Edgar Cayce

I make fun of my husband for watching only three channels - ESPN, The Food Network, and The History Channel. One of those channels is always on when I turn on the TV. The other day, I got sucked into a show on the History Channel about Edgar Cayce. In all my fascination with Nostradamus and all things X-files-ish, I somehow missed this guy. I had never heard of him.

Cayce is considered a "psychic medium." Born near Hopkinsville, Kentucky, he had little education and took up photography. At age 19, he collapsed and began to experience visions and receive messages describing ways to heal people. Over a period of 40 years, he performed "life readings" for people and diagnosed over 30,000.

He believed that everyone had previous existences, some going back thousands of years. Many of his reports were transcribed and preserved by the Association for Research and Enlightenment in Virginia Beach, VA.

Like Nostradamus, he made some "predictions" about events in the world. Like Nostradamus, these are often vague and could be interpreted in different ways. Unlike Nostradamus, Cayce also diagnosed what was wrong with a person, and often how to fix it. He made these readings from a trance-like state.

The interesting thing was that he would give very specific and technical diagnoses and remedies, having had no medical training whatsoever.

He predicted the First and Second World War, the independence of India and the 1929 stockmarket crash. He also predicted, fifteen years before the event, the creation of the State of Israel. His most disturbing predictions, however, concern vast geographical upheavals which by the year 1998 will result in the destruction of New York, the disappearance of most of Japan, and a cataclysmic change in Northern Europe.

He was known to "absorb" the contents of a book just by sleeping on top of it.

His most striking "predictions" were about the earth and the state of the environment, including climate change and shifts in the earth.

Interestingly, Cayce was a lifelong, devout member of the Disciples of Christ, one of the two church organizations I work for.

I don't have room in this blog to go into the depth of Edgar Cayce, but I think it's fascinating and urge you to find out more by visiting:

• Wikipedia on Edgar Cayce
• Who is Edgar Cayce?
• Association for Research & Development (ARE)
  Founded in 1931 by Edgar Cayce and the official site of Cayce