Today marks the 134th anniversary of Edgar Cayce's birth in 1877.
If you've never heard of Edgar or think he's just another fake psychic, then read this post. He was THE REAL DEAL.
Born in Hopkinsville, Kentucky in 1877, Edgar Cayce was raised a rural, humble God-Fearing farmboy with no more than a 9th grade education. He read the Bible cover-to-cover once a year, taught Sunday School and trained missionaries.
He was struck by a debilitating case of laryngitis in March of 1900. He was cured through hypnosis in a series of sessions in which remarkably he diagnosed his own problem and had the hypnotist induce a post-hypnotic suggestion to help cure him. It worked and also introduced Cayce to hypnosis, trance and psychic healing. Something his religious upbringing rallied hard against.
The hypnotist also suggested to Edgar that he use this trance induced knowledge to help heal other people since it was so accurate and helpful in his own life. Edgar agreed, reluctantly at first, and under the condition that it would be a free service.
His fame grew. He was bombarded by treasure seekers, businessmen and every other type of person wanting information. Distressed by this, he turned down large sums of money and instead decided to use his gift to help only the sick.
By 1925 Edgar Cayce was doing this professionally for a living. He had a secretary and a system for doing readings. He would lie down and self induce sleep. This technique gave him the epithet "The Sleeping Prophet." His secretary would transcribe everything he said verbatim and gave each reading a number. This turned out to be a great idea for in his lifetime, Cayce gave over 14,000 readings.
Edgar founded several insitutions, one of which was the Edgar Cayce hospital in 1929. Located in Virgina Beach it was funded by a wealthy recipient of a reading.
Cayce began most readings with the words "We have the body." He was in fact not so much a pyschic but a medium or a super-clairvoyant, for it seems while in the sleeping trance-like state he was able to channel from "beyond."
It is said he was able to access the Akashic Records. This is the Universal record of everything. EVERYTHING.
What made Cayce so extraordinary was that this humble christian from Kentucky was uncannily accurate in alot of things, but mostly he was able to diagnose and CURE medical ailments of all kinds.
This is what he concentrated on for years before the esoteric nature of his readings took hold. Even through the esoteric Cayce was medically diagnosing until the end of his life.
Edgar Cayce was NOT one of those psycics that says 'I see a letter C or D' 'You are due to travel soon' 'I see your grandmother. She's behind you smiling'.
He would trance out or "sleep" while focusing on a particular patient. These patients usually came in the form of mail or telegram and would state the nature of their complaint or problem. His secretary would give a patients name and location (address usually) and Cayce's voice would then start "We have the body..."
Here's a typical example:
"8/2/32 Letter (to Cayce from Patient): "Have been suffering from high blood pressure for a number of years. Have tried many doctors and various diets without much result."
Edgar Cayce: Yes, we have the body. Now, as we find, there are specific conditions that disturb the physical functioning of the organs of the body. These, as we find, are more in the nature of reflex conditions, in the disturbing of the functioning organs, but are of specific nature in their condition. These, then, are the conditions as we find them with this body.
First, in the BLOOD supply, this we find shows in its elementals the nature or cause of the disturbance, in the manner in which the circulation takes place; it being rather of the superficial circulation, or slower in its action in the return to the heart than in its flow from the heart to portions of the system. Hence producing in the heart's action itself a high pressure in the conditions of the system. This makes for the inability of the full or complete activities that might be experienced were there a normal coordination between the arterial and venous circulation.
In meeting, then, the needs of the conditions as we find for this body. First, we would begin with those irrigations that will relieve those pressures in the colon area throughout...."This reading goes on and on and was voiced in 1932 by Edgar Cayce, a man without any medical training or knowledge. It's a clear example, one out of 14,000 documented readings, of the intense knowledge coming through the trance state. He's channeling a "higher power".
Admittedly, not every reading produced a miraculous cure and some people were in fact not cured. But that number is well below something like 5%. And it cannot be proved that those people followed the directions in perfect order and precisely. In either case the astonshing number of cured or healed patients is in the 95% range.
Cayce's cures have lasted through time and to this day medical doctors and scientific modern knowledege have validated many of these cures and they are in constant use today.
He was unlike anything planet Earth has ever been gifted enough to see. At least in modern times that we know of. And he documented everything after 1923.
Many letters he recieved from patients led to answers he never thought possible. The so-called esoteric themes. Many a reading came back "We have the body. This entity used to be an Atlantean. Those of that race that lived 9,500 years ago" and so forth. "This person, once lived 75 years ago in New York City."
Edgar would ask to have read back his transcripts, for he remembered nothing while under, and literally be flabbergasted at what came out of his mouth. His Christian upbringing didn't have any foundation for reincarnation or past civilizations.
"Reading #5748-6:
Edgar Cayce: ...In those periods when the first change had come in the position of the land, when the Nile (or Nole, then) emptied into what is now the Atlantic Ocean, on the Congo end of the country. What is now as the Sahara was a fertile land..."Geology has caught up to Edgar, as we now know, and have since mid-1950's, the Sahara region was wetter in the past.
The esoteric themes were as follows (from
Wiki):
Origin and destiny of humanity: "All souls were created in the beginning, and are finding their way back to whence they came."
Reincarnation: Cayce's work 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.
Astrology: Cayce accepts astrology on the basis that our souls spend time on other planets (or perhaps their spiritual counterparts) in between incarnations. The position of the planets at our birth records these influences.
Universal laws: Souls incarnated on the Earth are subject to certain spiritual laws such as, "As ye sow, so shall ye reap" (karma)
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, more specifically astrology.
Jesus and Christ: Following New Thought precedent, Cayce distinguishes between Jesus and Christhood. Briefly, Jesus was a soul like us who reincarnated through many lifetimes.
Ideals: Cayce repeatedly stresses the choice of an ideal as the foundation of the spiritual path. "And O that all would realize... that what we are... is the result of what we have done about the ideals we have set" (1549-1).
Body, Mind, Spirit: Cayce often invokes these three terms, or their equivalents, to describe the human condition. "Spirit is the life. Mind is the builder. Physical is the result."
Meditation: While Cayce sometimes described particular meditation techniques of sitting or chanting "Arrr--eee-oommm" the crucial element, he believed, is that of opening up to divine influences.
Extra-sensory perception: Cayce accepted psychic experiences and ESP as a natural by-product of soul growth. God may speak to us through dreams (many readings consist of dream interpretation), or through intuitions similar to the pangs of conscience.
Atlantis: The Cayce readings spoke of the existence of Atlantis, a legendary continent with an advanced technology whose refugees peopled ancient Egypt as well as pre-Columbian America.
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 Egyptian priest named "Ra Ta" who built a spiritually based healing center (the "Temple of Sacrifice") and educational institution (the "Temple Beautiful").
Earth Changes: Cayce coined the term Earth Changes, a reference to a series of cataclysm events which he prophesied would take place in future decades — notably including the Earth shifting on its axis, and most of California dropping into the Pacific Ocean following a catastrophic earthquake.
Cayce "cures": Cayce's medical readings typically prescribe poultices (often of castor oil), osteopathic adjustments, colonic irrigation, massage (often with peanut oil), prayer, folk remedies (e.g. charcoal tablets), various forms of electric medicine and patent medicines (such as Atomidine), and specific recommendations concerning diet and exercise. Cayce is often seen as a practitioner of holistic medicine, and has particularly strong philosophical ties with naturopathy.
"Cayce diet": Major dietary recommendations include the avoidance of red meat, alcohol (except red wine), white bread, and fried foods; a preference for fruits and above-ground, leafy vegetables over starches; and a high ratio (80:20%) of alkaline foods over acidic. One meal per day should consist entirely of raw vegetables. According to Cayce, two or three almonds a day keep cancer away.
Dream interpretation: Cayce was one of the early dream interpreters who contradicted Freudian views by saying that dreams can be of many different kinds with many levels of meaning; that lack of interest is the reason for poor dream recall; that only the dreamer knows the meaning of his dream; and that a dream is correctly interpreted when it makes sense to the dreamer, when it checks out with his other dreams, and when it moves him forward in his life
Although the 14,000 readings were documented beginning in 1923, there are over 8,000 more readings that were either lost or undocumented from 1911 - 1923.
"In fact, in their entirety, the readings discuss an astonishing 10,000 different topics. This vast array of subject matter can be narrowed down into a smaller group of topics that, when compiled together, deal with the following five categories: (1) Health-Related Information; (2) Philosophy and Reincarnation; (3) Dreams and Dream Interpretation; (4) ESP and Psychic Phenomena; and (5) Spiritual Growth, Meditation, and Prayer."Edgar Cayce died on January 3, 1945. He is buried in Riverside Cemetery in Hopkinsville, Kentucky.
The book, "There is a River", details his life. It's a great read.
Edgar Cayce.org