My name is Will and I'm Garen, and unlike moulderin Scully, both want
to believe. So we've embarked in a journey of discovery. We've talked to
people deeply entrenched in the spiritual and metaphysical world. We've thrown ourselves into weird
and wonderful experiences. I even joined a coven of witches and wait, you
joined a coven yep, all in the interest of finding something, anything,
that will prove that there's something beyond this physical, three dimensional world we all
live in. This is the Skeptic Metaphysicians. This episode of The Skeptic Metaphysicians
was recorded live at the Edgar Casey AAR. Welcome to New Awakenings with Edgar
Casey's AAR. We're together through some incredible conversations. We go on beautiful journeys
of discovery that might shape the way you think about things and could just change
your life. We are your hosts, Karen and Will, and today we
have a very special treat for you because you see, deep in the bowels
of the Edgar Casey's are there lies a crypt that's full of mysterious items that
are connected to the historic Edgar Casey. Well, it's not exactly like that,
but it's close, but not exactly like that. And here to clarify
it all for us is the director of Historic Preservation for the Edgar Casey Foundation,
Jessica Noul. Jessica, welcome to the show. Thank you so much
for having me the pleasures I have you now, Jessica. When I think
of archivists and things like that, things that you do, what comes to
mind is Nicholas Cage, National Treasure or Indiana Jones. Right, Hollywood tends
to romanticize a lot of these things. So let's set the record straight.
What exactly is it that you do here at the Foundation. I gotta say
National Treasure was very formative in my younger years. Is that would like you
know, move the needle, yes, Abygil Chase, the archivist. Yes,
it's very, very influential I think in my upbringing. You know what,
this just made the interview so much better that in your shoes, I
love you so Yes. So the Edgar Casey Foundation, it is the archives
that preserve the history of Edgar Casey and his psychic work in particular. So
we were founded in nineteen forty eight. The are came about in nineteen thirty
one, and so the are's Board of trustees voted to form an organization that
would be specifically designated to preserve the k C readings, to organize them,
and to make them available for research. So since nineteen forty eight we have
been the custodians of that information. It has grown to be more of a
history of the entire organizations as well as personal papers of the k Cy family
and early influential ARE members. So there's a wide breadth of information that we
have reserved there. Well, it's not quite a crypt like Will was describing
where do you keep all of this stuff? But it would have been cool
if it was. It is still cool, aesthetic would be on point.
We actually are in the lower floor of the d'laski Education Center here on campus,
where we have the office, reading room and also the archive storage area
where the readings and our entire collection is housed. Now it is in a
preservation environment, so we want to make sure that all of these treasures will
be around for many years to come. So we keep the archival storage room
at sixty four degrees. We monitor the humidity, we have a fire suppression
system. It's in case and then all of the material is housed in archival
boxes on movable powdered coated shelving, so we have the most stable environment that
we can make down there. It is like the news I've seen it.
There's like it's like a vault and there's like the things that you twist in
the walls that moves very cool. So it does come to mind like the
Indiana Jones and the very first movie, the Rasual of the Lost Arc at
the very end when they're wheeling that box into that not quite that way different,
everything's like file a way like that that, like how close is it
to that that been? On a much smaller side, stuff do you have?
I'll take you, I'll take you, yeah, so yeah, good
question. How much does that? Yeah? So I would say we have
about four hundred linear feet of material and that is all different kinds, so
from papers to books, artifacts, blueprints, a lot of audio visual so
film canisters wheeled to real tapes. Basically every format of recording in the twentieth
century we have in some form, and I've seen some of the machines.
I was lucky I get to go into the vaults. What very important,
but there were just some kind of funky looking machines that were like, I
don't know, prototypes, like, what are some of those funky looking machines.
That's technical torture devices, not quite probably the opposite of that, healing
healing devices. Yeah. Yeah, So we have several prototypes of what are
called appliances of machines that were recommended by the readings to help with a certain
illness. So we have violet ray machines, which the design was around,
not in exactly the readings themselves, but it was used in the medical operations
of the time. And then we also have etheronic machines and prototypes of oroscopes
to see auras that specifically comes from the read the readings. Yes, so
you took the readings and you made blueprints out of them. You made prototypes
out of them from the blueprints inside the readings. Right, So people throughout
history of this work were very interested in those sets of readings, and they
build the prototypes and we're good enough to donate them to us for our collection.
I love how smart she thinks we actually like etheronic machine. What is
that? Like? We know, you know eic machine. Sure, what
is an ethnic machine? Yeah? So the theory behind them is you're working
with the natural energy of your body and balancing it to to help with your
health. It's super cool. But why is it in a vault? Why
is it not out for people to use or to duplicate or to mass produce.
Is in this stuff that could be useful to humanity? It is,
and that is why we are open for researchers, and so I have had
people come. We're opened by appointment and they can actually come view the machines
in our reading room, take all the notes the need photograph. So that's
why the archive exists. It's not just for preservation, but the whole point
of preservation is that we can share those items in that material God, and
they have to be in that temperature and you're preserved. Otherwise, you know,
they can deteriorate. And I know I've seen some paintings down there no
one thing that I've seen. I think, you know what, I might
be asking special books And you open the box and inside there's a hand.
Is it? What? A hand? Is a hand? Yes? Hand?
Yes? So like our human hand we do yes, what There's not
a ton of provenants for it, so it is a mummified hand. From
Egypt that was donated to the archive several decades ago, and so we're actually
planning on what is the most appropriate thing to do with this because it's it's
human remains, So we're looking into can we repatriated back to Egypt? Can
we work with universities connected with the Egyptian scientists and archaeologists. So we want
to make sure that we're being a good steward of that because in our archive
it's not being used to its full potential as an educational tool. Sure,
we're working to see what is the most appropriate thing to do. So this
might not make the final edit of the show, but I'm going to ask
how was it like who donated donated it here? And why would they think
that, hey, let's give them a hand. Hey maybe they wanted to
help them. I think the connection with the egypt material and the reading.
So you mentioned the vault being open, the archives archives, what's how do
you? I tend to call it archives, that's just me, but I
know historically that's it's been them. So the vault containing the archives, you
mentioned that it was open for researchers to come by appointment. So if you're
not a researcher, but you wanted to see the hand. For example,
is it and the machine the machine than the hand. Would you be able
to make an appointment to come in just anyone off the suite or is it
specific to particular folks that were really kind of limiting it to It can really
be anyone. It's interested in being the material, right, So I thought
I was so special or special because you got to see it before I do.
Yeah, So it'd be either calling the archives sending me an email.
If you want to look at something specific, it's really great to contact me
beforehand. For instance, we have graduate students I've had come in with the
collections, and so we have online a catalog of everything that is in the
archive. So it's great that they can come to me say I'm interested in
this topic where I have a few research questions I want to answer. I
can then go look at the archive. He's my judgment. They're looking for
a specific thing. Maybe they know the box numbers that they want. Maybe
I know something that's relevant to their research question that they even know that they
want to look at. Wow, So then I can prepare so when they
arrive they have all the materials laid out and then we have a conversation and
it's very much a dialogue between the archivist and the research or to make sure
that they're getting the information that they need. Is that's really cool? That
is really I think it's I think it's wonderful that anybody can come and you
know, make an appointment and see it. So it's not I mean,
it's like cool and kind of secret, but but it's accessible to everyone.
It's an open secret Indiana Jones Bolts, for sure, it is not.
No, you don't have to like push aside any like rolling balls of doom
and you know, it's just bring it back of sand. So we'll make
it a switch. Now. Uh, you have another incredible area here at
the are that is world renowned and that is your library. And I I
D tell us a little bit. Why is this library so famous? It's
incredible. Yeah, So our library here at the are has existed ever since
the area has existed basically wow, and even a little bit beforehand. So
originally the library collection belonged to Atlantic University now its first incarnation in the late
nineteen twenties to nineteen thirty one. So AGU and the Hasey Hospital there's operating
the time they were working together. So there's this small library there for use
of people visiting hospital, of people in Shod Edgar Casey's work, and the
AU students, and so that collection grew over the years. M So the
topics cover everything in the readings, So all of those core concepts body,
mind, spirit. The library is where you go to find the information to
put these concepts into practice in your own life. So we house not only
medical information, right, So you can read the readings, you can get
the context of what Edgar was talking about. So we have books that are
concurrent with that time period, so you can kind of make a comparison between
then and now, and then also what are the advancements in medical science since
that time that you can apply. Wow, not only just the medical but
also we have represented all of the wisdom traditions of the world. Right.
So you're on your spiritual path, We're here to guide you to find your
own path, right. So the library is a great way to explore different
spiritualities, different faith traditions and kind of get a better idea of where you
want to move forward. Right. And when you come in and you walk
around, you see this one area where you see there's like a couch where
he Edgar used to do his readings. I called mister Casey. I was
just you know, she called Edgar. You know I've seen the hand.
But there's this wall full of all these brown volumes. What exactly are those?
So those are hard copies of all of the readings. So when you
come to the Arie Library, we have a readings research area where you can
go and look up any reading we have adjacent to the wall of around binders
World. The Readings is a card catalog and that catalog was started by Gladys
Davis Turner, Edgar Casey's stenographer, secretary founder of the Edgar Casey Foundation Archive,
with her team and so starting in nineteen forty nine she was categorizing,
organizing, indexing all of the readings. It took her from nineteen forty nine
to nineteen seventy one. That's a job for her and her team to complete
this project. Wow. So that is the for the library patient to use,
and that was used for the online database that the are has as part
of membership. So with the readings, they're transcribed and they also have a
search engine. So that is all based on her work over those decades.
That's a lot of work. That is a lot of work. Is there
a difference between what's in those volumes? And then there's the file like the
big filing cabinets I think is that just medical the filing cabinets. Yeah,
the filing cabinets have what we call circulating files, and so they're extracts from
the reading on particular topics. So it's a great way to get started.
If you're interested in something very specific, you can go to that circulating file
and it gives you a great overview of everything that was said on that topic
in the readings. Oh wow, that is a lot of work. Go
Gladys, Holy cow. Yeah, And back to the couch. That is
the original couch, right that Edgar Casey would go into trance and Gladys would
take notes as he was speaking, and that's where the readings came from.
So you can actually now you can't sit on it, so you can come
and look at it if you're interested in that kind of historical artifact. It's
not in the vault. It's actually fully available to be looked at at the
library, which is very very cool. And then so do you have the
original works in the vault. Yes, so overview the Edgar Casey readings new
archive. So when Edgar would give a reading, Gladys would transcribe in hand
in her sonographer's notebook, she would transcribe her notes into a clean copy.
She'd make a carbon of that, so the recipient of the reading would get
that original transcribed copy, and then Gladys would keep the carbon. So what
we have are the carbons. Also any and all correspondence between Edgar Casey and
that reading recipient, so any letters, photographs, any sort of communication between
the two cloud has kept all of it. Wow. So each person has
a case file numbered with their particular number, so their reading is in there.
Sometimes people donated those transcripts back to us as well. And yeah,
letters, postcards, photographs, X rays, anything that sent between we have
in those files. I say, the excitement that comes out when you talk
about these things is contagious. You really love what you do and you can
really feel it's that's amazing. So I'm really feeling that, Yeah, I'm
going to have the expanse of knowledge. You look too young to have this
knowledge in your head. It really is something that gets absorbed over time.
Once you're working with the material, especially, so processing an archival collection,
you have to know everything that is in it, historical context of it,
who these people are, whose letters you're reading, whose documents you're preserving,
because that helps you become a better archivist and to be able to help those
people that are coming to you for research. So when you're reading that stuff
day after day, you kind of really get to know people. Not really,
you don't know them as if you were friends with them in person,
but you kind of get to know their documentary well. And also you're kind
of learning about their medical history, so you're really learning about these people.
A lot of them are no longer here, but on that kind of deeply
personal level, which is really really interesting. It's like a really intimate kind
of almost like a time machine, so you get to meet them from through
a time machine. That's kind of cool. And with all of this material
that they have them started to think it is more and more like the Indiana
Jones at the that's a lot of stuff, a lot of stuff, right.
One last question about the library. Can you go and check out the
books or do you like all of them? Even the brown volumes? Can
you check those out? Or are those just to look at their and so
the brown volumes of the readings, they're there for reference. But we do
have a circulation collection and so you're able to check them out if you're an
a member or if you live in the Hampton Roads area. We do have
a community card option, So we want to make sure that we're being successible
to the community around us that we can be. And we also have ebooks
online, so ebooks and audio books that correspond to the subjects in our collection,
and they're the same available in the same way. Now, when you
mentioned Hampton Roads for those of the viewers or listeners who aren't from the area,
mean that's the Virginia Beach area or do you include the all the seven
cities in this area? We include all the seven cities. Oh wow,
okay, that's fantastic. That is great. So if you are in the
area and you want to have access to this, come talk to Jessica shall
hook you up for sure. Absolutely, a lot of the a lot of
the reference books, the readings and things like that are written in It was
a long time ago, so that the English was different than the English that
we used. Now, is there some way to understand it better? Is
there a translation that's being brought about. Is there someone like me who can't
read that different? Is it that different? It is very different, and
it's not like Old English. It is kind of old English other thys and
thous you have. Absolutely, Yeah, it does take some getting used to
the verbiage used in the readings. It's I kind of like to think about
if you remember in school reading Shakespeare and it takes you a little bit of
time for your mind to get in that zone. Yeah, I'm still waiting
for that point. Just watch some period movies. No I can't, and
then tell read this up. Yeah. Yeah, So that's how I like
to think about it. But also in the library, there's lots of secondary
sources, right, so there are people interpreting the readings, writing about topics.
So I always recommend try to go to those secondary sources, read them,
kind of get a better idea of what's being spoken about in the readings,
and then you can go back to that original study the two and kind
of get a fuller understanding. Right. So it is a commitment. You
really need to be interested in this topic to really kind of go down this
rabbit hole, because there is a time commitment that comes to it to fully
truly absorb and understand the material, which is incredibly beneficial when you take the
time to do it. But like anything that's worthwhile, the effort is worth
the effort different the result is worth it. Thank you, That's what I
said it. But all right, I am so excited to visit you in
the archives, the vault. We've been the library. I love it.
We spend many hours in that library to get in there a the time the
same way. Yeah, she's thirteen and she's like, you know, we
got to pull her out. Yes, And every type of topic from everything
from UFOs to religion to you name it, it is in there, and
it is It's a rabbit hole that I get lost in all the time.
I can only imagine how much better the vault would be. So I'm going
to have to reach out to you, but we are out of time.
But we really really appreciate you coming and telling us, I mean, sharing
of the energies that you have for this archive that you so lovingly cater to.
So thank you so much for coming and talking to us. Thank you
both, and I'm very excited to share more of the archive and library with
people. Come to visit. Thank you so much. Thank you, And
actually i'd be remiss if someone wanted to reach out to you. What's the
best way for them to do that? Best way would be through email,
So it would be ECF at Edgar Kase dot org and that'll come straight to
me and we'll be able to set up appointment. Wonderful and that's for Edgar
Casey Foundation. Well, you will have seen that lower third on the screen
if you're watching this, If you just listening to this, just go to
the show notes. We'll be happy to lane aid link directly in there for
you so it's easy for you to access it. And a huge thank you
to you. We know that there are tons of options out there, and
having you decide to come along on our journey of discovery with us is an
absolute honor for us. We hope you've enjoyed this converse as much as we
have. If you did and you feel called to give back, we invite
you to visit our website at Skeptic Metaphysician dot com, where you can donate
to the show or subscribe as a member through our buy me a Coffee campaign.
Your support will go a long way towards allowing Karen and I to bring
you these wonderful conversations and teachings in more and more robust ways. Well,
that's all for now. We will see you on the next episode of The
Skeptic Metaphysician. Until then, take care,