This psychic reading given by Edgar Cayce at the Edmonds' home, 611 Pennsylvania Ave., Norfolk, Va., this 20th day of December, 1936, requested by those present.

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

TEXT

1. GC: You will have before you the members of the Norfolk Study Group #1 who have gathered here seeking a reading which will give them a better understanding and deeper appreciation of the birth of Jesus, the Christ, which will be celebrated this week as Christmas 1936.
2. EC: Yes, we have the group as gathered here and their desires and their seeking as a group, as individuals.
3. In giving to these, then, that seek to know more of that circumstance, those conditions as surrounded that ye call the first Christmas: Do not confuse thyselves. While to you it may be a first Christmas, if it were the first then there would be a last; and ye would not worship, ye would not hold to that which passeth.
4. For time never was when there was not a Christ and not a Christ mass.
5. But in giving that interpretation of what this Season means - that birth of Jesus as became the Christ - to this world: In giving the circumstance, much has been recorded as respecting this by the writers of the Gospel, especially by Luke; but little perfect concept may be gathered except ye as individuals seek to experience what such an advent meant or means to thy life as an individual.
6. For knowledge of a thing or a condition and the wisdom that is presented in that happening are two different things. What ye hear ye may believe, but ye will rarely act as if ye believed it unless ye have experienced and do experience that "God so loved the world as to give His Son" to enter into flesh, that flesh, that man, might know there IS an advocate with the Father; and that - as ye in thy material experience see - Life coming from out of nowhere to enter into materiality, to become a LIVING expression of those promptings of the heart.
7. That has been the experience of that SOUL in its varied spheres of consciousness, to give such an expression. That is the purpose for which it has entered - to give the more perfect concept of the relationships of man to the Creator.
8. Such we find as that happening in Bethlehem of Judea ages and years ago, when that channel had so dedicated itself to the service of her Maker as to become MOTHER, wherein the whole world is shown that this must come to pass in the experience of those who would make themselves channels through which the Holy Spirit of God may manifest; that the world may know that He, God the Father, keepeth His promises with the children of men!
9. And the hour approaches when nature is to be fulfilled in the natural courses in the experience of the Mother, and His Star has appeared - and the angels' choir, and the voices of those that give the GREAT MESSAGE!
10. Who heard these, my children? Those that were seeking for the satisfying of their own desires or for the laudation of their own personality? Rather those close to NATURE, to the hours of meditation and prayer, and those that had given expression, "No room in the Inn!" For no inn, no room, could contain that as was being given in a manifested form!
11. For He came unto His own. For there was nothing made that was made to which He had not given life, to whom He had not given, "Be ye fruitful, multiply - " in THYSELF; IN THYSELF may there be the propagation of thine own specie, of thine own self!
12. Only then to those that sought could such a message come, or could there be heard the songs of the angels, or that music of the spheres that sang, "PEACE ON EARTH - GOOD WILL TO MEN!"
13. For this, then, is in EVERY birth - the possibilities, the glories, the actuating of that influence of that entrance again of god-man into the earth that man might know the way.
14. Thus this comes at this time to bring to the hearts and minds of those of that Glad period the fact that not only 1900 years ago but TODAY, He may be born into thine own consciousness, thine own understanding; He comes unto His own!
15. Art thou His? Have ye claimed Him? Have ye put on the Christ, even as was and is exemplified in that life, that birth, that death of Jesus, the Christ?
16. For He is thy Elder Brother, He IS the babe in thy heart, in thy life; to be then even now - as then - nourished in the heart, in body, in mind. And indeed do His words become more and more then of meaning, "As ye do it unto the least of these, thy brethren, ye do it unto me!"
17. For as ye behold the face of thy friend, of thy neighbor, of thy foe, yea thine enemy, ye behold the image of thy Savior.
18. For ye are all His, bought not only with the birth of the God-Child into flesh but with the death - that ye might know that He, thy Brother, thy Savior, thy Christ, has been and is the Way to the Father in this material plane.
19. For as He chose to enter, so YE have entered. As He chose to live, so may ye live. As He chose to give of Himself that there might be a greater understanding, a greater knowledge; yea, the showing forth of the wisdom of God that God IS love, poured forth upon the children of men in this experience.
20. And as these changes come and as ye make known that as has been the raising of that consciousness of His Presence in THINE experience, by thy dealings with, by thy conversation with, by thy life with thy fellow man, so may ye hasten the day when HE, CHRIST, may come into thine own heart, unto His OWN peoples, to reign; yes, in the hearts and lives!
21. Then indeed should each of you at this Glad Season make the hearts of others Merry by thine own happiness in the birth, the life, the death of thy Jesus, thy Christ!
22. Know this had no beginning in the 1900 years ago, but again and Again and AGAIN! And it may be today, He may be born into thy consciousness; not as a physical birth - but each moment that a physical birth is experienced in the earth is an OPPORTUNITY for the Christ-entrance again!
23. Then what are ye doing about it in thy daily life, thy daily conversation? For not by might nor in power, but in the still small voice that speaks within, ye may know as He hath given so oft - "Peace - it is I! Be not afraid, it is I," thy Savior, thy Christ; yea, THYSELF meeting that BABE in thine own inner self that may grow even as He to be a channel of blessings to others!
24. For as ye do it unto others ye do it unto Him.
25. May the Peace, the Joy of His Consciousness, His Presence, His Joy be thine this day; yea, all thy days in the earth! For He is nigh unto thee, He is in thy midst!
26. Praise ye the Lord that gave, then, His Son; that ye might know Him!
27. We are through.

BACKGROUND

1. Subject of Reading - "Study Group #1."

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