Cameo 15 – Edgar Cayce
March 15, 2021
I would like to comment on this material with the thought that Jesus is using Edgar Cayce’s story as an example for us. Jesus did not just talk about examples for the sake of conversation but for the teaching opportunity they provide. When he was here as a man, he used countless parables and stories to make his teaching more powerful and more readily available to his disciples. There is no reason to think he is not doing so now. Even though it is easier to read this teaching in a way that makes it all about Edgar Cayce, Helen, and Bill, we should be open to the way it also may apply to us. We will see these concepts come up in the next few sections and you may remember some of it from the last one.
Therefore, think of yourself as a channel for messages from Jesus. That is what you are, you are in training to become an even better one as you learn to turn to him for guidance in your thinking and doing.
Jesus starts this discourse pointing out the contrast between the shorter number of pages of the notes Helen had taken lately due to the fact that “we have not been forced to dispel miscreations throughout” and “the excessive length” of Cayce’s material. There are two reasons Cayce’s material was so abundant.
1. His consistent fundamental error. Jesus has mentioned the fundamental error four times in the first two chapters and it basically means to confuse the physical order with reality and this means we are miscreating. This consistent error required consistent correction, which never resulted in the error being let go.
2. His followers are unwilling to edit his material. Jesus says they would be able to reduce the miscreation problem if they would allow him to guide the process
There are some really good points for us to consider in this material about Edgar Cayce and take to heart. Cayce had problems, just as Freud did with letting go of his fears which caused his miscreating. Jesus says Cayce’s big problem was that he could not “transcend his misperceptions of the need for sacrifice.”
Edgar Cayce could not say no to those who asked for help during WWII, even though he had been told not to do more than a certain number of readings a day.
· This is an example of “it’s all up to me” thinking and Jesus states it is egocentric. This is the opposite of what we are learning about Atonement, which is “totalling lacking in sacrifice at any level. This also highlights the fundamental error because this misunderstanding forced him to use his mind “at the expense of his body.”
· This misunderstanding about sacrifice was also because of his “profound sense of personal unworthiness, which…was sometimes over-compensated with what might be called a Christian form of grandiosity.” The problem was that although he was genuinely anxious to help others he was essentially uncharitable to himself leaving him vulnerable to miscreating. This highlights the need for us to accept and apply the Atonement for ourselves as the most important thing to learn as beginning miracle workers.
· Cayce was an erratic listener and made the same error over and over. He never let it go and therefore had to correct each time. This was the error of endowing the physical order with the properties of the spiritual order.
· He worked under great strain which is always a sign that something is wrong” but he was also “sufficiently attuned to real communication to make it easy to correct his errors and free him to communicate without strain.” It seems that even though he could have done this he did not because he maintained the split mind through his use of the trance-state for his communication. This allowed him to keep his open communication ability separate from his non-trance state.
· He tended to “endow the physical with nonphysical properties.”
· He looked to the past to explain the present. He never grasped that it is what the mind is “building now that really creates the future.”
These errors in Cayce’s material are why it has not become a “faith.” Jesus seems to be saying that he is still working with those who are in charge of this material so that it will be cleared up and validated for use.
The major error is that Cayce could not accept the Atonement for himself. He could not accept his freedom from the past. Therefore, even though did recognize the value of the Atonement for others, he could not see them free from it.
Jesus’ appreciation of Cayce is fuller than Cayce’s own and that is why he is supporting his work and values the part he played in the speed-up. In this he reminds us that no effort is wasted.
Reflection:
Spend some time today thinking about what these points mean to you as a starting-out miracle worker. What do you need to keep in mind as you go about your day, trying to become miracle-minded? Watch for any miscreations of your own and try to open your communication channel so that they can be corrected and let go.
Practice:
I am perfectly free of the past.