first being foreshadowed in our dreams. He also asserted that everyone had the ability to interpret, or make constructive use of their dreams. The readings also contend that ultimately each individual is actually his or her own best psychic, with an abundance of potential information and insight that is just waiting to come to conscious awareness. Because the universe wants us to succeed in our personal growth and development, we are also constantly greeted with “signs along way”—experiences, encounters, surprise happenings, etc., that can serve as synchronistic guidance that appears just when we need it.
Although it can be challenging to comprehend (and obviously much harder to experience), the Cayce material suggests that each of us is where we are right now for a reason. At some level, all of life’s challenges have been chosen by the soul for the purpose of consciousness growth and development. Rather than seeing this dynamic as some kind of “punishment,” the readings instead contend that this process ultimately enables individuals to become more compassionate, more loving, and more capable of helping others with the very same issue.
Edgar Cayce saw meditation as quieting the self and listening to the Spirit within. Prayer is a counterpart to meditation that enables an individual to communicate with the divine—ultimately not asking for things but instead asking to be used as a channel of blessings to someone else. The physical body and the mind can be used as a channel for vibrational healing energy. In fact, Cayce stated that healing energy could be disseminated on “the wings of thought.” For years, the readings explored meditation, prayer, and personal affirmations as tools for attunement that could elicit a “closer walk” with God. That information makes it very clear that the divine can and does speak to all individuals regardless of religious background.
Throughout the years that he gave readings, people just like you and me approached Cayce and asked about all kinds of changes: changes in employment (losing one’s job), changes in relationships (divorce or the loss of a loved one), changes in personal finances or in the economy, even global changes (such as earthquakes or enormous weather changes). And although the readings gave guidance that was very personal to each of these individuals, the underlying philosophy seemed to be one in which whatever changes an individual was experiencing in life were often tied to the opportunity for personal change and growth. In other words, external events often take place as a means of facilitating internal change and consciousness growth.
After health, the second most popular topic covered by the readings was the subject of reincarnation. The emphasis from the readings’ perspective is not on who an individual was in the past but instead upon the fact that all of our abilities and frailties, as well as our experiences and relationships, remained within our soul’s memory as a pool of information and knowledge that each of us can draw upon and learn from in the present. When individuals received “Life” readings, which dealt with the soul’s entire life through various incarnations, the readings would essentially trace their soul histories from the earliest periods of Creation or Atlantis, and then follow their individual journeys and the lessons they had learned as well as those they still needed to obtain through approximately five or six major periods in history, focusing only upon those lifetimes that were the most important to the individual at that time in the present. It was this approach that led to massive amounts of data on ancient civilizations, prehistory, and information that suggests there has been an ever-evolving growth in human consciousness.
The readings are unequivocal in their stance that the Creator is both a very loving parent as well as an all-encompassing Force. With this in mind, we are loved and assisted by the Creator, who is desirous of us coming to a full understanding of our rightful place as “godlings”—children of the divine with an inherent capacity for compassion and co-creation. Cayce was just as adamant in the premise that since we are all Children of the same Creator, the divine loves us all equally.
Finally, the readings contend that, as spiritual beings, we are eternal. That spiritual part of us is everlasting, perpetual, and timeless, just as our Creator.
Ultimately, the overreaching philosophy of all of the Edgar Cayce material is the Oneness of God, the spiritual nature of humankind, and the purposefulness of all life. Taken together, these three components stand at the heart of the Cayce information and might best be described as the Cayce Cosmology.
In terms of Oneness, the readings suggest that every spiritual path should begin with a six-month lesson on Oneness: the Oneness of God, the Oneness of all Force, the ultimate Oneness of our connection to and responsibility for one another, and so forth. Although Cayce himself was a Christian, he very clearly understood that religion was essentially associated with the form whereas one’s personal spirituality was best associated with the application. On one occasion when the readings were asked to respond to a question regarding religious orthodoxy, the response came: “What is the difference? As He has given, it will ever be found that Truth . . . is of the One Source. Are there not trees of oak, of ash, of pine? There are the needs of these for meeting this or that experience . . . all will fill their place. Find not fault with any but rather show forth as to how good a pine, or ash, or oak, or vine, thou art!” (254-87)
The spiritual nature of humankind is perhaps best summarized with the statement that we are not physical beings who happen to have a soul, but we are instead spiritual beings currently inhabiting a physical body. The purpose behind this physical consciousness experience is ultimately to bring the divine into the earth. From Cayce’s premise, we are essentially divine emissaries charged with bringing spirit into the third dimension. Obviously, the chaos in much of the world suggests that we are collectively not living up to our destiny but nonetheless that is who we are and what we are supposed to be about. The readings suggest that the best example of living a full embodiment of the spirit while in the earth was demonstrated by Jesus. Cayce called Jesus our elder brother, a soul who fully demonstrated the living awareness of the spirit in the earth—something each of us is called to do. Therefore, regardless of one’s religious form, the example of Jesus’ life can be helpful to everyone. The readings called this example a “pattern” and stated: “For all have the pattern, whether they call on that name or not.”
Life is a purposeful experience both individually and collectively. As already stated, individually it is purposeful in that all of our life events are designed with our own growth and development in mind. Another way of approaching this concept is to understand that an individual’s life is not created by the things that happen to her or him but instead an individual’s life is created by the way he or she responds to the things that happen during life’s unfoldment. Collectively, we are charged with transforming the planet in whatever sphere we find ourselves.
Throughout his life, Edgar Cayce claimed no special abilities, nor did he ever consider himself to be some kind of twentieth-century prophet. The readings never offered a set of beliefs that had to be embraced, but instead focused on the fact that each person should test in his or her own life the principles presented. Though Cayce himself was a Christian and read the Bible from cover to cover every year of his life, his work was one that stressed the importance of comparative study among belief systems all over the world. The underlying principle of the readings is the oneness of all life, a tolerance for all people, and a compassion and understanding for every major religion in the world.
2
Oneness: An Idea that
Will Change the World
WHEN PEOPLE CONSULTED EDGAR CAYCE CONCERNING THEIR problems, his response was often to turn things on their head, giving an unexpected way to look at the situation. People would come to him with their likes and dislikes, their hopes and fears, what they wanted and what they didn’t want, and his answer would often put things into a different perspective, shifting the focus from the outer circumstance and its challenge to attitude and growth. One of the most important of these “revisionist” ideas was his concept of “Oneness.” Although there are many
