Edgar Cayce’s psychic health Readings used the technology available from 1901-1945 to help people improve their health.
One consistent recommendation in the Cayce Readings is the importance of light. Years ago I found a Cayce reading that talked about how humans need both the “infra red” and “ultra violet” light. At the time I was most interested in red light therapy, and didn’t fully appreciate how Cayce’s Readings also used electrically-produced ultraviolet light to promote health.
Sunlight is an accessible light therapy for most people in the spring and summer. In addition to recommending spending time in the sun, Cayce also recommended electric lights for concentrated red/infrared, green or ultraviolet light. The light recommended depended on the needs of the individual who received the reading.
The benefits of light are about more than how our bodies produce Vitamin D from ultraviolet light, or how our metabolism is refreshed with red light. For people who live in places and seasons where sunlight does not provide an adequate amount of light, supplemental light can make a dramatic improvement in people’s health.
While the use of supplemental light in the darker areas of the world to treat “seasonal affective disorder” is becoming more widespread, implementation of supplemental ultraviolet light is still mostly relegated to high-intensity tanning.
A gentle source of ultaviolet light is more compatible with the recommendations for electric light in Edgar Cayce’s health readings.
3 kinds of ultraviolet light
Science classifies ultraviolet light into three regions: Ultraviolet-C (100–280nm), Ultraviolet-B (280–315nm) and Ultraviolet-A (315–400nm).
UV-A is basically the spectrum put out by a violet “blacklight” bulb. The glow created by a blacklight bulb (emitting mostly Violet and UV-A light), as demonstrated by tonic water (with quinine), scorpions, and other items is caused by phosphors absorbing UV-A photons. Some of the energy of these absorbed photons is lost and the photons are quickly re-emitted as visible light.
UV-A photons influence our circadian rythms, and cause our skin to tan. Tans produced by UV-A photons are not very durable.
UV-B photons have slightly more energy than UV-A photons. UV-B is the light that our bodies store as Vitamin-D. Tanning beds use electrically-produced UV-B rays to help the skin produce a durable tan.
UV-C are high-energy photons that are filtered out by Earth’s atmosphere. Artificial UV-C lights are used in light-based sanitizers, or to induce DNA damage in laboratory animals.
Cayce’s use of Electric Light Therapy
Cayce’s terms for the electrotherapy lights and machines are a bit confusing to people who think in terms of modern light technology.
The electrotherapy lights recommended by Cayce were called the “infra red ray”, the “ultra violet ray”, and the “Violet Ray”.
The Violet Ray is a Tesla coil with a glass tube that produces an electrostatic charge. The tubes produce a gentle violet light. Inexpensive knock-off violet rays are available on Amazon or Alibaba for much less than the version sold by the ARE’s “official supplier”. Our knock-off violet ray didn’t last very long before it became e-waste.
The Infra Red Ray is certainly the 1930’s version of a modern heat lamp bulb. There are two colors of heat lamps in the modern animal supply store: ‘red’ and ‘clear’. You’d need to use the clear bulb to get the benefits of green light. Red heat bulbs are better for use at night.
Most of the light output of a heat lamp is as infrared and red light, but these bulbs also produce all the other colors too. Because they’re made with glass and tungsten filaments, incandescent heat lamp bulbs are not meaningful sources of ultraviolet light.
The Mercury Quartz lamp is a high intensity light source that emits UV-B light.
Regular glass blocks most UV-B. Quartz is a crystal glass that permits the passage of UV-B photons. People who keep reptiles as pets have to include a source of ultraviolet light in their reptile’s habitat. Modern mercury-quartz basking bulbs (sold at reptile supply stores) are a source of both infrared light (heat) and ultraviolet light. These bulbs are certainly the modern equivalent to the mercury-quartz lamp recommended in the Cayce readings.
Other UV-B lights (using fluorescent bulbs or UV-producing LED chips) sold for reptiles could, theoretically, be combined with a heat lamp bulb or a halogen bulb to supply infrared light to create a balanced light source for humans.
Halogen bulbs are similar to tungesten bulbs. They’re hotter and do emit some ultraviolet light. These bulbs have a quartz envelope, but commonly use another layer of glass to adsorb the UV-A and UV-B photons. Some versions of halogen bulbs are designed for UV-B emission, but these are expensive specialty bulbs.
Using Green Glass to produce Green Light
Sometimes the readings counseled using a plate of green glass between the bulb and the “Ultra Violet” or “Infra Red” rays.
Cayce sometimes instructed using a thick plate of green glass between the bulb and the Infra Red Ray or the Ultra Violet Ray. Both of these light sources produce a full-spectrum of colors. If a person didn’t need ultraviolet light or red/infrared light, they could still benefit from their electric light source by blocking the ultraviolet light with green glass. Here are quotes from two such readings:
TEXT OF READING 757-1 F 44
15. When the ultra-violet is given, this should be at least eighteen to thirty-eight inches from the body, dependent upon the power of the machine used, and it should not be given for a longer period (after it is well heated and in its full force) than three to five minutes.
16. At least once a week (but not on the same days the ultra-violet is given) we would apply the Infra-Red ray, but when used screen the ray with the quarter inch crystal of the GREEN glass, so that the rays that penetrate to the structural portions (from which the bone structure produce cells that act in the capacity of the corpuscles themselves) are penetrated with the vibration from the GREEN rather than the red. This should be given for twenty to thirty minutes, at least forty inches from the body.
Another reading recommending green glass with the mercury-quartz lamp:
TEXT OF READING 257-236 M 48
19. (Q) Should I take the Mercury-Quartz Lamp I have at home with me and use it in Arthurdale?
(A) If the residence there is of sufficient period to demand this, but do not use it without a green glass.20. (Q) What does the green glass really do?
(A) Breaks up the rays and rather than being of destructive natures, as it is in the destroying of tissue, it enlivens the good tissue and destroys the bad.
There are some recent studies about using green light (produced by green LEDs) to treat chronic migraines and other health conditions.
I also noticed a reference in the Readings to carbon arc lighting, which is a full spectrum ‘artificial sun’. This is a high maintenance lighting system that doesn’t last very long. Carbon arc lights were commonly used for filming and projectors, before more efficient technologies (xenon arc, etc) replaced this light source.
Seasonality of the need for supplemental light
As I write this post, those of us in the northern hemisphere are about a third of the way through fall, and are rapidly approaching winter.
People who live north of the 37th Parallel North don’t have any UV light in the winter. This is the northern border of Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and Oklahoma:
Almost all of the land in the southern hemisphere is in areas with adequate UV light from the sun (that is, most of the land mass in the southern hemisphere is north of the 37th parallel south). The only areas where people live where they can’t get enough UV light in winter are the far southern portions of Chile and Argentina, a small part of Southern Australia, and a small part of Southern New Zealand.
People who live in or north of Virginia, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, Utah, northern California, Europeans, Russians, the northern third of China, and the northern half of Japan need to supplement UV light in the winter. The U.S. EPA has a web page that will tell you about your area’s current UV index.
A gentle UV source like a reptile UV light would probably be much better for winter health support than intense UV lights like those used in tanning beds. While tanning beds can be useful, these are at least ten times more powerful than the lights that were available to the recipients of Cayce’s Readings.
If you’re going to use supplemental light it’s probably better to do so in the morning, to be compatible with our circadian rhythms.
Something else that’s come up in my recent readings is that many of these UV light sources wear out rather quickly. Tanning bed companies replace their beds’ lights all the time, even though they’re still emitting visible light, because the UV emitted by fluorescent lights dramatically decreases over time. Mercury-quartz reptile bulbs are supposed to be replaced every 6-12 months. I assume a basking bulb that is only used for 20-30 minutes a day would last much longer. There are tools to measure the light output – maybe your local reptile store has this meter.
-James
Visit my little Edgar Cayce Web Store