THE SLEEPING PROPHET

For the next twenty-seven years, thousands of people found relief from pain and suffering by following the suggestions of Edgar Cayce's readings.  The records on
file in the Association for Research and Enlightenment (A.R.E.) library in Virginia
Beach testify to his accuracy.  Doctors' reports and patients' case histories are there for all to see.  As the many books and articles about him conclude, Edgar Cayce was undoubtedly an amazingly precise psychic diagnostician. 

The physical readings make up about 60% of Edgar Cayce's fourteen thousand or
so readings.  There are a number of minor categories, such as business advice and
dream interpretation, but by far the next largest category, approximately 20% of the total, are life readings.  These readings dealt with psychological rather than
physical problems.  They attempted to answer questions people might have about
vocational problems, their purpose in life and marriage and human relations.  The
first life reading came about in this manner:

In the early 1920s, a man with an insatiable inquisitiveness about Metaphysics
opened a new dimension for Cayce and his psychic readings.  In an attempt to obtain an astrological horoscope from Cayce, Arthur Lammers was told that the
effect of the stars and planets on a person's life was not nearly as influential as
the effect of that person's past life upon his present one.  Cayce then proceeded
to give Lammers an account of his previous lives.

When Cayce awoke and heard what he had said, he was dumbfounded.  Awake, he
knew as little about reincarnation and the occult as he knew about medicine.  Was
it possible that reincarnation could be true?  How did it fit in with his Bible teachings
and Christian roots?  Cayce wasn't sure.  Abstract questions of philosophic systems
had never concerned him.  He was well versed in Christianity and the Bible, but he had never studied other world religions.  He was ignorant of the fact that reincarna-
tion was a cardinal belief in the teachings of Hinduism and Buddhism. 

Between 1923 and 1924, when Cayce was awash in waves of doubt about this new in-
formation from his unconscious, I was  only five and six years old.  I missed all the lively
arguments between Lammers and Cayce and the long philosophical family discussions.
I did accompany the family to Dayton, to satisfy his thirst for knowledge.  What convinced Dad that these new "life readings" were factual?  Was it the philosophic discussions with
the knowledgeable Lammers?  Was it the concurrence of information, given to complete
strangers, with verifiable facts?  Or was it the manner in which the readings integrated Christian ideals into the framework of reincarnation?  Each argument probably carried
weight, but I suspect that the latter had the greatest influence.