Reading 254-25

TEXT OF READING 254-25

Text

Date: 8/20/1925 Sex: M ReadingID: 1163

This psychic reading given by Edgar Cayce at Southland Hotel, Norfolk, Virginia, this 20th day of August, 1925, in accordance with request made by self - Edgar Cayce.

[Edgar Cayce; [900], Conductor; Hugh Lynn Cayce, Steno. Mr. W. L. Jones.]

Time of Reading Southland Hotel, 8:30 A. M. Norfolk, Virginia.

1. [900]: Conditions surrounding Virginia Beach, in relation to the attempted establishment of the work, [900]‘s relation to the work, what his interest should be towards same. Definite location of Plot 42. Conditions surrounding family and Virginia Beach.

2. EC: As was and is, that in Plot 42 on the way from Virginia Beach to North Virginia Beach. This is the place where the institution work should be established. It’s just off of Seventeenth Street in Plot 42. Place of residence should be in North Virginia Beach, or Sea Pines. All conditions must be met for the good of the work. Choose the most acceptable place at present, for there will be many changes before being permanently established. The home and office will at present be located together. The establishment of the Institute will come about within three years. In the first year the lands necessary will be acquired, in the second year the foundations will be laid, the Institute will be complete by the end of the third year, Plot 42, just off Seventeenth Street.

3. Then for the best works, find the most acceptable place, do the best under the present conditions.

4. (Q) Give any information that will assist in becoming established at Virginia Beach. (A) First, locate the residence, getting in place as given. Then will come the means necessary for making the proper location. The Forces will provide same - indirectly. [See 254-25, Par. R12, 1/17/78, HLC’s interpretation of The Forces.] Then will come the outlay for the two parties interested. These two, [900] and Edgar Cayce. In the Spring there will be two cottages, [900], Edgar Cayce and place of carrying on the work.

5. (Q) What should [900] do to assist in establishing? (A) Make connections as given and assist in establishing work, family and office.

6. We are through.

Reports

Reports & Follow-up

R1. 9/16/25 Edgar Cayce moved to 35th Street, Sea Pines.

R2. 11/11/25 EC’s letter to [779]:

115 West 35th Street, Virginia Beach, Va.

Dear [779]:-

I was glad to have yours of the 8th. As you will see from the enclosed, we had just gotten through with this reading for Mrs. [780] when your letter came. I am in hopes this answers your questions sufficiently, for I’m afraid we won’t have the opportunity right now to get the physical reading before the time would be up. I’m sorry of this delay, but it seems we have just been so full up that we haven’t had time to get nothing like the readings we want to. Blumenthal has had so many pots boiling that he has certainly kept us fully occupied. In fact I’m afraid that it is most too much, and we are trying to get away from it as well as we can. I’m certainly glad to know that things are going along nicely with you. I’m certainly very much in hopes that everything comes along alright with Mrs. Jones, and I assure you I want you to let me hear from you. I believe I told you that we had a Western Union service here, also our phone, which is 220, Virginia Beach, and you know if its necessary and you need us for anything, you would only have to let me know and we would do whatever we can. I’m glad to know too that you are finding your study course interesting and beneficial. I feel very sure that you will gain more from this study than anything you have had from some time, for when one sets themselves to work to a certain goal and has the things to work with, why they’re pretty apt to get there! I’m glad too that you see the facts working out in a line with that given you in the reading. I certainly thank you for telling me about it. I appreciate your taking the time to write me as you have, and please don’t ever think that your letters take up too much time, for though it was three or four times as long, I’d be sorry when it came to the end. I thank you, too, for your attitude towards the work, and should you decide to do as you suggest, I think it would be a very wonderful thing. Would certainly be acceptable and it really does me good to know that the work is of such a nature as to create such a confidence and faith in anyone, for I am assured by such that there is a great truth, else it could not make such desires in the hearts and minds of people, for you know you have studied this, from most every angle. I feel sure too you’ve had some very slighting remarks made to you regarding same - but when an individual sees a thing working in their own life and making changes that makes for better citizenship, for better business abilities, and better home builders, we know they are for the things that are worth while.

Yes, I think I can see the difference in many ways in the work here than elsewhere. While it is true, we haven’t had as many requests for physical diagnosis since we’ve been here as we have had in some other places, the difference perhaps is intangible to many people, yet as I tried to study it, as others say, as well as I think I see myself, they all seem to be more direct, more specific, more of what we might say - it is so or it is not so. That of course then is a greater opportunity to study the work, provided we are honest with ourselves and do not fool ourselves by measuring ourselves by ourselves, but keeping a high standard and that one standard as is set in Him.

Yes, I think Edgar Evans and Hugh Lynn both are getting along nicely. I’m glad to say we are all fairly well here. We’ve had some right bad rainy weather, but its been wonderful for the last two or three days. Not so much wind, little cool, yet the sun shines bright most of the day - warms up during the day. Good frost the last two nights and I understand, over near the Bay, a thin sheet of ice this morning, but the thermometer was around sixty in the middle of the day to-day.

Be sure and let me hear from you whenever you have the opportunity. Kindly remember me to Mrs. Jones and the rest of the family, and remember should you desire the physical reading, wire me as soon as you receive this.

With kindest personal regards from all,

Sincerely, Edgar Cayce EC:GD

P.S. Thanks for the suggestion to your neighbors. I received a letter from Mrs. [3849] this afternoon. I’ll write her in this mail also.

R3. 11/20/25 See EC’s letter to Dr. Thos. B. House re. possibilities of “the work” in Virginia Beach, etc., included in 4905-45 Reports.

R4. 2/19/26 See 5618-4, Par. R3.

R5. 5/2/26 See 5618-5, Par. B1.

R6. 5/6/26 See 5618-6, Par. R1.

R7. 7/12/26 See 5618-7, Par. B1.

R8. 8/10/26 See 5618-8, Par. R1.

R9. 10/12/26 See 5618-11, Par. B3—B6.

R10. 6/4/27 See 254-35, Par. 17-A—20-A.

R11. 11/11/28 Cayce Hospital was dedicated; Dr. House the physician.

R12. 1/17/78 At Tuesday A.M. WORK READINGS discussion group, Hugh Lynn Cayce was asked to describe what he thought was meant throughout the Edgar Cayce readings by “THE FORCES”, such as referred to in 254-25, Par. 4-A, on 8/20/25.

As I understand “THE FORCES”, I think we have to go back to the beginning, really. The original plan, the original purpose in the mind and heart of God for the creation of the soul that was set forth in the creation, in the original plan, as is indicated in one place in the readings, “stamped on every soul,” is the image of the Christ Consciousness which was given by God and only needs to be awakened by our wills, in application. The will was given to Man as part of God’s original creation: The Divine Mind, the Divine Spirit and the Divine Will. That’s a part of God that makes up the soul as it was created.

Now, you have the forces that relate to God’s purpose for man in creation. Then, as man, as the souls began to express themselves in different planes of consciousness, they did this by creating thought forms. This is clearly defined in in the readings as “thought patterns” that were created LIKE what God had created. Man saw what God had created and man, with his creative mind, created a form LIKE that. As he created it, he became involved in it. As a simile, we might say that man reaches into a tar barrel which is a kind of cold tar and it is hard to move it, hard to control it, and tries to shape an image with his hand. He gets caught; he gets stuck in the tar barrel. He’s trapped there by what he has created. He won’t turn loose of it and he can’t pull it out. It’s almost like the old symbol of the monkey that wants the piece of fruit that is in the jar, and as long as he holds the piece of fruit in his hand he can’t pull his hand out of the jar. The thought forms that man became involved and ensnared in became hardened and they trapped a part of the soul energy in the earth. I think we can find readings that indicate that this trapping took place; that part of the soul is caught in what it has created as matter.

These were the thought forms that gradually have hardened and have become what we know as bodies, as energy patterns, in the three-dimensional expression. Then, through the bodies, man’s mind, the soul’s mind began to create thought forms at the flesh level where the body becomes an energy pattern and a thought form. In addition, on other levels of consciousness, man built a finer physical body which is a thought body that interpenetrates the flesh and moves much faster than the flesh body. That thought form is the one we use when we die. That is the DOPPELGANGER form that we use in the out-of-body experience. It, too, is a thought form and it relates to matter. The readings say we’re free of the flesh when we move in that body, but we’re not free of matter. It still is made up of finer, faster moving, material thought processes. So, it is a finer thought body.

There are readings that say that some people in having out-of-body experiences see shells, empty shells of these thought forms on other planes of consciousness. Some people call this the astral, but that’s a limiting term, I think. There are many other layers, other levels. Dad [Edgar Cayce] described these thought forms as he went out looking for readings. He speaks of himself passing on a shaft of light through many planes. Every plane had thought forms on it that had been created by man; energy patterns that had withdrawn from one shell, withdrawn from another shell, and were moving in consciousness. These thought forms are “the forces” that are spoken of in the readings; these thought form forces combined with the original forces and pattern of God’s purpose for the souls in the earth; in creation, not only in this earth but in all creation. So, when man builds patterns that are opposed to God’s will, he creates negative forces, rebellious forces. They become rebellious forces to which he can attune. However, he also builds cooperative forces in patience and love and long-suffering. The readings reiterate THESE over and over again; so, THESE forces that he builds become good.

As groups of people, groups of souls, come into the earth in cycles, they develop agreement in trying to move the constructive forces and to return to the same consciousness that God had for man: the Christ Consciousness, in other words, in a broad universal sense. So, in one incarnation, they developed a plan, a pattern to express love and service and they began to carry on a work that is in accord with God’s love. Those thought forms become FORCES. Those patterns of thought, those purposes, become FORCES in the earth. Man can draw on what he has done together with a group.

In the work of the Association, I’m sure, we are seeing the effect of forces that have been building. The readings say this - for me they say this: that we built a pattern of service and healing and help in one incarnation in Egypt and then we built another pattern in Persia… Here, again, we come back and pick up and draw on these forces of thought forms, these purposes and ideals and goals that have been set. We draw on those. When they’re in accord with God’s purposes they move forward and they create help and magnify service and magnify patterns of healing, and good is accomplished. But when we, in ourselves as individuals, tune in to the rebellious parts that we have created, that man has created, we become rebellious. Then we are in tune with the negative forces. They are of our creation, but they were also of God’s creation in the beginning. But we, in our slowed-down state of consciousness, have lost track of the forces for good that God created. We don’t see angelic forces as often, apparently, as the Bible people used to see them. Maybe we do, but it’s certainly not reported.

There are descriptions of man being in tune with God’s forces, in the history of his being in the earth. Gradually, he shuts that off until he no longer is in tune with the original forces - the original forces that God set up as man’s purpose in creation. At any point, man has the right, the opportunity to attune himself to the forces of good, as the readings say; that is, to God’s original purposes for the soul. Or, he has the opportunity to tune in to all the negative purposes that he has created in the earth, the rebellious parts not only of himself but of others. Then, he is influenced by the negative forces and he suffers as a result of that. He gets sick, he fights wars, he kills his brothers, he destroys himself and others as he attunes to the negative and the rebellious. At every point we are able to tune in to the good, the creative, or tune in to the negative. And there is, as old Moses said to us, there is set before us this day light and darkness, good and evil; choose thou which way you are going [Deut. 30]. We have that choice to make, that exercising of the will at every second of every moment of every experience on whatever level of consciousness we are. Whatever world we attune to, that will is there and can make a choice of attunement. To me, that is [what is meant by] THE FORCES, the good and the bad forces.

That explains spiritual healing, too. The Physical Readings are full of the forces like the rhythm forces, the kidney forces, the heart forces, the brain forces. They’re all patterns. All patterns for each element of the body have been going on and adding to the creative or the destructive, every time we eat, every time we think. We forget that the mind is the builder, as the readings say so frequently, and [that] the physical is the result. Any form is the result. We think about a chair and then we build a chair. The thought has to do with it the minute it comes into whatever dimension we are working in. And it’s not just in the flesh or the three-dimensional, but in all these other dimensions in which we build these forces and thought forms, that we are all attuned either to good or to the rebellious. That’s the way I see it.

Background

Background

B1. Subject of Reading - “Work of Edgar Cayce”; “Prophecy”.

Mentioned Entities

Soul, Thought Forms, Purpose, Virginia Beach, Free Will, Healing, Christ Consciousness, Hugh Lynn Cayce, Incarnation, Jesus Christ, A.R.E. (Association for Research and Enlightenment), Angels, Cayce Hospital, Edgar Evans Cayce, Egypt, Ideal, Morton Blumenthal, Moses, Persia, Physical Body

Source: The Complete Edgar Cayce Readings, A.R.E. CD-ROM (2006). Reading 254-25, ReadingID 1163.