I recently viewed a television show called “Crossing Over” with John Edwards. Edwards is a psychic that is suppose to be able to contact people that have passed on and communicate with them. He has his own show, sells tickets, and has even written books. Long before him though was a man by the name of Edgar Cayce.
Cayce was born in Hopkinsville, Kentucky in 1877. He only had a grade school education. However, he was an avid reader. It is said that Cayce would take a book, place it under his pillow while he was asleep, wake up and know the contents in the book. This lead to him being called the “sleeping prophet.” He is considered by many to be the greatest psychic since Nostradamus. Some people even consider him greater.
Cayce started giving readings at the age of 24 in 1901. He gave over 14,000 readings until his death in 1945. Unlike Edwards, who concentrates on people that have passed away, Cayce focused on health issues for individuals. A “reading” would go like this. Cayce would lay down and close his eyes. He would enter into a state of altered consciousness. He would then deliver a reading in his own voice about an individuals health, mental, spiritual, vocational, and interpersonal life. At times he would also give a glimpse of future world affairs and events. The disclosures he gave would be recorded stenographically and later typed. They covered such a wide array of subjects that they are indexed under 10,000 different subjects on 225,000 index cards.
The most amazing thing about Cayce’s readings was that the individual didn’t have to be present. He could help people thousands of miles away just be lying down and focusing on what the individual wanted to know. Some of these readings are even used today to help others out with the same afflictions. Cayce could describe the individual and their problem with unbelievable accuracy. He would provide specific procedures for each individual which would help them with their illness.
He believed in holistic treatment. Even though the disease or illness was in one area of the body, he believed that the body was out of balance. The only way to treat it was to treat the whole body and regain that balance.
Cayce did give readings about past lives but reluctantly. After much soul searching and reading the bible, Cayce found several passages that referred to reincarnation. He didn’t start these readings until 1923 and called them “Life Readings.” He didn’t believe that people were animals or birds in a previous life. He believed that they were human beings from a previous time. He believed that past lives were there to be built upon to be a better individual now. He believed that when a person dies his next lifetime didn’t begin immediately. Instead the soul is given a chance to become all it can. It can chose what people to be born among. Usually this is people that it knows or has an understanding of. It also has the freedom to decide if it wants to be a male or female.
One of Cayce’s interesting aspects of reincarnation is that an individual never loses it grasps of different skills. What one perfected in one life can be drawn from in the next. For example. an English teacher in one life might be a play writer in the next. That is why child prodigies, with a certain talent, are born with a talent that they draw off of from a previous life. Cayce would refer to the bible verse “what you sow you must reap” and is generally labeled “like attracts like.” Cayce felt that the karma of the people that were living would help attract those that were being ready to be born. This was basically how Cayce connected reincarnation with the bible.
There are two reasons why Cayce had such a gift. One legend has it that at the age of 13 an angel appeared to him and asked him what he wanted to do with his life. Cayce replied,” to help others as much as I can.” Another has it that he worked in bookstores and libraries most of his life reading everything that he could on the supernatural. Many people believe that there is no way Cayce could have known the things he knew. He had to have a gift. Many thought that it was a gift from god. Even though he believed in reincarnation, Cayce was a member of the “Disciples of Christ” most of his life.
In 1943, Cayce would do up to 8 readings a day in an effort to help as many individuals as he could. However, this started to work against him. The load started to wear him down. He claimed that the readings themselves scolded him for trying to do too much. On January 2, 1945, Cayce had a severe stroke. He died the next day.
Some skeptics believe that people only wanted to hear what they wanted to hear. This is why Cayce was so popular. Still there are others who think that Cayce was on the border of an area still to be explored. There are many doctors that feel that along with medicine and treatment comes a holistic approach to healing. Cancer treatment centers deal with attacking the disease from every avenue. In many ways, this is what Cayce believed in. He believed in balance for the human body in dealing with illness and disease.
