Edgar Cayce and twentieth-century prophecy

Edgar Cayce (1877–1945) is the best-known figure in American prophecy of the twentieth century. A fair amount can be said about him that goes beyond the usual accounts — and a fair amount that contradicts them.

What is documented

Over several decades Cayce gave out information while in a resting state he induced himself, and it was written down by those present. These readings — some 14,000 of them — have been archived and are accessible. By far the greatest part concerns the health questions of individual people; a smaller part concerns reincarnation and lost civilisations, a smaller part still the future.

The state of the sources is therefore better than with most comparable figures: there are transcripts, dates and the names of those present.

What a prophecy can be tested against

This is where the real question lies, and it holds for every prediction, not only for his.

A testable statement needs three things: an event that is unambiguously described; a period of time; and a wording documented before the event. If one of the three is missing, any interpretation can be laid over it afterwards.

Measured by that standard, the known prophecies fall into two groups. Some are dated and unambiguous — and several of them demonstrably failed to come about, among them the great earth changes announced for the turn of the millennium. The others are kept so general that they fit a great many things; they cannot fail, and for that reason they say nothing.

Why the comparison with astrology is worth making

Because astrology can meet that standard and does so too seldom.

An astrological judgement can be written down in advance, dated and published — together with the event, the period and the testimonies it was derived from. Then it is testable. That is exactly what the older mundane astrology demanded of its practitioners, because princes paid for predictions and expected results.

What appears for the most part today is the other sort: interpretation after the event. That kind is never wrong, and for the same reason it is worth nothing.

A fair conclusion

Cayce’s importance lies less in the predictions than in what he brought about for American esotericism — the spread of ideas of reincarnation, the joining of the healing arts to the doctrine of the soul, the founding of an archive that still exists.

Anyone who takes up the subject should read the readings themselves rather than the accounts of them. They are accessible, and they are considerably more sober than one expects.