HOW EDGAR CAYCE DISCOVERED HE HAD DIAGNOSTIC ABILITIES

Edgar Cayce’s psychic gifts appeared at an early age. When he was six, he told his parents that he could see and talk to deceased relatives and angels. As a young boy, he astonished his teachers by memorizing every word in his spelling book by sleeping with his head on the book rather than reading it. Later, he told of a visit from an angelic being who asked him what he wished to do with his life. Cayce responded that he hoped to help heal the sick, and he was told his aspiration would be fulfilled.

Cayce first discovered that he had a sensitivity for understanding physical ailments physical ailments when he lost his voice while working as an insurance and book saleman in partnership with his father, Leslie Cayce. Cayce as working as a traveling salesman and was doing well enough to entertain thoughts of marrying. One day, in his twenty-third year, he took a sedative to treat a headache and, soon after, developed a severe case of laryngitis. He could barely speak above a whisper, but at first he was not concerned since he knew that people often lost their voices for brief periods of time. Cayce’s voice did not return, however, and after months of medical treatments and consultations with specialists failed to restore his voice, he had to give up his job and look for something that did not require him to speak.

Eventually, Cayce found a job in his hometown of Hopkinsville, Kentucky as a photographer’s assistant. By this time, he had resigned himself to never being able to speak normally again, and he took comfort in his fiancee, Gertrude, his family , and his daily reading of the Bible.

One day, a traveling hypnotist by the name of Hart the Laugh King came to Hopkinsville. Someone in town who knew of Hart’s clinical work with hypnosis told hm of Cayce’s chronic, apparently incurable loss of voice, and Hart offered to try an experiment with Edgar. Edgar agreed and was hypnotized by Hart. To the amazement of all present, Cayce was able to speak normally and clearly while under hypnosis. As soon as he was awakened, however, his voice returned to a faint whisper. This experiment was repeated several times and each time, Cayce’s voice would disappear once he was awakened from his hypnotic trance.

March 13, 1901, Hart the Laugh King was long gone, and Edgar Cayce still had no voice.

He had not given up on regaining his ability to speak, however, and he prevailed upon a local man with skill in hypnosis to help him.

Cayce went into a trance and immediately began to speak in a normal voice He quickly identified his loss of voice as a “psychological condition producing a physical effect.” He then “told himself” how to cure it: he needed to increase blood flow to his throat and upper chest. As everyone watched, Cayce’s upper body and neck became bright red as he willed blood to flow to the afflicted areas.

Upon awakening, his voice had returned.

This event was the beginning of Edgar Cayce’s life long practice of providing “readings” for people from all over the world. With no formal education, and no medical training at all, Cayce was able to identify what was wrong with people, and tell them how they could be healed. Often, all he needed was the name and address of the afflicted person. He would lie on a couch, place himself into a fugue state that was a combination of sleep and a trance, and then answer questions put to him. He did not remember what he said when he was “under,” and was often amazed at the words he had spoken during a reading. His secretary Gladys Davis transcribed everything he said during his Life Readings, most of which were conducted and guided by his wife Gertrude.

Today, all of Cayce’s readings are stored at the Association of Research and Enligtenment in Virginia Beach, Virginia and are available on CD-ROM. It was determined that Cayce answered questions on over ten thousand subjects during his readings. His success rate was extraordinarily high and far exceeded the happenstance vagaries of coincidence.

Cayce’s fame spread worldwide, and he was investigated by both skeptics and the police for his “medical advice” and for suspicion of fortune telling. One Catholic writer who visited Virginia Beach with the intention of “exposing” Cayce as a fraud instead ended up writing an acclaimed biography of Cayce.

So, was Edgar Cayce a true psychic? A Prophet? A seer? Or was he just incredibly lucky?

The evidence overwhelmingly supports that Cayce was a true clairvoyant. Some fundamentalists rage against his readings as the work of Satan, claiming that he was a promoter of demonology and the occult. This is a curious position ot take regarding someone who expressed interest in doing nothing but helping people and who read the Bible cover to cover every year of his life.

Throughout his life, Edgar Cayce claimed no special abilities nor did he ever consider himself to be some kind of twentieth-century prophet. The readings never offered a set of beliefs that had to be embraced, but instead focused on the fact that each person should test in his or her own life the principles presented. Though Cayce himself was a Christian and read the Bible from cover to cover every year of his life, his work was one that stressed the importance of comparative study among belief systems all over the world. The underlying principle of the readings is the oneness of all life, tolerance for all people, and a compassion and understanding for every major religion in the world. - Above statement by Kevin J. Todeschi who wrote Edgar
Cayce’s ESP: Who He Was, What He Said, and How it came True.
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This article was taken from the book “THE WEIRD 100”