What is Evil? Is it Real?

I’m engrossed in the process of  working through my understanding of “evil” as it relates to our evaluation of spiritual experiences for an Atlantic University course I’m taking on spiritual mentoring.  Particularly, the question of whether a spiritual experience can be from “evil.” It has really captured my attention and engaged my mind for these last few days. I wanted to share some “resolution” I received with the help of dreams and The I Ching (as a couple of you had asked about that oracle), in case it may also be helpful to you. I’d also love to hear your feedback! Please leave me a comment at the end of this post.

Sneak preview:

My initial reaction to the question of whether a spiritual experience could be “evil” was, “Of course not. Spiritual experience implies that it is good, sacred, divine…the antithesis of evil.” So I was quite surprised when my instructor and classmates didn’t share that belief, and in fact, many shared that they felt a spiritual experience could be evil.

So, I thought that perhaps this was a matter of semantics. Maybe we just have different definitions of “spiritual”, for example. If the meaning is “of spirits, or of discarnate beings”, then I could accept that some experiences could be the result of evil spirits. I am familiar with account so spirits attaching themselves to others and creating schizophrenic or psychotic behaviors. David McMillin, M.A., writes about some of these cases from the Edgar Cayce readings in Case Studies in Schizophrenia.

But it seemed there was more to it than that aspect of evil. Evil is part of the spiritual world, my classmates claimed. If God is in everything, then it only follows that evil is spiritual (of God) as well. Now this really confused me, because I do believe that God is All That Is. How do I reconcile this feeling that evil is not of God? It was bothering me and prompting me to further study and understanding. How could I have not thought through this before? Well, now’s the time. I guess I am ready to really try to grok this now.

I do feel that there is some “semantic” confusion in the mix. The spiritual world is beyond our mere words and complete understanding while we are here as humans. So, I cut myself and others some slack there. Spiritual can be used to mean non-physical, not of the physical world. It can also mean sacred, divine, holy.

I had a clue from my previous study of Abraham-Hick’s teachings.  In various forms, the essence of  their teaching about evil is like this:

“Jesus said, to turn the other cheek, and that’s exactly what he was talking
about. Resist not evil. Turn the other cheek — and achieve vibrational
harmony with that which feels better. All of you have access to Source
Energy! It is always within you, always radiating through you. Sometimes you
are providing a shadow that doesn’t let it shine, more than others, and
sometimes you are letting it shine fully. But the more you are letting the
fullness of who you are radiate through you, the better you feel about
everything — and the more you are contributing to the whole of things.
However, in any case, you cannot get it wrong!”

From a workshop in Silver Springs, MD, 4/11/99

I obviously needed a deeper exploration and understanding of evil. In the context of trying to help someone else determine if a powerful spiritual experience were of God or of “evil”, this explanation felt a little lightweight.  While it resonates with me because of my particular studies and beliefs, it might seem rather “naive” or “Pollyanna-ish” to others without the same background. Enter Emanuel Swedenborg’s teachings from a couple of hundred years ago, but new to me recently. I found the Swedenborg. Foundation and their delightful and informative videos on YouTube. Swedenborg apparently explored and encountered evil a great deal, and shared volumes of his own personal experiences so we might benefit from them.

There are many videos on this topic of evil, hell, evil spirits if you are interested in the topics.  I have spent hours perusing these videos and other information in my search. This video, below, is one that I feel  is very comprehensive, and shares insights from real-world, modern people who are working with others who are apparently influenced powerfully by evil spirits. Put on your mental seatbelt, suspend disbelief for an hour or so, and watch:

The, as often happens, I had a dream last night that highlighted this struggle, but it wasn’t clear to me at first impression. The content of the dream was about a male-female relationship issue. However, because it was unusually vivid, emotional and stuck with me, I knew from experience it meant there was probably an important message in it. At first, I looked at the literal meaning in relationships, and that was helpful. But I was prompted to ask for guidance about the meaning of the dream using the The I Ching. And as is so often the case, the descriptions gave me several levels or layers of interpretation and meaning. The reading I received was 38 Opposition changing to 34 Power of the Great. Opposition has been coming up a lot for me in my daily readings, and it’s not usually a “welcome” sign.  However, this time the words fairly leapt off the page.

For 38 Opposition, I received guidance such as:

• You may meet with the dualism in your own nature…(this is about my own inner struggle with duality)
• The struggle between good & evil, life & death, all such opposites may appear to be simply the natural interactions of the great forces in the universe, as you develop the perspective of the Sage (Creator, Source, God).
• The sense of oneness or wholeness in a world of contradictions can bring you great depth of character and peace of mind.
• In general, opposition appears as an obstruction, but when it represents polarity within a comprehensive whole, it has also its useful and important function. The opposition of heaven & earth, spirit & nature, man & woman, when reconciled bring about the creation and reproduction of life. In the world of visible things, the principle of opposites makes possible the differentiation by category through which order is brought into the world.

And then I was reminded of something Edgar Cayce said about extremes (opposites) only being reconciled in Christ. I looked up the reference from life reading 2283-1, “14. There are the abilities in writing or in lecturing, or in any of those phases in which the temperament of the artist or of the individual is weighed. These should be the fields in which the entity would give the expression to others; that in same may come the new hope, new purposes, new desires, to be at an at-onement with Creative Forces. 15. These are what Venus brings into the experience, as well as the variation in which the ugliest associations or activities are also a part of the entity’s experience. 16. For, here – in these forces – extremes have been and are a portion of the experience. Know that only in Him, who is the way and the truth and the light, do extremes meet. For, though He was the Son, He learned obedience through the things which He suffered. So, those who seek to know and to be at-one in purpose, in desire, find in such extremes a better understanding of WHY such experiences are brought into material activity.”

Maybe this was just a personal ” Ah hah! moment” for me…I’m not sure if this will make any sense or resonate with you. You may have “gotten” this long before I did!

Exploring a Spiritual Experience with Angels

As part of a class I’m taking at Atlantic University, we were asked to write about a significant spiritual experience.  This is not something I generally share with others, but I feel it may be helpful to share an experience in this format. Here’s what I wrote, below, and perhaps the format with the questions will help you write about your own experiences to better understand and evaluate them. At the end of the description, I will also provide some links to resources that may help you explore and understand your experiences in more depth.

What was the most significant spiritual experience in your life?

While it is difficult for me to single out one spiritual experience as the most important in my life, I’ve chosen to write about an experience with angels in meditation. I was in my early thirties at the time. My son was still in elementary school. (This was almost thirty years ago, so the details are not clear, but the wonder and awe is still with me.) It occurred during a lengthy meditation session. I had been working with a book that had exercises in it to contact your angels, and had been doing them for probably several weeks. I was fortunate this day to have the house to myself in quiet, and was free to have a long, private meditation. In this meditation I followed the instructions in the book, and as I recall, I asked for a message about love. After quite some time of listening and waiting in silence with my eyes closed, I was “given” a feeling of waves of powerful, pleasant energy moving up and down my body for several minutes. It was like uncontrollable shivers of energy through me. It brought me to tears…which at first was disconcerting. I wasn’t sure what had happened and why I was crying. It took me quite some time to settle and quiet myself.

After the experience had calmed, I asked about the tears and the meaning using inspired writing. I was “told” that the tears were due to the “drosses” in my body clearing out. That if I had been clear, I would have experienced complete ecstasy. Then, I was “given” the thought: “Consider how much you love your son. Then multiply it exponentially and that is how much God loves you!”

For about two weeks after the experience, I lived in a higher state of awareness and consciousness (for lack of a better term) in which I loved everyone, I felt “oneness”, compassion, kindness, caring, generosity, peace, comfort. The world around me seemed more brilliant and vivid. Colors were brighter and different from my “usual” visual experience. It eventually faded and I returned to “normal” life; however, I have the sense that my “normal” may have been elevated slightly and this was a milestone in my spiritual development.

Over the ensuing years of spiritual study and reflecting on this experience, I’ve come to feel that this was probably an initial experience of kundalini rising as well as contact with angels and Source.

What informed you that this experience was “of God?”

Because the experience came as a result of asking to meet with my angels and get a message about love, it seemed to confirm that the message was of God. It was not a thought I had ever had before on my own. The waves of feeling were nearly ecstatic and not of my own making or control. There was no “logical” explanation for the experience.

Later, I looked for confirmation from a trusted intuitive, Anne Puryear in my life reading. She confirmed that the experience was from contact with angels and that I had many others I didn’t recognize.

This experience “made” me a more loving, caring, compassionate, perceptive person and I felt a deep connection with everything and everyone in a way that had not happened before or since. The experience and the immediate “after-effects” were ineffable…could not be completely put into earthly words. I felt a “oneness” with all that is outside of my “normal” daily experience and impossible for me to describe well.

How has it influenced your thinking and your beliefs about life?

This experience was one of the early spiritual experiences that began to cement my belief that God is real, personal and available.

How has it changed your view of your purpose in life?

It has helped to me to see that my purpose is not necessarily some large accomplishment in the world, but it is to be a light and show love and kindness to others.

What responses have you made to this experience? What fruits, if any, have come from the action that you have taken?

For about two weeks afterwards, I loved everyone, everything looked more vivid in colors, and then it gradually faded back to “normal”. I have an inner direct knowing that no one talk me out of that God is real, loving, available, and personal.

It provided me with an anchor point so that I can recall that feeling and use it to remind me of the peace and love of God. Because of this and many other spiritual experiences (large and small) I think I will be more open to the possibilities of others having their own unique experiences, more accepting, and try to help uncover how it may affect their daily life or larger life choices. I do feel it is important to have some criteria and some caution when evaluating such experiences, and would be willing to share my suggestions, if asked by someone who is sharing an experience with me. My main criterion is “by their fruits shall ye know them.” Did it make you feel and share more “fruits of the spirit” with the people in your life?–loving, kindness, gentleness, helpfulness, hopefulness, appreciation, acceptance, generosity, etc.

Did you share your experience with anyone, and if so, what effects did this have?

Up to this point, I had only shared this experience with a few people, only in a spiritual setting. In each case, the people were very accepting and appreciative of the sharing, and it was usually in the context of mutual sharing. I do feel that it is not something that I would be comfortable sharing with family, friends and acquaintances who are not “spiritually-minded”. They may think it is (or I am) weird, or made up, or egotistical, so  I am generally cautious about sharing these experiences.

Related Resources:

• “Modern Spiritual Experiences” – YouTube video from the Swedenborg foundation which describes Swedenborg’s teachings along with modern research and experiences:  
• Rhea White’s site for Exceptional Human Experiences (EHE), describes EHEs: “An exceptional experience (EE) is an anomalous experience that affects the experiencer in a personal way so that he or she feels somehow called upon to understand some hidden, deeper meaning in the experience beyond the objective criteria of science, which attempts either to explain the experience away or explain it by known scientific principles, thus ignoring its numinous quality and the feeling of something more being involved than meets the eye. To the experiencer, however, they hint of something more, beyond the limits of science that potentially could be very meaningful. An EE becomes an exceptional human experience (EHE) when its hidden meaning potential has been consciously realized. Usually this realization on the part of the experiencer is not simply new knowledge, but it involves a new way of knowing. When an EHE occurs the person is changed in some way that involves his or her identity, way of life, and worldview.

Edgar Cayce: The Life of a Mystic through the Lens of Astrology and Reincarnation

“It is a time in the earth when people everywhere seek to know more of the mysteries of the mind, the soul.” – Edgar Cayce

 Edgar Cayce was born a Pisces on March 18, 1877 at 3:03 p.m. near Hopkinsville, Kentucky. He grew up as a sensitive child who had encounters with “the little folk” (or fairies and brownies) and the spirit of his deceased grandfather as easily as others have meetings with friends and neighbors. Increasingly feeling the social stigma of being different and unusual, he made use of several different coping mechanisms as a child. As Cayce’s grandson, Charles Thomas Cayce, tells of Edgar’s early life, “he yearned to be considered an ordinary boy…and…feared for his sanity.” First, he withdrew from social contact with other children and adults as much as possible, and stopped talking about his experiences. Later, as a teenager, he tried to emulate a cowboy friend who was very worldly and manly, acting out aggressively and attempting to drink and be a bit rowdy. However, in the end, it seems he realized that he would be better served to accept his special abilities as gifts, and try as best he could to be himself and be true to his deeply held values.

Edgar Cayce‘s horoscope is shown below:

 

Many unusual and serious physical injuries and events plagued this child as he developed.  At the age of three, he fell off a fence post and landed on a nail that pierced his cranium and brain cavity. He suffered from an infection for a long time afterward. Some would say that this might have been a physiological trigger to mystical abilities. He also nearly drowned at about this time, and was rescued by a former slave. When he was four, he was with his beloved grandfather, Tom Cayce, when he died in a horseback accident, but seemed not to be as saddened as others in the family as he was observed still conversing with his grandfather after his death. At about age five his mother gave birth to his baby brother, Thomas, who died shortly after birth. His mother went into a severe depression that surely affected Edgar who was close to his mother. Another serious and painful accident at about this time involved a branch piercing one of his testicles.

Later, he began having fights at school. His only friend was a girl named Little Anna, who died when Edgar was fourteen. He was struck by a baseball at the end of his spine and blacked out. When he awakened, he acted very strangely and aggressively, and seemed to know information he “couldn’t have known”about family and friends. He also gave instructions for an odd poultice that should be applied while he rested to cure his problem, which when applied by his grandmother did seem to do the trick.

His teenage years only caused his self-esteem to plummet even further. He tried to become more “manly” and decided to move out of his parents’ home and into his grandmother’s home. She helped him begin to accept himself and his differences. He was with his grandmother when she died, and she reportedly said to Edgar that she saw his grandfather coming for her before she died.

He fell madly in love with a girl named Bessie who laughed at him and told him he was not a suitable mate because he was “not right in the head” according to her father. Edgar went to talk with her father, a doctor, about these comments, and received quite an emotional blow from him as well; the father said he would never be a proper husband and “man” because of his accident with his testicle, as well as serious doubts about his sanity. At that point he dropped out of school and withdrew again.

Eventually he met Gertrude and her family helped him to feel accepted and comfortable. But he continued to have strange episodes and experiences. He could “read” playing cards without looking at them, and find lost objects by going to sleep thinking about them. He had an episode where his mother “commanded” him to go to sleep and he did immediately and seemed to be in a coma for a day. In another experience, he fell asleep on a sofa after an argument with another young man and the sofa caught on fire inexplicably…some would say it appeared to be some kind of spontaneous combustion.

In spite of all of these strange occurrences, Gertrude remained a stalwart supporter and true love. When he proposed marriage, she accepted. But the road to the wedding was fraught with additional twists and turns.  He moved to Louisville at the encouragement of one of Gertrude’s family members to “expand his horizons”. He spent 16 months away from Gertrude and found a new job and new life there. Growing apart from her for a time, he had a self-professed “secret flame” for another woman named Margaret there. Ultimately, he came back around and realized the errors of his ways and renewed his commitment to Gertrude when he saw that she had become seriously ill and withdrawn over the loss of his love and attention. They married.

He had an experience later with appendicitis surgery in which he apparently had a reaction to a strong sedative given to him and was found wandering around behaving in a similar fashion to the time when he was hit on the spine by the baseball. He had a bout with laryngitis that lasted months, and was finally cured with the help of a hypnotist. He ultimately gave a reading for himself under hypnosis to provide the cure for his laryngitis.

He became a professional photographer and his studio burned down. His wife Gertrude became very ill with tuberculosis and he gave a reading to provide a cure for her. His some Hugh Lynn received burns on his eyes in an accident in the studio, and a reading gave a cure for him. There are too many disastrous episodes in this man’s life to relate them in a short paper. Suffice it to say that his wife and family were a strong support system for this truly gifted man in his life of ups and downs. He proceeded to give over 14,000 documented readings for health and other sorts of helpful and unique information for seekers all over the world until his final days. His faith and his tireless work also inspired the creation of the Association for Research and Enlightenment, Atlantic University for transpersonal studies, The Cayce/Reilly School of Massage and more in Virginia Beach, Virginia and around the globe.

Edgar Cayce was first well-known as a psychic diagnostician for health issues. However, eventually seekers caught glimpses of the tremendous range of his access to information in the so-called akashic records and began asking about reincarnation, astrology, and ancient history in Atlantis and Lemuria, among other topics. A picture that came out of these readings that includes a holistic view of “developmental issues” including ones indicated by the person’s natal horoscope and reaching beyond the current lifetime, and into past lifetimes on earth as well as “interplanetary sojourns” between earthly lives. In a special reading 5755-1 given in 1938 for a gathering of people interested in Cayce’s work, Cayce was asked to give a discourse explaining what takes place in these interplanetary sojourns and past-life experiences as it relates to the current lifetime. Edgar Cayce’s own life was used as an example of how astrology and reincarnation fit into the overall pattern of life.

From the astrological perspective Cayce’s horoscope indicates a prominently placed Uranus, conjunct his Ascendant. And the reading described Cayce: “From an astrological aspect, then, the greater influence at the entrance of this entity that ye call Cayce was from Uranus. Here we find the extremes. The sojourn in Uranus was arrived at from what type of experience or activity of the entity? As Bainbridge, the entity in the material sojourn was a wastrel, one who considered only self; having to know the extremes in the own experience as well as others. Hence the entity was drawn to that environ. Or, how did the Master put it? “As the tree falls, so does it lie.” [Eccl. 11:3 by Solomon. Where did Jesus say it?] Then in the Uranian sojourn there are the influences from the astrological aspects of EXTREMES…” The reading incorporated the concept of astrology, interplanetary sojourns (in the consciousness of Uranus prior to his lifetime as Edgar Cayce) and his most recent past-life as John Bainbridge all into one conceptual nugget.

The reading goes on to do the same with other planets and other past-lifetimes brilliantly, including the past-life prior to Bainbridge as a French prince named Dale, a “love child” and royal heir to King Luis XV who was removed from the care of his mother and died at the age of five. “We find that the activity of the same entity in the earthly experience before that [Bainbridge], in a French sojourn, followed the entrance into Venus…A child of love! A child of love – the most hopeful of all experiences of any that may come into a material existence; and to some in the earth that most dreaded, that most feared!…In Venus the body-form is near to that in the three dimensional plane. For it is what may be said to be rather ALL-inclusive! For it is that ye would call love – which, to be sure, may be licentious, selfish; which also may be so large, so inclusive as to take on the less of self and more of the ideal, more of that which is GIVING.”

Even without taking into account these enhanced perspectives of astrology from the readings, a look at Cayce’s natal horoscope from the viewpoint of modern western astrology would yield some relevant insights about his potential to be unusual, unconventional and extreme (Uranus conjunct the Ascendant), and possibly involved in a prominent public career (Pluto in the 10^th house) dealing with transformation, life, death and rebirth, the “underworld” (Pluto), the masses and writing (Moon conjunct Midheaven), and photography or some creative expression or a spiritual work or calling (Neptune near the Midheaven, Sun in Pisces). We could point to astrological indicators for his feelings of lack of self-worth and financial challenges as well as other “sign posts” as the readings called them.

Of course this brief overview doesn’t begin to scratch the surface of the depth of information and insights from the Cayce readings into Cayce’s own well-documented life (and lives) as an example of our spiritual development and evolution as human beings. It’s important to keep in mind this principle of astrology from the Cayce readings themselves: “Let it be understood here, no action of any planet or any of the phases of the Sun, Moon, or any of the heavenly bodies surpass the rule of Man’s individual will power—the power given by the Creator of a man in the beginning when he became a living soul, with the power of choosing for himself.” And that message is among the key messages that this amazing, humble, benevolent, wise soul and mystic came to bring to our current generation.

In his memoirs, Edgar Cayce noted, “I am often asked, ‘Are you a spiritualist?’ Or ‘Are you a medium?’ I am also called a psychic by many, although I have only tried to be a man of God.”

If you would like to learn more about Edgar Cayce, his remarkable work and his perspective on astrology and reincarnation, here are some recommended sources:

• Edgar Cayce’s A.R.E. (Association for Research and Enlightenment)
• The Lost Memoirs of Edgar Cayce: Life as a Seer compiled by A. Robert Smith
• Edgar Cayce An American Prophet by Sidney D. Kirkpatrick
• Edgar Cayce A Seer out of Season: The Life of History’s Greatest Psychic by Harmon Hartzell Bro, Ph.D.
• The Story of Edgar Cayce: There is a River by Thomas Sugrue
• The Lives of Edgar Cayce by W. H. Church
• The Edgar Cayce Readings’ Approach to Philosophy and Reincarnation
• Edgar Cayce’s Astrology for the Soul by Margaret Gammon and W. H. Church
• Toward a New Astrology by Ry Redd
• Edgar Cayce’s Secrets of Astrology by Kirk Nelson