Holistic Health Practices/Part 18

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What are the Edgar Cayce Methods of Healing?

Edgar Cayce’s books have sold multiple millions of copies, all of them stressing the importance of health. The Edgar Cayce methods of healing involve a health program and philosophy based on the spiritistic revelations (called “Readings”) of medium Edgar Cayce (1877-1944). By following the health suggestions given in these occult readings, it is claimed that one will maintain optimum health. The health suggestions combine natural therapies, such as castor oil packs, with “proper” mental attitudes and “proper” spiritual (occult) “attunement.”

While Edgar Cayce channeled the information concerning healing, specific programs based on it have been developed in conjunction with the official Cayce organization, the Association for Research and Enlightenment (ARE) in Virginia Beach, Virginia. A significant number of medical doctors have been converted to Cayce’s methods, which are also promoted by various Cayce clinics, referral programs, and dozens of ARE symposia on New Age medicine offered over the years.

Based on known scientific data, most if not all of Cayce’s methods have been discredited. If they work, they work for reasons unrelated to the given theories. For example, the treatments work far better for those who have adopted Cayce’s occultic worldview, suggesting psychological and occultic components to healing. Even leaders in the Cayce methods of health such as Dr. Harold J. Reilly have admitted that the methods usually work only for those who believe in Cayce’s occultic philosophy.

The major problem with this approach is that Cayce’s “Readings” are not based upon the findings of scientific medicine. Rather, they are integrated with reincarnation philosophy, healing by “vibrational” correspondences, [alleged psychic connections between the body and the universe, or the body and a patient’s “medicine”] and other New Age occultic ideas. Because the “Readings” teach that “health” is promoted by a “proper” mental and/or spiritual attitude, people who use Cayce’s revelations as part of a health program often end up with an occultic worldview.

Spiritistic revelations on any subject should not be trusted, because any truth given is always mixed with serious spiritual or other error. The dangers of the Cayce methods involve conversion to occultism and the fact that the treatments suggested by the “Readings” may be ineffective, false, or dangerous.

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