Psychic Healer Edgar Cayce: The Not-for-Profit Prophet

Edgar Cayce, A.K.A. the “sleeping prophet”, was a well known American psychic who devoted his life to giving free readings to the sick and providing them with “divine diagnosis”. The creepy thing? He was right most of the time. In fact, Cayce’s clairvoyance was so in tune that he didn’t need to be face to face with the afflicted person. He could diagnose them via letters they sent him in the mail. All he needed was a name and a location, and his spirit guides would inform him of what was wrong and provided instruction on how to heal them.

Cayce’s technique? He would put himself into a sleep state where he said his mind could connect with all subconscious minds and travel through space and time.

Edgar Cayce’s Gifts Appeared Early On

Cayce was one of six children born to a Christian family in Kentucky on March 18, 1877. He grew up on a farm and began showing signs of his gift at a very young age. He saw translucent people walking around, including his deceased grandfather, and played with the “little folk”. His parents, understandably unnerved, brought him straight to church.

By the time Edgar Cayce was 12 years old, he was completely obsessed with the stories in the Bible. One day, while he was studying in the woods by his home, he claimed to see a woman with wings. She spoke to him and asked him what he wanted most from his life. Cayce told her he would like to help others. Especially the sick. The winged-woman told him she would answer his prayers and vanished.

Up to this point in Cayce’s young academic career, he had failed miserably in school, unable to keep his attention and focus on his classes. One night, Edgar’s father became so frustrated by his son’s inability to pass a spelling test, he knocked him right out of his chair. When Edgar hit the ground, he heard the voice of his special visitor from the woods. The angel told him he needed to rest and that, if he could sleep, “they” could help. Edgar convinced his father he needed a brief break and rested his head on his textbook where he immediately dozed off. When his father woke him up and re-tested him, it was like a light switch came on. Edgar knew everything in his textbook from cover to cover.

When Edgar reached the age of 15, he had become one of the top students in his class. By sleeping on each of his study books, Edgar could now visualize each page in his mind and access the information needed. Though Cayce was doing well, he dropped out of school when he was 16 because his parents could no longer afford to send him. His highest level of education was 9th grade, which was considered “sufficient” for someone in the working class at that time.

Edgar Cayce Lamented About His Psychic Powers

Edgar Cayce left the farm in his late teens to find work and become his own man. He married at 20 and was an integral member of the Disciples of Christ Church. Edgar taught Sunday school, recruited missionaries, and continued to claim he could speak to both the angels and the spirits of the dead. He also said that he could see and read people’s auras. But what is most interesting about Cayce is that he always questioned where his psychic powers were coming from and lamented over whether they were bestowed by the “highest source”. His stress level was so high that when he contracted laryngitis later that year, he lost his ability to speak, even after the infection had cleared. That’s right, Cayce spent the next year of his life nearly mute.

One day, a travelling hypnotist named Hart came to town. He had heard about Cayce’s rare condition and offered to cure him with hypnosis. Edgar accepted the offer and, under the supervision of a local doctor, Hart put Cayce in a trance. While Cayce was under, he could speak; however, when he awoke, he found the task impossible. Intrigued, though disheartened by the lack of success, Hart had to continue with his travels, but recommended that Cayce continue to pursue treatment with the local hypnotist, Al Layne.

While Layne worked with the hypnotized Cayce, it surprised him to hear the psychic refer to himself as “we” instead “I”. In one example, while Edgar was going under, he uttered the words “We have the body”, alerting Layne that there was another entity present within Cayce. When Layne asked the entity how to help Edgar, the entity suggested to increase the blood flow to the Edgar’s voice box. When Layne encouraged the entity to make this happen, Cayce’s face and chest became bright red and when the psychic woke up, he could speak.

This gave Layne an idea.

Was Cayce’s Unconscious Linked To Knowledgeable Healing Entities?

Layne wanted to test Cayce’s other entities, so he helped Edgar go into a trance. Layne then asked the psychic to tell him about his own medical issues and how he could heal himself. To his delight, Layne found Cayce’s diagnosis of his ailments spot on, and the cures that Cayce suggested actually worked. With this discovery, it was time to go public! Cayce agreed, but on two conditions:

1. He didn’t want to know anything about the person before the reading
2. All readings and recommendations would be free.

It didn’t take long for Cayce’s story to appear in the local newspapers. Soon after publication, Edgar began receiving requests for help via the mail, which he said worked just as effectively as it did in person. All Cayce needed was the person’s name and location. With these two pieces of information, his psychic mind could find the “entity” (person) in need and he could diagnose both their mental and physical state and could also recommend a remedy.

As his fame grew, he began receiving letters from around the world. He responded to each of them, providing them a reading for free.

A Living Wage

To feed his wife and three children, Cayce opened up a photo studio and a bookshop where they shared a living space with two junior doctors. When the doctors learned who Cayce was and what he could do, they ran their own experiments with him. To their excitement, they found Cayce to be the real deal and did their best to convince him to go into business with them. Cayce politely declined and also refused to perform any more experiments. Being in a trance state began taking its toll and Cayce only wanted to give readings to people who needed them.

Cayce chose a life of difficulty. Two of his businesses burnt down and he had to declare bankruptcy. Though he was debt-free, he was often broke. In 1910, he met a homeopath named Ketchum, who was deeply interested in his psychic abilities. Though he refused Ketchum’s offer to go into business with him, he negotiated a compromise. He asked Ketchum to provide him with a photo studio, room and board, and a separate office to conduct his readings alongside Ketchum’s homeopathy. Cayce still would not accept payment for this part of the business.

By 1912, Cayce and his wife, Gertrude, lost their second son. If this wasn’t horrible enough, Gertrude contracted tuberculosis and her doctor had sent her home to die. Cayce called on his abilities to ask for a cure. The remedy worked and Gertrude recovered. Cayce’s relief and sense of stability was short-lived, though. Shortly after his wife’s recovery, he learned that Ketchum had been secretly gambling on his psychic readings and using them for financial gain. Edgar was furious and packed his family up to go work for a photo studio in Alabama.

Cayce’s Fame

By 1923, the demand for Cayce’s readings was so high that he had to practice full time. To supplement his income, he asked for voluntary donations. He employed the help of his wife and eldest son to document his readings while he was in his trance state so he wouldn’t have to hire additional help.

Besides health matters, Cayce was also asked to give readings on past lives and reincarnation. As a Christian, Cayce did not accept or believe in reincarnation; however, he agreed to try it and his unconscious provided some compelling information on the subject. While giving a reading to a metaphysics student named Lammers, Cayce said:

“In this we see the plan of development of those individuals set upon this plane, meaning the ability to enter again into the presence of the Creator and become a full part of that creation. Insofar as this entity is concerned, this is the third appearance on this plane, and before this one, as the monk. We see glimpses in the life of the entity now, as were shown in the monk, in this mode of living. The body is only the vehicle ever of that spirit and soul that waft through all times and ever remain the same.”

Edward Cayce

Uncomfortable and disturbed by his own readings regarding the metaphysical, Cayce reverted to only focusing on health issues.

Cayce’s Institutions

The voices Edgar communicated with advised him that the crystallized sand at Virginia Beach had healing properties. Feeling it was time for a change, he picked up his family and moved to Virginia in 1925.

While in Virginia, Cayce met a wealthy New Yorker named Morton Blumenthal. Blumenthal had been following Cayce’s career over the years and, sharing an interest in the supernatural readings, was all too happy to buy the Cayce’s a home on Virginia Beach.

With Blumenthal, Cayce launched the Association of National Investigations (ANI), which would build a hospital and conduct a scientific study of the readings. To mitigate against legal issues, anyone who wished to have a reading from this point forward would need to sign up to the ANI and acknowledge that they were part of an experiment in “psychic research”.

As the successful cases rolled in and out, Cayce gained credibility within the academic community. Dr Moseley Brown, head of psychology at Washington and Lee University, was so convinced that he joined the Association himself. So did chemist, Dr. Sunker A. Bisley, who, with Cayce’s help, perfected a form of iodine called Atomidine.

So what exactly was Cayce prescribing? Many of the remedies revolved around creating a healthy digestive system to make other remedies more effective. The most common medicines and procedures included:

The popularity of the hospital was so great that there was a multi-month-long waiting list to get in and be seen by Cayce and his team of doctors.

In The End

By 1931, Edgar began forming study groups for anyone who wished to learn how to tune in to their own potential and spiritual awareness. He taught how to develop intuition, how to interpret dreams, how karma and astrology worked, and his interpretation of the Akashic records. In that same year, a new organization called the Association for Research and Enlightenment had formed to carry out this work.

Members of this group came from many religious backgrounds. Cayce’s stance was that if his teachings made people better members of their own churches, then it was a good thing. The A.R.E. was not in favor of, nor in opposition to, any one faith. The work was not an alternative way of thinking, it was something old and universal.

In 1943, author Thomas Sugrue published a biography of Cayce’s life, causing another surge in public interest. The influx was so severe that the letter carrier could no longer lift the bundles up to the building, and Gertrude had to drive to the post office to collect the mail.

Though it took a toll on him, Cayce increased his readings from 2 per day to 8 per day. Even the voices he heard in his trance state told him he was overworking himself and that doing this many readings would kill him. But Cayce wouldn’t listen.

The following year, Cayce collapsed and realized it was time to take a break. He and Gertrude went to the mountains for a vacation, but it was too late. Just days later, Edgar Cayce had a stroke and died 4 months later. His wife, presumably grief stricken, died just 12 weeks after losing Edgar.

In his lifetime, Edgar Cayce gave over 22,000 readings. Over 14,000 documented cases are available to A.R.E. members at the headquarters building in Virginia Beach and online.