When I ask people if they’ve ever regretted not following a hunch, I get a lot of stories about how hard it is to act on intuition when you have to explain yourself to others who don’t understand. The interpersonal, or social dimension, of bringing intuition into the world deserves more study.

A case in point is Edgar Cayce. It was easier for him gather intuitive guidance than it was for him to deal with the social repercussions of his intuition. Cayce wanted desperately to be financially self supporting, for example, and knew he was able to do so easily through photography. Yet his intuitive guidance directed him to lay photography aside and focus on his psychic readings. When his friend David Kahn, in response to Cayce’s expressed financial need, arranged for him some well paying photographic work, Cayce had the difficult diplomatic task of showing appreciation for David’s efforts, yet nevertheless explaining his intuitive decision to abandon the well paying photography.

That story is in a revealing book, The work of Edgar Cayce as seen through his letters (A.R.E. Press). He wrote as many as thirty letters a day, and, as selected and edited by his grandson Charles Thomas Cayce and Jeannette Thomas, with a helpful ongoing commentary, they give us a fly-on-the-wall perspective on Cayce’s life.

The value of these letters for many will be to add personal specifics to the characterization of Cayce as humble, generous, sincere, dedicated, and caring. Of special interest will be the correspondence between Cayce and his son, Hugh Lynn, which shows a humorous closesness that would be the envy of many fathers and sons today. Near the end, Hugh Lynn’s letters to his father, offering help, guidance, encouragements, as well as his clear readiness to carry on his father’s work, are very touching.

Readers will form their own lesson from Cayce’s letters. For myself, I was most struck with how alone Cayce was with his gift. He was the only intuitive in the crowd, the only one acting from a living connection with the source of the work. Others knew the ideas, but seemed to respond from a more rational, conscious level. The social fabric around Cayce lacked intuitive threads and was unable to support the application of Cayce’s intuition. Had his supporters taken their own turns on the couch, the atmosphere might have been different.

A major theme in one period of Cayce’s life was his aloneness in the face of the feud among his key supporters, Mr. Kahn and the Blumenthal brothers. They wouldn’t talk with each other to resolve their differences, but triangulated Cayce into the position of trying to appease them all, so he had to absorb the tension within himself. There are few examples of Cayce saying anything negative, but on one occasion he writes, “the great trouble of the world at large today--people preach what they would like for others to believe, but what they do not act themselves.” I couldn’t help but wonder what might have happened had Kahn and Blumenthal led each other into a meditative stateto ask for a reading for how each could improve the relationship between them. But no, setting aside normal consciousness to enter into an intuitive state to receive special guidance was reserved for Cayce alone.

Financial concerns were a frequent theme in the letters. But toward the end of his life, when the public had become aware of Cayce’s skills, there were more requests for readings than Cayce could fulfill. Here was an abundance that could not be realized because it was on Cayce’s shoulder’s alone. If others who showed some intuitive abilities had been encouraged to develop their skills and help out in some way, as his own readings suggested, Cayce’s own service might have been prolonged. But the bright light of Cayce’s ability blinded his followers to the possibility that others might use their lesser light to some advantage. So Cayce was alone with the burden of his ability.

I also noted that although most all of the aspects of the organization had some problem associated with it--problems Cayce was supposed to solve--there was one exception: the study group project. There are only positive references to this aspect of the work. It occurred to me that in the case of the study group model, each member is assumed to be intuitive. There are times in the group process for each and all to experience the teachings directly, intuitively, and in an applied manner. Members of a group are expected to share their experiences as a new teaching for others to use in their own learning. In the study group model, no one is alone with their intuition. Maybe the goal of the work must be more than simply to teach individuals to use their intuition to find inner guidance. If it is to be successful, it must have as a goal to teach people how to be intuitive together so that we might be guided as a cooperative team.