Edgar Cayce
The Man Who Saw Through Time and Space
By Peter Sherrill
(Reprinted in The Esoteric World News through courtesy of the A.R.E., Virginia Beach, VA)
Excerpts From An Edgar Cayce Reading
Let all those who have signified their willingness to look to God for guidance know that God has remembered them. That they are conscious of being alive, with the ability to hate and love, should indicate this to them.
Let each individual know that it came into life with a purpose from God. Let each individual know that it has, as it were, a harp upon which the breath of God would play.
While all may not be as prophets or as preachers, neither may all stand in the halls of learning as directors of men, know that you each have your part to do.
That God hath so willed that man should be free to choose should indicate for each individual his relationship to God, that may only be manifested in the manner the individual treats his fellow man.
All are aware that selfishness causes many to be downtrodden, living in hovels; that greed, as is being manifested, would make slaves of thy fellow man. Yet each individual is an individual, and as there is greater power in being still before thy God than in much speaking. Again give thanks for the day and its opportunities.
Of all the psychics known to modern man, perhaps the most talented, versatile and believable was Edgar Cayce. Although the majority of his career was spent as a "psychic diagnostician," his gifts included telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition and retrocognition. Investigators find that this man was not only exceptionally talented but meticulously documented. A stenographer was present at over 14,000 of his "readings" to keep a verbatim record of what was said. Virtually all of the readings were checked by follow-up reports from his subjects. The readings and reports are filed together and available to all interested parties at the library of the Association for Research and Enlightenment, Inc., at Virginia Beach, Virginia, U.S.A. A complete indexing system gives the researcher quick access to virtually every word Cayce had to say on any given subject.
Twice a day for more than forty years, Cayce would lie down, enter a self-induced hypnotic state and, given only the name and location of his subject, would describe in detail the functionings and malfunctionings of the body no matter where in the world the person was at the time. Following his diagnosis came a prescription for treatment of the condition. Then came a period of questions and answers which supplied other needed information.
In his diagnoses, the terminology was so advanced it often sent doctors to their medical dictionaries. His therapies included a bewildering variety of treatments including osteopathy, chiropractic, hydrotherapy, chemotherapy, massage and diet. His answers and advice always stressed the necessity of a balanced, well-rounded life in which body, mind and spirit functioned as a coordinated unit. These facts are made even more remarkable when it is realized that, in his waking state, Cayce had only a grade-school education, knew nothing about medicine, and neither heard nor remembered anything said while asleep!
Even more astounding was the sleeping Cayce's accuracy: Of those cases verified by patients' reports, at least 85% of the diagnoses were found to be completely accurate; and those patients who followed the prescribed treatments got the results predicted in the reading. Some truly remarkable cures came about as a result of Cayce's advice. In one instance, he gave a reading for a man who had been confined to an insane asylum for three years following a nervous breakdown. The reading explained that "through pressures upon nerve energies in the coccyx area and the ileum plexus, as well as that pressure upon the lumbar axis, there has been a deflection of coordination between the sympathetic and the cerebro-spinal nervous system." Rather than nervous tension, the breakdown was attributed to a spinal injury caused by a fall. What was required was not psychotherapy but osteopathic adjustment and a mild, specially outlined electrotherapy to normalize the disrupted nerve forces. The results were dramatic. Within six months, well and in excellent health, the man was reunited with his family and reinstated to his former job.
In another case, a reading was given for a young woman ~ Cayce's wife, Gertrude ~ who suffered from what was diagnosed as incurable tuberculosis. The reading prescribed a diet, some simple drugs, and an unheard-of treatment: inhaling apple brandy fumes from a charred oak keg. Unusual or not, the treatment worked and the "incurable" tuberculosis gave Mrs. Cayce no more trouble.
One of the most amazing cures effected by the readings involved a young girl who had suddenly gone insane. Her condition did not respond to any of the treatments administered at the hospital. In desperation, her parents turned to Cayce for help. The reading described the trouble as an impacted wisdom tooth which was disrupting nerve and brain function. Remove the tooth, the reading advised, and the trouble would disappear. Cayce had never seen this girl ~ the reading was given four hundred miles away from the hospital where the girl was staying ~ yet when a dentist examined her, the impaction was founded exactly as described. The dentist removed the tooth, but did not believe it could cause that form of mental disorder. Four hours later, however, the girl had regained her normal state of mind and never evidenced mental disturbance again.
Cayce was a devout Christian who at an early age had decided to read the Bible through, cover to cover, once for every year of his life. All who knew him described him as an honest, moral man, dedicated to helping his fellow man in whatever way he could. In the early years of his psychic work, he refused all offers of money for his services. Later, when he gave up his career as a professional photographer to devote his time to the readings, he did accept donations ~ although he never refused his services to those who could not contribute. He was a quiet, gentle man who never advertised his ability or claimed any special talents, preferring to let the information that came through him speak for itself.
The first twenty years of his psychic career were devoted exclusively to "physical" readings, dealing with the human body and all its ailments. However, in 1923, at the prompting of Arthur Lammers, an inquisitive friend, the readings branched out into other areas of information. At first, a "horoscope" reading was given for Lammers ~ but it turned out that Astrology was not the only subject of the reading. "He was once a monk," Cayce said, despite the fact that Lammers had never been inside a monastery. Curious, Lammers probed deeper into this mystifying statement, and Cayce responded that Lammers had indeed been a monk at one time ~ in a previous life.
After this, readings were given to describe the origin and destiny of the soul, its place and purpose in this world and others, and the laws which governed it in its journeys. What evolved was a philosophy of man and his universe which encompassed tenets of virtually all the world's major religions including Christianity, Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism, and others. Cayce, a conservative Presbyterian, was faced with a dilemma Should he accept the information given by these readings, or should he hold to the traditional Christian beliefs he had learned as a child? After much soul-searching, he decided to continue with these metaphysical readings.
He had faced the same problem years before ~ would this be any different? He decided to accept it. Careful examination of the concept of reincarnation showed no incompatibility with his own Christian beliefs or with the beliefs of any other religion.
Shortly thereafter, the "life" reading was developed. In this type of reading, Cayce would receive the suggestion that he give the relationship of the subject too the universe, outlining influential past lives in the earth. He would begin by mentioning the Astrological conditions present at the time of the subject's birth, pointing out the most important signs and planets, and then give a brief description of mental, physical and spiritual traits inherent in the subject. He would then outline several incarnations. In giving incarnations, he often stressed that only the information useful to the individual was given, and only in a way that was constructive. Following the incarnations came advice for making the life happier and more productive. The last section, as in a physical reading, was devoted to questions and answers.
The information which came through Cayce was not limited to physical and life readings. About the time the first life readings were given, it was discovered that Cayce's source of information was virtually unlimited. Given the proper suggestion, he could and did speak with authority on a vast range of subjects. The only limitation that seemed to be imposed on this source of information was that it provided only that information which was in the best interests of those concerned. For example, in attempting to locate a missing person, it was apparent that the missing man didn't want to be located. The information indicated that the man was alive, and briefly sketched his activities, assuring his family that they could be reunited. The reading insisted that the decision to return must be made by the missing man, who had run away to escape from family problems. Those problems, Cayce said, must be solved by those concerned ~ and simply locating the missing man would aggravate the situation, not help it!
In a demonstration of his clairvoyance, Cayce once agreed to "find" a man in a distant city and trace his movements over the period of an hour. The man, aware that he was being "followed," made a conscious effort to alter his daily routine as he traveled from his apartment to his office. Instead of taking the bus, he walked, following an indirect route. He stopped at his tobacconist's and bought two cigars instead of the usual one. At his office building he walked up the stairs instead of taking the elevator. The reading accurately described the man's movements and, immediately following the reading, a telephone call to the man in the reading proved every detail correct ~ including the brand of cigar he bought, the tune he whistled as he walked, and the content of a letter waiting for him on his desk at work!
On several occasions, physical readings were given for people who were not present at the location given in the suggestion. In a reading for a ten-year-old girl, her mother reported: "The reading covered her condition in every detail. I had told her to stay in the house because she was going to have a reading. So she took her Bible upstairs to her room and started reading John ~ 'Let not your heart be troubled' ~ a part of the Scripture that she loved. She came to me about eleven o'clock and asked if she could go out in the yard, and I, thinking the reading was over, told her yes. When I got a copy of the reading I was surprised to find that the reading had been gotten after she had left her room. (The reading had been given at 11:25.) No doubt that is why Mr. Cayce said, "Yes, we have those impressions of the body here."
If taking a reading from the impressions a body leaves behind seems far-fetched, the skeptic might consider the "phantom leaf" phenomenon known to students of Kirlian photography. This form of photography reveals an energy-form, or aura, around living objects. Kirlian photographs taken of a leaf with a section freshly cut away will produce a photograph of the whole leaf, including the section cut away. This part of the leaf apparently leaves its impression, although it is physically missing. This may be the phenomenon which allowed Cayce to give readings for absent people.
Retrocognition, the ability to see past events, is evidenced most strongly in the life readings. It was not unusual for Cayce to briefly "review" a person's present life at the beginning of a life reading before mentioning past incarnations. Starting with the date at present, he would mention significant years, identifying them with a few words such as, "some changes here," or, "an injury." He would continue back to the subject's birth date, at which point he would say, "yes, we have the records of the entity," and begin the reading of past lives.
Many of his/her previous incarnations were, of course, impossible to verify. Mentioned were lifetimes in Atlantis, Lemuria, Og and other lost civilizations. Other lifetimes were verified. One man was told that, during the American Civil war, his name had been Barnett Seay and that he had served in the Confederate Army. A search of Civil War records showed that one Barnett Seay had indeed enlisted in the Confederate Army as a color-bearer. Another woman was told that, as a priestess in a Mexican civilization, she had left hieroglyphics on a cliff in a specified location. Traveling to the place mentioned in the reading, the woman found the hieroglyphics exactly as described.
Retrocognition also figured prominently in some of the physical readings. In one of his earliest recorded cases, Edgar Cayce gave a reading for a five-year-old girl whose mental development had stopped at age two; increasingly severe convulsions had led both local doctors and specialists to diagnose her condition as terminal and incurable. The reading indicated that an injury to the base of the spine three years earlier had allowed an influenza infection to settle there irritating the nerves in the area and causing the retardment and convulsions. The amazed mother confirmed that her daughter had fallen on the base of the spine shortly before contracting flu three years earlier. The fall had been considered insignificant and was forgotten, but the spinal adjustments prescribed in the reading allowed a total recovery.
Precognition also played an important role in Cayce's psychic work. The readings' ability to predict future events was as accurate as their medical diagnoses, and Cayce was called upon to give readings on subjects as diverse as marital prospects and world affairs. One series of readings on world affairs, given from the mid-1930s to the mid-1940s, offers the researcher a clear picture of both the events surrounding the Second World War and the "sleeping" Cayce's ability to see and predict them. In 1933, it was predicted that Roosevelt's New Deal policies would end the Great Depression, although the nation was still in the depths of the economic disaster and would not fully recover for another seven years. Later in the same year, another reading forecast Hitler's rise to power in Germany. Hitler, the reading said, could be a constructive influence in a nation stripped of its pride by the Treaty of Versailles. However, if this rising nationalism turned into imperialism, it could bring on disaster. It is possible that Cayce sensed the rise of the imperialist influence in the Reich, for the next ten years saw the beginning of World War II ~ an international disaster which was brought on, in part, by Hitler's global ambitions.
Life readings, especially for newborns and young children, showed a strong precognitive sense. Parents were advised of general personality traits, inherent likes and dislikes, latent interests and career possibilities, and personal abilities and disabilities. The reading often forecast events years before they happened in a person's life, and offered advice such as the age at which a person should marry or start a family. Reports from both parents and children in the ensuing years almost unanimously confirmed the accuracy of Cayce's predictions.
When he died in 1945, Edgar Cayce left a legacy of over 14,000 psychic readings, easily the largest and best-documented body of paranormal data ever received from one man. The readings are preserved by the Edgar Cayce Foundation, an adjunct of the Association for Research and Enlightenment. The Association, known simply as the A.R.E., was founded in 1931 to study and present the information from the readings, as well as correlative information from other sources.
Today, the Headquarters at Virginia Beach offers a wide range of services both to members of the A.R.E. and to non-members. Members regularly receive publications based on and related to the readings, and are allowed to borrow files of verbatim readings extracts. Members may also borrow books from the A.R. E. Library, which contains one of the largest and best collections of para-psychological and metaphysical works in the United States. They may take part in research programs, ranging from meditation to the healing of disease, that are based on concepts found in the readings. Both members and non-members are encouraged to visit the Association Library at Headquarters and attend the conferences regularly held in Virginia Beach and around the United States. The A.R.E. Press offers for sale a wide variety of books based on the readings and subjects related to the readings.
Last updated on 07/27/2007 11:38 AM
