82 The Atlantis Encyclopedia
elements of Cayce’s “life-readings” such
as these give even skeptics pause, and
encourage many investigators, regardless
of their spiritual beliefs, to reconsider
everything he had to say about Atlantis.
His prediction of finding its first physical
remains not far from the United States
was a case in point described in the
“Bimini” entry. Until Cayce spoke of
Bimini, and even long after some of his
“life-readings” were published, no re-
searchers bothered to consider that small
island as a possible remnant of Atlantean
Civilization.
But how did the massive stone struc-
ture come to lie at the bottom of the sea?
According to Cayce’s “life-readings,” the
Atlantean lands underwent three major
periods of inundation. They did not dis-
appear altogether in a single cataclysm.
The natural disaster described by Plato
represented only the final destruction of
Atlantis. A typical reading exemplifying these various epochs of upheaval took
place in 1933, when Cayce told a client that he once dwelt “in the Atlantean
land before the third destruction.” The first seismic unrest dropped much of its
territory beneath sea-level, followed several millennia later by renewed geologic
violence which sank the remaining dry land, save for the tops of its tallest mountains.
These volcanic peaks became known in historic times as Madeira, the Azore and
Canary Islands, together with Atlas, on which the city of Atlantis arose. The ultimate
destruction took place when Mount Atlas detonated, scoured and hollowed itself
out with ferocious eruptions, then collapsed into the sea. Present interpretation
of this evidence confirms the accuracy of Cayce’s clairvoyant view of the Atlantean
catastrophe. As he said, “the destruction of this continent and the peoples was far
beyond any of that as has been kept as an absolute record, that record in the rocks
still remains.”
For someone of no formal education, Cayce’s grasp of archaeology and
geology was extraordinary, even prophetic. When he said in the 1930s that the
Nile River flowed across the Sahara Desert to the ocean in early Atlantean times,
no scientist in the world would have considered such an apparently outlandish
possibility. Yet, in 1994, nearly half a century after his death, a satellite survey of
North Africa discovered traces of a former tributary of the Nile that connected
Egypt with the Atlantic Ocean at Morocco in prehistory. Persuasive elements of
Cayce’s “life-readings” encourage many investigators to reconsider his documented
statements about Atlantis. But they are troubled by his characterization of theEdgar Cayce, America’s most renowned
psychic of the 20th century, often envisioned
life in Atlantis.