story of Edgar Cayce is examined in this volume from an eyewitness perspective—the way no one else could tell it. The author also provides readers with safe, systematic, and proven approaches to exploring their own “venture inward,” exploring and clarifying the information in the Edgar Cayce readings on this subject. For those looking for “safer doorways to the unconscious,” they are described here and include meditation, dream interpretation, and personal spirituality as safe gateways to greater spiritual awareness.
Prompted by Hugh Lynn Cayce’s passion for the Work, Edgar Cayce’s A.R.E. (www.EdgarCayce.org) has grown from its humble beginnings to an association with Edgar Cayce Centers in countries around the world. Today, the Cayce organizations consist of hundreds of educational activities and outreach programs, children’s camps, a multi-million-dollar publishing company, membership benefits and services, volunteer contacts and programs worldwide, massage and health services, prison and prayer outreach programs, conferences and workshops, internet and online activities, and affiliated schools (Atlantic University: www.AtlanticUniv.edu and the Cayce/Reilly School of Massotherapy: www.CayceReilly.edu).
Throughout his life, Edgar Cayce claimed no special abilities, nor did he ever consider himself to be some kind of twentieth century prophet. The readings never offered a set of beliefs that had to be embraced, but instead focused on the fact that each person should test in his or her own life the principles presented. Though Cayce himself was a Christian and read the Bible from cover to cover every year of his life, his work was one that stressed the importance of comparative study among belief systems all over the world. The underlying principle of the readings is the oneness of all life, a tolerance for all people, and a compassion and understanding for every major religion in the world.
Today, the Cayce organizations continue the legacy begun by Edgar Cayce and forever inspired by Hugh Lynn Cayce with their undergirding mission to “help people change their lives for the better—physically, mentally, and spiritually—through the ideas in the Edgar Cayce material.” And, as Hugh Lynn was often heard to say, “How can we not share the best that we know?”
Hugh Lynn Cayce’s Preface
BEING THE SON OF A HIGHLY PUBLICIZED AMERICAN CLAIRVOYANT HAS seemed difficult at times; however, it has always made for an interesting life. This book is the story of my experiences, not as a scholar or as a laboratory technician recording experimental data, but rather as an intimate observer of the day-to-day activities of what surely seemed to be incredibly helpful clairvoyance for several thousand people over a period of forty years. If you have never met Edgar Cayce through any of the numerous books or magazine articles about him, I welcome this opportunity to introduce him.
In trying to understand the ever-present mystery of my father, I have worked through the years with a number of people who seemed to have a variety of extrasensory experiences. My efforts to study and help both my father and these people—many troubled in mind, body, and emotions—have resulted in some unusual experiences. Also, I have had to look at some startling and what I consider to be helpful concepts about the nature of man and his life in the earth. I would like to share these experiences and lay these ideas in front of you.
All of my observations are expressed against the background of information which poured through my father’s unconscious mind in daily sessions. As the unconscious spoke, it revealed, it seems to me, depths of the mind and pathways to these deep areas which are worthy of consideration and further investigation.
Some people who read this book will see it as an attempt to justify the psychic work of my father. Others may question the wisdom of spending so much time, energy, and money in examining what came through a sleeping man. A few people may point out that there was no controlled study on which to base statistical data as evidence for extrasensory perceptions. All of these are legitimate questions and points of view, but you must judge for yourself.
Actually, you may disagree or be disturbed by many of the ideas which are examined. The records of Edgar Cayce’s unconscious expressions are uniquely voluminous. This is only my admittedly inadequate appraisal. It may be possible for others to go much further. Certainly, I will continue to try to do so.
For this present volume, it is my hope that this effort may prove of interest to many, helpful to some, and even inspirational for a few who read it.
Hugh Lynn Cayce
Introduction–Beyond Consciousness
SARAH MARTIN PAUSED OUTSIDE HER ELEVEN-YEAR-OLD daughter’s bedroom door. Again she heard a sob, a moan. She opened the door and went in quickly. Margaret was sleeping, but from the corner of her eye a tear was squeezed out and trickled down her cheek. Mrs. Martin shook her daughter. The girl sat up, rubbed her eyes, and suddenly burst into tears.
“He’s dead!” she cried. “He’s dead!”
“Who’s dead? What do you mean?” Mrs. Martin asked.
“Brownie’s dead!” wailed the girl. “He’s been run over. He’s dead.”
“Nonsense,” said her mother. “He just ate a pound of meat. He is very much alive.”
The girl smiled weakly. “I must have dreamed it,” she said. “I heard you tell me Brownie was killed by a car. It was so real. Please don’t let him out of the yard today.”
Two days later when Margaret returned from school, Mrs. Martin did tell her daughter of Brownie’s death. He had been struck by an automobile.
What appears to be a psychic warning of the dog’s death in this strange little dream can possibly be explained by checking the habit patterns of the family and coincidence. At times Brownie may have barked at cars. The family probably had talked about the danger of the dog being killed. Mrs. Martin could have been heard expressing concern over the dog. Margaret’s dream therefore may have reflected only her unconscious worry. It just happened to be brought to consciousness when Mrs. Martin awakened her daughter. However, the dream, like all dreams, is an indication that the mind is more active on an unconscious level than we are generally aware.
As a Sunday school teacher for fifteen years in an orthodox Protestant church and as a scoutmaster for twenty-five years, I have had an opportunity to observe and record a great many spontaneous cases of dreams, premonitions, apparent telepathy, and religious experiences of young people, which seem to be rather normal and frequent actions of the mind beyond consciousness. Persistent observation always ends with the disturbing thought that the regular psychological explanations of memory patterns and coincidence do not adequately explain all of these occurrences.
Rather early in my life I had the opportunity to observe a distinct group of people whose mental activities were even more startling. During seven summers of my childhood and adolescence I visited a Kentucky farm adjacent to a large State mental institution. My cousin’s father was a very popular physician at the institution. He frequently took us from ward to ward as he talked with the patients. With two other boys of our own age, sons of the superintendent, we had the freedom of the extensive grounds where hundreds of the less disturbed inmates spent endless hours sitting in the sun or moving restlessly about in restricted areas. During many long summer afternoons my friends and I listened to these patients talk. There were times when their conversations were quite normal. Then suddenly one of them would open a door into another world peopled with angels, devils, and weird animals. Some of these men and women frightened us. Others were gentle and kind. Obscenity, beauty, imagery, and fear were mingled in a kaleidoscopic outpouring from their distorted minds.
With a few of the less disturbed patients, the “trusties” (those we could trust), we went swimming and blackberrying. Sometimes we stole watermelons and, while eating them in the shade of a convenient haystack, our peculiar friends gave fantastic accounts of impossible happenings from their early childhood.
Years later with a little background in abnormal psychology it was possible to identify