by Vaughn Shelton

In nearly half a century of practice as a “full time” clairvoyant, the late Edgar Cayce answered every kind of question. But none was asked him more often than these two: What is the nature of death? What is the nature of life after death?

As a result, his files contain thousands of single-spaced, typed pages of “information” on this ultimate enigma, including much “eyewitness” description of life beyond the veil.

Mr. Cayce, who died at Virginia Beach, Va., in 1945, spent most of his adult life obtaining clairvoyant information for those who needed it. He could find out anything, simply by lying down and going to sleep which he did twice a day for over 40 years. While he slept a conductor, usually his wife, Gertrude, presented the questions and his sleeping voice answered them.

A great many of these questions, from all over the world, concerned critical ailments that could not be cured by ordinary means. Cayce, in trance, diagnosed the ailments and proposed treatments – if it was not already too late. His “information” was taken down in shorthand, typed and mailed to the questioner. A duplicate copy went into the files. In every case where the sleeping man said recovery was possible, and the patient and his physician carried out his instructions faithfully, the patient got better.

Thousands received the benefit of this psychic miracle. And miracle it was! For Edgar Cayce never had studied medicine and had attended school for only nine years. Yet, in his sleep, he was a master physician. He could speak any language, could tell what was happening anywhere in the world at any given moment. He read the past like a universal history book and foresaw the future with astonishing accuracy.

When Cayce slept, his subconscious mind became articulate and it spoke from the timeless, spaceless, four dimensional plane he saw.

The statement, “There is no death!” appears frequently in his readings. He took the position that death is not the most serious event in human existence. Life, in the eternal sense, is fundamentally spiritual with occasional brief (but very important) manifestations in the flesh. From this point of view death becomes the return of the entity to its natural condition.

Death is a birth or transition into a finer, less confining type of being. The same personality, with its virtues, faults, loves, hates and ambitions is adjourned to a sphere of activity where time, age and physical limitations are absent, There it will continue its earthly undertaking’s in greater freedom, until its evolution requires another experience in the flesh.

One of the questions often asked of Mr. Cayce was, “At what point does ‘death’ take place?” He explained that this differs with every individual, depending upon the circumstances of his passing and upon his training and mental preparation for the experience.

“….. Many an individual has remained in the state called death for years without realizing it was dead.” After the spirit has put aside the physical body it may sleep until it gradually becomes conscious of its new environment in much the same manner an infant becomes aware of its physical body and its presence in a physical world.

“On the other hand, the individual may be quite oblivious to the change. He may continue his normal activities – work, recreation, any usual routine – in surroundings that are entirely real to him. The fact that others no longer respond to him as before may be disconcerting and may hasten his recognition of the change.”

In one reading, Cayce was asked to give medical advice for an elderly woman who was very ill. The sleeping voice said there was nothing that could be done in the way of medication, as her soul already had departed. The physician was still in attendance and death, as far as the physical body was concerned, had not yet occurred. Yet the spiritual development of this individual was such that the transition was conscious, at will, and considerably prior to the physical death.

Ordinarily, the finite mind cannot grasp the abstraction of “death” and must grow to an awareness of its new state. “Death is but the beginning of another form of experience in the earth’s plane and may not be understood by the third dimension mind from a third dimension analysis. It must be seen from the fourth dimension…..” Cayce goes on to explain that spiritual elevation alone (which includes the development of psychic faculties) makes this higher viewpoint possible to mortals.

His premise was that the will, as expressed in thought, is the governing factor in existence whether in or out of the flesh. But the finer matter into which the spirit projects itself at death responds readily to thought – things, conditions, appearances (normally) become what the individual thinks they are or wants them to be.

An individual who was elderly at the time of death would resume his appearance as it was in his late 20s, or at whatever point he thought of as his prime. This explanation was given to a woman who had had a psychic experience and said she had seen her father and two uncles as young men, though all had been elderly and white haired at the time of their deaths.

There are two cases that will illustrate the continuation of the same existence under much less restricted conditions. The first is a psychic experience of Edgar Cayce’s on which a reading was given later and the statement made that it was an actual occurrence and not a dream.

While living in Selma, Ala., in the early 1900’s, Mr. Cayce operated a photographic studio. He employed a young woman to retouch negatives and act as general assistant. She was with him about four years.

Many years later, after moving to Virginia Beach, he was awakened one night by a voice calling his name. He recognized his former assistant. She was asking him to come downstairs and let her into the house.

Dressing quickly, he went down and let the young woman in at the front door. He could see her distinctly, though objects behind her were also visible. Until this moment he had not known that she had died. In appearance, she was about the same as when he had known her years earlier. Her voice was audible and apparently she could hear him.

The girl said that she was living with her mother and father in their home. She had been quite ill of a throat infection but her family doctor, whom she had been unable to find for a period, had come to live nearby, was treating her, and the condition was much better. (This physician had been treating her at the time of her death and was an old friend of Edgar Cayce’s. The girl’s news that the doctor had passed on, too, turned out to be correct.)

She said her father was away from home a great deal and had promised to take her with him on his trips as soon as she became stronger. While visiting the studio in Selma, she had heard someone say Mr. Cayce had moved to Virginia Beach. She had decided to pay him a visit and had had considerable difficulty finding the town.

Edgar Cayce was very much surprised to find that the young lady did not realize that she had passed to another plane. He explained it to her as tactfully as he could and made some suggestions he thought would help her adjust. She left then and he did not see her again.

A second illustrative incident occurred on July 9, 1934. A scheduled reading for a man in a distant city had just been completed and Mrs. Cayce had given her husband the suggestion that he wake up. Present were Mr. Cayce’s secretary and two witnesses, in addition to Mrs. Cayce. Still asleep, Cayce began to speak:

“There are some here who would like to speak to those present, if they desire to communicate with them.”

Mrs. Cayce replied, “We would like to communicate with them.”

Mr. Cayce, after a long pause, continued, “Don’t speak at once. (Pause) Yes, I knew you would be waiting though. Yes? Haven’t found him before? All together now, huh? Uncle Porter, too? He was able to ease it right away, huh? Who? Dr. House? No. Oh, no. No, she’s all right. Yes, lots better. Isn’t giving any trouble now. Haven’t seen her? Why? Where have you been? Oh. She is in another change? How long will they stay there? Oh, they don’t count time like that. Oh, do you have ’em? Well, those must be pretty now, if they are all growing like that. Yes? Yes, I’ll tell her about ’em. Tell Gertrude you are all together now, huh? Uncle Porter, Dr. House, your mother? And Grandma? Oh. Grandpa is still building? He made the house, yeah? Tell Tommy what? Yes? Lynn? Yes, he’s at home. Oh, you knew that! Huh, isn’t any difference. Well, how about the weather? Oh, the weather doesn’t effect you now. Doesn’t change. You have what you want….. depends on where you go. Sure, then you are subject to that anyway. Little baby, too! Uh-huh. All right. Why? Oh, yes, they hear you . . . I’m sure they do. I hear you! For Gertrude? Yes, she’s here. She hears you. Oh, yes.”

Mrs. Gertrude Cayce said, “I don’t hear. May I have the message?”

Mr. Cayce then spoke again, “’Mamma and Doctor House and Uncle Porter and the baby, we are all here. Grandpa has built the home here and it’s nice! We are all waiting until you come and we will all be here ready . . . we are getting along fine, doing well, yes! No, no more troubles now, for springbiter’s (?) all along the way; for we have reached together where we see the light and know the pathway to the Savior is along the narrow way . . . We are on that plane where you have heard it spoken that the body, the mind, are one together with the things we have built. Yes, I still play baseball and Charlie has recently joined my club and I am still captain to many of ’em. Well, we will be waiting for you!’”

The foregoing was taken from the stenographer’s transcript of the reading, duly witnessed, on July 9, 1934.

When asked to identify the person whom he had quoted, Cayce gave the name of Mrs. Cayce’s younger brother who had died many years before of tuberculosis. At the time of the boy’s death, his grandfather had been building a new house and he had been unable to play his favorite sport, baseball, for many months. His grandfather had since passed on and, according to this message, had completed the building. The question about Gertrude’s (Mrs. Cayce’s) health apparently referred to her near death from tuberculosis a few years earlier – of which she had been cured by treatments prescribed in a reading.

If we assume that this was a genuine communication with someone in the life beyond death, it gives us several pleasant aspects. Those who wish to be together are together. The physical undertakings and pleasures continue to a satisfactory degree. Time and the weather oblige the wishes of the individual.

Once, explaining how life and death are different phases of the same experience, Cayce said that as the spirit leaves the physical body, the soul becomes the body of the entity and “the subconscious mind or intellect of the body.”

It seems, too, that an individual may inhabit this higher plane for varying lengths of time. The sojourn can range from minutes to hundreds of years. Time is of no consequence and it depends upon how soon the entity becomes aware of his more universal nature and thus is ready to be about his larger affairs, the soul’s development. If his own involvement in materiality calls for another sojourn on the earth Mr. Cayce says he will try to re-enter under conditions that suit his purposes.

Many persons wonder what specific changes occur in the individual after death. According to Edgar Cayce there are no changes in the individual – only in the environment. The nature and personality remain the same; if generous, affectionate, spiritual, they will be still; if selfish, greedy, material-minded, they will remain so. “As the tree falls, so shall it lie.” However once outside the flesh, the appetites that are peculiar to the flesh are gone.

There is one important exception to this, however. Cayce says that those in life who were slaves to physical appetites remain bound by these compulsions unable to extricate themselves. They linger in the borderland, tormented by desires they cannot satisfy. They search for weak-willed humans through whom they can give vicarious expression to their urges, without responsibility for the results. Possession is the result – the domination of a personality by a disincarnate entity.

Edgar Cayce warned those who experiment with the various types of “communication”, which he agreed are possible. Two things should be considered before taking advice from discarnate sources: First, the danger of submitting the will, even temporarily to an unknown entity who may be degraded. Second, being “dead” does not increase the knowledge or wisdom of an entity even though his range of observation may be greater since he is outside of time. A trusted, “living” adviser is more reliable.

The bond of love is not impaired by death and warnings and advice from departed friends and relatives often are given to help the living. Such guidance may be a single incident or continue over many years. Its value is more in its point of view than in its judgment or wisdom – as a man in a tower, who can see farther, might cry a warning to someone on the ground.

As a rule, Cayce insisted, manifestations by departed entities are seeking help, rather than wishing to give it. All of those entering the new environment do not find their way readily, particularly if they have neglected spiritual things in life. When lost and confused, they turn again to the only source of help they know – the living.

The questions asked by a woman who had lost her brother – and the answers – illustrate Mr. Cayce’s views of such communications. The lady waked in the night and felt the presence of her brother, who was overseas. On June 2, 1912, she thought she heard him calling her. She wanted to know if that had been the date of his death and if there was something he wanted her to know.

The sleeping Cayce said her brother had not died on the date but he had found the attunement to speak to his sister then. Implying gently that her brother had found himself confused and afraid, due to his carnal attitude in life which had left him unprepared for death. Edgar Cayce urged her to pray for him and thus act as his guide in his new environment.

On October 30, 1932, Edgar Cayce was teaching his Sunday School class at the First Presbyterian Church at Virginia Beach. The lesson concerned one of the books of the Old Testament. In the middle of his discourse he became aware of a presence in the room and turned to see a number of persons, of the Hebrew faith by their appearance and costume, standing by the door listening. Since none of the members of the class seemed to notice the visitors, Mr. Cayce supposed it was some kind of hallucination and went on with the lesson. When he had finished he turned toward the door again. The visitors were gone.

On November 15, a reading was given to explain this. The sleeping voice said, “It should be understood that this was real and literal.” Absorbed in his discourse Cayce had had a brief glimpse of normal activity on a higher plane. He was told that, even though the visitors were on a different level of consciousness, they had been drawn together by their common faith and interest in what Cayce, the Sunday School teacher, was saying. They, like many in the flesh and out of it, were seeking understanding wherever the opportunity offered.

Edgar Cayce may disappoint those who hope for an escape from problems and responsibilities, or for a miraculous transformation. He says, “Do not consider for a moment that an individual soul, passing from the earth plane as a Catholic, a Methodist, an Episcopalian, is something else because he is dead. He’s only a dead Episcopalian, Methodist or Catholic . . .”

Through Edgar Cayce’s “Window To Eternity,” we see life and death as a continuous process of growth. On all levels we see the weak and the strong, the purposeful and the purposeless, the spiritual-minded and the material-minded. An oft-repeated quotation in the Cayce readings sums up the matter:

“The knowledge of life is the knowledge of death.”