The Visible and the Invisible
By Edgar Cayce

A few weeks ago, I stood up to speak to a Sunday school class, and many more seats were vacant in front of me than were filled. Within myself I felt that I had something to say, and I wondered why so few were present. Then I saw an invisible audience come in and fill practically every seat there—an audience invisible to the others present.

We may rest assured that there is the invisible as well as the visible! We always have with us an invisible audience for our acts—yes, even for every thought. If only we could come to realize this more and more, then we would know His presence abides with us; and if it does not abide with us, it is our own fault for we have blinded ourselves to that which we could have for our very own.

Everyone realizes that we are passing through a period of stress in which we all are expecting something—what, we do not know. Why don’t we know what to expect? Why is it impossible to know what is going to happen? Isn’t it because we have blinded ourselves to the evidence around us?

We are told by many who have made a study of such matters that we are passing through a certain position in the universe. Astrologers have said that we are reaching that place in space wherein the influences are beginning for the third cycle. Others describe it as a plane where we may expect a new race, a new people, a new thought.

We are studying along lines of thought pertaining to development of the inner man, the soul. Within us is that something we call the soul, the entity, the being; and this lives on and on. We say this is a period of hard times when we all wonder just what is coming to pass, that it is a period when there are to be upheavals. What have we done to prepare ourselves for such happenings?

We are now in the midst of the condition, and it is all around us. The changes are coming about. Portions of the earth are going to be wiped away in the next few years; I feel very sure of that. Right away, we want to know if it will happen where we are. What difference does it make, if we are living right?

If thoughts are deeds, our constructive and positive thinking will aid in building or establishing that which will bring peace, harmony, joy, love—the fruits of the spirit. What is the Spirit? That which we can comprehend only by the application of it, by what we do for someone else.

Perhaps we shall just speak a kind word to our next-door neighbor, to the child we meet in the street, to the lame dog we see—or to anything or anybody that is a manifestation of God. Just speaking the kind word that brings hope to those who are losing hope; speaking the cheery word to those who are discouraged; as we can do these things, we give out that which we have received.

For not all are called to be healers, not all preachers; but each of us can do what our hands find to do, magnifying the Spirit and the fruits of the Spirit—which are unseen. The things we do today will make the manner of individual we will be tomorrow or a million years from now. We don’t die to be in eternity: we are already in it! Then it’s just as important to understand whence we came, as it is to understand where we are going. To know whence we came is to know what we’re up against. If we use the abilities we have, we will be given more tomorrow. The next step to take will be given us. It is self-exaltation and it is selfishness that carry us away from the knowledge of God. These bring doubts, fears, and all those qualities bespeaking the visible or making for worry, hardship and misunderstanding.

An excerpt from a talk given on February 26, 1933.