(699–1) as Cayce told us, this would not be possible.
Our physical form is a product of all we have ever done, thought, and experienced with each lifetime contributing to the totality. Old memories are stored as patterns in the cells of our body. The energetic imprint of life-ending or -threatening injuries and accidents can carry over to future incarnations with their residue showing up as birthmarks or physical ailments. Current illnesses and conditions can be a direct result of something that we did or experienced in a prior life. For example, a person may be obese in this life, and he or she died of starvation in a previous one and made a death vow never to be hungry again. Perhaps the person laughed at overweight people and must now learn how that feels. The current life condition may not always manifest exactly as it occurred when the pattern was initiated. In one Cayce reading a man was told that his stuttering was due to an incarnation in which he had not hesitated in voicing his negative opinions. Another learned that his asthma was the karmic manifestation of previously having pressed the life out of others. Many past-life regressionists believe that any challenge encountered in the physical body can be related directly to one or more past-lives.
We are each the direct cause of and are responsible for the physical form we now have. Our bodies are the product of habits begun long ago, often over many lifetimes. The body is a finely-tuned machine that desires love, comfort, nourishment, and care. Spiritual distortions eventually manifest in the physical if they are not corrected, and the body tells us when we are off track. When it is out of alignment, we are meeting self. Pain is a reminder that the physical body has reacted to our thoughts in a way that is in conflict with what the body would want for us. Back pains, for example, can be fear based resulting from our not feeling supported or by trying to hold onto something that does not support us. The nature of the problem points to the very issue we must address. For example, being nearsighted might indicate that our vision of ourselves, others, and the world is too narrow, perhaps too focused on our own ego or personality. An ankle injury could result from fear of moving forward, and cancer is often caused by bottled up anger. As you will read in one of the regressions that follows, intestinal surgery was necessary after the awakening of the memory of someone close to this person trying to eliminate her, mentally, if not physically. Looking at this from the soul’s perspective, illnesses and conditions of the body prompt us to take responsibility for our creations and to change our ideals and thoughts to those more in keeping with our higher purpose. By correcting our limiting choices, they can then be expressed in a different form of manifestation. As Cayce said in one of the readings, “All healing, all correcting of the spiritual and of the mental life must come from the Divine within, and the results in the physical being will be in keeping with that which is developed in the spiritual self.” (3064–1) Whatever our physical issue, it points to a correction that we must first make on the spiritual level by making our decisions more in concert with God’s energy. When we do this, healing can occur on the spiritual, mental, emotional, and often the physical levels.
The Importance of Forgiveness
In order to heal our bodies, we must first understand what is unconsciously motivating us and what message our body is trying to send us. An exploration of our subconscious responses often leads back to one or more past-lives that originated the symptoms we are experiencing. Discovering what happened to our bodies in another time, such as dying in battle from a gunshot wound in the stomach, being tortured for our beliefs, dying from black lung disease after working in a coal mine, or being executed for having killed someone, is the first step in the healing process. Knowledge is potent but not always sufficient to change the imprint that sends energy to our automatic reactions. It is not beneficial to throw up our hands and move on, suffer in silence, forget a wrongdoing, or even entertain the thought that it was our spiritual lesson and therefore somehow okay. We must address the spiritual and mental reasons why this happened and make corrections. It is essential that we learn the lesson this history represents and use it for our own soul growth. Unless we do this, the imprint persists, and the body will continue to send us messages of pain and illness.
Forgiveness plays a key role in this reshaping of our thoughts and in transforming the energy stored in our physical and subtle bodies. Its power is unlimited. When we forgive, we clear the imprint of that negative influence and come once more into alignment with our divine nature. Forgiving a person does not mean excusing, rationalizing, justifying, or condoning his or her hurtful, inappropriate, or unconscionable actions. It does, on the other hand, mean releasing grudges, eliminating negativity, and trying to achieve a positive outcome, even if the other party is no longer alive or this happened thousands of years ago. The willful intention to forgive is what is needed to reap the full rewards for us and to dissolve the destructive energetic tie between us and another person. Without forgiveness we remain stuck in the mold of our negative reactions, responding automatically and unconsciously to what is happening in our lives. We become a prisoner to these patterns.
Our own names should be on that list of those in need of forgiveness. We are often much more critical of ourselves than we are of others who make similar mistakes. It is almost as if our parents (or others who judged us harshly) have taken up residence inside our heads and are always on call to tell us how unworthy or incompetent we are. The Cayce readings tell us that the spiritual error we often make is being harsh with ourselves, not loving ourselves.
Although we may struggle to forgive ourselves and others, we must honor the necessity of forgiving as part of the process of healing. Even when we have done our work, others may not be ready or able to change. Allow them to be who they are. They have chosen this path. Through forgiveness you have freed yourself from the negative bond between you and the other person, and your body will respond.
Over time A.R.E. members have achieved extraordinary results from using the 40-Day Forgiveness Prayer created by J. Everett Irion who served as the treasurer of the A.R.E. for many years. In addition to his administrative role, he wrote several books and gave lectures that were based on information in the readings of Edgar Cayce. The September/ October 1985 Venture Inward magazine, published by the A.R.E. for its members, included an article on the 40-Day Prayer written by Irion. Here is an excerpt from that article to provide you with the information you need to put this transformative tool to work for you.
A man in his mid-50s who came to see me during a conference on dream studies told me his doctors had given him only six months to live, and that he knew he was going to hell and there was nothing that could be done about it. He had been having a repetitive dream. This was it:
I am standing alone looking at an empty house. I walk around the house and look in the windows. I back away, wondering why I am here. Hearing a noise behind me, I turn and find a black lamb. It says to me, “You didn’t eat the bread.” End of dream.
The man interpreted his dream, saying, “I know the white lamb represents Christ and the black lamb has to be Satan, and since I did not eat the bread I am going to die and go to hell.”
I asked him what had happened in that house. He replied, “It is the house my wife and I lived in before I divorced her.”
He seemed to want to make amends, so I asked if he would consider going to his wife and saying simply, “Thank you.” He looked at me in sorrow, slowly shook his head and said, “I can’t do that, she is dead.”
Did he believe in reincarnation? I asked. He said he did. So I asked if he believed his wife still lived and that only her body had died. Again, he said, “Yes, I do.”
So I suggested that he try saying a little prayer to his ex-wife, and then a similar prayer to himself, leaving God out of the prayer because their problem had been at a personal level between them and needed to be handled on that same level—they were jointly responsible for the intimate problems that had divided them. Without knowing what was in the prayer, he agreed. Let’s say her name was Mary and his was John. I asked him to say—and to mean—this
