The Essential Edgar Cayce (33 page)

A small percentage of the readings were for groups of people (series 281 was a prayer group; 262 was the original “A Search for God” study group), or about a topic of interest (series 364 was on Atlantis; 3744 was on psychic phenomena).

Cayce always had other people in the room with him when he was in a trance giving a reading. A
conductor,
often his wife, Gertrude, would supervise by giving him a suggestion to induce an altered state and asking the questions once he was in that state. The suggestion was a carefully worded command telling Cayce what type of information was being requested. A stenographer, usually his secretary Gladys Davis, recorded his answers verbatim, and many times there were also observers present.

Typically, what followed was a general discourse from Cayce:

• If the reading was for someone who was ill, Cayce would give a
physical reading
in which he analyzed the various systems of the body—digestive, circulatory, nervous—then recommend various natural remedies.

• If the reading was for someone who was requesting guidance in understanding his or her purpose in life, Cayce would give a
life reading
in which he analyzed the strengths and weaknesses of the soul. Often, he first would speak in astrological terms about traits and tendencies, then he would relate details of past lives whose influence might be being experienced in the present.

• If the reading was for someone who was requesting spiritual advice, Cayce gave a
mental-spiritual reading,
which opened with a lesson about spiritual law and principles for living.

While questions were generally posed to the entranced Cayce following an opening discourse, on occasion there were no questions submitted so the entire reading consisted of the opening discourse followed by some additional remarks. The transcription of the reading included the discourse, questions exactly as stated, if submitted, and Cayce’s exact responses.

When excerpts from the readings appear in books or magazines, they are almost always limited to the text itself. However, more in-depth research into the readings requires knowing the background of the person who requested the reading and a follow-up report on what was done with the information obtained from the reading. For almost all of those people who received advice from Cayce, that kind of supplemental information was made available as an appendix, or
report,
to the reading.

A frequently asked question is, What was the
source
of the information that came through Edgar Cayce? When Cayce himself was asked, he replied that his own higher self—his superconscious mind—was the source. In other words, he didn’t claim it was a noncorporeal being speaking through him, but it was his own inner wisdom. The information it obtained came either from the unconscious mind of the individual getting the reading, or from what Cayce called the
Akashic Records,
an ancient Indian Sanskrit term referring to a record of the subtle energy of all events of history, including all thoughts and feelings.

Edgar Cayce’s superconscious mind often expressed information in a style quite different from our conversational style today. Although the language and sentence structure are sometimes difficult to decipher, with a few guidelines you’ll become more proficient in understanding what was meant.

• Slow down your reading pace. In many readings, the sentences are exceedingly long, and it may help to insert punctuation mentally for pauses or to make the sentences shorter. You may even wish to read passages aloud.

• Be patient when doing research. Something in a reading may make no sense to you, even after several attempts. Rather than getting bogged down, keep reading. Further clarification may appear later in the reading. Or maybe it will become clear after a few days or even weeks. Even the most experienced student of Cayce encounters problems sometimes.

• Develop an understanding of the language style of the readings, which were often biblical in both tone and content. In a waking state, Edgar Cayce was a devoted student of the Bible, and it is only natural that some biblical material would find its way into his readings. More than anything else, this tendency shows the reverence Cayce had for the readings themselves. He took each reading very seriously, and he felt that each was a sacred trust given to him.

It’s only fair to ask: If Edgar Cayce was so insightful when he was in a trance, why couldn’t he have found a way of speaking that would be easier to understand? One explanation offered by Cayce scholars is that this difficulty with communication was because his mind was operating on another level of consciousness in which words are often an inadequate means of expression. He was trying to communicate in three-dimensional, logical terms the information that he could perceive with far greater depth and understanding.

Perhaps, too, we have to
work
with this information to really find value and meaning in it. If everything was obvious immediately, we might read only superficially and never roll up our sleeves to understand what it’s all about. Sometimes, Cayce even seems like a poet, composing with words whose rich, deep meaning require conscious effort and patience to understand. But just like a wonderful passage of poetry that takes a little extra work, the results are well worth the effort. We begin understanding ourselves in a new way as his images, metaphors, aphorisms, and biblical references find resonance within ourselves.

APPENDIX 2

EDGAR CAYCE AND ASTROLOGY

Edgar Cayce supported the fundamental premise of astrology that the planets and stars have a relationship to human temperament and behavior. In fact, he encouraged the study of astrology.

Q
Would it be well for me to make a study of astrology?

A
Well for everyone to make a study of astrology!
311-10

Cayce differs from many astrologers, however, in the area of causation. The fact that Mars was on the ascendant, near the horizon, at the moment of birth does not cause one to behave in a certain way as an adult. In Cayce’s view, it’s the other way around: Because of past life experiences in the material world, and noncorporeal experiences the soul has had before birth (so-called
interplanetary sojourns
), the soul
chooses
to be born when the planets depict best its own innate patterns—when the planets “bear witness to” it, as Cayce puts it.

Most schools of psychology categorize people according to temperament or disposition. Carl Jung, for example, judged temperament according to an individual’s innate tendency to favor one polar extreme over another: thinking versus feeling, sensation versus intuition, introversion versus extroversion. In a similar fashion, Cayce felt astrology could help pinpoint individual temperament.

But Edgar Cayce rarely referred to astrology as being predictive. The planets and stars do not shape our future. Astrology, he said, was suggestive of happiness and success in one arena, the choice of one’s career, going so far as to say in one reading that “eighty percent of the individuals may have their abilities indicated from the astrological aspects in the direction of vocational guidance” (5753-3). In the life readings, Cayce usually identified two or three planets with the greatest influence on the individual, but even then
influence
had more to do with the impact of one’s own tendencies and memories than any exterior force.

For Edgar Cayce, there were eight planets, other than the earth itself, that defined the fundamental elements of temperament. The characteristics he assigned to these planets can be pieced together from the hundreds of readings in which he employed astrology.

Mercury:
Tendency to intellectualize and analyze; a quick mind; likes to get the facts.

Venus:
Prefers to do things in partnership; appreciates the beauty of people and places; vulnerable.

Mars:
Likes competition, challenge, and activities that demand physical energy; tendency toward anger.

Jupiter:
Relates to large endeavors; likes philosophy and getting the “big picture”; comfortable with power and money; expansive and liberal.

Saturn:
Conservative, cautious, and reluctant to change (which, ironically, often causes sudden changes in life); disciplined and persistent.

Uranus:
Swings in mood or emotion from one extreme to another; high-strung; scientific and inventive; highly intuitive or psychic.

Neptune:
Attracted to the mysterious; mystical, idealistic, otherworldly, and devotional; attracted to the sea and other forces of nature.

Pluto:
Combustive, explosive, passionate, and self-oriented.

It remains a mystery how Cayce identified the two or three essential planets that corresponded to a given individual’s temperament type, and it’s that confusion that has kept his approach to astrology from gaining wider acceptance. Students of astrology can’t figure out how he determined which of all the planets on the birth chart were the most influential. For example, the exact time and place of birth was known for many who received readings, but there seems to be no consistent method that Cayce used to select two or three planets from the birth horoscope configuration. It may well be that astrology was primarily a language tool that Edgar Cayce used to describe his clairvoyant insights into personality patterns and temperament.

APPENDIX 3

EDGAR CAYCE ON SEXUALITY

“There is no soul but what the sex life becomes the greater influence in life”
911-2

We are all challenged to find meaning in our sexuality. Its powerful influence affects our health, our sense of well-being, our creativity, even our spirituality. It is a direct way that we engage the spiritual life-force. And sometimes, in the midst of a loving, intimate relationship, it’s where we discover the most important opportunities for
spiritual
development.

If we were to list the roles played by Edgar Cayce in his readings—psychic diagnostician, holistic physician, dream interpreter—most of us wouldn’t think to add
sex therapist
. Yet that’s exactly what he was for dozens of people. And what makes Cayce an extraordinary therapist is how he skillfully wove issues involving sex into a broader vision of life. He saw sexuality in terms of dimensions of consciousness and the seven spiritual centers, and its impact on our values and ideals.

These points are made dramatically in the story of a forty-one-year-old woman who sought advice from Cayce about her sex life. It had been troubled throughout her adult years, and she turned to him for both a life and a physical reading hoping to get answers about her difficult marriage, her unfulfilled sexual needs, and her quest to connect with the spiritual side of life.

Hers is one of the best-documented case histories in which Edgar Cayce helped a person understand sexuality in terms of growth of the soul. The records include many long, candid letters written between the woman and Cayce, and there is a definite air of secrecy about her requests because she worried her husband would find out that she felt strongly compelled to resume an affair with a longtime admirer.

By the time the woman contacted Cayce, confusion and tension had begun to wear on her and distressing physical symptoms began to surface. A physician recommended estrogen hormone therapy, but she worried that it would only enhance her sexual urges. In her letter requesting the first reading, she described the tremendous tension throughout her eighteen years of marriage. She and her husband had
never
had intimate relations; he had always been impotent, through no fault of his own. “There is simply not the physical development necessary,” as she put it.

The woman nonetheless recognized her own passionate nature and strong sexual urges. In the early years of her marriage, she dealt with her disappointment by having a series of affairs. One was especially noteworthy: For many years, she had been idolized and pursued by a man whose infatuation went all the way back to when they knew each other as children, but she didn’t learn of his love until after becoming engaged to her husband.

Some years after she married, they encountered one another again. He was married now—unhappily so, apparently—and she was in the throes of frustration over her husband’s impotence. She initiated intimacy with her admirer, then broke it off, as she wrote in a letter to Cayce, because she “did not wish to ‘two-time’ his wife.”

But after years of not seeing her, the lover suddenly reappeared. Although he was still married, their reunion was passionate, according to the woman. “From the minute we met again, the flame came back to him in its full intensity,
and
I responded. I am trying to release us, but I find my health going down.” It was at this point that she consulted Edgar Cayce, asking:

1. What are my obligations to my husband and to this man who has recently returned to my life?

2. Would a liaison with some trusted friend help me so I could function positively and rhythmically in carrying on the normal business of home life and work? A bachelor, perhaps—i.e., someone other than this former romantic interest?

Life reading 2329-1 was largely an analysis of the woman’s sexuality and the opportunities it presented to her now to foster growth of the soul. The reading was in no way judgmental, in no way did it compare her physical and emotional impulses with anyone else’s. We are measured against our own spiritual values and ideals only, according to Cayce.

The reading pinpointed a pivotal tendency in her soul to allow emotions and sex to get her into fixes. The natural ease with which she moved into sexual relations was related in large part to past life experiences. How could she break the pattern? By examining how she set ideals and values in her life. In so doing, she had to confront a strong inclination to let physical gratification and the emotions involved shape her life—what Cayce called “that universal urge arising from Venus,” something he linked to memories in the soul from previous incarnations. She had been a mail-order bride of sorts in the pioneer days of the American West; in this lifetime, she didn’t have the chance to let the desires of her heart lead her to a marriage partner and bartered herself instead to a man with whom she was not a very good fit. Yet she learned to make the best of it and experienced significant soul growth because of it.