Edgar Cayce ( / ˈ k eɪ s iː / ; March 18, 1877 – January 3, 1945) was an American person who could see things without using his eyes. He said he could tell people about illnesses and suggest treatments while he was asleep. During thousands of recorded sessions, Cayce answered questions about healing, reincarnation, dreams, the afterlife, past lives, nutrition, Atlantis, and future events. Cayce claimed he was a faithful Christian and did not believe in communicating with spirits. He is considered a founder of the New Age movement and a major influence on many of its beliefs.
In 1931, Cayce started a non-profit group called the Association for Research and Enlightenment. In 1942, a well-known and supportive book about Cayce titled There is a River was written by journalist Thomas Sugrue.
Background
Cayce was affected by many different traditions and ideas. During the Second Great Awakening, Thomas and Alexander Campbell started a group called the Disciples of Christ. This group tried to bring back early Christian beliefs and practices. Cayce was raised in this group.
Mesmerism influenced Phineas Parkhurst Quimby’s New Thought Movement. This movement encouraged the use of medical clairvoyants. One of Quimby’s patients, Mary Baker Eddy, later started her own religious movement called Christian Science. Spiritualism influenced Helena Blavatsky, the founder of Theosophy. Blavatsky’s writings discussed topics such as reincarnation, Atlantis, Root Races, and the Akashic Records.
Homeopathy and Osteopathy were types of alternative medicine that were not based on real science during Cayce’s time. Cayce first credited his healing to the care of an osteopath. Later, he worked with an osteopath.
Life
Edgar Cayce first became well-known locally for losing his voice but being able to speak during hypnosis. At first, he said his voice returned on its own without explanation. Later, he credited a local osteopath with helping restore his voice. The osteopath used Cayce as a medical clairvoyant who could supposedly diagnose patients from a distance using supernatural methods. After going bankrupt, Cayce returned to working as a medical clairvoyant, teaming up with homeopath Wesley Ketchum. In 1910, Ketchum’s description of Cayce’s readings was published in a widely shared article in the New York Times. After a disagreement with Ketchum, Cayce moved to Selma, Alabama. A partnership with printer Arthur Lammers led Cayce to Dayton, Ohio. The later years of his life were spent in Virginia Beach, Virginia, where he managed an institute he created.
An October 10, 1922 article in the Birmingham Post-Herald quoted Cayce as saying he had given 8,056 readings up to that point. He recorded about 13,000 to 14,000 readings after that date. Other abilities linked to Cayce include astral projection, prophecy, mediumship, access to the Akashic records, Book of Life, seeing auras, astrology, and interpreting dreams.
Cayce was born on March 18, 1877, in Christian County, Kentucky. His parents, Carrie Elizabeth (born Major) and Leslie Burr Cayce, were farmers with six children. Cayce was raised in the Disciples of Christ church.
In December 1893, the Cayce family moved to Hopkinsville, Kentucky, where they lived at 705 West Seventh Street, on the southeast corner of Seventh and Young Streets. Cayce completed an eighth-grade education. His education ended in ninth grade because his family could not afford further schooling.
On March 14, 1897, Cayce became engaged to Gertrude Evans. In September, news reported that Cayce had accepted a job with John P. Morton and left for Louisville. He began an apprenticeship at the photography studio of W. R. Bowles in Hopkinsville and became skilled in photography.
In February 1900, Hart the Laugh King, a stage hypnotist, performed in Hopkinsville. He returned to the town in 1903. Years later, Hart was named as the person who hypnotized Cayce to try to restore his voice.
A newspaper article from 1901 reported that on the night of April 18, 1900, Cayce lost his voice and could only whisper. This condition forced him to leave his job as a salesman and work in photography instead. In May 1900, local papers said Cayce could only speak above a whisper except when hypnotized, when his voice returned. In June, papers reported Cayce was attending business college in Louisville. On February 12, 1901, newspapers said Cayce’s voice returned on its own without explanation.
In April 1902, Cayce wrote a public statement saying his cured voice was due 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 went back 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 reported that Cayce entered a trance to help Layne diagnose a patient who was not physically present. Cayce denied being a spiritualist, stating he was an active member of the Christian Church. An article from 1904 noted Cayce’s refusal to charge for medical readings. In 1904, Cayce claimed he had created the card game Pit and sent it to Parker Brothers.
Cayce and his wife had three children: Hugh Lynn Cayce (1907–1982), Milton Porter Cayce (1911–1911), and Edgar Evans Cayce (1918–2013). Layne shared information about Cayce’s trance readings with professionals at a boarding house (one of whom was a magistrate and journalist), and state medical officials forced him to close his practice. He left to earn osteopathic qualifications in Franklin.
Cayce and a relative opened a photography studio in Bowling Green, but it burned down on December 25, 1906. His first son was born on March 16, 1907, and another fire destroyed the studio later that year. In January 1908, Cayce wrote a letter to the Nashville Banner newspaper asking about the phase of the moon at a specific time in 1864. In 1908, Cayce declared bankruptcy.
Wesley Harrington Ketchum was born on November 11, 1878, in Lisbon, Ohio, to Saunders C. Ketchum and Bertha Bennett. He 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 moved to Honolulu, Hawaii, via San Francisco in 1913 and started a new practice. He returned to California in 1918 and established an office in Palo Alto, where he practiced until the 1950s. Ketchum retired to southern California around 1963 and settled 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 gained more attention for his medical readings. On October 9, 1910, The New York Times published an article titled "Illiterate Man Becomes a Doctor When Hypnotized."
“The medical community is showing interest in the unusual ability of Edgar Cayce of Hopkinsville, Kentucky, to diagnose difficult diseases while in a semi-conscious state, even though he knows nothing about medicine when awake.
During a visit to California last summer, Dr. W. H. Ketchum, who was attending a meeting of the National Society of Homeopathic Physicians, mentioned Cayce’s case and was invited to speak at a banquet attended by about thirty-five doctors from the Greek letter fraternity in
Legacy
Gina Cerminara wrote the 1950 book Many Mansions, which discusses the work of Edgar Cayce. In 1963, psychic Ruth Montgomery helped spread Cayce's predictions about disasters, which she called a "polar shift." In 1967, journalist Jess Stearn wrote a biography of Cayce titled The Sleeping Prophet. A book about Cayce and Atlantis was published in 1968. In 1968, Curt Gentry's novel The Last Days of the Late, Great State of California described a major earthquake in California that Cayce had predicted in 1941.
In 1970, David Kahn's book My Life With Edgar Cayce was published after his death. That same year, a book about Cayce's interpretations of the Dead Sea Scrolls was released. In 1971, Cayce's two sons, Edgar Evans Cayce and Hugh Lynn Cayce, wrote The Outer Limits of Edgar Cayce's Power. In 1974, Cayce's predictions were mentioned in a book titled California Superquake: 1975-77. In 1978, Cayce's followers reported a partnership with Stanford Research Institute, a group that studies psychic phenomena and is not connected to Stanford University. In the 1980s, New Age author Lori Toye promoted a map called "I Am America," inspired by Cayce's predictions about changes on Earth.
Religious historian Mitch Horowitz says Cayce helped spread important ideas in New Age spirituality, especially the belief that all religions share common values. In 2019, he noted that Cayce's teachings combined Christian moral ideas with concepts like karma and reincarnation from Hindu and Buddhist traditions, as well as the idea that humans are connected to the Divine. Cayce also linked spiritual and mental power to physical results, blending his ideas with beliefs from New Thought, Christian Science, and mental healing.
Reception and controversy
Cayce talked about ideas that are not based on real history during his trance readings. These ideas included the existence of lost continents like Lemuria, Mu, and Atlantis, and the discredited theory of polygenism. In many trance sessions, he changed the way he described the history of life on Earth. One of Cayce's controversial theories was polygenism. He believed that five races (white, black, red, brown, and yellow) were created separately and at the same time in different parts of the world. He also believed in the existence of aliens and Atlantis, saying that the red race developed in Atlantis and grew quickly. He claimed that "soul-entities" on Earth mixed with animals to create beings like giants, who were as tall as 12 feet (3.7 meters). Cayce predicted "Earth Changes," which included big events like a shift in the Earth's poles that would cause Atlantis to rise from the ocean.
In his 2003 book The Skeptic's Dictionary, philosopher Robert Todd Carroll wrote that Cayce was one of the main people who spread incorrect ideas about Atlantis. Carroll mentioned some of Cayce's discredited beliefs, such as a giant crystal in Atlantis that used sunlight to create energy and a prediction that the United States would rediscover a death ray used on Atlantis in 1958.
During the 1930s, Cayce incorrectly said that North America would face serious problems, including the destruction of cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco before New York. He also predicted that the Second Coming of Christ would happen in 1998.
Science writers and skeptics say that Cayce's reported psychic abilities were not real or were made up. Evidence of Cayce's claimed clairvoyance came from newspaper articles, written statements, stories, and books, not from evidence that can be tested and checked by others. Martin Gardner wrote that the details from Cayce's trance readings often matched ideas from books he had read by authors like Carl Jung, P. D. Ouspensky, and Helena Blavatsky. Gardner said that Cayce's trance readings included small pieces of information from these books, mixed with some new ideas from his own imagination.
Michael Shermer wrote in Why People Believe Weird Things (1997) that Cayce had limited education beyond the ninth grade but gained knowledge through reading. He used this knowledge to create detailed stories. Shermer said Cayce had a tendency to imagine things from a young age, including talking to angels and seeing visions of his dead grandfather. Magician James Randi noted that Cayce often used phrases like "I feel that" and "perhaps" to avoid making strong claims. Investigator Joe Nickell also commented on this.
Although Cayce was never properly tested, Joseph B. Rhine, a pioneer in studying extrasensory perception, was not impressed by Cayce's claims. A reading Cayce gave for Rhine's daughter was incorrect. Cayce often made mistakes, such as giving medical advice for people who had already died.
Cayce's Association for Research and Enlightenment has been criticized for promoting ideas that are not supported by science. Health experts are not in favor of Cayce's unorthodox treatments, such as his promotion of unscientific diets and homeopathic remedies, which they call quackery. Science writer Karen Stollznow wrote that Cayce's cures were based on rumors and that his treatments were traditional remedies that were at best useless and at worst dangerous. She noted that Cayce could not help his own cousin or his son, who died as a baby. Many of Cayce's readings happened after patients had already died.
Cayce supported the idea of food combining and the alkaline diet. He believed that people should eat 80% of their food from sources that make the body more alkaline. He said that certain foods should not be eaten together, such as milk and citrus fruits, coffee and cream or milk, and sugary foods and starchy foods. He also believed that even healthy foods could harm the body if a person was in a bad mood.