By JOHN BORDSEN
McClatchy Newspapers
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. --Driving north from the tourist beaches on U.S. 60, the streetscape turns suburban. Houses keep the ocean out of view. On the higher ground to the left, you come to a starkly modern building that could pass for a university research library. To its side and up the hill is a big-veranda structure that, in a previous life, was a 1920s hospital/sanitarium. It is now a school of massage and day spa.
The lawn in front of the spa is inset with a small contemplative labyrinth you may walk. Enjoy the seaward view from the hill. And off to the side is a meditation garden.
It's all the world headquarters and offshoots of Edgar Cayce's Association for Research and Enlightenment, and whether you spend a few minutes or days here hinges on your view of Cayce (pronounced "Casey").
Dead for decades the jug-eared Sunday School teacher has morphed into a godfather of all things New Age: reincarnation, astrology, Atlantis, crypto-Egyptology, holistic/alternative medicine, ESP and more - enough for a full-weekend lineup on the SciFi or History channels.
Was he indeed "The Sleeping Prophet" whose trance-induced utterances unveiled a long-lost past and predicted the future? Or merely an American oddity whose ramblings appeal to those who find meaning in supermarket tabloids?
The association, which claims thousands of adherents worldwide, tries to reconcile a mixed bag of metaphysics with hard science. It searches for data that dovetails with Cayce's "readings" or "channelings" - transcriptions of what Cayce said during years of trance-like nap sessions. Bound volumes of these readings line several walls in the A.R.E. library.
And what you make of them depends on what you make of "The Sleeping Prophet."
CAYCE ON FILM
Shortly before 2 p.m., the staffer at the lobby's front desk says the 30-minute "Edgar Cayce Legacy" is about to begin in the auditorium behind her. And we follow her there.
The film covers Cayce's life:
In 1900, the 23-year-old insurance salesman lost his voice due to severe laryngitis. When it wouldn't return, Cayce became a photographer's apprentice in his hometown of Hopkinsville, Ky. The following year, a traveling hypnotist got Cayce onstage at the local opera house and - lo and behold - while in a trance, the young man said his affliction was due to psychological paralysis ... and could be cured if more blood flowed to his voice box!
The hypnotist asked Cayce to pump it up; Cayce apparently did - and when awakened, he had his speech back.
Later, the intrigued hypnotist put Cayce again in a trance and asked him to comment on the performer's own medical situation. What Cayce said impressed the hypnotist, who suggested Cayce use his clairvoyant talents professionally.
Cayce was loath to do this. He was religious in a conventional way, and this all seemed like fortune-telling. Also, his trance voice mentioned past lives - something not covered in Christianity. Moreover, Cayce's diagnoses and predictions weren't 100 percent accurate.
He nonetheless offered his services to sick and troubled people who sought him out. (A.R.E. says Cayce diagnoses were 80 percent accurate). Starting in 1923, he had a secretary write down what his unconscious mind said during nap sessions.
The A.R.E. film notes that the awakened Cayce wasn't sure what to make of things he said in his sleep.
Some who met Cayce clearly had other ideas. Benefactors - those who believed and those who wanted to believe - helped make possible what Cayce said in one "reading": Move to Virginia Beach and open a nontraditional hospital.
YOGA, REINCARNATION AND MORE
The shelves in the A.R.E. bookstore, just off the lobby, reflect the many aspects of Cayce's readings and teachings. Magazines include Vegetarian News, Nexus, Sedona and Fate. There are books on yoga, alternative diets and medicine, reincarnation, the lost continents of Atlantis and Mu. CDs and videos, too. The bookstore is brightly lit and quiet.
There are wind chimes, scented candles and mini-water fountains for those who want a touch of desktop tranquility. New Age music plays softly in the background.
Patrons range from retirees to whole-grainers in their 20s with their young ones in tow. It's all rather suburban. Suburban Asheville, maybe.
In the lobby is a painting of Cayce, about age 30, and his wife. On another wall is a large and idealized landscape that shows the three pyramids of Giza, all skyscraper-new, on the lush banks of the wide Nile River.
The A.R.E. tour begins here after the movie. The clean-cut young man tells us what awaits us on the upper two stories. And before we go up the stairs, he lifts a bowl from the information desk and holds it out. It's filled with slips of paper that are rolled up and tied with red or blue ribbon.
"Go ahead and take one," he says, smiling. "They're kind of like what's inside fortune cookies."
They are snippets from Cayce readings. Mine unrolls to this: "Let no day then pass that ye do not speak a cheery and an encouraging word to someone!" EC Reading 1754-1.
We first stop at the top-floor Meditation Room, where visitors may join the A.R.E. staff in contemplation from noon to 12:30 p.m. weekdays. Rows of chairs cover the thick, dark blue carpeting; the seats face floor-length windows. The guide points out a few objects in the room.
Cayce said, "There are many roads to God," and you'll see a Torah, a portrait of Jesus and a painting that includes Buddha.
There is stained glass done by Frederica Fields, an artist who has a piece in Washington's National Cathedral. According to A.R.E., when the artist was in her 60s, Fields said a "reading" done for her as a youth had proven extremely accurate.
On an outside balcony is a small rock garden framed in concrete; it holds a praying angel. From its far wall, you can glimpse the Atlantic.
Between the chairs and the plate-glass windows and door is a lectern, and the text on it today is of a Cayce reading titled "262-73: Destiny of the Mind."
The tour group of perhaps 20 sits quietly for maybe five minutes.
As the guide ushers us out, he reminds us to try the Reflexology Walk out on the grounds. It's a short stone path the guide says was inspired by and emulates a stretch of the Bimini Road. You're encouraged to walk it barefoot - to get the benefits of reflexology (foot-massage) therapy. We go down to the second floor, where several exhibit cases outside the A.R.E. library are singled out. One framed plaque holds a travel story from a New Jersey newspaper about Bimini, an island in the Bahamas, and the so-called Bimini Road off its coast.
In 1938, Cayce's sleep voice said temples from long-submerged and long-lost Atlantis would be found near Bimini, around 1968 or 1969.
Geologists believe this "Road" is actually a natural alignment of underwater limestone blocks. They reached that conclusion shortly after the half-mile formation was discovered in September 1968.
67,000 VOLUMES
A.R.E. bills its collection as the "the largest metaphysical library in the United States" - 67,000 volumes. They include the collection of Egerton Sykes, a prominent advocate of Atlantis who collected an enormous library of what believers call "Atlantology."
Also here: the collected transcripts of Cayce readings. They're in an alcove right inside the library - 413 volumes in numbered ring binders, each filled with the typing of Gladys Davis, Cayce's nap-monitoring secretary of many decades.
"Just grab one off the shelf, and see if what you read says anything to you," the guide says.
I scan the alcove for the book that includes reading session 1754-1 - the one with the cheery, rolled-up advice from the bowl at the information desk. Ah, here it is.
The reading, in volume 221, was done Nov. 25, 1938, for a 20-year-old woman who had a fling with a 39-year-old man in the District of Columbia area. She was depressed - jilted by the guy after sex in a hotel room.
The 1754-1 transcript has Cayce's trance voice saying that in a past life, the woman lived "in the environments of what is now Jamestown, Yorktown, Williamsburg and the like" during the American Revolution, and was known as Carol Fannenshaw.
Before then, the woman was in the household of a family in which Philemon - a New Testament figure to whom St. Paul wrote an epistle - was a servant. Her name at that time was Teleman.
And before then, in Egypt, she was Tel-Ka-Le.
Cayce's voice fielded six questions from the unhappy woman during the session. The bottom line was that she should ditch the guy: "It would be best NEVER to marry him - thy ideals will be destroyed."
Common sense, to be sure, though what it had to do with Carol Fannenshaw or Teleman wasn't clear. And on my end, Tel-Ka-Le didn't ring any bell or rustle my wind chimes.
THE LAND OF MU
At a tour conclusion, visitors are invited to attend a free lecture back in the auditorium. The daily topic tends to deal with metaphysics - from meditation to dreams, astrology to ancient Egyptian mysticism and so on - all based on or tied to Cayce readings.
Almost all who were on my tour stayed for today's lecture, given by Linda Jewell, a volunteer. She has been an instructor for the Cayce/Reilly School of Massotherapy's class on Quantum Touch massage, which apparently involves life-force vibrations. But today, she was going to discuss the lost continent of Lemuria, also called Mu.
Jewell said she became intrigued by this subject after working with A.R.E. trips to foreign lands. She said she might become overly detailed in her discourse and could easily speak for hours. Because of time and interest limitations, Jewell said, folks were welcome to leave whenever they wished, and thanked us all for coming: "Take what you will, and discard the rest." Jewell also noted that there is no physical proof of Mu.
And yet. ...
The bedrock for her contentions were Cayce's "life readings" - instances where the Sleeping Prophet would mention past lives - and the farthest back he would go is to the land of Mu. This presents problems, Jewell said: Cayce's comments on Mu were "often a sentence or paragraph or two at the max." In comparison, his trance musings on Atlantis and ancient Egypt were prolific.
So to the mix, Jewell added theories and observations of those who got the Mu/Lemuria ball rolling more than a century ago. One she noted was British Col. James Churchward, who claimed that while stationed in Victorian India, he learned a language that was dead and lost to all but three high priests there - the tongue of Mu, an ancient advanced civilization that a cataclysm plunged under the Pacific Ocean.
Remember those strange statues of Easter Island? Coincidence? Maybe not.
Mainstream science never fell into the Mu embrace. Various occult gurus, however, added their own interpretations of the lost land.
And what about those other odd ruins around the Pacific Rim?
The pattern to Jewell's talk was set: Can't-explains gingerly linked with what-ifs.
The group listened attentively. I did, too.
A series of "can't explains" were transformed into "what ifs" that were nudged into an invisible footbridge over the chasm between wishful thinking and acknowledged fact. It's the metaphysical twin to a salesmanship seminar. Eventually, you either buy in - or watch, intrigued, as other listeners apparently do.
At least the "lost continent" talk was interesting. Laugh if you will, but a look for "Lemuria" on amazon.com brought up 1,631 items while motivational speaker "Zig Ziglar" returned only 92 more.
After 90 minutes, the A.R.E. audience was still listening. That's when Jewell postulated that a portion of the eastern edge of Mu is still around - on the coast of California, near Santa Barbara.
I left at that point because I knew what's really there. Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch.
Coincidence? Maybe not.
METAPHYSICS & MORE
Getting There: Edgar Cayce's Association for Research and Enlightenment (A.R.E.) is at 215 67th St. (at U.S. 60/Atlantic Avenue), Virginia Beach, Va.
Free: The "Edgar Cayce Legacy" movie is shown at 2 p.m. daily, free of charge. You may join the staff for meditation, free of charge, in the center's third-floor Meditation Room, at noon Monday-Friday.
Free tours of the A.R.E. are offered at 2:30 p.m. daily. Free lectures offered at 3 p.m. daily in the center's auditorium; check Web site for lineup.
Free ESP testing is offered at 1 p.m. Saturday-Sunday. An instructor explains psychic ability and uses symbol cards to test whether you may have extra sensory perception.
Outdoors and on the A.R.E. grounds, the Bimini Road-inspired reflexology walk, the garden, and the labyrinth on the grounds are free to use, anytime.
The A.R.E. bookstore is open 9 a.m.-6 p.m. daily through April; to 8 p.m. daily spring-fall. Guest/name lectures are offered periodically and carry a charge. Check the Web site.
Spa/Massage Services: A.R.E.'s Health and Rejuvenation Center, in the original Edgar Cayce Hospital building, offers a range of spa services, from acupuncture ($70 per hour) to facials ($60 for 45 minutes) to steam/fume bath ($35 for 30 minutes). Packages available. Massages are $40 for 30 minutes, $65 for an hour; $90 for 90 minutes.
You can also get a massage for as little as $27 per hour from students attending the center's Cayce/ Reilly School of Massotherapy. Call in advance for specific rates, hours and availability.
A.R.E. Health Center & Spa/Day Spa /Holistic Massage. Details: 757-437-7202; www.edgarcayce.org/health.
Resources: 757-428-3588; www.edgarcayce.org.
CAYCE AND PIT
Edgar Cayce also invented the still-popular card game of Pit, and there's a story behind it.
Una Marcotte of the A.R.E. staff says that one day, Cayce's son was bugging the seer to join a foursome of bridge. Edgar Cayce refused. Reason: It wouldn't be fair. Cayce had his son deal the cards and then used ESP to tell the players what each held in his or her hands. "See?" Cayce told them.
Marcotte: "Pit was the only game Cayce could play that would block his psychic abilities: With everybody bidding and talking at the same time, there were too many voices for him to concentrate on."
Cayce sold the rights to it to Parker Brothers in 1904, for $15.
CAYCE AND THE COUCH
Cayce would usually give two readings a day - one in the morning, one in the afternoon - in a room in his home. In his later days, Marcotte says, as many as 50 or 60 people would be present during them. Cayce would do the readings while reclining on a green couch.
That couch is at the visitor center, but not currently on display; much of its dark green fabric is worn away, and A.R.E. wants to preserve it.
PREDICTIONS: CAYCE AT THE BAT
Here's a mix of predictions Edgar Cayce is said to have made - according to the Cayce-following Association for Research and Enlightenment or according to scoffers who think he was out to lunch.
One prediction is a certainty: Supporters and skeptics will continue to argue over the validity of the following predictions - and others.
CORRECT FORECASTS?
Stock market crash of 1929. A.R.E. says Cayce predicted this March 6, 1929. Other accounts say he predicted this in 1924.
World War II. A.R.E. says he predicted this in 1935, saying in a reading it entailed "the Austrians, Germans, and later the Japanese joining in their influence."
His own death. Jan. 1, 1945, Cayce announced that he would be buried in four more days. He died Jan. 3, and was buried the following day.
CLINKERS?
A "death ray" from Atlantis would be discovered in 1958.
China would be "mostly Christian" by 1968.
California and Japan would both sink into the sea by 1998.
UP FOR GRABS?
The Earth's poles will shift in 2000-2001. A.R.E. says this has begun, only subtly.
Russia will become the hope of the world.
The Battle of Armageddon began in 1999. Some Cayce followers say he referred to a spiritual battle not fought on the planet.
Humankind's Day of Reckoning would be in 1998. Some Cayce followers say what he may have meant was that Christ would return in 1998, but as an infant.
Coastal flooding would begin worldwide in 1998.
DETAILS
Sites with a pro-Cayce tilt include www.edgarcayce.org.
For an anti-Cayce view, read the article "Edgar Cayce: The `Prophet' Who `Slept' His Way to the Top" in the January-February 1996 issue of Skeptical Inquirer, online at http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi-m2843.
http://www.sanluisobispo.com/living/tra ... 36961.html
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