This blog is part of our 2022 Enlightenment Course, an exclusive benefit for members of Edgar Cayce's A.R.E. Each month John Van Auken provides a lesson with a worksheet, a video, a blog, and in each issue of the member magazine, Venture Inward, he writes an article about this topic. For 2022, we are focusing on Cayce's insights into achieving health, happiness, and a meaningful life. Members can access all of the available material in the Member-only section of our website at EdgarCayce.org/members. 

From Cayce files we know we have an outer self, a personality, a physical body with genes (hereditary influences), and a history covering our present life. However, it was common for Edgar Cayce to spend more time sharing what he said was “within us.” Let’s look at his vision of “the entity” that we are.

Here’s the Cayce reading for Mrs. 31 (names were replaced with numbers to maintain a degree of privacy).

"Yes, we have the entity here, and those relations with the universe and universal forces, as are latent and exhibited in the present entity." This was Cayce's way of opening many of his life readings. His wife and conductor Gertrude Cayce would give him a directing suggestion that initiated and focused a life reading. This was the common suggestion: "You will give the relation of this entity and the universe, and the universal forces; giving the conditions that are as personalities, latent and exhibited, in the present life; also the former appearances in the earth's plane, giving the time, the place, and the name, and that in that life which built or retarded the development for the entity; giving the abilities of the present entity and that to which it may attain, and how."

Let’s read the opening life reading for Mrs. 31 to learn just how Cayce saw us as entities.

In Mrs. 31’s soul reading Cayce began with her otherworldly, astrological experiences prior to her physical birth. We should keep in mind that WE TOO have had such experiences. How can we become aware of our soul’s experiences prior to this life and how these may be affecting us? Let me show a way using a birth horoscope. This diagram is the basic horoscope. It depicts our world and the heavens around it. It also shows various positions deemed significant by ancient astrologers. Let me take you through it.

All around the Earth are the heavens, divided into 12 segments of the sky. Each of these sections depicts a phase of life. That below the East-West line is early life, innate feelings, and initial circumstances; that above the line is later life and outer activities. In the center we see Earth with an arrow pointing to the location of our mother at the time of our physical birth. Above that location is the “Zenith,” planets and stars in this sector are significant. On the left of the whole circle, we see the Eastern sky. Planet Earth rolls toward the East, so planets and stars in this zone are said to be “rising” or “ascending” above the eastern horizon. These are significant because they indicate what’s coming to influence during this incarnation. When the Sun is above the East-West line, then we were born in daytime, if below, then we were born in nighttime. Cayce’s teachings indicate that planets in the divisions above the East-West line are likely to reveal our soul’s “planets of previous sojourns.” If there are many in this sector, then we need to rate their strength and select the stronger ones. If there are none, all being below the East-West line, then previous planetary sojourns may not be important, rather, deeply personal inner feelings will dominate, and the lifetime may be privately lived.

Mrs. 31’s horoscope shows exactly what Cayce saw. Here’s her horoscope.

Cayce opened her reading by listing: Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Uranus as significantly influencing her prior to her birth. We can see these in her horoscope. Since we don’t have her exact time of birth, we used noon. Mercury is in the 9th house, Jupiter next to the Sun in the 10th house, and Venus in her 11th house, all in the top sector of her horoscope. Uranus is in the lower left sector in the 3rd house (its icon is so small that you’ll have to trust that I know what’s there). Later in Cayce’s reading he mentions Neptune, which is also at the top in the 10th house. Without getting lost in astrology methods and jargon, her horoscope fits with Cayce’s reading.

Let me give you two more examples, one is Edgar Cayce’s, and the other is his “sister” Leila’s. According to Cayce’s files, Edgar’s most influential planets were Uranus and Venus; Leila’s were Jupiter and Mercury. In Cayce’s horoscope we find Uranus “rising” in the East in the 12th house with Venus descending in the West in the 8th house. The Venus influence can be found in his heartfelt, caring correspondence and people’s comments about him. At the zenith of Cayce’s horoscope (above his mother) was Pluto, Moon, and Neptune. These reveal a psychic person with weaknesses for the extremes (Uranus), and expansive and mystical awareness (Pluto and Neptune) and a very personal, earthy nature (Moon).

The files indicate that his “sister” Leila’s previous planetary influences were Jupiter and Mercury, both are found rising in her horoscope in the 11th and 10th houses. At the Zenith above her mother was the Sun and Mars. According to the readings’ interpretation of planets, this would indicate a person who is high minded, interested in the masses, with exceptional mental skills. Her sense of destiny, indicated by the Sun, guided her career. Her career was as an executive manager for the International Red Cross (the masses and mental skills). Mars indicated that she had energy, determination, and a temper. When I knew her in her later years, she had subdued the temper.

The position of the planets and stars cannot reveal our past lives. We’ll have to find these through intuitive awakenings (often worked for me), dreams (most common way for me), and past-life hypnotic regressions (I had two that gave me good insight into the exact same past life that was and continues to affect my present life.

Awakening to our total self, “the entity,” is worth pursuing.

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