Gobbledygook or inspired writing? What is the beginner to make of the Cayce readings? I, for one, needed a lot of help before I could get anything out of that entranced prose. Herbert Puryear's The Edgar Cayce Primer was a milestone for the average reader. Dr. Puryear presented the full scope of Edgar Cayce's vision in a way that made sense.

Dr. Puryear liked to compare Cayce's teaching with that of Carl Jung. Although Jung and Cayce came from quite different backgrounds, they had much in common. Both their philosphies had roots in Gnosticism, to the belief, based on experience, that to know onself was the path to God. Both were transpersonal theorists, emphasizing that the individual human soul is a reflection of God's entire universe. Both presented a fresh view of the Christian gospel that made many theologians red with anger and many mystical Christians wet with tears. Both proposed the brain was the result of the mind, not the other way around. Both had their works severely scoffed. Both used language that made their vision hard to understand without interpreters to translate their message. Jung now has his interpreter, his Herbert Puryear. It is Robin Robertson.

In writing his latest book on Jung, Beginner's Guide to Jungian Psychology (Nicholas Hays), Robertson has done a tremendous service to anyone who would wish to understand Jung, his theory, its significance for one's personal life and for our time. Robertson has done his homework. He has two prior books on Jung. His first, C. G. Jung and the Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious, (Peter Lang), revealed the philosophical beauty of Jung's theories. His second, After the End of Time: Revelation and the Growth of Consciousness (Inner Vision) is a very creative presentation of key Jungian concepts (symbolism, synchronicity, myth, oracles, evil, transformation), told through the medium of interpreting the Book of Revelations.

Robertson's latest book is quite different. The Beginner's Guide is less philosophical and more focused on the everyday challenges in living we all share. Much as Puryear's primer is organized around the story of the soul, Robertson's Guide is organized around Jung's concept of individuation, the unique path a person travels through the universals in life.

As I read Beginner's Guide, I couldn't help but think about the profound potentialities inherent in a coming together of Jung and Cayce. Each would be an interesting case study for the other's theory. Jung's theory of a collective unconscious would predict the possibility of a person such as Cayce Jung nevertheless would have been amazed by the extent of Cayce's clairvoyant power. It might have led to some creative tension between them on the distinction, and interplay, between the literally true and the mythically real.

When Robertson published his Revelations book, for example, I asked his opinion on Cayce's theory relating Revelations to the psychic and glandular centers. Cayce's is an external, objective interpretation in contrast to Jung's more internalized approach. Today, the science of psychoneuroimmunology stands as validation of Cayce's vision. Modern Jungians have an easier time with the external world than did the more introverted early Jungians. Robertson could see the glandular dimension to the Book of Revelation as evidence of the "psychoid" nature of the psyche (the oneness of mind and matter). Nevertheless, as Robertson himself attests, Cayce's emphasis upon practical application as a testing ground for insights, is an area where Jungians could learn something from Cayce to become more whole.

Where does Jung complement Cayce? What life-promoting nutrients might the average Cayce student miss, I asked Robertson, that adding Jung to the diet would rectify? I also posed this question to John Van Auken, whose Spiritual Breakthrough work is a dynamic and refreshing example of personal research into the Cayce material (see Venture Inward, September/October, 1992) Van Auken also happens to be the man behind Inner Vision, the publisher of Robertson's book on Revelations, and thus in a good position to comment on the subject. I was surprised to find that all three of us came up with the same answer.

The most obvious nominee would be Jung's concept of the Shadow. We need to learn the value of weakness in promoting strength, of darkness in promoting light. On the surface the Cayce philosophy is to focus on the ideal and hope its light will dispell any shadows. John and I both agreed that if you are willing to face it, there is much in the Cayce material on the subject of meeting self. If met and redeemed, the destructive force of Lucifer can be transformed into the Light Bringer.