The lawn in front of the spa is inset with a small contemplative labyrinth you may walk. Enjoy the seaward view from the hill. And off to the side is a meditation garden.

It's all the world headquarters and offshoots of Edgar Cayce's Association for Research and Enlightenment, and whether you spend a few minutes or days here hinges on your view of Cayce (pronounced "Casey").

Dead for decades the jug-eared Sunday School teacher has morphed into a godfather of all things New Age: reincarnation, astrology, Atlantis, crypto-Egyptology, holistic/alternative medicine, ESP and more - enough for a full-weekend lineup on the SciFi or History channels.

Was he indeed "The Sleeping Prophet" whose trance-induced utterances unveiled a long-lost past and predicted the future? Or merely an American oddity whose ramblings appeal to those who find meaning in supermarket tabloids?

The association, which claims thousands of adherents worldwide, tries to reconcile a mixed bag of metaphysics with hard science. It searches for data that dovetails with Cayce's "readings" or "channelings" - transcriptions of what Cayce said during years of trance-like nap sessions. Bound volumes of these readings line several walls in the A.R.E. library.

And what you make of them depends on what you make of "The Sleeping Prophet."

CAYCE ON FILM

Shortly before 2 p.m., the staffer at the lobby's front desk says the 30-minute "Edgar Cayce Legacy" is about to begin in the auditorium behind her. And we follow her there.

The film covers Cayce's life:

In 1900, the 23-year-old insurance salesman lost his voice due to severe laryngitis. When it wouldn't return, Cayce became a photographer's apprentice in his hometown of Hopkinsville, Ky. The following year, a traveling hypnotist got Cayce onstage at the local opera house and - lo and behold - while in a trance, the young man said his affliction was due to psychological paralysis ... and could be cured if more blood flowed to his voice box!

The hypnotist asked Cayce to pump it up; Cayce apparently did - and when awakened, he had his speech back.

Later, the intrigued hypnotist put Cayce again in a trance and asked him to comment on the performer's own medical situation. What Cayce said impressed the hypnotist, who suggested Cayce use his clairvoyant talents professionally.

Cayce was loath to do this. He was religious in a conventional way, and this all seemed like fortune-telling. Also, his trance voice mentioned past lives - something not covered in Christianity. Moreover, Cayce's diagnoses and predictions weren't 100 percent accurate.

He nonetheless offered his services to sick and troubled people who sought him out. (A.R.E. says Cayce diagnoses were 80 percent accurate). Starting in 1923, he had a secretary write down what his unconscious mind said during nap sessions.

The A.R.E. film notes that the awakened Cayce wasn't sure what to make of things he said in his sleep.

Some who met Cayce clearly had other ideas. Benefactors - those who believed and those who wanted to believe - helped make possible what Cayce said in one "reading": Move to Virginia Beach and open a nontraditional hospital.

YOGA, REINCARNATION AND MORE

The shelves in the A.R.E. bookstore, just off the lobby, reflect the many aspects of Cayce's readings and teachings. Magazines include Vegetarian News, Nexus, Sedona and Fate. There are books on yoga, alternative diets and medicine, reincarnation, the lost continents of Atlantis and Mu. CDs and videos, too. The bookstore is brightly lit and quiet.

There are wind chimes, scented candles and mini-water fountains for those who want a touch of desktop tranquility. New Age music plays softly in the background.

Patrons range from retirees to whole-grainers in their 20s with their young ones in tow. It's all rather suburban. Suburban Asheville, maybe.

In the lobby is a painting of Cayce, about age 30, and his wife. On another wall is a large and idealized landscape that shows the three pyramids of Giza, all skyscraper-new, on the lush banks of the wide Nile River.

The A.R.E. tour begins here after the movie. The clean-cut young man tells us what awaits us on the upper two stories. And before we go up the stairs, he lifts a bowl from the information desk and holds it out. It's filled with slips of paper that are rolled up and tied with red or blue ribbon.

"Go ahead and take one," he says, smiling. "They're kind of like what's inside fortune cookies."

They are snippets from Cayce readings. Mine unrolls to this: "Let no day then pass that ye do not speak a cheery and an encouraging word to someone!" EC Reading 1754-1.

We first stop at the top-floor Meditation Room, where visitors may join the A.R.E. staff in contemplation from noon to 12:30 p.m. weekdays. Rows of chairs cover the thick, dark blue carpeting; the seats face floor-length windows. The guide points out a few objects in the room.

Cayce said, "There are many roads to God," and you'll see a Torah, a portrait of Jesus and a painting that includes Buddha.

There is stained glass done by Frederica Fields, an artist who has a piece in Washington's National Cathedral. According to A.R.E., when the artist was in her 60s, Fields said a "reading" done for her as a youth had proven extremely accurate.

On an outside balcony is a small rock garden framed in concrete; it holds a praying angel. From its far wall, you can glimpse the Atlantic.

Between the chairs and the plate-glass windows and door is a lectern, and the text on it today is of a Cayce reading titled "262-73: Destiny of the Mind."

The tour group of perhaps 20 sits quietly for maybe five minutes.

As the guide ushers us out, he reminds us to try the Reflexology Walk out on the grounds. It's a short stone path the guide says was inspired by and emulates a stretch of the Bimini Road. You're encouraged to walk it barefoot - to get the benefits of reflexology (foot-massage) therapy. We go down to the second floor, where several exhibit cases outside the A.R.E. library are singled out. One framed plaque holds a travel story from a New Jersey newspaper about Bimini, an island in the Bahamas, and the so-called Bimini Road off its coast.

In 1938, Cayce's sleep voice said temples from long-submerged and long-lost Atlantis would be found near Bimini, around 1968 or 1969.

Geologists believe this "Road" is actually a natural alignment of underwater limestone blocks. They reached that conclusion shortly after the half-mile formation was discovered in September 1968.