Contemporary Cayce. Henry Reed

often link Cayce to the concept of a New Age because of his prediction of the transformation of our worldview, primarily that of moving into a consciousness of Oneness. Years ago, when Marilyn Ferguson published her groundbreaking book, The Aquarian Conspiracy, outlining the various aspects of the emerging “Aquarian Age,” she focused on one central idea that she felt was the cornerstone of all the changes coming. She called the old “paradigm”—meaning the worldview that governs the questions we ask and the answers we get—the worldview of separation. She claimed that the notion of separation was dying, and in its place was the idea of inter-connectedness. Thus the idea of oneness is the core idea, and our questions may be shifted from asking, “How does it work?” to instead asking things like, “What is the story?” This would be a shift from the materialistic thought-pattern of cause and effect, to the more consciousness-oriented concern for meaning and purpose.

      When Cayce was asked by people going through trials and tribulations about what was the meaning of all their suffering, his answer was consistently provocative as it expressed a radical view of oneness, but one which gives us a handle on dealing with our predicaments. He echoed what is known as the “Perennial Philosophy,” the key idea central to all spiritual traditions. In simplest terms, the philosophy states, “you are that!” This mysterious statement is saying that the outside world that you experience and the inner world that you identify as being you are actually one and the same. The outer world is our mirror. The meaning of this mirror, and Cayce would suggest that it is its purpose, is to awaken us to our God-ness. Every experience we have, Cayce contends, is meant to lead us to the realization that we are one with God; that we possess the attributes of godliness, especially in our creative aspects. As we develop spiritually, grooming our thoughts and behaviors to express more perfectly our ideals—as we aim less to get ahead in the world, but instead to become in harmony with the world—we find it easier to learn from our experiences, to grow from them, to realize that everything is God, and everything exists to wake us up to our own God-ness. Everything that exists and all that can be conceived to exist is One. It is all ONE.

      3

      Finding Companionship

      with the Creator

      WHEN THE 19TH CENTURY PHILOSOPHER NIETZSCHE WROTE THE words, “God is dead,” it was to present his premise that the world no longer saw belief in a higher power as the ultimate stage of wisdom and enlightenment. By the turn of the 21st century, however, God was no longer “dead,” but instead many new books appeared bringing God to life in surprising new ways. New viewpoints, merging the paradoxical findings from quantum physics with modern studies of the transpersonal nature of the human mind, have proposed an intimate connection between God and consciousness itself. These new viewpoints mark a trend to bring God down from the sky and into our hearts, transforming God from simply a distant fatherly figure into a core creative element seeking awareness and expression within each human being.

      Although he used conventional biblical language, Edgar Cayce’s viewpoint on God anticipated this profound development in our image of the Creator. He provided a unique rationale that allows us to engage in our own personal exploration of the meaning of this reality in our lives. There is a purpose, he contends, for why God created us in the first place. That purpose is the key to our experiencing the truth behind a great mystery: God created us, according to the Cayce readings, for the purpose of companionship.

      When Edgar Cayce was asked to describe whether God was a loving parental figure or an impersonal force, his response was that both answers were correct. Cayce also made the surprising assertion that rather than being apart and separate from humankind, ultimately God’s desire was to bring an awareness of the divine into physicality and the third dimension through each of us. Hidden in the implications of what Cayce proposed is a much more radical theology involving the Creator’s actual need for us in the continuing development of creation. The idea of “companionship with the Creator” doesn’t seem like a radical idea, because the warmth of the image deflects us from contemplating such perplexing questions as: Why would God, Whom we believe to be Total, Omniscient, and All Powerful, need our companionship? What could we mere mortal humans possibly add to God? What would our companionship contribute to God?

      While writing the “Philosophy” chapter of Cayce’s biography, There Is a River, author Thomas Sugrue asked a series of questions in a reading about the nature of God and God’s purpose in creating humankind. The response given was that God might best be described in terms of oneness and love, and that souls had been created out of God’s desire for companionship. What this suggests is that the nature of God is ultimately connectivity with the rest of His creation, and connectivity and love can only be experienced in relationship to other beings.

      Consider your own experiences with companionship. When you go on a trip, for example, what does having a companion accompany you add to your experience? Oftentimes, there is something about “sharing” an experience with another person that enhances it. When our companion reflects our observations with statements like, “Yes, I see what you mean,” our subjective impression receives an objective confirmation. Having our experience mirrored back to us has an important effect—it makes it more real! A mirror, both in our lives and in mythology, has very special powers to add something to our experience of ourselves.

      Have you ever sat and watched an animal in front of a mirror? What makes it so fascinating is our realization that the animal might recognize its reflection. We know from our own experience that looking into a mirror gives us an experience of ourselves from an outward, objective viewpoint. Consciousness studies suggest that we are like animals who are unwittingly confronting a mirror. We know now that we live in a “virtual reality,” as if to confirm the ancient Hindu notion of “maya,” that we live in the illusion of a dream. Our experience of what we think of as external reality is actually a mirrored reflection of our true identity as events in consciousness. This distinction between the “objective reality out there” and the “subjective reality inside our heads” has implications for our relationship to the Creator.

      Following Cayce’s recommendation for comparative study, when a group of students of the Cayce readings toured Japan, they were invited to a Shinto shrine, a holy place of the Japanese indigenous spirituality. In the shrine, in a prominent position on the front wall, in the same place that a Christian church might display a cross, there was a large mirror. The Shinto priest stated that the mirror was their sacred object and only initiates were allowed to look into it directly. For that reason, the priest turned the mirror slightly aside. Whereas for Christianity, the coming together of God and man can be symbolized in the cross, for the Shinto, the mirror expressed this same possibility.

      Perhaps the biggest conceptual drawback we have to understanding our true companionship with the Creator is that we too readily identify with our physical nature rather than with our spiritual reality. From the standpoint of the Cayce readings, we are not physical bodies with souls, but spiritual beings who happen to be having a physical experience. The problem is not one of trying to become something else; rather, it is one of not living up to the very best we already have within us. We are already spiritual beings! The truth of our divine nature is clearly illustrated in this popular Hindu legend:

      At one time, all people on earth were gods, but they so sinned and abused the divine that Brahma, the god of all gods, decided that the godhead should be taken away from them and hid in some place where humanity would never again find and abuse it. “We will bury it deep in the earth,” said the other gods. “No,” said Brahma, “because they will dig down in the earth and find it.” “Then we will sink it in the deepest ocean,” the gods said. “No,” said Brahma, “because they will learn to dive and find it there, too.” “We will hide it on the top of the highest mountain,” the gods said. “No,” said Brahma, “because they will someday climb every mountain on earth and again capture the godhead.” “Then we do not know where to hide it where it cannot be found,” said the lesser gods. “I will tell you,” said Brahma. “Hide it down inside the hearts of the people themselves. They will never think to look there.”

      The Cayce material confirms the fact that we have forgotten our true nature as children of God. Instead,