INTRODUCTION
Of the more than 14,000 readings given by Edgar Cayce over a forty-three-year period, approximately 2,000 deal with the subject of reincarnation. From Cayce’s perspective, each of us goes through a series of lifetimes for the express purpose of soul growth and development. In that process, the soul is given opportunities and experiences which will best enable the individual to fulfill the purpose for which she or he incarnated. In the language of the readings, the individual is given whatever conditions are needed “to meet the needs of that to make the entity at an at oneness with the Creative Energy.” (254-32)
The readings on reincarnation were given to individuals in order to help them understand soul strengths and weaknesses, as well as their own potentials and challenges. As Cayce entered his trance state, he was given a specific suggestion that enabled him to access the necessary information for a “life reading,” which dealt with the soul’s history. That suggestion was as follows:
You will have before you the life existence in the earth plane (giving name, date, where) and the earthly existence of this entity in that of (giving name and place of the earthly sojourn) and you will give a biographical life of the entity in that day and plane of earthly existence, from entrance and how into the earth’s plane and the entity’s departure, giving the development or retarding points in such an existence.
254-22
Cayce’s response to that suggestion would provide the individual with a historical timeline of her or his incarnations, lessons learned, as well as any faults or patterns that had been acquired and needed to be overcome in the present.
Critics of reincarnation often point out that many individuals believe that they were a Cleopatra or a George Washington or some famous personage from the annals of history. Whatever happened to all of the common people? Where are all the farmers, the housewives, the peasants, the prisoners, or the uneducated masses that made up the bulk of history’s population? Although the Cayce readings did give a number of famous identities from the past, the majority of the life readings are filled with names of individuals who were everyday people. In fact, of the more than 10,000 names given in past-life readings, less than two percent are identifiable as “famous.” Of that number, approximately half are characters from the Bible.
Throughout his life, the Bible played an extremely important role for Edgar Cayce. By the time he was a teenager, he had managed to read it through once for every year of his life—a practice he maintained until his death. Raised a devout Christian, he was a lifelong Sunday school teacher, the Bible becoming the basis for his life and teachings. However, the material in Cayce’s readings is deeply ecumenical. Edgar Cayce urged individuals to pursue their own religious preferences, stating that “oneness” should be the undergirding principle of any spiritual journey. From his perspective, what was most important in a person’s life was one’s application of spiritual principles.
Regardless of an individual’s religious preference, however, Cayce believed that the Bible was a handbook for self-understanding. From Genesis to Revelation it portrayed the story of each soul’s unfolding experiences in the earth. The readings state that we are spiritual beings undergoing a physical experience, and the Bible portrays the overall development in our consciousness in this dimension. For that reason, the early stories in the Old Testament are not necessarily to be understood as acceptable behavior today. For example, when Lot’s two daughters get their father drunk in order to sleep with him and conceive to insure the continuation of his ancestral line, it is not an endorsement of incest but rather a portrayal of a time in our own consciousness when we believed physical heredity superior to our spiritual source. Rather than being a book that simply had meaning for our ancestors, Cayce stated that the Bible provided important insights even in the present:
For, it tells of God, of your home, of His dealings with His peoples in many environs, in many lands. Read it to be wise. Study it to understand. Live it to know that the Christ walks through same with thee.
262-60
In addition to specific Bible stories, frequently the readings encouraged people to read John 14-17 and Deuteronomy 30, where they could find a personal message, applicable in their daily lives.
Cayce also believed that the Bible had a threefold interpretation. Most stories possessed a physical, a psychological, and a spiritual meaning. The characters in the Bible actually lived as real people. In addition to being real people, many of the characters symbolized a psychological state of consciousness (for example, Abraham symbolizes faith; Job symbolizes patience), and each story contained an archetypal meaning which was just as true and applicable today. For example, the story of Noah and the Flood is an archetype of being overwhelmed by personal experience and being transformed to a higher state of awareness in the process. The story of the Prodigal Son is an archetype of the soul’s journey (we were with God in the beginning, embarked on a journey, and are in the process of returning to Him with a greater degree of awareness); and so on.
In all, the Bible contains approximately 3,000 characters—a number of whom possess the very same name. When an individual received a life reading and was told that he or she had been a biblical character from the past, it is sometimes necessary to isolate