Long John Nebel

by Way Out World

  CHAPTER 7—EDGAR CAYCE, PSYCHIC DOCTOR, AND JOHN R. BRINKLEY, KING OF THE QUACKS

  “Healing is a matter of time,

  but it is also sometimes a

  matter of opportunity.”—Hippocrates

  EDGAR CAYCE was the greatest healer of them all. Of course, I mean in modern times. But, come to think of it, if one accepts all of the claims made in his name, he compares with any healer of any time.

  He entered upon this earth at Hopkinsville, Kentucky, on Sunday, March 18th, 1877; he left this life from Virginia Beach, Virginia, on January 3rd, 1945; and in between that arrival and departure, according to his unlimited legion of followers who still survive (and many insist because of him), Edgar Cayce (pronounced Casey) performed some fifteen thou sand miracles.

  From the very beginning, his life took most curious turns. For several weeks following his birth, he’s reputed to have cried almost constantly. The reason was a mystery until a local Negro nurse was called upon. She immediately solved the problem by pricking each of his nipples with a sterilized needle. Milk flowed for a short time, stopped, and that was the end of the matter.

  As quite a young boy, he was amply supplied with sisters, but had no boys to play with. However, one day a boy appeared and they spent the day together. Time went by and other children came to him. His companions were phantom boys and girls.

  While he was still young, Cayce lost his grandfather. Well, actually “lost” wouldn’t be the right word. The old man died, but the boy kept in touch. He used to meet his grandfather in the barn or down along the woods. Naturally, these occasions went unmentioned.

  Early in life he discovered that sleep was a great power to him. The first evidence came to light one night when he was studying a lesson under the supervision of his father. Over and over again Edgar tried; over and over again he failed. Slapped and admonished by his father more than once, he finally begged for a few moments rest. Receiving this, the boy fell forward on his books and napped. A short time later, when his father returned and awoke him, the lesson began anew. This time, however, it was all different. Edgar sped through it like a little wizard. He even asked his father to try him on other sections of the school book. Parts he hadn’t even read yet. And he answered every question. Soon it was obvious that by some unknown means he had absorbed the entire volume as his head lay resting on it.

  What was the key to this wonder? Well, in later years, Edgar Cayce explained it in the following manner. A couple of days earlier, he had been sitting in a little lean-to he had built. Without warning, he looked up and there was a woman. For an instant he thought it was his mother, but immediately he realized he was wrong. The woman spoke in a soft and musical voice, saying that his prayers had been heard. She offered him a wish.

  Amazed, the boy stared at the creature when he saw that from her back swept two large graceful wings.

  He replied that most of all he’d like to be able to help people, particularly children. And suddenly, even more suddenly than she’d arrived, she was gone. From the moment of this vision forward, he felt that he had been ordained by the unknown to do great work. From a more practical point of view, he never again had to read a book to know its contents, he just went to sleep on it.

  Later in his youth, Edgar Cayce suffered an ordinary accident with rather strange results. While playing baseball one afternoon, he was struck on the base of the spine by a thrown ball. At the moment he didn’t seem to be too severely affected by the unfortunate blow, but as the hours went by he began behaving most curiously, singing, giggling, laughing, squinting and tossing things about. By the evening, when he was put to bed, he had turned completely serious. In a semi-coma condition, or shock state, he began prescribing for his own disorder. He told his parents to apply a poultice to the back of his neck. This was done and the boy went to sleep. In the morning he awoke, feeling in excellent health, and remembering absolutely nothing. This was the first—this self-cure—of many thousands which were to follow…or so his disciples claimed.

  During his adolescence he confused and confounded his family and friends developing his extraordinary “talents”; but when he was about twenty-three he suddenly was afflicted with aphonia. That is, he lost his voice.

  At the time he was acting as a salesman, and he had just arrived at a small town some fifty miles from his own home town of Hopkinsville. He’d been suffering from severe headaches for a number of weeks, and he had taken a sedative powder and gone to bed. The next time he became conscious he found himself in his own bed in his parents’ home. He had been found wandering around the other town in a dazed condition by a couple of family friends. They brought him home. But having awakened, he tried to speak—but the voice was totally gone. Physicians reported that he was fine except for the loss of vocal power. Days passed. It didn’t improve. A specialist was called in, but he offered no helpful suggestion except to name the problem—aphonia. One doctor after another, one month after another, went by; the voice did not return. Finally, and reluctantly, Cayce decided his illness was incurable.

  It was obvious that his job as a salesman was finished, but he had the good fortune to be offered a position in a local photographer’s studio. Working as an apprentice, he spent most of his time in the dark room, and so he was not required to speak. The clock continued and things were about as good as they might be. Cayce even began to look toward having a studio of his own.

  One day a noted hypnotist arrived at the town opera house; his name was Hart. From the descriptions we have of him, it seems obvious that he was pretty good at his “profession.” After Hart had been in town for several days, he heard about Cayce’s problem, and although he made no claim to be a therapist he became interested in the case. At the time, the medical value of hypnotism was being much discussed and it was not long before he was challenged to try his skills on the voiceless young man. He accepted on a fair, but rather practical, basis. If he succeeded in his attempt to return Cayce’s voice, he would receive $200.00; if he failed, he’d receive nothing.

  The first attempt got under way. Hart put Cayce into a light trance, and into a deep one. He made a post-hypnotic suggestion that the voice would return to normal when the subject awoke. To the disappointment of all, when Edgar came out of the trance, the condition of the voice had not changed. The hypnotist made several more efforts, but always failed. Cayce, he said, was going into trance easily enough, but not deep enough to accept an effective post-hypnotic suggestion. He was certain, however, that sooner or later he would. But before this ever happened, Hart had to move on to keep his commitments.

  During the experiments, a professor of psychology at a local university had been attracted to the case. This gentleman had spoken with Cayce and Hart and was quite familiar with the situation.

  One of the leading physicians advocating the use of it for therapy was a New York doctor named Quackenboss. After an exchange of letters with the professor of psychology, his interest in the case became so great as to make him decide to visit Cayce. He arrived in Hopkinsville and began his attempts immediately, but, sadly, with no more success than Hart had achieved. The doctor returned to the North, leaving behind only the thought that Cayce’s trance problem seemed to be that after a certain point he rejected all further suggestions from the hypnotist. Quackenboss offered the final idea that possibly someone should try to get the subject to “take over” himself while he was still in trance.

  The only “resident” hypnotist in Hopkinsville was a fragile little man by the name of Al C. Layne. As a last resort, Edgar agreed to permit Layne an opportunity to try his skills. On Sunday afternoon, March 31st, 1901, Layne put the voiceless curiosity into a state of deep hypnosis and began what was to become one of the most extraordinary careers of mystical and medical history.

  Essentially, Cayce actually put himself into trance, under Layne’s supervision. Suddenly he cleared his throat and spoke out in a clear and unafflicted voice.

  “Yes,” he began, “we can see the body.” He contin
ued, pointing out that when in a non-trance state the patient was unable to speak due to a partial paralysis of the vocal cords due to “nerve strain.” A cure could be achieved, he diagnosed, by increasing the circulation in that part of the body while the subject was still unconscious. His father, who stood by, loosened his collar and the surrounding area turned pink, then scarlet, with the self-induced rush of blood. Presently, the color returned to normal. Layne brought him completely out of the hypnotic state and he awoke. His vocal powers had totally returned. He was cured.

  Cayce, his parents, and Layne, discussed the remarkable occurrence. The time Edgar had prescribed for the injury he received while playing baseball was recalled. His father brought up his ability to memorize books while sleeping on them. One after another the strange aspects of Cayce’s career and personality were reviewed. The conclusion was that he had been given some unexplained power by some unknown source. It was agreed that he would try his power of curing on Layne, who had been suffering from various infirmities for many years—disorders that left him a weak and frail little man. Cayce lay down upon a couch and went into his trance state. Quickly and clearly he began to diagnose Layne’s disorders, but this time in strange and technical language. He referred to various parts of the body by their purely medical names; he spoke of motor responses, body functions, organic parts, and physical disorders in words and phrases which one could only find in a doctor’s dictionary. Only Layne, who had read considerably on medical subjects and who had studied osteopathy and “suggestive therapy,” understood all that Edgar said; but to him it all made clear and practical sense. He explained to the others that Edgar had spoken as a physician.

  “How do I do it?” asked the young man.

  “You are psychic,” replied Layne. “You are a clairvoyant.”

  And thus was begun the amazing professional career of “Edgar Cayce, Psychic Diagnostician.” During the next twenty years, the ever-more-famous sleeping doctor treated, or, more accurately, his subconscious treated, some fifteen thousand patients. According to those who worked with the mystic, he always spoke from a hypnotic trance. The state was always self-induced, but never without the assistance of an “operator.” His language was invariably lucid, his vocabulary technical, medically knowledgeable, and accurate, and infinitely beyond what anyone could possibly expect, considering his limited education. And, most unbelievable, his followers claimed that he never erred. It’s pretty obvious that his percentage of success was astronomically high if you read the reports, articles, books, and pamphlets issued about him. Many thousands of “attested cures” are on record at the Cayce Institute at Virginia Beach.

  To Edgar’s severe regret, Layne did not always live up to what Cayce felt was the responsibility of their enterprise. Eventually they came to a parting of the paths. He then formed an alliance of sorts with a John Blackburn, with whom he seemed to have gotten along quite well.

  Toward the beginning of the Cayce-Blackburn relationship, the medium suffered another of the weird physical afflictions which dropped down upon him so often during his lifetime.

  Cayce was demonstrating his powers to several visitors when he fell into an unusually deep trance. All efforts to communicate with him failed and the observers became very concerned. Shortly, Blackburn was summoned with the ominous hint that his friend had died in his auto-hypnotic condition. When he arrived, he discovered that several doctors had been administering to Cayce. They had pumped him full of morphine injections, strychnine, and who knows what. Hot bricks, wrapped in towels, had been applied to his body—hot metal to his feet. No signs of life resulted. Apparently Edgar Cayce was dead.

  Slowly, John Blackburn began to talk to the inert form of his associate. Over and over, he asked the medium to increase his pulse and normalize the circulation of the blood. Finally the sleeping doctor awoke and told his friend that he would have to go back into trance so that Blackburn could talk him back to health. Suffering from the original disorder and from the disastrous medications of the physicians, all of whom had now gone, Edgar had a pretty bad time of it for most of the night. But finally the poisons were rejected, the body was normalized, and the medium fell into a natural rest. When he eventually awoke, he was almost his old self again.

  Time went by, and in spite of his ill-health and see-sawing fortunes, Edgar Cayce continued his health and “life” readings. Then, around 1920, he decided to establish a hospital for the more severe of his cases. Of course, up to this point he almost never saw his patients personally. In nearly every instance his power was employed in long-range relationships, sometimes involving distances of hundreds of miles. Now, Cayce figured his efforts could be concentrated and increased if he was able to establish a hospital. A number of sponsors came forward, there were discussions, some dropped out, others joined, more left, changes and problems followed difficulties and revisions. One site was suggested, then another. And so it went. Although Cayce’s psychic readings indicated that the place should be Virginia Beach, Virginia.

  The plans did not fare well. There were a number of false starts, and people who put money into the plans lost it. Cayce was no better off than he’d ever been, and that had never been good. Finally a man named Morton Blumenthal, a former patient, became interested; and through him a house was acquired in the forecast community. True, it was a pretty rundown and shabby house, and the nearest stores were a long way away, but it was a house. And it was Cayce’s.

  “The Association of National Investigators” was incorporated on May 6th, 1927, in Virginia. Its purpose was “to engage in general psychic research, and to provide for the practical application of any knowledge obtained through the medium of psychic phenomena.” Actually, it was wholly based upon Edgar’s so-called power, and its objective was to establish an official Cayce hospital.

  Two types of readings were to be the axles upon which this wagon would roll. The regular health-therapy readings and the life readings. The first diagnosed illnesses and treated them, but the second reviewed the entire present life existence of an individual, plus a review of his other lives, his lives of the past. A strong promoter of reincarnation, Cayce was able to bring out of his subconscious trance state the picture of what a person had been before. These, naturally, were tremendously popular since, amazing as it might seem, the people are more interested in believing that they were once a little slave girl of the Nile who was freed by an adoring and wealthy young Egyptian, than in curing their physical disorders and regaining good health.

  At last the hospital was built and the Association took on a physical existence. The building was a thirty-bed affair, with a lecture hall, library, vault, offices, living room, screened porch, large garage, servants’ area, tennis courts, landscaped lawns and terraces—in short, it was quite an operation. Morton, the financing wizard, had sunk close to a quarter of a million dollars in the effort. Everything went along wonderfully. The place was filled to the roof constantly. Each moment of the medium’s time was taken up with readings. And then Blumenthal, and his brother, began disagreeing with Cayce. The budget was unbalanced. The hospital was losing money every month. Morton was losing money in the market. Besides which, he had split his resources right down the middle by starting a university as well, and it had cost him over a hundred thousand dollars and was still loaded with debts. And then, claiming that he was the only one the depression hadn’t bothered, Blumenthal went under financially. The hospital was closed. Edgar Cayce left with his records. It was the end of February, 1931. Things were bad all over.

  About four months later, Cayce gathered about him some of his more faithful followers and asked them whether a new organization should be begun to promote his work. The response was all in favor of starting up once more. The new group was called “The Association for Research and Enlightenment.” However, it wasn’t until 1940 that a new building was erected, and this was much more modest than the original. Yet, it was here that Edgar Cayce continued his work, readings and research. And, finally, “the miracle man
of Virginia Beach,” “the sleeping doctor,” “the psychic diagnostician,” lay down on his bed for his final earthly sleep, dying in the early evening of January 3rd, 1945.

  But we might remember that, no matter what we think of the powers he was supposed to possess, he was a remarkable man. His great reputation and wide fame never gained him anything for himself, his family, or his friends. But he was a living saint to thousands of people. The Bible was beside him all his life, yet he was never bound by orthodoxy. He accepted all things as being possible, including reincarnation and spiritualism. Among the innumerable powers accredited to him by his disciples were psychic diagnosis, psychic and faith healing, clairvoyance, clair-audience, psychometry, levitation, prophecy, astral projection, the ability to contact spirit voices and spirit life, and general mediumship. Hundreds came to prove that he was a charlatan and stayed to believe, even preach, his doctrine. Even if only one-tenth of all that was said about him was true, it still leaves mysteries for which science has no explanation.

  “The Association for Research and Enlightenment” continues its investigations and research under the direction of Edgar’s son, Hugh Lynn Cayce. The father has almost been elevated to sainthood and the cause goes on. As with all the other things discussed, I don’t buy any of the powers Cayce was supposed to have. I don’t believe in what he did, I don’t believe anyone ever did what he’s supposed to have done. But I must admit that I believe that he was a devout and sincere man; and I’ll never know what it was all those people saw that convinced him of something that I consider absolutely impossible.