This psychic reading given by Edgar Cayce at the Miller home, 3217 Verdun Ave., Norfolk, Va., this 8th day of September, 1935, requested by those present.

Present: Edgar Cayce; Gertrude Cayce, Conductor; Gladys Davis, Steno. Esther Wynne, Hannah & Noah Miller, Florence & Edith Edmonds, Frances Y. Morrow, Hugh Lynn Cayce, Helen Storey, Helen Ellington and Ruth LeNoir.

TEXT

1. GC: You will have before you the Norfolk Study Group #1, members of which are present here and their work on the lesson Destiny. You will give any suggestions that will be helpful in completing the section on Destiny of the Body, and continue with a discourse on the Destiny of the Soul. You will answer the questions that may be asked.
2. EC: Yes, we have the group as gathered here and the work on the lesson Destiny, as a group and as individuals.
3. That which has been gathered from the information, from the experiences, as compiled, is very good - as we find. There needs be only, then, a correlating or tying together - as it were - of that which has been compiled or gathered together; as of the Mind and of the Body, for these are as one. For Mind ever is the builder; hence man in the mental sphere, man in the material sphere, must make for that experience where the Body and the Mind are as one and not warring one with another; so that the consciousness of the Spirit of Truth is ever the motivative influence in the experience of the individual in its activities. How was He in the hour of trial, of temptation? He gave the lesson as to how that even though the body would be destroyed, in three days it would be raised again. He gave the lesson as to how there should be the thought of the fellow man, when those upon whom He had depended to be the ministers in His stead failed to catch the vision of what it was all about. He healed even His enemies, thus making the Mind and the Body as one; even in those hours when the change and the dissolution, the enlightening, the resurrection, were taking place within the activities of the MENTAL body, expressing themselves through the activities of the material body.
4. So ye in making for that which may be helpful to thy fellow man in the application of the lesson, let all be of one Mind - even as in Christ, who thought it not robbery to be equal with God, yet desiring ever that HIS followers, HIS brethren, HIS friends, be one with Him, equal to and one with the Father.
5. So may ye, in the manners as indicated that the activities of the Body bear within themselves the fruits of the Spirit, attune the material forces in such ways and manners that the MIND changeth ever to become in accord with in attune with, whatever, wherever, in whatever manner it is presented with those influences that reach IN, that are from without, that must be coordinated; that the Body, the Mind, may be carried to the Creative Forces - in what?
6. The Destiny, then, of the Soul. Each individual as a child of the Creative Force came into being that it, that child, might be a companion with the Creative Force, God, in its activity; given by the very breath, by the desire, by the will of the Father that with which it might be one with the Father. Not the Body as manifested in the flesh; not the Mind alone that may partake of all those environs through which it passes; but the Soul, which is as lasting as eternity, as the Creative Force, as the Creative Energy, as God Himself; that we through Him might know ourselves to be one with Him. He hath not willed that any Soul should perish.
7. Then, the Destiny of the Soul - as of all creation - is to be one with Him; continually growing, growing, for that association. What seeth man in nature? What seeth man in those influences that he becomes aware of? Change, ever; change, ever. Man hath termed this evolution, growth, life itself; but it continues to enter. That force, that power which manifests itself in separating - or as separate forces and influences in the earth, continues to enter; and then change; continuing to pour in and out. From whence came it? Whither does it go when it returns? [See also 262-92, Par. 13-A, 262-99, Par. 10-A.]
8. So the Soul's activity in the earth, as it is seen in this or that phase of experience, is that it may be one with the Creative Forces, the Creative Energies.
9. Many questions, then, are brought to thine own consciousness that must be answered WITHIN thine inner self; having to do with thine own experiences.
10. Then, seek ye within thine own consciousness. There may then be given that as may be helpful in thine interpretation of thine experiences; that may bring a consciousness to thy fellow man of the awareness of His presence and of the Soul's returning to that oneness with Him.
11. Ready for questions.
12. (Q) Will you please give more information on the resurrection of the Body?
    (A) This is seen in that ye have as thine instructions as to how He, thy pattern, resurrected the body, QUICKENED the body. So within thine own self must come that which through Him may overcome death, overcome that transition, overcome that which is the change - save the conscious change of being in ALL matters, ALL phases, ALL experiences, one with Him.
13. (Q) Please suggest the outlines for the Destiny of the Soul.
    (A) First the Soul's Creation; the Soul's Association With Those Influences of Mind, of Body; and its activities in the material influences that are seen in the activities of a Body through a given experience. And then the questions and experiences of each.
14. (Q) Please explain what difference was made in the Body of the Christ by ascension to the Father as necessary before Mary could touch Him?
    (A) As the presence of the Father, as the presence of the Christ-Consciousness is everywhere present, the change that was in place was the consciousness rather in Mary than in the Body Himself. But the expression ye have, that she was not to touch Him, was rather the same as would be in ANY expression given to interpret spiritual things into material understanding, or infinity brought down to the finite understanding, see? That is, "I have not yet ascended to my Father" would to some indicate that the heaven and the Father are somewhere else - a place of abode, the center about which all universal forces, all energies must turn or give off from. Hence "up" may be rather from within, or to the within - of which each soul is to become aware. For heaven is that place, that awareness where the Soul - with all its attributes, its Mind, its Body - becomes aware of being in the presence of the Creative Forces, or one with same. That is heaven.
    In thine studies of the Destiny of the Soul, then, let this be the constant affirmation:
    LORD, LET ME - MY MIND, MY BODY, MY SOUL - BE AT-ONE WITH THEE: THAT I - THROUGH THY PROMISES IN HIM, THY SON - MAY KNOW THEE MORE AND MORE.
15. We are through for the present.

BACKGROUND

1. Subject of Reading 262-88 - "Norfolk Study Group #1."

Edgar Cayce Readings © 1971, 1993, 1994, 1995 by the Edgar Cayce Foundation