Kevin Todeschi, the president and chief executive officer of A.R.E., is a well-dressed 50-year-old with a warm smile. Todeschi began reading about Edgar Cayce when he was 15 and living in Colorado. He told his father he would one day move to Virginia Beach, graduate from Atlantic University, and become president of the Association for Research and Enlightenment. “At the time, my father thought I was crazy,” Todeschi says, “but I did all those things.”
He’s been on staff for 27 years, serving as CEO for the past three. “Most of our income comes from book sales,” says Todeschi. Though the recession has dented A.R.E. revenues, he says the organization nevertheless is poised to grow. A.R.E. will soon be opening another center in Texas, complete with a spa, conference center and bookstore, and Todeschi hopes a West Coast facility will follow. Membership remains steady, Todeschi adds, and as part of its expansion efforts, the A.R.E. has begun offering its conferences online.
The mission of the A.R.E. remains unchanged, says Todeschi. “Cayce’s goal was to have a place where people could come together from every religious and socioeconomic background and discuss a variety of topics for their own growth and development.” He says that Edgar Cayce’s work remains relevant because “people are still asking the same questions: ‘How can I heal this relationship?’ ‘How can I solve this health issue?’ ‘How can I have a closer walk with the Divine?’”
Charles Thomas Cayce agrees. “I think people deep down spend a certain amount of time asking, ‘What’s the purpose of life?’ ‘Why are we here?’ People are hopeful that the Edgar Cayce material might give them answers.” He believes the purpose of A.R.E. is to tell the Edgar Cayce story and “present this information from his readings—just put it out there.” Charles Thomas emphasizes the word “research” in the organization’s name. “There are thousands of [Cayce] hypotheses,” he says, and he encourages people, as his grandfather did, to “test them for themselves.” He adds, “There’s nothing in the readings that you have to believe in. It’s such a big tent, a conglomeration of Eastern philosophy, Christian mysticism and Christian theology. It’s simply information to be tested and tried.”
Until three years ago, A.R.E. had always been run by Cayce descendants. Now, with Todeschi, a non-family member is running the group, and futurist Stephan A. Schwartz says that could help enhance the organization’s credibility in the years ahead. He says that one of the problems with the Cayce readings is that they were compiled by non-scientific people, Cayce’s family—and a whole myth grew up around the clairvoyant. “My hope,” says Schwartz, “is that the next generation of researchers will evaluate [the material] independently. This is the first time it’s going to be possible to do this.” He believes that the current studies at the University of Virginia’s division of perceptual studies, as well as at other academic institutions worldwide, are just now recognizing “that there is an aspect of consciousness that extends beyond time and space.” Of Cayce generally, Schwartz says, “He was a simple person. He could have become Pat Robertson or Jim Bakker, but he never made more than $85 a week.”
In the meantime, Cayce’s many readings are stashed in neat blue binders in the A.R.E. library, where anyone can read them. Whether one is seeking help for arthritis or the meaning of life, Cayce had something to say about it. He was, as Joy Bloom suggests, an ecumenical man.
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