A Biography
of Edgar Cayce
The
story of Edgar Cayce properly belongs in the
history of hypnosis. Cayce had the unusual ability of
inducing out-of-body experiences using a form of self-hypnosis.
His out-of-body journeys were identical to near-death experiences
with the exception that he was not clinically dead. Indeed,
one does not need to be dead to have a near-death experience.
There are many ways to induce your brain to free your consciousness
and I have a whole list of them on my
NDE Triggers
web page.
During a hypnotic trance, Cayce
was able to speak in an authoritative voice
on subjects far beyond the range of his normal knowledge.
Except for the Bible, he was not an avid reader of books.
While in a deep trance, all he needed was to be given the
subject to be discussed, or the inquiring person's name,
address, and whereabouts, by a conductor to make suggestions
and ask the questions, and a stenographer to take it all
down. Almost every day for forty-two years he had out-of-body
journeys in order to answer questions covering an immense
range of subject matter. He could do this at any time, any
place.
Persons from all
walks of life came to him for help or advise. Among them
were a movie producer, an actress, a top steel magnate,
a U.S. Senator, a Vice-President of the United States; parents,
the sick, the lame, the disturbed. His strange gift of clairvoyance
has never been duplicated in modern times, although a few
other psychics have proved a measure of ability beyond any
doubt.
The Cayce records are unique.
Twenty million words from an unconscious mind is not
a commonplace. If they can be believed, new frontiers wait
to be explored.
Clairvoyance,
clairaudience,
dreams,
hypnotism, point the way to a better understanding of
the history and depth of the human mind and soul. A challenging
field lies before humans in their search for truth and the
meaning of human existence in Earth.
Cayce was born on
a farm near Hopkinsville, Kentucky, in 1877. A poor student,
he received no more than a grammar school education, and
eventually took up photography as a trade. His psychic powers
were accidentally discovered in 1901, when he was twenty-four.
He caught a cold and suddenly lost his voice. After a year
of numerous and unsuccessful medical treatments, he became
resigned to a life of rasping whispers.
About this time hypnotism
was enjoying a fad throughout the country, and a friend
suggested that he try it as a means of helping his condition.
Cayce was willing to try anything that might cure his throat.
A local hypnotist offered his services, and Edgar readily
accepted. He insisted, however, that he put himself to sleep,
with the friend making the suggestions after he was "under".
The experiment proved
to be more than successful. Cayce went into a deep trance
and described the condition in his vocal cords, advising,
strangely enough, what to do for it. The advice was followed
by the hypnotist - that of suggesting the blood circulation
increase to the affected area - and when Cayce awakened
he had regained his normal speaking voice. After a number
of follow-up sessions, the cure turned out to be a permanent
one.
Cayce,
his family and his friend were astounded. When word got
around of this unusual occurrence, he was besieged with
requests by the sick to try his diagnoses and curative methods
on them. He was reluctant to attempt anything of the kind.
In the first place, he was uneducated and knew nothing of
medicine or anatomy in his waking state. After all, he had
no idea what went on while he was asleep. In the end, however,
he gave his consent, and his misgivings proved unfounded.
In most of the cases that were
presented to him, the celebrated psychic never met the persons
making the requests. They were received through the mail;
the recipients of the readings were usually
hundreds of miles away. All Cayce needed was the full
name of the person, his address, and where he would be at
the appointed time of the reading. Lying on the couch with
his necktie and shoelaces loosened - for better circulation,
the readings said - he could answer any question put
to him. His wife, Gertrude, usually made the suggestions
and asked the questions, while his lifelong secretary, Gladys
Davis, took everything down in shorthand. After a while,
the sleeping Cayce would start to mumble, as though searching
for something. Then he would clear his throat and speak
in a firm, authoritative voice. "Yes, we have the body," he
would begin, and then go into a half-hour discussion of
the physical condition of the person who was ill.
But in 1923 a startling
new kind of reading was discovered. Cayce was operating
a photographic studio in Selma, Alabama, when one day he
met Arthur Lammers, a well-to-do printer. His hobby was
metaphysical philosophy, and what he wanted to know was
far beyond the range of Edgar's normal thinking.
"What is the
meaning of life?" he asked. "What is
the real nature of man? What is the meaning of birth and
death? Why are we here? Cayce accepted Mr. Lammers offer
to explain these mysteries through his powers of hypnosis.
What followed was the beginning of the metaphysical thought
that emerged from 2,500 "Life" readings (information
about a person's past lives), as distinguished from the "Physical"
readings (medical diagnosis and cures) he had previously
been giving.
For Cayce, this was
the beginning of another period of tortuous self-doubt.
Brought up in an atmosphere of strict, orthodox, Protestant
Christianity, he was uninformed on the other great religions
of the world and their similarities with his own. What the
readings now said seemed foreign to everything he had been
taught and had been teaching in his Sunday school classes
for many years. The essential principles of the great religions,
said the readings, were nevertheless all the same - they
were only clothed in different garments.
Cayce withheld judgment on the
point for a long time. In the end he and those close to
the work came to accept
reincarnation.
It was improvable of course, but in provable instances the
readings had shown themselves to be honest if not infallible.
The answers were consistent.
Eventually, somebody thought
to ask the sleeping Cayce where he was getting his information.
He gave two sources his mind apparently succeeded in tapping.
One was the unconscious or subconscious mind of the subject
himself; the other was what was called the universal memory
of nature,
Jung's Collective Unconscious, or the
Akashic Records. This is the "Recording Angel",
or the "Book
of Life".
Say the Cayce records: "Edgar
Cayce's mind is amendable to suggestion, the same as all
other
subconscious minds; but in addition thereto, it has
the power to interpret to the objective mind of others what
it acquires from the subconscious minds of other individuals
of the same kind. The subconscious forgets nothing. The
conscious mind receives the impressions from without and
transfers all thought to the subconscious, where it remains
even though the conscious be destroyed" as in death.
The readings also
say, "The information as obtained and given by
this body [Edgar Cayce] is gathered from the sources from
which the suggestion may derive its information. In this
state the conscious mind becomes subjugated to the subconscious,
the superconscious, or soul mind (the spirit), and may and
does communicate with like minds, and the subconscious or
soul force becomes universal.
From any subconscious
mind information may be obtained either from this realm
or from the impression as left by the individuals that have
gone before. As we see a mirror directly reflecting that
which is before it - it is not the object itself, but that
reflected."
This is a new idea. If it is
true, then Cayce's mind was able to tap the mass of knowledge
possessed by millions of other subconscious minds, including
those who have passed over to the spiritual, cosmic realms
in death. This would be an almost unlimited source of wisdom,
since it was universal and Cayce was unhindered by time
and space. Upon this "Akashic record" is supposedly
registered every sound, every thought, every vibration since
the beginning of time. Cayce, then was no "medium."
When this idea first appeared in a reading, few, including
Cayce, could believe it. Science knew nothing of any such
etheric substance.
Newspaper headlines
did not affect him as offers of fame and large sums of money
came. Although he never earned more than a modest living
at best, he turned down all efforts by others to commercialize
on the readings. Desperately poor at times, he once flatly
refused an offer of $1,000 a day to go on the stage.
Simple in his tastes, he was an expert fisherman and a horrible
golfer. He loved to talk about the Bible and would preach
a sermon at the drop of a word.
By 1944 he was a
year behind in appointments and suffering from over-exertion
and edema of the lungs. A stroke confined him to bed. At
the age of 67, he never recovered. His last reading, given
for himself, was not followed by the doctors in charge.
On January 3rd, 1945, Cayce passed over to the other side.
No person ever left the world a stranger legacy.
The following are
some of excerpts from the Cayce material:
Quotes from Edgar Cayce |
"The
spirits of all that have passed from the physical
realm remain about the realm until their developments
carry them onward, or they are in the realm of communication,
or remain with this sphere, any may be communicated
with. There are thousands about us here at present." (3744-2)
|
"The
soul is the God-part in you, the living God."
(262-77)
|
Question: "What
is the highest possible psychic realization?"
Answer: "That
God, the Father, speaks directly to the sons of
men." (440-4)
|
Question: "Is
the destiny of every spiritual entity to eventually
become one with God?"
Answer: "Unless
the entity wills its banishment ... Yet God has
not willed that any soul should perish." (900-20)
|
Question: "If
the soul fails to improve itself, what becomes of
it?"
Answer: "Can
the will of man continue to defy its Maker?"
(826-8)
|
"The
judge shall be your own conscience; for conscience
is that which awakens the mind of the soul; the
soul that of your self that is the nearest portion
of the dwelling place of the Holy of Holies Himself
- the Spirit of the Master." (54-54)
|
Concerning Jesus: "An
entity, then, is the pattern of divinity in materiality,
or in the Earth. As man found himself out of touch
with that complete consciousness of the oneness
of God, it became necessary that the will of God,
the Father, be made manifested, that a pattern be
introduced into man's consciousness. Thus the Son
of Man came into the Earth, made in the form, the
likeness of man; with body, mind, soul. Yet the
soul was the Son, the soul was the Light."
(3357-2)
|
"Christ
[the spirit] is the Universal Consciousness of love
that we see manifested in those who have forgotten
self, as Jesus [the man], give themselves that others
may know the truth." (1376-1)
|
"He
came into the Earth that we, as soul-entities, might
know ourselves to be ourselves, and yet one with
him; as he, the Master, the Christ, knew himself
and yet one with the Father." (3003-1)
|
"Know
the Lord your God is One. And all that you may know
of good must first be within self. All you may know
of God must be manifested through yourself. To hear
of him is not to know. To apply and live and be
is to know!" (2936-2)
|
"The
Lord abhors the quitter." (518-2)
|
"Happiness
is a state of mind attained by giving same to others."
(2772-2)
|
"The
spirit of hate, the antichrist, is contention, strife,
fault-finding, lovers of self, lovers of praise."
(281-16)
|
& "Let
that rather be the your watchword, 'I am my
brother's keeper.' Who is your brother? Whoever,
wherever he is that bears the imprint of the Maker
in the Earth, be he black, white, gray or grizzled,
be he young, be he Hottentot, or on the throne or
in the president's chair." (2780-3)
|
|