(This information is included because Edgar Cayce is the most well known channel in the world)

Edgar Cayce

Written by Margaret Branch

Edgar Cayce was popularly known as "The Sleeping Prophet," thanks to his biography of that name by Jess Stern written in 1967. Cayce clairvoyantly channeled readings over a forty-year period of his life during the first part of the 20th Century, and his life and ground-breaking work have been covered by many authors. Most of his readings have been preserved in written form, and these total 14,246 in number, residing in the library of the Association for Research and Enlightenment in Virginia Beach, Virginia.

Edgar Cayce's readings deal with a variety of subjects ranging from discourses on meditation and dreams, Bible interpretation, world affairs and prophesies of the future. This includes the history of man and our spiritual evolution, to personal health and spirituality for many individuals. He never received payment beyond what was needed for his modest family needs, and to eventually start his "holistic healing hospital" in Virginia Beach. Cayce was deeply committed to serving those coming to him seeking help, and he refused to use his talents for other than helpful purposes.

Born near Hopkinsville, Kentucky,in 1877, Cayce came from a modest farm family, being the only boy in a family of five children. He never had more than an 8th Grade education, and went to work early in life to help the family. Edgar became engaged at the age of 19 to Gertrude Evans, whom he eventually married and who later became a great support to Cayce in his work.

Cayce was a deeply religious man, and served as a Sunday School teacher for many years. As a boy, he was dedicated to reading the Bible, and had some visionary experiences, including conversations with deceased relatives. At the age of 12, he was asked by an angel what he wanted most in life, and he said that he wanted more than anything else to help others, especially sick children. Following this, an unusual ability developed in which he was able to sleep with his schoolbooks under the pillow and assimilate word for word what was in them. This gift helped him in school, but gradually faded.

The way in which Cayce's gift developed as an adult is interesting. When he was 23, he was earning good money as a salesman to start his married life with his fiancée of four years, and feeling confident. However, a mysterious case of laryngitis that persisted for almost a year, despite much medical intervention, forced him to quit his job. Cayce ended up in the fortunate position of a photographic assistant after many months of being able to barely speak above a whisper, but later he came to have his own studio through this turn of events.

The episode with laryngitis actually pointed him in the direction of his life's work, for it was through hypnotic suggestion, recommended as a final resort, that a reading for himself unexpectedly occurred, ultimately curing the vocal paralysis. The hypnotist was a student of osteopathy named Al Layne, and the surprise that he felt at the recommendations coming through loud and clear from Cayce's vocal chords while he was in a self-induced trance was significant. Cayce's speech was totally restored through what he himself suggested, and as a result Layne was motivated to seek help for a stomach condition that physicians had been unable to cure. Cayce was reluctant, only wishing to get on with his new trade in photography and settle down with a family. He nevertheless agreed to return the favor.

Cayce once again put himself to sleep and in a normal voice prescribed a regimen of herbal treatments, diet and exercise for Layne's improvement, which was quite successful after only one week, and caused great excitement. This eventually led to Layne's insistence that Cayce had a great gift and a moral obligation to explore its potential. After much soul-searching and prayer with his family, with whom he had remained close, Cayce agreed to submit to more experimental trances under the conditions that this work only be helpful to people, and that his time would allow him to develop as a photographer, principally. The year was 1901.

What followed shortly thereafter was a truly remarkable healing, through several readings, which also included osteopathic manipulations carried out by Layne, on a five-year old girl. Cayce had come to fulfill the desire he expressed to the angel so long ago...helping sick children. It was hard for him to commit to an unorthodox life of being responsible for information that was out of his conscious knowledge base. Yet it became harder for him to leave it behind after it was discovered that he could give distance readings.

Even though he loved photography and eventually opened the Cayce Art Studio in Hopkinsville, Cayce worked for a time with a medical doctor named Wesley Ketchum, who helped him become famous by submitting research papers on him and using Cayce's psychic talent in difficult cases. He became known as a "psychic diagnostician," and in the first decade of the 1900's had occasion to help heal his wife as she lay dying of tuberculosis, a very serious condition for those times. His fame spread and a Harvard researcher came to investigate him, finding him legitimate.

After moving to Selma, Alabama in an attempt to live a normal life as a photographer, Cayce once again picked up notoriety when he cured his son Hugh Lynn of potential blindness. (Hugh Lynn had been playing with flash powder, which burned his eyes quite badly). After that success, the requests for readings poured in, and he gave them with the help of his wife. However, since people found that doctors were unwilling to carry out the unorthodox treatments, Cayce had a dream of establishing a special hospital which could have fully qualified professionals to administer the treatments, which included herbs, spinal manipulations, electrotherapy, hydrotherapy, special diet, and colon cleansing.

Although he never refused to give a reading for a person unable to pay, Cayce began to take donations for his readings and started looking for backers to fulfill his hospital dream. He gave up photography, and by 1928 had moved his family and new secretary to Virginia Beach, Virginia, where the readings recommended that the facility be opened. (Gladys Davis Turner was to remain with the family until Cayce died, recording the readings with a stenograph and then typing them).

Thanks to wealthy backers, Cayce was able to open his healing hospital and also The Atlantic University, both of which had to close in the midst of the Depression in 1931. But the Association for Research and Enlightenment, Inc., known as the A.R.E., was founded at that time to disseminate and investigate the information in the readings, and still exists to today in Virginia Beach.

In the meantime, Cayce continued to give more and more readings and was investigated by many who helped spread his fame, some coming with skepticism and walking away marveling. His death in 1945, followed closely by the death of Gertrude, resulted from pneumonia contracted from stress and overwork as he struggled to keep up with the ever-growing tide of requests for help. Gladys Davis stayed with the A.R.E. as principal cataloguer of the volumes of information, and the study and dissemination of Cayce's work was carried on by his son Hugh Lynn until his death in 1982.

As for the massive body of information itself: not only did the readings give valuable assessments of the workings of the body and its systems and how to balance the conditions manifesting as illness, but what came to be known as "Life Readings" were also given for people. These contained references to past lives and karma, which was extremely controversial for that day in a Christian-dominated culture. As well, historical views that merited further investigations by researchers on the history of man and the existence of the legendary continents of Atlantis and Lemuria astounded many. As Jeffrey Furst notes in Edgar Cayce's Story Of Jesus (1968) the material dealing with these things "were decidedly alien to the awakened Cayce's manner of thinking. Nevertheless, the Life Readings were pursued from 1923 onward and comprise a major portion of the material in the Cayce files."

In terms of spiritual growth, Cayce's channeled messages always pointed towards the importance of the individual turning to within for Divine Guidance, and being of service to their fellow beings. He outlined procedures for meditation and self-inquiry in his readings that were put into a collection called Search for God I and II. These are used today by A.R.E. affiliated meditation groups all over the world, which use these source books along with workbooks which have been created more recently. Harmon Bro, Ph.D., who was present at more than 500 readings, wrote of this phenomenon in his book Edgar Cayce On Dreams (1968) that "[Cayce] insisted that what people saw in [his work] was not a unique principle, though it might be striking. They were seeing the operation of laws, quite natural laws. They were seeing laws that they themselves could learn to use."

What could be described as the source of Edgar Cayce's channeled material? It is apparent that a self induced, full-blown hypnotic trance was occurring, with resultant special body/etheric conditions. For example, a reading stopped abruptly and he had to be called back into waking consciousness when a note was passed over Cayce's prone body to Gertrude. Readings explained that the source of information for a subject came from their subconscious, in combination with Cayce's direct access to the superconscious, the state of unlimited awareness available to all of us as spiritually evolving souls. As Herbert Puryear described the process in The Edgar Cayce Primer (1982) "...the subconscious may either distort or enhance man's access to the divine within...for a channel to be consistently accurate or helpful, then, one must be able to tap the superconscious on a regular basis. And this Edgar Cayce did with remarkable frequency and accuracy. "

Cayce detailed the source of superconscious information regarding a person (whom he always described as "the entity") as coming from a sphere he referred to as "God's book of remembrance" and sometimes as the "Akashic records." In a collection of reading excerpts grouped by subject known as the Individual Reference File (1970, 1976) lie descriptions of this sphere. A reference to this is found in the following excerpt, quoted verbatim from the unconscious Cayce:

"Upon time and space is written the thoughts, the deeds, the activities of an entity, as in relationships to its environs, its hereditary influence; as directed, or judgment drawn by or according to what the entity's ideal is. Hence, as it has been oft called, the record is God's book of remembrance; and each entity, each soul, as the activities of a single day of an entity in the material world, either makes some good or some bad or indifferent, depending upon the entity's application of self towards that which is the ideal manner for the use of time, opportunity and the expression of that for which each soul enters a material manifestation." [1650-1, 1938]

The main thrust of Cayce's advice to people is that healing comes from within, and that all of us have access to that Spirit which will bring it forth. Dr. Puryear reminds us of that wisdom when he writes in The Edgar Cayce Primer (1982) that "when anyone came [to Cayce] as hundreds did, with questions about decisions or guidance regarding choices, they were told again and again to turn within. He assured them all that no matter how far astray they had gone, they could meet God within the temple of their own bodies."

The readings delineated specific ways to attune the physical and mental aspects our personal existence to the spiritual, including the study of our dreams. Daily meditation was advised to help us put aside our limitations and move through the vast area of the unconscious towards our Divine truth through this process of attunement. Affirmations were given in this regard, the most famous one being known today as the one which is given to beginning students in the Search for God Study Group, "Be still, and know that I am God."

Today, the A.R.E. exists not only as the library which houses the readings, indexed in such a way that the information is readily accessible on any subject, but provides a place for conferences on healing and spirituality. As a membership organization, it assists people and groups (such as the Search for God Study Groups) in their study and analysis of the Cayce information. There is a bookstore inside the large, newly refurbished A.R.E building, which also contains a lovely meditation room overlooking the Atlantic Ocean.

In the A.R.E. Bookstore, which is also available on the internet, many books published through the A.R.E. Press can be found, as well as related literature. The Heritage Store in Virginia Beach carries many of the Cayce remedies that were originally formulated in the readings themselves, as well as other health products. They are also available through the internet. Notable books on Cayce include There Is A River by Thomas Sugrue; Edgar Cayce, The Sleeping Prophet by Jess Stearn; and many others in addition to the references quoted above. The A.R.E. Library, located on Atlantic Avenue and 67th Street in Virginia Beach is open to anyone who enters and provides direct access to copies of the readings while there, as well as collected books.