Psychics, healing crystals, Atlantis, and an odd discovery. Just by that short qualifier, you might think you’re in for a woo-filled sales pitch for a New-Age spiritual retreat. You’re not, but it might seem that way. Those four things are the key elements in an interesting story involving the famed ‘Sleeping Prophet’ Edgar Cayce and one of his lesser known predictions.

Let’s start with Mr. Cayce – Edgar Cayce, born March 18, 1877 in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, was a self-proclaimed psychic, commonly known as The Sleeping Prophet. Cayce delivered more than 14,000 individual predictions over three distinct periods of his life, between 1877 and his death in 1945. Among them are political events, natural disasters, celebrity deaths, warnings, and discoveries of all sorts.

That last category covers a host of various ideas, but one topic dominates all others; Atlantis. A great deal of the writing you can find about Cayce involves the famed lost continent in one way or another. If you believe in his ability to predict the future, you might be inclined to think that Atlantis actually exists, certainly a lot of people do.

The academic pursuit of evidence for Atlantis largely ignores Cayce’s opus of prophecy, but many an amateur adventurer uses his work as a keystone in their investigations. That no real evidence has ever been found could speak to whether or not that approach is worth pursuing further. Of course, the words “real evidence” are sometimes a point of contention. And they have recently become more so.

Cayce’s readings, as they’re commonly called, frequently focused on various crystals, most often offering recommendations for which crystals should be used for what purpose, whether for healing, or as meditation aids, or for protection (presumably protection from psychic influence). Using crystals for these purposes, whether such effects are real or imagined, is a relatively new practice, though its origins likely align with that of other alternative or ‘natural’ medicine. And Cayce was by no means the primary catalyst for such things gaining popularity, but his treatment of the subject certainly didn’t hurt that process.

Cayce advocated, through his readings, the use of various gem stones as well, namely opal, ruby, and lapis, as well as several minerals and base metals. Lapis in particular has been the focus of much attention from those who study Cayce. Lapis, or more specifically, lapis lazuli is a brilliant blue stone with white ribbons and sometimes flecks of pyrite mixed in, it’s quite beautiful. It’s also been very important throughout history; it’s been used in dyes, sculpture, and jewelry since the height of the Egyptian Pharaohs. In fact, the burial mask of King Tutankhamen has lapis eyebrow appliques.

There is a problem with all of this, however. It’s not clear that Cayce was referring to Lapis at all. It is widely accepted among his acolytes, if you will, but if you go looking you’ll find it incorrectly called lapis linguis, or lapis ligurius, both of which appear to be made up variations, but which could have been and likely were simple transliterations from the original dictation.

There just happens to be a new player in this discussion, though. It’s a stone called larimar.

It was originally discovered in 1919 in the Dominican Republic by Father Miguel Domingo Fuertes Loren of the Barahona Parish, but as a result of some governmental bureaucracy at the time, which blocked Father Loren from mining any real quantity of it, the stone fell back into obscurity. Until, that is, it was rediscovered in 1974 by a man named Miguel Méndez. Realising he’d found something unique, Méndez named the stone after his daughter, Larissa, combined with the Spanish word for sea (mar). This was because natives on the island claimed that the stones were gifts from the ocean.

Larimar, which is a form of pectolite, rivals lapis lazuli in beauty, often possessing an incredible sky-blue colour. Larimar’s colour comes from the volcanic conditions unique to the Dominican Republic, and thus can only be found there. And this is actually what connects it to Edgar Cayce.

Beyond his crystal healing prescriptions, Cayce also allegedly foretold of what’s commonly known as the Blue Stone. Writings on this aspect of his readings are vague and sparse, but it’s come to be thought that he predicted the finding of a gemstone of incredible beauty with powerful healing properties to be discovered in the Caribbean Sea. It’s claimed that this gem not only originated on Atlantis, but may also have been related to, or have actually been the so-called Firestone or terrible crystal that Cayce famously claimed was the mechanism of the Atlantean’s destruction.

It had long been considered that lapis lazuli was the stone in question, though apparently the fact that lapis is found only in the middle-east is just a minor detail to be glossed over. Larimar is a much better contender for this title, but there is still much about the prediction to be sorted out.

Although the Blue Stone and its apparent prediction have achieved legend status within the community of Atlantis enthusiasts and Edgar Cayce fans, it remains unclear if he actually did speak of this stone. There is no mention of the Blue Stone in Cayce’s recorded readings, at least by name. Though he does explicitly speak of lapis as a remedy for various ailments. He does also speak of what he calls the Tuaoi Stone (no idea how it’s to be pronounced), which he describes as a large six-sided opalescent crystal, but which is otherwise unidentified. According to readings 2072-007(6) and 2072-010(4,13), the Tuaoi Stone has some function associated to generating and/or governing power within the Atlantean culture, which may be what has led people to believe, alternately, that this is a reference to the Blue Stone and/or the Firestone (terrible crystal).

It’s easy to speculate that these four apparently distinct concepts coming from his readings might actually be referring to the same stone. It’s also easy to understand how the vast nature of his work and the ambiguous wording of most entries could lead different people to different conclusions.

Nonetheless, here we are. In certain circles, larimar, in all its rare beauty, is considered to be an actual piece of Atlantis. While in other circles, it’s thought of as one of the most powerful healing stones/crystals on Earth. For anyone taking Cayce’s words at face value, those ocean-blue stones are a priceless artefact of a history that’s been lost to modern eyes. For the rest of us, it’s just a pretty blue stone.

Of course, it bears mentioning that larimar, if it is indeed a remnant of Atlantis, may not be the only one we’ve recovered recently.

Just as the world was recovering from our New Years eve celebrations earlier this month, Italian salvage divers made an amazing discovery. News outlets everywhere exclaimed that they had found orichalcum ingots in the shallow waters near the harbours of Sicily. Orichalcum, if you’re not familiar, is the famed alloy of Atlantis. It is mentioned in Plato’s Critias, and is described as a metal mined only on the lost continent, which was second only to gold in value.

Modern researchers had long speculated about what orichalcum might have been, and what its constituent metals might be. Most thought it was a form of copper alloy made through a process called cementation. But with the discovery of these ingots, the mystery seems to be solved. That is, it’s solved if you believe they did in fact find orichalcum ingots and not a cheap facsimile.

One thing through all of this is certain beyond any doubt… we still have a lot to learn.