one’s own records. The conceptual challenge, however, is that individuals seem to most effectively come to terms with their own karmic memory, or “meet themselves,” through their interactions with others. It is this interesting dynamic of meeting oneself through relationships with others that often causes individuals to perceive “them” as the basis of one’s frustrations and challenges rather than accepting personal responsibility.
And yet, in spite of the fact that karma belongs to oneself, each soul is constantly drawn toward certain individuals and groups that will enable them to meet themselves in circumstances and relationships. Those individuals and groups, in turn, are drawn toward specific people in an effort to come to terms with their own karmic memory.
This concept of cyclic patterns with groups of individuals is evidenced among Cayce’s contemporaries. A number of people who had readings were frequently given lifetimes in history that progressed along the following lines: Atlantis, ancient Egypt, Persia, Palestine, Europe, Colonial America, and then as a contemporary of Cayce’s in the first half of the twentieth century. Because of this pattern, and the number of individuals who requested past-life readings for themselves and their families, some individual relationships can be traced for thousands of years.
In an effort to understand the dynamics of group karma that may be at play in our own lives, it’s possible to gather insights from the experiences of others. The experiences of these people and the development of their relationships through time can provide us with some interesting insights into how this process of coming to terms with the Akashic Records of the past works, as well as the interconnected dynamic between free choice and karmic memory. By exploring the biographical stories of others against their soul histories, we might discover karma-in-action. The process of life and death, rebirth, and the movement toward individuality is similar for each of us. Looking at the records and the soul histories of others might enable us to make more educated choices for ourselves as we come to terms with our own karmic memory and the meeting of patterns from the past.
With that in mind, one of the most fascinating case histories in the Cayce files is that of a twenty-nine-year-old woman who received her first reading in January 1938. What distinguishes this case from hundreds of others is that over the next six and a half years (before Cayce’s death in 1945) this woman procured an astonishing eighty-three readings for seventeen family members. These readings enabled her to understand how some of her current problems related not only to the present, but to a period that had occurred more than one hundred years previously—before she had even been born! More than that, she discovered how a majority of her family grouping had been “entangled” for thousands of years. These events and experiences continued to be written on the Akashic Records, giving impulse and reason to many of the woman’s current experiences.
2
Case History—The Family of Anna Campbell
(Note: The names of case 1523 and her family members have been changed in order to maintain confidentiality.)
In 1938 a twenty-nine-year-old woman came to Edgar Cayce for a psychic reading (case 1523). She was desperate and felt he was her last hope. She was near an end, both physically and mentally. Her marriage was not a happy one, but she was lost as to what to do. She was torn between divorcing her second husband or staying with him. Although unhappy in the situation, part of her hoped to make the marriage work in order to fulfill her dream of having a family.
Her reason for coming to see Mr. Cayce, however, was not for marital advice but because of a physical condition. She was fearful that her situation might require surgery and render her incapable of conception. A tubal pregnancy during her disastrous first marriage had resulted in the removal of one set of fallopian tubes. She had begun to experience similar physical symptoms and feared that a second tubal pregnancy would end her chances of having a baby. More than anything else, she wanted to be a mother. Other family members had pursued college and careers; her sister was working on a master’s degree. But not Anna; for as long as she could remember, she had one dream: “to have six children and to grow old with them.” She hoped by having a physical reading that she would avoid another operation.
Anna’s life history was unknown to Edgar Cayce at the time of her reading. However, an overview of her story will enable us to better understand her situation as well as its connection to the past.
She was born in a very small town at the turn of the twentieth century. So small, in fact, that half a century later the town would have been annexed by surrounding communities and literally disappeared. Her parents were farmers, though her mother had come from a Kentucky background much more refined and dignified than her father’s. This fact seemed to bother her father for much of his life. Her father was one of the last frontiersmen, deeply rooted in the land and the knowledge of what it could provide for his family.
She was one of six children who would grow to adulthood and for the most part she got along with all of her siblings with the exception of her older sister. For as long as she could remember, there was antagonism, jealousy, and distrust between the two. Although her parents ran a fairly structured environment—there were chores and studies to be done—her mother had become so frustrated by the years of fighting between Anna and her sister, Vera, that she no longer tried to intercede. It was left for Anna and Vera to fight it out, and fight it out they did.
Although family squabbles are common, the antagonism between the two seemed intensely focused. Interestingly enough, Anna noticed that there appeared to be two others in the household who had as great a difficulty getting along as she and her sister. Her father and her third brother, Warren (born right after Anna), constantly quarreled. It seemed that Warren was always being “switched” for things that one of the other children just might have gotten away with—her father appeared intent on keeping him “in line.” For this reason, she felt it was her duty (and her mother’s as well) to come to Warren’s rescue whenever he was having “the tar whipped out of him” by her dad.
Her mother seemed to get along well with everyone. The woman had even been described as “an angel.” Though she and Anna had differing opinions about many things, they were very close. In spite of her mother’s kindness, gentility, and compassion, however, one thing seemed completely out of the woman’s character: the woman had an intense hatred of Catholics. Her mother had even been known to say that she would rather see one of her children dead than married to a Catholic. The opportunity to change her mind would present itself through one of her sons.
In this rural setting there was always something to occupy Anna’s time. Whether it was weeding, cleaning, picking, washing, planting, sewing, ironing, or schooling, free time was minimal. Anna constantly felt that she never got to do what she wanted for there just wasn’t time. Families had to work hard just to make a living from the land. Her father built houses on the side and had a few rental properties to make ends meet.
Complicating her young life, Anna found it impossible to escape Vera’s presence; the two shared a room. On those few occasions when the lack of chores allowed young friends or cousins to call, Vera tried to sway the visitors to another room with wondrous tales of exciting games they could play—“but not with Anna.” As time passed, the elder sister became paranoid whenever male callers came to visit her. She showed an extreme fear that they might give Anna the least bit of attention. She was even jealous of the way Anna looked and acted—though Anna always believed it was her sister who was the model and not herself. Throughout the entire time they grew up together, Vera believed that Anna had gotten “all the breaks” and she none. From Anna’s perspective, she didn’t feel as though she had gotten any advantages.
In spite of her sister’s presence, Anna was relatively happy as a youngster as long as she was home. She had four brothers, two older (Mitchell and Carl) and two younger (Warren and Everett) to keep her company, a father to tag along with whenever she could escape from dishes and household chores, and beautiful dreams of her grownup life as a mother that filled her mind. Her happiness faded and what bliss she had ended, however, as soon as she entered school.
It