The Kabbalah story begins, as do so many ancient wisdoms, with God, and then it addresses the groupings of angels and the many spheres, or planes, of heaven. It covers the Creation and the journey of the souls. It contains the rituals, ceremonies, and magic words and names that evoke the powers of the unseen divine forces. It integrates the outer life with its inner source and the Creative Forces, from which the soul came into being. These concepts and experiences gradually enhance life, making it more meaningful, more bright, and more fulfilling than the materialistic, earthly approach.
Kabbalah also helps us become aware of the invisible forces of life and to discern the eternal from the temporary. We learn to feel the Infinite Eternal (Ein Sof) Mind and Spirit and Its oneness, which is often clouded by the dualities of this life: yin and yang, female and male, night and day, sleep and wakefulness, inside and outside, and so on. Kabbalah helps us perceive the oneness of infinite life that runs through the maze of multiplicity of the Creation and this temporary incarnation. It does this by revealing the sources of creative energy, of consciousness, and of the oneness behind the multipicity.
Next, let’s explore the invisible dimensions of Kabbalah, because the visible life comes from the invisible.
CHAPTER 2 THE VISIBLE AND THE INVISIBLE
The Kabbalah teaches that behind the visible life is a vast, invisible reality from which the visible came into being and in which the visible exists. Cayce adds that these unseen forces are more powerful, more influential than the seen. (EC 262–8) He and the Kabbalah teach that the seen is actually an expression or emanation of the unseen, even a result of unseen dynamics. Life begins in the spirit, Cayce says, takes shape in the mind (thought form), and then manifests in the physical life—not the other way around. “As we have given, every force—in its manifestation—is from the One, or God. And that which is manifested in material things is a result, and not the motive force; for mind, mental (which may not be seen with the eye as termed in the material world, but with the spiritual eye) is the builder.” (EC 347–2; parenthetical comments are Cayce’s.)
Now you might quickly ask, If it is all from God, then why is the evening news so horrible? The answer is free-willed souls! They are allowed, for a time, to do as they choose. This is clearly expressed in Scripture: “I have set before you this day life and good, and death and evil” (Deuteronomy 30:15), the implication being that it is ours to choose which influence we will bring into this world, this life.
The conscious man Cayce was able to see and perceive beyond normal human ability. His psychic readings for himself explained that these sensitivities were a natural result of his level of spiritual development and that all humans would eventually become so sensitive as to see the invisible. Cayce could see discarnate souls among the incarnate. He could hear them and talk to them. He explained that it was like having a switch in his head, which he flipped on in order to see ghosts and communicate with them. He also saw auras around the bodies of incarnate people. These auras emanated colors and patterns that gave him insight into a person’s mental, emotion, and spiritual condition, even as it changed during a conversation. Here are a few examples in his readings (notice his use of the Kabbalistic concept of “emanations”).
[An] aura is the emanation, or the influence that is ever present with an animate body, that may change or alter as to that which is the impelling influence of or about same—or from within. Aura changes, to be sure, [according] to the temperament.
EC 282–4
The aura, then, is the emanation that arises from the very vibratory influences of an individual entity mentally, spiritually—especially of the spiritual forces.
EC 319–2
We find in the aura the physical and the mental and spiritual emanations, that show for developments and retardments as well as abilities for the studying, classifying and applying of same.
EC 1612–1
(Q) Am I beginning to see auras?
(A) Beginning to see auras. As life, light, and love—with understanding—is reflected in self, so may there be seen those of the same reflection from others.
(Q) What is the significance of the flashes and forms which I frequently see?
(A) Those of the higher vibrations of inter-between, as well as spiritual forces taking forms in or before the mental self.
EC 281–4
If Cayce came in proximity to a person, he psychically knew what he or she had been doing and thinking. His longtime secretary confided that she would sometimes avoid him because “it was just none of his business.”
Cayce’s wife, Gertrude, shared a story about the two of them asleep on the second floor of their home when someone tapped on their bedroom window! Edgar immediately knew who this spirit was and went downstairs to let the ghost in. He explained that she needed help finding her way to the next life because she had died recently and was lost as to what she should do and where she should be. She knew Mr. Cayce would know, but having arrived at his home after he and his wife had retired, she simply tapped on their bedroom window rather than enter into their private space.
Science tells us that there is much more reality than we physically see. Humans can see only within a very narrow range of the electromagnetic spectrum (EM spectrum), a range less than 5 percent of the entire EM spectrum. (See illustration 16.) The rods and cones on the inside of the human retina are nerve endings physically tuned to respond to a narrow range of energy wavelengths. When energy frequencies within the “visible light” spectrum strike the retina, electrochemical impulses are created that are transmitted to the area of the brain responsible for vision. A pattern in the visual cortex is created by these electrochemical impulses that mimics the visible light pattern striking the retina. Energy outside this narrow range of visible light produces no response from the retina’s rods and cones, yet we know that many non-human species have rods and cones tuned to energy frequencies outside the visible light spectrum. Owls, hawks, and eagles, for example, can see infrared frequencies, that is, they can see the energy waves created by body heat. And even this is still a very narrow portion of the massive EM spectrum.
From the time he was a very little boy, Edgar Cayce could see fairies, sprites, angels, and invisible friends. As a child, he thought that everyone was seeing them, but as he grew, he learned that it wasn’t so. He began to keep quiet about his abilities because they caused unpleasant reactions in others and ridicule of him and his family. When he became a more self-confident adult, he shared this recollection, which follows, and his stenographer recorded it:
I remember so distinctly the garden at my mother’s old home place when I was a very small child. My mother’s father was one of the first settlers in southwestern Kentucky; had a fine old place, and the old-fashioned garden, with all the old-fashioned flowers, was known throughout that part of the country. Your mentioning your mother destroying bleeding hearts [flowers] calls to my mind what beautiful bunches of these grew in that garden, with a large bunch of striped grass, some very old peonies, all kinds of buttercups, and the like; a gorgeous bed of sweet violets, and all those old flowers. It was here that often in my