Sacred Journey. M.K. Welsch
entrance into these newly formed earth-bodies with each entry representing a different race: red, yellow, white, black, and brown. The locations were Eden, Atlantis, the Andes, western America, and India, although the continents and oceans were not in the same configurations as they are today. Interestingly Islamic tradition also states that Adam was created from red, white, and black clay. And the Jewish Talmud notes that dust was gathered throughout the whole earth to create Adam’s body, which resulted in the homogeneity of the multicolored human race.2 The Adam soul, however, remained the leader of the Sons of God and set the pattern for those who had entered in the other four areas, serving as the primary interface between God and all the souls trapped in matter. The Cayce information also ascribes to Adam the establishment of the “ … altars upon which the sacrifices of the field and forest … ”(364-4) were made as religious tributes to the divine.
While a literal reading of the Old Testament and most recognized biblical scholarship give no shrift to the kind of prehistory recounted in the Cayce material, other ancient sources of wisdom paint a slightly different picture. Gnostic Mandaean literature mentions a mystic or secret Adam who preceded the human Adam by countless years and the Hermeticists apparently held similar beliefs. The Kabbalist Zohar discusses two Adams as well. The first was “a divine being” who stepped forth “from the highest original darkness, creating the second, or earthly, Adam in His own image.”3 Likewise, ancient Jewish mystics claimed that “God first created the Heavenly Man, the Archetype, who filled the universe and served as the pattern on which it was made.”4
In the Garden
The mystical passage of the human race through the earth experience begins in the first book of the Bible with the Garden of Eden and the baffling story of Adam and his helpmeet Eve whose choices lead to a paradise lost. Here is where the record of the soul’s movement through the material dimension sets sail. It is worth noting that the Cayce material describes the Bible, as a whole, as the history of humanity’s spiritual development and search for God. The readings regard it as an account of the soul’s supernatural origins, its memory lapse and fall, and the long and fitful progression upward to reach a state of divine awareness again. Occasionally the story shows the children of God taking huge leaps forward with the help of some of the highly evolved patriarchs and prophets populating the Old Testament. Yet more often than not, the climb appears daunting and painfully slow. The epic does not reach its apotheosis until one soul attains a state of being never before achieved in the material realm: the full flowering of the Christ spirit in the earth through one man’s conscious union with God. The advent of the newly structured Adam-body is what sets this sacred journey into motion.
Helpmeet
The second chapter of Genesis conveys an interesting moment in the biography of Adam, who dwells in a magnificent garden flourishing with everything he could possibly want or need. But the man is lonely. Realizing the problem, God proceeds to address it by setting aside Adam’s conscious mind and causing a deep sleep to come over him. Then the unseen Creative Forces remove one of Adam’s ribs and from that bone fashion a separate being—a woman called Eve. Out of the blue and from the innermost depths of Adam’s own being, a separate spirit emerges—something born of his deeper, unconscious self. And a new energy, which until that moment had been hidden from human awareness, is released to take form in the world.
This dramatic scene in the creation narrative harks back to the soul’s original, formless condition within the cosmos when the very first soul made “in our image, after our likeness” emerged from the Godhead. (Gen. 1:26) The biblical allusion to “our” likeness refers to the fact that from the outset souls were created male and female. Since the very first soul came into being and began roaming the universe in spirit form, entering the earth plane as an entity named Amilius, it and every other soul had incorporated both polarities. As explained in the Cayce information, only much later did the actual physical separation into the two sexes occur as a means to help souls advance.
The developments in Eden speak to the fact that the male spirit (Adam) and its female counterpart (Eve) were actually two halves of one whole. They were twin souls—coequal reflections of a unique aspect of divinity spun off at the moment of creation. And now the pair would occupy the planet in visible form as material representations of the masculine and feminine polarities. Interestingly, the Old Testament allegory confirms the unity and native equality of the two by describing Eve as an element of Adam taken from his side. Edgar Cayce elaborates further on Eve’s purpose for coming into being—
… this as a being came as the companion; and when there was that turning to the within, through the sources of creation, as to make for the helpmeet … then—from out of self—was brought that as was to be the helpmeet, not just a companion of the body …
364-7
More than a bodily companion, Adam’s helpmeet Eve is a symbol of that which issues forth from the soul itself to assist humankind along the path back to divine awareness. A previously overlooked aspect of the soul has come into expression in order to aid in its spiritual development.
As with most of the Bible, layer upon layer of meaning infuses the relatively simple story of the glorious garden that once was our home. Running through this tale of a paradise lost are the intertwining elements of the plot which mask profound spiritual truths. First, only by laying aside the mind, putting the outer self to sleep so to speak, can the unseen Creative Forces hidden deep inside us enter into this world. Second, each “half” of the now-split soul, its male and female counterparts, has an individual destiny and specific role to play in the spiritual upliftment of the human race. In that same vein, the Edgar Cayce readings reveal an as yet unrecognized but astonishing fact about Adam’s “twin soul,” his consort Eve. She will enter the earth again for another significant lifetime at a pivotal moment in human history. It is during the period when the first begotten of God or Adam soul makes its climactic appearance on earth as the Messiah. In that future incarnation the soul known as Eve will return to assist the deliverer in his holy mission by taking on the role of Mary, the mother of Jesus.
The Serpent Beguiled Me
In paradise—humanity’s original “perfect” condition—Adam and Eve live in peaceful coexistence and companionship with their God enjoying dominion over every cell of the created universe. The readings state that “ … in the first was given man and mind [to] subdue the earth in every element … all manner of animal in the earth, in the air, under the sea, has been tamed of man … ”(900-31) As a pot is comprised of and no different from the clay out of which it is shaped, the man and woman embodied the stuff of divinity and as such experienced a state of uninterrupted harmony and bliss. Their Edenic utopia might have continued unabated had the serpent not entered the picture. While it is intriguing and perhaps somewhat comforting to believe a literal talking snake was Eve’s tempter, that notion is far too simplistic. The human adventure on this planet was launched by the same forces still at work today: the temptation to misuse the sacred knowledge we possess for self-gratification—Selfishness.
The lamentable events that occurred in the Garden of Eden at the dawn of time actually are a record of the downward movement of human consciousness. Long ago when souls could still perceive their Oneness with the divine and the totality of creation, they chose instead to put their faith in a counterfeit reality: dualism. Understood from its mystical standpoint, the snake in the Bible is the life force found inside each individual—what Eastern mystical teachings refer to as kundalini energy (the serpent). And because every human being is endowed with free will, he or she chooses where to direct this creative spark, deciding either to use these soul forces for the good of the whole or to enhance oneself. Genesis is a fable about how the human race turned away from its divine source and misused its sacred energy as well as a potent reminder