MakingitsCayce
Houston followers of renowned clairvoyant face uncertain future
In most of his past lives, Edward Jamail has been in the military. Sometimes he’s been in command, one time he was a peon in Europe, and he’s also blown away in a battle, though some of the details are a little fuzzy.
But in this life, he’s a retired grocer with a clear problem: how to find a new home for the congregation of likeminded Bayou City souls who follow the teachings of Edgar Cayce, a curious manbetter known as “The Sleeping Prophet.”
Though the worldrenowned clairvoyant died in 1945, he posthumously developed a following in Harris County that, until early November, held meetings, prayer groups and seminars at Edgar Cayce’s Association for Research and Enlightenment of Houston on Amelia Road.
“Wewanted to be a source to help people with their own individual evolution,” said Carl Bohannon, another local leader in Cayce circles.
But early this fall, the AREheadquarters in Virginia Beach — for unclear reasons — announced their decision to shut down the Houston branch. Now, Jamail, Bohannon and their fellow Cayce followers are figuring out where to go for their center’s next incarnation.
As a child growing up in late 1800s rural Kentucky, Cayce was an odd boy.
He’s said to have regularly chatted with his dead grandfather’s spirit and allegedly mastered the uncanny art of reading books by sleeping on top of them.
By the early 1900s, another ability surfaced: self-imposed hypnosis. Cayce could put himself into a sleep-like trance and tap into the cosmos, offering eerie predictions for the future and personalized medical diagnoses.
In the latter part of his life, Cayce moved to Virginia Beach and established himself as a nationally known psychic. His prophesies and studies of health, nutrition and dream interpretation attracted attention from around the nation and drew followers to his home with a view of the Atlantic coast.
Today, the Old Dominion city is one major hub for Cayce followers whocongregate at his former residence-turnedspirtual epicenter. Another is in Houston.
The Nostradamus-like healer had no personal connection to the Space City. But after his death, one of Cayce’s wealthy Houstonarea followers began travelling the country and spreading the word of Cayce and his ways, according to Jamail.
Elsie Sechrist led seminars, penned a book on dream interpretation and built up the local Cayce following.
Originally, Cayce-centric study groups met in homes scattered across the city, but even after Sechrist moved to Virginia Beach, the movement here kept growing.
“In the ’70s and ’80s, we had something like 28 group studies going on all over the Houston area,” Bohannon said.
In 1995 and 1996, they hosted conferences at the University of Houston that drew in hundreds. After that, the spiritual seekers decided they needed a place to call home — so they turned to subliminal messaging.
“Wecameupwitha statement we agreed on,” Bohannon said. “It was something like, ‘I just love being at our new AREcenter,’ it came about so quickly and so easily.”
Thirty devout Houstonarea Cayce followers all recorded the statement on tapes and played them in the background of their lives for a month.
“The unconscious gets that, it hears that. There’s a phenomenon that happens that it gets passed on to other people,” Bohannon said. “Eighteen months later we had a space in one of our member’s offices, just renting.”
The space — at 7800 Amelia Road — was then home to a soy factory run by Cayce followers. But as the health-conscious business took off, its ownership started looking for another location, leaving AREthe option to buy the place.
In a period of just six months, Jamail, Bohannon and other Cayce followers scraped together more than $150,000 in donations and eventually managed to snag a loan for the rest. By 2000, they were able to buy the building.
For the next 16 years, it became home to their prayer circles, group seminars, Cayce study groups and a growing library of metaphysical books. Achiropractor, a reiki master, a psychic and an acupuncturist rented out some of the unused office space.
“It changed mylife — I gave up all of mysocial and political ambitions because I realized there was something more than the immediate present,” Jamail said of his involvement in Cayce’s teachings.
The Sleeping Prophet’s followers — like Jamail — often believe in reincarnation. Some stick to the produce-heavy Cayce diet, which recommends eating two vegetables grown above the ground for every one grown below. Many emphasize the value of prayer.
Andsome believe, per Cayce predictions, that Armageddon began in 1958 and is ongoing. Others delve into dream interpretation and holistic healing.
“This practice that we do with Mr. Cayce is not a substitute with your faith, it’s a supplement to your faith,” said Carol Broussard, a practicing Episcopalian wholeads a weekly AREprayer group. “It enhances your spiritual life, no matter who you are.”
Despite their founder’s interest in divining the future, one thing the local Cayce followers did not foresee was their center’s untimely demise.
In 2008, the Houston group transferred ownership of the Amelia Road building to the Virginia Beach headquarters, according to Jamail. But now, AREin Virginia is trying to sell the building and shut down the center.
“It was a different vision,” he said, adding that AREheadquarters had expressed concerns about the Houston location’s profitability.
The Virginia center did not return a request for comment.
But the Houston group hasn’t given up. About 40 of the most active members of the local 800-person Cayce network banded together to rebrand.
“Wevoted to reactivate our own independent organization — the Houston Search for God Council Incorporated,” Jamail said.
Once the building sells, though, the council won’t have a place to call home. They’ll probably rent space for bigger events and work out of members’ houses for small meetings, but the ever-optimistic spiritualists are undaunted by the unexpected changes, focusing instead on the group’s potential for growth around the continued relevance of Cayce’s work.
“There’s lot of things from the Cayce material that are very practical today,” Bohannon said.
“I don’t think Cayce has really come into his own yet.”