Cayce center in Beach breaks ground for building

VIRGINIA BEACH

On a fall day 86 years ago, Edgar Cayce moved his family from Ohio to Virginia Beach because that is what a source in a psychic reading told him to do.

Perhaps, considered Cayce's grandson, Charles Thomas Cayce, that late September day in 1925 was as exquisite as the one that brought dozens of his admirers together Thursday.

The well-dressed crowd gathered next to the Hospital of Enlightenment that Cayce would go on to build a few years after his arrival here, set on the picturesque property known today as Edgar Cayce's Association for Research and Enlightenment.

Virginia Beach Mayor Will Sessoms and his predecessor, Meyera Oberndorf, were among them.

They'd come to celebrate the ceremonial groundbreaking of the organization's first new building in more than 35 years. Blue lines, painted on grass and rock and bushes adjacent to the old hospital, outlined where the 11,000-square-foot addition will stand. It will house professional offices for Cayce's Atlantic University and provide additional space for the Cayce/Reilly School of Massotherapy and the Edgar Cayce archives.

Cayce did more than 14,000 psychic readings in his lifetime, and the original records will be stored in fireproof cabinets.

The project is part of a $30 million campaign that will include a 100-seat cafe for the tens of thousands of students, visitors and conference attendees who come to the center each year, Executive Director and CEO Kevin Todeschi said.

The association, founded by Cayce in 1931 to "explore spirituality, holistic health, intuition, dream interpretation, psychic development, reincarnation, and ancient mysteries," according to its website, hosts camps, seminars and retreats year-round.

Thursday's occasion began with a moment of silence followed by a prayer and ended with the pop of a champagne bottle as men in hard hats bearing the center's emblem - a dove in flight - pushed shovels into a pile of dirt.

In between, Cayce's grandson harkened back to that autumn day more than eight decades ago, recalling journals that described the first, desolate winter in Virginia Beach. And Sessoms shared childhood memories of pedaling his bike up the steep hill of the property to deliver the newspaper.

He talked about the dozens employed at the association and its annual, multimillion-dollar operating budget.

"You are a community asset," Sessoms told the crowd.

Kristin Davis, (757) 222-5131, kristin.davis@pilotonline.com