of their home, and many individuals saw their relationship as ideal. Their eldest son would become a leading psychiatrist and their youngest a successful attorney.
Rose lived to be in her nineties. A few years before her death, in reflecting back upon her family and the Cayce information, she said, “You notice not only the patterns and purposes of your own life, you become aware of how you are put into positions to assist others to carry out their activities.” Soul mate relationships create an opportunity for personal growth, personal fulfillment, and service to one another.
In another example from 1940, a thirty-nine-year-old housewife, mother, and bookkeeper was told that she and her husband were making great strides in “meeting” and overcoming those shadows of patterns that had been created between them in the past. By working together, each was growing spiritually, each was developing, and their soul mate relationship was becoming even more positive. They were encouraged to continue as they were, for “each may be as a help, as a prop one for the other” (1857-2). Cayce told another couple that it would take them at least ten years to create an ideal relationship (cases 4159 and 459), but it could be theirs if they worked together.
A young couple contemplating marriage in 1942 was told that, as man and wife, they had the opportunity to be very helpful to one another. Apparently, they had been together many times previously in various relationship roles. During a lifetime in Persia, there had been conflict because the two had come together under false pretenses. In ancient Egypt, they had been raised with opposing belief systems, although they had learned to work together. As a result, in the present, Cayce told them, “They each, then, have that weakness of being able to be overpowered by the personality of the other.” He advised them to cooperate with each other for the benefit of both, “Then if there is the agreement, if there is the coordination of ideals and purposes, and making same work—it can be made a beautiful companionship!” They were reminded, “It also can be made to be the belittling of one or the other” (1981-2).
A young New York lawyer obtained a reading about his pending marriage with his fiancée. He sought spiritual guidance, matrimonial happiness, and advice, which would enable the two of them to live successful lives. Cayce told the couple that as long as they kept their present feelings uppermost in their minds, they would be successful, “For their minds, their bodies, their desires, are in the present in accord.” They were encouraged to remember that unison of purpose whenever dissension and strife arose in their marriage because compatibility and happiness needed to be created. It did not simply exist. They were told to become a complement one to the other. Cayce warned the couple that they would become divided in purpose if either became self-centered or gave in to selfish motives rather than remembering the importance of their relationship. From that day forward, they needed to learn to be able to depend upon the other. When the young man asked, “Do they genuinely love each other?” Cayce replied:
In the present. Remember each, love is giving; it is a growth. It may be cultivated or it may be seared. That of selflessness on the part of each is necessary. Remember, the union of body, mind and spirit in such as marriage should ever be not for the desire of self but as one. Love grows; love endures; love forgiveth; love understands; love keeps those things rather as opportunities that to others would become hardships.
Then, do not sit still and expect the other to do all the giving, nor all the forgiving; but make it rather as the unison and the purpose of each to be that which is a complement one to the other, ever. 939-1
Even as a young boy, Edgar Cayce had a recurring dream which seemed to suggest the importance of this “unison of purpose” in his own eventual marriage. In the dream, Edgar was walking through a glade with a woman standing next to him, holding his arm. The woman was wearing a veil so that he could not see her face, but they seemed very much in love. While walking, they arrived at a little stream filled with clear, sparkling water. They stepped over the stream and began walking up a hill where a man stopped to meet them. Dressed only in a loincloth, he was the color of bronze; on the man’s feet and shoulders there were wings. He appeared to be Mercury, the messenger.
Mercury told the couple to join their hands, which they did. Across their united hands, the man placed a long piece of golden cloth and stated, “Together all can be accomplished, alone nothing may be accomplished.” Suddenly, Mercury disappeared and Edgar and the woman continued walking. Eventually, they came to a road that was very muddy and the two wondered how they would be able to cross it. In the midst of their confusion, Mercury appeared again and told them to join hands and to use the golden cloth. They joined hands, waved the cloth over the road, and immediately the mud dried and the road became passable so that they could continue on their journey. Next, Edgar Cayce and the woman came to an enormous cliff that towered over them. Using a knife, Edgar started cutting crevices in the cliff for their feet and the two began to climb. Edgar started up the cliff first, but he pulled the woman up after him. Hand-in-hand they ascended the rock. The dream ended.
The first time the dream occurred was years before Edgar met Gertrude, whom he married. At the time, Edgar Cayce’s mother apparently told her son that the dream meant he would achieve a great deal when eventually united with his wife. Although he was married in 1903, the dream continued to occur. Finally, in 1926, when Cayce had the dream again, a reading was obtained as to its meaning. The reading (294-62) stated that the dream was apt to occur whenever challenges or significant changes occurred in his life. The dream was simply to remind him that he could face any challenge in life or overcome any problem as long as he and Gertrude were united, for “together all can be accomplished.”
As soul mates, Edgar and Gertrude Cayce had been together on a number of occasions in the past. According to the readings, a primary purpose for their lives this time around was to focus their joint efforts into the psychic work that became Edgar Cayce’s life calling. In fact, it was suggested that the information obtained from his psychic readings was very similar in scope to information he had disseminated thousands of years previously during a lifetime in Egypt. While in Egypt, Edgar Cayce had been a high priest and Gertrude his wife and a priestess. At that time, Gertrude had acted as a spokes-person to the masses of people, even when her husband became too ill to perform his priestly duties. Apparently, the work they had begun together needed to continue.3
In this life, Edgar Cayce was also very dependent upon Gertrude. Before she took responsibility for conducting the readings, there had been occasions when he had been taken advantage of while in the psychic state. For example, individuals had done such things as stick a hat pin into his cheek to make certain he was really in a trance; others had requested health readings only to acquire betting tips for the horse races unbeknownst to Cayce while he was asleep. As long as his wife was present for a reading, Edgar Cayce felt confident that nothing could go wrong.
Both Cayce and his wife received frequent assistance in their own lives from the readings, as well. Gertrude was cured of tuberculosis and Edgar received relief from a digestion and elimination problem that affected him much of his life. Their lives together were dedicated to Cayce’s psychic work. It wasn’t easy because so much of the material seemed unusual. Although information on holistic health, reincarnation, dream interpretation, meditation, intuition, and the other subjects explored in the readings has gained acceptance and even validation today, at the time Cayce’s work was not always accepted.
On the night before he died, Gladys Davis, Cayce’s secretary, witnessed a final scene between the couple that so moved her, she made note of it in the Cayce archives (Case 294-8 Report File). Edgar Cayce was very weak and very ill. He was lying in his bed and his wife reached over to kiss him. What follows are Gladys’s observations as she recalled the dialogue between Gertrude and Edgar:
He said, “You know I love you, don’t you?” She nodded, and he asked, “HOW do you know?”
“Oh, I just know,” she said, with her dear little smile.
“I don’t see how you
