Human nature can sometimes seem not at all natural. At the very least, it is contradictory. We value privacy but post on social media. We need positive reinforcement—and alone time. We say love is important, and then disrespect our neighbor when their need or view differs from ours. We like to think we’re rational, logical, and brave, but we lock our hearts and doors in fear. We want to be the unique individuals we are, when every single one of us is very nearly 100 percent genetically alike. Dear Valentine, people are weird.
While a few openly celebrate their freak within (rejoice, “Weird Al” Yankovic), a far greater percentage work vainly hard to create the illusion they are anything but. Even Edgar Cayce struggled with going against social norms of his time. Here is a man who read the Bible cover to cover once a year for every year of his life. And then, he read people—by the thousands. He taught Sunday school. And then taught others through his readings about ancient times well before the period of a man we call Jesus, living holistically, dreams, meditation, and so much more.
Cayce used the word “weird” in 13 readings (eight of which refer to music and sounds). In reading 1738-1, he simply defines weird as “out of the ordinary.” “Ordinary” is not a word many people would apply to Cayce.
Throughout most of the first half of the 1900s, Cayce not only waved his weird flag, he followed it to Virginia Beach. He risked his livelihood, and the safety and security of his family, to create a legacy that lives on. The result of his faith and belief and commitment. Decades after his passing, there is a (small?) percentage of the population who still feel that aspects of the Cayce work fit the definition of weird.
While millions strongly relate to the mind, body, and spirit concepts contained in the Cayce readings, evidence indicates that what some others still struggle with most is how Cayce came by his information. Namely, that he was psychic. To Cayce, not only did his psychic powers seem normal, but he said that anyone could do what he did. And, he offered instructions for how we could develop the skill, if we choose. Turns out, the primary path is through meditation, which has been an Eastern practice for an estimated 5,000 years. Nowadays, meditation is considered mainstream. Psychic practices, however, still not so much.
Many people reject even the possibility of psychic abilities, perhaps in large part since roughly 70 percent of Americans claim a Christian faith. Only God can know, and “He” is to be feared, avoid the mystical and necromancy, right? At the opposite end of the spiritual spectrum, atheists also decry the psychic, believing that not only is there no God, and no heaven, but there is no soul life after death. Statistically, the truth almost always resides in between two extremes.
Cayce did not share such a limited (or extreme) view of God. Instead, he had many ways he would refer to God, such as Creative Energy and Universal Influence (reading 262-87). He also acknowledged that religion and spirituality were not the same thing, and that psychic practices were an important means to better connect with the Universal Light.
And in the spiritual let it be rather of the psychic but not the ordinary term. For the variation between spiritual or religious experience and psychic experience is:
In religious experience one is told WHAT to expect, how to expect and when to expect!
In the soul or psychic experience one attunes the God-self to the universal!
Hence the application or experience is from within and in communion with the influence of God-force in the individual life.
-- Edgar Cayce reading 165-24
Recent studies show what Cayce seemed to have known: “Weirdness” or non-conformity to the ordinary can have significant benefits. Being different leads to sparked creativity, innovation, and societal advancement. Albert Einstein defined insanity as “doing the same thing, and expecting a different result.” Conformity is a near impossible way to advance.
For however strange it sounds, Cayce’s readings explored the inseparable connection of mind, body, and spirit. When we can overcome the fear of being weird, humankind may be better able to experience the rewards referenced in Cayce’s readings.
That HAS awakened, WILL awaken within the soul of the entity, more of the love, the oneness of the force or power able to cleanse when condemnation is not in self.
Hence, as given then - and as has been given oft: Do not condemn self!
-- Edgar Cayce reading 295-8
A few months back, a reporter with a Virginia Beach-based publication came to the campus for information. She told me a story about how she grew up a few blocks from the A.R.E. campus, and as a child, she would often see a particular member of the Cayce family walking the neighborhood. “She often would pick up things that neighbors had put out as trash,” this reporter recalled. “We thought she was really weird.” Because the Cayce family may have been ahead of its time when it comes to recycling and re-use, neighbors labeled them weird. Fortunately, the Cayce’s were not afraid of being seen as weird or even “woo-woo.”
In this weirdly divided world, Edgar Cayce’s A.R.E. remains a judgement-free place for exploring and expanding upon the nature of the human mind, body, and spirit. Cayce’s life and readings offer many lessons about how to handle the “weird and woo-woo” when it presents itself—and rest assured, life will get “out of the ordinary,” whether or not you are someone who is open to it. What may seem odd to you is highly likely someone else’s truth. And that fact doesn’t make them weird. In fact, being weird just might be the distinguishing factor of any and every legend.
Safety first, but otherwise, be weird; it’s practically Cayce-approved. And don’t beat yourself up about it. You know it’s in your nature. In addition to your sanity, there is much to be gained.
