Edgar Cayce
Edgar Cayce was an American clairvoyant who reported and chronicled an ability to diagnose diseases and recommend treatments for ailments while asleep. During thousands of transcribed sessions, Cayce would answer questions on a variety of subjects, such as healing, reincarnation, dreams, the afterlife, past lives, nutrition, Atlantis, and future events. Cayce described himself as a devout Christian and denied being a Spiritualist or communicating with spirits. Cayce is regarded as a founder of the New Age movement and a principal source of many of the movement's characteristic beliefs.
As a clairvoyant, Cayce collaborated with a variety of individuals, including osteopath Al Layne, homeopath Wesley Ketchum, printer Arthur Lammers, and Wall Street broker Morton Blumenthal. In 1931, Cayce founded a non-profit organization, the Association for Research and Enlightenment. In 1942, a popular and highly sympathetic biography of Cayce titled There is a River was published by journalist Thomas Sugrue.
Background
Cayce was influenced by a variety of traditions and sources. During the Second Great Awakening, Thomas and Alexander Campbell founded the Disciples of Christ, a church which sought to restore the original Christian teachings and practices. Cayce was raised in the group.Mesmerism influenced Phineas Parkhurst Quimby's New Thought Movement, which promoted the practice of medical clairvoyants. One of Quimby's patients, Mary Baker Eddy, later founded her own new religious movement, Christian Science. Spiritualism influenced Helena Blavatsky, the founder of Theosophy. Blavatksy's writings detailed topics like reincarnation, Atlantis, Root races, and the Akashic Records.
Homeopathy and Osteopathy were pseudoscientific forms of alternative medicine prevalent in Cayce's lifetime. Cayce would initially attribute his own healing to the care of an osteopath, and he later collaborated with one.
Life
Overview
Edgar Cayce first achieved local notoriety for having lost his voice yet being able to speak during hypnosis. Initially, he reported that his voice had spontaneously and inexplicably returned on its own. Later, he began publicly crediting a local osteopath with having restored his voice. The osteopath employed Cayce as a medical clairvoyant who could reportedly diagnose patients at a distance through supernatural means. After declaring bankruptcy, Cayce returned to the role of medical clairvoyant, collaborating with homeopath Wesley Ketchum. In 1910, Ketchum's description of Cayce's readings was covered in a widely reprinted piece in the New York Times. After a falling out with Ketchum, Cayce traveled to Selma, Alabama. An additional collaboration with printer Arthur Lammers led Cayce to Dayton, Ohio. The final chapter of his life was spent in Virginia Beach, Virginia, where he oversaw an institute of his own creation.An October 10, 1922 Birmingham Post-Herald article quotes Cayce as saying that he had given 8,056 readings to date. He recorded some 13,000 to 14,000 readings after that date. Other abilities attributed to Cayce include astral projection, prophecy, mediumship, access to the Akashic records, Book of Life, and seeing auras, astrology and dreamwork.
Early life in Kentucky
Cayce was born on March 18, 1877, in Christian County, Kentucky. His parents, Carrie Elizabeth and Leslie Burr Cayce, were farmers and the parents of six children. Cayce was raised in the Disciples of Christ.In December 1893, the Cayce family moved to Hopkinsville, Kentucky, where they lived at 705 West Seventh, on the southeast corner of Seventh and Young Streets. Cayce received an eighth-grade education. Cayce's education ended in ninth grade because his family could not afford the cost.
On March 14, 1897, Cayce became engaged to Gertrude Evans.
In September, papers announced Cayce had taken a position with John P. Morton and left for Louisville. He began an apprenticeship at the photography studio of W. R. Bowles in Hopkinsville and became proficient in his trade.
Loss of voice
In February 1900, Hart the Laugh King, a stage hypnotist, performed in Hopkinsville. He would return to Hopkinsville in 1903. Decades later, Hart would be named as having hypnotized Cayce in an attempt to restore his voice.According to a 1901 newspaper account, on the night of April 18, 1900, Cayce lost his voice and was unable to speak above a whisper. The condition reportedly forced him to leave his job as a salesman for work in photography instead. In May 1900, the local paper reported that Cayce had been unable to speak above a whisper except when under hypnosis, when his voice returned. In June, papers reported Cayce was attending business college in Louisville. On February 12, 1901, papers reported Cayce had awoken with his voice spontaneously and inexplicably recovered.
Relationship with Al Layne
The following year, in April 1902, Cayce authored a public endorsement that attributed his cured voice to the treatment of "Osteopath and Electro-Magnetical Doctor" A.C. Layne.In May 1902, Cayce got a job in a bookshop in Bowling Green, Kentucky. He returned to Hopkinsville to visit his parents in September. The following January, he returned to the town to attend his sister's wedding.
Cayce married Gertrude Evans on June 17, 1903, and she moved to Bowling Green. By June 24, newspapers published stories of Cayce going into a trance to help Lane diagnose a patient who was not physically present. Cayce denied being a spiritualist, saying he was an active member of the Christian Church. An article from 1904 mentions Cayce's refusal to charge for medical readings. In 1904, Cayce claimed he had developed the card game Pit and sent it to Parker Brothers.
Cayce and his wife had three children: Hugh Lynn Cayce, Milton Porter Cayce, and Edgar Evans Cayce. Layne revealed the activity to the professionals at the boarding house, and the state medical authorities forced him to close his practice. He left to acquire osteopathic qualifications in Franklin.
Cayce and a relative opened a photographic studio in Bowling Green, the studio burned down on December 25, 1906. His first son was born on March 16, 1907, and later that year, a second fire burned down the studio once again. In January 1908, he authored a query to the Nashville Banner newspaper about the phase of the moon at a certain time in 1864. In 1908, Cayce declared bankruptcy.
Relationship with Wesley Ketchum
Wesley Harrington Ketchum was born in Lisbon, Ohio, on November 11, 1878, to Saunders C. Ketchum and Bertha Bennett and was the oldest of seven children. He graduated from the Cleveland College of Homeopathic Medicine in 1904, and practiced medicine in Hopkinsville, Kentucky until 1912. Ketchum went to Honolulu, Hawaii via San Francisco in 1913 and opened a new practice. He returned to California in 1918 and established an office in Palo Alto, practicing there until the 1950s. Ketchum retired to southern California around 1963, settling in San Marino. In 1964, Ketchum wrote The Discovery of Edgar Cayce, published by the A.R.E. Press.Ketchum was a homeopath who worked with Cayce from 1910 to 1912. After declaring bankruptcy, Cayce found work at the H. P. Tresslar photography firm.
In the fall of 1910, Cayce became the subject of increasing publicity for his medical readings.
On October 10, 1910, Cayce was profiled by The New York Times in a story titled "Illiterate Man Becomes a Doctor When Hypnotized".
“The medical fraternity of the country is taking a lively interest in the strange power said to be possessed by Edgar Cayce of Hopkinsville, Ky., to diagnose difficult diseases while in a semi-conscious state, though he has not the slightest knowledge of medicine when not in this condition.
During a visit to California last Summer Dr. W. H. Ketchum, who was attending a meeting of the National Society of Homeopathic Physicians had occasion to mention the young man's case and I was invited to discuss it at a banquet attended by about thirty-five of the doctors of the Greek letter fraternity given at Pasadena.
Ketchum made a speech of considerable length, giving an explanation of the strange psychic powers manifested by Cayce during the last four years during which time he has been more or less under his observation. This talk created such widespread interest among the 700 doctors present that one of the leading Boston medical men who heard his speech invited Ketchum to prepare a paper as a part of the programme of the September meeting of the American Society of Clinical Research. Ketchum sent the paper, but did not go to Boston. The paper was read by Henry E. Harpower, M.D., of Chicago, a contributor to the Journal of the American Medical Association, published in Chicago. Its presentation created a sensation, and almost before Ketchum knew that the paper had been given to the press he was deluged with letters and telegrams inquiring about the strange case....
Ketchum wishes it distinctly understood that his presentation is purely ethical, and that he attempts no explanation of what must be classed as a mysterious mental phenomena.
Ketchum is not the only physician who has had opportunity to observe the workings of Mr. Cayce's subconscious mind. For nearly ten years and strange power has been known to local physicians of all the recognized schools. An explanation of the case is best understood from Ketchum's description in his paper read in Boston a few days ago, which follows:
‘About four years ago I made the acquaintance of a young man 28 years old, who had the reputation of being a ‘freak.’ They said he told wonderful truths while he was asleep. I, being interested, immediately began to investigate, and as I was ‘from Missouri,’ I had to be shown.
‘And truly, when it comes to anything psychical, every layman is a disbeliever from the start, and most of our chosen professions will not accept anything of a psychic nature, hypnotism, mesmerism, or what not, unless vouched for by some M.D. away up in the professions and one whose orthodox standing is questioned.
‘By suggestion he becomes unconscious to pain of any sort, and, strange to say, his best work is done when he is seemingly ‘dead to the world.’
‘My subject simply lies down and folds his arms, and by auto-suggestion goes to sleep. While in this sleep, which to all intents and purposes is a natural sleep, his objective mind is completely inactive and only his subjective is working.
‘I next give him the name of my subject and the exact location of the same, and in a few minutes he begins to talk as clearly and distinctly as any one. He usually goes into minute detail in diagnosing a case, and especially if it is a very serious case.
His language is usually of the best, and his psychologic terms and description of the nervous anatomy would do credit to any professor of nervous anatomy, and there is no faltering in his speech and all his statements are clear and concise. He handles the most complex ‘jaw breakers’ with as much ease as any Boston physician, which to me is quite wonderful, in view of the fact that while in his normal state he is an illiterate man, especially along the line of medicine, surgery, or pharmacy, of which he knows nothing.'”
On October 20, 1910, Hopkinsville papers announced Cayce's return to town, with his father handling the "business end of his hypnotic readings" as part of a stock company that he had set up. In November 1910, Cayce's photography studio was advertised in the local paper.
In 1911, the Kansas City Post reported that Layne had supposedly cured Cayce of an ailment by consulting Cayce's own reading while under hypnosis.
On January 17, 1911, Cayce and his father gave a public demonstration at a suite in Louisville's Seelbach Hotel. In June, a Nashville newspaper advertised Cayce's readings.
In 1911, Cayce was briefly mentioned in an encyclopedia. In 1912, Cayce and his father filed suit for $28,000 in damages against A.D. Noe Sr. and Jr. who had been under contract to assist in the medical clairvoyant practice.
On March 28, Cayce's second child was born; however, the baby died on May 17. Gertrude later became ill with tuberculosis. According to Cayce's account, he discovered in 1912 that Ketchum had gambled with their earnings. As a result, Cayce quit the company immediately and returned to the Tresslar photography firm in Selma, Alabama.
In March 1913, the Evansville Courier and Press covered a breach of contract lawsuit involving Cayce's business under the headline Occult Powers Go Bankrupt - Suit for Breach of Contract Grows out of Peculiar Medical Diagnosis.