Edgar Cayce - Healer and Pschic

Early Life and Healing | Cayce's Readings

Cayce’s Readings

Edgar Cayce is primarily known for the thousands of "readings" that were given in an unconscious guided hypnotic state. He gave over 14,000 readings in a period of 43 years. Gladys Davis, his assistant, recorded the readings and his wife, Gertrude Evans Cayce, guided the readings.

Physical Readings: 9,603 readings given

In the beginning his readings were known as "physical readings" (health readings). Cayce often called the body "the organism". Cayce would put himself under self-hypnosis. While supposedly asleep he would report locating the subject, sometimes naming the streets along the way. He would then say "Yes, we see the body", and describe the client's organ, circulatory, and nervous systems, providing reasons for illness or malfunction. A personalized message would then be given to the subject, recommending supposed methods of relief or cure. The readings were so specialized that treatments were often altered, or not even given, if the person would not follow his advice. Seekers often sought Cayce's health readings when the established medical community could find nothing wrong or had given up on a client.

At the time, c. early 1900's, the information provided by Cayce was somewhat controversial. Cayce was making claims that such things as diet, emotional state, and thought contributed to or even caused illness (holistic health). The idea that emotion or stress could cause an illness would have been familiar to believers in Transcendentalism, Emersonian ideas, the New Thought movement or the numerous Spiritualist-based faiths of that time (Cayce also recommended color therapy), but may have seemed absurd to most people who were unfamiliar with these ideas.

Sometimes what seemed to be nonexistent medications were actually folk remedies which had fallen out of general use, or Cayce would give an older name for a known remedy ("oil of smoke" turned out to be beechwood creosote, a popular remedy for psoriasis). Some people were referred to chiropractors and osteopaths, professions that were fairly new at the time. He also encouraged people to take advantage of massage, stretching, hydrotherapy, colonics, and many other therapies that science knew little or nothing about. Though Cayce's treatments were often viewed as absurd at the time, modern science has since confirmed many of his recommendations.

Life Readings: 1,920 readings given

In a life reading, Cayce described the supposed "past lives" of the client. These readings described the client's present physical, emotional and mental condition in terms of past life experience. Cayce was not above flattering his clients by describing past incarnations as royalty, famous personages, or people at their "spiritual highest".

Business Readings: 747 readings given

For those people whose intentions Cayce judged to be "pure", Cayce would give business readings, including advice on business partners, the stock market, business models, etc.

Dream Readings: 630 readings given

Cayce encouraged everyone to interpret and use his or her own dreams in day-to-day life. A dream reading involved Cayce interpreting the dreams of clients. As he did with readings on many subjects, Cayce would often interrupt the person reading the dream and give an interpretation before the dream had been completely read. He would sometimes fill in parts of dreams that the dreamer had supposedly forgotten. Unlike Jungian or Freudian dream interpretation, Cayce did not emphasize highly the importance of symbols. He said that every individual has his or her own unique symbols. Cayce claimed that in dreams people could receive valuable insight into their own lives and that the insight was always of use to the dreamer. Besides regular daily insight into one's life, he claimed people could communicate with loved ones dead or alive, remember past life experiences, see a possible future and experience many other psychic phenomena. He stated that these paranormal abilities were something anyone could learn.

Mental and Spiritual Readings: 450 readings given

These readings were often short and were Cayce's favorite type of reading when not in his supposed trance state. They focused on what a individual could do to achieve a better mental/spiritual life.

Further information

Recommended reading

Edgar Cayce on Prophecy; Edgar Cayce on Religion and Psychic Experience; Edgar Cayce on Mysteries of the Mind; Edgar Cayce on Reincarnation Four provocative volumes from the notorious clairvoyant: On Prophecy reveals predictions on domestic, international, psychological and scientific matters; On religion suggests how religious faith can fully develop latent psychic abilities; Mysteries of the Mind explores the varieties of human consciousness; On Reincarnation provides psychic accounts of people who have lived more than once.

The Essential Edgar Cayce Mark Thurston. A complete guide to the work of the remarkable twentieth-century seer, featuring Cayce's most intriguing and influential readings, and a biographical introduction to his life.

Edgar Cayce on Healing Foods for Body, Mind, and Spirit William A., Md McGarey, Edgar Cayce. A useful and practical source of information regarding what constructive eating is all about. It is written especially for those who are interested in seeking out their life purpose, in maintaining health, and in overcoming illnesses. Learn the importance of stress, attitudes, emotions, beliefs, habits, prayer, and meditation, and how they affect the use of food by the body and the ultimate effect it has on general health.

Dreams: Your Magic Mirror: With Interpretations of Edgar Cayce Elsie Sechrist, Edgar Cayce. Based on more than twenty years of dream research, Dreams: Your Magic Mirror provides compelling evidence of the importance of dreams and symbols in everyone's life. This book will help you learn to: preview future events from your dreams, interpret dream communications with departed loved ones, and receive messages that will be helpful in your life's most important decisions.

More books by, or about, Edgar Cayce

On the Web

Association for Research and Enlightenment (A.R.E.) The A.R.E is the international headquarters for the work of Edgar Cayce, who is considered the best documented psychic of the twentieth century. Founded in 1931, the A.R.E. consists of a community of people from all walks of life and spiritual traditions who have found meaningful and life-transformative insights from the readings of Edgar Cayce. The mission of A.R.E. is to help individuals change their lives for the better by exploring concepts and ideas found in the Cayce work.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Edgar Cayce".