The Essential Edgar Cayce

by Thurston, Mark

  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.

  In another lifetime, she was the victim of an abusive medieval custom—one of the most powerfully shaping memories she had to face. When her then husband went off to the Crusades, he locked her in a chastity belt. She was deeply distressed and vengefully angry. “This brought periods of disturbing forces of many natures; the determining to sometime, somewhere, be free, and to ‘get even.’ ” And who was this Crusader? He was none other than her current husband, now impotent, now potentially very vulnerable to her affairs.

  The woman’s past life effect on the current situation vividly makes a point: Sexuality is the one thing in life that brings to bear all the key ingredients that make up the human soul. But it’s not only the place we readily get into trouble; it’s also where we can just as readily make great strides. The woman had to deal with the frustration of being married to a man who was impotent; she also had to wrestle with her own urges to act on her emotional and sexual needs. These needs were the challenges about which she was starting to make important choices.

  The woman had resisted any temptation to “get back” at her husband. She was very discreet and made sure that she didn’t flaunt her extramarital experiences hurtfully. On the other hand, she wasn’t sure that she could live without sex. But she knew that she didn’t want to hurt her husband while working out her own needs. She even explored alternatives: Just before turning to Cayce, she spent an intense period trying to raise the kundalini energy inside her up another level through daily meditation, but the results had been only partially satisfying.

  So should the woman resume the affair with her married lover? Edgar Cayce was rather direct in his advice: “Keep self unspotted from the world.” He may have been so direct because she herself had said she felt strongly against having sex with a married man. Cayce added a further bit of cryptic advice: “As to what the conduct should be, let it never be for the only emotional satisfaction—but creative in its nature.” Perhaps the woman could find a way to be involved with this man in a way that primarily engaged her creativity—for example, attending the symphony or taking a painting class together. But no doubt that would have been difficult.

  In response to the woman’s question about finding a bachelor to fulfill her desires, Cayce left her considerably more room to make choices. “Such questions as these can only be answered in what is thy ideal. . . . There is no condemnation in those who DO such for helpful forces, but if for personal, selfish gratification, it is sin.” In essence, he was encouraging her to make sure that the motive of love (“helpful forces”) was the directing influence.

  The story further continued to unfold. The woman requested two more readings, and she kept up a correspondence with Edgar Cayce for several years, apparently heeding his advice about avoiding further entanglement with her former lover. She did stay with her husband, but whether she pursued an affair with a bachelor isn’t revealed.

  What can we learn from a story like this? Few of us have ever faced a situation personally quite like hers. But if Cayce’s philosophy is sound, we all do face some type of soul-engaging challenge when it comes to our sexuality. It’s a universal condition: “There is no soul but what the sex life becomes the greater influence in life.”

  What must be remembered, however, is that sexuality leaves us with a wide array of free choices. Reading 911-2 goes on to say that this sexual influence doesn’t always mean “gratification in the physical act.” Whenever we’re creative, we engage the forces that are closely related to sexuality.

  Edgar Cayce encouraged people to always remember that there is a force behind the creative polarity of masculine-feminine. Sexuality enhances growth of the soul if our deepest motive is to find the oneness of all life. We miss the mark if we make the other person into the object of our longing only.

  While sexuality is where we’re most likely to encounter selfishness, dominance, fear, or just plain self-doubt, it’s also where we feel the creative forces most intensely. Cayce saw sexuality as the arena where we have the best chance to make the greatest strides in growth. This is where we can uncover the fundamental oneness of all energy. This is where we can create new life.

  Sexuality is where the immediacy of spiritual energies is revealed in our physical bodies. Sexual expression is so powerful because it’s the movement of the creative force, the kundalini, through the spiritual centers. All seven centers are involved, but, as discussed earlier, the effects are especially felt in the intense awakening of the reproductive glands, which relate to personal security and physical survival, just as they ensure the survival of the species; and in the cells of Leydig, located in the reproductive and adrenal glands, and linked to the masculine-feminine balance.

  The altered state of consciousness accompanying sexual ecstasy is similar to what may be experienced as the kundalini moves up through the other spiritual centers. If we keep in mind that ecstasy means “to be taken outside of ourselves,” then we recognize how the experience of sexual ecstasy is truly a spiritual one. That’s why Cayce said sex involves exercising the highest emotions a physical body can experience; he referred to sex as “the highest vibrations that are experienced in the material world” (911-5).

  Edgar Cayce’s advice about sexuality has a universal quality. It’s natural for us to desire and need to experience the highest emotions possible physically. Sexuality is bound to be a profound influence in our lives one way or another. And because the creative polarity of the masculine-feminine is so strong, sexuality intensely challenges our mind and free will.

  Whether or not we can recall any of our own past lives, Cayce reasons that sexual experiences are recorded in our souls and have a bearing on our current outlook and behavior. So do the values and ideals we’ve chosen in this lifetime. The message from the readings is simply this: Our sexuality is basic to who we are, and it is unavoidably involved in the challenges and growth potential of our spiritual lives.

  APPENDIX 4

  RECOMMENDED RESOURCES

  BIOGRAPHIES

  A. Robert Smith, ed., Edgar Cayce, My Life as a Seer: The Lost Memoirs (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997). Edgar Cayce wrote very little himself, although his diary and journals have been edited into this autobiographical volume.

  Charles Thomas Cayce and Jeanette Thomas, eds., The Work of Edgar Cayce as Seen Through His Letters (Virginia Beach, Va.: ARE Press, 2000). A selection of his letters was edited by his grandson and the administrator of t
he Edgar Cayce Foundation, the organization that serves as the legal custodian of the Edgar Cayce readings. These letters give the flavor of how difficult Cayce’s personal life often grew, especially during the Depression years. The letters also demonstrate how Cayce sometimes continued to counsel and help people, even after they had received their readings from him.

  Sidney Kirkpatrick, Edgar Cayce: An American Prophet (New York: Riverhead Books, 2000). This extremely well-researched and -documented book is also the most recent biography and now stands as the most authoritative.

  Thomas Sugrue, There Is a River (New York: Holt, 1943). Published while Edgar Cayce was still alive, the book was authored by a well-known newspaper writer and friend of the Cayce family. For decades, it stood as the definitive biography, but perhaps it suffers from not dealing adequately with some of the darker sides of the Cayce story, especially the difficulties surrounding organizations that tried to grow around Cayce’s work. One noteworthy aspect of this book is the lengthy appendix, a comprehensive chapter-length statement of the philosophy found in Cayce’s teachings.

  Harmon Bro, A Seer Out of Season (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1989). This noteworthy biography was written by a scholar, minister, and psychotherapist who knew Cayce personally and who was very skilled in describing the context in which Cayce’s work can be seen for modern life.

  Jess Stearn, Edgar Cayce: The Sleeping Prophet (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1967). A best-selling overview of Edgar Cayce’s life story and the prominent topics in his readings, it was Stearn’s book that helped launch widespread interest in Cayce’s work. Although dated in some respects, it is still worth reading as a classic among Cayce biographies.

  THE TEACHINGS