Edgar Cayce on Soul Mates. Kevin J. Todeschi

had yet to forgive Dave for what had happened. Interestingly enough, in their present lifetime both Anna and Dave had been raised strict Catholics. However, the difference between the two was that Anna was very committed to her faith whereas Dave was almost hostile toward his. In spite of the antagonistic past-life influences between the two, Anna was told in her reading that if she worked on her personal relationship with Dave, she had the opportunity to “bring the greater satisfaction, the greater understanding, the greater blessings for self and for others” (1102-1). At the same time, Dave was told to put his energies into the importance of home and family.

      In spite of their six-year love affair, shortly after their marriage differences between the two seemed to undermine the relationship. Anna grew more and more distressed about Dave’s “revolt” from Catholicism. Dave stated he was convinced that “Anna will not be satisfied until I fully re-embrace the Catholic faith”—an event which he did not perceive as very likely. Perhaps because of breaking her vow of celibacy in England and because of being rejected in Egypt, Anna did not have the same desire for sexual frequency as did her husband. As a result, Dave called his wife frigid and Anna thought her husband’s view of women both archaic and primitive. In the present, Dave also tried to dominate his wife mentally, just as he had done in the past. However, somewhere along the way, Anna had acquired a greater degree of independence and self-reliance. Rather than working together and resolving their differences, Dave became all the more focused on his intellectual pursuits and writing career and Anna became more distant. Each began to resent the other.

      Within two years of their marriage, Dave was stricken with a crippling disease which, according to the doctors, resembled a combination of “arthritis, spinal meningitis, and infantile paralysis.” Within a very short period of time, Dave was crippled to such an extent that he had some mobility only of his arms and was incapable of doing much of anything to help himself. As if to enable them both to rectify the broken vows of celibacy, sexual activity between the two was out of the question. Both individuals became miserable. Anna refused to divorce him because of her faith, and Dave told friends that marriage was so repugnant to him that if the time ever came when he was single and another woman tried to get him to marry her, “probably I would kill her.” To Dave, the idea of being married to anybody was unthinkable. He added, “I feel wonderfully convinced that monastic life is the only approach to genuine happiness.” Rather than working together or trying to resolve any of their differences, each remained steadfast in the opinion that it was the other who needed to change.

      Because of his illness, Dave confined himself to such places as the Hospital for Joint Disease and Johns Hopkins. Although Anna felt obligated to visit him during his confinement, he did not look forward to seeing her, nor did he have any desire to return home. In spite of their separation, he continued to write to support his family, but was limited by his doctor to sit at his typewriter only an hour a day. In order to make the best use of his time, Dave composed and edited 1,000 words of copy in his mind before writing it out in the allotted hour. The pain of his illness was excruciating. Confined to a wheelchair, he underwent many experimental treatments, not to mention a reliance on such medications as aspirin, codeine, cortisone, nepenthe, various narcotics, and in his words “brandy.”

      Eventually, events in their lives necessitated Dave returning to live with his wife just as a stroke and paralysis struck Anna’s father. As a result, Anna had two invalids—her husband and her father—to care for. Dave found the situation intolerable. In 1941, he obtained another reading and asked about how he was supposed to work with his wife. He was told, in part:

      For, they are necessary one to the other in filling those purposes for which their activities are in this present experience.

      As to application, this must be according to the choice of each. They should be cooperative, one with another. The way ye know. The application ye must make. 849-60

      A few months earlier, Cayce had also told Anna, “Each needs the other” (1102-5).

      Over the next ten years, Dave experienced repeated improvements and just as many relapses. In spite of his crippling disease, friends made it possible for him to make a number of trips, both for his treatment as well as for his writing career. Somehow, he was even able to travel to the Middle East in 1949 and write an eyewitness account of the new state of Israel. In all, during the time of his illness, he was able to write seven books, countless book reviews, and various magazine articles. He seemed happiest when he was away from home and kept busy with something he was writing. Anna, on the other hand, seemed happiest with their daughter.

      Finally, in the midst of one of Dave’s relapses and another one of the couple’s reconciliations, doctors suggested a series of experimental operations to help Dave with his pain. From the very beginning, Anna was against the idea. However, Dave insisted that he wanted the treatment. After one of the operations, complications caused Dave’s kidneys to fail and he died in January 1953. Dave Mitchell was only forty-five years old. In spite of the advice from the Cayce readings and a number of situations which seemed to almost encourage their need to work together, it doesn’t appear as though Dave and Anna entirely overcame, healed, or worked through their soul mate experiences from the past. Inevitably, at some point in the future, they will have to come together again and work through the very same lessons.