though, with self, - lest ye know not the hour nor the day that He has
turned His back on thee.
LORD, HERE AM I! USE ME IN THE WAY, IN THE MANNER THOU SEEST FIT;
THAT I MAY EVER BE THAT THOU HAST PURPOSED FOR ME TO BE - A
LIGHT SHINING AS IN DARKNESS TO THOSE WHO HAVE LOST HOPE, FROM
ONE CAUSE OR ANOTHER.
40
Thanksgiving
Early in the morning call unto thy God, and in the evening forget not His love nor His
benefits.
Then, at that period when ye each are first aware, as ye awake, be STILL a moment and
know that the Lord is God. Ask that ye be guided, THIS day, to so live that ye may stand
between the living and the dead.
In the evening as ye sit at meat, be STILL a moment. For there is greater power in being
still before thy God than in much speaking. Again give thanks for the day and its
opportunities.
Each day, then, just give thanks. Keep humble in the blessings He bestows upon thee,
and in the favor that He grants thee in the sight of those who have been and are privileged
to be the channels through which all forms of preparation are made for carrying on,
waging a war against oppression, against slavery, against the disregard of such principles.
533-18, Male 30, 10/23/41
When the body mentally and physically takes into account the conditions, and that it has
to be thankful for, - the companionship, the relationships, - these should bring greater
spiritual awakening for the body. Not because of duty, but because of the glorious
mental and spiritual opportunities that are offered.
Then the body should, the more often, give expressions of appreciation. For, the body
understands from and in Whom such blessings come. For the effect in the physical is a
reminder to the body that the Divine Presence is aware and mindful of thy welfare.
He that is unappreciative is so little that he is insignificant. He that IS appreciative, and

gives expression to same through and with the opportunities about self, is blessed of the
Lord.
Then, forget not His benefits in thine experience….
(Q) Any other advice for the body?

(A) Adhere to those suggestions indicated, in the giving appreciations for its companion
[2753], its offspring [2148], its friends, its hopes, it fears. For, these reflect themselves in
the physical and mental well-being.
41
As there come those periods when those seeking are aided, give thanks!
254-115, 6/25/44
This too, as ye pray, LIVE, ACT! So conduct thine own life as to show thy appreciation
of that which thou hast received. For he, or she, who neglects to be thankful builds that
which is condemning in the own self.
1844-3, Male 22, 4/30/31
Let thy associations with those about thee, thy family, thy friends, - yea, those that ye do
not like, - be such as to express a thanksgiving to thy Maker.
(Q) May we be given a prayer of joyousness and praise at this time?

(A) COME! LET MY HEART BE LIFTED IN PRAISE AND ADORATION OF THE
WONDROUS LOVE THAT THE FATHER SHEDS UPON THE CHILDREN OF
MEN. COME, LET ALL BE GLAD IN THE OPPORTUNITIES THAT ARE GIVEN
TO SERVE IN HIS NAME DAY BY DAY. COME, LET US BE JOYOUS IN THE
TRUTH THAT, “INASMUCH AS YE DID IT UNTO THE LEAST OF THESE MY
LITTLE ONES, YE DID IT UNTO ME.” LET THE LOVE OF THE SON BE
MAGNIFIED IN OUR LIVES THAT OTHERS MAY KNOW THAT THE
JOYOUSNESS OF SERVICE BRINGS PEACE AND HARMONY TO OUR HEARTS
AS WE SERVE. COME! GIVE THANKS UNTO HIM, FOR WE WOULD MAKE
OUR OWN LIVES, OUR OWN BODIES, A DWELLING PLACE OF THE LOVE
THAT THE FATHER WOULD MANIFEST UNTO HIS CHILDREN. COME, GIVE
PLACE TO HIS HOLY NAME, THAT HERE MAY COME JOYOUSNESS IN THE
HEARTS OF MEN AT THE COMING OF THE CHRIST INTO THE LIVES AND
THE EXPERIENCES OF MANY.
42
Index of Reading 3976-21
Bible: Books of: Acts 17: 28 Par. 26

: Jeremiah 11: 4 Par. 6, 7
: Jeremiah 30: 22 Par. 6, 7
: Leviticus 26: 12 Par. 6, 7
: Luke 22: 42 Par. 28
: Mark 2: 27 Par. 12
: Matthew 25: 40 Par. 24
: Matthew 25: 45 Par. 24
: Micah 6: 8 Par. R1
LIFE: OPPORTUNITY
Names: People Mentioned: Roosevelt, Franklin D. Par. R1
PRAYER: THANKSGIVING
Spirit Communication Par. 2
43
Background of Reading 3976-21

None.
Text of Reading 3976-21

This psychic reading given by Edgar Cayce at his home on Arctic Crescent, Virginia
Beach, Virginia, this 20th day of November, 1938, in accordance with request made by
Study Group #1 of the Ass'n for Research and Enlightenment, Inc.
PRESENT
Edgar Cayce; Gertrude Cayce, Conductor; Gladys Davis, Steno. Helen Wheeler, Marsden
Godfrey, Pearl Wood, Edith and Florence Edmonds, Ruth LeNoir, Esther Wynne, Mae
and John Verhoeven, Helen Ellington, Helen Storey, Frances Y. Morrow, Hannah Miller,
Maud and Lillian Luff, Evelyn R. Gimbert and Hugh Lynn Cayce.
READING
Time of Reading 4: 00 to 4: 30 P. M. Eastern Standard Time.
1. GC: You will give at this time information which may stimulate in the hearts and
minds of those gathered here a greater appreciation of the true spirit of Thanksgiving, and
which may be to all those to whom it is sent an inspiration and an explanation for
Thanksgiving even in the face of personal problems and spreading world-wide fears and
hatreds that seem to dominate so many minds today.
2. EC: Yes, we have the subject here; and many there be that appear with the desire to
give their own interpretation upon such a subject. But rather would we choose, - from the
more universal need of those here, as well as mankind everywhere, - that thought, that
purpose, that attribute of man's choice to show, to give thanksgiving for not only the
blessings as may be the experience of many but the fuller meaning of the appreciation of
Life itself and the opportunity which is offered to all through same to become more and
more aware of their relationship to the Creative Force or God.
3. It is well that ye be reminded, then, of how - in those periods when there were the
preparations in the lives and experiences of a peculiar people, under unusual
circumstances, in extraordinary environments - they were reminded, not in their days of
plenty but in the days when each day they were given only sufficient for that day, that
periods were to be, should be, set aside when thanksgiving was to be a part of their
activity, - their remembrances for all the joys, the sorrows, the disappointments, the
hopes that were and might be theirs if - IF - they would but hold to those promises;
relying, - as it was necessary in those days, those hours, for a complete dependence, -
upon the bounty of a merciful Father, who had a purpose in the bringing out, in the
edifying, in the directing.
4. And today, as ye look back upon those experiences, ye - TOO - find thyselves chosen.
5. Have ye chosen Him?
6. For as was given then, “If ye will be my people, I will be thy God!”
44
7. This is a universal experience, then. To each soul gathered here, to each soul
throughout the land, to each soul as may be in all lands: “IF YE WILL BE MY PEOPLE,
I WILL BE THY GOD!”
8. Then in this land, - as ye understand, - when in the experiences of a handful of those

seeking a place where they might worship God according to the dictates of their own
conscience, the bounties of the land were in such measures as to preserve their lives, -
then there was the proclamation that thanksgiving must be in the mind and heart of each
soul.
9. So in THIS land was set the precedent that has come to mean so much that year after
year thy rulers of the several States, thy director in the general, have kept, do keep that
precedent.
10. Then, to ALL: As ye do in the spirit of TRUE thanksgiving come to realize, as ye

find in thy daily experience with thy fellow man, - he that is unappreciative of
opportunity, of care, of thought, of longsuffering, to thine OWN mind becomes very
little.
11. What, then, will YE - as servants, - yea, as children of a living God, of a living
promise to thee - DO ABOUT such a period, such a day?
12. For the day itself is as nothing. Remember how He as the Teacher of teachers gave
that the Sabbath was made for man, NOT man for the Sabbath!
13. Then remember, Thanksgiving is thy OPPORTUNITY to show thy appreciation to

thy friend, thy home, thy mother, thy children, - yea, most of all to thy God!
14. As it may be truly said, - of all the days for MAN'S opportunity, of man's making, of
man's concern, - TRULY Thanksgiving should be nearer and dearer to the hearts of those
who are appreciative of Life and its opportunities, under ANY experience!
15. For remember, it was instituted not under plenty but under needs.
16. What is the need then of man in this day of disturbed mind, of anxieties?
17. That ye may reconsecrate, rededicate - each of you - thy heart, thy body, thy purpose,
to the LIVING God!
18. This is the message then that should be to all.
19. Let this day of Thanksgiving be not only that wherein to enjoy that which may satiate
the body, that which may make for the gratifying of appetites of the body, but that day
when each of you may give thanks to God for BEING alive, - with the opportunities to
raise thy voice in prayer, in praise, in thanksgiving for the love He hath shown, that He
showers upon thee day by day!
45
20. And as ye do this, - in the SPIRIT of love, in the spirit of truth, of patience, of
longsuffering, - ye will receive that awareness of His closeness to thee. And this will
bring you to the greater knowledge, the greater understanding of what He would have
thee do.
21. Let thy life, thy experience then, be not without purpose.
22. WHAT DO YE THEN PURPOSE TO DO WITH HIS PROMISES TO THEE?
23. In THIS land ye may give praise for freedom of speech, for the opportunities to raise
thy voice in WHATEVER way and manner ye choose.
24. For know, as He taught, the principles of life are that as ye do unto the least of thy
brethren ye do unto thy Maker.
25. Then, as ye give thanks, as ye give praise to thy friends for kindnesses, for
gentlenesses, for those things that make thy experience more bearable in a cruel world, -
under circumstances oft where a troubled heart is made lighter, - how much greater in this
day, then, that is set aside by thy laws, by the judgments of thy governors and of thy
president, - how much MORE ye would give thanks to God!
26. For it is in Him indeed that ye live, that ye move and have thy being.
27. Let thy heart then be glad.
28. And as has been indicated, let each raise his voice in thanksgiving for ALL that has,
that may come to pass in the experience of each SOUL that prays, “THY WILL, O GOD,
BE DONE IN ME - NOW. NOT AS I WILL, BUT AS THOU WOULD HAVE ME
GO.”
29. Pray that peace may be in the minds and hearts of those who direct the destiny of the
many, throughout the world. For they are NOT in power of THEMSELVES, but that YE
- too - may learn a lesson to DO, and to seek to do, the will of thy Father; and not to do
that which is IN direct contradiction to that of praise to thy Lord, thy God.
30. Keep then that Day in praise, in thanksgiving, in such ways, such a manner that ye
show to thy conscience that what ye worship as thy God is aware of THY appreciation of
LIFE!
31. We are through.
REPORTS OF READING 3976-21

R1. 3/8/39 Mr. [257]'s letter: “Did you notice that President Roosevelt used the quotation
from Micah which is the same that the readings always give? 'Oh, Lord, what dost thou
require of us, but to do justly, love mercy and walk humbly with thy God.'”
46
Selected Prayers from the Readings
282-6, Male 27 (Office Clerk, Protestant), 3/17/33
FATHER, MAY THERE BE IN ME THAT MIND, THAT DESIRE, WHICH

PROMPTED THE LIVING OF THE LIFE OF THY SON IN THIS MATERIAL
WORLD.
MAY I BE DRAWN NEARER AND NEARER TO THAT UNDERSTANDING OF

THE PURPOSES OF THE MANIFESTATIONS OF LIFE, MAKING MY WILL ONE
WITH THY WILL, FEELING AND REALIZING THY PRESENCE ABIDING DAY
BY DAY IN MY EVERY EXPERIENCE; REALIZING LIFE'S ACTIVITIES ARE
THE MANIFESTATIONS OF THY LOVE.
KEEP ME IN THE RIGHT WAY. AMEN.
370-5, Male 53, 1/21/37
FATHER, GOD, THOU ART LIFE! THOU ART HOPE! THOU ART JUSTICE!
THOU ART MERCY! IN THESE MAY I, THY SERVANT, CLAIM THY CARE,
THY LOVE; THAT MY BODY MAY BE CLEANSED AS MY MIND MAY BE
CLEANSED, THAT I MAY BE BEFORE THEE HOLY AND ACCEPTABLE UNTO
THEE TO DO SERVICE TO MY FELLOW MAN IN THY NAME; AND THAT THE
GLORY OF THY LOVE AS MANIFESTED IN THE CHRIST, MY SAVIOR, OUR
SAVIOR, MAY BE MANIFESTED MORE AND MORE IN EARTH.*
274-3, Male 35, 6/8/33
AS I OPEN MY MIND, OH FATHER, TO THY WAYS, WILT THOU EVER IN AND

SHOW ME THE WAY THOU WOULD HAVE ME GO DAY BY DAY!
HELP ME IN ALL THINGS. MAKE ME STRONG IN THY MIGHT. LET THE

LITTLE HINDRANCES OF BODY, OF ASSOCIATIONS, THE UNKINDNESSES IN
INDIVIDUALS, BE TURNED MORE AND MORE INTO AN APPRECIATION OF
THY LOVE MADE MANIFEST IN THY GIFT TO THE WORLD IN THE MASTER
AMONG MEN!
SO LET ME LIVE, SO DIRECT ME IN THY WAYS, THAT MY WILL MAY BE

THY WILL, THY WAYS MAY BE MY WAYS!
47
264-42, Female 43, 5/8/34
HAVE THINE OWN WAY WITH ME, AND LET MY DESIRES AND MY
MEDITATIONS GIVE PRAISE TO THEE FOR THOSE OPPORTUNITIES AND
PRIVILEGES THOU, O GOD, HAST GRANTED IN THIS EXPERIENCE. AND MAY
I USE THOSE OPPORTUNITIES AND EXPERIENCES FOR THE GLORIFICATION
OF THY ACTIVITY IN THE EARTH, RATHER THAN FOR MY OWN!
549-001, Female Adult, 5/14/34
MAY I GIVE PRAISE ALWAYS TO HIM WHO, THROUGH THE GIFT OF THE
CHRIST INTO THE EARTH, MAKES THE AWARENESS OF HIS PRESENCE
ABIDING WITH ME. LET ME SEE IN MY FELLOW MAN THAT I WOULD HAVE
MY FELLOW MAN SEE IN ME. LET ME GIVE PRAISE AND GLORY WHERE IT
IS DUE IN MY FELLOW MAN AND TO MY MAKER. LET THE WORDS OF MY
MOUTH AND THE MEDITATION OF MY HEART BE ACCEPTABLE IN THY
SIGHT, MY LORD AND MY REDEEMER.
AS I OPEN MY HEART, MY MIND TO THEE, O GOD, WITH THE JOYOUSNESS

OF THE NEW EXPERIENCES THAT MAY BE MINE, WILT THOU BE THE
GUIDE. MAY I MAKE MY WILL, MY MIND, MY SOUL, DAILY IN ACCORD
WITH THAT SERVICE THAT THOU WOULDST HAVE ME RENDER TO MY
FELLOW MAN. LET THE WORDS OF MY MOUTH AND THE MEDITATIONS OF
MY HEART BE MORE AND MORE ACCEPTABLE UNTO THEE, MY LORD AND
MY REDEEMER. FOR THOU MAY LIVE IN ME AS THOU HAST PROMISED,
THAT THE GLORY OF THE FATHER MAY BE MANIFESTED IN THOSE THAT
LOVE HIS WAYS. HELP THOU MINE UNBELIEF. MAKE THOU MINE HEART
CLEAN, RENEWING A RIGHTEOUS SPIRIT WITHIN ME, FOR THOU HAST
PROMISED TO BE NEAR.
48
... come unto me: hear, and your soul shall live;
and I will make an everlasting covenant with you ... Isaiah 55:3
An A.R.E. Membership Course Vol.3, No. 5
Lesson XXIX: Prayer

by Herbert Bruce Puryear
Would that all men would know, much more may be accomplished through the
prayer of those that truly make of themselves one with the Creative Forces that have been
manifested in the earth through Him that gave Himself that men might have the access to
the Father, than through all the power and might of men. 731-1
As children of God, our most natural instinct is to pray. As we study the realm of
the psychic and understand that psychic is of the soul, we may understand that perhaps
the ultimate psychic expression is given in prayer.
All psychic manifestations may be characterized in terms of these three qualities:
information, energy and relationship. In the practice of prayer we optimize the potential
of all three. Psychically obtained information, rather than from the mind of another as in
telepathy, is better gained in the prayer for guidance. Then we may receive the
information and instruction we seek from the very Highest Source. Psychic energy, rather
than being manifested in psychokinesis, is more optimally manifested in expressions of
healing. In this manner we may become channels through which the One Force may
manifest in helpful and creative expressions in the lives of others. Psychic awareness of
relationships is enhanced most beautifully when with prayers of invocation we draw near
to the One Spirit, especially when we permit ourselves a sense of relationship with God
as our Father and Jesus as our Elder Brother. These, in turn, give us a sense of nearness to
those whom we love and about whom we are concerned.
Yet, although it is clear that psychic is of the soul and that prayer is the basic
exercise of the soul, many who find themselves deeply interested in things psychic are
not attracted to or excited by the numerous claims of the importance and efficacy of a life
of prayer. There are some understandable reasons for this being the case.
Some Problems
There are problems, primarily conceptual but nevertheless problems, to the minds
of some regarding the role of prayer. One is the very appropriate question we may ask:
“Who am I to be telling God what to do? Isn’t the only proper prayer, ‘Thy will be done,’
and doesn’t God already know what is His proper will?” We may understand that the
49
greater work for all of mankind is not simply that everything be put aright; if that were
so, God in his omnipotence could arrange that instantaneously. The project rather is for
us as souls to learn to live together and love each other. We must learn to love both God
and one another and to use our access to the life force to give expression to love. Prayer,
then, is not telling God what to do but rather inviting the Spirit of God to flow through us,
to someone in need, as an expression of love.
Another problem has been the logic of how we can understand all human
experiences as being lawful consequences of antecedent events or, as we sometimes say,
karmic events and still understand how prayer can make a difference without interfering
with the law. When asked about the advisability of prayer for another with a problem
which was thought to be karmic, the Cayce source replied: “When there are karmic
conditions in the experience of an individual, that as designates those that have the
Christlike spirit is not only in praying for them, holding meditation for them, but aiding,
helping, in every manner that the works of God may be manifest in their lives...” (281-4)
Yes, there are laws; but this is a living universe and we are creative beings, and some
things that have been set in motion, which we call karmic, are in need of change by the
Spirit of Love.
Another very serious problem regarding prayer lies in our own sense of
unworthiness. We find ourselves or someone about whom we care in need; but we also
find ourselves seemingly cut off from attunement with the Divine. It may not feel right to
call upon Him when we are in trouble, when we have failed to seek Him out when times
were better. However, just that very sense of separation may be what the soul needs to
turn it around and affirm that the greater priority of life is to be closer to God and of
greater helpfulness to others, as in prayer.
Another objection to prayer has simply been doubting the efficacy of a few words
upon some situation that may be quite extreme. As we understand better how prayer
works, we may get a fuller sense of the real potential of prayer.
Prayer and Meditation

The expression, “We pray in order to meditate and we meditate in order to pray,”
may be a highly instructive formula. It emphasizes the central role of meditation in
making the attunement with the Infinite, enabling us to be channels through which the
Spirit may flow in helpfulness to others. It designates the special manner in which this
attunement may be enhanced by preparatory prayers, and how the Spirit once raised may
be channeled to others in intercessory prayer. In the classical literature on prayer many
forms have been designated. This formula enables us to make an especially meaningful
arrangement or differentiation between these types of prayer.
First let us examine the expression, “We pray in order to meditate.” Many times
as we sit down to meditate and seek attunement of the physical and mental to the spiritual
we find our consciousnesses to be not fully directed, and our minds or bodies not fully
prepared to make that attunement. Several kinds of prayer may enable us to move into the
silence. Certainly prayers of invocation, in which we invite the Spirit or the Christ to be
present, are important. They invite protection as we open ourselves so that the forces that
surround us are those of helpfulness. The invoking of Jesus reflects our understanding
that He will not be the uninvited guest. Yet as we do seek His presence, He is always
responsive to such an invitation.
50
There must be prayers of forgiveness, both of ourselves and of others. Jesus

taught us to say, “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” With each utterance of
this prayer we seem to be asking to be forgiven to the extent that we forgive others. To
live in a state of forgiveness, we must find it in ourselves to invite that spirit of love to
flow through us even in relationship to those who have purposely wronged us. It follows
that only insofar as we forgive others may we live in the spirit of forgiveness and thus, as
it were, receive that spirit of forgiveness from the Divine that is always available to us.
Prayers of joy and praise, thanksgiving and appreciation may open the natural channels
within ourselves through which the spirit of those very attributes may flow through
ourselves and later to others.
Many times when we meditate, we are ineffective in this practice because of the
lack of full preparation in terms of this kind of prayer. It may indeed be said that
preparatory prayers are a vital part of meditation.
Meditation is seeking and permitting the attunement of the physical, mental and
the spiritual bodies with the Source. In meditation we quicken ideals and purposes that
stimulate the spiritual centers and the hierarchical ordering of them in such a way that
they become appropriate channels for the flow of the life force. To the extent that the
attunement is made, there is the relative potential to direct the energy which has been
raised to others for whom we pray.
Now let us examine the expression, “We meditate in order to pray.” This
emphasizes the point that the truly worthy purpose for meditation is the desire to be
helpful to others and to be channels for the expression of love. If the meditation is for
ourselves only, we fail not only to make the full attunement but also adequately to
disseminate and process the energy raised.
How Does Prayer Work?
Once a student came to me in distress. Her mother was in the hospital facing
serious surgery for cancer, and she was anxious about the role she might play. She said
she felt the inclination to pray, but this had not been a part of her life style up to this time.
She didn’t want to be a hypocrite in calling upon this resource only in a time of distress. I
asked, “You believe in mental telepathy, don’t you?” to which she replied, “Yes!” Then I
said, “Then why think, and therefore send, negative and worry thoughts to your mother
when you could send positive and loving thoughts to her?” This consideration illustrates
several points. One is that the instinct to pray is universal and that it does not belong to a
particular sector dogma or only to those who are outwardly religious.
Another principle illustrated in paralleling prayer with telepathy is that all
subconscious minds are in contact with one another. The implication of this is
tremendously far-reaching! With every thought that we think, we are either sending
helpful or harmful energies.
A way of defining man as a spiritual being is by saying that we are focal points in
the consciousness of God through which the One Force may flow and be given
expression. This expression may manifest at several levels – at the physical level in a
loving or helpful act, at the mental level in a constructive thought or prayer, and at the
spiritual level in soul communion. We may also be in touch with others through the
meditation of other spirit entities, such as guides or guardian angels, or through the
ultimate Mediator, the Christ. The principle then is not so much telling or asking God to
51
do something but rather seeking to be of aid as a channel through which the Spirit of Life
may be given expression.
As we continue to try to understand the ways prayer for protection and prayer and
meditation for healing work, let us consider another analogy. Imagine a battery-powered
radio; two types of energy may operate in this instrument. The radio waves impinging on
the antenna seem very weak and may come from a considerable distance. The batteries
within the instrument provide the main source of energy, which is modulated and
patterned by the far weaker energy of the transmitted radio waves. As we send prayerful
thoughts to another, it is not as though these thoughts must carry all of the power that is
needed for the healing. The Spirit will magnify the prayer power to that person.
There is within the individual a pattern for perfect functioning; there is also a
source of energy from the Spirit of Life within. The basic law of spiritual healing is that
all healing comes from the Spirit working within and through the individual. What our
prayers may provide is a more coherent and higher signal. This signal may quicken
within the individual the pattern of the Christ life and the desire to be whole. When this
pattern is quickened by prayer and energized by the Spirit that may flow through the
receiving individual, then the power flowing within is adequate for the healing that may
follow. Thus when someone desires to change and asks for our help, there may be no
more effective way to work than through prayer and meditation.
Let us pursue this analogy a step further for a better understanding of the prayer
of protection. Perhaps you have been in an automobile where the radio could pick up on a
number of stations. However, as you approached the broadcasting tower of a specific
station, it may have drowned out other stations because of the immediacy of the station’s
power. In a similar way our prayers of protection may drown out those influences that
would enter the system from without that are of a less constructive nature.
Now let us imagine that someone we would pray for has an envelope around him.
Prayer directed to him may bring protection by surrounding him with light. Prayer and
meditation for this person – at his specific request – will project energy right through the
envelope into his system. We must not invade that envelope unless the person has asked
us to enter it to help him. This differentiation between prayer for and prayer and
meditation for must be discussed in more detail.
The Edgar Cayce readings differentiate between the two in this manner: In
praying for another, we seek to surround that individual with light and invite the
influences about the individual to relate to him or her in terms of this light. In prayer and
meditation we seek to direct the energy through the individual, as in a prayer for healing.
Some are dismayed upon hearing of this differentiation because they fear that it indicates
that they may not be as effective in prayer as they had sought to be, or that it indicates
that they may not pray for others except by request. Let us stress then clearly that we may
say a prayer of protection for any and everyone, and that there may be great helpfulness
and efficacy in such a prayer. We should not be dismayed by any notions of limitation of
the helpfulness that may follow such prayer.
On the other hand, prayer and meditation (as in the prayer for healing) should
only follow the request of the individual who would seek such healing. For healing, there
must be the oneness of purpose between the person praying and the one for whom the
prayer is being offered. It should be very clear to us all that if a person has a problem
with emphysema as a consequence of a continued habit of smoking, that the prayer for
52
healing of the emphysema without the desire on the part of the smoker to change this
habit would not be in full accord with that which is lawful. To remove symptomatically
the emphysema – which is simply a consequence of the smoking habit – without the
changing of the causal habit would build an increasingly difficult situation for the
individual rather than bring about a true healing. What needs to be changed is the habit;
and this should not be at anyone’s choice other than the individual’s own desire. Our
prayer of protection may indeed help him be less vulnerable to advertisements and the
smoking behavior of others, but the choice to stop must come from within that individual.
Prayers for changes contrary to the individual’s desire may mobilize more of the
spirit of rebellion and a subsequent intention to continue with the smoking habit rather
than the contrary. Here are two analogies of this problem which may be illustrative and
instructive. A mother has a son who goes off to war. She is concerned about two things:
Will he be injured, and Will he behave himself? There is every reason for her to pray a
prayer of protection that he not be injured, and indeed as she sends him light consistently
and persistently, that presence may surround him to help him step aside, so to speak, and
miss a bullet that might otherwise have injured or killed him. However, even though she
is his mother, she has no business requiring him to behave according to her own notions
of proper behavior; and with such a prayer concern she may be trying to get inside of his
being, without his invitation. This is inappropriate. The prayer of protection, in sending
light, will be helpful to his behavior patterns by surrounding him with helpful influences.
However, to seek to have him behave in a way she would require may not only be an
intervention in the will of his soul – which God Himself does not do – but may also be
responded to telepathically with a negative spirit and with rebellion against those very
standards rather than awakening a desire to behave in accord with them.
As another illustration, we may imagine an automobile stalled on the road at
night. No one would complain if you came along and lit flares along the highway so that
no oncoming traffic would bump into the automobile. However, no one would feel that
you should come up behind that car and push it with your own automobile without the
owner’s request. This illustration is very close to the differentiation made in the readings
between the prayer of protection and prayer with meditation for healing. The prayer of
protection, as the flares, calls other forces as a witness of that position. And the light
brings protection against external injurious influences. However, to begin to push the
automobile without the owner’s request might lead to unnecessary injury of the auto’s
mechanism (such as if the gears were in the park position, or if the brakes were on).
Although your desire to push may seem to be helpful, nevertheless the internal
mechanism of the owner’s automobile might be injured in resisting that helpful influence
instead of flowing with it.
This special emphasis on the differentiation between prayers for protection and
those for healing should not detract from the richness of the potentials of the spirit of
prayer. We pray for others in many nuances of spirit – not the least of which are simply
to be thankful for them or to send them our love.
Inner Work to Save the World
As we work with the principle of oneness and understand the requirements of a
wholistic approach, we who would seek to be of aid to others must try to help at all three
levels – physically, mentally and spiritually. However, with our emphasis on application
we may tend to relate the practical only to the physical. This may obscure the fact that
53
prayer for another may be more helpful, more efficacious, more of what is needed and,
therefore, a more applicable and practical expression of our access to the life force than
even a physical act. Of course, our physical actions must bear witness to the spirit we
seek to express in prayer. However, that does not mean that they are necessarily more
helpful or effective expressions.
Even so, sometimes it seems our prayers rise no higher than the ceiling. Why is
this so? Although all subconscious minds are in contact with one another, this fact
indicates neither the extent of the rapport with another individual nor the level of
awareness at which this contact is made. We may be in touch with another through our
anger or resentment. We may be in touch with another through our sexual desires and
fantasies. We may be in touch with another through our worry or fretfulness, or we may
be in touch with another through the pattern within us of divine love. As we select a
pattern of love through which to pray for and relate to another, then the Life Force having
the basic characteristic of love is drawn to that. There is an affinity and thus a greater
enhancement of the projection of the Life Force through a pattern consistent with the
nature of the energy than through other more incoherent or discordant patterns. Being a
channel through which the energy may flow depends upon the extent of the attunement
the individual has made to the Divine within. This, in turn, depends upon the ideals and
purposes of the one seeking to be a channel and upon the consistency and persistency of
the life lived, whether it is in accord with the spirit of the prayers offered.
We cannot give what we do not have; we cannot love and forgive if we are not
manifesting those qualities in our own lives. We cannot awaken in another the spirit of
purity if there has not been purity of expression in our own lives. We cannot quicken the
Christ within another if that pattern of the Christ within ourselves has not been quickened
in our own lives.
If we will set the Christ as the ideal, quicken this pattern within ourselves in our
meditations, and let it be the standard which motivates and by which we measure our
choices and actions, then we may participate in a most glorious work! The Christ pattern
within, when quickened – like a tuning fork sharply struck – may cause quickening
reverberations in all responsive patterns everywhere.
Man may not have the same IDEA. Man - ALL men - may have the same IDEAL!
As the Spirit of God once moved to bring peace and harmony out of chaos, so must
the Spirit move over the earth and magnify itself in the hearts, minds and souls of men to
bring peace, harmony and understanding, that they may dwell together in a way that will
bring that peace, that harmony, that can only come with all having the one Ideal; not the
one idea, but “Thou shalt love the Lord Thy God with all thine heart, thy neighbor AS
thyself!” This [is] the whole law, this [is] the whole answer to the world, to each and every
soul. That is the answer to the world conditions as they exist today.
How shall this be brought about? As [they] each in their own respective sphere put
into action that they know to be the fulfilling of that as has been from the beginning, so does
the little leaven leaven the whole lump.
Man’s answer to everything has been POWER - Power of money, Power of position,
Power of wealth, Power of this, that or the other. This has NEVER been GOD’S way, will
never be God’s way. Rather little by little, line upon line, here a little, there a little, each
thinking rather of the other fellow, as that that has kept the world in the various ways of
being intact - where there were ten, even, many a city, many a nation, has been kept from
destruction. 3976-8
54
The 40-Day Forgiveness Prayer

by J. Everett Irion
Venture Inward, November & December 2007
A man in his mid-50’s who came to

see me during a conference on dream
studies told me his doctors had given him
only six months to live, and that he knew
he was going to hell and there was nothing
that could be done about it. He had been
having a repetitive dream. This was it:
“I am standing alone looking at an
empty house. I walk around the house and
look in the windows. I back away,
wondering why I am here. Hearing a noise
behind me, I turn and find a black lamb. It
says to me, ‘You didn’t eat the bread.’”
The man interpreted his dream,
saying, “I know the white lamb represents
the Christ and the black lamb has to be
Satan, and since I did not eat the bread I
am going to die and go to hell.”
I asked what had happened in that house. He said, “It is the house my wife and I
lived in before I divorced her.” He seemed to want to make amends, so I asked if he
would consider going to his wife and saying simply, “Thank you.” He looked at me
sadly, slowly shook his head and said, “I can’t do that - she is dead.”
Did he believe in reincarnation? I asked. He said he did. So I asked if he believed
his wife still lived and that only her body had died. Again, he said, “Yes, I do.”
So I suggested that he try saying a little prayer to his ex-wife, and then a similar
prayer to himself, leaving God out of the prayer because their problem had been at a
personal level between them and needed to be handled on the same level - they were
jointly responsible for the intimate problems that had divided them. Without knowing
what was in the prayer, he agreed. Let’s say her name was Mary and his was John. I
asked him to say - and to mean it - this simple prayer to his former wife:
“Mary, I am praying to you. Thank you, Mary, for doing to me all that you have
done. Forgive me, Mary, for doing all that I have done to you.”
This idea of thanking her for everything came to me out of the simple concept that
we should be thankful for everything that happens to us. Years ago I had read an article in
the A.R.E. Journal by a man in the diplomatic service who had adopted the practice of
saying, “Thank You, Father,” for everything that happened to him, whether it was painful
or pleasurable. I have often done this in the belief that whatever happens to us is for the
good.
Next, I told the man who wanted to make amends, to say the prayer to himself - to
his inner self, his unconscious - as follows:
55
“John, I am praying to you. Thank you, John, for doing to me all that you have
done. Forgive me, John, for doing all that I have done to you.”
I asked the man to use this two-pronged prayer once a day for a week. As we
talked further, he told me that there were other people he had had problems with. He
wondered whether he could use this prayer to reconcile those relationships. I said he
could use it for anyone he had problems with. He left shortly thereafter; seemingly in
much better spirits.
I heard nothing from him until I received a letter a year later. “I want to thank you
for healing me,” he wrote. “From the moment I left your office, I have had no more pain.
The doctors tell me I am completely healed. I have felt better this past year than ever
before – it has been the best year of my life.”
I had nothing to do with this man being healed, but I’m sure his prayers did. So I
thought others might benefit from using that simple prayer. My decision to offer it to
them grew out of the problems that people brought to me. As people responded, I
somehow connected the prayer to the 40 days Jesus spent in the wilderness, the 40 years
Moses took to reach the Promised Land, and another 40 years wandering around, and
finally, to the 40 days and nights of the flood. I suggested that the prayer be used for 40
days in succession.
During the years since, as many have used this prayer, I’ve learned some do’s and
don’ts for the results to be helpful. They are:
After doing the prayer each day, put it out of mind so that the prayer can do its
work undisturbed by our thoughts, wishes and expectations. The best thing is not to
expect any results.
Don’t tell the person to whom you are praying. Talking about it disturbs the
operation of the unconscious at a very deep level. Keep track of the 40 days on a
calendar. If you forget and miss a day, start at the beginning of the 40-day cycle again.
Remember; Moses made a mistake getting to the Promised Land and had to start all over
again.
In a crisis, the prayer can be used over a shorter period of time. Instead of 40
days, use 40 hours. Instead of 7 days, use 7 hours or 7 minutes, repeating the prayer
accordingly.
If you need help in diverting your attention from the prayer and any thoughts
about results, try saying, “Thank You, Father;” as often as necessary. This can be said
hundreds of times a day if you like.
Some people have to dare themselves to try using this prayer because it says
“thank you” to someone we’ve found difficult, or even thought of as an enemy, and it
asks forgiveness when the person doing the praying may feel he or she is the one who has
been wronged. But many people have reported remarkable results when they dared to try.
One woman emphatically refused to try it when I first suggested it, but a year later
said, “Why did I wait a whole year to try that prayer? As soon as I did the 40 days, my
‘ex’ came to me and asked if we could be just friends. Now we are closer friends than
ever before.”
Another woman, on the second day of using the prayer; had a dream in which she
was riding her bicycle to and fro between the front door and back door inside her house,
and even up and down the stairs, but all the exits were blocked. I suggested that it could
be that she was closed off from doing the work that the prayer was supposed to do, that
56
she was caught inside where she belonged and she should let the prayer do the work and
stop trying to use her own power; as suggested by the bike. She told me later the prayer
had worked.
Another woman who had separated from her husband used the prayer in an effort
to heal the relationship. On the 40th day he showed up and said, “I’ve come to take you
home.”
One woman who used the prayer tells this dramatic story. She had at one point in
her life been romantically involved with a man who was separated but not divorced.
When the man and his wife were subsequently reunited, she broke up with him in anger.
She later married someone else but was unable to get rid of the leftover anger from that
earlier relationship. So she tried the 40-day prayer.
On the 17th day she had a dream that he called her and wanted to meet with her,
and that she drove to a rendezvous in her car and returned in her car.
On the 20th day, he did actually call her and ask to meet her in a restaurant. After
consulting her husband, she met the man and experienced a tremendous catharsis and
sense of closing out of the relationship properly. Afterward she cried, but realized they
were tears of cleansing, not sadness.
She felt as though such a healing had occurred that it wouldn’t be necessary to
continue the prayer for another 20 days, but she did it anyway. In the end she felt that a
permanent healing had taken place.
Another woman used the prayer in an effort to heal her relations with her former
husband after their divorce. Since using the prayer; she has gained greater inner strength
and felt less need of his approval, even while working with him on a project of his and
“getting a lot of help from him.”
“A real healing has taken place,” she said. “I feel that the 40-day prayer probably
was a turning point. I can’t prove it, but it’s something I feel.”
One person said this prayer offers a “good lesson.” It is seldom easy. The lesson
is humility.
I dare you to try it.
57
June 7, 1981: The Miracle Day

by Barbara Cummiskey
Guideposts, April 1985
I still remember the whisperers as I struggled through the halls in high school.
“Look at her stagger!” I’d hear them say, “I’ll bet she’s drunk.” Kids can be cruel. They
didn’t know me. Or know what was really happening to me.
I definitely wasn’t walking a straight line. Occasionally I was even banging into a
locker. But I wasn’t drunk. And I wished I could tell all the gossips how hard I tried to
walk like a normal person; how much I wanted to write a letter without my hand
trembling; how much I wanted to go a whole day without falling down. But I t they
asked me what was wrong, I’d have to tell them I didn’t know. Not even the doctors
knew.
And as time went by it was to get drastically worse. But back then in school I
was making a painful discovery about serious ill that I hadn’t expected: It makes you feel
like an outsider in the human family. The sickness of your physical body can undermine
your feelings of worth and usefulness. So you become sick in spirit, too – at a time when
you most need to feel close to God.
58
How to be spiritually well – how to regain my sense of wholeness and value –

was a search that became as critical to me as finding ways to cope with my deteriorating
health.
In 1965, I’d been a typical, active 15-year-old who loved gymnastics, played the
flute in the high school orchestra, worked at an after-school job and headed the youth
group at my church. My mother said she hadn’t seen me sit still for 10 minutes in three
years.
But then weird things started happening. One day in gym class I couldn’t get my
left hand to grasp the flying rings. That night, I slipped on the stairs at home, and I
slipped again the next day at school. “Just part of growing up,” the doctor said. “Your
symptoms will disappear in time.” But they didn’t.
So I lurched down hallways, every step taking me farther into the unknown. After
a while came double vision, then a brace for a left arm that was turning more and more
into itself. I underwent one test after another, but nothing led to a diagnosis. I started
college but had to drop out; I just wasn’t well enough. More tests. More symptoms.
More problems.
Finally, in 1970, my doctor had some concrete information for me. “We’ve
identified your condition, Barbara,” he said. “You have MS – multiple sclerosis. It
usually doesn’t strike people quite so young as yourself.”
“What do we do now?” I asked.
My doctor shook his head. “I’ll tell you the truth, there’s almost nothing we can
do. This disease is slowly going to short-circuit your central nervous system because it
hardens the tissue around you brain and spine. The wrong messages go to various parts
of your body and they don’t function as they should. The severity varies. We can only
hope your case is a mild one.”
Very soon, the course my MS was taking became clear. Twice, in 1971 and 1972,
my heart and lungs failed and I was rushed to the hospital, near death. Then there was a
period of stability when I neither got better nor very much worse – a common occurrence
in MS. I attended college as a handicapped student and later worked as secretary. But
the virulence of the disease was merely interrupted. I went from a cane to crutches.
Inside my body, vital organs were beginning to fail. A partly paralyzed diaphragm made
breathing difficult and asthma and pneumonia became chronic problems. I needed a
Foley catheter for bladder control and, when I lost bowel function, an ileostomy.
By 1978, I was in a wheelchair - my feet and hands curled and all but useless –
and I required a constant supply of oxygen. That year, I went to the Mayo Clinic, hoping
to discover new techniques to help my labored breathing. There weren’t any. Clinic
doctors didn’t hold out false hope. “Pray, Barbara,” they told me. “Nothing we can do
will stop the deterioration.”
Pray. A cliché? Not to me.
As a child of nine, I’d committed my life to Jesus. Then, as a teenager, I drifted
away from the commitment until one of my doctors and his wife helped bring me close to
God again. This happened when I was 20, around the time my MS was diagnosed. Over
the next few years my church pastor, Meredith Bailie, became a special friend, visiting
me day after day in the hospital and when I was bedridden at home.
It was Pastor Bailie who helped me discover what I needed most: a goal, one even
a disabled person could strive for. And the goal was to grow in faith. It became my
59
“job,” something I could do despite all the pain and loss of bodily capacity, and I worked
at it. Sometimes I failed, gave up, lost God, asked “Why?” Yet always, no matter how
low or sick or abandoned I felt, I’d eventually get little spiritual nudge – a reminder of all
the times I nearly died but didn’t, of all the people in my church and community who
were praying for me.
Now, after the grim visit to Mayo, I felt a new urgency about my connection to
God. The less physical health I had, the more I yearned for spiritual health.
I cried out to God. “Please! Please! I can’t even read Your word anymore. I need
something to do.”
Over and over I pleaded for something to counteract the fact that I could barely
move. I craved activity. Action. I called out to God for it.
His answer came. Not in a flash, not overnight, but through prayer itself: Praying
is action. Pray for others.
How simple. How possible! Until that thought came to me, I had seen prayer as
passive. Now I saw that praying for others could be my gymnastics, my flute playing,
my special activity!
I had prayed for others before, but now it became a compelling need, a vocation.
I spent hours in prayer, and more hours reading the Bible. When friends came over, I
would ask them to read to me or pray with me. I talked to God, often out loud, as if He
were standing right beside me.
My condition continued to worsen. A lung collapsed. Most of the time I could
barely see; technically I was blind. In 1980, I had a tracheostomy – an incision was made
in my windpipe to allow a more direct connection to my oxygen supply. My parents had
made changes in our house to accommodate my needs – ramps for my electric
wheelchair, a hospital bed for me and tubing running through three rooms so I could hook
up to my oxygen concentrator in different locations. Everyone knew I was dying. My
doctors confirmed it. My mother and father and I began counseling with the Hospice
Volunteers of Du Page County, a group that provides therapy for terminally ill patients
and their families.
Then came June 7, 1981.
It was a Sunday, my sister Jan’s 29th birthday. She was coming over to celebrate
and I looked forward to giving my mother at least some token help with making the cake.
I remember thinking what a bright, clear birthday it was when my mother came into my
room. “Ready to give the cake batter a few licks?” she asked. I nodded. With my
mother helping, I began the struggle to hitch myself out of bed and into my wheelchair;
my legs had begun drawing into a fetal position and it was impossible for me to put my
feet flat on the floor. We transferred tubing on my tracheostomy to the oxygen supply
mounted on my wheelchair, gathered my various receptacles around me and then I used
my forearm to push down the starter lever on my wheelchair.
In the kitchen, I managed to stir the cake batter a couple of times despite the fact
that my hands had turned inward to the point where my fingers almost touched my wrists.
By now, even that small effort was enough to exhaust me and I asked my mother to help
me get back into bed. She did, and went back to finish the cake for Jan’s birthday.
After a while, my Aunt Ruthie came to my room to read letters and cards from
people who listened to a Chicago radio station, WMBI. A program called Cup of Cold
Water had featured me as an invalid needing cheer. Most of the well-wishers mentioned
60
that they were praying for me. My aunt left to help my mother and, shortly after noon,
two friends, Joyce Jugan and Angela Crawford, popped in after the morning worship
service at my church. Then, as the three of us visited, I heard a fourth voice. A firm,
audible voice over my left shoulder.
“My child, get up and walk!” Startled, I looked at my friends. I could see that
they had not heard the voice. But I was certain that I had heard it.
“Joyce! Angela!” I blurted, “God just spoke to me. He said to get up and walk. I
heard Him.”
The two women stared at me. “I know, I know, it’s weird,” I said. “But God
really did speak to me. Please, run and get my family. I want them!”
They flew out to the hallway, called my sisters and parents and rushed back into
the room. I couldn’t wait any longer. I took the oxygen tube from my throat, removed
the brace from my arm and actually jumped out of bed. And there I stood, on two legs
that hadn’t held the weight of my body in over five years.
This wasn’t possible, of course – there were 1,001 medical reasons why this
couldn’t be happening. Yet there I stood, firmly, solidly, feeling tingly all over, as if I
had just stepped from an invigorating shower. I could breathe freely. And I could see – I
could see me. A whole, healthy me. My hands were normal, not curled to my wrists.
The muscles in my arms and legs were filled out and whole. My feet were flat to the
ground, like a dancer’s. And oh, the step I danced as I headed toward the doorway. I met
my mother in the hallway. She stopped short and then she lifted the hem of my
nightgown. Here eyes widened, her arms flung wide. “Barbara,” she cried. “You have
calves again!”
Dad was on the wheelchair ramp to the family room. Speechless, he wrapped me
in his arms and waltzed me around and around. Then everyone – my parents, Aunt
Ruthie, Jan, my teenage sister Amy – applauded wildly while I tried some ballet steps I
hadn’t done in 16 years. Next I walked to the couch, sat down – and stood up again.
Down. Up. Down up. Six times in a row.
Angela Crawford, an occupational therapist, hardly knew what she was saying:
“B-but, Barb, you can’t….” She took my pulse and exclaimed, “Barb, you’ve just
wrecked everything I learned in school! You’re absolutely normal; it’s really a miracle!”
We all started praising God right there. Then quickly I was going outside. Since
my clothing was stored at my sister Jan’s house, I went out into the front yard in my robe,
reveling in the fresh green lawn under my bare feet, the warm sun on my cheek, the good,
sweet air that filled my lungs. I could not believe the beauty of the spring flowers. I held
them to my face and worshiped God.
Everyone promised to keep the incredible news a secret, and we made plans to
slip into the evening service at church that night, after Jan’s birthday dinner. It had been
perhaps three years since I’d attended church. Pastor Bailie had visited me a week
before, and, I learned later, was convinced he would never again see me alive.
When I walked up the stairs to the Wheaton Wesleyan sanctuary that night, Pastor
Bailie was asking the congregation if anyone had any announcements to make. Then he
saw me walking down the aisle and fell against the pulpit, stunned. “This is nice, this is
very nice,” he kept repeating. When he composed himself, he invited me up to share the
good news.
61
Next day I phoned my doctor’s office. His nurse was puzzled. “You say this is
Barbara Cummiskey? But – “ When I walked into Dr. Thomas Marshall’s office later
that day, he stared as if he were seeing an apparition. He had never seen me up and
walking and dressed.
For the next three hours, with other doctors invited in, Dr. Marshall put me
through a series of tests and X-rayed my lungs. The film showed normal lungs; before,
one lung was collapsed and the other was functioning at only 50 percent of its capacity.
Finally, Dr. Marshall shook his head in amazement. He found no signs of MS.
He removed the tube in my neck, took out the catheter, and told me to forget my
medications.
One of my surgeons, Dr. Harold Adolph, summed up my case in a written report:
“At the present time, the patient has no findings of multiple sclerosis, walks normally,
speaks normally, and is very happy, as is her family, over the obvious answer to prayer
and the good hand of God in her life.”
I don’t know why God healed me. I don’t believe I “earned” or “deserved” a
healing any more than I “deserved” MS. I only know that on the morning of June 7,
1981, I felt good about myself – mentally, emotionally and spiritually well. Through my
prayer life, I was a busy, active member of the human family – not running or jumping or
even walking like most people, but not separated from them by bitterness, self-pity or
despair. My mind and spirit were healthy and whole.
And then God made my body whole, too.
62
Prayer
Prayer and healing have been evidenced throughout the centuries as having a cause-
and-effect relationship. You may have read about Collipp’s work as chief of pediatrics at
Nassau County Medical Center in New York. He has shown experimentally that one
group of 10 leukemia patients who were prayed for during a 15-month period showed a
survival rate of 70% while a group of eight controls managed only a 25% rate over the
same period of time. In the practice of medicine, one occasionally comes across
individual case studies that give the same message, often with more dramatic impact than
can be accomplished by statistics. We had one such case recently, not with leukemia or
cancer, but with an obstetric patient.
This young lady had consulted a psychic during her pregnancy and had been told that
her baby was going to have great difficulty during the first few minutes of life outside the
uterus, perhaps not even surviving. That such advice was given was unfortunate, whether
it be true or completely unfounded. It certainly is not consistent with the type of
information given in the Cayce readings. Perhaps this was the cause of the girl’s slow
entry into labor. She had early pains during the late evening, then went out of labor until
next morning. Then she was having contractions every four or five minutes, but there
was no progress. The contractions slowed down again, and consultation was requested
by the physician in charge. Several Study Groups were notified and asked to put the
patient on their healing prayer list. One such group held a special healing prayer and
meditation for her at 8:00 p.m. that evening. The consultant, who was mentally prepared
to induce labor at this point, walked into the labor room of the hospital at 8:15 p.m. The
nurses told him that the patient had just had two one-minute contractions and was
apparently in active labor. She went ahead and delivered in two hours without further
assistance. The baby was a beautiful child. There was no problem, either immediately
postpartum or in the ensuing months. Cayce had something specific to say about how
healing can come when a group gathers together like this to bring healing - or in the event
of a single person doing the same thing:
. . . the body-physical is an atomic structure…. If in the atomic forces there
becomes an overbalancing, an injury, a happening, an accident, there are certain
atomic forces destroyed or others increased…. When a body . . . has so attuned
or raised its own vibrations sufficiently, it may - by the motion of the spoken word
- awaken the activity of the emotions to such an extent as to revivify, resuscitate
or to change the rotary force or influence or the atomic forces in the activity of the
structural portion, or the vitale forces of a body, in such a way and manner as to
set it again in motion. Thus does spiritual or psychic influence . . . bring
healing…. (281-24)
[Note: The preceding report was provided by William McGarey, M. D. and is excerpted from The
A.R.E. Journal, September, 1974, Volume 9, No. 5, page 220, Copyright © 1974 by the Edgar
Cayce Foundation, Virginia Beach, VA.]
63
Comments by Members
on the File
“Prayer”
“I knew Edgar Cayce before I knew Jesus. But thanks to the readings, when my tap on
the shoulder came, I was ready to accept Him as a friend as well as Lord – we had
common interests by then.
“Since then, the readings have pointed more and more to Christ and have been a great
help in my prayer life. A Closer Walk is a beautiful compilation of Cayce readings on
Jesus and John 14-17. I am thankful that someone such as Cayce made it possible.
“I John 4:2 claims that ‘every spirit which confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the
flesh is of God.’ Cayce said (268-82), ‘When the earth came to be the dwelling place of
sin, there came the Son – that the earth and all therein might see, might know, might
experience that the Son, the love of the Father, the glory of the Son might be manifested
in flesh.’
“This to me, is the beauty of having the readings available (particularly on subjects such
as prayer, meditation and so forth); they point out the reality of what God has in store for
us. The knowledge that in fact, ‘God walks and talks with those that keep His ways,’
(609-1) is a reminder to me through Cayce that we ‘are all sons of light and sons of the
day; we are not of the night or of darkness.’ (I Thessalonians 5:5)
“In my view, that is more than enough justification.” E.G.
64

Prayer EC

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Prayer EC

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Circulating File

Edgar Cayce Readings Copyrighted by

These readings or parts thereof may not be reproduced

C. All Prayer Is Answered 16

A Summary of the Circulating File on

We may be grateful as we study the readings that we are recipients of much

The Circulating File on Prayer is a collection of excerpts from numerous readings

As frequently occurs in the readings, a Biblical reference or parable is used as

Prayer is the concerted effort of the physical consciousness to become attuned

There is an acceptance of the fact of open communication between those alive in

Q. Please give a prayer for those who have passed on.

Group prayer is usually understood as growing from the directive as is found in

Prayer and Meditation

3416-1, Female 39 (housewife), 11/23/43

(Q) How may I best develop myself spiritually?

2739-2, Male 33 (M.D., Hebrew), 12/30/26

(Q) How may he gain the right spiritual attitude?

3250-1, Female 55, 9/29/43

(Q) What will help me most in coming to right decisions as to my life?

THAT is practical direction.

1158-14, Female 45 (Housewife, Protestant), 11/28/37

281-13, Prayer Group Series, 11/19/32

Be thou CLEAN, in Him.

1861-19, Male 38, 8/22/44

(Q) Why is 2 A.M. the best time to meditate?

The Prayerful Attitude

2142-1, Male 38 (Furniture Business, Protestant), 1/5/32

1125-3, Female 61 (Osteopath, Protestant), 9/27/41

1173-10, Male 29, 8/13/37

1472-19, Female 59 (Writer, Radio Broadcaster, Protestant), 4/14/40

1304-1, Male, Adult, 12/12/36

319-4, Female 60 (Secretary to School Board, Protestant), 10/5/40

1742-4, Female 48, 10/23/31

1435-1, Female 43 (Housewife, Gentile, Religious Preference not listed), 8/29/37

All Prayer is Answered

1301-1, Female 40 (Metaphysician, Christian Background) 12/1/36

1842-1, Male 32 (Clergyman, Protestant), 3/14/39

4028-1, Female 42 (Public Accountant), 4/7/44

3569-1, Male 20 months, 1/16/44

281-61, Prayer Group Series (personal message to [241]), 5/13/42

1151-14, Male 49 (Labor-Management Mediator, Protestant), 4/24/38

731-1, Male 7, 11/15/34

1844-3, Male 22, 4/30/41

5368-1, Male 29 (Salesman), 7/20/44

1789-2, Female 32, 3/10/39

805-4, Female 53 (Realtor, Protestant, Christian Scientist), 10/22/35

696-3, Female 38 (Writer, Protestant Background), 1/28/35

3509-1, Male 29 (Secretary), 12/14/43

5343-1, Female 27, 7/13/44

5346-1, Male 53, 7/15/44

1428-1, Male 30 (Meteorologist, Protestant), 9/2/37

1523-12, Female 32 (Housewife, Protestant), 3/17/41

585-7, Female 45, 3/1/41

(Q) Any further advice?

1967-1, Male 24, 7/25/39

899-1, Female 72, 4/20/35

612-1, Female 7 (Hebrew), 7/22/34

1394-1, Male Child, 7/3/37

323-1, Male Adult (Hebrew), 4/27/33

552-1, Female 15, 5/16/34

(Q) Any further advice for those in charge of the body?

282-8, Male 32, 7/6/38

1789-1, Female 32, 1/13/39

5485-1, Female 9, 6/5/29