Edgar Cayce on the Akashic Records. Kevin J. Todeschi

Indians; Bainbridge would lose his life saving hers. Eventually, she would end up in Virginia, the place of her “current nativity.” With her arrival in Virginia, she became a new person. Perhaps it was the events of her early life or perhaps it was her desire to start over, but whatever the cause, Anna became known as an “angel” to those in need. She comforted the sick, counseled the wayward, and assisted the poor. Her life touched many and she was held in great esteem for her kindness—no one would know of her bar-moll adventures.

      At one point, she nursed back to health a settler who seemed emotionally neglected by his wife. The end result was that he fell in love with her and abandoned his own wife. Anna took to him not so much because she loved him, but because he loved her and no longer would she look out only for herself. Interestingly, though the man’s wife wasn’t interested in him, she didn’t want anyone else to be interested either. She became extremely bitter, mostly toward Anna for stealing something that was “hers.” One hundred years later the bitter wife would become Anna’s sister, Vera, and the man she didn’t really love would return as her second husband, Alan.

      Though her nineteenth-century life was not long in duration—she died at forty-eight—it entailed a great many adventures, experiences, and lessons, all of which would have a direct bearing on her next life when she would be born into a frontier family in a very small town in the twentieth century.

      The Dearborn experience was not the only lifetime given to Anna by Cayce; however, it was reported as the greatest influence on her current sojourn. She was told of two additional lifetimes recorded upon the records that were having a tremendous influence on her present: one in France and one in Laodicea (part of the Roman Empire). All told, Anna was given six lifetimes that were greatly affecting her present experience: Fort Dearborn, France, Laodicea, Israel, Egypt, and Atlantis. It was France that had set up the situation with her first husband, Robert.

      In France they had been lovers, where it was a well-kept secret. Robert had been one of the nobility and Catholic and unable to obtain a divorce. Out of necessity and on infrequent occasions, she had become his mistress. She would spend a lifetime desiring to be with him.

      Unfortunately, although being with him was her sole desire, it was not his. Being of the nobility, he had grown to love the pomp and the elegance and the respect that his position provided. He loved walking into a room and watching heads turn to meet his gaze; he loved having an entourage follow after him, waiting on his every word; he loved possessing women who would throw themselves at him, wishing to be a part of his world. All these things would follow him for two hundred years—affording him situations that would seem rather unusual when measured against his twentieth-century status and lack of education.

      The reading made it clear that much of Anna’s infatuation with Robert was because she had desired and continued to desire a perfect relationship with him. It also hinted at the fact that this was only a desire and not a real likelihood; yet it was a desire not to be easily overcome.

      Her reading stated that she would experience “greater harmony” in her life lasting “until ’40 and ’41, when AGAIN there will be a period of disturbance.” The reading urged her to continue working on her relationship with her current husband, Alan, even stating that it would be possible to conceive a child if they could only work things out. Regardless of the possibility of children, however, there were definite reasons the two of them were together. The reading provided Anna with insights she could work with, though she rarely discussed any of the information with anyone, including members of her own family.

      During the 1930s and 1940s, the topic of past lives and reincarnation was not one which often occurred across the breakfast table. On a number of occasions, her family members would go to Mr. Cayce for a physical reading, and they got help. In fact, Vera would eventually be cured of tuberculosis (but she refused to get a life reading), and Mitchell’s firstborn would be saved from a life-threatening illness. Even then only a few seemed open to the specifics of reincarnation, and some weren’t interested at all in hearing about what went on at Mr. Cayce’s home. For Anna, the information was all factual and enabled her to piece together the lives of those closest to her. As brief examples, she learned the following about her parents:

      In addition to being the fort’s guide in Dearborn, her father had been a tax collector in Rome and an inspector of military garrisons. This existence had caused him to become rather severe in his dealings with others, and the severity would remain with him nearly 1,900 years later as the father of six children. An interesting out-of-character quality that Anna had always noticed in her father was his ability to pick out clothing and fine cloth; it amazed her that he could buy a dress or a coat for her, or her sister, or her mother that was perfect. According to the Akashic Records, he had been a merchant of fine material in Persia. In Egypt, he was known for his fine workmanship in the construction of homes—as he would be centuries later in Virginia. Connected with members of his family throughout time, he had known his wife in Dearborn, Palestine, and Egypt, and Anna in Dearborn, Egypt, and Persia. Recognizing that he was often judgmental and severe, the records also stated that he was a great leader and motivator of people, as well as talented in workmanship. The advice given him by the reading was that he should begin practicing the devout and spiritual life he had so frequently preached.

      As the kindly madam in the Dearborn experience, Anna’s mother had been associated, one way or another, with all of her children. Her ability to always know what to say or to prepare individuals for a new life—an ability that had been most evidenced in Dearborn—had been cultivated in ancient Egypt. Apparently it had been her duty as a teacher to help prepare emissaries and teachers to other lands. Interestingly enough, she had been a teacher before her marriage to Anna’s father this time around. Her most influential life had been one in Palestine—several of her current children had also been her children then. In that life she had also experienced a healing from Jesus Himself! From that same time period she had developed her hatred of Catholics: she had been a member of the apostle Peter’s household and had known the apostle Paul. Firsthand, she had witnessed how the message of this Man, Jesus, had been nearly lost by the Church’s early contention between these two—the 2,000-year-old frustration was still carried within her heart. The reading stated that in addition to her other talents, she was adept at healing and at growing plants—a flower business would appear in 1941, after her children had been raised.

      It’s worth noting the different karmic effect that the bar-moll occupation had on both Anna and her mother, because it’s apparently not the deed of prostitution that created karma for Anna but the reasons behind it. As a dance-hall girl, Anna felt she could get anything she wanted personally; on the other hand, Anna’s mother saw her occupation as a means of helping others. A hundred years later the effect was that Anna’s mother retained her ability to help others, whereas Anna was still labeled a loose woman. From Cayce’s perspective, it wasn’t the deed