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

to influence souls today.

      1

      A RAY OF SUNLIGHT ON EARTH

      In ancient times a mega-flood, an eruption of a super-volcano, a succession of powerful earthquakes, and a shower of fiery meteorites brought an end to the mythological lands of Lemuria (Mu) in the Pacific Ocean and Atlantis in the Atlantic. According to Cayce’s visions, remnants of these prehistoric peoples migrated to safe lands and played a role in the rise of new civilizations, including the extraordinary people of ancient Egypt.

      Egyptian legends tell of receding floodwaters and the descent of the “Heron from Heaven”—it was called the Bennu bird, the phoenix of Egyptian lore (see illustration 2). According to this legend, the Bennu bird was the soul of the sun god Ra (likely pronounced ray, occasionally spelled Re). The soul of Ra in the form of the Heron from Heaven landed on the primordial Ben-ben mound that rose from the inundation of the chaos occurring in the latter period of the First Creation. Upon landing, the Bennu cried out: “I am the Bennu bird, the Heart-Soul of Ra, the Guide of the Gods to the Duat.” The Duat is the underworld in Egyptian teachings, the land of the night—corresponding to the subconscious realms of our minds, lying just beneath daily consciousness behind a veil that separates our earthly awareness from our soulful, heavenly consciousness. The Bennu’s cry marked the beginning of the Second Creation.

      The drying Ben-ben mound upon which the Bennu settled was in the ancient land of On, a place known today as Heliopolis, “City of the Sun,” near modern-day Cairo. In this manner the light of heaven came to Earth; thus Egypt was born from the ashes of the First Creation.

      This tale may be compared to the biblical first creation of Adam and the lands he and his families knew. Then, when the first creation spread darkness, filling in the hearts and minds with all manner of evil, the Great Flood cleansed away the first creation, as described in Genesis 6. After this cleansing the biblical story tells of a new beginning with Noah and his families—thus began the second creation.

      Edgar Cayce’s visions contain many detailed stories of ancient, prehistoric times filled with dates, events, and named people. His Egyptian narrative begins with a strange tale about a discarnate soul looking for just the right opportunity to begin anew during the Second Creation. This soul’s mind scanned the recovering planet from beyond the veil of material consciousness, and it saw that migrants from the former lands and peoples of Og were now living on and around Mt. Ararat, where Noah’s Ark is thought to have landed. Mt. Ararat is in modern-day Turkey. Og was one of the principle regions of Atlantis, according to Cayce, and the area known today as that of the American plateaus or the north portion of the US state of New Mexico and the surrounding highlands today. These migrants from Atlantis retained the spiritual ideals of the earlier children of the Law of One, as Cayce called them, indicating that they retained the belief that an unseen oneness connects all life. The Maya and other Mesoamerican peoples have a legend of the children of God wrestling with the Lords of the Underworld to win the deadly game between the dark and the light. This remnant group, now in Ararat, were seeking to make a new life and a better world by subduing the vices and confusions of their Atlantean experience while holding on to their virtues and higher wisdom.

      The celestial soul observing them through the veil intuitively knew that this Ararat clan would eventually come down out of the great mountain and surrounding lands, enter the region we know as Egypt, and begin the wondrous era of creativity, productivity, and enlightenment we see in surviving Egyptian temples, pyramids, papyruses, and statuary. This was the opportunity that the extraterrestrial soul was seeking. However, knowing that a prophet has little honor in his own tribe, the soul searched beyond the Ararat clan for a way to come to these people from another group.

      Cayce’s vision described a people in the Far East known as the tribe of Zu, in what would be known today as the high plateaus of the Mongolian lands. These people were also refugees of the destruction of the First Creation, but they were from sunken Lemuria in the Pacific. Strangely, these people, and those in India, had ideals and sacred rituals that would eventually become a part of Egypt’s early culture. Among the Zu clan was a daughter of their leader whose body, heart, and mind were perfect for the incarnation of this powerful, celestial soul. Her name was Arda. She was a pure, selfless portal into this world; thus, with love and idealism, the celestial spirit overshadowed the young girl and persuaded her deeper self and the very cells of her body to yield to his coming. Having a more fourth dimensional mind and heart, Arda responded, and the spark of the Spirit of Life quickened her three-dimensional womb. Though a virgin, having known no human man, she conceived a new and ideal physical body through which the celestial soul could incarnate into this terrestrial world to fulfill its grand mission.

      Arda was exhilarated by the new life within her, yet she was uncertain how her people would receive the news. Hopeful, she explained to them what had happened. Unfortunately, her kinsmen could not share in her belief in a celestial conception. They drove her from the tribe in shame. Her father—confused by his ready-to-believe-anything love for her and yet his rigid hold to the laws of his tribe and the realities of this physical world—stood motionless as she was driven off.

      Cayce details how she journeyed westward—not by some thought-out plan but by an inner, intuitive push west. Eventually, she camped near the tribe living on and around Mt. Ararat (biblical Asia Minor, modern-day Turkey, see illustration 3). The Ararats (remnant Atlanteans) had no love for the tribe of Zu (remnant Lemurians), so Arda was not welcomed, only tolerated. However, when her child was born and his beauty was perceived by the people of Ararat, she was tolerated a little better. The child grew in stature and wisdom, revealing a knowing that quickly identified him as a prophet, a seer. In one of the young boy’s pronouncements, he prophesied the entrance of this clan into the rich lands of Egypt and that they would build one of the grandest cultures on the planet. King Arart (pronounced aur-art), the elderly leader of the tribe, was moved by this prophecy and began to hold the boy in high esteem, giving comfort and support to him and to his mother. She had suffered much for her celestial conception, but now the fruit of her womb rewarded her. From this moment on, Arda was an honored woman; she and her offspring were fully adopted into the Ararat community.

      Cayce described how her boy was of unusual coloring; his skin being lighter than his mother’s, his hair the color of the sun, and there was a radiant mystique about him. Because of these features, the people named him Ra-Ta, meaning something akin to “sunlight upon the land.”

      Young Ra-Ta’s remarkable prophetic abilities naturally made him the priest of the tribe. At the age of twenty-one, he led King Arart and his whole clan down out of the mountain region, across the plains, and into the fertile lands of Egypt (see illustration 3 for a map). Egypt was then called the Black Land (Kemet, KMT). This was because of the rich black silt that the Nile had left behind as it receded from its flood stages. According to Cayce’s story, some nine hundred souls composed this invading horde. A small number today, but this was that biblical time when the planet had been cleansed of many earlier peoples by a karmic reaction to their evil (again, read Genesis 6). Now the planet was being repopulated for a new start. This was the beginning of the Second Creation.

      Naturally, the sight of a horde of northern mountain people marching toward their land of ease and plenty was upsetting to the natives of the Black Land, especially to their upper class who enjoyed a life of luxury and leisure. However, the natives had once been invaders themselves, having entered this rich land from the southern mountains of Nubia. Though they were strong then, they had grown comfortable and satisfied for a very long time. Their newfound land required little labor and provided plenty of recreation