Edgar Cayce's Tales of Ancient Egypt. John Van Auken

enthusiasm than before. I knew that all I had to do was cross the scepters and I would stop. But some knowing within me kept the scepters pointed straight toward the fiery sun. As I enter it, I felt the searing heat, but instead of burning me, it cleansed me! The Ra fire was burning away all my sins and weaknesses but not harming the rest of me. So happy was I that I began to draw its heat into me, inhaling it, wanting more of it. It felt wonderful! I wanted it to burn me completely, thoroughly, until I was fully cleansed! Suddenly, someone grabbed my arm and began shaking me saying, “John, wake up; we’re going to miss our boat. We have to go. Wake up.” I struggled to see through the sun’s brilliant light. Two faces were staring back at me; they were our Egyptian guide and my colleague. I asked, “Who are you?” After they both looked at each other, they then turned and ordered me to get up, follow them closely, and not say anything that would alarm the guards and others in our group. I obeyed, gradually realizing that I was supposed to be a part of this tour group, yet half of me was still in the initiation ceremony. Once on the bus to the boat, I fell back into the solar cleansing. Oh, it felt so good to be so clean!

      Later, when reading Cayce’s discourses on Egypt, I came across this fire altar portion of the ancient Egyptian initiation in the temples of Ra-Ta. I felt both elated to have somehow experienced the initiation firsthand (if that is what I experienced) and a bit spooked to know that the ancient events were so accessible. But then Cayce also taught that all time is one time and nothing is ever lost. It is still there in the deeper levels of consciousness. All one has to do is access it with the right intention.

      In another experience while in a deep state of consciousness, I woke in a stone chamber in an ancient Egyptian temple. Upon a stone altar was a person reclining on his back, waiting for a chakra adjustment! I know how weird this sounds, but this is how the scene opened. What’s even stranger is the fact that it felt so real that I lost all awareness of anything else. I was in this room, standing next to this altar. I approached the person lying on the altar and reached my hands over his heart area. I was wearing a floor-length cape and a high, cylindrical hat, similar to that worn by Amun-Ra (see illustration 5). Somehow I intuitively knew that the cape was to shield me from any interfering or contaminating influences and that the hat was an antenna-like device which channeled the energies of Venus through me! Yes, the planet! These energies were those of the typical astrological characteristics attributed to Venus: love, art (creativity), and beauty. As these influences flowed through me, they entered into the person’s heart chakra. As they did, it was as if dials in his heart chakra were being turned so as to better tune his heart to the frequency coming from the planet of love, art, and beauty.

      Perhaps this is why I’m writing this book on Cayce’s Egypt. It is as if my soul knows that ancient place and time and has some lingering energies that have to find their way out of me today. My intention in sharing these experiences with you is to give possible examples of what Cayce was conveying about these ancient temples and the activities of the initiates and for us to consider the unseen influences of these experiences that are latent within us even today.

      Now back to the highlights of Cayce’s story of Ra-Ta and the temples (a later chapter on the temples goes into this topic in greater detail).

      When these cleansings in the temples were combined with the inner guidance to commit oneself to a specific career of service, one could then make great leaps forward in freedom from earthliness and limited consciousness to become a light to this world. This was done only after the seekers had chosen to give themselves to these services. No one was forced into the temples, and once in the temples, no one was forced to progress through the various stages. Each had to choose or be “called” from within to participate and endure.

      The Temple of Sacrifice may be compared to the combination of one of our best hospitals merged with one of our best health spas and yoga centers. Restructuring and cleansing the body could employ several means: from surgeries to scented baths, from chemistry and potions to massage and body movement (likely similar to Tai Chi) or dance, from painful change through physical therapy to nirvanic transformation that would alter the very cells and hormones of the body.

      The Temple Beautiful may be compared to the combination of one of our highly creative and idealistic universities, one of our most loving, monastery-type religious facilities, and one of our prayer and meditation centers.

      The Temple of Sacrifice transformed the body and body-mind. The Temple Beautiful transformed participants mentally and spiritually. It combined body, mind, and soul development with service to God, to one another, and to the world. The program was not reclusive or elitist. Whether one was channeled to work in the sacred services of the altars or the daily labors of the granary, both were seen as divinely manifesting his or her ultimate potential to magnify God in life rather than escape life to be with God. Godliness in this early training was an active service, not a static state. Works were as important as faith and enlightenment.

      According to Cayce’s readings, the purpose for all of this was: “That there might be a closer relationship of individuals to the Creator, and a better relationship of individuals with one another.”

      Despite many gains, Ra-Ta struggled with disappointment and discouragement. He was in a constant wrestling match with earthly ideals held by many of the people. Incarnate souls easily slipped into the comforts of living only the material life and gratifying physical appetites and egotistical longings. Some people also sought to control others as subordinates, even slaves, for their own use, which did not fit with Ra-Ta’s ideal of one God and one family of the children of God, all equal siblings. Many of these negative ideals and pursuits had caused the end of the First Creation. Ra-Ta and his team wanted to prevent these selfish, earthly energies from contaminating the Second Creation.

      At the height of Ra-Ta’s influence as the high priest, he was also traveling to other sacred centers around the planet. How? By flying! Amazingly, according to Cayce’s readings, there was a time long ago when flight was a natural means of transportation—we’ll learn more about this in the chapter on ancient flight. According to Cayce’s visions, the entire planet had major spiritual centers with temples and pyramids. In addition to Egypt there were centers in what today would be called Iran (Persia), India, the Gobi (not a desert then), Indochina, China, the Pacific Islands, the Andes, Mexico, the plateaus of New Mexico, and even Scandinavia (the land of Odin and Thor). There was much communication among these spiritual centers, each sharing how best to keep the celestial wisdom alive despite souls moving deeper into matter and terrestrial existence.

      Ra-Ta met with leaders of these other centers—some actually visited the Egyptian temples—some were even initiated. There was no language barrier according to Cayce’s readings because this was a time when there was one language among all the people of the planet. The biblical Tower of Babel event had not yet occurred.

      It was a busy, dynamic time.

      Cayce gave a description of Ra-Ta: “The priest in body . . . was six feet one inch tall, weighing a hundred and eighty-one pounds. He was fair of face, not too much hair on the head [lost much of his youthful, yellow hair by this time] or too much on the face or body. In color nearly white, only sun or air tanned.” We know from artifacts that most Egyptian priests had shaved heads though they could and did wear wigs, and they all dressed in spotted leopard skins (see illustration 6a and 6b). Since there are no leopards in the Mayan, Toltec, and Aztec lands, their priests wore jaguar skins.

      As powerful and influential as the high priest was in these formative times, he became more powerful and influential after he stumbled. Ra-Ta’s standing in Egypt took a sudden and unexpected turn for the worse. He allowed himself to break one of his own rules. And even though it was for a seemingly higher purpose, the king and council members did not see it that way. The punishment was severe, perhaps too severe.

      Cayce’s readings tell the story of the fall of Ra-Ta as a combination of temptation and trickery. Some of his subordinate priests had become jealous