The Essenes & the Dead Sea Scrolls
DEAR JEANETTE: We studied about the Dead Sea Scrolls in Sunday School. I’ve heard something about Edgar Cayce in connection with them but none of us know what it was. Can you tell us? W.J., Lee, AL.
DEAR W.J.: The book EDGAR CAYCE ON THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS by Glenn D. Kittler (A.R.E., Virginia Beach, VA 23451) gives one of the truly fascinating stories that is real evidence of the amazing information that can be received by a psychic as gifted as this man was.
First, it is important to realize that the scrolls were not ‘discovered’ until 1948, several years after Cayce’s death.
Although we now know that they (the Essenes) played an important part in the early Christian movement, they are not mentioned by name in the Bible and there was relatively little information in the secular histories. Most that had been believed about them was from legend or speculation. Until the time of Edgar Cayce, tat is.
As early as 1937, there are references in the Cayce readings to the Essenes and a particular school in what we now know as the Qumran area. Many details were given which were in conflict with the beliefs of his day. They were mentioned so many times however that it was decided to do a special series of readings just on the Essenes.
Almost none of his statements could be verified until after the Scrolls were found and translated. Both the scrolls and the artifacts, etc., found in Essene communities (which were excavated because of the Scrolls) proved that the things seen by Cayce had been correct.
This evidence of his authenticity caused many people to believe in his psychic powers. Also this dealt with an area of interest to church-going people, many of whom had previously given no thought or consideration to the work of a ‘psychic’.
There are at least two reasons, I would suspect, for the number of times the Essenes were mentioned in the Cayce readings. One, people tend to come back in groups and to be drawn to someone they have known in a previous lifetime.
Secondly, the lifetimes that are most influential to this current lifetime are the ones that are most often mentioned in life-readings. The psychic evidence is that many who lived at the time of Jesus have again incarnated in order to be a part of the work preparatory to His Second Coming, and that prior lifetime with Him is affecting them greatly now. (1982)