that passeth understanding in knowing that the work of thine hands is acceptable in His Sight.
281-19
Cayce again referred to the ladder when another woman, Mrs. 1158, requested a Life reading:
As to the appearances in the earth, the one stands so far beyond the others—as indicated—that they become rather of little note; yet they each have their influence as a lesson, as a stepping stone upon the pathway. Or rather as that vision that was given of old—yea, which has been, which will become a vision to thine self—of that ladder upon which the rungs of life become here and there the pathway upon which the angels of mercy, light, patience, understanding, brotherly love, descend and rise again. As thou in thine experience has seen the ladder with the missing rung, know that such missing rungs are to be placed by not that as a service as duty alone; rather as the service of love, that ye may be even like Him.
1158-2
The Promise to Jacob
In Genesis 32:24-28, Jacob wrestled with the angel, and was given the name of Israel. Later, on his deathbed, he prophesied to his son Judah that the scepter of Israel would not depart from his descendants.
(Q) What should be understood by the statement [Genesis 49:10], “The scepter has not departed from Israel”?
(A) Israel is the chosen of the Lord, and that His promise, His care, His love has not departed from those that seek to know His way, that seek to see His face, that would draw nigh unto Him. This is the meaning, this should be the understanding to all. Those that seek are Israel. Those that seek not, have ye not heard, “Think not to call thyselves the promise in Abraham. Know ye not that the Lord is able to raise up children of Abraham from the very stones?” So Abraham means call; so Israel means those who seek. How obtained the supplanter the name Israel? For he wrestled with the angel, and he was face to face with the seeking to know His way. So it is with us that are called and seek His Face; we are the Israel. Know, then, the scepter, the promise, the love, the glory of the Lord has not departed from them that seek His face.
262-28
11See 262-87.
12Revelation 21: “. . . there is then the new Jerusalem.” For as has been given, the place is not as a place alone but as a condition, as an experience of the soul. Jerusalem has figuratively, symbolically meant the holy place, the holy city . . . the ark of the covenant in the minds, hearts, the understandings, the comprehensions of those who have put away the earthly desires and become as the new purposes in their experience, become the new Jerusalem, the new undertakings, the new desires. (281-37)
131 Corinthians 3:15.
14When this entity asked Cayce to describe the karmic relationship she had with her present father, Cayce responded, “He was Er, the husband in that experience. And is there a wonder that there are those disturbing forces in the material relationship in the present. Leave these with the Lord!” (1436-2)
15She had been healed of arthritis by following advice in her three previous readings.
Joseph: Forerunner of the Christ
Throughout the story of Joseph, the writer keeps emphasizing that God was with Joseph. However, it was the God in Joseph which did the works. His great ability at dream interpretation was simply the natural expression of the Divine Within going out to meet the needs and circumstances of the moment. God is in all and “with” everyone who seeks to do His bidding.
Joseph is the first physical, or flesh, incarnation of the soul who had been Adam, Enoch, and Melchizedek—three experiences which Cayce described as “in the perfection” (5749-14). Why, when he was a “living soul” with mind and Spirit attuned to the Creator, did he enter into the chaos of the earth plane, taking on a body of emotions and physical drives and desires that could, would—and did—separate him from this Oneness? As the Savior, it was necessary for him to undergo all the experiences of man:
. . . would that all would learn that He, the Christ Consciousness, is the Giver, the Maker, the Creator of the world and all that be therein! And ye are His, for ye are bought with a price, even that of passing through flesh as thou, that He might experience and know all thy thoughts, thy fears, thy shortcomings, thy desires, the dictates of the physical consciousness, the longings of the physical body. Yet He is at the right hand, is the right hand, is the Intercessor for ye all. Hence thy destinies lie in Him.
696-3
Cayce listed the life of Joseph as among the seven major incarnations of the Christ-consciousness in the development of the man Jesus.
The weaknesses of the flesh are evident in some aspects of Joseph’s life. He inherited his mother’s attitude of superiority. This is reflected in Joseph’s relationships with his brothers. He expected them to be humble before him. His ego also shows when, in Genesis 42, he accuses his brothers of being spies. He must have felt a bitterness and vindictiveness, and wanted to retaliate for some of the suffering they had caused him.
The divine is more apparent in Joseph than his weaknesses. The following Life readings show Joseph’s influence on several entities and the spiritual awakenings this association created within them. Truly do they show and anticipate Joseph’s development as the Savior and Redeemer, able to bring all who follow Him back to their spiritual source.
An elderly Protestant woman, an authoress and lecturer was told:
. . . the entity was in the Egyptian land, in that period when there were the preparations for the peoples of another land entering—or the days when Pharaoh of that period was aroused to activity by the voice of Joseph, the wanderer in that realm.
There we find the entity was among the daughters of that Pharaoh—in the name Kotapet.
In the experience the entity gained much through not only the mental application of those tenets of that messenger who came to save, as it were, a people as well as himself, but—as that entity was the messenger of the living God among those in a disturbed world—the entity caught that vision of the universal love as might be exemplified in the relationships of a people, of a nation—and not as in self-indulgence or self–aggrandizement for the passing appetites, or for those things that made for the laudation or the enslavement of any that material blessings might be in the experience of a few.
Hence we find again the entity giving of self in giving the expressions of mercy and grace among a people disturbed by those activities which had been as of a race consciousness in that sojourn.
In the present from the experiences in that sojourn, then, we find the great abilities in giving in word, in messages—that may be a part of the mental consciousness of the many—those things that will bring universal peace, universal love within the hearts and the realms of those who may take heed by the mental experience of this entity.
