An organization founded by the late Edgar Cayce (1877-1945) in 1931. Cayce, one of the outstanding psychics of the twentieth century, gave readings almost daily during his mature years on subjects ranging from diagnosis of illness to astrology, reflections on future earth changes, and the nature of the afterlife. Known as "the sleeping prophet," he gave many thousands of readings to clients who consulted him. He spoke in a rapidly induced trance condition resembling normal sleep, and his statements were taken down by a stenographer.
Cayce moved to Virginia Beach in the 1920s. With the backing of Morton Blumenthal, a wealthy businessman, Cayce hoped to develop a hospital and university. The former opened in 1928 and the latter in 1930, but both failed along with Blumenthal's business enterprises in 1931. With the readings as the basic means of support, Cayce and his close associates founded two organizations: the Association for Research and Enlightenment, (ARE), a public fellowship of Cayce's clients and followers; and the Edgar Cayce Foundation, a private corporation to hold the Cayce papers (especially the transcripts of the readings) and the property.
After Cayce's death in 1945, his son Hugh Lynn Cayce became head of the ARE. Personnel began the process of sorting, indexing, and studying the approximately 14,000 transcripts of the Cayce readings. Hugh Lynn began an aggressive program of building the association, but not until the late 1960s, when Jess Stern's biography of Cayce, The Sleeping Prophet (1967), became a best-seller, did the ARE begin to grow appreciably. In the wake of The Sleeping Prophet 's success, Hugh Lynn contracted with Paperback Library to do a series of books based on the readings. These became highly successful and made the ARE one of the largest and most stable associations in the psychic community.
The ARE sponsors lectures, symposia, psychic research, prayer and meditation workshops, a summer camp, and Search for God study groups. It maintains a therapy department and a 60,000-volume library on metaphysics, psychic phenomena, and related subjects. The Edgar Cayce Foundation has custody of the readings and conducts a continuous program of indexing, extracting, microfilming, and otherwise organizing the material in the data files, which are open to the public in print form and on CD-ROM disc. The ARE has sponsored a host of books and booklets on the Cayce materials, some published by the foundation and some by commercial publishers. Several periodicals are produced, including Venture Inward, The New Millennium, and Chrysalis Rising, a quarterly newsletter for its Search For God group members.
The association, which seeks to give physical, mental, and spiritual help through investigation of the Cayce readings, runs a Health Services Department offering massages, steams, etc., closely tied to its Cayce/Reilly School of Massotherapy and a Health Research and Rejuvenation Center, involved in applying the health readings and information to many different disease conditions. The association also maintains an affiliation with Atlantic University, which offers a master's degree program in Transpersonal Studies.
Currently headed by Edgar Cayce's grandson, Charles Thomas Cayce, the ARE may be contacted at 215 67th St., Virginia Beach, Virginia 23451-2061. Website: http://www.arecayce.com.
Sources:
Bolton, Brett, ed. Edgar Cayce Speaks. New York: Avon, 1969.
Bro, Harmon Hartzell. A Seer Out of Season: The Life of Edgar Cayce. New York: New American Library, 1989.
Cayce, Hugh Lynn, ed. The Edgar Cayce Reader. 2 vols. New York: Paperback Library, 1969.
Puryear, Herbert B. The Edgar Cayce Primer. New York: Bantam Books, 1982.
Smith, Robert A. Hugh Lynn Cayce: About My Father's Business. Norfolk, Va.: Donning, 1988.
