Edgar Cayce on the Mysterious Essenes. John Van Auken

mission of the Essenes.

      In some respects souls are like rivers—on the surface they are all shiny and clear, shimmering with freshness and life, but deep beneath the surface run powerful unseen currents which influence the outer incarnate self and its relationships with other souls. These influences make for attractions and repulsions. And since souls are immortal, their physical bodies age and die but they, their souls, do not. They carry on, both in this physical world and beyond. Our soul is of God, made in the image of God (Genesis 1:26), and only the outer persona is temporarily living as a terrestrial physical being for as long as the physical body remains animated with the life forces. The deep currents of the unseen nonphysical self bring influences into this life and personality from cumulative ages of soul-life which consist of both incarnate lives in earth and discarnate sojourns beyond earth. These deeper influences are the cause for our easy love and patience with one person while having impatience and dislike for another. These undercurrents cause us to feel wonderful vibrations with a particular individual in one aspect of our lives only to feel awkward and uncomfortable with that same person in another aspect of our lives. For example, we would naturally have a warm comfort and attraction to a soul with whom we had been a sibling in a previous incarnation but quite uncomfortable with him or her in a sexual setting. Dynamics of relating with one another on a soul level have been formed deep within our inner consciousness, and they shape the way we innately interact with one another and situations in this present incarnation. Most everyone in our present life was very likely in one or more of our past lives. Souls that are very close to us in this life were likely involved in many of our past lives. Our parents, brothers and sisters, spouses, children, friends, colleagues, bosses and employees, and even those we dislike were involved in our past lives. Again, on the surface they have new faces, freshly developing personalities, and likely new roles, but beneath that shiny surface runs currents of lengthy times together carrying their often unconscious influences.

      The effects of these many past-life experiences are reflected in the circumstances that now surround our present situations and relationships. This is karma. Our soul’s memories of past-life activities with others shape innate reaction to them today. Of course, their memories of our past-life actions influence how they react to us. Through the same eyes that the personality sees life, the soul sees it, but the soul looks with a memory covering ages of passion and adventure, care and love, hatred and revenge, doubt and fear, hopes and disappointments. When we feel a seemingly unfounded fondness for a person, it is very likely due to soul memory of the positive role he or she played in our past lives. On the other hand, when we react with what seems to be an unfounded dislike or even revulsion, possibly even hatred, we can be pretty sure it is because our soul recalls how harmful they were to us or those we loved.

      However, the influences of past-life actions are not always so clear. Often those with whom we have had good lives and relationships are the same people with whom we have had problems and disagreements. There is usually a mixture of good and bad karma influencing us today. Those positive, well-developed aspects from our past lives will give us much pleasure and support in the present. Conversely, those aspects that were not positive will challenge us today, causing us to struggle to resolve the lingering disharmony. Avoiding these influences is simply not possible. Whether we like it or not, the Universal Law of Karma flows through us with the currents of unresolved issues that force us to greet the boomerang of past actions, thoughts, feelings, and words spoken. Thus, what we have done to other souls and they have done to us is reflected in the circumstances surrounding our present relationships and the innate urges, attitudes, and emotions we feel toward each other—and how we feel about ourselves internally. Much of our self-judgment is the karmic result of how we’ve used our free will prior to this lifetime. And no one can change that perspective except us! That is why we reincarnate. Each lifetime is an opportunity for resolution and soul growth which includes learning about ourselves, others, and the God-force running throughout life. “Live and learn” is the theme.

      These basic ideas of past relationships and their present influences are not only true of individual relationships but also of group relationships. From the beginning souls have traveled together in groups, and the very act of traveling together for such long periods creates forces of attraction and repulsion that reinforce the group dynamics. Nearly all souls on the planet today were together in past ages of human history. As a result, the relationships among the peoples of the world today are a reflection of their past activities. In fact, Edgar Cayce points to a verse in the scriptures that reveals who we are and how we once traveled together as one single, massive soul group: “When the Morning Stars sang together and all the children of God shouted for joy!” (Job 38:7) Cayce teaches that all souls associated with this dimension of life were those Morning Stars traveling from out of the heavens into this realm of physical existence, joyfully ready to live and learn. At that time we were in harmony, of one mind, and intimately connected to one another in a collective consciousness. We moved as a group, not as individuals, like a flock of birds, like a school of fish. Cayce teaches that as we gradually descended into matter and physicality, we became more individualized. Eventually it came to the point to where each soul had its own separate body, completely individualized. This reduced the sense of togetherness, connectedness, and belonging. Yet, even in this materialized condition, there remain some smaller group dynamic to which we considered ourselves to be a part of—this family, this neighborhood, this race, this faith, this culture, and so on. But now it was with a profoundly individualized self. And this was a natural flow of life. From the moment we were conceived, we have been driven to know ourselves to be ourselves and yet somehow retain the sense of our belonging to the Whole of beings and life. Oneness with all life is an innate feeling that surfaces in souls who become even slightly enlivened or enlightened.

      The soul-group journey is neither simple nor homogeneous. Souls who came in to this planetary system and entered the realms of consciousness associated with this region of the universe comprise our largest soul group: The Morning Stars. This group can then be divided into the subgroups we call “the generations,” containing souls who move through the natural cycles of Earth life together, and can then be further divided into the various nations, cultures, races, religions, and so on. Within these groups are the subgroups of souls which share similar philosophies, ideals, purposes, aspirations, and attitudes. From here the soul groups further divide into the many smaller groups of personal relationships: communities, families, businesses, teams, schools, and so on.

      Soul groups create an affinity among their members not only by the cumulative experiences they share, but also through their collective memory of how life has been for them and what they mutually desire and detest. In a manner of speaking, such groups form a distinct collective consciousness and spirit, much like the souls who gave us “the spirit of ’76” that led to the founding of the United States of America in 1776. This spirit reflected that soul group’s mutual hopes, attitudes, purposes, and memories. And as we all know from history, they had differing individual ideas about how best to form a new nation, but they were nevertheless in harmony on the ideal! Thus, they worked through their differences for the sake of the ideal: a nation that could allow for differences while maintaining a collective unity. They stated this in their declaration: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” And stated it again in the preamble to their constitution: “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect union, establish Justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” These words reflect a soul group’s collective consciousness that binds them into a distinct group while allowing for individual differences.

      It is important to keep in mind that soul groups are neither rigid nor static. Any individual soul can use its free will to seek an experience with another group. There are many cases of souls changing political allegiance, race, or religion from one lifetime to another. Neither do the generations incarnate in strict, rigid patterns. A member of one generation may enter again with a different generation. For example, two members of a family group who were father and son in one life may change positions