The Spirit of Ma’at - Vol 1 No. 9

Edgar Cayce

on Soul Mates

an interview with

Kevin Todeschi

by Diane M. Cooper

You don't need a magic potion to make love last. You just need two people to still believe in the magic. - Kevin Todeschi

Diane: Kevin, I understand that you've been involved with the Edgar Cayce material for about 27 years. How did you become interested in his work?

Kevin: I was living in Colorado in 1974, and I happened to read The Search for Bridey Murphy,[1] about a woman who had been hypnotized and remembered a past life in Ireland. The book, which created quite a media sensation, had a great deal of information about Edgar Cayce.

I started reading all the books I could find about Cayce, and I joined a study group and became fairly active in A.R.E.[2] in Colorado. Eventually, I started speaking for A.R.E. in Colorado. Then in 1982, after graduating from college, I moved to Virginia and have been working for A.R.E. ever since.

Diane: It strikes me that when someone is drawn as emphatically as you were, there must have been something in particular that struck a chord. What was it about the Cayce material that attracted your attention?

Kevin: I think part of it was the wealth of information. You could spend a lifetime exploring the Cayce material - even now, in spite of my familiarity with it, I still come across new and exciting things all the time. Cayce talked about ten thousand different topics, giving readings to people just like you and me who asked questions just like those you and I might ask today.

Diane: I found his Soul Mate material to be particularly interesting because it doesn't support the prevalent romantic notion of finding ''The One." Cayce's readings seem to present logical reasons that we might be attracted to more than one person throughout our lifetime. Of course, the outcome might not always be what we expect.

Kevin: Absolutely. Although we are drawn to another person in part because on occasion we've had very positive relationships with those individuals, it is also because, by being with them, we're prompted to become whole within ourselves.

Unfortunately, I think growing up we're sold a bill of goods, and we think that a perfect relationship is never challenging, it's just love-ness and Light and everything is wonderful. But we don't learn very well that way. I think we learn by the challenges, we learn by being stretched. And nothing could be a better playground for learning than intimate relationships.

Diane: Would you give us Cayce's definition of ''Soul Mate''?

Kevin: I would say from Cayce's perspective a Soul Mate is an individual with whom we've been together in the past, and someone to whom we are drawn in the present. In being with that individual, we have the opportunity to become more whole within ourselves. We have Soul Mate relationships with our family, with our parents, kids, neighbors, people at work, and so on. In Cayce's perspective, everyone with whom we have a strong emotional tie - and you can read that positively or negatively - is invariably a Soul Mate.

Diane: Then why is there so much romance, and also somewhat of a stigma, attached to the idea of Soul Mates.

Kevin: I don't want to give relationships a bad name, as there can be very positive Soul Mate relationships where everything just seems wonderful - from Cayce's perspective, these are relationships that have been built over time, and we've chiseled off the rough edges.

Here's the test: Think of the one person you love unconditionally in the whole world. Until you feel that way about every single Soul, you're not done yet.

Diane: Goodness. It looks like we may be here for a long, long time. You mean I really may have to learn to love my neighbor?

Kevin: Yes, and it can be challenging when your neighbor does not understand how the system works, and may not be willing to learn how it works. But that doesn't change our own responsibility in trying to get the lessons from our experience.

Let me tell you Cayce's four major underlying concepts that have to do with Soul Mate relationships.

1. Ultimately, ultimately, all relationships have the potential to be a purposeful and helpful experience in terms of growth.

2. All our relationships are destined to be repeated until they are healed.

3. We learn most about ourselves through our interactions with other people. We get to see what we need to work on and we also see what strengths we bring to the encounter in order to help the other person in their life.

4. As Souls seeking wholeness, our goal is eventually to learn to love everyone we come in contact with.

Diane: Let's go to that second premise, which says we'll come back again and again until it's healed - what did Cayce mean by its being ''healed''?

Kevin: Let me give you two different answers.

One is that you can tell there has been a healing when you can think of someone, and perhaps certain encounters, and you have no negative response to any of your history with that person. And if you're not suppressing your emotions - if you have no negative emotional response that you can think of in regard to this person - in all likelihood there has been a healing and you don't necessarily have to face this person again.

The second answer shows up in the Cayce readings where one person has learned a lesson and doesn't necessarily have to come back and face it again, but the Soul Mind, out of love and compassion, has decided to help the other, and comes back in order to do that.

Diane: So where does conscious choice come into it?

Kevin: We do have free will and choice, but it's at the level of the Soul, not at the level of the conscious mind.

Diane: So what I'm hearing you say is that there are many Soul Mates, and we return with these people as companions to accomplish specific purposes?

Kevin: Yes. For example, Cayce would often tell someone to delay marriage until a career had been decided on. Because with each choice of career, we basically draw to us a different potential life - different relationships, probable spouses, and so on. There is more than one choice out there.

Diane: What happened to the idea of ''The One''?

Kevin: It ain't true. I mean, I'm happy with my spouse, I don't want to trade her in, but I think there is more than one potential marriage partner out there.

Diane: What about people who cannot seem to have intimate relationships.

Kevin: Cayce gave many readings to people who had not found a relationship, and who were very lonely. He explained that, basically, there were two reasons for loneliness.

* If the Soul continues to suppress its creative instincts, desires, or purpose, and is cutting itself off from what it was supposed to be doing, the outcome might show up as loneliness.

* The other reason people may experience loneliness is that, in this life or in a past life, they ignored someone who reached out to them for help, or isolated themselves from others.

Cayce would advise some people suffering loneliness to consciously begin to reach out through helping those who were less fortunate than themselves. He also would advise people to begin manifesting their creativity.

Diane: How did Cayce feel about divorce. I've heard he was against it.

Kevin: A lot of people ask me this. There is a misconception that Cayce told people never to get divorced - he didn't say that. He basically mentioned three different reasons for getting divorced.

1. If one partner is in danger - physical, mental, or spiritual danger - by remaining with the other person. You don't want to stay if you're on the verge of getting killed or totally suppressed spiritually.

2. If one person has learned their lessons and the other refuses to do so.

3. If both have learned their lessons together and are complete with each other.

So if two people say to each other, ''You've helped me grow, but now you want to go off and be a desert archeologist and I want to go to a commune on the beach'' - if people are affectionate with each other, and there is no anger - then divorce, according to Cayce, is okay.

Diane: And if two people agree to stay and work it out, does Cayce say how to do this without destroying the spark that drew them together in the first place?

Kevin: There are certainly a lot of responses to that question. Most often, Cayce's answer was directed to an individual case, so I'm not certain everything he said would apply to everyone. But I do remember a case about a married man with two small children who came in complaining that his wife was not keeping the house clean enough, or having enough discipline with the children, and he was frustrated that she didn't get things done on time. He wanted Cayce to tell him how to make her into a better wife.

Cayce listened, and then told him to sit down and imagine what would be the ideal husband for his wife, and make a list of his qualities - how her ideal husband would act, how he would treat her. Then, he was to start doing everything on the list. If he did this, Cayce said, his wife would start to change.

I'm sure it kind of irritated the guy. In his mind, it was for her to change, not him. But if you think about it, that's a very interesting assignment.

Diane: I'm thinking of instances that I'm aware of where everyone concerned has reached the saturation point and they don't even like each other anymore. There isn't any energy left to give the situation. What then?

Kevin: Because of the dynamic of ''like attracts like,'' which is one of the universal laws having to do with relationships, very often if you ask each of the parties individually what is it that challenges them most about their relationship, they will give similar answers. They both will blame each other - but often each spouse is coming across the same way to the other.

Diane: We talk about divorce easily - many times a person might choose divorce, perceiving that the partner isn't willing to grow or go to the next level. What then?

Kevin: It's a rarity that we would ever get to divorce in the Cayce information.

I remember an example where a woman was very upset with her husband and wanted out because he was involved, at least emotionally, with another woman. The three of them actually came in together for a reading. The reading advised that the three of them needed to stay together and work things out.

The story as it unfolded was that the wife had been the Head Wife in a past life in Persia, and she had abused a younger wife verbally and made her do all the work, and was always angry toward her. The younger wife was the girlfriend who had manifested in the current life.

Cayce said in the reading that the wife needed to learn not to be so controlling and hateful toward other people, the husband needed to learn lessons involving sexual behavior, and the younger woman needed to learn her own lessons of self-esteem. Cayce told all of them they needed to work together and be appropriate for the day - meaning it was not okay for the man to have a physical affair with this younger woman, but it was okay for him to feel love for her because it was a memory from the past. But in the present, he needed to love his wife and honor her.

After they had learned to be together and friendly, the younger woman eventually found a boyfriend and moved away.

I think Cayce was willing to go the extra mile to learn the lesson, far more than most of us would in contemporary society. But I don't think Cayce would say that it was okay for a sexual threesome, because sex for the sake of sex was seen as shortsighted.

Let me tell you one more Soul Mate story - this story is especially to show that we have Soul Mate relationships that are not sexual.

Two college roommates were put together during Cayce's day. As soon as they got together, they knew they didn't like each other much, and things started going downhill pretty rapidly.

One of them was from the South, and was interested in the Cayce material. The other was from the North, from a very conservative Catholic family. To him, Cayce's stuff was weird at the very least. They often argued with each other, and eventually got into fist fights. Sometimes one of them would move his mattress out in the hall to sleep. Eventually, the one who was interested in Cayce convinced the other to see what Cayce would say about their situation. They had a reading, and were told that they had been together in ancient Egypt as rivals, and that one of them had managed to have the other one killed. So no wonder there was animosity.

After that life, they both had been in the Crusades, one as a Muslim and the other as a Christian, and one of them had cut off the other's thumb in a sword fight. The interesting thing was that when they would argue, a thin scar would appear on the hand of the one whose thumb had been cut off. Kind of like a reminder that something more was at play.

They were also told that the most recent time they had been together was in an English monastery, where they had often argued and debated about theology. And so this current life was the fourth time that they had been together, and Cayce told them that they could go their separate ways, but it would be far better for them to learn to love one another in the present and put an end to this animosity.

Over time they really started trying to do this, and when one became ill with arthritis, the other was the one who gave him massages. Eventually they became really good friends.

So you see, I think we seriously pick up these relationships over and over again until we learn how to love the other person.

Diane: So what is this ''like attracts like'' that you're taking about. It sounds like a homeopathic relationship - like cures like, like attracts like...

Kevin: Whatever we need we draw to us, and exactly when we need it. It's ''like attracts like'' with a twist. For example, I remember a client who shared with me once that she grew up in a verbally abusive household where one of her parents was always screaming at her. In school she was always picked on. She married, and her husband was extremely overbearing, and her children, at a certain stage, started yelling back at her. Now she had a boss, and her boss was extremely domineering as well. And her take on all this was, ''I guess this is just my karma.''

My sense of it was ''like attracts like'' - this woman obviously had very little self-esteem. The universe was continually drawing to this woman people who did not esteem her, until she could wake up and say, ''Hey, wait a minute - I don't have to take this anymore, I am a good person!'' As soon as she changed her opinion about herself, the other people around her started to change. The universe was reflecting her thoughts about herself through others.

Diane: What about same-sex relationships?

Kevin: Where two people are lovers, you mean? Partly, it works exactly the same way. In my Soul Mate book,[3] I have a case history of two women who were together in this life. They had been together for fifteen years, and one of them was always convinced that the other was about to leave her. One night, she had a dream, and in the dream she felt as though she were a man during Civil War times. She was lying next to her brother and had the feeling that he was going to go off to battle and she would never see him again. And she realized that her present lover had been her brother in this past life, and that she was reliving the fear of his departure to war.

In my mind, sex is basically icing on the cake. It's the one thing that holds people together when nothing else will. But our emotional ties with one another go through all types of relationships.

There are instances where in a past life a woman has a passionate lover who in this current life comes back as her son. It wouldn't be appropriate to pick up the sexual part in this life, of course - but the emotional connection with this person has not changed.

Diane: So in your own life, Kevin, what has been the most profound lesson that you have been able to apply and see as truth for yourself?

Kevin: In all honesty? It's this: Whenever I have an emotional response toward another human, there is always something for me to learn.

Even now, if I have a problem with a staff person here at work, or if I argue with my wife or get frustrated with the neighbor or whatever, very quickly I ask myself, ''What is it that I'm supposed to be learning from this?'' Not, ''Why is this person being a pain in the butt?'' I mean, that may go through my mind, but in order to come to terms with why this might be happening to me, I have to really get down to the heart of what I'm supposed to be learning. I can't say that I'm always successful - but I do really try every time something happens.

Diane: I think some of our readers may be interested in having past-life readings. How can they find a reliable psychic to help them understand their past-life relationships?

Kevin:We have a list of about twenty-five people we consider helpful, hopeful, and positive, and who have been with us during various programs. The list is on our website, or people can write A.R.E. and we will share it. But I think anybody who is hopeful, helpful, and positive can be a good reader.

We also have information on how to heal relationships. We have a website, a customer service department with all kinds of information ... and [humorously] Kevin Todeschi's books, which are well worth reading.

Diane: Thanks for your time, Kevin. It's been a lot of fun.

Kevin Todeschi is the author of more than ten books, and has been involved with the Edgar Cayce material for more than twenty-seven years. His most recent book, Soul Development: Edgar Cayce's Approach for a New World, details how each individual is constantly co-creating their enfolding life experience. He is also the author of the two A.R.E. Press bestsellers: Edgar Cayce on the Akashic Records, and Edgar Cayce on Soul Mates. The Akashic Records book explores the primary source of Cayce's information, as well as how individuals frequently obtain insights from their past lives, their present experiences, and their unfolding futures. Soul Mates, already in its fourth printing, covers the many facets of Soul Mate relationships and soul attraction discussed by Cayce, and includes a discussion of contemporary relationship examples.

A prolific writer, Kevin also has authored many articles and publications, including An Overview of the Edgar Cayce Material, The Edgar Cayce Ideals Workbook, Edgar Cayce's ESP, Edgar Cayce on the Reincarnation of Famous People, Edgar Cayce on the Reincarnation of Biblical Characters, and many video scripts, including The Edgar Cayce Legacy, an introductory video on the life and work of Cayce, which he also produced. One of his most popular books, Twelve Lessons in Personal Spirituality, presents an overview of the Edgar Cayce material on personal growth and transformation. Used by spiritual discussion groups throughout the country, it received a "highly recommended" rating from the Library Journal and has been translated into Spanish and Romanian.

Kevin lives with his wife, Mary, in Virginia Beach, Virginia.

Sources

1. Search for Bridey Murphy Format: Paperback, 320pp. ISBN: 0385260032 Publisher: Doubleday & Company, Incorporated Pub. Date: November 1990 (available at Source Books).

2. Association for Research and Enlightenment, custodians of Cayce's legacy; 215 67th Street, Virginia Beach, VA 23451 (800) 333-4499, website at edgarcayce.org.

3. Books by Kevin J. Todeschi: Edgar Cayce on Soul Mates: Unlocking the Dynamics of Soul Attraction; Soul Development: Edgar Cayce's Approach to a New World Dream Interpretation (and More!) Made Easy; and Edgar Cayce on the Akashic Records; all available at edgarcayce.org and Source Books. Also see Kevin Todeschi Biography.

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