THE BODY'S BATTERY
Edgar Cayce discussed the body's battery in numerous
readings, most often for individuals experiencing low energy. These
readings were typically given for persons suffering from "general debilitation"
or neurasthenia (nerve exhaustion).
The following excerpts document several readings
that follow this pattern. Note the frequent descriptions of nerve problems
and depletion of the vital organs (heart, lungs, liver, and kidneys).
In particular, the liver the kidneys, which were said to be the positive
and negative poles of the body's battery, were cited as dysfunctional.
5707-1
The body itself, the whole body, is not in as good
condition to rebuild as we have had before, because we find the carbon
of the body, or the storage battery of the body, which we have of course
in the nerve tissue in the gray and white matter, is below par and below
normal, hence, the body is in a good deal worse condition than we have
had.
You will have to get more life into the body to
retain the life that we have, because it is just wearing itself out.
We have too, the broken down nervous system, or
the lack of confidence in self, which will have to be changed, through
the nervous system.
307-17
Then, the basic disturbances are from the slowing
of the activity of the organs of the body, especially as related to the
assimilation and digestion, and the distribution of that assimilated, as
well as the eliminations of the poisons or used energies of the body.
Thus, as the body has been warned concerning overtaxing,
there is a using up of the energies, with a continuing, through the general
reaction, to slow up the activities of digestion and assimilation; thus
hindering the system from gaining a normal balance throughout.
These as we find are produced from the lack of an
even balance in the gastric flows from liver, pancreas and duodenum, and
the whole of the DIGESTIVE organism.
Then there is caused quite a variation in the conditions,
and producing conditions which make it easy for the body to become overacid;
thus tiring out, slowing up, causing greater disturbance through the heart
activity, the functioning of the organs of elimination, and causing irritations
through the system.
All of these, then, as combined in the conditions
which exist in the present, may be summed up in the expression, in a manner,
that the BATTERIES of the body are rather rundown.
3060-1
As we find, low vitality, lack of coordination between
sympathetic and cerebrospinal systems, makes for those tendencies that
are so upsetting to this body…
(Q) What causes the lack of vitality, and
how may it be remedied?
(A) As might be said, the batteries of the
body are run down. Hence the need of supplying the electrical force
of such natures as indicated, directly to the body. While this should
never be given more than three to four minutes at the time, never just
apply it to be hurried through. Apply it in such a manner as to expect
and to obtain the revivifying of the body-forces themselves.
3130-1
Now as we find while there are disturbing conditions
these are not as yet organic in their nature. Functional disturbances
naturally arise from what might be very commonly called the "batteries"
of the body having run down; that is, the nerve energies of the body, the
ability to store energy, and the muscular force and the tendons of the
body has given way, by the over-activity and the lack of vital energies
in that assimilated by the system.
3137-1
Now as we find, there are those conditions that
disturb the body. These in the main are rather the result of the
"batteries" of the body having run down; thus slowing up the eliminations,
producing inability to store energies in the body. Thus the periods
of tiredness, languidness; yet the mind of the body works on. This
slows up the heart activity, making for poor eliminations, some disturbances
with the prostates owing to the activity of the kidneys. For, this
is as the batteries of the body, one being positive and the other negative.
Thus the acidity in the system and all of these cause these general conditions,
as well as that more specific where the poor circulation through the superficial
activity causes irritation at times to parts of the body, in a form of
rash that appears.
3123-1
This we find is a condition of pure exhaustion,
by overtaxation of the body and body-mind; note, BODY-MIND.
There are those weaknesses from lack of proper assimilation,
a form of anemia and yet that character as may best be described by saying
that the "batteries" of the body have run down. This indicates the
liver and the kidneys as the sources of the energy, though neither of these
as yet is organically disordered. Their functioning does lend these
disturbances to the body, through the inabilities of that energy to be
aroused in the activity of the secretions of the liver, the pancreas, the
spleen, sufficient activities in the gastric flow of the stomach, working
with the conditions of the liver, to supply those necessary elements, chemically,
for such activities.
Thus the fatigue, the easily tiring, the exhaustion
without obtaining other than temporary help from rest or sleep.
3324-1
The disturbances as we find with this body arise
primarily from the lack of keeping a balance in the chemical forces of
the body.
Primarily, certain elements are the sources of the
changes that assist the organisms of the body in reproducing themselves.
Here, as it were, the "batteries" of the body, or the nerve systems, have
not been allowed to be kept charged - because of the lack of sufficient
water in the "batteries". Or, the mental and material things have
been at variance too oft one with the other.
Thus we have a congestion in the larger gland (the
liver), in the right lobe of same, and this has caused the digestive forces
of the body to become lacking in sufficient supply to glandular bodies.
Thus the conditions in the blood stream are such
that there is a lack of proper ability toward coagulation. This is
indicated by conditions about the head and portions of the body.
The lack of supply is to the lymph circulation that is reduced by the incoordination
between the cerebrospinal and the sympathetic or vegetative nerve forces.
These produce, then, rather a complication - or complex conditions through
the general organism. Then we have the heart, the liver, the lungs
and the kidneys (as the central nervous forces, the central supply, as
indicated) gradually running down in their ability to supply the energies
for same.
4007-1
As we find, there are conditions which may be corrected
that are disturbing the better physical forces of the body. These
might be described by saying that the "batteries" of the nervous system
are running down; that is, the activities of the heart, the lungs, the
liver, the kidneys may be called the batteries of the body. With
changes in the chemical forces of the system these may become so reduced
in their activity as to cause stress to be put upon one or the other, thus
gradually building a disturbance functionally. With the distress
or disturbance one or the other gradually becomes organically disordered.
Here we find that the liver and the heart indicate
the distress signals, as to the variations in the metabolism of the body,
the poisons in system where energies should be reproduced again by the
activity of the liver, from eliminations being carried on by the excretory
and secretory activity of same, cause weaknesses in the limbs. The
kidneys being overstressed gives some disturbance to the body. Even
the prostate area shows some disorder from the stresses put on these by
the inactivity of the liver, the overactivity of the heart, and the change
produced in the circulation as related to the eliminations and assimilations
in the body-forces.
4069-1
As we find, disturbances here are of a very general
nature. It might be said that the "batteries" of the body have just
run down; that is, the centers where the impulses from sensory system and
the sympathetic nervous system coordinate with the cerebrospinal system….
when there are little activities or little coordinations between impulses
to the central nervous system that control the central organs of the body
- lungs, heart, liver, kidneys - these suffer because of the lack of coordination.
5304-1
As we find, there are disturbances and these are
as though the activity of the liver, heart, lungs and kidneys lack sufficient
energies, as it were, to keep the central organs, as the battery of the
body, charged sufficiently. And thus we have the periods of nerve
exhaustion, upsetting of the circulation, shortness of breath, diversions
in the assimilation, those irregular conditions which come from a disorganized
functioning of liver and kidneys as coordinating channels for eliminations
of poisons from the system; a general debilitation …
