Edgar Cayce
The Sleeping Prophet
The Sleeping Prophet
Edgar Cayce (March 18, 1877 - January 3, 1945), (the surname pronounced "Casey") is generally remembered as an American psychic who gave trance discourses on subjects like astrology, reincarnation, and Atlantis. He may have been the source for the idea that California would fall into the ocean (though he never said exactly this). Although Cayce lived before the emergence of the New Age movement, he remains a major influence on its teachings.
This popular image overlooks what to him were the more important strains within his work such as healing (the vast majority of his "readings" were given for people who were sick) or Christian theology (Cayce being a lifelong, devout member of the Disciples of Christ). Skeptics challenge Cayce's claim to psychic prowess, while conservative Christians doubt this and/or his orthodoxy.
Today there are several tens of thousands of "Cayce people." Most are located in the United States and Canada, but Edgar Cayce Centers are now found in 25 other countries. The Association for Research and Enlightenment (A.R.E), headquartered in Virginia Beach, is the major organization promoting interest in Cayce.
Cayce was born on a farm near Hopkinsville, Kentucky on March 18, 1877. At an early age he gave evidence of his budding talent: he was able to master his school lessons by sleeping on his books. At the age of twenty-one he developed a gradual throat paralysis which threatened the loss of his voice. When doctors were unable to find a cause for his condition, Cayce entered the same hypnotic sleep that had enabled him to learn his school lessons years before. In that state, he was able to recommend a cure which successfully repaired his throat muscles and restored his voice. It was soon discovered that he could do the same for others.
For most of his adult life, Edgar Cayce was able to provide intuitive insights into nearly any question imaginable. When individuals came to him with a question, he would place himself into a sleep-induced sleep state. While in that state he could respond to virtually any question asked. His responses have come to be called "readings". Today his psychic readings constitute one of the largest and most impressive records of intuitive information to emanate from a single individual.
For many years the information dealt mainly with medical problems. Eventually the scope of his readings expanded to include such topics as meditation, dreams, reincarnation, and prophecy. The transcripts have provided the basis for over 300 popular books about Cayce's work.
Mr. Cayce's theories on the end times of this planet are very enlightening and show a global major change in 1998. He prophecized the Sphinx had been built in 10,500 BC and that survivors of Atlantis had concealed beneath it a "Hall of Records" containing all the wisdom of their lost civilization and the true history of the human race. Cayce prophesied that this Hall of Records would be rediscovered and opened between 1996 and 1998. He connected the opening to the second coming of Christ.
Cayce ending every reading by saying, "We are through".
Edgar Cayce gave over 14,000 "readings" during a period of 43 years (1901 to 1944). These are trance discourses which Cayce revealed while in a hypnotic or "sleeping" state. While "awake" he claimed generally not to remember what he had said while "asleep". The readings themselves explain that the unconscious mind has access to information which the conscious mind does not -- a common theory about hypnosis in Cayce's time. Most records come from the period after 1925, when his secretary Gladys Davis recorded the readings, and his wife Gertrude Evans Cayce "conducted" (guided) the readings.
The readings are customarily divided into the following categories:
Life Readings: 1,920 extant readings
In a life reading, Cayce describes the client's present physical, emotional and mental condition in terms of past life experience. Most inquirers were assigned past lives from about twelve main "periods" including Atlantis, ancient Egypt at the time of "Ra Ta", ancient Persia, Palestine at the time of Christ, and colonial America. A number of people were told of famous past lives. Cayce's son Hugh Lynn, for example, was told that he was the apostle Andrew.
Business Readings:
747 extant readings.Cayce occasionally gave business readings including advice on business partners, the stock market, business models, etc.
Dream Readings: 630 extant readings.
Edgar Cayce encouraged everyone to interpret and use his or her own dreams in day-to-day life. A dream reading involved Cayce interpreting the dreams of clients. As he did with readings on many subjects, Cayce would often interrupt the person reading the dream and give an interpretation before the dream had been completely read. He would sometimes fill in parts of dreams that the dreamer had supposedly forgotten. Unlike Jungian or Freudian dream interpretation, Cayce did not emphasize highly the importance of symbols. He said that every individual has his or her own unique symbols. Cayce claimed that in dreams people could receive valuable insight into their own lives and that the insight was always of use to the dreamer. Besides regular daily insight into one's life, he claimed people could communicate with loved ones dead or alive, remember past life experiences, see a possible future and experience many other psychic phenomena. He stated that these paranormal abilities were something anyone could learn.
Other Readings: 954 extant readings
Other Readings are miscellaneous subject matter that does not fit into an above category. The subject matter included missing persons, buried treasure, readings given to a spiritual development group, psychic abilities, auras, prophecy, structure of reality, geology and many other topics.
Cayce readings are usually referenced using a numeric tag in which the first number is a code representing the recipient (most of their identities remain secret), while the second counts which reading it is, in the case of a person who receives more than one. 5749-14 for example is the fourteenth reading given for person # 5749 (whose assigned number is essentially arbitrary).
Cayce predicted the beginning and end of both the First and Second World Wars, and the lifting of the Depression in 1933. In the 1920s, he first warned of coming racial strife in the United States, and in 1939 he predicted the deaths of two presidents in office;
President Franklin D. Roosevelt died in office in April 1945. In November 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, when racial tensions in the United States were at their height.
In October 1935, Cayce spoke of the coming holocaust in Europe. The Austrians and Germans, he said, and later the Japanese, would take sides.
Two of Cayce's major predictions concerned the futures of China and the Soviet Union, the world's great Communist giants. In 1944, he prophesied that China would one day be "the cradle of Christianity as applied in the lives of men." Through Russia, he said "comes the hope of the world. Not in respect to what is sometimes termed Communism or Bolshevism -- no! But freedom -- freedom! That each man will live for his fellow man. The principle has been born there. It will take years for it to be crystallized; yet out of Russia comes again the hope of the world." Russia, he said, would be guided by friendship with the United States. Its attempt to rule "not only the economic, but the mental and spiritual life" of its people was doomed to failure.
Cayce also predicted the possibility of a third world war. He spoke of strifes arising near the Davis Straits, and in Libya, and in Egypt, in Ankara, and in Syria; through the straits around those areas above Australia, in the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf."
When asked in June 1943 whether it would be feasible to work towards an international currency or a stabilization of international exchange levels when the war had ended, Cayce replied that it would be a long, long time before this would happen. Indeed, he said, "there may be another war over just such conditions."
Origin and destiny of humanity - "All souls were created in the beginning, and are finding their way back to whence they came." Cayce believes that human souls were created with a consciousness of their oneness with God. Some "fell" from this state; others - led by the Jesus soul - volunteered to save them. The Earth, with all its limitations, was created as a suitable arena for spiritual growth.
Duality - According to Cayce, Atlantean society was divided into two long-lived political factions - a "good" faction called the "Sons of the Law of One," and an "evil" faction called the "Sons of Belial." According to the readings, a major source of turmoil was the Sons of Belial's desire to exploit the Things, sub-humans with animal appendages and low intelligence, and the movements to protect and evolve them by the Sons of the Law of One.
Universal laws - Souls incarnated on the earth are subject to certain spiritual laws such as, "As ye sow, so shall ye reap" (karma) or "As ye judge (others), so shall ye be judged." Properly regarded, such laws represent an aspect of God's mercy whereby no matter what our circumstances, he has promised to guide us in our spiritual path.
Jesus and Christ Consciousness
From Cayce's perspective, we are not simply physical bodies, instead we are spiritual beings who are having a physical experience entailing personal growth and development. Many individuals have incorrectly assumed that the goal of being in the earth is to simply reach heaven, find enlightenment, or somehow "get out of the earth." And yet, this is a perspective quite different from that contained in the Cayce material. Instead, Cayce believed that as children of God, our mission was to somehow bring spirit into the earth.
The dynamics of our deep and literal connection to God can be found throughout scripture, beginning with Genesis when we are told that God made humankind in the Creator's image. But our relationship with God as our Parent is perhaps no more clearly illustrated than in the Parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-24). This parable describes the journey of the soul: we were with God in the beginning, through the power of our free will we were able to make choices that were not necessarily in perfect accord with the Creator. And, at some point, we will "arise" and decide to return to God, regaining our inheritance and experiencing our true relationship with Him.
One of the readings beautifully describes the spiritual nature of humankind in this way:
The readings state that God desires to be expressed in the world through us. The example set by Jesus is apparently a "pattern" of wholeness for each and every soul.Regardless of an individual's religious or personal beliefs, this Christ pattern exists in potential upon the very fiber of their being. It is that part of each of us that is in perfect accord with the Creator and is simply waiting to find expression in our lives.
This Christ pattern was further described as "the awareness within each soul, imprinted in pattern on the mind and waiting to be awakened by the will, of the soul's oneness with God" (5749-14), and its manifestation is the eventual destiny of each and every soul. With this in mind, the readings present Jesus as our "Elder brother," a soul who came to show each one of us the way back to our spiritual Source by perfectly manifesting the laws of the Creator in the earth.
Just as an older sibling can sometimes provide insight and counsel into some of life's difficulties (because he or she went through them first) Jesus as Elder brother can assist us in facing life's challenges. What may surprise individuals is that this fact has nothing to do with religion, it has to do with spirituality and discovering our true relationship with God - a relationship we share with Jesus. The readings not only affirm that Jesus was the Son of God, but they also state the same thing about each and everyone of us. In other words: Jesus was like each one of us and, ultimately, each one of us is destined to be like Him.
EC: To glorify the Christ Consciousness in the Earth . in the lives of those with whom ye come in contact, and to live the same thyself. - Reading 2441-4
Q. What is the meaning and significance of the words Jesus and Christ...?
EC: Just as indicated. Jesus is the man, the activity, the mind, the relationships that He bore to others. Yea, He was mindful of friends, He was sociable. He was loving. He was kind. He was gentle. He grew faint, He grew weak and yet gained that strength that He has promised, in becoming the Christ, by fulfilling and overcoming the world! Ye are made strong in body, in mind, in soul and purpose by that power in Christ. The power, then, is in the Christ. The pattern is in Jesus. - Reading 2533-7
This transformative power of the Christ Consciousness is awakened as individuals act in accord with the pattern set by the example of Jesus' life. In fact, this awakening is the essential purpose for which each soul enters into life.
From Cayce's perspective, Jesus is the Elder brother for all of humankind, deeply committed to assisting all souls in reawakening to the awareness of their oneness with God. This Jesus is not interested in religious conversion, denominationalism, or even mighty personal accomplishments. Instead, He is simply interested in how we treat one another. With this in mind, even in the midst of our diversity as a human family, we share a common spiritual heritage. We are all Children of the same God. We are all part of the one spiritual Source. And, we are all destined to return to our Creator, our Mother/Father, our God.
Unknown Life of Jesus - Cayce presented narratives of Jesus' previous incarnations, including a mysterious Atlantean figure called "Amilius" as well as the more familiar biblical figures of Adam, Enoch, Melchizedek, Joshua, Asaph, and Jeshua. Cayce describes Jesus as an Essene who traveled to India in his youth in order to study Eastern religions. Read more [scroll down]
Reincarnation Past Lives
Reincarnation is the belief that each of us goes through a series of lifetimes for the purpose of spiritual growth and soul development. Cayce's approach does not include the concept of transmigration, which states that it is possible for human beings to be born again as animals. From the standpoint of the Cayce material, souls only occupy human bodies through their spiritual growth and developmental process.
In essence, the Cayce approach to reincarnation provides a philosophical setting to the past focusing on practical ways of dealing with this life: living, growing, and being of service to one another in the present.
For him it wasnıt nearly as important to who individuals had once been, or even what they had been doing, as it was paramount that they focus on the present and the opportunities and challenges that faced them in this time, in this place, right now.
In terms of remembering your own past lives, the Edgar Cayce information provides a variety of approaches. In fact, oftentimes individuals who received readings would ask about such things as memorable dreams that were on their mind, personal traits and talents that they had always been drawn to, and even intense positive or negative relationships with other people in their lives Cayce described how each of these things could be tied to past-life memories. With these things in mind, in order to remember your own past lives the Cayce readings recommend such things as personal inventories of your talents, abilities, likes, and dislikes; working with meditation and dreams; taking part in imaginative past-life reveries or self-hypnosis, and so forth.
From Cayce's perspective, the reason for believing in reincarnation is not so that we can dwell upon the past or brag about the possibility of once having been someone famous, instead it is to enable a soul to understand the consequences of previous choices and to know that each individual is ultimately responsible for shaping and creating his or her life in the present. From the Cayce readingsı perspective, the past merely provided a framework of potentials and probabilities. An individualıs choices, actions, and free will in the present would determine the actual experience lived this time around. Rather than being a fatalistic approach to life, it is much more one of nearly limitless opportunities.
Cayce teaches the reality of reincarnation and karma, but as instruments of a loving God rather than blind natural laws. Its purpose is to teach us certain spiritual lessons. Animals have undifferentiated, "group" souls rather than individuality and consciousness. Once the soul evolves through a succession of animal incarnations and achieves human status, it is not then reborn in animal form. Cayce's view arguably incorporates Theosophical teachings on spiritual evolution. Each person, in his view, existed in a self-conscious form before birth and would exist again after death.
As well as his health readings, Cayce gave many hundreds of so-called "life" readings, during which he would describe his subject's past lives. A number of those readings referred to past incarnations in the legendary lost land of Atlantis. In all, Cayce referred to Atlantis no fewer than seven hundred times in his readings over a span of twenty years.
From Cayce's perspective, we are not simply physical bodies or even physical bodies with souls, but are instead spiritual beings who are currently having a material experience. As souls, we have manifested in the earth in order to learn lessons that will enable us to return to our former state of spiritual awareness. At the same time, one purpose we all have in common is to bring the spirituality of the Creator into the earth.
A soul can choose to be born into either a male or a female body in any given lifetime or, as Cayce called it, an incarnation. A soul selects that environment (parents and family, location, personal obstacles, etc.) which will best allow for the learning of lessons it needs for completeness. The goal is to fully express love in all the challenges which physical life offers.
One's experiences are subject to the choices made with free will. As one grows, he or she learns-or rather remembers-his or her true relationship with God and one's heritage as a spiritual being. With free will, we can turn the challenges life presents to us into stepping-stones toward growth, or we can see them as obstacles and stumbling blocks. Either way, we reap what we have sown. We constantly meet the consequences of previous deeds and attitudes.
One frequently misunderstood concept regarding reincarnation has to do with karma. From the standpoint of the Cayce material, karma is not destiny; it is only memory. These memories are generally unconscious and influence our abilities, our faults, even our relationships with others, but with free will we can meet this memory as a positive or a negative experience. Karma provides us with the potential to learn a lesson we need in order to grow at a soul level, and free will determines whether or not we choose to learn it at this time. The choices we make determine the next set of potential experiences we encounter.
Much more than simply a concept that applies to a limited segment of the world, reincarnation is a philosophy that has-at one time or another-been embraced by all the major religions of the world. It's a concept that can allow us to have compassion for one another because ultimately we are all equal-there is only one God, and we are all His children.
From Cayce's viewpoint, it doesn't really matter if an individual believes in reincarnation or not. For some it can be a helpful concept, for others confusing. The main purpose is to allow individuals to become aware of their true spiritual nature and their ultimate relationship with one another. In fact, if we can think for a moment about the one person in our life whom we love most of all. then we will get an inkling of the goal of reincarnation: to be able to love every single soul, even ourselves, with the very same love.
Atlantis and Cayce Atlantean Channelings
Land Mass - The size of Atlantis was equal to that of Europe, including Asia in Europe. He saw visions of a continent which had gone through three major periods of division; the first two about 15,600 BCE, when the mainland was divided into islands. The three main islands Cayce named Poseida, Og and Aryan.
Atlantean Souls - Many people living today are the reincarnations of Atlantean souls, who must now face similar temptations as before.
Blue Stone - Cayce may or may not have predicted the coming of a certain 'blue stone' of Atlantean origin, that was to be found on "an island in the Caribbean" and was to have the power to heal. In 1974 a Volcanic blue pectolite now known as the Larimar was found in the Dominican Republic. References to Blue Stones are also a metaphor for the color blue which goes to this file and on to blue apples, blue grapes, stargates, etc. Everything is connected andmost of what you read that is channeled contains metaphoric content.
Crystals - The Atlanteans had constructed giant laser-like crystals for power plants, and that these had been responsible for the second destruction of the land. In metaphysical circles this colored gemstone is said to have healing powers; as with most crystals and gemstones, there is no scientific evidence that it has any special properties. The final destruction was in part to due to the overcharging of the Crystal which caused a massive explosion. Cayce blamed the final destruction on the disintegration of the Atlantean culture through greed and lust. But before the legendary land disappeared under the waves, Cayce believed there was an exodus of many Atlanteans through Egypt and further afield. Cayce attributed history's Great Flood in part to the sinking of the last huge remnants of Atlantis.
Atlantis Rising - Cayce most specifically timed forecast was that Atlantis would rise again in 1968 or 1969. Needless to say, Cayce was wrong on that count. [Note: However, it was in that time frame that the "Bimini Road" was located in the Atlantic Ocean. Whether this is a "road" or "natural, geologic erosion" is cannot be proven. Atlantis suffered 3 major destructions one of which was the deluge.
Egypt - Next to biblical times, the most significant era for the "life readings" was a pre-dynastic Egyptian civilization consisting of Atlantean refugees. Cayce purported to have been an otherwise unknown pharoah named "Ra Ta" who built a spiritually-based healing center (the "Temple of Sacrifice") and educational institution (the "Temple Beautiful"). His diagnostic readings and narratives about the past and future were supposed to be a continuation of his ancient work. This civilization also built monuments on the Giza plateau, including the Great Pyramid, and left records of Atlantis in a "hall of records" located somewhere beneath the Sphinx. These readings bear a close resemblance to books by AMORC founder H. Spencer Lewis.
Earth Changes and Cayce on Earth Changes
The first sign of this change in the Earth's core would be the "breaking up of some conditions" in the South Pacific and "sinking or rising" in the Mediterranean or Etna area. Cayce forecast that, by the end of the century, New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco would be destroyed. He said that "the greater portion of Japan must go into the sea" at this time, and that northern Europe would be "changed as in the twinkling of an eye."
In 1941, Cayce predicted that lands would appear in the Atlantic and the Pacific in the coming years, and that "the coastline now of many a land will be the bed of the ocean. Even many of the battlefields of 1941 will be ocean, will be the sea, the bays, the lands over which the new order will carry on their trade as with one another."
"Watch New York, Connecticut and the like. Many portions of the east coast will be disturbed, as well as many portions of the west coast, as well as the central portion of the United States. Los Angeles, San Francisco, most of all these will be among those that will be destroyed before New York, or New York City itself, will in the main disappear. This will be another generation though, here; while the southern portions of Carolina, Georgia, these will disappear. This will be much sooner. The waters of the Great Lakes will empty into the Gulf of Mexico."
Cayce prophezied that the Earth's axis would be shifted by the year 2001, bringing on reversals in climate, so that where there has been a frigid or semi-tropical climate, there will be a more tropical one, and moss and fern will grow. By this time, he indicated, a new cycle would begin.
Astrology - Edgar Cayce's view of astrology was based on the concept of reincarnation. He felt that it was not the positions of the planets that influence the soul at birth, but that the soul chooses the time in which it wishes to be born. Most of us, according to Cayce, have had lives before this one, and we bring with us talents, abilities, and influences from those past lives. These influences, part of the universal law of cause and effect, are called "karma" in Sanskrit. Cayce also tells us that not only have we had previous lives, but that, between lifetimes, the soul has a life outside the physical world. During these interim periods, the soul experiences levels of consciousness that correspond to the vibratory levels of the different planets.
Cayce referred to these interim lifetime experiences as "planetary sojourns." Because we have had experiences with the vibrations of the different planets between lifetimes, the planets have an internal influence on us when we reincarnate into the earth plane. These influences of the planets are felt by us in the form of "inclinations, tendencies, and urges" (781-5). However, Cayce said, no influence is greater than the human will and the choices we make in our lives every day:Not that there are not definite helps to be attained from astrology, but those who live by same the more oft are controlled rather than controlling their own lives and destinies. Astrology is a fact, in most instances. But astrological aspects are but signs, symbols. No influence is of greater value or of greater help than the Will of an individual. Reading 815-6
PART 3
Soulmates - Dead Sea Scrolls
PART 4
Ideals - Body, Mind, Spirit - Cayce's Death - Links & References
ALPHABETICAL INDEX OF ALL FILES
