present-day connection with a past-life identity is not because the person was that individual, but rather because the present-day person was once familiar with that famous individual. One example from the readings is the case of a forty-seven-year-old man, [1151], who was convinced he was the reincarnation of President James A. Garfield. Another psychic had even confirmed this connection. However, Cayce stated in reading 1151-4 that the individual had simply been a very close associate of Garfield’s and not the president himself.
Regardless of an individual’s present circumstance, Cayce believed that each lifetime could be a purposeful experience. To be sure, the soul takes with it all memories, talents, and shortcomings acquired in previous experiences, but the present—and how an individual responds to experiences in the here and now—is much more important than anything that went before. The past merely provides a framework of potentials and probabilities. From the readings’ perspective, one purpose for delving into the history of an entity was simply as a means of discovering the continuity of the soul.
With the premise that we might somehow glimpse aspects of this continuity by reviewing the soul histories of others, this volume presents an overview of those readings that identified the individual as having some notoriety at some point in history. It does not include case histories for biblical personages or those individuals for whom no contemporary reference or verification is available; nor does it include identities for those individuals who were related to or simply associated with a famous person; only those individuals who were given notable identities themselves have been included.
FAMOUS PEOPLE MENTIONED
Achilles
ca. Twelfth Century B.C.
Case 900
According to Greek mythology, Achilles was the bravest, strongest, and most competent Greek hero of the Trojan War. When he was an infant, every part of his body (except for the heel by which his mother held him) had been dipped into the River Styx, thus making him nearly invulnerable. He killed the great Trojan hero, Hector, and died shortly thereafter when an arrow pierced his heel.
Apparently, Achilles was a real individual as well as a figure from mythology for in 1924, a twenty-nine-year-old stockbroker was told that he had been Achilles. Self-certain, intelligent, and wealthy, he was told in his reading: “One upon whom many will rely for their mental activities in the Earth’s forces. One that is given especially to being the control in many financial undertakings.” (900-6)
In his life as Achilles, [900] had never met Helen of Troy, although he constantly held her up as an ideal since she was the reason for which the Greeks and Trojans were fighting. In his present life, [900] found himself married to [136], who had been Helen of Troy. Although he idealized his wife and considered himself her protector, because he had once been killed fighting for Helen’s honor, subconsciously he sometimes felt that the beauty and power of such a woman could be dangerous. The two later divorced. (See also “Helen of Troy.”)
Six months after his first life reading, [900] obtained a follow-up reading on his Grecian incarnation as Achilles:
In the entrance into the earth’s plane in that of, or called, Achilles, we find in the period of earthly existences when conditions were accentuated along certain lines. The entity then as the male offspring and entered in with the beauties of the rustic nature of the time and place, near Athenia or Athens, and raised to manhood, or young manhood, in and about the Mount, and given all advantages in the exercises and games and learning of the day, with the beauties of that in that day as could be obtained by one that was raised for the special purpose of entering into the political, social and other conditions of day and age. Soon learned that of the soldier with the spear, bow and axe, with an armor as prepared by the mother of the body, and given all the benefits of the aristocrats of the age, given exceptional abilities and applied same in the moral, physical, development of the body. One, then, beautiful of stature, physical, mind and of the expressing of same. Soon drawn in early manhood into the political situations surrounding the conditions of the country, coming then as a companion to many of the leaders in that day when there were personal combats in every phase of the physical prowess of the body. The entity showing the exceptional abilities of the environments under which the body had been developed in the day when this, the development of physical prowess, was studied and given the greater extent of attention. In personal combats often the body [was] successful and called the leader of the army and group, or the personal representative of the armies of the entity in the reign of those in charge of same at time.
In the social and moral life, we find the entity one showing development in mental abilities. One showing development in moral conditions, as is shown in the relation to captives as were taken by the armies and distributed, the favorites to the favorite of the army. In the personal combats we find the exceptional abilities in mental forces also shown. The entity then departed the life in personal combat, wounded in the heel, from which gangrene set in in body and became blood poison to the system. In the day we find much written concerning this entity, and there are given many abilities that are only written in the form of the day and age, as is written of many who show their abilities in a manner that is developing in earth plane toward the spiritual forces to which all strive.
Departing then with only the forces as of not able to meet the needs of physical suffering under the conditions which came to same. Only erring then in that manner. Hence in the present plane the necessity of being able to meet those conditions that would seem to overwhelm the entity, the necessity of, as has been given, “Be still—and listen to the voice from within.”
900-63
In this life, [900] was extremely intelligent. He was among the few individuals of Cayce’s contemporaries who could easily understand some of the most complicated concepts explored in the readings. He was told that in the past, as Achilles, he had mastered the earth. He had also gained great mental abilities. The challenge for [900] in this life was to apply the achievements he had accomplished over the physical/mental realms and bring a new understanding of oneness and spirituality to the world. For a time, he headed up the work of Cayce’s Association, becoming its chief financial backer and the builder of the Cayce Hospital. Extremely interested in higher education, he also founded Atlantic University. Unfortunately, due to personality conflicts and jealousy, [900] would later withdraw from the Association. In time, he would also lose his fortune. Mr. [900] died in 1954 of a heart attack.
Adams, John Quincy
1767-1848
Case 2167
John Quincy Adams was the son of John Adams, second U.S. president, and would become the sixth president of the United States in 1824. At the time, he was considered the primary architect of U.S. foreign policy. After his presidency, he held a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1831-1848, where he fought consistently against the expansion of slavery.
In 1940, a twenty-three-year-old college student, who was studying diplomacy at George Washington University, was told that he had been John Quincy Adams. After receiving his reading, his mother stated, “Everything regarding his nature, characteristics, etc., is so true!” The reading said, in part:
For as opportunity presents itself to this entity for a service of a nature that requires the analyzing of all phases of man’s experience among his fellow men, let it all be tempered with justice, mercy, peace and truth. These are the purposes upon which this land were founded; and they are those forces, those self-evident
