Venturing Inward. Hugh Lynn Cayce
case. It had been a month since he took any sort of medicine and his power of speech was restored as suddenly and unexpectedly as it was lost.
This newspaper clipping from a Hopkinsville, Kentucky, paper appeared around the early part of 1901. It was this throat paralysis which led Edgar Cayce to try hypnosis. After putting himself into a sleeplike state, Edgar gave suggestions for relieving his own throat paralysis. A friend, Al Layne, who was simultaneously studying osteopathy and hypnosis, tried asking the sleeping man about some of his most difficult cases. Edgar talked intelligently about them also. A strange partnership developed. When his voice failed, Edgar asked Layne to give him suggestions while he slept, which restored his voice; and when Layne needed help on a case, he sought advice from Edgar.
In 1902 my father took a job in a bookstore in Bowling Green, Kentucky. He became active in church work and for a group of young people invented a party game called “Pit.” This event was noted in the local paper:
New Parlor GameEdgar Cayce, of Bowling Green,Sells Invention to Mfg. Co.
Mr. Edgar Cayce, head clerk in the bookstore of L.D. Potter & Co., on State Street, is the author of a parlor game which will net him considerable money and bring him much fame. The name of the game is “The Pit,” and is to be played with a deck of thirty-four cards. It is on the order of the famous game of “Bourse” but those who have played both games say that the one of which Mr. Cayce is the author is far superior to the other. The cards represent the various cereals, railroad, mining stock, etc., which are sold by the New York exchange. They are first dealt to the players and the object is to corner the market, on certain things. The one doing this is the winner. To play the game successfully requires considerable science, and luck of course plays no small part. Mr. Cayce has sold his game outright to the Parker Manufacturing Co., of Salem, Mass. He received a good price for it and is naturally quite elated over its success. The game will be placed on the market as soon as a copyright can be secured.—Bowling Green News.
On June 17, 1903, Gertrude Evans and Edgar Cayce were married in Hopkinsville, Kentucky. The following day the Bowling Green paper carried the story:
Pretty Wedding at Hopkinsville
Yesterday afternoon at Hopkinsville a very pretty home wedding was celebrated in which a number of Bowling Green people took part. The bride was Miss Gertrude Evans, the lovely daughter of Mrs. Elizabeth Evans, an old and prominent family of that city. The groom was Mr. Edgar Cayce, the popular salesman in L.D. Potter’s book store, this city …
On the Sunday following the wedding Al Layne evidently needed Edgar’s help and visited him and his new bride in Bowling Green. The Cayce’s must have had strange feelings when they read the Bowling Green paper on June 22:
In a Trance Bowling Green Man IsAble to Diagnose Human Ills.Has No Recollection of It When He Awakes, andDoes Not Pretend to Understand His Wonderful Power
Dr. A.C. Layne, osteopath and magnetic healer, was in the city Sunday from Hopkinsville to have Edgar Cayce, the well-known salesman at L.D. Potter & Co., diagnose a case for him.
This sounds peculiar in view of the fact that Mr. Cayce is not a physician and knows nothing in the world about medicine or surgery. Since Mr. Cayce has been living in this city he lost his voice and was unable to speak a word. He returned to his former home at Hopkinsville and was there treated by Dr. Layne and had his voice restored. At this time it was discovered that Mr. Cayce possessed unusual mediumistic powers and since then he has discovered that by lying down, thoroughly relaxing himself and taking a deep breath he can fall into a trance, during which, though he is to all appearances asleep, his faculties are alert. Some time ago Dr. Layne had him go into a trance and diagnose a difficult case at Hopkinsville.
The diagnosis proved to be correct in every particular and it was not long until the patient had recovered.
The physicians had been unable to diagnose the case. Yesterday he came here to have Mr. Cayce diagnose another case and it was done in the presence of several people at Mr. Cayce’s home on State Street.
The patient is not here, but is ill at his home in Hopkinsville. Cayce went into his trance and then the doctor told him that the patient’s body would appear before him and he wanted him to thoroughly examine it from head to foot and tell him where the diseased parts were located.
In a moment more the doctor commenced at the head and asked Cayce minutely about every part of the body. He answered, telling of the location of blood clots, that one lung was sloughing off and detailed other evidences he saw of disease. It was as if the body was immediately before him and he could see through it and discern plainly every ligament, bone and nerve in it.
Dr. Layne was thoroughly satisfied with the diagnosis and when it was completed had Mr. Cayce diagnose several other cases of less importance, and then left for his home and will base the treatment of each case on the diagnosis as given by Cayce.
Mr. Cayce does not know what he is saying while in the trance, nor when it is over has he any recollection of what he said. He does not pretend to understand it and is not a spiritualist in any sense of the word, but is an active member of the Christian church.—Bowling Green Times Journal.
During the following year several doctors in Bowling Green and Hopkinsville became interested in Cayce and Layne. There may have been other publicity, but on March 29, 1904, the following story appeared in a Nashville, Tennessee, paper:
X-Ray Not in It with This Bowling Green Man
Edgar Cayce Startles Medical Men with His Trances
He Diagnoses Diseases in Persons Far Distant and Tells What Treatment to Give Them
Bowling Green, Ky., March 29.—(Special.)—Edgar Cayce, salesman in a book store here, has developed a wonderful power that is greatly puzzling physicians and scientific men. He is a quiet young man of the strictest integrity of character and thoroughly reliable in every way, and would not knowingly be a party to a deception. He some time ago discovered that he could relax himself and go into a trance and while in this condition could tell what people whom he did not know were doing miles away. This test was made some time ago when he told just what certain members of a family were doing at a certain time of the day. The physicians have been using his power to help them diagnose their cases. Several evenings ago one of the most prominent here, in company with one of the college professors of the city, tested Cayce’s powers and are surprised and mystified at the result. Cayce lay down on the operating table and relaxed himself and in a few minutes appeared to be in a deep sleep. The physician told him that he was treating a little boy of this city, calling him by name, who at the time was on a sick bed in another part of the city and whom Cayce did not know and that he (the doctor) wanted him (Cayce) to describe to him the physical condition of the boy. At once Cayce began to talk and said that he saw that the boy’s right lung was in very bad condition and that no air was going into it from below; that the left lung had also been involved but was nearly all right again. He also reported something wrong at the pit of the stomach. This, the physician says, was a perfect description of the boy’s condition. He also described the condition of the professor’s wife, telling of trouble with her eyes, which fact could not have previously been known to Cayce. He also told of the functions of the spleen and talked of the vertebrae and used medical terms in describing different parts of the body, whereas he knows nothing whatever of physiology or anatomy. In some cases he told the physician what particular medicine or treatment to use for certain derangements he found the bodies he examined in his mysterious way, but for others he gave no remedy, saying he saw no label for the medicine for that particular derangement. Where treatment