The Relevance and Significance of Edgar Cayce’s Story of the Bible Today
Appendix: Edgar Cayce’s Bible Class Notes and Lectures
Foreword
Out of the thousands of individuals who received readings from Edgar Cayce, several hundred people were told that they had incarnations in biblical times.
From early childhood, Edgar Cayce was a devout Bible student and began teaching Sunday school, using the standard orthodox literature, while still in his teens. He continued this practice throughout his life. Many are still living who remember his outstanding ability as a Bible teacher, most of whom never knew him as a psychic or in any other capacity than as a teacher.
A few years before Edgar Cayce died he was persuaded by members of several local A.R.E. Study Groups, to teach a weekly interdenominational Bible Class starting with the Book of Genesis and going straight through the Bible.
As a child, Edgar Cayce had determined to read the Bible through in a year, by reading three chapters each weekday and five on Sunday. After doing this he decided to read more chapters each day until he could catch up to his years of age. After reaching that point he continued to read the Bible through each year, until—when he died at the age of sixty-seven—he had read the Bible through sixty-seven times!
The Tuesday Night Bible Class, as it was called, wanted Edgar Cayce to incorporate in his teaching not only his own knowledge of the Bible but his understanding of the concepts presented through his psychic readings. The members had already been exposed to some of these concepts through their study of the lessons “in soul development” contained in Books I and II of A Search for God.
Having been Edgar Cayce’s secretary since 1923, I was asked to take down in shorthand and transcribe the Bible minutes from these weekly discussions.
Robert Krajenke has shown extraordinary insight in paralleling Edgar Cayce’s comments on the Bible, and blending them with the quotes from the Life readings having to do with Old Testament characters.
It has long been my belief that Edgar Cayce’s greatest contribution to this age was his making the Bible come alive for so many people. I saw this happen during his lifetime. Since his death I have seen it even more.
Edgar Cayce loved the Old Testament. He used to say often that without the Old we would not have had the New; without Abraham, Moses, David, we would not have had Jesus.
Now Robert Krajenke, through his discernment and compilation of Edgar Cayce’s statements both in the conscious and psychic state, is perhaps again making the Bible live for the many who will read these pages.
Gladys Davis Turner (1905–1986)
Author’s Preface to the Single Volume Edition
Edgar Cayce’s Story of the Old Testament was originally published in the 1970’s in three separate volumes. This new edition merges those three volumes into one. This seems worth noting. As we depart the astrological influences of the Piscean Era and migrate into the energies of Aquarius, we see a movement toward Oneness manifesting in social, political, religious and spiritual movements throughout the planet. The unity of three as one aptly expresses the core truth at the heart of all major spiritual traditions—“Hear O Israel, the Lord thy God is One.” It is often said that we humans are spiritual beings having a physical experience, not physical beings having a spiritual experience. We are made in the image of God (Gen. 1: 26). As God is One, all parts of us—body, mind and soul—are designed to cooperate and move in harmony, all being expressions of One. And so it seems that the joining of the original three volumes into one is an outward expression of this same energy that is uniting people and toppling and reforming the old, rigid and elitist hierarchal power structure. As around the world, so we find within ourselves this same impulse of rebirth and renewal for which Scripture and the wisdom teachings are designed and dedicated to assist us in our discovery and examination of ourselves and the nature of the Divine. All is One—present to assist each of us in our return to wholeness and harmony with God, Nature, and our fellow beings.
Edgar Cayce was a marvelous teacher of spiritual wisdom. His love of the Bible is legendary, and the wisdom and lessons he drew from it have touched, changed, and motivated countless people to experience their own lives and challenges from a spiritual perspective. “We do not learn by reading the Bible as history,” Mr. Cayce said, “but by living it.”
While portions of the Bible story are literal historic events and people that is only one level of a multilevel book. Edgar Cayce understood the importance of our Scripture, from the first of Genesis to the last of Revelation as a continuous story of our soul’s journey through the earth. Somewhere in that story, as we seek to awaken a more conscious understanding and relationship to the Divine, we find ourselves in the characters that represent or manifest some phase or aspect of our present state of development. The prologue to the story begins offstage, before the foundations of the earth were laid. The Cayce readings tell us our first existence was as spiritual beings in the spiritual world. We moved in consciousness out of the oneness and awakened in a state of separateness in the density of matter. We still and always will retain the essence of the divine image of original creation: a creative, conscious spirit with the ability to direct our energy as we choose, and learn to live with the results. With Adam the stage is set. The actual story begins with his fall and loss of the all-supplying abundance of the Garden. In the flesh, who hasn’t experienced loss and betrayal, temptations and separation, weakness and strength, confusion and clarity as we experience our lives wherever we find ourselves. All that was lost to the first Adam is regained and restored by the second Adam, Jesus, whom the readings tell us is the same soul, who through many incarnations in the earth, regained his full sonship with his Source. Jesus the man becomes Christ the power, and a true Elder Brother who will, through the Holy Spirit, guide us step by step on our own path back to the oneness and perfection of the Whole. It is our destiny to find our way back to the all-supplying Garden to eat from the Tree of Life in unity with the One, no longer lost or deceived by a dual-minded, self-created ego lost in the bewildering knowledge of good and evil.
Again, I take this opportunity to express my gratitude to Mr. Richard Copeland for his generous gift, and the enthusiasm and support of Kevin Todeschi, Executive Director and CEO of Edgar Cayce’s A.R.E., for making made this new Three as One edition a reality. They also have provided me with a much valued and welcome opportunity to include additional material from the records of Edgar Cayce’s popular Bible Class lessons.
It is my prayer that in this One volume you find assistance and wisdom to lead you to ever greater expressions of love and unity, which are found in the divine image that you are.
Robert W. Krajenke, Virginia Beach, VA
Introduction
The Bible is a Book of Life, and all Life comes from God. What we find in Scripture we see manifested in our lives every day. Unless we can experience the validity of the concepts presented to us,