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

new bodies, and these would be more physical bodies. Originally, the children of God projected themselves into this world as phantoms, as ghosts. In fact, the name Lemur, as in Lemuria, means ghost, coming from a Latin word referring to the “spirits” of the dead—but these early souls were immortal, having never tasted death. The Great Flood was the symbolic marker of the end of the first creation and the beginning of the second. In the second creation, now deeper into matter and physicality, the children of God would experience the cycles of this reality, which included day and night, wake and sleep, and life and death. Of course, there really was no death for the immortal godlings, but they came to think there was. The Maya have a legend that tells how the Lords of the Underworld (forces of the lower realms of mind) tricked the immortal children of God into playing a game in which the penalty for losing was death (loss of consciousness). This was symbolized in the Mesoamerican legends by the act of decapitation of the loser’s physical body. The godlings were actually spirit-minds temporarily inhabiting the physical body, and the death of the body was not death of the godling. Even so, it had an overwhelming impact on the consciousness of the godlings. In the Garden of Eden’s story, the serpent’s whisper to Eve was that she would “not surely die” if she ate of the apple—but it was going to be such a profound impact upon her consciousness that she would be as if dead consciously, losing celestial awareness from the overwhelming weight of material consciousness.

      Cayce’s visions observed that many (not all) of the minds and souls of God’s children willfully pushed their way into matter and materiality before it was prepared for them. This was taking them out of the natural oneness of heavenly existence and separating them into individual projections. In Genesis 2:18 God observes that this created a sense of loneliness in them, and it was not good for them. Even worse, since the only physical bodies existing at that time were animal bodies, Cayce and ancient mythology reveal that their spirit-minds became contaminated with animal features, such as feathers, scales, fur, and even major body parts, resulting in mixed-up beings that were half man and half horse (centaurs), half man and half lion (sphinxes), half woman and half fish (sirens and mermaids)! All of these liminal beings had to be cleansed of their confused mixture and reoriented to their ideal form and vibration—mentally as well as physically. And a human body was needed. Sadly, even when a body for God’s children was formed, the minds of many souls were now so polluted with animal imagery and vibrations that when properly incarnated in good human bodies, they manifested remnant animal features, mutating the chromosomes as their mental forces and vibrations influenced cell division and specialization. The complete removal of these pollutants was one of the services of the earliest temples in ancient Egypt, known as the Temple of Sacrifice.

      Even so, the primary problem was the separation from oneness into what may be called “manyness.” It was a massive individuation progression that broke the collective consciousness of the souls into individual selves. According to Cayce’s perspective, self and selfishness were and remain the cause of evil and destructiveness. When an individual soul is conscious of its oneness with the whole of creation, it naturally expresses goodness and creativity. But when perceiving oneself as separate, the lower mind does not see that harm to others is harm to oneself.

      The massive water cleansing of the earth through the Great Flood came as a result of growing selfishness, self-gratification, self-exaltation, tyranny, and cruelty of one group over another, and godlessness in most every heart. Two factional soul groups developed among incarnating souls. Cayce referred to them as the children of the Law of One, who attempted to hold onto the original oneness, versus the Sons of Belial (pronounced bell-ee-al or bell-aisle), who taught and practiced survival of the fittest: get all you can get for yourself, there is no oneness, the strong should dominate and use the weak, even as slaves. Genesis records that “the Lord regretted making humankind, and it grieved him to his heart.” The Lord then exclaimed, “I will destroy humanity whom I have created from the surface of the ground . . . for I am sorry that I have made them.” The Lord told Noah, “The end of all flesh has come before me, for the earth is filled with violence through them. Behold, I will destroy them with the earth. I, even I, do bring the flood of waters on this earth, to destroy all flesh having the breath of life from under the sky. Everything that is in the earth will die. But I will establish my covenant with you.” In Cayce’s readings, this covenant was established with many soul groups around the planet; thus many were saved from the flood cleansing and were the incarnate souls that began the legendary “Second Creation,” of which the new nation of Egypt played a most important role.

      The Temple of Sacrifice also provided services for reducing selfishness, cravings, and out-of-control sensual urges that had come to possess so many souls in the chaos of the First Creation.

      In his deep meditative-like state, Cayce was asked to “have before you the Temple Beautiful in Egypt at about the period 10,500 BC after the return of the high priest Ra-Ta from banishment. You will describe in detail this temple and the services held in it, explaining how an understanding of the work carried on there may be of help to us now in carrying forward our healing study and work [today].” Cayce replied, “many of you here were both in and of the temple service, whether in the purifications in the Temple of Sacrifice or the Temple Beautiful. In the Temple of Sacrifice there were the altars to cleanse the bodies of those things that hindered in body, that were emblematical of the source of the stumbling block. In the Temple Beautiful there were the expressions of the service as an activity to maintain and to purify the bodies for the necessary associations of spiritual understandings in material bodies. Do not, my children, confuse your bodies of today with those attributes of that ancient period, with the conditions existent in the Temple Beautiful.” Cayce explained this last comment, saying that bodies in those ancient times were much less dense and not so possessing of the souls that inhabited them as our bodies today. Most of us actually think of ourselves as our bodies, not sensing the independence of the mind and soul inhabiting the physical vehicle.

      As we learned in chapter one, the Temple of Sacrifice could best be compared to a combination of a modern-day spa, yoga center, and hospital in which the focus was on improving the physical body, which is the temple of the incarnating soul. The Temple Beautiful could best be compared to a combination of a modern monastery, university, and vocational training center in which the focus was on improving the mind and spirit of an individual and preparing him or her for a service that contributes to the whole of the community and the growth of the souls.

      Cayce explained that the physical bodies in the most ancient of times were not as physical as our bodies today and could be absorbed into the nonphysical aspects of a soul-mind while they “traveled” to heavenly realms—then, they could be projected again when they returned to the realm of form and physicality. Even the Hopi have legends of a long-ago time when souls could manifest in this world and then leave at will, moving their bodies back into pure energy or spirit and traveling through the door between this world and the heavens.

      So different were our ancient bodies that Cayce also spoke of an additional chakra in our thighs that was particularly earthy. It was this chakra that was being removed surgically in the Temple of Sacrifice to help a soul keep its consciousness and spirit at higher levels of vibration and awareness. We see references to this chakra in the Scriptures. In Genesis 24 and 47 there are scenes in which a person is asked to “put your hand under my thigh.” These may be indications of the existence of that ancient chakra.

      Cayce’s response to the request for information about the ancient Egyptian temples continued:

      “There had been gathered from all the nations of the earth that which represented from their environ, their surrounding, the most beautiful gift; that it might be a reminder of those, to those, that purified or gave themselves in service or activity there, of the beauty of service of every land in this preparation of the bodies for their greater service and for their intermingling with those of the earth’s environ as well as enabling the servants, the workers, the priestess, the prophetess, those that labored—or joyously gave themselves—to give their activity for others.

      “The materials [stone blocks] that composed the outer portions of the temples were of the mountains nigh unto the upper waters of the Nile. The temple was in the form of the pyramid, within which was the globe—which represented to those who served that their