Chapter Nine Channeling in the New World Our investigation of what the channels have to say about the origins of mankind, lost lands and races, cataclysms, and prehistoric high civilizations reveals a glaring lack of consensus. It also uncovers some of the entangled roots that feed these exotic growths. Edgar Cayce The gentle Edgar Cayce (1877-1945) was a fundamentalist when he began his trance channeling in 1901, and for a time he wrestled with doubts over what was speaking through him. He was more disconcerted still when the "Source" started talking about people''s past lives, a concept repugnant to Christian orthodoxy, but with the Source''s help he was able to reconcile even this with Biblical authority. Reincarnation also turned out to be his road to Atlantis. When people consulted Cayce for readings, the Source often mentioned former incarnations that were responsible for, or at least explained, their present difficulties. Beginning in 1923, Cayce gave the first of around 2,500 life readings. Over the next twenty years, no fewer than 700 of these mentioned a former life in Atlantis.

Nor were these vague references. Cayce''s son Edgar Evans, who was the subject of the first life reading, tabulates them according to whether the person lived at the period of the first, second, or third destruction. Another path to Atlantis lay through Cayce''s lesser known work for patrons who used his readings for stock market investment, treasure hunting, and oil prospecting. In 1927 he himself went to Bimini on a hunt for buried gold, and a reading from that period identified the island as the location of a temple of the "Poseidians," i.e. Atlanteans. Finally in 1932, Cayce consented to give a series of thirteen readings specifically on the past. We begin by summarizing its version of anthropogenesis: -The first ancestors of humanity were sexless spiritual entities, with the ability to project forms into the physical world.

-The physical world had already evolved as far as the animal kingdom. The spiritual entities, curious to experience physical life, projected physical forms that were monstrosities. This resulted in evolutionary chaos and alienation from God for the spiritual entities caught within those bodies. -A being called Amilius (later identified as the Christ Consciousness) took matters in hand and projected a more suitable vehicle for spiritual entities to inhabit: the human one. -Humans appeared on earth in five places simultaneously: the Yellow race in the Gobi, the White in the Carpathians, the Red in the Atlantean and American lands, the Brown in the Andes, and the Black in Africa. This occurred more than 10.5 million years ago. One of the most impressive things about Cayce''s Atlantean dicta is their consistency.

It enables his followers and scholars to collate readings from years apart and reconstruct a coherent history from them. Drawing on these, we continue: -The five races were the "Sons of God" mentioned in the Bible. The "Daughters of Men" with whom they made the mistake of mating were the monstrous forms left from the early projections. The result was a race of hybrids. -Early on in Atlantean civilization, a difference arose concerning these hybrids. One group, "Children of the Law of One," wanted to keep the human race pure but help the hybrids regain their position as creatures of God. The other group, "Sons of Belial," believed in sensual gratification alone and treated the hybrids as "things" or slaves. -Atlantis became a great civilization with high technology, some of it in advance of our own.

This included airships that could also become submarines, a "firestone" that gathered cosmic energy, and a crystal that used both solar and geothermal power. -Lemuria, also called Mu, was a continent in the Pacific Ocean whose westernmost portion was the coast of South America. It disappeared before Atlantis in a series of cataclysms lasting 200,000 years. -Atlantis itself disappeared in three separate cataclysms around 50,000 BC, 28,000 BC and 10,000 BC. -The first of these followed the use of advanced technology for destructive purposes, in order to exterminate the enormous carnivorous animals that were overrunning the earth. These were the result of creations by the "sons of men," who had lost control over them. God changed the poles and the animals were destroyed, along with part of Atlantis. -The second destruction was preceded by struggles between the two factions.

Followers of the Law of One emigrated to Peru, the Yucatan, Nevada, Colorado, the Pyrenees, and Egypt. The cataclysm of 28,000 BC was caused by misuse of the firestone by turning its power up too high. It was probably accompanied, again, by a pole shift and a change in climate. -During the last period of Atlantis, Egypt reached a high level of civilization. The Pyramids and Sphinx were built around 10,500 BC by Ra Ta (a past incarnation of Cayce), levitating the stones through the application of occult laws. -On Poseidia, the last remaining island, the two factions continued in strife, and the Sons of Belial instituted oppressive government. Some of the followers of the Law of One, seeing the coming cataclysm, escaped, making the first transatlantic flights as well as sailing to various safe lands. -As its end approached, Atlantis was a morass of violence and depravity.

Crystal power was used for coercion and torture. There was human sacrifice, and the hybrids were used for sexual purposes. The third and final destruction took place through gigantic land upheavals and was complete by 9500 BC. Not many people were aware of Cayce''s Atlantean readings until the 1960s, when a wave of interest in alternative spiritualities drew attention to him. In 1940 his Source had said: "Poseidia will be among the first portions of Atlantis to rise again--expect it in ''68 and ''69--not so far away!" The discovery in 1968 of the "Bimini Road" seemed to fulfill the prophecy, and controversy continues over whether the underwater row of giant stone blocks is natural or manmade. Predictably, those studying Cayce''s readings divided into the debunkers and the true believers.