Edgar Cayce

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Edgar Cayce (March 18, 1877 – January 3, 1945), known as "The Sleeping Prophet" and "America's Greatest Mystic", is one of America's famous psychics, but he wanted people to think of him as a healer and not a psychic. Cayce worked in a trance. This means he could talk while sleeping and answered questions about a person's health, past and future. This information is called "readings". At first these readings were about the physical health of the person ("physical readings"); then there were readings on "past lives", "business advice", "dream interpretation", and also "mental or spiritual health". The Association for Research and Enlightenment (ARE) currently takes care of all of his readings and follow-ups to the readings. The readings has influenced New Age thinking. To correctly say name "Cayce", say Casey but many people say Case which is wrong.

[edit] Life history

Edgar Cayce was born on March 18,1877 near Hopkinsville, Kentucky. He read the Bible again and again starting when he was 10 years old. He wanted to tell people about God and heal them. His family worked in a farm.

His moved to Hopkinville in December, 1893. Edgar's first jobs 1894 – 1898 were at Richard's Dry Goods Store, then he worked in Hopper's Bookstore both located on Main Street. Then he married Gertrude Evans 1903.

In 1900 he went into a business with his father to sell Insurance. But he became very sick with laryngitis in March and in April 18 he could not speak at all. He had to live at home with his parents for almost a year. He become a photographer because it did not require speaking. He worked as an assistant in the photography studio of W. R. Bowles at the corner of Ninth and Virginia streets in Hopkinsville.

A hypnotist and entertainer called Hart was entertaining at the Hopkinsville Opera House in 1901. He heard that Cayce was sick and asked if he could try to cure. Cayce said yes and the entertainer tried to cure Cayce in front of an audience. Cayce was able to talk while in a hypnotic trance but when he woke up he could not talk. Hart hypnotized Cayce so that his voice would be normal after the trance but Cayce's voice did not become normal.

Hart had to leave but another hypnotist, Al Layne, continued to help Cayce have a normal voice. Layne aks Cayce to describe the nature of his condition and cure while in a hypnosys. Cayce described his own ailment from a first person plural point of view — 'we' — instead of the singular "I." In subsequent readings he would generally start off with "We have the body." According to the reading, his voice loss was due to psychological paralysis and could be corrected by increasing the blood flow to the voice box. Layne suggested that the blood flow be increased and Cayce's face became flushed with blood and his chest area turned bright red. After 20 minutes Cayce, still in trance, declared the treatment over. When he woke up his voice remained normal. He would get sick again and but was cured through Layne in the same way and later he was cured perfectly.

Layne had read of similar hypnotic cures effected by De Puysegur, a follower of Franz Mesmer, and was keen to explore the limits of the healing knowledge of the trance voice. He asked Cayce to describe Layne's own ailments and suggest cures, and reportedly found the results both accurate and effective. Layne suggested that Cayce offer his trance healing to the public but Cayce was reluctant. He finally agreed on the condition that readings would be free. He began with Layne’s help to offer free treatments to the townspeople. Reportedly he had great success and his fame spread. Reports of Cayce's work appeared in the newspapers, inspiring many postal inquiries. Supposedly, Cayce was able to work just as effectively using a letter from the individual as with having the person present. This began Cayce's correspondence with people all over the world.

Cayce's work grew in volume as his fame grew. He reluctantly asked for voluntary donations to support himself and his family so that he could practice full time. He continued to work in an apparent trance state with a hypnotist all his life. His wife and eldest son later replaced Layne in this role. A secretary, Gladys Davis, took notes. According to some accounts, Cayce had an affair with Ms. Davis later in life.

The trance reading produced a visible strain on Cayce’s health, and he attributed the occasional failure to working under too great a pressure to give a clear reading. He was scrupulous in giving refunds to unsatisfied clients.

He was persuaded to give readings on philosophical subjects in 1923 by Arthur Lammers, a wealthy printer. While in his supposed trance state, Cayce spoke unequivocally of past lives. Reincarnation was a popular subject of the day, but was not an accepted part of Christian doctrine. Cayce reported that his conscience bothered him severely over this conflict. Lammers reassured and argued with Cayce. His "trance voice", the "we" of the readings, also supposedly dialogued with Cayce and finally persuaded him to continue with these kinds of readings. In 1925 Cayce reported his "voice" had instructed him to move to Virginia Beach, Virginia.

In 1929 the Cayce hospital was established in Virginia Beach sponsored by a wealthy beneficiary of the trance readings, Morton Blumenthal.

Cayce gained national prominence in 1943 through a high profile article in Coronet. He increased the frequency of his readings to 8 per day to try to keep up with the level of interest but this took a strain on his health.

Edgar Cayce died on January 3, 1945, after predicting his own death four days before

[edit] Readings

Edgar Cayce is famous for the thousands of "readings" that he gave while he was hypnotized. He gave more than 14,000 readings in 43 years. Gladys Davis, his assistant, recorded the readings and his wife, Gertrude Evans Cayce, guided him during hypnosys.

Physical Readings: 9,603 readings given
In the beginning his readings were known as "physical readings" (health readings). Cayce often called the body "the organism". Cayce would put himself under self-hypnosis. While he seemed to sleep he would say where the person was, sometimes naming the streets along the way. He would then say "Yes, we see the body", and describe the client's organ, circulatory, and nervous systems, providing reasons for illness or malfunction. A message would then be given to the person telling him or her how to get better. The readings were so specialized that treatments were often altered, or not even given, if the person would not follow his advice. Seekers often sought Cayce's health readings when the established medical community could find nothing wrong or had given up on a client.

At the time, the early 1900s, the information provided by Cayce was somewhat controversial. Cayce was making claims that such things as diet, emotional state, and thought contributed to or even caused illness (holistic health). The idea that emotion or stress could cause an illness would have been familiar to believers in Transcendentalism, Emersonian ideas, the New Thought movement or the numerous Spiritualist-based faiths of that time (Cayce also recommended color therapy), but may have seemed absurd to most people who were unfamiliar with these ideas. Cayce's treatment was often just as absurd. While his recommendations of changes in diet and emotional attitude seem reasonable today, he was just as likely to prescribe medications that didn't exist, or suggest curing cancer by placing a freshly killed rabbit over the cancerous area.

Sometimes it seemed that the medicines did not exist. But they were actually folk remedies which people forgot, or Cayce would give an older name for a known remedy ("oil of smoke" turned out to be beechwood creosote, a popular remedy for psoriasis). Some people were referred to chiropractors and osteopaths, professions that were fairly new at the time. He also encouraged people to take advantage of massage, stretching, hydrotherapy, colonics, and many other therapies that science knew little or nothing about. Although science has since confirmed many of Cayce's health ideas, doctors do not believe them to be effective but believe them to be ridiculous.

After health readings had been given for a while, Cayce started to give reading on subjects that did not include physical health. Some general categories that the readings could fit into are as follows:

Life Readings: 1,920 readings given
In a life reading, Cayce described the supposed "past lives" of the client. These readings described the client's present physical, emotional and mental condition in terms of past life experience. Cayce was not above flattering his clients by describing past incarnations as royalty, famous personages, or people at their "spiritual highest".

Business Readings: 747 readings given
For those people whose intentions Cayce judged to be "pure", Cayce would give business readings, including advice on business partners, the stock market, business models, etc. Cayce also founded and guided the A.R.E..

Dream Readings: 630 readings given
Edgar Cayce encouraged everyone to interpret and use his or her own dreams in day-to-day life. A dream reading involved Cayce interpreting the dreams of clients. As he did with readings on many subjects, Cayce would often interrupt the person reading the dream and give an interpretation before the dream had been completely read. He would sometimes fill in parts of dreams that the dreamer had supposedly forgotten. Unlike Jungian or Freudian dream interpretation, Cayce did not emphasize highly the importance of symbols. He said that every individual has his or her own unique symbols. Cayce claimed that in dreams people could receive valuable insight into their own lives and that the insight was always of use to the dreamer. Besides regular daily insight into one's life, he claimed people could communicate with loved ones dead or alive, remember past life experiences, see a possible future and experience many other psychic phenomena. He stated that these paranormal abilities were something anyone could learn.

Mental and Spiritual Readings: 450 readings given
These readings were often short and were Cayce's favorite type of reading when not in his supposed trance state. They focused on what a individual could do to achieve a better mental/spiritual life.

Other Readings: 954 readings given
Other Readings are miscellaneous subject matter that does not fit into an above category. The subject matter differs from missing persons, buried treasure, readings given to a spiritual development group, psychic abilities, auras, prophecy, structure of reality, geology and many other topics.

For many people, the readings had a powerful impact on attitudes, beliefs, health practices, outlook on life, matters of faith and many other areas.

[edit] Illiterate?

In 1910 Dr. Wesley Ketchum submitted an article to the American Society of Clinical Research mentioning Cayce's abilities. With the publication of an October 9, 1910 New York Times article entitled "Illiterate Man Becomes A Doctor When Hypnotized," Cayce's career as a psychic and healer began in earnest. People began to visit him at his house in Kentucky.

The story about Cayce's illiteracy is an urban legend, as is Cayce's claim that he could read any book in a matter of a five minutes by "sleeping on it". He seems to have invented a number of unsubstantiated legends about himself and his childhood over the years. Cayce had a grammar-school education -- roughly the equivalent of high school today. An inveterate bookworm, Cayce had worked at a bookstore starting in 1897 which specialized in texts on osteopathy and natural medicine. He had also read the Bible once for each year of his life, without "sleeping on it." However, he stated that he often did not remember anything from his trance state readings. Thus, even if his claims were to be taken as truth regarding his ability to "sleep on" a book, the information he gathered thereby might not, by his own admission, be fully accessible in his waking state. It would also appear that he was working out of his subconscious and superconscious minds when he was in a trance state. Some have speculated that in his "readings," Cayce was merely repeating what he had retained from his voluminous reading, enhanced by whatever he was fed by his handlers.

Cayce was never a doctor. He gave instructions on how to prepare and administer various so-called remedies, and invented some "medical machinery," but there is no documentation on whether or not his formulas or devices worked.

[edit] Claimed abilities

Abilities that have been claimed for Cayce include:

• diagnosing and healing people at a distance
• making diagnoses through astral projection
• prophesying
• communicating with the dead
• providing advice on healing diets
• accessing the Akashic Records or Book of Life
• seeing auras

Cayce himself did not claim to be able to do all these things.

[edit] Former lives and conflict with Christian doctrine

Cayce had difficulty and believing some of the things he said when he was hypnotised. For example, having been raised a devout Christian, for a long time he could not believe that reincarnation was real. Books such as Frederick Oliver's A Dweller On Two Planets and Marie Corelli's novels were probably easily accessible to Cayce at his bookstore. Corelli's writings in particular seek to reconcile mystical beliefs such as reincarnation with Christianity, and Cayce may have been subconsciously trying to accept this idea.

Cayce also claimed while in a supposed trance that the Essenes had believed in reincarnation but that view was expunged from the Bible following a papal council decision in around 500 AD. Essene belief in reincarnation is debatable, as with ancient Egyptian religion.

During a hypnosis session, Cayce mentioned a former life as Ra Ta, an Egyptian healer-priest. He told a long story about working with the legendary doctor-magician Hermes-Thoth, who he said was reincarnated as Jesus. Cayce also specified that Jesus had lived a number of incarnations throughout human history.

• Amilius in Atlantis
• Adam
• Melchizedek, priest of Salem who blessed Abraham.
• Joseph, who was sold by his brothers as a slave.
• Joshua Son of Nun, right hand man of Moses.
• Job, the man who was tested. (According to Cayce, the story of Job was a midrash, a Jewish metaphorical fable, created by Melchizedek)
• David
• Zen, the father of Zoroaster, the founder of Zoroastrianism

[edit] A Reading About the Readings in Terms of Religion

One of Cayce's trance statements implies that knowledge gained through his readings is not necessary if a person is well grounded in one's faith: "Does it make one a better husband, a better businessman, a better neighbor, a better artist, a better churchman, if so cleave to it, if not reject it." Despite the teachings of numerous faiths regarding charity and love toward others, people still engage in revenge, bitterness, violence, etc.. "Karmically, wonderful things can happen if one follows the teaching 'Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you'." According to Cayce, the Inquisition, the Inca genocide, etc., were executed in the name of religion, but are incompatible with the concept of a God of infinite love and brotherhood. According to the readings, these incidents incurred severe karmic retributions. The readings also warn against the misuse of religion for personal gain. 'God is not mocked' is an often quoted verse in the readings.

[edit] Disbelief and criticism

Many skeptics say that Cayce did not have paranormal abilities. Cayce himself said that not all the information given during "readings" was correct and should be analyzed. He criticized his own organization, the A.R.E [1], on a number of occasions for not doing enough research on the validity of the readings.

Cayce seems to have been more or less pushed into making predictions. He said that any prediction he made was only an educated guess based on the present tendencies and inclinations of people; in other words, his predictions had little or nothing to do with his alleged paranormal perception. One example of a prediction that went terribly wrong is that 1933 would be a “good year”, when in fact it was one of the worst in the Great Depression. He predicted that China would convert to Christianity by 1968. His monumental failure to locate the kidnapped son of Charles Lindbergh was well-known to New York police. He and a dowser once went searching buried treasure on the seashore but found nothing. Psychic believers defended him, saying treasure had been buried there before and dug up, or it would be buried there in the future. Critics often point out that Cayce gave himself a "back door" with his statements that not all his information was correct, and by saying that the future was changeable. These are, in fact, common tricks employed by fraudulent psychics, as well as by nonpsychics such as Wall Street analysts and political pundits.

In addition, although Cayce's secretary Miss Davis allegedly took down what Cayce said, the records of the readings are jumbled and chaotic. There is nothing to distinguish what Cayce himself independently said, what was the information provided in the letters, and what his handlers — physicians, osteopaths and hypnotists — told him. Thus, researchers cannot say that Cayce ever made an accurate diagnosis without knowing anything about the person at the other end. What is known is that by the time he got some of the letters, the client had already died. Yet Cayce went on with his reading for the individual as though still alive.

Critics also cite the vagueness of his language while in his supposed trance state. Martin Gardner gives several examples of this, including a reading Cayce did for his own wife, who had tuberculosis:

[F]rom the head, pains along through the body from the second, fifth and sixth dorsals, and from the first and second lumbar ... tie-ups here, floating lesions, or lateral lesions, in the muscular and nerve fibers which supply the lower end of the lung and the diaphragm ... in conjunction with the sympathetic nerve of the solar plexus, coming in conjunction with the solar plexus at the end of the stomach....

Cayce used the word lung, and this his followers take as a correct diagnosis; i.e., a psychic "hit." This technique is called shotgunning. Mrs. Cayce subsequently died of her illness.

When telling stories of past lives, Cayce would often say he was reading from a particular historical text. Many times, Cayce said the text did not exist any more, which obviously makes it impossible to judge the soundness of the information, or even whether the text ever existed.

Many of his health readings prescribed cures with ingredients that did not exist. Others were folk remedies, some well known to today's herbalists and naturopaths, but Cayce would sometimes describe them using terms that had fallen out of general use. Still other ingredients were completely unknown to either physicians or herbalists. Some were completely worthless; for example, Cayce once recommended breathing the fumes of apple brandy from a charred keg to cure tuberculosis.

Cayce would sometimes use cryptic and vague language that sounded strange. For example he said US scientists would discover a “death ray” from Atlantis in 1958. No “death ray” working or otherwise, was ever found. However, the laser conveniently was "invented" that same year. Even Cayce followers have had questions surrounding this statement. Cayce's story of Atlantis' destruction following misuse of "The Great Crystal" and the death ray was used as the basis for a 1961 film by George Pal, Atlantis, The Lost Continent.

Sometimes the information Cayce gave contradicts modern science. For example, he was one of the first to recommend laetrile as a possible cure for cancer. Science has proven Laetrile ineffective as a cancer cure. Additionally, on occasion, information would be given that would appear to be self contradicting.

There are also a number of people who are enraged, rather than skeptical, by what Cayce said. Often time’s people would be interested in the Cayce information until they found out that reincarnation was one of the readings' basic fundamental principles. Cayce would also give information that contradicted many professionals who had devoted their life to a subject matter.

[edit] Final words

The many Cayce readings would later become commonly known practices of the New Age movement.

In 1931 Edgar Cayce founded the Association for Research and Enlightenment, Inc. (A.R.E.) headquartered in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Today there are Edgar Cayce Centers in 18 other countries throughout the world.

[edit] External links

• Association for Research and Enlightenment
• Detailed Chronology of Life and Work of Edgar Cayce
• Cayce's list of incarnations of Jesus Christ
• Why Edgar Cayce Was Not a Psychic: Typological Issues and Their Social and Religious Consequences
• The Straight Dope: What's the scoop on Edgar Cayce?
• James Randi: Cayce Flimflam
• An American Prophet: Yeah, Right - ABCNews column on Cayce

[edit] References

• Cayce, Edgar Evans. Edgar Cayce on Atlantis. New York: Hawthorn, 1968, ISBN 0-312-96153-7
• Cerminara, Gina. Many Mansions: The Edgar Cayce Story on Reincarnation. orig. 1950; Signet Book, Reissue edition 1990, ISBN 0451168178
• Kirkpatrick, Sidney D. An American Prophet. Riverhead Books, 2000, ISBN 157322-1392
• Sugrue, Thomas. There Is a River. A.R.E. Press, 1997, ISBN 0876043759
• Kittler, Glenn D. Edgar Cayce on the Dead Sea Scrolls. Warner Books, 1970, ISBN 0-446-90035-4