The Sleeping Prophet

Born in Kentucky 1877, Edgar Cayce was known as “the Sleeping Prophet,” because he uttered predictions and medical cures while in a deep trance. Until his death in Virginia, 68 years later, Cayce dictated thousands of “life-readings” he allegedly obtained from a kind of spiritual record he claimed to be able to read while experiencing an altered state of consciousness. Until his 47th year, he never uttered a word about Atlantis. But in 1922, he suddenly began recalling life in a place with which he was otherwise allegedly unfamiliar. Cayce said that his trance statements should be taken into account only to the extent that they led to a better life for the recipient. Moreover, he invited his audience to test his suggestions rather than accept them on faith. Other abilities that have been attributed to Cayce include astral projection, prophesying, mediumship, viewing the Akashic Records or "Book of Life", and seeing auras. Cayce said he became interested in learning more about these subjects after he was informed about the content of his readings, which he reported that he never actually heard himself.

Cayce’s descriptions of the doomed civilization are sometimes remarkable for their uncanny credibility. For example, his portrayal of the migration of Atlanteans into the Nile Valley following the destruction of their Empire is entirely convincing. Many otherwise obscure names of persons and places he associates with the Atlantis experience likewise seem to reflect real events. His son, Hugh Lynn Cayce, knew his father “did not read material on Atlantis, and that he, so far as we know, had absolutely no knowledge of the subject.” The evocative, often verifiable detail of his readings in which Atlantis was described is all the more astounding when we realize he knew little about the vanished culture in his waking hours. As his son wrote: They are the most fantastic, the most bizarre, the most impossible information in the Edgar Cayce files. If his unconscious fabricated this material or wove it together from existing legends and writings, we believe that it is the most amazing example of a telepathic-clairvoyant scanning of existing legends and stories in print or of the minds of persons dealing with the Atlantis theory.

Edgar Cayce’s conscious ignorance of the sunken civilization is not surprising. His formal education was meager, and his points of reference were more spiritual than historical or academic. His grasp of the past was often biblical, rather than scholastic. It seems clear then, that the subject was outside the purview of both his background and essentially Christian view of the world. But his readings are selfevidently plausible, because they often contain information that made little or no sense at the time they were uttered, but have been since confirmed by subsequent verification.

Perhaps most impressive of all is that obscure, even fleeting, references he made to Atlantis during the early 1920s were occasionally repeated only once, but within an exact same frame of reference, after more than two decades. Persuasive as these give even skeptics pause, and encourage many investigators, regardless of their spiritual beliefs, to reconsider everything he had to say about Atlantis. His prediction of finding its first physical remains not far from the United States was a case in point described in the “Bimini” entry. Until Cayce spoke of Bimini, and even long after some of his “life-readings” were published, no researchers bothered to consider that small island as a possible remnant of Atlantean Civilization. But how did the massive stone structure come to lie at the bottom of the sea? According to Cayce’s “life-readings,” the Atlantean lands underwent three major periods of inundation. They did not disappear altogether in a single cataclysm. The natural disaster described by Plato represented only the final destruction of Atlantis.

A typical reading exemplifying these various epochs of upheaval took place in 1933, when Cayce told a client that he once dwelt “in the Atlantean land before the third destruction.” The first seismic unrest dropped much of its territory beneath sea-level, followed several millennia later by renewed geologic violence which sank the remaining dry land, save for the tops of its tallest mountains. These volcanic peaks became known in historic times as Madeira, the Azore and Canary Islands, together with Atlas, on which the city of Atlantis arose. The ultimate destruction took place when Mount Atlas detonated, scoured and hollowed itself out with ferocious eruptions, then collapsed into the sea. Present interpretation of this evidence confirms the accuracy of Cayce’s clairvoyant view of the Atlantean catastrophe. As he said, “the destruction of this continent and the peoples was far beyond any of that as has been kept as an absolute record, that record in the rocks still remains.”

For someone of no formal education, Cayce’s grasp of archaeology and geology was extraordinary, even prophetic. When he said in the 1930s that the Nile River flowed across the Sahara Desert to the ocean in early Atlantean times, no scientist in the world would have considered such an apparently outlandish possibility. Yet, in 1994, nearly half a century after his death, a satellite survey of North Africa discovered traces of a former tributary of the Nile that connected Egypt with the Atlantic Ocean at Morocco in prehistory. Persuasive elements of Cayce’s “life-readings” encourage many investigators to reconsider his documented statements about Atlantis. But they are troubled by his characterization of the Atlanteans as the builders of a technology superior to 20th-century accomplishments. Because Cayce has been verified in at least some important details, other researchers believe he was telling the whole truth, however difficult it may be for some to grasp, about the sunken civilization.

Regardless of the response he elicits, an important part of Edgar Cayce’s legacy is the Association for Research and Enlightenment (A.R.E.) he founded and which continues to prosper in his home at Virginia Beach. In 1931, the A.R.E. was chartered in the state of Virginia as a nonprofit organization to conduct scientific and psychical research based on the Cayce readings. In 1947, two years after his death, the Edgar Cayce Foundation was established. The original A.R.E. has become the membership arm of the Cayce programs. The foundation is the custodian of the original Cayce readings, and the memorabilia of the great contemporary seer’s life and career. Both are headquartered in Virginia Beach, Virginia, and there are more than 1,500 A.R.E. study groups around the world. It contains the largest library of its kind in the world, featuring not only all of his “life-readings,” but many hundreds of books, papers, feature articles, and reference materials about Atlantis.

The A.R.E. is also deeply involved in scientific investigation and study on behalf of the lost realm, including lectures and expeditions to various parts of the world, particularly at Andros and Bimini. The A.R.E. maintains an extensive library of information concerning the entire field of psychical research and metaphysics, as well as the Cayce materials. It also sponsors regular seminars, publishes a journal, and established Atlantic University as an environment in which various psychic attributes can be examined and developed.

Since the establishment of the A.R.E., thousands of people from every corner of the nation, as well as from around the world, have journeyed to Virginia Beach to attend lectures and conferences and to investigate the information in the Cayce readings. Among these have been Jess Stern, author of Edgar Cayce—The Sleeping Prophet (1967) and Thomas Sugrue, author of There Is a River (1942), both of which are important books about the life and work of Edgar Cayce. Astonishing tales of clairvoyant feats such as the location of missing persons, objects, and criminals have filled many books by a number of authors. Equally intriguing are the “life readings” that the seer gave regarding the past incarnations of individuals. Others speak of the series of trances in which Cayce gave a detailed recreation of everyday life in ancient Atlantis, and spoke of the Great Crystal that powered their society.

According to his clairvoyant insights, Cayce perceived a secret room in the Sphinx, a veritable Hall of Records that would reveal many remarkable facts about the evolution of humankind on Earth. He also put forward a number of prophecies about the future. In the period 1958 to 1998, Cayce foresaw a number of dramatic geographic changes. He predicted a shifting of the poles, which would be caused by the eruption of volcanoes in the torrid zones. Open waters would appear north of Greenland, and new islands would rise in the Caribbean Sea. He also stated South America would be shaken by a violent earthquake. While these cataclysmic events have not yet occurred, many of Cayce’s followers believe that there are definite signs that such geographic changes are in the process of manifesting.

(Sources : The Atlantis Encyclopedia by Frank Joseph; Encyclopedia of Unusual & Unexplained Things; and Wikipedia)

(Pic source : The Atlantis Encyclopedia by Frank Joseph page 82)