Do Edgar Cayce’s original trance transcripts mention specific future years or dates, and where can they be accessed?
Executive summary
Edgar Cayce’s trance transcripts do include specific dates and references to years within individual readings, and many of those readings are preserved and made available by organizations that steward his material; primary repositories named in public reporting include the Association for Research and Enlightenment (A.R.E.) and the Edgar Cayce Foundation archives [1] [2]. Critics note prominent date-based predictions (for example a cited “Second Coming” year) that failed to materialize, underscoring the contested value of Cayce’s chronological specifics [3] [4].
1. What the transcripts themselves contain: numbered readings and dated references
The corpus of Cayce’s work—over 14,000 readings recorded while he was in trance—contains many readings that reference times, future events, and occasionally specific years or timeframes within their text, as reflected in excerpts quoted by A.R.E. and compilations of readings [1] [5]. Researchers and critics point to concrete dated entries: for example, scholars and compilations record readings tied to the 1930s that discuss future geopolitical outcomes and include explicit calendar dates for when readings were delivered, and some readings were later treated as making time-specific forecasts such as predictions tied to the 1930s, 1940s and mid‑ to late‑20th century [6] [3].
2. High‑profile date claims and the controversy around them
Certain high-profile chronological claims attributed to Cayce—most famously an assertion reported in secondary summaries that the “Second Coming” would occur in 1998—have been promoted in encyclopedic and popular treatments and then criticized when they did not occur [3] [4]. Critics and skeptical commentators use those failed date-centered predictions as evidence that Cayce’s readings are unreliable as literal forecasts, while proponents argue some readings anticipated geopolitical shifts and geological changes that later had partial resonance with history [4] [7].
3. Where to access the original transcripts and archival material
Primary access points for original Cayce readings are institutional: the Association for Research and Enlightenment (A.R.E.) maintains the canonical collection and publishes selections online and in print, and the Edgar Cayce Foundation (ECF) holds a research collection of original copies, transcriptions, case files, and Gladys Davis’s stenographic work that is open to researchers under specific policies [1] [2]. The ECF collection description explicitly states the existence of original readings, case files, and transcription series and sets rules for research use and publication permissions [2].
4. How researchers and the public typically consult the texts
Scholars, journalists, and the public access Cayce readings through A.R.E.’s digital-reading portals and published volumes curated by the organization, and through archival research requests directed to the Edgar Cayce Foundation’s repositories; republications and secondary compilations also circulate in books and online PDFs that quote or excerpt dated readings [1] [2] [6]. Secondary summaries—like Wikipedia and popular media pieces—often extract a few date‑oriented readings and present them as representative, which can amplify contested predictions without always conveying archival context [3] [8].
5. Competing narratives, agendas, and limits of available reporting
Advocates frame the dating in Cayce’s readings as meaningful guidance and point to instances they say were validated later, while skeptics draw attention to plainly falsified year‑specific predictions and to the methodological problems of verifying trance statements; both positions are visible in the sources consulted [7] [4]. Public reporting confirms institutional custody of the original transcripts [2] [1], but the provided sources do not include complete searchable copies of every original trance document here, so definitive cataloging of every date mentioned across all readings cannot be asserted from these sources alone [2].