Book Review - Connections - The Five Threads of Intuitive Wisdom

Someone once asked Edgar Cayce if others could do what he did, and he answered, "Yes, if you are willing to pay the price." For some, this referred to the material sacrifices Mr. Cayce and his family made to pursue his work. Yet there is another level of meaning to his reply. Many of his statements about intuitive or psychic development pointed to the necessity for personal transformation, not merely the learning of a technique. One could learn the technique of automatic writing, for example, and produce works of wonder. Although Mr. Cayce acknowledged that automatic writing was a valid channel for bringing in new truths, he consistently advised people away from it and toward the alternative, alternative, inspirational writing. This latter method requires, however, more than learning the trick of getting your hand to write while you're not paying attention. It requires one to learn how to enter into the consciousness of an ideal, and then surrender to the flow of that awareness as it moves into the writing phase. The caterpillar doesn't become a butterfly by pasting on wings, but rather by allowing itself to melt into liquid which then crystallizes as a butterfly.

I've given students a taste of this kind of transformation through dance. Typically I use Cayce's favorite music for harmonizing, Strauss's "Blue Danube Waltz." Don't try to "do a dance," I suggest," but rather allow the music to dance you!" It is a fun way to explore the difference between making an effort to perform a trick and to enter into the mystery of oneness. In her book Connections: The Five Threads of Intuitive Wisdom (Tarcher/Penguin), Gabrielle Roth presents a similar self-transformational approach to intuition. The author, an artist of the dance and a respected exemplar of someone living the intuitive life, shares personal stories of her struggles, transformations, and discoveries. There is another life to live, more real than what typically passes for living, and there's a divine human being ready to live that alternative life, she writes, provided we can escape the addiction to the consciousness of the separate self that must be in control.

"To fully realize our intuitive abilities," she writes, "we need to be instinctive, intimate, intent, integral, and inspired. Each of these energies is a facet of intuition, our connection to the divine force that moves all things. The problem happens when we stop trusting its supreme intelligence, intelligence, when we allow our intuition to be overwhelmed and diminished by the loud, reactive defensive voices of the ego."

By instinctive, she means the wisdom of the body. A good example is the way the body can naturally move to music if it's allowed. Wisdom can emerge from the dance, as you can discover for yourself. When you are troubled by a situation and don't know what to do, if meditation doesn't help, try dancing! When you sit back down, exhausted and spent, you may be surprised to find that you now know how to move past your predicament.

By intimacy, she means the momentary dissolving of boundaries that create separations between ourselves and the life around us. Learning to listen, to experience a heart connection with other life forms, is a form of cooperation with life that supports intuitive awareness.

By intent, she means the ability to embrace change, even chaos, while knowing intuitively that one has an inner connection with one's destiny that will shake off potential mistakes and alert one to the symbolic cues life uses to call us forward.

By integrity, she doesn't mean being right or good, but rather she asks that we be real, authentic, not weakened by contradictions, but strengthened by the paradoxes we can accept. It's not about what we say, but what we are aware of within. Being honest with ourselves, having the innocence of a pure heart, gives us courage to trust intuition rather than doubt it and suspect it of personal contamination.

By inspiration, she means the intuition of Spirit. It is the ability to allow life to breathe you, to move you along your natural path of soul expression. Everyone has a purpose, a calling, a destiny. With intention we can set an ideal, and then allow the Spirit of Life to move us toward the fulfillment of that ideal. Very often life will take us to a new level of awareness, to an even greater ideal, provided we are willing to be moved. Once again, dancing to inspirational music is often a great awakener, a wonderful meditation on being moved by Spirit.

Gabrielle Roth's personal confessions - exuberant, earthy, wild, sensitive - of her experience with intuition echo the description of the spiritual path described in both idealized and practical terms by Edgar Cayce. More than learning intuitive skills, the goal is personal tr ansformation that allows one to "express the face" of the Creator in one's own individual manner.

Henry Reed, Ph.D., is on staff at Atlantic University He has been the prime designer of A.R.E.'s psychic development program, in its various aspects, for the past twenty some years. He is one of the trainers of A.R.E.'s most successful, and long running, psychic training conference, "The Edgar Cayce Legacy: Be Your Own Psychic." He developed A.R.E.'s program of evaluating psychics. He has published scientific articles on his research into intuition and psychic functioning. He is the author of Edgar Cayce on Awakening Your Psychic Powers, Edgar Cayce on Channeling Your Higher Self, and Your Intuitive Heart.