(Charles Thomas Cayce is the President of the A.R.E., the organization that is the foundation of the Edgar Cayce Institute for Intuitive Studies. Charles Thomas is the grandson of Edgar Cayce and is married to Leslie Cayce, a social worker and writer. This interview was conducted by phone while they were together at home.)

HR: When you hear the word intuition, does it bring to mind any stories concerning your children?

Leslie: Actually, we had a situation just recently. A little over two weeks ago our youngest daughter, Catherine, came to the breakfast table with a dream. She didn’t think it was really a dream, but one of those "experiences." She saw herself in her car hitting something, and she awoke with a start with a pain in her chest. We talked about it for awhile and then about two weeks later, sure enough, she was in a car accident.

HR: Was she hurt in her chest? Has she healed up OK?

Leslie: She’s OK. That chest pain was more of a fear thing, I think. It was a good lesson for her in the power of her own intuition. It was a warning for her. At the time we talked about it as a warning, but as time went on, it just slipped away. It was her own carelessness that caused it.

Charles Thomas: It might not have been a precognitive experience that she had, but her own internal processing, as her driving pattern had become quite careless. Even if it weren’t an ESP type of event, but the warning from her higher self, a forecasting based upon her current behavior, it could have been just as helpful, but somehow the connection to her driving was lost. Even though, it was a learning experience for all of us.

HR: Well, Charles Thomas, do any other stories come to mind for you?

CT: Corinne, our elder daughter, is really connected in that way, and something a lot of parents can identify with, a mixture of intuition andother stuff. Corinne can pick up very quickly my mood, and more, specific worries and frustrations. I’ll come in from work and she keys right in on what is going on with me. It’s not simple ESP, because she’s heard me talk about stuff at the dinner table. I think it rides on the love connection, that vulnerability that comes when we open ourselves. My immediate response, however, too often is to shut it off, saying, "No, Corinne, you’re not right," but she knows it’s right. We all smile, but sometimes I get a bit irritated, because it’s very specific stuff.

HR: There’s a book called Parent Child ESP, written by a psychiatrist, Berhold Schwartz about his own family, and his children, while playing would vocalize stuff that was going on in dad’s mind. And I guess part of your closing her off is to reassure her, as if to say, "Don’t worry, everything is going to be alright."

CT: Yes, and also to deny to her that she is really connecting in that way.

HR: Why would you want to deny her the recognition of that connection?

CT: It opens, well, if she can tune in in that way, what else can she tune into... that whole vulnerability thing.

HR: I wrote an article once about ESP and family secrets, and suggested that one reason society hadn’t generally accepted ESP was because a lot of the evidence had been suppressed by just that sort of denial you’re talking about.

CT: Right.

HR: OK, well then I’d like to look at another question. In our first issue of our webzine, we have a digest of a book about training children’s intuition. I wonder if you have any thoughts about that--specifically training the child’s intuition?

CT: I can think of three basic things from the Edgar Cayce readings that we have worked with, although we don’t have them as a list up on the refrigerator. One has been to connect our kids with ESP in the real world... like with peers who are open to it, such as at A.R.E. camp... trying to create positive situations where they may have experiences...

HR: Like saying to them, "You’ll just kinda know somehow"?

CT: Right, but I’m talking about including them in conversations when it is a topic, and they hear their mom and I talking about these kinds of experiences, at dinner, or when we are just sitting on the beach relaxing, or driving in the car. I think they get a pretty healthy dose of stories about real world ESP, from their parents, their parents’ friends, who are more than open, but are actively working to have intuition be an active influence in their lives. I think this has been a powerful influence on them.

HR: It is almost as if intuition is part of the culture in which they have been growing up, their surroundings.

CT: I think so. I was really surprised to over hear Catherine respond to someone who asked her why she was going to camp and she said "to work on her meditation." She had held it at arms length for so long. For her meditation is not simply trying to have a contact with God, but to quiet her mind, to get in touch with her intuition, to hear the still small voice in the silence. This seems to be bubbling up in her because Leslie and I have put it out there over time.

HR: Your phrase about the still small voice brings up another question for me, as you put it so generally, without getting into an analysis of whether it is ESP, higher self, or whatever mechanism, it boils down to listen to your inner voice, to what is inside you, or something like that... inside you, you must really know what to do... that I’m wondering, since children are often in the spot of being told, "Listen to what the adults say," where to train intuition you have to get the kids to focus on what their insides say, not the adults, that I wonder what kind of conflicts or situations can arise. Have you had any experience with that, where you really want them to listen to what their insides say, but at the same time you want them to listen to you, too?

Leslie: When our younger daughter Catherine was ten years old, and we were traveling. The girls had applied to come back in the fall to a private school. Really, the intent was for Corinne, the elder daughter, to go to private school, but we had Catherine apply just for practice. We weren’t thinking that Catherine would make that sort of switch until she was older. So we had put in these applications to various private schools and during the summer we got back the results of which private schools the girls had gotten into. As we were driving and discussing these results, first about where Corinne might go, and then how it was neat that Catherine got admitted to this one school, but she wasn’t going to go for two more years, and then from the back of the car Catherine announces, "let’s not tell them no yet." Charles Thomas and I were shocked to hear her say that, and I turned around and asked her, "what do you mean?" and she said, "Well, I just think that maybe I should really start next year." And so that started a process over the next week where we were balancing what Charles Thomas and I thought was supposed to happen with what Catherine was thinking. And it proved to be a very intuitive thing on her part, as she did enroll in that school in the fall and it worked out very well for her. Our response to her was not to say "Oh, no no no, that’s not possible" and shut her out. Instead our response was to get into the subject in more detail. Over the next week we really spent time with her and asked her to clarify why she felt the way she did. It was a great process.

HR: Well, to wrap this up with one final question, if you were writing a book on children’s intuition, what would be one of the main points you would make?

CT: If at all possible, keep a record of the child’s intuition, because these experiences slip away, and making some kind of journal or notebook, and then going back to it later. Our children have been very curious to hear from us our reminding them of earlier experiences they had had. Not using it to show off, but to help the kid realize their earlier talent when they go through a phase when intuition is not a cool thing, or to give them confidence about their abilities, where they take a risk with it. It’s really good for parents to have that bank of experiences to share with the child later. Another good thing is to share stories with the kid, even from books. The Edgar Cayce readings suggest reading Bible stories where psychic experiences are described, where characters in the Bible are using their intuition to deal with situations.

HR: I think that it was inspiring to me as a kid, listening to Bible stories on a record, they were narrated by someone with a deep, deep voice, and I remember Joseph and his coat of many colors. It seemed to awaken in me a dormant knowledge about the power of dreams.

CT: Exactly. Our kids are always up to sharing dreams at the breakfast table. They are always interested in that and the intuitive self comes up.

HR: Leslie, what would you say.

Leslie: It’s so basic, really, to keep in mind that children are souls just like adults. Therefore, their intuition is just as, well there’s no difference, we are all in this together, their ideas are just as worthy as the adults. In the big picture, we are all exactly the same in that respect.

HR: Well, OK! That’s really great and we’ll stop here. Thanks so much for your time.