Edgar Cayce

Kentucky, 1877-1945

Sources: The Association for Research and Enlightenment (A.R.E.), http://www.are-cayce.com/; CBaker1001@aol.com

Summary

Known as "the Sleeping Prophet," Edgar Cayce is probably the best-known American seer. He gave readings from a hypnotic trance state. For many years they mainly addressed individual medical problems, but later they broadened to take in topics that ranged from reincarnation and dreamwork to the "Earth Changes" and general transformation that he predicted for the final decades of the 20th century.

Cayce's work is carried on by the Association for Research and Enlightenment, based in Virginia Beach, Virginia.

Commentary

Oh, we were enthusiastic students of Cayce back at the old U.C. Davis Experimental College in the late '60s. He had said (in the book Edgar Cayce on Prophecy) that massive Earth Changes were just around the corner, and we believed him. He said that two signals that the Changes were heating up would be increased activity of Mt. Etna and Mt. St. Vincent (St. Vincent, Caribbean), and there were indications that both were indeed perking up. He said there would be the reappearance of Atlantean ruins in the waters off the Bimini atoll (Virgin Islands?) in 1969; and, right on schedule, there was the discovery by archaeologists of a curious, hook-shaped, obviously manmade formation of large stones, running for hundreds of yards underwater, just off Bimini. Then we really believed him!

He said that if there were eruptions of Mt. Vesuvius and Mt. Pelee (Martinique, Caribbean), California would do the Monster Mash and tumble into the drink within three months. Safety areas would be places like Montana — a slightly alarming prediction that has spawned an ongoing scramble for the really high ground (witness the full sets of topographic maps and accompanying analyses and debates in the Prophecy and Earth Changes Forum on CompuServe, and elsewhere) and resulted in healthy net immigration to Montana (where Angie McDowell, John Perry Barlow, Elizabeth Clare Prophet, and the Freemen are now among the curious bedfellows). Etna, at least, has erupted (and more than once); but California, like it or not, is still hanging in.

Cayce said that by the late '80s the United States would have "half as much wealth and twice as much spirituality" — quite possibly true, though I'm not sure how you measure either of those things.

There would be social and political unrest at home and unchecked famine and disease abroad. Things would come to an Apocalyptic head — complete with shifting Earth's axis, reversal of magnetic poles, and the return of Christ — in the period 1998-2001 — a convenient bracketing of the millennium; but then, Nostradamus could do no better.

To its credit, the A.R.E. has a spirited rebuttal to those who say the Earth Changes have pooped out.

Cayce was impressive in the 1960s; but I'm less inclined to be blown away today, particularly after coming across several of his prophetic contemporaries, who, it turns out, were talking up "Earth Changes" and the reemergence of Atlantis back into the last century, well in advance of the Sleeping Prophet (who may have had an eye out). The following was uploaded to mmlist-l@newciv.org by CBaker1001@aol.com on Jan. 26, 1996 (edited slightly for consistency).

Harriette and Homer Curtiss
"Coming World Changes," 1926
"Owing to volcanic actibity and a tilting of the axis of the Earth, vast and cataclysmic changes are to take place in the comparatively near future which will entirely remodel and rearrange the land surface of the globe."

Madame Helena Blavatsky, 1831-1891
"The Secret Doctrine"
"That the periodical sinking and reappearance of mighty continents, now called Atlantean and Lemurian by modern writers, is not fiction will be demonstrated. It is only in the 20th century that portions, if not the whole, of the present work will be vindicated."

"A world destruction as happened to Atlantis 11,000 years ago... instead of Atlantis all of England and parts of NW European coast will sink into the sea, in contrast, the sunken Azores region, the Isle of Poseidonis, will again be raised from the sea."

Lewis Spence, England
"Will Europe Follow Atlantis?" 1930s
"There will be a tilting of the earth's axis which will cause the European continent to sink."

Count Louis Hamon, England
"Cheiro's World Predictions," 1927
"Germany and Italy will war against France and England.... In the coming 50 years an earthquake zone will develop in NE Pacific coast of Peru up thru to the Arctic regions.... Eastern cities of the U.S. will be affected and parts of New York will be destroyed ... in 50-100 years.... A series of earthquakes will cause the Azores to rise and Atlantis will resurface and be explored."

Even Arthur Conan Doyle (the creator of Sherlock Holmes) got into the act, uttering these dire words of prophecy in 1915:

A period of natural convulsions during which a large portion of the human race will perish. Earthquakes of great severity, enormous tidal waves would seem to be the agents. War appears only in the early stages, and appears to be a signal for the crisis to follow.The crisis will come in an instant. The destruction and dislocation of civilized life will be beyond belief. There will be a short period of chaos followed by some reconstruction; the total period of upheavals will be roughly three years. The chief centers of disturbance will be the Eastern Mediterranean basin, where not less than five countries will entirely disappear. Also in the Atlantic there will be a rise of land which will be a cause of those waves which will bring about great disasters upon the Americans, the Irish and Western European shore, involving all of the low-lying British coasts. There are indicated further great upheavals in the southern Pacific and in the Japanese region. Mankind can be saved by returning to its spiritual values.


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