Gems and Stones explores the employment of gems, stones and metals for influencing a variety of physical, mental and spiritual conditions in man. Excerpts from the Edgar Cayce readings are included here, helping to enlarge the methods of applying stones and metals in order to achieve the most positive results. The various uses of these minerals are examined. The reader discovers that they can be employed for many purposes: attunement, protection, destruction and the extension of helpful vibrations. Specific gems, stones and metals which are thoroughly investigated within these pages include: the agate, amethyst, beryl, bloodstone (heliotrope), carbon steel, chrysolite, copper, coral, crystal, diamond, emerald, gold, lapis lazuli, lapis ligurius, lapis linguis, moonstone, opal, pearl, platinum, ruby, sardonyx, scarab and topaz. Some extras which are included in this compendium of exciting and useful information are: 'How to Choose a Gem Stone,' 'A Calendar of Birthstones' and a 'Table of Crossreference in the Readings.' Another bonus is the Appendix which includes three lively essays by Ken Carley entitled: 'Reflections of a Rockhound,' 'The Stones of Egypt,' and 'Lapis Lazuli.'" The essay herein contained is the last labor to which Edgar Cayce put his hand. The color chart was returned to me with corrections in his own hand awkwardly written. With it was a note, also written in longhand. 'I cannot use my typewriter,' it said. 'I have lost the use of my left arm and my right leg is numb. I presume I have had a slight stroke.' That was in September. A month before, on my porch here in Clearwater, while we watched the porpoises sporting in the Gulf of Mexico and admired the spectacular sunsets, the booklet was planned. The human aura was one of our favorite subjects of conversation; whenever we got together I questioned him about his ability to see colors emanating from persona, and he always had some new and interesting anecdotes concerning this strange power, which because it functioned while he was fully conscious, in many, many ways intrigued him more than his gift for giving readings. At least it entertained him more at the moment it was taking place, for despite all the readings he gave, he never heard one. During all of the most interesting portions of his life he was asleep. We were in the process of working out a new publication program during this visit, and it occurred to me that, a short but instructive article on auras would be helpful to members of the Association, particularly if it carried Mr. Cayce's interpretation of the colors, worked out over a long period of years by patient trial and error. I made the suggestion to him, and he gave me the usual answer -- that he didn't know enough about the subject, had no background in it, etc., ad infinitum. He had a very low opinion of anything he said while awake. I then put it differently. I asked him if he would collaborate with me, and since he apparently had not the power to refuse me anything I asked (any more than he had the power to refuse anyone else) he said yes. We set to work immediately, right there on the porch, and I began making notes. By the time the text was ready he had returned to Virginia Beach, had fallen ill, and was at Roanoke resting. Early in December he was brought home to the house on Arctic Crescent. There, on the night of January 3, 1945, he passed away. I remember him from those August days for so many things. He was so thin and tired and wistful. Yet his face lighted with transcendent joy when he saw me enter the water and slosh away on my own, swimming on my back in the warm, still water. He loved the Australian pines in front of our cottage, and wanted to have some sent to Virginia Beach, to plant along the lake behind the house. He was disappointed when he learned that they would not flourish that far north. 'Then I will have to come down here,' he said. 'You find a place, and we will get it together. I can rest here. I dreamed the other night that I was on a train coming to Florida. I had retired, and was going to live here.' I urged him to remain longer with me; I pressed him to give up the interminable, punishing hours he pat in at the mounting stacks of correspondence. I suggested that he spend his time fishing and gardening, except for the periods when the readings were given. But these requests were to him unreasonable. In the letters which came to him were tales of misfortune and suffering. Each was a cry for help. He would have heard it as well in the garden or on the dock. If he could have answered it at once he would not have minded so much. But when he had to pat off the reading -- at first for weeks, then for months, then for a year or more, his heart was heavy and his mind became numb with the burden of his helplessness. Though he stayed asleep longer than ever before and pushed hie output of readings to unprecedented heights, he could make bat a small dent in the pile of requests. It was this more than anything which broke him. On the day he left we drove with him as far as Lakeland. Along the way we stopped and ate a picnic lunch. Together we rehearsed our plans: publication and research were gradually to work their way to the fore of the Association's work, giving to everyone the wisdom and instruction of the readings. Gradually he was to slacken his own work until it was devoted mainly to general readings on research subjects and for guidance and instruction. In this way the best that he had to give would be available to all. That way he would live long and help everyone, we were sure. At Lakeland he stepped from the car and turned to smile at me and squeeze my hand. 'Well, when we meet again we'll have everything worked out fine,' he said. October was the date we had set. He would return then for a longer rest. But the dreams that came to him here in our sunshine, and the whispers he heard in the Australian pines, were promises from another land. He will rest there, and just as he said, when we meet again we'll have everything worked out fine. Two days after his death the proofs of this booklet arrived. In them is his final message, a plea for faith, hope, and charity, and above all, the courage and wisdom to engage in what Stephen MacKenna described as, 'an active mental life, with a little love to warm it.' For the burden of all the readings is the necessity for man to take up his cross -- 'Mind is the builder: knowledge not lived becomes sin; in every person of whatever station look not for things to criticize, but for something you adore in your Creator; for you will not enter the kingdom of heaven, except leaning upon the arm of someone you have helped.' -- Thomas Sugrue