will working in men’s lives. When it’s that plain, even I can at last believe!
But the trouble is that I have been such a sad apple in religion and sometimes vinegar in finances that you doubt my judgment. Then how can I ever persuade you that to work with the Cayces would be the most enriching thing we could possibly do? I can’t I fear. But hearing Mr. Cayce give a reading, hearing him tell someone in pain to be kind, loving, patient in a voice of infinite tenderness and gentleness—his readings are so much like what it must have been like to hear Jesus talk, that I’m sort of expecting the Lord God himself to persuade you. If you and I really search for Him in the next few days, I think we’ll find our answer, and our way.
We haven’t mentioned the advantages to us in going out there. They are like the advantages the disciples had in going off to help Jesus. Nearly anyone on earth would trade places with them now, but at that time they were thought to be crazy. Some of them even lost their lives as well as their friends, family and security. I don’t think we will! Mr. Cayce told me enough stories of prayer answered in the work there to convert even an addlepated horse to the idea that God takes care of those who forget themselves in service.
Now mind you, I’m not crazy enough to think that this is the only way, or even the best way, for us to serve God right now. I think we have to go right on in music, and especially you do. If we go out there with some determination, actually there is opportunity to grow a lot more in music than there is in our busy household in Chicago. For that growth has got to come from within and not from the dazzling cultural advantages of a big city—when you really get down to it.
Heigh ho, ain’t this fun? Don’t think this is all sober business. I’ve laughed till I ached during [these] last few days. These people who live so very sincerely seem just as near to the bubbling fountain of humor as they do to the well of eternal life. Mr. Cayce is just as much fun in his readings as he is out of them. I’ll tell you about this when I see you.
I could go on, darling, but it gets me too excited, wondering whether you’re going to knock me down or listen skeptically, or be annoyed, or thrilled, or all packed and ready to go—or what? I’ll be seeing you in a couple of hours, my little blonde sweetheart. I love the hell out of you, Honey.
Your Hubby, Harm
Yes. I had already started packing!
Harmon had hoped that I would be willing to put aside work on my master’s degree and join him on this new leg of our journey together. I loved my husband, and the more we talked, the more I could see this was an opportunity not to be missed. We talked about the changes that would have to be made in our lives.
We decided I could always get back into my master’s program. Harmon would have to tell his small weekend pastorate that he would be leaving. He would have to talk to his draft board and ask whether a year researching the work of the Cayces would be acceptable as part of his ministerial training. In actuality, the board approved the research as an appropriate subject for a doctoral dissertation and subsequently deferred him.
Years later when Harmon entered his doctoral program, it was not easy for his professors at the University of Chicago’s Divinity School to deal with the subject matter of Harmon’s dissertation. His committee changed at least three times. One professor said, “I live in a world where I believe this kind of thing can happen, but I can’t remain on this committee.” He then walked out. To add to the problem, the university also required Harmon to take a year of post-doctoral work to ensure his methodology was sound. Despite their reservations, they couldn’t find a single flaw in his reasoning. When the dissertation was finally completed and accepted, we celebrated and said a heartfelt prayer of thanks to God.
Hugh Lynn Cayce helped with the thesis in every way he could to move it toward completion. He filled in gaps in Harmon’s understanding, he told him stories, and he briefed him about the people who had been instrumental in the Association’s growth. No one encouraged Harmon more than Hugh Lynn, and no one was more excited at the final approval of the very first doctoral dissertation based on his father’s work.
Although for a long time, the medical, theological, and educational arenas largely dismissed the authenticity and helpfulness of Cayce’s work, during the forty-four years of our marriage, until Harmon’s death in September of 1997, he and I saw a slow but growing acceptance of many of the ideas in the Cayce readings, and it gave us joy. Today there are even more people who are unafraid to look at the idea of reincarnation; grasp the importance of taking care of God’s creation; see the human body as the temple of the Living God; and welcome the disciplines of meditation and prayer, especially in small groups. Today many acknowledge the value of a balanced diet for maximum physical and mental health, are willing to entertain the possibility that certain mythic cultures truly existed at some time earlier than recorded history, and even look seriously at some of Edgar’s remedies for certain physical illnesses.
Edgar Cayce drew to him many interested in parapsychology, but he was far too talented and complex to carry only the label of “psychic.” Harmon placed him in a long line of idealists who have changed the world for the better:
We think of a psychically gifted person as a whiz, a genius, a star at little-known powers of the mind. Given the history of our technological achievements, we view such a skill as a process to be mastered apart from our motives, like space travel, computer calculation, quick-freezing the dead, or designing laser weapons. But the adventure of Cayce’s life sets his paranormal accomplishments in a much larger context of high-purposed caring and creativity.
Cayce belongs somewhere among the stumbling, surprised explorers of new terrain, only partly able to describe what they see, and tempted to doubt their own experiences: Pasteur trying to prevent ravaging disease; Schweitzer offering medical care in the African jungle; Gandhi cleaning toilets with the outcastes in India; King marching with throngs of left-out African Americans; Jane Addams creating settlement houses in the slums; Mother Teresa clasping the poor and dying.
His trances disclose penetrating views of good and evil, worship and ethics, community and disintegration, the earthy and the transcendent, gifts of insight from East and West, and a Christ who is everyone’s destiny but nobody’s captive. They create a cosmology and attendant ethics which resonate to the prophetic tradition in biblical faith, yet invite disciplined lives in small groups congruent with both mystical training and the wisdom of psychotherapy about layered minds and troubled wills.
This book is an invitation to learn about a man, unique in our culture, one who was faithful to his calling to be helpful to people. I remember him as a man who didn’t take himself too seriously. His ability to laugh at himself suggests a truly large soul. He loved and enjoyed people, and was ready to share his stories and wisdom with anyone who was interested. Although many people put him on a pedestal for his kindness and generosity, he was an extremist who never did anything half way, and his temper could flare when he was tired or ill. But his devotion to God and Jesus Christ and to his holy calling was real and constant, and I often felt his deep commitment to God and the Christ as he led our morning and afternoon prayer times.
Edgar, Gertrude, and Gladys helped steer me in a helpful new direction when I was twenty-three by expanding my world view. In the winter of my ninetieth year—after being involved with the Cayce work for more than six decades—I know that my time as a member of the Cayce household forever changed me. My life reading, in which they all participated, revealed God’s design for me in this incarnation: family life, not my dreamed-of life as a concert pianist. He said, “You should have a lot of little ones, for the home is the greatest career in the earth, and those who shun same will have much yet to answer for.” The reading showed me the temptations I would face along the way, too. I am like Scrooge in Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, forever grateful for having the opportunity to change my life’s direction. Reflecting on my reading over the years, I have realized that while I might have had technical prowess at the piano along with a measure of fame as a performing artist, I would have been lonely traveling to engagements and performing alone on the stage. I would probably not have had a family of my own, nor would I have been able to grow in the deepening life experiences that family life provided. So how deep and expressive would my musical interpretations have been?
In