EDGAR CAYCE ON Overcoming Fear and Anxiety EDGAR CAYCE ON Overcoming Fear and Anxiety An Updated Edition of Hugh Lynn Cayce’s Faces of Fear HUGH LYNN CAYCE WITH KEVIN J. TODESCHI A.R.E. Press • Virginia Beach • Virginia Copyright © 2004 by Kevin J. Todeschi Faces of Fear © 1980 by Hugh Lynn Cayce 4th Printing, April 2012 Printed in the U.S.A. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or trans- mitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, includ- ing photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. A.R.E. Press 215 67th Street Virginia Beach, VA 23451-2061 Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data Cayce, Hugh Lynn. Edgar Cayce on overcoming fear and anxiety : an updated edition of Hugh Lynn Cayce’s Faces of fear / by Hugh Lynn Cayce with Kevin J. Todeschi. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references (p. ). ISBN 0-87604-494-1 (trade pbk.) ISBN 13: 978-0-87-04-494-0 1. Parapsychology and medicine. 2. Fear—Alternative treatment. 3. Anxiety—Alternative treatment. 4. Cayce, Edgar, 1877-1945. 5. Fear. 6. Anxiety. I. Todeschi, Kevin J. II. Cayce, Hugh Lynn. Faces of fear. III. Title. BF1045.M44C39 2004 131—dc22 2004020201 Edgar Cayce Readings © 1971, 1993-2007 by the Edgar Cayce Foundation. All rights reserved. Cover design by Richard Boyle Contents Foreword ............................................................................................................ ix ONE: The Nature of Fear ...........................................................................................1 TWO: Are Our Bodies Afraid? .............................................................................. 11 THREE: Repressed Fear Memories ......................................................................... 29 FOUR: Fears from Past-Life Memories .............................................................. 43 FIVE: The Fear of Death .......................................................................................... 55 SIX: Reexamining Your Fears and Anxieties ............................................ 67 SEVEN: Bringing Your Life into Alignment—Spiritually ........................... 73 EIGHT: Bringing Your Life into Alignment—Mentally .............................. 97 NINE: Bringing Your Life into Alignment—Physically .........................121 TEN: The Oneness of All Force ....................................................................... 127 Conclusion ...................................................................................................... 135 Appendix A: Fear Questionnaire: Getting in Touch with Possible Causes for Personal Fears ....................................................................................139 Appendix B: Bringing All Things to Your Remembrance ...................................145 Appendix C: References and Recommended Reading ............................................ 151 The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? Psalm 27:1 Foreword HERE WAS a time when I was so terrified of speaking in front of individuals that I rarely—if ever—forced myself to even ask a T question while in a group of three or more people. Except on a few occasions when I felt extremely comfortable around friends or fam- ily, I never spoke in a group and I never raised my hand in a class. When I was called on or I was forced to speak, the fear became so intense that I felt my throat constrict and grip with fear. While this occurred, breathing was next to impossible and my face would become tight and hot. Any words that did manage to escape my mouth were forced out between uneven breaths. If individuals turned to look at me as I struggled to speak, it felt as if I was strangling, choking on the words that became stuck in my throat and I would turn red-faced with embarrassment. Over the years, I became angry with myself for being so afraid and I became even more afraid of situations in which I might be called on to speak in front of people. Today, it is almost hard to imagine being crippled by such intense fear. As a spokesperson for the work of Edgar Cayce, I have lectured in ix front of literally tens of thousands of individuals on five continents regarding dozens of topics. I have given dream interpretation classes in Ecuador, spoken about ancient Egypt in Japan, held intuition work- shops in France, escorted numerous tour groups along the Nile, led hypnotic reveries in Canada and given hundreds of lectures through- out the United States—from California in the West and Washington D.C. in the East, and from Texas in the South and Montana in the North. The fearful student who would not even raise a hand in class could never have conceived of such a possibility. I still remember what year I began to overcome the fear, and I clearly remember the occasion that caused me to think beyond any doubt, “I have got to do something about this.” It was 1982 and I was an attendee at a retreat program in the mountains of Colorado. The speaker was Dr. Gladys McGarey, M.D., author of Born to Live and one of the foremost authorities of the Cayce principles of health, healing, medicine, and child rearing. Dr. Gladys, as she is affectionately known, was speaking about her many experiences during thirty-plus years as an obstetrician. I re- member it was a wonderful program with about eighty of us in atten- dance. As she spoke, there was a question I wanted answered that I hoped she would simply discuss. Unfortunately, she did not. As the lecture came to an end and Dr. Gladys opened the conference up for questions, I hoped that someone else would ask the question that I wanted to know. One question followed after another, each being answered in turn, but no one voiced the query that I had hoped to hear. My ques- tion was as follows: I had heard that the Edgar Cayce readings sug- gested whenever a child was born into the earth, the angels sang—joyously proclaiming the opportunity for spirit to enter into the earth. I wanted to know if during her many years as an obstetrician, Dr. Gladys had ever heard the music of angelic voices. That was my ques- tion, however it was a question that no one else asked. As it became clear to me that the conference session was coming to a close, my desire to know the answer to this question became stronger than the fear of raising my hand. Feeling I had absolutely no other choice than to ask the question myself, I repeated the question in my head four or five times to reassure myself. When I had finally worked x up the nerve, I raised my hand. Immediately, Dr. Gladys called on me. I can remember sitting there ready to ask the question that I had repeatedly verbalized in my head without any problem. Suddenly, I saw three or four other conferees turn to look at me as I began to speak. Immediately, I felt my throat constrict, my face turned red, and without breathing I somehow man- aged to choke out a dozen words that barely provided Dr. Gladys with just enough information to know what I was really trying to ask. Even now, I can remember feeling ashamed as Dr. Gladys responded to my question, wondering how many other people had seen my public dis- play of fear. Synchronistically, a few weeks after the conference I had the oppor- tunity to obtain a psychic reading from an intuitive named William Schaeffer, who was living in Denver at the time. Without thinking about my fears or worries, I went to William for a past-life reading. William and I had never met before; he knew nothing about my personal life, my hopes, my dreams, or my fears. The experience proved to be a turn- ing point for me. During the session, William said that one of the challenges I had to overcome in the present was a deep-seated “intolerance of intolerance.” He went on to say that oftentimes in my soul’s history I had gotten “up on a soapbox” to tell people about how mistaken they were in their shortsighted beliefs, their biases, and their prejudices. According to Wil- liam, rather than enabling individuals to broaden their perspectives, more often than not my approach had simply gotten me “arrested, shunned, or even hanged.” He added: “You know every time you get up to speak to people, your subconscious mind thinks, ‘Oh no, here he goes again . shut him up.’” To emphasize his point, William made a hangman’s noose with his fingertips and constricted the circle with his hands. At that moment, I believed I had found the cause of my fear. To be sure, the fear did not immediately come to an end. Instead, what happened was that each time I found myself in a situation were I needed to speak before a group, I would reassure myself with positive affirmations, such as: “I have nothing to fear, I am just asking a ques- tion”; “these people want to hear what you have to say”; “there is no reason to worry, I am in a safe place,” and so forth. At first, the fear was xi no longer crippling. Eventually, it became manageable. In time, I worked through it. William’s brief statement became the catalyst that enabled me to overcome the fear that had impacted my life for as long as I could remember. Speaking in public was not my only fear, but it was certainly one of the most overwhelming. Edgar Cayce (1877-1945), who has been called one of greatest psychics of all time, suggested that fear is one of the biggest stumblingblocks individuals face throughout their lives. Fear can be crippling; it can cause individuals to refrain from doing what they know to do and from becoming what they were meant to be. Fear comes in a variety of inten- sities and it seems to have a number of causes. Every individual has had to face fear at one time or another. It is the cause of fear and how we respond to that fear that sets us apart as individuals.