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Gladys Davis, Hugh Lynn Cayce (right) and Harmon Hartzell Bro were among the members of this A Search for God study group meeting at A.R.E. Headquarters at Lake Holly in 1950.  This photo is from Edgar Cayce's Photographic Legacy (1978) compiled by David M. Leary. Some of Edgar Cayce's psychic (channeled) readings diagnosed and prescribed for people's physical ailments and disturbances.  These were described by Thomas Sugrue in There Is A River (1942) as presenting "cases, hundreds and hundreds of them, wherein the treatments have been faithfully followed, and the predicted results have been achieved." When information that was sought wasn't successfully forthcoming (such as locations for lost treasure or oil wells), Cayce and his associates were baffled.  These circumstances are chronicled in the book The Outer Limits of Edgar Cayce's Power (1971) by Edgar's sons Edgar Evans Cayce and Hugh Lynn Cayce.  One chapter, "Readings for...

This is the third of the following five instalments, which are a slightly modified reproduction of an interview in which I answered seven questions asked by the editor of the online Non-Duality Magazine for their current issue entitled The Celibacy Question : Self-investigation and sexual restraint Ātma-vicāra is the only means by which we can experience ourself as we really are No differences exist in the non-dual view of Sri Ramana Ahiṁsā and sexual morality Ātma-vicāra and nirvikalpa samādhi Question 3: Papaji said that none of his Western students were enlightened, that obviously would have included all the well known western teachers out there today who claim they belong to his lineage. He said that no one was holy enough to receive what he knew. He said that he gave them spiritual lollipops and hinted they were enlightened to get the ‘leeches’ off his back. These are direct quotes of Papaji himself in the book ‘Nothing Ever Happened’. Do you know if Sri Ramana ever gave Papj...

The meta-analysis by Chowdhury et al. raised quite a furor from certain segments of researchers and the popular media.  I find this reaction interesting.  I usually write about obesity, which is a topic of great interest to people, but my post about the review paper received more than twice my usual traffic.  People whose findings or opinions are questioned by the paper are aggressively denouncing it in the media, even calling for retraction ( 1 ).  This resembles what happens every time a high-profile review paper is published that doesn't support the conventional stance on fatty acids and health (e.g., Siri-Tarino et al. [ 2 ], which despite much gnashing of teeth is still standing*).  I'm not sure why this issue in particular arouses such excitement, but I find it amusing and disturbing at the same time.  This kind of reaction would be totally out of place in most other fields of science, where aggressive public media outbursts by researchers are usually frowned upon. As it ...

Chris Kresser has been a major figure in the ancestral health community for some time now.  It's funny to recall that I was actually one of his first readers, back in the early days of his blog when it was called The Healthy Skeptic and the audience was small.  Chris's readership rapidly eclipsed mine, and now he's in high demand for his ability to convey ideas clearly and offer practical solutions to important health concerns. He recently published a book titled Your Personal Paleo Code , which also happens to be a New York Times bestseller.  The primary goal of the book is to help you develop a diet and lifestyle that support health and well-being by starting from a generally healthy template and personalizing it to your needs.  Let's have a look. Introduction Kresser opens with the poignant story of his own health problems, which began with an infectious illness in Indonesia and several courses of antibiotic therapy.  After years of struggling with the resulting s...

This is the second of the following five instalments, which are a slightly modified reproduction of an interview in which I answered seven questions asked by the editor of the online Non-Duality Magazine for their current issue entitled The Celibacy Question : Self-investigation and sexual restraint Ātma-vicāra is the only means by which we can experience ourself as we really are No differences exist in the non-dual view of Sri Ramana Ahiṁsā and sexual morality Ātma-vicāra and nirvikalpa samādhi Question 2: Some say that Sri Ramana told his followers that “only a very, very minuscule fraction of seekers are ‘ready’ to become fully enlightened through self-inquiry. He insisted that such a person would’ve had to have worked through many, many lifetimes of earnest, rigorous and skilful spiritual practice in order to be primed for this technique.” Do you know if he had any other teachings designed for those who were not primed or ready for this, other than his atma vichara method? Mic...

A new review paper on dietary fatty acids and heart disease risk was just published by Dr. Rajiv Chowdhury and colleagues in the Annals of Internal Medicine-- one of the top medical journals ( 1 ).  The goal of the paper is to comprehensively review the studies evaluating the effect of dietary fatty acids on heart (coronary) disease.  The review covers observational and intervention studies pertaining to saturated, monounsaturated,  trans , omega-6 polyunsaturated, and omega-3 polyunsaturated fats.  The paper is notable for its comprehensiveness (inclusion criteria were very lax). Here is a summary of the results: In observational studies that measured diet, only trans fat was related to cardiovascular risk.  Saturated, monounsaturated, and polyunsaturated fats were unrelated to risk. In observational studies that measured circulating concentrations of fatty acids, long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (DHA, DPA, EPA, AA) were associated with lower risk.  The dairy-fat-derived margar...

Edgar Cayce (1877-1945) became known as an American mystic and "psychic diagnostician" healer following hypnotic sessions where he would go into a trance and his body would be used as a channel.   The communicating Intelligence would speak in plurality, usually beginning a 'reading' with a statement such as "We have the body . . ." and finishing upon saying "We are through for the present."  I first learned about Cayce through reading Jess Stearn's biographies Edgar Cayce — The Sleeping Prophet (1967) and A Prophet in His Own Country — The Story of the Young Edgar Cayce (1974).  The first biography to be written about Cayce is There Is a River: The Story of Edgar Cayce (1943) by Thomas Sugrue, whose book heightened public understanding about Cayce during the final years of his life.  Sidney Kirkpatrick's Edgar Cayce: An American Prophet was published in 2000. Since 2005, I've occasionally studied portions of the extant 14,306 Cayce...