Taken from Dennis Luxford's Website

One of them who has improved dramatically is David Atkinson, 59, whose doctor told him in 1991
that he had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and there was nothing that could be done to
overcome it. A star football player, pole vaulter, and boxer in his youth, a businessman with five
children from two marriages, he has led the vigorous life of an entrepreneur, including operating his
own shrimp boat and his own furniture manufacturing firm. Atkinson was accustomed to succeeding,
and he challenged his unpromising medical prognosis. But nothing worked until his daughter
introduced him to the Edgar Cayce holistic healing remedies. The results have been amazingly
successful. He was interviewed at his home in Salisbury, North Carolina, on August 14, 1994, by
Venture Inward editor A. Robert Smith.

Q. How did it begin?

A. In the spring of 1991, my wife Wendy and I had decided to move from Wilmington, North
Carolina to Florida. About a week before we were to go, I started having difficulty with my neck -
the muscles were giving way. I noticed it when I was cutting the grass. My head flopped down on
my chest. I went inside and rested for a while, but when I went out in the heat it happened again.
And it got worse. I was starting to have trouble swallowing, eating, and chewing. I decided to see a
doctor before we left for Florida. Of course, we didn't consider that it was anything serious. After a
series of tests, examinations, and biopsies, I was diagnosed with motor neuron disease, which is the
European term for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, ALS, or Lou Gehrig's disease. The doctor gave us
some literature to read, and we were really devastated when we found out what it was all about. The
medical literature explained that "Motor Neurone Disease (MND) is the name of a group of related
diseases affecting the motor neurones in the brain and spinal cord. Motor neurones are nerve cells
that control muscles, hence degeneration causes weakness and wasting of muscles. Such wasting
generally occurs in arms or legs initially, some groups of muscles being affected more than others.
Some patients may develop a weakness and wasting in the muscles supplying the face and throat,
with the consequent problems of thick speech and difficulty chewing and swallowing. MND does not
affect the intellect or the sense of touch, taste, sight, smell and hearing. No one knows the cause, or
cure." ALS was first identified in 1869 by a French neurologist. It gained its popular name in the
United States after a New York Yankees star baseball player, Lou "Iron Man" Gehrig, was
sidelined with the disease in 1939 after playing a record 2,130 straight games. Gehrig died two years
later. The prognosis for its victims hasn't changed. And my condition was worsening day by day.

Q. Your daughter Debbie told me that before this episode you'd had problems with your throat.

A. When I worked with an ambulance service in Miami while in college, we flew to Cuba to pick up
a patient, and someone gave me a couple of Cuban cigars. I never had smoked a cigarette in my life.
I lit up one of those Cuban cigars and fell in love with them. I started smoking cigars quite heavily, to
the point, after a number of years, that I was up to almost two dozen a day. I would light one cigar
with another one. I became a cigar chain smoker. I started early in the morning and ended late at
night. I started having sore throats on a regular basis, catching flu viruses and whatever, quite easily. I
went to a doctor, who told me that I was swallowing so much of the tobacco juice that it was
burning my throat lining, and that smoking was unhealthy. If I wanted to be a healthy person, and
spend time with my family, I needed to stop smoking. My throat was bothering me so badly that I
gave up smoking overnight in about 1985.

Q. How long had you been smoking cigars?

A. For approximately 23 years, but I was able to give it up.

Q. After you quit smoking cigars, did your throat condition improve?

A. Yes, except I was susceptible, every year, to at least two serious sore throat infections, for which
I took antibiotics. It would take me four or five days to get over it. And I had episodes with my
throat, a kind of closing. I was forcing air in and you would hear a wheezing sound, and that would
happen occasionally, but that was it. They couldn't find anything really wrong with my throat, and the
doctor said I evidently was susceptible to throat viruses. I was never in the hospital, and I was
considered a very healthy person.

Q. Had you ever had any serious illnesses?

A. Never. I had my appendix out when I was in high school, and after an auto accident I was in the
hospital for about three days. Other than that, I had never been in the hospital.

Q. Until you were 55, and were diagnosed with ALS. Was the doctor a specialist?

A. He was a neurologist who had a great deal of experience with ALS and had served his internship,
I believe, at Chapel Hill (University of North Carolina), in a department where they see a lot of ALS
and myasthenia gravis patients.

Q. What was the next step?

A. He sent me to Chapel Hill to have a nerve and a muscle biopsy. They take a sample of your
nerve and muscle cells. My condition was worsening, day by day.

Q. In what way?

A. I couldn't hold my head up. I was having extreme difficulty in eating and chewing, trouble
swallowing. I could not drink thin liquids. They almost made me choke. It had to be something thick
for me to swallow it. This, I found, was typical of ALS. My legs were getting weak, my arms were
getting weak. I was tiring very easily from any physical activity. My stamina was going down the
drain. It got so bad that I was hospitalized. I was having trouble breathing, swallowing, and was in
the hospital for about a week as they continued to do a series of tests. They examined my throat and
all parts of my body, and my neurologist had other doctors come in to do consultations. I seemed to
be deteriorating so rapidly that my doctor thought that, within six months, it could be that I would
need mechanical equipment to breathe, and a tube for feeding. So they brought in ventilators, tried
them on me, told me how they worked; and showed me feeding tubes, one that went through the
nose, another through an incision in your stomach; a tube with a little screw-on cap, and you're fed
that way. Of course it scared me to death, and I did not like any of the apparatuses that I saw.

I made out a living will, which states that I will not be hooked up to life support equipment. So if his
forecast had held true, I would have passed away in that time period. Then things leveled out, my
breathing seemed to get better, and I was feeling better, so I went home. And then came decision
time. Wendy and I and our 10-year-old daughter Amanda were ready to move to Florida. Wendy
had given up her job, I had sold out my interest in the furniture business. Not realizing that I was
going to get sick, I had given up my hospitalization. It was a tremendous financial burden. The bills
were very expensive for the doctors, the hospital, all the tests, which were going on constantly.
Before that we had gotten on fairly well we had saved money, bought property that we rented out,
had notes from the business that I had sold, and I was owed $9,000 in back salary from my
company. Well, we had to sell the rental property. Our bank accounts were wiped out. We were
paying our medical bills with credit cards. The two partners were in trouble in the business after I left
and couldn't pay me anything on the notes they owed me, or my back salary. We were virtually
wiped out financially. We couldn't move to Florida, under these circumstances.

My oldest daughter, Deborah, who has her master's degree in social work and psychology, was
working in Salisbury, North Carolina. She was experienced in dealing with catastrophic situations,
and counseling people, and we thought that it would be good to move to Salisbury to be near her for
the last six months that I had left, instead of our new, wonderful life in Florida. In the meantime, my
biopsies came back and showed signs of cell degeneration, in line with what was found in a patient
who had motor neurone disease, or ALS. So that kind of confirmed the preliminary diagnosis.

I started going to Chapel Hill, to the neuromuscular unit, headed by Dr. Colin Hall, a wonderful
doctor, and a wonderful friend. He gave me every test he could think of, hoping to find that I had
something less serious than ALS, such as myasthenia gravis, which is serious but not necessarily
terminal. He put me in the hospital for 14 days, and had me go through a series of blood cleansings.
That and a medicine called Mestinon are what they use to treat people with myasthenia. The tests
showed that I did not have myasthenia. I was pretty disappointed because it brought me back to the
diagnosis of ALS.

Dr. Hall was also very disappointed. He tried every other known neurological test and experimented
with chemotherapy drugs for a lesser form of ALS, and those did not work. He really did not know
what to do. In addition to the symptoms of ALS, I have other symptoms, which are neurological in
nature, but are not symptoms of ALS. Those symptoms are tremors that I cannot control. I have
them in both hands, but the left is much worse. I have it in the arm and some body tremors. Those
are not symptoms indicative of ALS, at all. That's more of Parkinson's, though I've been tested and
do not have Parkinson's. So he thinks that its possible that I may have two neurological disorders or
something completely unknown.

Q. It's like Parkinson's, but you don't have that?

A. It's just body, hand, and arm tremors on the left side. Dr. Hall stated that he just did not know
what to do for me. There is no treatment for ALS. And he doesn't know what neurological disease I
have that is causing the tremors.

Mr. Atkinson handed me his medical records. They showed that on May 5, 1991 "a diagnosis of
myasthenia gravis was made and he was placed on Mestinon". On July 11, 1991 "a tentative
diagnosis of a motor neurone disease, possibly ALS" was recorded. A neurosurgeon on August 16,
1991 diagnosed his condition as "motor neurone disease" and "palatine paresis" which is paralysis of
the palate. A report from the Electromyography Division of the Clinical Neurophysiology Lab at the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, showed that he was tested for "lower motor neurone
disease" on August 12, 1991, and again on August 21, 1992, which showed "significant motor
neurone abnormality."

My neck and throat muscles had gotten so weak that I had to wear a special neck brace to hold my
head in an upright position. I could not chew or eat solid foods, so I was on a liquid diet. My wife
learned how to puree foods, almost to a liquid texture, so I could be fed. That went on for over a
year, during which I became much weaker. I could not walk very well at all. My legs would give out
on me. Any sort of physical activity would wipe me out. I'd end up in bed. I was going down the
path of the original prognosis, and things were looking very bleak when we moved to an apartment
in Salisbury in August, 1991. We had no money. We were relying on relatives. I had filed for Social
Security disability.

A source at Social Security confirmed to Venture Inward that Mr. Atkinson had been diagnosed
with ALS, which qualified him for assistance.

But they also have a regulation that says that you must wait six months before you can receive any
benefits. And you have to wait two years before you're eligible for Medicare's medical assistance.
So it's six months for getting financial disability assistance, and two years for getting medical under
Medicare, which I think is outrageous. So I ended up on Medicaid, which is a welfare program. To
go from the lifestyle that I had known all my life to Medicaid was a very emotional, stressful event for
our entire family. But that is how my medical bills and medication were paid. Wendy got several
part-time jobs while helping me, at home, and seeing that Amanda was getting adjusted to her new
school and life. We had a very rough time.
At this time my daughter Deborah did a very loving and caring thing. She gave me a gift membership
in The Association for Research and Enlightenment. I had never heard of the A.R.E. I had heard
a little bit about Edgar Cayce and I'm sorry to say, at this point in my life, I thought that psychics
and alternative medicine were a bunch of hooey. I did not consider it legitimate. But when I started
receiving Venture Inward and Reflections, I really did enjoy what I was reading, and I became
interested. Since my doctors could do nothing for me, I said, "Well, maybe I better investigate this".
So Deborah took me to Virginia Beach in September of '91. We went to the A.R.E. Library and
researched the readings on ALS.

There was only one reading, 5019-1 M 34 The first thing I saw in the reading was, "Do the first things
first. Begin with reading Exodus 19:5 and Deuteronomy 30. Apply these to self". While I had been
quite active in the Episcopal church in my younger years, I hadn't been going to church for 20 some
years, had been doing no praying, and had no real relationship, at all, with my Creator. And when I
saw that the first two recommendations were Scriptures, I said, "Now I know this is hocus-pocus".
So I paid no attention to it. Wendy had been after me for years about going to church. We were
married in church, but that was the last time I was there.

When I kept getting worse and the doctors said there was nothing they could do, I got the reading
out again and read it over for several days, and finally decided to read those chapters in the Bible.
Deuteronomy 30 hit me like a brick, because it's where Moses tells you, point blank, how you can
have good health and live, or how you can be sick and die:

In that I command thee this day to love the Lord thy God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his
commandments and his statutes and his judgments, that thou mayest live and multiply: and the Lord
thy God shall bless thee in the land whither thou goest to possess it. But if thy heart turn away, so
that thou wilt not hear, but shalt be drawn away, and worship other gods, and serve them; I
denounce unto you this day, that ye shall surely perish, and that ye shall not prolong your days upon
the land, whither thou passest over Jordan to go to possess it. I call heaven and earth to record this
day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life,
that both thou and thy seed may live: That thou mayest love the Lord thy God, and that thou mayest
obey his voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto him: for he is thy life, and the length of thy days; that
thou mayest dwell in the land which the Lord sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to
Jacob, to give them. Deut. 30:16-20

He doesn't mince words in Deuteronomy 30. And it struck me so that I read it over and over again.
My lifestyle, my non-relation to Him put me in a category that was described in Deuteronomy 30.
Wendy and I discussed it and read it together. I said, "Let's find a church and check it out." That's
when I started to pray. I read an article in Venture Inward about how to pray. And I started
following those instructions. We wanted a church that had a good Sunday school and youth
program, for Amanda's benefit, so we picked the First Presbyterian Church in Salisbury. They also
have a wonderful pastor, Bob Lewis - a very loving and caring man - and a wonderful, loving, caring
congregation, who took us in. They didn't know anything about our situation, and really did show us
true love and caring. And so, from then on, we have gone to church. So the Cayce Readings
returned me to God.

Seeing that that part of the reading had turned out so positive, I decided to follow the rest of the
reading, which I really considered far-out. It recommended the use of the Wet Cell Device and
massage.

Q. Had you or Debbie ever seen a Wet Cell or known what it was?

A. I had not. I don't know if Debbie had actually seen the Wet Cell. But the Cayce reading was
helping me so much, it returned me to church, it returned me to God, it returned me to prayer. And I
read in Venture Inward not to ask God to heal, but to ask God to help me heal myself. And that
became the basis for the structure of my prayer. My basic prayer always ends with, "Lord, help me,
guide me, direct me, to those people, places, and things, that will best renew my health, physically,
mentally, and spiritually". So I end each of my prayers with that statement. I have not prayed for
miraculous healing or cures, I have only prayed for the guidance and direction, and the intuitiveness
to know what I can do to help myself.

Q. Did you get a Wet Cell ?

A. In October of '92, we went to a seminar and a health expo at the A.R.E. Because of my financial
situation, the A.R.E. gave me a scholarship to that seminar. It was quite interesting, and I met a lot of
wonderful people. That's where I saw the wet cell demonstrated. I tried both units, and felt that,
physically, I would be more capable of working with Bruce Baar's unit, because it was compact and
very easy to re-charge. Bruce was kind enough to let me make a small down payment, and
payments over a period of time, until I had paid for the unit. He's turned out to be a real friend. I
have spoken to him many times on the phone. He always had time to talk to me, to explain details
and answer my questions. He struck me as a very caring and loving person, which was important. I
used Bruce's Wet Cell for approximately l4 months, and followed the Cayce reading every day of
that l4 months, exactly.

Q. What did you do every day that was in the reading?

A. I was hooking up the Wet Cell for one-half hour every day. And the reading for ALS says to use
iodine one day and camphor the next; alternate, and take gold chloride, orally, every three days. It
was one ounce of distilled water, and one ounce of gold chloride, and one ounce of sodium bromide.
Then, the reading called for a spinal massage after each use of the wet cell. It specifically stated that
there should be a mixture of olive oil, peanut oil, and lanolin. So I got those items and had the spinal
massage after each use of the wet cell. Sometimes my wife did that for me.

At that time, my condition was to the point where I had chore workers coming in, to be with me
during the day and help me, and I had a physical therapist twice a week. The physical therapist did
the massage twice a week. He told the chore workers how to do it for the other days. And over the
weekend, Wendy and Amanda alternated in doing the spinal massages for me. So I adhered to the
reading exactly. And as I did, my physical condition started to change.

Q. How long were you doing this before you noticed a difference? It wasn't immediate, was it?

A. No, it was about eleven months into using the Wet Cell . My physical and spiritual attitude had
already changed drastically, and I think it was twelve months when I realized that I was able to
control my head a little better, I had less trouble in swallowing, and I felt like I had more stamina. I
realized there was a definite stabilizing of my condition. I could feel it. My doctor had done a series
of electrical conduction tests which showed that my nerves were "frying", or burning out, that's what
happens with ALS. Neurones die in your brain. Then the nerves controlled by those neurones burn
out, and then the muscles controlled by those nerves atrophy. And that is how ALS progresses. I
was not having to use my neck brace as much, and I had more stamina and was feeling better.

Q. How often were you seeing Dr. Hall?

A. At the beginning, every month, and then every two months, and now I see him every six months. I
did not tell him what I was doing because I don't believe he would have found it acceptable. So he
kind of felt that maybe I was leveling off or going into some sort of remission. I continued to use the
Wet Cell. Also, in the Cayce reading, it mentioned getting my diet straightened out. So I went to a
nutritionist and developed a good diet. My wife was having to puree everything, and I was having to
use Ensure, which comes in little cans. It's used for feeding people through feeding tubes. At that
point I believed in Edgar Cayce as truly a man ahead of his time, without any question. And I
believed that he did have psychic or some kind of powers to diagnose illnesses and recommend
modalities to help with those. Seeing that I had accepted him, I asked Deborah if she knew of a
psychic that I could talk to. But not any of these "hocus-pocus" people. I wanted somebody with a
proven track record. She found a man who was a biophysicist, had taught and worked in medical
schools, and had given that up and gone into healing.

Q. His name?

A. Harvey Bank. He did a reading and told me that it was urgent that I see an applied kinesiologist,
and also have some chiropractic adjustments to my spine and to my hyoid bone, which is in the
throat and neck.

Q. Who did you go to for the adjustments?

A. A chiropractor in Charlotte. Then Wendy and I met with Harvey Bank. He is a Ph.D., not a
medical doctor. He did a number of movements and adjustments to my body, and did laying on of
hands. He said, I already know I cannot cure your neurological problem, but I may be able to help
you with some of your others. What is the number one problem that you would like to get rid of? I
said, "I would like to be able to eat again." Without hesitating, he said, "I can fix that right now." He
did some work up under my jaw. He said, "I see that you had your hyoid bone adjusted and
balanced." He did a lot of different things, and when he finished, he said, "You can go out right now
and have a roast beef dinner, vegetables, salad; eat anything you want." I couldn't believe it. But he
was so convincing, and he didn't say, "Maybe this will work." He said, "You can now eat solid food.
So I met my son Michael at a restaurant he was operating, and ordered prime rib, mashed potato,
green beans, and a salad. He looked at me and said, "What are you going to do with that?" And I
said, "I'm going to eat it." He was shocked. I wasn't convinced yet that I could do it, but I was going
to try. They brought the meal, and I cleaned my plate. I had no trouble swallowing, which was
unbelievable, and I have been eating ever since. Whether he physically changed something,
emotionally changed something, or it was the placebo effect, I don't know, and I don't care. But Dr.
Bank cured my eating problem.

Q. And when was that?

A. In the summer of 1993. It was so amazing. I was still on the Wet Cell , got my diet straightened
out, and was feeling much better. Emotionally I was much stronger, spiritually I was much, much
stronger, and so I started taking charge of my own health treatment. I searched out doctors that fit
into my plan of health. I picked out a general practitioner to take care of my basic health needs. I
had Dr. Hall I still see him every six months for my ALS. I found a psychiatrist, who I think is
fantastic, to help me with my emotions, my mental health, and my severe sleeping problem, which is
one of the symptoms of ALS. I have my church and my prayer sessions with God for my spiritual
health. I also have a wonderful and very intuitive doctor whose specialty is rheumatology. He treats
the arthritis that had developed in my joints because of my inability to get proper exercise when I
was in bad shape. I put this team together myself, and I do not ask them what I can do. I tell them
what I want to do. I am in complete charge of my well-being and my health. This has caused me to
start a mind/body study group, made up of people with serious illnesses: multiple sclerosis,
Parkinson's, cancer, and others I can't even pronounce. We meet every other week. I try to
motivate them and get them interested in my idea of what the mind can do to help the body, what
spirituality can do, but most important, to take responsibility for their own health care, and encourage
them to take charge. The lady who has MS had been doing mind/body work for a number of years,
and is already convinced that what I am promoting works, because it worked for her. I also teach
classes in self-healing, based upon my personal experience. I use some of the Cayce modalities, how
to breathe properly, and how you can tell your subconscious mind to use the mechanisms that God
gave you to heal yourself.

Meantime, I felt so much better that I started a local magazine. It was going very, very well. But I
found that it was too much stress, and my health was starting to slip, so I turned it over to somebody
else. After getting out from under the stress of the magazine, my health improved again. I spend my
time with the mind/body study group, and teaching self-healing. I belong to a men's prayer group at
church that meets every Thursday morning and prays for community and world leaders, and so on.

And I am a volunteer at the Rowan Helping Ministries, an organization that brings in people who are
in difficulty, poor people and street people, and feeds them, helps them with rent payments, or utility
payments, and also counsels them on good health and budgeting. I volunteer there every Monday
morning.

Q. So you're giving back, aren't you?

A. I've found that that is an important part of the formula. The best way that I can continue my
healing is to help others. Every time I help someone else, I am helping myself grow stronger and
healthier, not only physically, but spiritually.

Q. Did A.R.E. help you?

A. The people at the A.R.E. have been very, very helpful to me, on the telephone, and in person.
I've been there three times, at different seminars and workshops. I also heard about a healer in Los
Angeles, who had healed a lady of ALS. And I prayed and prayed about it, and it seemed that I was
being guided to see this person. It seemed impossible because of the cost. I mentioned it to my
pastor at church. Some church members came up with money, including air fare. I called Arnold
McEntire (A.R.E. regional coordinator for the Southeast) and asked if he knew of any A.R.E.
members in Los Angeles who would give me some housing. He put me in touch with Judy and Loren
Garretson in Los Angeles, who have been active in the A.R.E. for years. They put me up in their
home, fed me, provided transportation to and from my appointments, gave me love and nourishment,
and care.

Q. Did you see a healer?

A. I did. He is Dean Kraft. I didn't really get much of a positive effect from it, but the lady that he
had treated, and reversed her ALS, took 44 treatments. I could not possibly do that, so I was
unable to utilize his services. But I use a video about Dean as a motivational tool. I watch it regularly
because he is a very caring person and has helped many people.

I think more healing went on in the Garretsons' home for me than with the healer. They are perfect
examples of the A.R.E. people that I met. Loren does therapeutic massage and he uses a number of
Cayce modalities when treating and healing people, and is quite successful. With members like Loren
and Judy, and the other people that I met, and my loving daughter, Deborah, the A.R.E. network
has just been wonderful to me. I also talked to Dr. Norman Shealy, a neurologist, at the A.R.E.
Health Expo. He said, "There is no better advice that I could give you, than for you to continue to do
what you're doing and follow the Cayce principles, and follow your own intuition."

Q. Well, we've covered a lot of ground, and I think you've done very well. Let's get some lunch.

At a seafood restaurant, Mr. Atkinson ordered a shrimp salad and explained that he can't talk while
eating because he has to be careful how he swallows. He still suffers from palatine paresis, a
paralysis of the palate that requires careful maneuvering of his tongue to swallow his food. But he
cleaned his plate. He carries himself erect and walks at a normal pace, giving no evidence of having
once had difficulty walking. Indeed, David Atkinson appears to have many years of fulfilling service
ahead of him.

Reprinted by Permission. Venture Inward Magazine, PO Box 595, Virginia Beach, VA 23451
Copyright All Rights Reserved

To correspond with David write to:
David Atkinson
221 McCoy Rd
Salisbury, NC 28144

David Atkinson is available to meet with your local ALS Chapter and share with you his personal
story. If you are interested to have David meet with your local chapter please send a letter to the
above address. Please include your name, address, and telephone number.

David has authored, Supplementary Therapeutic Measures In Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis.

Update, 4-10-97.