Theos-Talk Archives (October 1995 Message tl00508)

I replied to Patrick's comments about Cayce to him directly,
not realizing they were copied to the list. So let me begin by
saying that Cayce was not a trance medium in the spiritualist
sense. He was a trance clairvoyant whose distant viewing and
knowing was abundantly documented in a medical context for 20
years before any metaphysical teachings began to emerge. When
entranced, he occasionally acknowledged the presence of
discarnate entities or angelic ones, but firmly and
consistently refused to engage them in any way. The source of
his information was (as best I can comprehend it) THE PERSON
FOR WHOM HE WAS DOING THE READING; although the knowledge was
not conscious on the part of the client. His ability to
receive, decode, interpret that information was his own, and
not derived from any other entity. So it's sort of
theosophically reductionistic to dismiss him as a spiritualist
medium.

That said, it must be admitted that the readings themselves
suggested that in a future life Cayce would evolve to be able
to access such information without becoming unconscious. But
just think how highly evolved a person would have to be to
consciously read 8000 clients' health situations, past lives,
etc. and not be overwhelmed by the process. There was some
protection of his sanity implicit in the need to go unconscious
to obtain his information.

I have just learned something about Cayce that was previously
unknown to me, and relates him mysteriously to the Theosophical
concept of Masters. From Harmon Bro's A Seer out of Season:
[after forming a partnership with his father and several others
in Kentucky] a tall figure of darker complexion dressed in
white and wearing a white turban walked up the stairs to his
studio one day, looked him earnestly in the face, and said,
"You are with the wrong people." Cayce was certain he heard
footsteps, but when he recovered his composure enough to run
down after him, the townspeople standing on the sidewalk nearby
assured him flatly that nobody-- absolutely nobody-- had come
by and entered or left the studio stairs. He thought the
figure was Hindu, but a reading taken much later would explain
that it was Persian. The startling visit from the stranger was
not to be his last; in the decade ahead it was to recur at
crucial times."(p. 287)

Something that requires further investigation.