In another instance, a thirty-five-year-old psychologist learned that his innate talents for counseling and diplomacy were the result of a number of past-life experiences. In a lifetime after the American Revolution, he had acted as a liaison between the United States and Britain. Although a soldier during the Crusades in another lifetime, he had come to appreciate and admire many individuals of the Moslem faith from whom he had learned brotherly love. His appreciation of various cultures and ideologies was enriched during an earlier period in ancient Egypt, when he had made a study of various teachings and tenets of the then-known world. At the same time, however, this psychologist possessed a tendency toward self-indulgence and self-aggrandizement that had arisen during a Persian incarnation, when he had been in a position of leadership. That same tendency remained with him in the present and needed to be overcome. Years later, his third ex-wife—he would eventually have five—filed a follow-up report that confirmed his propensity for self-indulgence. By her account, during their ten years together, he had repeatedly displayed an incredibly overdeveloped sex drive and a very serious problem with alcohol (1135-1).
Cayce was adamant that the New Testament declaration “ . . . for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap” (Galatians 6:7) was not simply a quaint saying but was, instead, a statement of fact and a universal law regarding how the universe really works. For example, an unhappy thirty-three-year-old actress inquired about why her life had been filled with a series of broken romances, rejections, and the experience of having a broken heart. A reading suggested that in her most recent incarnation she had been a saloon entertainer and had found occasion to repeatedly toy with men’s emotions, frequently making “ . . . for sorrow in the hearts and in the experience of many.” (1300-1) Her present difficulties were simply a learning experience in response to her having done the same thing to others. As she learned to keep her heart, mind, and soul in alignment with spiritual ideals, learning a lesson where she had once fallen short, Cayce promised her “years of happiness and joy and peace.”
In spite of the inevitability of having to meet the consequences of our previous choices, in Cayce’s cosmology life is not fixed or destined. Although we constantly draw individuals and circumstances to us as a result of choices from the past, we continually cocreate the experience of our life (and our perceptions) through how we choose to respond in the present. From the readings’ perspective, karma is only soul memory; it is not destiny. The way we choose to respond to that memory and our present-life experience actually determines the next probabilities and potentials drawn to the soul’s learning agenda.
During the course of a past-life reading, Cayce told people only about those incarnations that were having a direct influence on their present experience. Frequently, when people received follow-up readings about their past lives, Cayce discussed additional lives that were then affecting them. When an eighteen-year-old girl named Rachel wrote Edgar Cayce to inquire why all of her incarnations had not been explored in her reading, leaving great gaps of history unaccounted for in her soul’s record, he wrote:
That there are many centuries that elapsed from one appearance to another is not unusual in this information, for one reason, as the information says, there may have been and possibly were other appearances during that time, but the activities at that time or at such an appearance was not of a nature to be of any great influence in your experience just at this time, any more than any one day you attended Dallas Academy has an influence on some problem that you may be working in physics now, but there may come a time in your experience that what you gained at that time or the experience that you had will be necessary as the background—do you get me? Case 259-8 Report File
The case history for this same individual demonstrates why the human will remains the strongest factor in shaping an individual’s present life in spite of reincarnation and the number of lifetimes affecting a soul in any given experience. During Rachel’s life reading, Cayce told her that because of a series of experiences her soul had undergone in Colonial America, Greece, Persia, and Egypt, she had developed an innate appreciation for freedom and liberty. Because she had been closely associated with a number of founding families in Jamestown, Virginia, she had learned the skills of an excellent politician. As a result of her vocation during the Trojan Wars, she possessed talents in speaking, writing, and artistic expression. However, her potentially greatest path of serving others came from her experience in ancient Egypt, when she had created one of the earliest forms of sunglasses out of colored, polished glass, protecting people from the glare of blinding sands. Her best vocation in the present would be to help people with their sight.
In terms of other advice regarding her life’s direction, Cayce counseled her to cultivate many friendships and associates in her life. He warned her specifically against getting married, however—unquestionably because of past-life influences that would inevitably manifest. He told Rachel that, for her, marriage “ . . . would bring the character of hardships that would break the purposes in the inner self.” Her best course of action would be in helping others, which would, in turn, enable her to discover peace, happiness, and true joy in living.
In spite of what was considered at the time to be an “inappropriate” woman’s role, within five years Rachel’s strong sense of independence led her to become an optometrist, and she opened her own office. In fact, she became one of the first women in her state to do so and managed to brush aside all the jokes and wisecracks questioning her role choice. In 1942, after opening her practice, she fell in love and wrote Edgar Cayce to explain that she was about to get married and wished “ . . . with all my heart you were here to talk over what I am about to do.” He responded by reminding her of what her life reading had advised and encouraged her to read it again and approach the decision with prayerful and careful thought. In the end, he assured her to “Know that I am with you and for you, whatever decision you make.” Rachel got married within that same month.
By all accounts, Rachel and her husband were extremely happy. Unexpectedly, however, five months after their marriage, he was drafted, and Rachel expressed how, almost as suddenly as it had begun, her dream had stopped. In order to keep herself busy, in addition to her job as an optometrist she went to night school to continue her graduate studies. What spare time she had was spent crocheting. As the months passed and gave way to a year, Rachel became depressed over the separation and the fact that all she knew about her husband’s condition was that he was somewhere in England. He was not much of a letter writer. Two years after he was drafted, she wrote Edgar Cayce to state that she had learned more about her husband’s work and associates in a letter from a family friend than she could have learned in fifty letters from her husband:
[He] is one person who really doesn’t know how to write. He says three things in every letter (1) I am well, tired, or sleepy. (2) I will be so glad when all of this is over and I can come home. (3) I miss all of you so much. And that is generally all . . .
Sometimes I shudder to think of the two strangers who will meet when he comes home . . . but that is crossing bridges before the road reaches them . . . and it can’t be done successfully. So . . . I’ll wait. And patience has never been one of my virtues. 259-8 Reports
When Rachel’s husband finally returned from the war after thirty-nine months abroad, they apparently had their share of difficulties in coming back together. In part, it proved difficult for her husband to focus on the demands of his job and at the same time reacquaint himself with his wife. In 1946, Rachel encouraged her mother to obtain a copy of Rachel’s life reading in order to see how the information in it was being fulfilled. Eventually, after three years of being back together, Rachel and her husband had a son. Four years later, a second son was born to the couple. Unfortunately, shortly after his birth, the child developed spinal meningitis and lived the rest of his life as an invalid.
Rachel’s marriage continued until 1969, when her husband suddenly dropped dead. In a subsequent report, Rachel described how she had been startled after her husband’s death to see Edgar Cayce (then deceased for almost twenty-five years) standing at the foot of her bed. By her own account, he told her: “This door closes, another will open. Go get your life reading and read it.” (259-8 Reports) Years later she would state, “He was right,