Edgar Cayce & Astrology

This post came about as a result of an astrology proposal on astrology’s WOW factor – the planet Jupiter.

Edgar Cayce was born on March 18, 1877, at 3:03 p.m. in Hopkinsville, Kentucky – 140 years ago. He had a Pisces sun and his Jupiter- that fancily shaped 4 in house 5  was in Capricorn. That’s his chart in the illustration. You can see Jupiter in his fifth house of romance, children, and creativity.

At its most base expression, a sun in Pisces – a mutable water sign – can indicate a propensity for addiction, escapism, and ambivalence that makes everyone around them nuts. But at its highest expression, a Pisces sun exemplifies everything that Cayce was – a humble man with an extraordinary gift that touched thousands when he was alive and millions more since his death in 1945.

Cayce was conventionally religious, also in keeping with the Pisces archetype. In the many biographies written about him over the years, his religious beliefs are depicted as the bedrock of who he was. They sustained him, kept him whole, grounded. The beliefs also collided several times with the expanded worldview that his psychic readings eventually gave him. This conflict in beliefs may explain why Cayce was able to read for people only while in a trance so deep it was like sleep. After the publication of Jess Stearn’s biography about Cayce, he became known as “the sleeping prophet,” the title of Stearn’s book, an apt nickname.

His diagnostic abilities surfaced when he was 23 and had lost his voice. He was newly engaged to Gertrude, who would become his wife, and the loss of his voice delayed the marriage. It also delayed his work, particularly when the voice condition, despite expert help, persisted month after month.

Al Layne, a hypnosis enthusiast, finally hypnotized Cayce and asked him to explain the problem. Cayce, in a voice that was resonant and normal, explained there was partial paralysis of the muscles around the vocal cords and directed Layne to give him a hypnotic suggestion that would increase the blood circulation around the vocal cords for twenty minutes. Cayce’s voice returned.

Layne was so blown away that he offered himself as Cayce’s next subject. While Cayce was “asleep,” he gave Layne a full medical diagnosis of his condition and within several months, his vocal cords improved dramatically. Cayce was astonished and terrified at what he’d done and didn’t wasn’t to continue. But when his voice began to fade again, he turned to Layne once more.

Eventually, Layne was having Cayce diagnose other people. This is where his Jupiter in Capricorn started kicking in – a slow, steady rise toward his calling, his true north, his grail. Capricorn, a cardinal earth sign, is symbolized by the goat, that intrepid critter that keeps climbing and climbing to reach the summit. When the goat comes up against a barrier, it either finds a way around it – or rams its way through it. One way or another, it gets to where it wants and needs to be. It reaches its goal.

Cayce was surprised by what was happening, but didn’t attach any spiritual meaning to it. He just wanted to forget about what he was doing when he was in trance and didn’t even want to discuss it with his family. But word got around town and the reaction was mixed. Some people made fun of him, skeptics chided him, but others marveled at the young Cayce’s ability.

The first case that convinced Cayce about his life’s work was that of a six-year-old girl who lived in Hopkinsville, the daughter of a former superintendent of schools. For two years, she’d had as many as twenty convulsions a day and was basically a vegetable. She had seen numerous experts, but the consensus was that her parents should keep her comfortable until she died. Hardly the sort of thing a parent wants to hear.

While Cayce was in trance, he said her ailment was due to congestion at the base of the brain. He prescribed a treatment, followed up as needed, and within three months, the girl was in perfect health.

Over the course of Cayce’s life, there were many healings like this one, unconventional treatments for that time that worked. In A Seer Out of Season: the Life of Edgar Cayce, author Harmon Hartzell Bro, who knew Cayce, said he couldn’t use his ability to exploit others or to help others gain advantage over other people. If he tried, his ability abandoned him. “Instead, he had to use it for those with real needs, who would invest themselves and grow personally as they explored and applied his counsel.”

In the 40 plus years that Cayce worked as the sleeping prophet, he gave 14,306 readings on 10,000 different topics that are housed at the Edgar Cayce Association for Research and Development – A.R. E – in Virginia Beach. There are nearly 8,000 indexed references to astrology and five broader categories in the database of information: 1) health-related information 2) philosophy and reincarnation 3) dreams and dream interpretation 4) ESP and psychic phenomena 5) spiritual growth, meditation, and prayer.

During the decades that his reputation and fame grew, Cayce found his grail by doing what the Capricorn goat does – moving steadily and inexorably toward the summit, and building his skills and talents as he climbed. If his quest can be summarized simply, it’s that despite financial problems and profound skepticism from the society and time in which he lived, Cayce ultimately embraced his abilities. And this fact enabled him to develop those abilities fully, and use them to help whoever came to him. What he found, his grail, was that he was of service to thousands of people who needed answers and help.

On March 19, 1919, when Cayce was 42, he did a reading on his own birth chart. His wife, Gertrude, and a stenographer were present. Gertrude asked the questions. One of the most interesting facets of this reading concerned astrology/the planets.

Gertrude: Do the planets have anything to do with the ruling of the destiny of men? If so, what? And what do they have to do with this body?

 From Cayce in trance: They do. In the beginning, as our own planet, Earth, was set in motion, the placing of other planets began the ruling of the destiny of all matter as created…

 The strongest power in the destiny of man is the Sun… then the closer planets, or those that are coming in ascendency at the time of the birth of the individual. But let it be understood here, no action of any planet or any of the phases of the Sun, Moon, or any of the heavenly bodies surpass the rule of Man’s individual will power – the power given by the Creator of man in the beginning, when he became a living soul, with the power of choosing for himself.

These two sections are particularly interesting. According to Cayce’s clairvoyance, the sun rules the “destiny” of man, but no planet or celestial body surpasses our own free will, the power to choose for ourselves.   

The inclination of man is ruled by the planets under which he is born. In this far the destiny of man lies within the sphere or scope of the planets. With the given position of the solar system at the time of the birth of an individual, it can be worked out – that is, the inclinations and actions without the will power taken into consideration.

 As in this body here [Edgar Cayce] born March 18, 1877, three minutes past three o’clock, with the Sun descending, on the wane, the Moon in the opposite side of the Earth (old moon), Uranus at its zenith, hence the body is ultra in its actions. Neptune closest in conjunction… in the ninth house; Jupiter, the higher force of all the planets, save the Sun, in descendency…

Here, Jupiter is identified as “the higher force” of all the planets except for the sun.

Hence the inclination as the body is controlled by the astrological survey at the time of the birth of this body, either (no middle ground for this body) very good or very bad, very religious or very wicked, very rich or always losing, very much in love or hate, very much given to good works or always doing wrong, governed entirely by the will of the body.