Edgar Cayce

Edgar Cayce (March 18, 1877 – January 3, 1945) was an American psychic, healer, and spiritual teacher who spent the final two decades of his life in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Born in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, Cayce became one of the most documented psychics in American history, conducting thousands of trance-based "readings" that addressed topics ranging from medical diagnosis and dream interpretation to ancient history and spiritual philosophy. The final chapter of his life was spent in Virginia Beach, Virginia, where he oversaw an institute of his own creation. His influence on the city endures to this day through the international headquarters of the Association for Research and Enlightenment (A.R.E.), which he founded in Virginia Beach in 1931, and through the physical landmarks and institutions that bear his name along the oceanfront.

Arrival in Virginia Beach

In September 1925, Cayce moved his family and residence to Virginia Beach, where he and financier Morton Blumenthal in May 1927 jointly established the Association of National Investigators, Incorporated, a company organized to promote psychic and scientific research, with Blumenthal as president and Cayce as secretary-treasurer. Morton Blumenthal, who worked at the New York Stock Exchange with his trader brother, became interested in the readings, shared Cayce's outlook, and offered to finance his vision; Blumenthal bought the Cayces a house in Virginia Beach.

Cayce's relocation to Virginia Beach was not merely practical. The reason his headquarters came to be located in Virginia Beach is tied to his own prophecy that it is the safest place to be when the continents change shape. This belief, drawn from Cayce's own trance readings, made the coastal city uniquely meaningful to him and his followers.

During much of his residency in Virginia Beach, Cayce was a member of the Presbyterian Church, in which he taught Sunday school for many years, but his trance readings conveyed a synthesis of Theosophy, New Thought, and Protestant theology. In August 1928, Edgar Cayce was listed as a Bible class teacher affiliated with the local Presbyterian church. This combination of conventional religious practice with heterodox psychic work defined Cayce's public persona in Virginia Beach throughout his residency.

The Cayce Hospital and Early Institutions

Shortly after his arrival, Cayce moved quickly to establish physical institutions in Virginia Beach. In February 1929, Cayce and Blumenthal opened the Cayce Hospital to provide medical care for patients under the direction of Cayce's psychic readings. Opened in 1928 as the Cayce Hospital of Enlightenment, the building today is home to the A.R.E. Health Center & Spa and is listed on the City of Virginia Beach Historic Register. This makes the original hospital building one of the oldest surviving structures on the Virginia Beach oceanfront.

The Association of National Investigators chartered Atlantic University in May 1930, with William Moseley Brown, a former professor of education and psychology at Washington and Lee University and Republican candidate for governor, as first president. However, the ambitious institution-building of these early years met serious resistance. The association also launched a magazine, The New To-Morrow, but the Great Depression and conflicts among Cayce's financial supporters led in 1931 to the closing of the Cayce Hospital.

Founding of the A.R.E.

The closure of the hospital and the collapse of several early ventures did not end Cayce's work in Virginia Beach. Instead, they led to a reorganization of his efforts under a new banner. On June 6, 1931, 61 people attended a meeting to carry on Cayce's work and form the Association for Research and Enlightenment (A.R.E.). Founded by Edgar Cayce in 1931 with the purpose of helping people to transform their lives for the better, A.R.E.'s mission is to create opportunities for profound personal change in body, mind, and spirit through the wisdom found in the Edgar Cayce material.

The ANI had emphasized major institution-building projects such as the original Atlantic University and the Cayce Hospital for Research and Enlightenment, a hospital staffed with medical personnel who used Cayce-recommended treatments. The name of the hospital would later inspire the name "Association for Research and Enlightenment."

Prior to Cayce's death in 1945, people seeking a reading from Cayce were asked to join the A.R.E. This helped insulate Cayce from charges of fortune-telling, which was illegal in some U.S. states, as he was not directly charging a fee for his services but receiving a salary from the member-supported A.R.E.

The Readings and Their Subjects

The core of Cayce's legacy is the body of work known as the "readings" — transcribed dictations made while Cayce entered a self-induced trance state. Cayce's psychic talent manifested itself when he found he could enter into an altered state of consciousness and answer questions on any topic. His answers, or "discourses," now called "readings," number some 14,305.

The majority of Edgar Cayce's readings deal with holistic health and the treatment of illness. Although medical readings retained primacy, many seekers obtained readings for dream interpretation, personal guidance, prophecy, and past-life information. The last included elaborate details about Atlantis, ancient Egypt, and early Christianity. Late in the twentieth century, some of those readings became important foundation texts in the New Age movement.

The Education Center vault houses original copies of the readings, correspondence, papers, manuscripts, historical photos, and many unique artifacts of the Edgar Cayce legacy. These primary documents remain in Virginia Beach to this day, making the city an important archive for researchers of American metaphysical and alternative health history.

Cayce attained further national prominence in 1943 after the publication of "Miracle Man of Virginia Beach" in Coronet magazine. The article introduced Cayce and his Virginia Beach operation to a mass national audience. Despite being warned by the readings themselves that he could undertake no more than five readings each day without serious risk to his health, Cayce yielded to public demand, exacerbated by wartime worries, and in 1943 increased his workload dramatically. From June 1943 to June 1944, Cayce conducted 1,385 readings.

Later Life and Death

The strain of this overwork took a decisive toll on Cayce's health. Suffering from poor health, he recuperated in Roanoke, where he suffered a stroke in September 1944. Edgar Cayce returned to Virginia Beach in November and died on January 3, 1945, less than three months before his wife died of cancer. Cayce was buried in Riverside Cemetery in Hopkinsville, Kentucky.

His sons Hugh Lynn Cayce, who became president of the A.R.E., and Edgar Evans Cayce, together with other staff members, ensured that the association survived and thrived. Its worldwide membership stood at about 30,000 by the end of the twentieth century, when New Age thinking increased interest in the psychic phenomena that made Cayce nationally famous during his lifetime and even more famous and influential thereafter.

The A.R.E. Campus Today

Virginia Beach remains the international headquarters of the A.R.E., and the campus on 67th Street at the oceanfront stands as a living monument to Cayce's work. Each year, the A.R.E. Headquarters in Virginia Beach attracts more than 100,000 individuals from around the world — vacationers, scholars, researchers, philosophers, health care professionals, and students of all kinds — who come to investigate the information that Edgar Cayce brought forth in his psychic "readings" and discover how that material may be used today.

The A.R.E. Visitor Center houses the bookstore and gift shop, a world-class library, and a meditation room with ocean views. The campus is also home to The Edgar Cayce Foundation, Atlantic University, the Cayce/Reilly School of Massage, and A.R.E. Press.

Open to the public, the library is one of the world's largest metaphysical resources, housing more than 85,000 volumes. One-hour guided tours of the organization's international headquarters — which include a stone labyrinth, a Japanese-style meditation garden, and a reflexology walk — are available.

The Education Center houses the Edgar Cayce Foundation, home of the historical archives of A.R.E. and of Edgar Cayce's life. Its vault contains original copies of the readings, correspondence, papers, manuscripts, historical photos, and many unique artifacts of the Edgar Cayce legacy.

Edgar Cayce's A.R.E. also maintains an affiliation with Atlantic University, which offers continuing education classes and Master of Arts programs in Transpersonal Psychology and Leadership Studies.

The Meditation Room on the third floor of the visitor center offers a spectacular view of the ocean and is painted with colors chosen because Cayce's readings suggested they can help attain higher consciousness. The campus also supports the Cayce/Reilly School of Massage, recognized as one of the oldest and best-regarded massage therapy schools in the world.

The A.R.E.'s headquarters is in Virginia Beach, Virginia, and there are reportedly Edgar Cayce Centers in 37 countries. The presence of this global organization, founded by a man who spent his last twenty years in Virginia Beach, remains one of the city's most distinctive cultural and historical identities.