This Psychic Reading given by Edgar Cayce for the Eighth Annual Congress of the Association for Research & Enlightenment, Inc., Virginia Beach, Va., this 13th day of June, 1939.

Present: Edgar Cayce; Gertrude Cayce, Conductor; Gladys Davis, Steno. Hugh Lynn Cayce.

TEXT

1. GC: You will give at this time a discourse on World Affairs which may be presented by Edgar Cayce on Thursday evening, June 15th, the opening meeting of the Eighth Annual Congress of the Association for Research & Enlightenment, Inc.
2. EC: In giving a dissertation upon World Affairs of today, it may be well to look, for a moment, upon that which has come to pass in the affairs of the nations of the earth since the records have been kept of man's doings. Also it may be well to look at those promises, as well as the warnings that have been a record of those peoples in their attempts to present a manner of moral, religious and secular life of the various peoples.
3. These to become illustrative in the minds of individuals must be referred, then, to individual attainment or individual application of those things which have been and are still ruling factors.
4. Man finds himself endowed with body, mind and soul; and each phase of his consciousness is seeking for the satisfying or gratifying of the longings of those phases of his nature.
5. Hence we find there are in the experience of man three desired purposes, or three natural laws pertaining to his material existence: survival of his species, or the preservation of life; to give expression of his own concept of life; and (third) to be heard, to be noticed in his activity.
6. Out of this individual purpose grows that position or condition known in various groups or countries as nationalism, patriotism, and the ability to rule - or force his concept upon others.
7. These are conditions which exist in man's experience today.
8. Then look, for the moment, upon those standards that have been proclaimed in the varied lands.
9. To us here, as individuals, we have accepted, we do accept those tenets of the Nazarene, Jesus of Nazareth, whose whole gospel was combined in that message, "Ye shall love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and mind, and thy neighbor as thyself." And then, as to make this become a more practical experience in the lives of individuals, He gave "A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another."
10. That we as individuals may make compatible, then, those relationships of Creative Forces or God upon the one hand, and the nature of man in materiality upon the other hand, is the need of THIS day, this age. For He WILL indeed come again, - and woe be unto him who is found wanting!
11. In the experiences of the earth, of the nations, since those periods of the war to outlaw war, there has grown more and more the desire and the purposes for PEACE. Not as a peace at any cost, or any price, but a peace that is compatible with man's nature, man's purposes, when that purpose, that aim, that desire is made compatible with the spiritual law as given by that Teacher.
12. When this is compared with all the varied experiences of groups, of nations that have had, that DO have a following of some other teacher, we have found, we will find that the BASIC principles "Ye shall love the Lord" are at the core, the heart of every one. The manner of its application to the fellow man has been and is that variation, that has made for the application of man's desire in the relations to the other two phases of man's consciousness.
13. But since those periods when man has been made to THINK - THINK, - not only of the sources of man's spiritual but his mental and material desires, - more and more has gone up the prayer from individuals, groups, - yea, whole nations have joined almost as one; and more and more of the secular things are being put aside.
14. Hence we find at this present time, NOW, the conditions or the circumstances throughout the nations of the world, or in the earth, are a challenge to every thinking person; that ye are not alone to pray for peace but are to PURSUE peace - by LIVING the second phase of the divine injunction, "thy neighbor as thyself."
15. Then, today, we are to answer within our individual consciousness, "Am I my brother's keeper?" Not "What does the world owe me?" but "What contribution can I, as an individual soul seeking God, seeking to know His face, make that may hasten the day of the Lord?"
16. For we as individuals, as we look about us, realize more and more that indeed we are live and move and have our being in Him, - and we are becoming mindful also OF "from whence we came." And we realize that as He has given, "If ye will be my people, I will be thy God" applies to me, to you, to each soul that has been blessed with the consciousness, the awareness of life.
17. For Life itself in all its forms and phases is indeed a manifestation of that we worship as God.
18. We realize that selfishness, jealousies, those things that make people afraid must gradually be put away.
19. First, then, as an individual, self must be conquered. Rather than raising thy voice, then, that YE may be heard, raise thy voice that HE, thy God, may be heard!
20. WHO, then, is thy God? Is it thyself, thy body, thy ego? Rather look, then, to Him who is able to keep you from falling, but is able to keep you in strength of His might by thy desire, by purpose, thy aims being "Others, Lord! Others!"
21. We are through for the present.

REPORTS

1. 6/13/39 P.M. Edgar Cayce continued the discourse on World Affairs which he would present at the open meeting of the 8th Annual Congress. See this under 3976-23.

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