My Years with Edgar Cayce: The Personal Story of Gladys Davis Turner

This book is about Gladys Davis Turner, who worked as a secretary for Edgar Cayce, the famous ”sleeping prophet”.

Gladys´ story is recounted from the time she was taken on by Edgar until his death.

While in a state of sleep, Edgar channelled readings for his various clients, presumably from the Akashic Records, though this term is never used.

Many of the readings gave advice on how to tackle the clients´ health problems, though I have to say I found this advice very difficult to understand.

The language spoken by Edgar in this state was very old-fashioned and biblical and difficult to construe (these readings took place in the 20s and 30s).

Lives were saved by Cayce´s readings and when he became more well-known, people flocked to him show more for one. His own health was not good, and he did not always follow the advice given in his own readings, particularly on what and what not to eat.

Gladys herself was a humble soul, very devoted to Cayce, and the work; she was overtaxed by all her duties. Not only did she attend to conducting the readings and filing them, but had to carry out many chores. She felt that she was not really seen or appreciated as a person, neither did she feel that her work was adequately respected.

When Gladys herself received a reading, she was told that she had been egoistic in a previous life, and now had to be selfless like Christ, and continue to love her work, to appreciate others, even though she herself was not appreciated. “I am to show love; whether others do or not; it is my duty, my business, to show love!”

She had been Edgar´s daughter in a previous life in the Ra Ta period in Egypt when he was a priest called Ra Ta. She had also had a life in Atlantis as a member of the household of the ruler of Alta, and had helped bring the highest civilization and knowledge to the common people.

We are also informed about Gladys´ family, and the sons of Edgar and Gertrude, Hugh Lynne and Edgar, or Ecken.

The readings tell us that “life … is from the One Source”, or as we would say nowadays – “We are all One”,

We are also told that “colours are … the spiritualization of tone or sound”.

Edgar´s household, which included Gladys, was continually hampered by lack of money, and housing problems.

Eventually, Edgar became overburdened by the amount of readings requested of him, had to stop giving them and succumbed to ill health.

The book gives an interesting picture of the work of Edgar Cayce, and his daily life and problems.

However, I found it in part somewhat boring, due to the constant lists of names of innumerable persons who were only peripherally involved in the lives of the family. Parts of it were thus not so readable also in view of the old-fashioned language spoken by Cayce in the readings. And I often couldn´t work out which persons the author was referring to of the long list of characters mentioned.

There were, however, several interesting episodes, including when Edgar and those with him got arrested for fortune-telling.

To sum up, the book is invaluable as regards the documentation of Cayce´s life and work but is marred by too much superfluous detail. show less