by Lorrie Kazan
(Note: currently featured in November 2009 Intuitive-Connections)
Do you ever feel so worn out you can’t see straight? Or, like me, do you find it jarring to shift from an intuitive focus to a more structured analytical one?
My psychic development students quickly complain of fatigue when we’re doing perception exercises. Such psychic luminaries as Edgar Cayce suffered from and gave readings on this problem as well.
We can learn from what Cayce said about this subject as well as by observing how it affected his life.
Once when Cayce was asked too many questions, he abruptly ended the reading. As the suggestion to awaken was given, his body spontaneously almost somersaulted, his head nearly touching his feet. His body held this position until the waking suggestion was completed.
A second reading was sought in response to this. In trance, Cayce said that irrelevant questions caused an antagonism that “made for a contraction of those channels through which the activity of psychic forces operates in the material body.”
Irrelevant questions? I have heard many readers mention that the most difficult readings were those in which the client demanded answers to what felt like the “wrong” questions.
Sometimes “wrong questions” result from an insistence on fortune telling, (example: but what time and what date will I meet my soul mate? Exactly how long will I work at this job?) when the information that wants to come through is about deeper soul development. From the reader’s standpoint, use of the “higher information” will lead to the kind of life the questioner’s really seeking.
I find that when a client dismisses this higher information, it’s difficult to allow the reading to unfold. If the querent’s mind is closed, the information has nowhere to go.
You can compare it to a situation in which you were pouring your deepest thoughts out to a friend who was ignoring you, looking out the window, or waiting to say the next thing he or she was thinking about. You’re not being received and there’s no bounce in that conversation.
People forget that Cayce gave a great deal of guidance about soul development. He even cautioned people to be “long suffering,” something we’d be unlikely to recommend today.
Cayce said there is a natural reaction of sudden contraction when changing quickly from the mental-spiritual to the material. “…there is the touching — with the mental beings of those present in the room or at such manifestations–of the most delicate mechanism that may be imagined.” (Italics are mine.)
While few psychics function at the level of Edgar Cayce, we can use his process and wisdom as a guide. Thus, psychic readers would be wise to understand, or at least respect, the profound nature of the process and what it might require of the body.
Many psychics I know are diligent about supplementing their diets with B-vitamins and potassium, which we’ve often heard are depleted during readings. A psychic healer once advised me to keep a pot of curry simmering on the stove, in order to cut through and clear out any lingering energies or entities clients might leave behind.
I recently had the experience of feeling that someone was “pulling the psychic right out of me.” She was trying to control the reading, the way I worked, how the information would be transmitted, and no matter what answer she was given, she claimed it was the wrong one, or simply not the psychic one she was looking for.
I could feel her energetically creeping into my energy field trying to direct me. I found myself becoming very irritated and irritable. Something felt wrong. When I summed up and suggested we stop the reading without charging her, she said, “Oh, you were just giving me the kind of reading I wanted. I wanted you to be blunt.”
So, I continued with the reading, even gave her extra time. What I later realized is that once I’m in that trance state, it’s in some way so remote from my physical body that I almost can’t stop.
I was being given warnings, irritability, for instance, which is a way of behaving that is not natural for me, especially in readings.
(This is why I offer my clients the first five minutes to decide whether or not they like the reading and wish to continue. It’s as if some part of me isn’t mine anymore and it’s gone off into the other person’s life and will simply keep going!)
Once while Cayce was in a trance, someone reached across him to pass a sheet of paper to his son. Cayce lapsed into a cataleptic state for the next several hours. Finally he awakened with shocking force; and was described as jackknifing himself to a standing position at the foot of the couch.
To me, this explains my sense of being out somewhere (almost another dimension) that is not about myself but seeking information. It feels intense, suspended in time, otherworldly and profound.
Yet, it doesn’t necessarily bring information the way my conscious mind might want it. There are readers, such as the late psychic detective Bevy Jaegers, who claimed to read from a more analytic base. I believe she even eschewed meditation as being superfluous to her process. As a former reporter, her focus was on who, what, when, where and why. And she described the Chowchilla killer simply by holding a rock from the disaster.
Interestingly, she died suddenly of a heart attack. I was writing a summary of her book for an online magazine at the time. During that writing I had begun having such intense unexplained heart pains that I thought I might be dying, and was going to seek medical advice if there wasn’t relief soon. Then I heard about her sudden death.
So, when people say they didn’t know if she had warnings before the attack, just going by what I thought was happening to me, I’d have to say yes, there were warnings.
Cayce’s readings were filled with spiritual information. He emphasized that psyche means of thesoul. In fact, Cayce said, if you want to be more psychic then become more spiritual and you’ll have the psychic as an off-shoot.
It was clear to those in Edgar Cayce’s inner circle that his psychic abilities were often aided or impeded by his mental and physical health. For instance, there were times when he went into a hypnotic trance but no reading came. This problem was often attributed to worry, his primary worry being financial.
Cayce’s longtime secretary, Gladys Davis, affirmed that he required a prayerful consciousness in those surrounding him during readings. Without it, she said, he sometimes was not able to access information.
Further, there were also times when he did not readily wake from his trance. This was more likely to happen at earlier points in his career when the conductors of the readings did not always have his best interests in mind. (This is why he later switched to trusted family members, such as his wife, Gertrude.)
When someone compromised his boundaries, slipping in questions for their money-making schemes, Cayce would awaken with excruciating headaches or other physical ailments. Even Cayce himself was never really able to use his gifts to make himself rich.
Some of what we can learn from Cayce is to respect the process. It requires physical, mental and spiritual energy, perhaps in far greater ways than we’ve perceived.
In one reading, Cayce said: “Know, all that draw near, what they are dealing with: that the soul is very near at all times to being away from the body, seeking. Hence, the care, the caution, that should be taken by those that feel they have any interest in the body, life or in the greater life of the entity in its seeking and its desire to serve.” (Italics are mine)
As readers then, we need to release self-doubt (or low self-esteem) that can blind us to the real power of the process we’ve stepped into. “Seek and ye shall find.” All questions are answered but not necessarily within our own time frames or our pre-conceived ways.
We are in rapport on many levels: with our clients, their desires, sometimes demands, our desires for them, our desires for ourselves and with the universal mind, or what the I-Ching refers to as the Creative.
You could see how prolonged strolls through this territory might take a toll. Cayce, himself, was cautioned not to give more than two readings per day. He was also to take time daily for fishing at the lake, cut down on cigarettes, eat an alkaline diet, and deal with his anger.
Did he listen to his own advice? Sometimes. Many people feel that what killed him was not heeding the advice. It was war time and the bags of mail were pouring in, families seeking information about their loved ones.
Cayce was now often giving 8 readings in a day. He knew it was wrong for his health but he couldn’t ignore those plaintive voices that seemed to issue from the mail. He didn’t put his health first and he paid for that. His weight dropped to 98 pounds. He suffered a stroke.
There’s a delicacy that requires nurturing. So how do we nurture the psychic within us?
What defines nurturing in an age when, for many, instant gratification isn’t even fast enough? First we attribute value to it. Notice how you treat what you value. Are you harsh or abusive with it?
I heard a self-proclaimed shopaholic complain about paying for a psychic reading while alternately running up her credit cards for clothes she knew she didn’t need but hoped would impress people.
Conversely, after writing this I realized that I tend to approve expenditures that improve my insides but be far more reticent to outlay the same cash for outer things. Ultimately, outer affects inner and inner certainly affects outer … taking us back to the idea of balance and all is one.
We may think no one sees our insides, but when you check in with a psychic, I urge you to think again. The inner work you do makes a difference; it can cut the psychic’s job in half.
You’ll be far more likely to grasp and act on ideas that would have to be infinitely explained to someone else. You will raise your vibration. You won’t need to repeat so many mistakes in order to find clarity. And you’ll have more space in which to create and more easily attract what you truly desire.
Edgar Cayce encouraged us to pray, meditate and lead a life of service. He believed this was the most efficient way to live because when we die, it’s the soul that becomes the primary consciousness. And it’s this soul consciousness that will travel with us into each succeeding life. In fact, he felt that his psychic abilities had been honed in several lifetimes.
In one past life, he only now recognized that his psychic abilities were developed during a time of intense physical suffering. What we develop within ourselves is carried forward by the soul and we continue to reap the harvest we’ve sown.
So, if you find yourself feeling tired for no particular reason, why not consider it as your intuition telling you to take a break? Imagine, if only Edgar Cayce had catered to this sensitive disposition, not only would he have gained but the world would also have benefited as well.
There’ll be plenty of time later to continue work. And you may find that during a rest period, you’ll be rewarded with an unexpected inspiration. You deserve it!
Lorrie Kazan
www.ilovemypsychic.com
