Edgar Cayce

Things Befitting the Gospel, No. 3 - PH28-01

Advanced Bible Doctrine - Philippians 1:27

The problem with such communications is to determine the source. Do they come from God on the other side, or do they come from Satan on the other side? Both God and Satan can produce material miracles such as healings. There is the question of where the miraculous things that may take place in our day come from. Does it come from God, or does it come from Satan? Both God and Satan can predict the future. This again raises the question of source. As future events are predicted, how do we know they come from God, or is this information from Satan? Both God and Satan can produce good through people. However, the problem is divine good vs. human good. Again, the question is to distinguish which is which. Any communications which we have from God are always the truth.

However, communications that come from Satan usually have only truth to the extent that we know that a certain thing is true, and then Satan mixes in his lies at strategic points in order to achieve his ends. Therefore, he proceeds, consequently, to perform vast amounts of human good. With this human good, he wins hearings. For example, through the supernatural expressions of miracles that he performs, Satan will win a hearing. Through prophetic declarations and through revealing things that people could not know humanly, he will win a hearing. Then, at the point of some spiritual truth, Satan will lie. He mixes what we know to be true with his own lies concerning God and concerning our relationship to him, and he creates religion. He creates the idea of salvation by human effort and by self-improvement.

For this reason, God has given to us the written Bible as the frame of reference for us to compare all that we receive. That way, we will know when we are hearing truth in spiritual matters. Then when we do come up against the supernatural, we will know that this is supernatural from God and not supernatural from Satan. We know that God no longer speaks to people today through visions; through dreams; or, through voices. This man that we have been looking into, Edgar Cayce, made a great deal of the fact that dreams are an expression of the subconscious, and that dreams are a basic way of communicating with the universal mind and receiving truth through a supernatural means--through that universal mind out there that we call God.

Dreams

That man said, "I went home that night, and I thought about that dream. He concluded that God was revealing something to him about that girl. God was revealing that this girl was materialistic. If he married this girl, she would put all kinds of pressures upon him for material things, and to earn money to buy things for her." He said that he concluded that this was, in effect, a message from God, and he never dated her again. He said, "Sure enough, she married somebody else. She's a materialist, and she hounds her husband to death for material things."

Here's what the problem is with that. Some of you have dreams, and you say, "Well, my dreams always tell this to me. My dreams always happen the way they are. They always happen the opposite." You get some attitude about how dreams speak to you. Satan comes along and gives you a dream. As long as you want to communicate through dreams, he'll oblige you. He will give you dreams, and he will give you directions upon which you will act. Knowing that you act according to certain reactions to dreams, he will give you certain kinds of dreams to give you certain reactions so that he can communicate his message to you.

God does not communicate through dreams. God communicates through the Word of God, and through the leading of the Holy Spirit upon your thinking, and the convictions which He brings to your thinking. But he does not lead through visions; through dreams; or, through voices that you hear today. So anything that comes along that contradicts Bible doctrine is not truth, no matter how supernatural it is; how seemingly good it is; or, how seemingly desirable it is. That's the problem that we are confronted with and that we have been looking at here out of our jumping off point from the book of Philippians, where the apostle Paul preferred to stay alive in order to deliver more doctrine to the people of God, and where he declared to them that this was the most important thing in all their lives. Their conduct, whether he was there or not, should be guided entirely by a certain unity in their souls and a unity in their spirits which could only be achieved through a unity in sound doctrine.

Edgar Cayce

Cayce assumed that his information was from God because the information did good. He assumed that any information that came from Satan would only produce evil. Cayce, in spite of his sincere seeking of God, fell into the worst of all spiritual delusions because he permitted his so-called "readings" to override that which was declared in the Word of God. He was a Bible reader and a Bible teacher and sympathetic with the Bible. The way he justified overriding the plain statements of Scripture was that the Scripture had deeper meaning that we did not understand, but his spirit contacts gave him information and revelation on.

Therefore, today, vast numbers of people are being led astray to Edgar Cayce; from true salvation; and, into contact with demon spirits. This is being done in variant ways in such religious movements as the charismatic movement today. They are also practicing white magic. They are also overriding the declarations and the doctrinal statements of Scripture (relative to things like tongues and healing), and superimposing deeper meanings upon what the Word of God says.

The problem with what Edgar Cayce did was that he was so right. The judgment was often expressed that if this man is so right in things that we can confirm; that we can examine; and, that we can check out and see that he's right about them, how is it that he should be wrong on anything else? One lady whose life pattern he had predicted when she was but a child of two or three years of age made this statement: "Cayce was so right about my health, so why would he be right about one thing and not the other, since it was all from the same unknown source?" That attitude and that idea is often repeated. Everything he receives comes from the same source. We have seen many many times that the things that he has brought us from that source have been the truth.

Reincarnation

It should really more properly be called "metensomatosis." This word means changing bodies. In any case, reincarnation is a division of a greater idea called transmigration. Transmigration is a little broader. It means that you as a person can die, and you will come back to life maybe as a bug; as a plant; or, as an animal. But reincarnation generally limits the idea like this: You die; your soul moves out; it waits until a baby is about to be born; hovers over that child; then moves into the body of that baby; and, you come back to life in another human body.

The reason for this concept is that man has a natural compulsion to explain the state of the dead as something other than non-existence. It is a horrifying concept to the average person to think of dying and going into non-existence. Therefore, people from ancient times, who have not had access to the revelation of God, have sat down and thought through some idea that would explain something that happens to their souls out there, so that they do not just disappear into non-existence. Therefore, the idea of reincarnation was devised. Recurring births of the soul in different bodies provide a belief for conscious continuance of the soul after death.

This is a human viewpoint concept. It is from Satan. The purpose of reincarnation is for expiation of sins. The idea is that you are born into a certain context of life which will enable you to do proper penance to remove sinful qualities that you have in your being. Ultimately, if you go through enough reincarnations; you go through enough bodies; and, you go through enough life experiences, you will have purged out all these evil things out of your system, and then you will be ready to merge back with the all universal mind called God. The other appealing thing about the idea of reincarnation was that it was an explanation for human suffering. Why do people suffer? Why do terrible things happen to people? Why is a baby born blind? Well, the person who believes in reincarnation says, "Well, that's easy. In another life, that person used his eyes in a particularly evil way. Now he's paying for that." The whole idea of reincarnation is that by your own self-purging, you are able to restore yourself to a relationship with God.

The extent of the concept was very widespread. We find it historically recorded among primitive tribes and primitive religions. It's usually found in ancient Asian religions and philosophies. For example, the Greek mystery cults had the idea of reincarnation. It was taught by such great men (philosophers and mathematicians) as Pythagoras and Empedocles, both of whom promoted the idea of reincarnation. The ancient Persian prophet Mani came up with a religious system called Manichaeism in the third century A.D. He taught the idea of reincarnation.

In the second and third centuries of the Christian era, there came to prominence a particularly devastating cult known as Gnosticism. This was a dualistic system. The idea was that there is a great source of evil and a great source of good. The gnostics viewed all matter as evil, and spirit as good. So, the idea of the gnostics was to eventually come into enough reincarnations that the soul could detach itself from all material things in the body, and return to the universal soul of God. The soul is saved by sacred knowledge. It accomplishes this detachment by sacred knowledge which comes from the Greek word "gnosis." The whole point is finally to return to where there is no desire, and thus one has become like God. Gnosticism was a heretical cult that had arisen in Christianity. Some of the books of the Bible were written in order to counter the devastating heresy of Gnosticism.

Also, in Western Europe, the idea of reincarnation was found among the Druids, particularly in their stories of the rebirth of Heroes. Plato, the Greek philosopher in the 5th century B.C., taught that the soul was immortal, and that it experienced frequent reincarnations.

Karma

So, you go through one life. In that life, you build up a karma. You build up merits and demerits. You have built up duties that you have fulfilled and duties that you have not fulfilled. When you get to the next life, the duties that have been fulfilled and the merits bless you. That which you have built up of an evil way brings cursing upon you and punishment in that next life. So, the whole point of reincarnation was eventually to bring to an end all of your indebtedness (or your karma) to fulfill all the demands upon you and all of your duties. Ultimately, your soul would then be released from rebirths, and would enter a place called Nirvana, which means "the place of no desire." It is the Hindu conception of God. It is the state where desire is completely removed.

From India came several religions, all of which have reincarnation as a major concept. These are Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, and Sikhism. These souls are freed from the wheel of rebirth ultimately by fulfilling the karma. One of the early influential leaders of the church was a proponent of rebirth. Guess who it would be. It was the person who was responsible for destroying the literal interpretation of Scripture. It was this man Origen, that we have spoken to you of before, who destroyed the early New Testament concept of literal interpretation, and he came up with an allegorical interpretation. It would be very natural that he who destroyed literal interpretation would come up with an idea that the Bible in no way justifies. But Origen also was one who subscribed to the idea of reincarnation.

There was a Jewish group called the Kabbalah, and the Kabbalah also attributed suffering to sins done in a previous life, and punishment was directed even to the very parts of the body used in the performance of the evil. The Kabbalah held that a person kept coming back to life until he had fulfilled all of the 613 commandments of the Mosaic Law. When he had fulfilled those 613 commandments, off he went, released from material things, and off he went into the unity of spirit--the one great spirit of deity of God.

Here's the error of this concept. We're not going to get into this too deeply, but I have just a few ideas to suggest this to you. The reason I want to present this idea of reincarnation first is because this was the big turning point with Cayce. When he started taking readings concerning spiritual things, one of the first things that came up was this idea of reincarnation. This then became the source of everything else that he taught, and that people who become associated with the idea of reincarnation also then become associated with contact with the spirit world. All of this was from a person who was a Sunday school teacher and a so-called Bible believer.

The error of this concept is that Bible doctrine declares to us that it is appointed unto a person once to die physically, and then to face the judgment. You have this in Hebrews 9:27. You are to die once physically, and then you face the music. That's what the Bible says. It does not say that you die once, and then you get another chance to swing around and try it again. It is appointed unto man once to die, and then the judgment. Bible doctrine says that a person who dies physically will be raised in that same body. It does not say that you will be raised in one of a series of bodies that you have used. The Bible says that the resurrection is like this:

Here is a farmer. He puts a seed into the ground. Out of this seed rises a plant. That plant is directly related to that seed. This seed produces this plant. There are other seeds, but this plant is not related to the other seeds. It is related to the seed that was planted that produced that flower. This is the same thing in the human realm. The Word of God says that the body that is put in the grave is the body that's like the flower that rises back to life. It is the same relationship as between the seed and the flower. The body which is sown in death is the body which is raised in resurrection. You may read about this in 1 Corinthians 15:35-58. You are raised in a glorified body for a perfect spiritual life, but it is that same body which was buried which is again raised--one to a customer, not one of several bodies.

The rapture involves the return of the believer's soul and spirit to the one body which he left in the grave. 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 indicates that the body that is left in the grave is the body that the soul and spirit returns to--not one body of a series that you left in the grave. In fact, Revelation 20:11-15 tell us that even unbelievers are raised from the dead in the one body which they left in the grave. The Lord Jesus Christ, we're told, is the first fruits of the resurrection. He was in a physical body. He was in the physical body that was buried in that tomb. That was the body which was raised. It was glorified and immortal now, free of ever being able to die again. That's how our bodies will be, but they will be the same bodies that we have now. The Lord actually was a real physical human being. Luke 24:33-43 shows us that he was raised in a body that they could touch and feel, and He could eat. As He says in this passage, when they thought he was a ghost, "Come on and touch me. A ghost doesn't have flesh and bones, and you can see that I am a true physical person."

Bible doctrine tells us that we will be raised in the same body. That very body that you have this day is the body which, when it's put in the grave, is the body in which you will be raised. So reincarnation is contradicted by that revelation. Furthermore, reincarnation is contradicted by the fact that God says in the Word of God that salvation is by grace as a gift, and it cannot be secured by any human effort (Ephesians 2:8-9). So reincarnation says that a man is saved by a series of efforts that he goes through by which he purges himself. The idea is this: If you believe in reincarnation, then you will take a look at yourself now and you will say, "Well, look. In the next life, I want things to be better for me. I want to step up the ladder. I don't want to be going down." Therefore, it will drive you to be moral.

Do you see how clever this is? What does Satan want? Satan wants a moral world. What does Satan want? He wants to be like God. He wants a world where people are behaving themselves. He wants to try to bring a millennium without God. Here is a concept that lends itself to that. If you believe in reincarnation, and you know that if you're going to act like the devil now, and you're going to pay like the devil in the next life, it's going to cause you to think through a little bit and say, "Wait a minute. Do I want to do that? Maybe I don't want to play the game that way." You have a motivation for moral conduct. But the Word of God says it is the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ on the cross that is the provision for our salvation. John 3:6 says that nothing born of the flesh can achieve eternal life. Anything born of the flesh can only achieve flesh life. It takes something that is born of God the Holy Spirit to achieve spiritual life. Therefore, what you are in your flesh life can never achieve a spiritual regeneration. Bible doctrine denies the implications and the hopes of reincarnation.

Bible doctrine also declares that Jesus Christ is a God man--not a human who has achieved Nirvana to be our example. The reincarnation folks say that Jesus Christ is the example of a person who has gone through the cycles of rebirth, and finally He broke loose from material things. He finally fulfilled all moral righteousness, and He has achieved relationship with God, and that's why he's called the God man. That is not so. Jesus Christ, Philippians 2:6-8 tell us, was human but He was also God, and He is not someone who has achieved this as a sinner through a process of reincarnating Himself.

Also, Bible doctrine does not attribute all of human suffering to sin. That's what reincarnation says. All human suffering is because of sin. That is not so. John 9:2-3 is the story of the man born blind. Edgar Cayce used to point to this verse and say, "The Bible does teach reincarnation. Here were these Jews. What did they do? They came to Jesus and they asked Jesus a question about this man who was born blind. They said, "Lord why was this man born blind? Because he sinned, or because his parents sinned?" There was never any question in their minds that the man was born blind as a punishment for sin. They assumed that that was the reason.

There was a certain mentality among the Jews, in spite of what the book of Job reveals, that they assumed suffering was always the result of sin. Jesus just dismissed the whole thing and he said, "Neither. This man was born blind so that God could be glorified in what He is going to perform in the way of a miracle upon him." What they fully meant is, of course, the question that we don't have answered. They may have been implying, "Did this child sin while he was in his mother's womb so that he was born blind?" We don't have any implication that they were suggesting that, though if they were Kabbalah, they may have been suggesting even that because the Kabbalah did believe in reincarnation. They may have been suggesting, "Was he born blind in a previous life?" But whatever their ignorance was suggesting does not mean that this is what the Lord was teaching. What Jesus Christ pointed out was that sin was not the issue in this situation. The suffering is not because of sin. When the Scripture speaks about being born again, it does not refer to reincarnation on earth in a different body, but to a spiritual rebirth with a living human spirit.

So, let's go and inquire, and here's where things get scary--when we start reading what the spirits revealed to Edgar Cayce, and what they actually said to him. At this point, you are now confronted with the fact that a good man did many good things, and sought to do good things, and yet, he was bringing forth from within himself information which was contrary to the Word of God. Was he giving added information? Was he expanding our knowledge of what God thinks?

Just as a background, I need to show you something else here and that is that, as you read through what the spirits revealed to Edgar Cayce, he connected Christianity to the ancient pagan religions and philosophies which are doctrines of demons. This concept was not unusual, even among Christian writers--from a man like St. Augustine, for example. Augustine was the great high point between Paul and Luther in church history. Augustine carried the idea that all the philosophers and all the pagan religions had truth in them, but it was not truth that was properly crystallized. It was Christianity in an incubating form that had not developed in its fullness of expression.

So at one time, Augustine said, "That which is called the Christian religion existed among the ancients, and never did not exist from the beginning of the human race until Christ came in the flesh, at which time, the true religion which already existed began to be called Christianity." What he is saying there is that these concepts which are identical to the things that Cayce had revealed to him through the spirits--these concepts, which are found in the ancient pagan religions, are really the truth about God, and that Christianity simply clarified those truths.

The idea is that Christianity has certain outward forms such as the Bible, but these outward forms hide much wisdom and truth. In other words, you can't just learn what God thinks from the Bible. They would quote Jesus and the apostle Paul when both of them indicated that, on certain occasions, they could not tell something; they could not explain something; or, they could not reveal something because the people to whom they were speaking were so carnal that they could not receive it. Cayce said, "There was Jesus pointing out the fact that there were certain things that were secret wisdom which could not be revealed. There is the apostle Paul showing that there were secret things--mysteries which could not be revealed."

These are the revelations that Satan makes through one way or another (one of them being through Cayce), in order to bring forth the lost truths of Christianity. These lost truths and inner meanings are only known to a few people, but they enable Satan to appear as an angel of light. He isn't fighting the Bible. He is supposedly promoting knowledge of God in its fullest meaning. In this way, Satan is able to destroy souls and to bring destructive effects upon people under the guise of giving them the truth and doing good.

Theosophy

Theosophy comes from the Greek words "theos" and "sophia," and it means divine wisdom. Theosophy claims to be a revival of what is called "The Ancient Wisdom" which lies behind all religions alike. It is a wisdom which gives access to the mysteries of nature and to man's deeper being. It is defined as an all-inclusive synthesis of truth as it deals with God; the universe; man; and, their relations to each other. Here are three statements of beliefs that are held by theosophy today:

Beliefs of Theosophy

1. "The next matter impressed on the student is the denial of a personal God, and hence as Madame Blavatsky has pointed out, agnostics and atheists more easily assimilate theosophic teachings than do believers in orthodox creeds."
   
   
2. "We believe neither in vicarious atonement nor in the possibility of the remission of the smallest sin by any god, not even by a personal absolute or infinite, if such a thing could have existence."
   
   
3. "The historic Christ then is a glorious being belonging to the great spiritual hierarchy that guides the spiritual evolution of humanity, who used for some three years, the human body of the disciple Jesus."

Madame Blavatsky

You notice that we have a woman leading in spiritual things which the Bible condemns. The Bible tells us who are to be leaders in spiritual things; that is, to be instructors of a mixed company of a group of men and women together in a public service). Women are not to be teachers; they are not to be preachers; they are not to conduct meetings; and, they are not to conduct public rallies. All of that is contrary to the Word of God. Paul very very specifically declares the silence of women as those who are in subjection to their husbands and to the leadership of men in spiritual things. This is because Adam was held responsible for sin. Even though he didn't invent the sin, it was his fault, and not his wife's fault. He should have been the leader. The whole thing that ties together God's order in His world constantly condemns a woman being in leadership in spiritual things. Any time a woman is a leader, you know it's wrong. No matter whatever else is said, or whatever else good is coming out, any movement that has women preachers is wrong. This is happening in the big denominations now. But that is out of line. It is contrary to the Word of God.

Anyhow, Mrs. Blavatsky was the founder of modern theosophy. Madame Blavatsky was a spiritual mystic medium. She was born in Russia, and on a visit to Tibet, she learned the secret of the Mahatmas. Jesus Christ is described in theosophy as being a Mahatma. That is, he is One who has achieved to the ancient knowledge--the secret knowledge. He has gone beyond the Bible through his stages of development. She founded The Theosophical Society in 1875. The international headquarters is in India, and the national headquarters is in Wheaton, Illinois. If you ever are in Wheaton, Illinois, you can go to The Theosophical Society. They have all kinds of literature, and it is a very interesting place to visit.

Madame Blavatsky presented her ancient mysteries in two books. One was called Isis Unveiled," and the other one was called The Secret Doctrine. She taught that there is a deeper spiritual reality which man can directly contact through intuition, meditation, revelation, or other states transcending normal consciousness, which is the way Cayce did. He contacted this deeper spiritual reality by overriding his normal consciousness. She taught that there is a hidden meaning to Scripture which must be deciphered. This hidden meaning, of course, is where the doctrine of demons is able to come in. She taught the development of higher psychic and spiritual powers. Theosophy is very big on the occult. Theosophy is very much interested in the occult world. She taught that all reality was made up of one principle such as mind or spirit. In other words, she taught that man and God are the same thing.

A Summary of Theosophy

So, here's what the The Theosophical Society says: "The Bible is a valid part of this ancient wisdom. If we treat it as such, and do not attempt to shield it as a volume separate and distinct from all else, then we shall not be afraid to direct upon its pages the same keen searchlight of criticism that we use in other fields of research. Only as we cease to invest it with sacrosanct authority will it yield to us a truly scientific and philosophical religion free from the superstition that results from literal interpretation. If Christianity would take its stand on the inner truths instead of relying on outward form and temporary expression (that's what we call Bible doctrine), the gain would be immeasurable. Many seekers today are saying, like Mary Magdalene, 'They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid Him.' To such, theosophy points to the risen Christ, to that eternal logos which lights every man that comes into the world (John 1:9). That Christ can never succumb to any human attempt to obliterate Him. To point to that true light is in no way to belittle the superlative character of Jesus of Nazareth."

I want you to notice how much is being made of the Bible and of Christ by the demon spirit world.

"All of the divinity that could be expressed in one human figure is perfectly expressed in Him who was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin (Hebrews 4:15), and whom, as such, we love and call 'Master.'

"Nevertheless we cannot be mindful of the fact that it is not so much upon a character who once lived that we center all our hopes and desires, but on the Christ who dwells in our hearts today. That is the teaching of the Theo Sophia of all ages, before the official representatives of Christianity limited divine manifestation to one character alone in all history."

Did you get that? We had all this ancient wisdom until the early leaders of Christianity limited all information about God as coming through Christ, as the book of Hebrews says it does. You will find that the spirit world said the same thing to Edgar Cayce.

"To grow into the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ (Ephesians 4:13), that is true salvation. That is heaven. (Of course, they say the way you do that is through your efforts.) However, man as we know him is still imperfect, and only half-way up the ladder of evolution, seeing through a glass darkly, he does not know himself as he is known by his true and higher self. To those who would, however, it is possible to step from the outer to the inner world. Those who thus aspire no longer rely on the historical events of one given period, for such are but aspects of the eternal verities. The revelation cannot be limited even to the perfect figure of Jesus of Nazareth. Unfortunately, the church has been less wise than the great saints and mystics, and has made all its dogmas rest in the Person of the historic Christ.

"So, those who take their stands on the eternal verities on the hidden aspect of Christianity are like the man in the parable who built his house upon a rock (Matthew 7:24). They can view without alarm the shifting sands of criticism and doubt that arise in each new age. Storms may come, and winds may blow, but the house stands, for its occupants are no longer in bondage to the letter of the law. They hold to those hidden spiritual bases of which eternal facts are but the sign and symbol. In possession of the Theo Sophia, of the divine wisdom, they know the truth that makes men free."

That's a pretty good summary of the idea that the spirit world has something to deliver that is beyond the Word of God. This is supposedly contained in all the ancient religions. Man has been in possession of this but Christianity crystallized it. However, the fullness of the revelation of the Scripture is not known without the additional information that has come to us through the mystery cults, and through mystery religions, and particularly here as is expressed through the readings of Edgar Cayce.

Dr. John E. Danish, 1973

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