Читать книгу Edgar Cayce on the Akashic Records - Kevin J. Todeschi - Страница 11

(Note: The names of case 1523 and her family members have been changed in order to maintain confidentiality.)

In 1938 a twenty-nine-year-old woman came to Edgar Cayce for a psychic reading (case 1523). She was desperate and felt he was her last hope. She was near an end, both physically and mentally. Her marriage was not a happy one, but she was lost as to what to do. She was torn between divorcing her second husband or staying with him. Although unhappy in the situation, part of her hoped to make the marriage work in order to fulfill her dream of having a family.

Her reason for coming to see Mr. Cayce, however, was not for marital advice but because of a physical condition. She was fearful that her situation might require surgery and render her incapable of conception. A tubal pregnancy during her disastrous first marriage had resulted in the removal of one set of fallopian tubes. She had begun to experience similar physical symptoms and feared that a second tubal pregnancy would end her chances of having a baby. More than anything else, she wanted to be a mother. Other family members had pursued college and careers; her sister was working on a master’s degree. But not Anna; for as long as she could remember, she had one dream: “to have six children and to grow old with them.” She hoped by having a physical reading that she would avoid another operation.

Anna’s life history was unknown to Edgar Cayce at the time of her reading. However, an overview of her story will enable us to better understand her situation as well as its connection to the past.

She was born in a very small town at the turn of the twentieth century. So small, in fact, that half a century later the town would have been annexed by surrounding communities and literally disappeared. Her parents were farmers, though her mother had come from a Kentucky background much more refined and dignified than her father’s. This fact seemed to bother her father for much of his life. Her father was one of the last frontiersmen, deeply rooted in the land and the knowledge of what it could provide for his family.

She was one of six children who would grow to adulthood and for the most part she got along with all of her siblings with the exception of her older sister. For as long as she could remember, there was antagonism, jealousy, and distrust between the two. Although her parents ran a fairly structured environment—there were chores and studies to be done—her mother had become so frustrated by the years of fighting between Anna and her sister, Vera, that she no longer tried to intercede. It was left for Anna and Vera to fight it out, and fight it out they did.

Although family squabbles are common, the antagonism between the two seemed intensely focused. Interestingly enough, Anna noticed that there appeared to be two others in the household who had as great a difficulty getting along as she and her sister. Her father and her third brother, Warren (born right after Anna), constantly quarreled. It seemed that Warren was always being “switched” for things that one of the other children just might have gotten away with—her father appeared intent on keeping him “in line.” For this reason, she felt it was her duty (and her mother’s as well) to come to Warren’s rescue whenever he was having “the tar whipped out of him” by her dad.

Her mother seemed to get along well with everyone. The woman had even been described as “an angel.” Though she and Anna had differing opinions about many things, they were very close. In spite of her mother’s kindness, gentility, and compassion, however, one thing seemed completely out of the woman’s character: the woman had an intense hatred of Catholics. Her mother had even been known to say that she would rather see one of her children dead than married to a Catholic. The opportunity to change her mind would present itself through one of her sons.

In this rural setting there was always something to occupy Anna’s time. Whether it was weeding, cleaning, picking, washing, planting, sewing, ironing, or schooling, free time was minimal. Anna constantly felt that she never got to do what she wanted for there just wasn’t time. Families had to work hard just to make a living from the land. Her father built houses on the side and had a few rental properties to make ends meet.

Complicating her young life, Anna found it impossible to escape Vera’s presence; the two shared a room. On those few occasions when the lack of chores allowed young friends or cousins to call, Vera tried to sway the visitors to another room with wondrous tales of exciting games they could play—“but not with Anna.” As time passed, the elder sister became paranoid whenever male callers came to visit her. She showed an extreme fear that they might give Anna the least bit of attention. She was even jealous of the way Anna looked and acted—though Anna always believed it was her sister who was the model and not herself. Throughout the entire time they grew up together, Vera believed that Anna had gotten “all the breaks” and she none. From Anna’s perspective, she didn’t feel as though she had gotten any advantages.

In spite of her sister’s presence, Anna was relatively happy as a youngster as long as she was home. She had four brothers, two older (Mitchell and Carl) and two younger (Warren and Everett) to keep her company, a father to tag along with whenever she could escape from dishes and household chores, and beautiful dreams of her grownup life as a mother that filled her mind. Her happiness faded and what bliss she had ended, however, as soon as she entered school.

It didn’t take her long to realize that other girls didn’t like her. They thought of her as a tomboy or a flirt, though neither description was totally accurate. Although their attitude hurt at first, she decided it was fine because she didn’t like them much either. She felt much more comfortable around boys, like her brothers, but it wasn’t proper to play with boys—even speak to them at some schools. So she became a loner.

Although it might have seemed unusual for a girl in the 1910s, she began in time to excel at two things she could do on her own: music and basketball. As time passed, she stayed a loner, keeping most of her thoughts to herself and wishing for the day when she would have a husband and a family. Eventually she entered the eighth grade when her life would change forever. Although still very much a loner, she became a member of the girl’s basketball team. Much of the time, however, she continued to dream wistfully of someone who quite probably didn’t exist, someone with whom she could spend the rest of her life.

One day it happened. Seemingly out of nowhere she spotted him. His name was Robert. Although he was several years older than she (and certainly not aware of her existence), she knew he was THE ONE. Anna wasn’t quite clear how she knew it, but there was never any doubt that Robert was to be her husband.

This “knowing” was one of several unusual experiences which would shape her life. In one of the first, she had been at her aunt’s house in the city. A place she had frequented dozens of times before. Through the back window she could see the marshlands, and the grasses, and the trees off in the distance. Instead of being peaceful, the image suddenly grew more foreboding and frightening as if the fear had been buried deep within her all the time. She began to feel chilled, alone, and more terrified than she had ever been before. Suddenly, she heard herself whisper, “I’ve got to get out of this place . . . I’ve got to get out of this place!” The fear subsided just as quickly as it had come, and all that remained was the scene through the back window. She was in her aunt’s house, safe and sound, though the happening would remain with her and be called to mind more than twenty years later in the home of Edgar Cayce as he witnessed a similar scene contained in the Akashic Records.

The experience with Robert was similar. She found herself in the schoolyard where dozens of children were playing and laughing and arguing. Suddenly, she happened to look up from what she had been doing in the direction of a group of students not too far away. Instantly, in the midst of all the noise, the excitement of play, and the bouncing of balls, she spotted him, and what happened next would amaze her for the rest of her life:

All at once, the noises began to subside. All the children in the schoolyard began to vanish from her sight and she was completely alone with a boy she didn’t even know. There was no sound; there was no one else around. The two of them were all that existed. Her astonishment at the scene caused her to catch her breath, and in the next instant the schoolyard and all its children returned. From that day forth, her dream of a husband would have the face of Robert . . . but it would seem a very long while before he even knew that she was alive.

Finally, toward the first of the year, Anna began to feel more comfortable around some of the children at school. Unfortunately for her reputation, however, all of them were boys. Harsh and untruthful talk among some of the girls continued, and an event toward the end of the eighth grade would ruin her reputation.

One night, when her parents thought she was at a neighborhood party, she and some friends went for an innocent adventure in a car. Her friends, all boys, had “their girls” with them, and Anna was simply along for the ride, dreaming of Robert. The journey started well enough, but instead of soon returning as had been planned, the car broke down miles from home. All of the other girls and most of the boys managed to get rides to their respective houses. Only three of them were left alone—the three who lived near one another—Anna and two of the boys. Hours passed before the three got another car and the boys were able to take Anna home.

Her father had gone to the party looking for her. There he heard wild tales of Anna heading off in a car with “a bunch of boys.” The ensuing hours had given him plenty of time to contemplate his worst fears. By the time the trio pulled into the dirt driveway he was waiting for them, rifle in hand.

Without waiting for an explanation, he threatened to kill the boys if they ever laid hands on Anna again. His daughter tried desperately to relate what had happened, but the man was enraged and could not hear a word she was saying. Fearing for their lives, the two boys bolted from the home, and Anna was “whooped” and sent off to bed. Unluckily for Anna, by the next morning the story had spread like wildfire throughout the small town. But it wasn’t the story of the car breaking down, or the old man with the gun, or the three and their innocent adventure. Instead it was the story of the young girl and imaginative tales of what she had done late at night with two boys.

Within a week Anna couldn’t venture anywhere without having someone point at her and whisper behind their hand about the incident. Her reputation had long been in question, but there no longer remained any doubt. She was branded a loose woman. The episode made her withdraw even more into a place where her only fantasy was Robert. Her schoolwork began to slide drastically, her depression grew much more severe, and she began to seem very different to her parents than before the incident.

Her mother and father became alarmed. They were aware of the name their daughter was acquiring in the community. They were also worried about Anna’s infatuation with Robert because they were aware that the young man had acquired quite a reputation as a “lady-killer.” From their point of view, he was from the worst part of town, the child of a totally unsuitable family, and not at all the one for their daughter. They worried that Anna’s blossoming figure, her spoiled reputation, and her own infatuation could lead to only one thing when Robert finally noticed her. Seeing no other option, they sent her away to school for a year—to Kentucky with her eldest brother, Mitchell, who had gotten a job as a teacher.

Depressed to the depths of her soul, Anna dutifully followed her parents’ wishes. But as time passed she realized that she was no better off in Kentucky. Before too long she found herself just as hated by the girls and not trusted to be around the boys. To make matters worse, one of Anna’s teachers made it her personal responsibility to discipline this wayward child, causing the girl great misery. Before too long, Anna was experiencing all of the horrors she had back home, but she was even worse off because Robert had remained behind. As her state of mind deteriorated, her teacher saw it as a rebellious spirit and rode Anna mercilessly. The discipline seemed to have no effect on the girl, so by midwinter the teacher managed to have Anna expelled.

It would have been disastrous to return home expelled because it would only confirm her reputation of corruptness in the community. Her parents were heartbroken and couldn’t understand how they had managed to raise such a child. Seeing no other choice, they advised her to remain in Kentucky—being passed among relatives until the school term had ended. No one would ever have to know of her shame at school. It would be safe to come home when the school term was finally over.

The rest of the year went slowly, but eventually she found herself back at her parents’. Even after returning home, however, life never returned to normal. She just had to get away. Without her parents’ knowledge, at the age of seventeen she eloped with Robert. It would become just one more heartbreak in their experience.

From the very start, Anna felt out of place with Robert’s family. Her parents had been right; the families really were from two different worlds. Her only solution was to try to make the best of a difficult situation. More than anything else she wanted children, and she was bound and determined to make the marriage work.

Robert, however, seemed different after they married. He saw himself very much as the center of the universe. To make matters worse, many of Robert’s friends seemed to think as highly of him as he did. It was as if he had an entourage of supporters who fell in line to wait on his every command. He appeared to get much for little, behaving as though the world owed him a living and all he had to do was wait for it. Much of the time Anna felt like an outsider in this widening circle of her husband’s friends. However, each time she reached the depths of her depression, he threw just enough attention her way to keep her secure.

As time went on, her unhappiness about Robert and his family worsened. She experienced much sorrow and ill-health over a tubal pregnancy. Then the bottom fell out of her world when she realized Robert was seeing other women! It wasn’t long before he didn’t even try to keep it a secret. She was shamed.

Anna was totally and undeniably lost. More than anything she felt completely connected to Robert, and yet he could not or would not change. All her life she had only wanted to be a wife and a mother. When her marriage collapsed in divorce, she collapsed as well.

After a brief stay at her parents’, she knew she had to leave the area. The pull Robert had on her was unbelievable. Regardless of what he had done, she couldn’t get him out of her mind. Her mental health sank so low that she moved to New York to live with Vera! They worked out a deal: Anna would pay all the bills and the rent, and Vera would finish school. In return, Anna would have a place to stay and Vera would repay half of the monty to Anna as soon as it was feasible. To lessen their expenses, the two sisters took a third girl as a roommate.

Although Anna tried briefly to get a job as a singer—she had a beautiful voice—she ended up as a waitress. Nightly she would bring home her tips and keep them in a box. After a while, however, she noticed that the money seemed to be disappearing with regularity. To convince herself about what was happening, she began keeping careful track. Before too long she discovered that she was right and even caught the thief in the act. It should have come as quite a surprise to Anna to find that it wasn’t the third roommate taking her money, but her own sister!

The incident was brushed aside. Later, when the two of them were rooming alone and Vera had gotten a job in a different restaurant, they agreed to split all of their earnings fifty-fifty. For a long while, Vera brought home no more than $5.00 per day. The elder girl claimed that $5.00 was the best she could do even on “a good day.” However, eventually Anna had to substitute for a period of time because Vera became ill. The younger woman was shocked to find that even on some of the slowest days she averaged $18.00. It turned out that the elder sister had been pocketing the extra money all along. Vera felt that anything she could take from Anna was her due; it never seemed to bother her conscience.

Finally, Anna met a man she decided to marry. She wasn’t infatuated with him and she didn’t love him—that place still belonged to Robert. However, she wanted a family and felt that she was running out of time; besides, he really seemed to want her.

Vera couldn’t stand to be in the same room with Anna and her fiancé, Alan. Though Vera seemed to like Alan, and she and Anna were getting along as well as could be expected, she refused to be part of a threesome. The situation didn’t improve much after Alan and Anna were married; all that changed was that Vera supported Alan in everything he did and continued to find fault with everything about Anna.

Alan couldn’t find work in New York, so Anna returned home with him, where her father tried to set Alan up with a job. Anna’s desire to be with Robert had not subsided, so she was thankful that his life had taken him in a direction where their paths did not cross. For a time Anna thought everything would turn out for the best, but it soon appeared that she was wrong.

Her marriage became unbearable. She didn’t love her husband and at times resented the fact that they were together. When she was unhappiest, she fantasized that Robert would return and take her away. As miserable as she had been with Robert, she couldn’t get him out of her mind. She only stayed with Alan for the sake of having children; she was nearly thirty years old and running out of time.

One of her darkest moments came when her physical condition indicated another tubal pregnancy. She felt defeated and lost. She was unhappy with Alan and hopelessly connected to Robert. She had been referred to Edgar Cayce by several friends. Prior to visiting Mr. Cayce she had thrown herself to the floor sobbing, wishing to die. It was nearly the end of January 1938, and though she thought her life over, it was about to change dramatically.

In order to verify for herself the authenticity of Mr. Cayce’s clairvoyance, she did not tell him of her problem nor did she mention her previous operation. She merely stated that she needed a physical reading. Although desperate for help, she was quite suspect of this psychic business and had pursued the possibility only at the insistence of one of her friends.

Her doubts were laid to rest, however, when Mr. Cayce, in the midst of the reading while “asleep” on the couch, uttered one sentence: “. . . disturbances with the activities of the pelvic organs, and as in the present there is the false conception that has produced in the tube that is left—there’s one . . .” Because of the tone of the overall reading and its undeniable accuracy, she followed Cayce’s suggestions to the letter, which included a change of diet, internal medications, and massage; within two weeks there was vast improvement and within two months she felt physically normal. No operation was necessary.

In April of that year she had her first life reading, and its information transformed the way she thought about herself, her hardships, and her family. Cayce began the reading by stating, “Yes, we have the records here of that entity now known as or called [Anna Campbell].” (1523-4) Although Anna had never even considered something as foreign to her as reincarnation, the insights she gained from the reading changed her life forever and became as real to her as the present. Anna would later tell Mr. Cayce that having come in contact with him and his family meant “more to me than anything that has ever come into my existence . . .” for the past seemed connected to the present in the most remarkable way. The story which emerged from the Akashic Records contained striking connections to her present-day problems.

A hundred years previously, she had been born as a daughter into the household of a frontier family. Her parents were settlers who tried hard to eke a living from the land. Apparently, at the time, Anna was interested most in herself, not caring for the lifestyle advocated by her nineteenth-century parents. Her reading summed up Anna’s motivation during that period as “What she desired she took; what she wanted she got!”

In an interesting preview of her present, when she was seventeen, an unsuitable drifter convinced her to run away from home as his “companion.” She agreed without hesitation, and the two journeyed westward to an area then known as Fort Dearborn, near present-day Chicago.

Before long, she was befriended by a saloon madam who owned one of the taverns. The woman was a great source of help and inspiration to many of the girls who worked for her. In fact, the elder woman helped many of them get back on the right track when their life seemed darkest. The madam saw their work as a way of giving companionship to lonely men and a means of giving women time to reconsider their lives. On the other hand, Anna saw it as a way of obtaining whatever she wanted. In spite of their different approaches, the madam would become her dearest friend and closest advisor—and her own mother one hundred years in the future. By choice, Anna became an entertainer in the tavern and didn’t hesitate to provide private amusement to the saloon’s clients. In time, she had a child fathered by her drifter-companion, though she insisted on retaining her position as entertainer, waitress, and bar moll.

Except for one of the fort’s guides, few problems seemed to impinge upon her life. The guide, a self-styled minister, was abhorred by the “abominations” that occurred within the tavern. In contrast, he found his life to be rather exemplary. Because of his judgments about the inappropriateness of what was occurring, he found frequent occasion to condemn the tavern’s activities, its entertainers, and even its patrons. This led to frequent confrontations (and fistfights!) between Anna’s drifter-companion and the guide. A number of times the guide had the tar whipped out of him, and the conflict between the two was never really settled: it was no surprise to Anna to find that her drifter-companion would return as her brother, Warren, and the fort’s guide was none other than her pa.

Eventually, Anna’s nineteenth-century counterpart grew tired of her relationship with the drifter and took up with a frontiersman named John Bainbridge. Life remained pretty much the same until Indian attacks on the fort caused Bainbridge and Anna and a group of others to escape. During one attack and the ensuing escape, Anna was forced to abandon her child. Although having no choice in the matter, Anna apparently never gave the child a second thought—it would provide for an interesting turnabout in the next century when all she could think about was children and wonder why she was barren.

Indians pursued the group, at one point surrounding them as they drifted through the slow-moving waters of a river. Becoming very afraid, Anna had a reoccurring thought throughout the episode: “I’ve got to get out of this place. I’ve got to get out of this place!” That same thought would be repeated in her aunt’s house when a scene would call the memory to mind after the fort, the Indians, and the danger had long ceased to exist.

Finally, Anna managed to escape from the Indians; Bainbridge would lose his life saving hers. Eventually, she would end up in Virginia, the place of her “current nativity.” With her arrival in Virginia, she became a new person. Perhaps it was the events of her early life or perhaps it was her desire to start over, but whatever the cause, Anna became known as an “angel” to those in need. She comforted the sick, counseled the wayward, and assisted the poor. Her life touched many and she was held in great esteem for her kindness—no one would know of her bar-moll adventures.

At one point, she nursed back to health a settler who seemed emotionally neglected by his wife. The end result was that he fell in love with her and abandoned his own wife. Anna took to him not so much because she loved him, but because he loved her and no longer would she look out only for herself. Interestingly, though the man’s wife wasn’t interested in him, she didn’t want anyone else to be interested either. She became extremely bitter, mostly toward Anna for stealing something that was “hers.” One hundred years later the bitter wife would become Anna’s sister, Vera, and the man she didn’t really love would return as her second husband, Alan.

Though her nineteenth-century life was not long in duration—she died at forty-eight—it entailed a great many adventures, experiences, and lessons, all of which would have a direct bearing on her next life when she would be born into a frontier family in a very small town in the twentieth century.

The Dearborn experience was not the only lifetime given to Anna by Cayce; however, it was reported as the greatest influence on her current sojourn. She was told of two additional lifetimes recorded upon the records that were having a tremendous influence on her present: one in France and one in Laodicea (part of the Roman Empire). All told, Anna was given six lifetimes that were greatly affecting her present experience: Fort Dearborn, France, Laodicea, Israel, Egypt, and Atlantis. It was France that had set up the situation with her first husband, Robert.

In France they had been lovers, where it was a well-kept secret. Robert had been one of the nobility and Catholic and unable to obtain a divorce. Out of necessity and on infrequent occasions, she had become his mistress. She would spend a lifetime desiring to be with him.

Unfortunately, although being with him was her sole desire, it was not his. Being of the nobility, he had grown to love the pomp and the elegance and the respect that his position provided. He loved walking into a room and watching heads turn to meet his gaze; he loved having an entourage follow after him, waiting on his every word; he loved possessing women who would throw themselves at him, wishing to be a part of his world. All these things would follow him for two hundred years—affording him situations that would seem rather unusual when measured against his twentieth-century status and lack of education.

The reading made it clear that much of Anna’s infatuation with Robert was because she had desired and continued to desire a perfect relationship with him. It also hinted at the fact that this was only a desire and not a real likelihood; yet it was a desire not to be easily overcome.

Her reading stated that she would experience “greater harmony” in her life lasting “until ’40 and ’41, when AGAIN there will be a period of disturbance.” The reading urged her to continue working on her relationship with her current husband, Alan, even stating that it would be possible to conceive a child if they could only work things out. Regardless of the possibility of children, however, there were definite reasons the two of them were together. The reading provided Anna with insights she could work with, though she rarely discussed any of the information with anyone, including members of her own family.

During the 1930s and 1940s, the topic of past lives and reincarnation was not one which often occurred across the breakfast table. On a number of occasions, her family members would go to Mr. Cayce for a physical reading, and they got help. In fact, Vera would eventually be cured of tuberculosis (but she refused to get a life reading), and Mitchell’s firstborn would be saved from a life-threatening illness. Even then only a few seemed open to the specifics of reincarnation, and some weren’t interested at all in hearing about what went on at Mr. Cayce’s home. For Anna, the information was all factual and enabled her to piece together the lives of those closest to her. As brief examples, she learned the following about her parents:

In addition to being the fort’s guide in Dearborn, her father had been a tax collector in Rome and an inspector of military garrisons. This existence had caused him to become rather severe in his dealings with others, and the severity would remain with him nearly 1,900 years later as the father of six children. An interesting out-of-character quality that Anna had always noticed in her father was his ability to pick out clothing and fine cloth; it amazed her that he could buy a dress or a coat for her, or her sister, or her mother that was perfect. According to the Akashic Records, he had been a merchant of fine material in Persia. In Egypt, he was known for his fine workmanship in the construction of homes—as he would be centuries later in Virginia. Connected with members of his family throughout time, he had known his wife in Dearborn, Palestine, and Egypt, and Anna in Dearborn, Egypt, and Persia. Recognizing that he was often judgmental and severe, the records also stated that he was a great leader and motivator of people, as well as talented in workmanship. The advice given him by the reading was that he should begin practicing the devout and spiritual life he had so frequently preached.

As the kindly madam in the Dearborn experience, Anna’s mother had been associated, one way or another, with all of her children. Her ability to always know what to say or to prepare individuals for a new life—an ability that had been most evidenced in Dearborn—had been cultivated in ancient Egypt. Apparently it had been her duty as a teacher to help prepare emissaries and teachers to other lands. Interestingly enough, she had been a teacher before her marriage to Anna’s father this time around. Her most influential life had been one in Palestine—several of her current children had also been her children then. In that life she had also experienced a healing from Jesus Himself! From that same time period she had developed her hatred of Catholics: she had been a member of the apostle Peter’s household and had known the apostle Paul. Firsthand, she had witnessed how the message of this Man, Jesus, had been nearly lost by the Church’s early contention between these two—the 2,000-year-old frustration was still carried within her heart. The reading stated that in addition to her other talents, she was adept at healing and at growing plants—a flower business would appear in 1941, after her children had been raised.

It’s worth noting the different karmic effect that the bar-moll occupation had on both Anna and her mother, because it’s apparently not the deed of prostitution that created karma for Anna but the reasons behind it. As a dance-hall girl, Anna felt she could get anything she wanted personally; on the other hand, Anna’s mother saw her occupation as a means of helping others. A hundred years later the effect was that Anna’s mother retained her ability to help others, whereas Anna was still labeled a loose woman. From Cayce’s perspective, it wasn’t the deed