THE SLEEPING PROPHET~ TRULY

[Guest guest]

The Sleeping ProphetEdgar

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 (ARE), 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". The ReadingsOrigin

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 Following

New Thought precedent, Cayce distinguishes between Jesus and

Christhood. Briefly, Jesus was a soul like us, who reincarnated through

many lifetimes (and made many mistakes). "Christhood" is something

which he achieved, and to which we also ought to aspire. Cayce

accordingly calls Jesus our "elder brother." 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: "For

ye are a corpuscle in the body of God; thus a co-creator with Him, in

what ye think, in what ye do." - Edgar Cayce reading #2794-3The 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. Q. What is the main purpose of Jesus' incarnation? 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 2533-7This 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, , Asaph, and Jeshua. Cayce describes Jesus as an

Essene who traveled to India in his youth in order to study Eastern

religions Reincarnation Past Lives Edgar Cayce found that

the concept of reincarnation was not incompatible with any religion,

and actually merged perfectly with his own beliefs of what it meant to

be a Christian. Eventually the subject of reincarnation was examined in

extensive detail in over 1,900 Life Readings. 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 wasn¹t 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 readings¹ perspective, the past

merely provided a framework of potentials and probabilities. An

individual¹s 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.The ReadingsEdgar

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 recorded the readings, and his wife Gertrude Cayce

"conducted" (guided) the readings. The readings are customarily divided into the following categories: Physical Readings: 9,603 extant readings.Otherwise

known as "health readings" in which (typically) a patient would be

diagnosed and a cure prescribed. For some reason Cayce needed to be

told the patient's physical location, though this might easily be in

another city or state (in the case of patients inquiring by letter).

Cayce lore describes various incidental examples of clairvoyance in the

course of Cayce's psychically "searching" for the patient. Life Readings: 1,920 extant readingsIn

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 . 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 readingsOther

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). Political Predictions - World Wars I and IICayce

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; Love~All~Ways*~Karma*