Cayce and reincarnation

 While his reading background was surprisingly comprehensive, he evidently preferred works with a philosophical flavor, I was decidedly impressed. He was well informed regarding the subjects in which I was interested. Hazel and I were fascinated; the time was flying by.

And then the roof fell in.

Abruptly, and without warning, he swung into a ridiculous subject: reincarnation! For a few minutes I continued to listen; I wanted to make sure whether he could possibly be serious. He was. Reincarnation—oh no!

How could this intelligent-looking man, apparently normal in every other respect, be talking in earnest about a subject so preposterous!

Interrupting Weston, I reminded him that it was growing very late; it was time for Hazel and me to get back to town. I wasted no time in getting out of there, practically pulling Hazel with me.

All the way home I kept muttering words like… and he seemed so intelligent… just can’t tell by looking at someone… have to be more careful in the future….” Hazel paid no attention; she was fast asleep by the time we rolled into our driveway.

About a month later business brought Weston to Pueblo again, but I contrived to be “just too busy” to see him that day.

He very likely sensed that I was avoiding him. And simple deduction would have disclosed that the reason was his reincarnation rantings. He couldn’t have failed to observe that I had been intensely interested until he had slipped into the you-have-lived before-and-will-live-again theme.

I suppose it was because he was aware of my reason for dodging him that he sent me two books. I had heard of neither. One was called There Is a River, by Thomas Sugrue, and the other, Many Mansions, by Dr. Gina Cerminara. I noticed that both were concerned with a man named Edgar Cayce (pronounced Casey), who had died only a few years before (1945).

Although I didn’t know it then, picking up those books was a signal for the beginning of a new phase in my life. It was an act that ultimately forced me to dig into fields that I had always regarded as ridiculously out of bounds.

The books started off so sensibly and interestingly that, for a while at least, my attention was diverted from where they were leading me. Edgar Cayce’s story, as it began, was not so very different from thousands of others who had lived at the same time. He was born on a farm near Hopkinsville, Kentucky, in 1877. Although he had little formal education—having gotten only as far as the ninth grade in a country school—there was one book he had mastered: the Bible. He reread the Bible every year.

He didn’t take to the farm, so while still in his teens, he moved to town and worked at various sales jobs from stationery to insurance. Up to this point, then, we still have a conventional pattern: A devout Christian farm boy goes to the city and struggles to earn his living at whatever job he can find. But here the Cayce story shifts abruptly.

A severe attack of laryngitis when Cayce was twenty-one finally resulted in the loss of his voice. All medication was ineffective; he just couldn’t talk. This depressing condition cut short his saleswork and kept him at home for several months, where he brooded over his apparently incurable ailment. Finally, however, he went to work as a photographer’s apprentice, a job that would not be so demanding on his voice.

Then one night a traveling hypnotist came to the town. He heard about Cayce’s condition and offered to attempt a cure through hypnosis. Cayce was willing, and while under hypnosis it was proved that he could speak perfectly. But as soon as he was awakened he reverted to the former condition and couldn’t talk. Again and again the hypnotist tried, not forgetting to employ the post-hypnotic suggestion that Cayce would be able to speak nor mally after he awakened, but to no avail. Cayce could talk while in a trance, not afterward.

The professional hypnotist moved on to his next engagement. The following day, however, a local resident, an amateur hypnotist named Al Layne, who had witnessed the whole affair, came to offer a suggestion: If Cayce could talk while under trance, then why not go into a trance once more and this time, if Cayce could still speak normally while in such a state, let him try to describe the nature of his affliction? Perhaps he could give some clue as to the root of the trouble, some indication or sensation that would identify the cause.

Because all other remedies had failed, Cayce was ready to try almost anything. He went into a trance, then was asked to explain his vocal difficulty, which he did. These were his words:

“Yes, we can see the body. In the normal physical state this body is unable to speak due to a partial paralysis of the inferior muscles of the vocal cord, produced by nerve strain. This is a psychological condition producing a physical effect. This may be removed by increasing the circulation to the affected parts by suggestion while in this unconscious condition.”

Layne made the suggestion outlined by Cayce—that is, he told the sleeping Cayce that circulation to the vocal cords would increase and the condition would thus be removed. Cayce’s chest and throat turned pink, finally scarlet. Several minutes later he said, “It’s all right now. The condition is removed. Make the suggestion that the circulation return to normal and that after that, the body awaken.”

Layne followed instructions. Cayce awakened; he spoke normally for the first time in many months.

Layne was delighted. Soon he came up with another idea. If Cayce could diagnose for himself, there was a bare possibility that he might be able to do the same thing for the young hypnotist, Layne, who had long suffered from stomach trouble. Agreeing to the experiment, Cayce again went under hypnosis; this time he diagnosed Layne’s ailments and told him what to do about it, recommending certain drugs, diet, and exercise.

Following these directions, Layne improved remarkably within a few weeks. He bubbled with excitement. Not only was he getting well, but he was certain that Cayce possessed a rare gift. When in a hypnotic trance Cayce spoke like a physician, using accurate physiological and medical terminology. In both these cases, furthermore, his prescriptions had included measures which, although overlooked in prior medical examinations, had been surprisingly successful.

Layne, therefore, was eager to determine whether they could help others who were suffering from poor health. Cayce, though, was not so easily persuaded. In the first place he knew nothing about medicine, had never read a single book on the subject. He couldn’t understand how this stuff could be pouring out of him. (Keep in mind that Cayce had total amnesia for the entire period of the trance; he had to be told what he had said after awakening.) Furthermore, success in his own case might have been accidental; and Layne’s improvement, he reasoned, might possibly be attributed to imagination. And since Cayce apparently had no control over what he said while in a trance, he might give directions that would be harmful rather than helpful.

But Layne’s exuberance would not be quashed. Playing upon Cayce’s natural desire to help others—young Cayce had always wanted to be a preacher and was thwarted by financial circumstances—Layne finally inveigled a promise to attempt a few experiments. Cayce wanted it firmly understood, however, that this would be an effort to help only those who requested, and genuinely needed, assistance.

He made it quite clear, furthermore, that he would accept no money or payment of any kind.

Thereupon were launched the approximately thirty thousand “health readings” of Edgar Cayce. This title was applied by Layne, who was now having all of Cayce’s trance utterances recorded verbatim. Very soon it had become plain that the strange faculty of the “sleeping doctor” was most uncanny, indeed.

Oddest of all was the fact that the person requesting the reading need not even be present. It was learned that it was possible to conduct readings at a distance provided Cayce was given the exact name of the person and his location at the time the reading was made. If a person, for instance, were living in an apartment in New York City, he could request a Cayce health reading by giving no more than his address, his name, and a statement that he would be in his apartment at, say, 2:00 P.M. on a certain date.

At the appointed time Cayce would loosen his tie, take off his shoes, and lie down on a couch. Having already learned to place himself in a trance, he would close his eyes and move his clasped hands, palms upward, over his forehead. Then, apparently receiving some subconscious flash, he would move his hands down and cross them over his solar plexus. After he had taken several deep breaths, his eyes would begin to flicker, indicating that he was slipping into a trance state. At this point Layne (or Mrs. Cayce or some other person) would read the following statement, which had been adopted as the standard opening:

“You will now have before you [individual’s name], who is located at [street, address, town, state]. You will go over this body carefully, examine it thoroughly, and tell me the conditions you find at the present time, giving the cause of existing conditions; also suggestions for the help and relief of this body. You will answer questions as I ask them.”

Within a few minutes Cayce would begin to speak. Ordinarily he would begin, “Yes, we have the body,” and he would continue describing the person, diagnosing the ailment, and recommending steps that should be taken for relief. When it is realized that the letter requesting the reading included none of the person’s symptoms, nor even a hint of any sort, this bizarre talent grows even more electrifying.

It is interesting to note that in the event the person asking for the reading was not at the designated location, Cayce would say, “We don’t find him. The body is not here.” At other times he would voluntarily give a detailed description of the room, often making such comments as, “Big dog in the corner… The body is just leaving now—going down in the elevator… We find the mother praying.”

Most important, however, was the fact that sick people were getting well after Cayce’s diagnoses; cures were effected, moreover, even with cases which had been regarded as incurable. A young girl in Alabama, for instance, had been committed to a mental institution as hopelessly demented. A later Cayce reading, however, disclosed the curious fact that an impacted wisdom tooth was impinging upon a nerve in the brain. The slumbering diagnostician suggested that the tooth be extracted. Subsequent dental surgery confirmed the reading, and the girl made a complete return to sanity.

One of the most famous and widely investigated cases was that of little Aime Dietrich of Hopkinsville, Kentucky. The child’s mind had failed to develop since an attack of grippe at the age of two; she was, furthermore, seized with convulsions every day by the time she was five. Numerous specialists had been consulted, and the last one had assured the anguished parents that the child was the victim of a rare brain disease which must invariably prove fatal.

Not completely reconciled to their tragedy, the parents turned to Edgar Cayce as a last resort. The humble, uneducated photographer’s apprentice was almost too timid to step in where famous physicians had failed. Nevertheless, he did respond to the Dietrich summons, and the outcome is well-documented history.

While in a trance Cayce said that just before the child’s grippe attack she had fallen from a carriage and that the grippe germs had settled in the injured area; this had caused all the trouble. He stated that a return to normality could be made through certain osteopathic adjustments.

The girl’s mother then remembered the fall from the carriage but she didn’t understand how this could possibly have any bearing on the case. In any event, the adjustments were made, and for the first time in three years the girl began to show signs of recovering. Later the father gave the following testimony before a notary public:

At this period our attention was called to Mr. Edgar Cayce, who was asked to diagnose her case. By autosuggestion he went into a sleep and diagnosed her case as one of congestion at the base of the brain, stating also minor details. He outlined to Dr. A. C. Layne how to proceed to cure her. Dr. Layne treated her accordingly every day for three weeks, using Mr. Cayce occasionally to follow up the treatments as results developed. Her mind began to clear up about the eighth day and within three months she was in perfect health, and is so to this day. The case can be verified by many of the best citizens of Hopkinsville, Kentucky. 

Subscribed and sworn before me this eighth day of October, 1910. (Signed) D. H. Dietrich, Gerrig Raidt, Notary Public, Hamilton County, Ohio. 

As the cases accumulated, many doctors became interested in the miracle man of Virginia Beach. Some began to use him for diagnosing their own most puzzling cases. One doctor in Delaware, who had utilized Cayce’s talents for years, attested that the diagnostic accuracy had been better than ninety per cent. A New York doctor agreed with this, and was even inclined to raise this figure.

It should not be inferred from this, however, that Cayce had a perfect batting average. He had his share of strike-outs. There were readings which failed to match the situation, diagnoses which did not seem to fit the case, instances of off-the-target performance. Overall, though, his record was phenomenal.

Remembering that the two books had been sent to me by Val Weston, I was wondering, as I started reading the first one, why he wanted me to know about the medical clairvoyance of Edgar Cayce. As I continued to read, however, Weston’s motive became obvious. It seems that Cayce finally focused his incredible ability upon another problem. And the latter clearly was the matter to which Weston was directing my attention.

It was in the third chapter of Many Mansions that I first read the absorbing account of how Edgar Cayce happened to plunge into reincarnation. Perhaps the best manner in which to share with the reader some of the impact that struck me at that time is to borrow from those same passages in Many Mansions. The book’s author, Dr. Gina Cerminara, entitles her third chapter “An Answer to the Riddles of Life,” which begins:

For twenty years of humanitarian activity, Edgar Cayce’s clairvoyance showed itself to be reliable in literally thousands of instances. One feels the need of reminding oneself of this fact when coming to the next development in his strange career.

At first his powers of perception had been directed inward, to the hidden places of the human body. Not until many years passed did it occur to anyone that these powers might also be directed outward, to the universe itself, to the relationship of man and the universe, and to the problems of human destiny. It happened in the following way.

Arthur Lammers, a well-to-do printer of Dayton, Ohio, had heard about Cayce through a business associate, and his interest was sufficiently roused for him to take a special trip down to Selma, Alabama, where Cayce was living at the time, to watch him work. Lammers had no health problem of his own, but he was convinced, after several days’ observation of readings, that Cayce’s clairvoyance was authentic. A well-informed, intellectually alert man, he began to think that a mind able to perceive realities unavailable to normal sight should be able to shed light on problems of more universal significance than the functioning of a sick man’s liver or the intricacies of his digestive tract. Which philosophic system, for example, came closest to the truth? What was the purpose, if any, of man’s existence? Was there any truth in the doctrine of immortality? If so, what happened to man after death? Could Cayce’s clairvoyance give answers to questions like these?

Cayce didn’t know. Abstract questions concerning ultimate matters had never crossed his mind. The religion he had been taught in church he accepted without question; speculation as to its truth in comparison with philosophy, science, or the teachings of other religions was foreign to his thinking. It was only because of his generous desire to help suffering people that he had continued to go into a sleep so unorthodox. Lammers was the first person who saw other possibilities in the faculty besides the curing of disease, and Cayce’s imagination was stirred. The readings had seldom failed to answer any question put to them; there seemed no reason why they should not answer Lammers’ questions.

Consequently Cayce accepted Lammers’ invitation to visit him in Dayton in order to determine what the readings had to say about these philosophical inquiries. It was decided, since Lammers had recently become curious as to whether there could be any truth in astrology, to ask the sleeping Cayce for Lammers’ horoscope.

The subsequent reading indicated that the answers to Lammers’ queries were not a matter of astrology; it was implied, for instance, that certain qualities and tendencies of Lammers had not been the result of a particular sign of the zodiac. Instead—and here comes the revelation that burst upon me with atomic force—these factors could be more specifically attributed, stated the reading, to a previous lifetime on earth, when “he was once a monk.”

Oh, oh! There it was again, I said to myself. When the persistent Weston perceived that I was unwilling to listen to his reincarnation rhapsody, he had attempted to implant his propaganda by sending me a book. Well, I wouldn’t be trapped. Muttering imprecations, I shoved the book aside. This stuff is not for me, I kept assuring myself.

To Hazel I raged against reincarnation, the book, and even Cayce himself. But Hazel scarcely looked up from her own reading; she merely remarked something to the effect that I would be getting back to the book again sooner or later and that I might as well pick it up now. I did.

Taking up where I had left off, I was glad to learn, at least, that Cayce had also found himself in consternation. He simply did not understand this reincarnation business. He was afraid at first that it might be anti-Christian. As to this part of the Cayce story, let’s refer again to Many Mansions:

Cayce’s inner turmoil is not difficult to understand. He had been brought up in an atmosphere of strict, orthodox Christianity, with no instruction in the teachings of the great world religions other than his own. At that time, therefore, he was unaware for the most part of the many profound points of similarity between his faith and other faiths, and had had no opportunity to appreciate the ethical and spiritual light which burns in lamps other than that of his own form of Christianity. He was particularly uninformed with regard to that cardinal teaching of Hinduism and Buddhism—reincarnation.

The Search for Bridey Murphy 

by Morey Bernstein