The Essential Edgar Cayce by Mark Thurston Page B

ways, here is Edgar Cayce the metaphysician at his best. Metaphysics largely deals with two issues: the nature of existence or being ( ontology ), and the orderly systems of the universe ( cosmology ). Cayce deals eloquently with both issues in the reading: he addresses who we are really and how we came into being; he addresses the question of God’s most basic nature; and he addresses the laws that govern our experience—for example, the roles of mind and free will in shaping our experience, or the deeper meaning of astrology. The following four points stand out as centerpieces of Cayce’s metaphysical system:

    All life is an expression of the one God, who truly exists. God is not a figment of our imagination, something that humans dreamed up long ago because they feared death. God is the foundation of all that is. Furthermore, the life that comes from God is continuous, eternal, and therefore our own lives as spiritual beings are continuous, eternal, and go beyond the grave.

    Life is purposeful. God started with a plan for us as souls. And even though each one of us chose to drift away—we made an “error of individual activity,” as Cayce puts it—that plan is still available to us. The good new is that the plan is all-inclusive, including all aspects of ourselves: physical, mental, and spiritual. That means that in discovering and fulfilling God’s plan for us, we are not required to deny any aspect of our human experience.

    The outer universe is represented in our own inner universe. The macrocosm reflects the microcosm, and vice versa. An event that happens on the broader scale of the universe also happens on the narrower scale of ourselves. One illustration of this principle is found in astrology (see appendix 2, “Edgar Cayce and Astrology,” page 267, for more detail).

    Each of us has a free will and the power to create. Mind and free will are the two attributes through which each soul can express spiritual energy. The mind exists with one foot in the material world, the other in the spiritual world. While the mind has the potential to be creative in either world, it’s the free will—the “ability to choose for self”—that determines which one will dominate the other. Those choices of the will shape the very essence of one’s character and individuality.

    As valuable as these four principles are, we nevertheless need to look for an even broader message in reading 1567-2. Edgar Cayce is more than a teacher of metaphysics, and this reading clearly shows he goes beyond how and why things are the way they are and ventures into the dimension of purposes, moral values, and ethics. It’s that extra dimension that lends his philosophy its depth.

    We miss the point of Cayce’s life and work if we reduce his philosophy to the metaphysical exclusively. It’s easy to fall into this trap because he does such a good job answering tough metaphysical questions. For instance, reading 1567-2 is full of fascinating clues about the many riddles of our existence. But in our delight in finding such a treasure chest of explanations, we need to notice some of the quieter, less sensationalistic truths about our purposes and ideals, about our values and ethics. Two such truths stand out especially in this reading.

    There is meaning in suffering. Suffering is not simply punishment for things we’ve done wrong in the past. Suffering is unavoidable; each of us experiences frustrations, disappointments, and pain. That’s just the character of physical life, as the Buddha said. Or, as Edgar Cayce said, we’ve entered into a realm of “trials of body and of mind” that tend to cloud the glories we might see. The good news is that even suffering can serve a higher purpose: It’s where we are tested so that we may be open to receive the reassuring, healing grace of the Divine. And what does suffering teach us about values and ideals? It shows us a new way of seeing and understanding our own pain, that guilt and shame