One of the cruelest tests of Edgar’s veracity was the time several supposed physicians sought to expose Mr. Cayce as a fraud while he was giving a reading. They physically assaulted him by sticking large needles into his arms, hands and feet. Edgar did not respond [because he was in trance]. Then one doctor cruelly stuck a needle all the way through Edgar’s cheeks. Finally one of them took a penknife and ran the blade under Edgar’s left forefinger. Slowly the nail was lifted away from the flesh. Needless to say, Mr. Cayce awoke in agony.
The twentieth century was supposed to be the age of reason and science. However, it appeared that science had separated itself from God and anything that was not science was suspect. The cruel irony was that many organizations had entire funds set up to study and record authentic examples of psychic phenomena, the ones science truly could not explain. Harvard University was one such institution. This school sent representatives and they did seem to believe in his authenticity, but neither Harvard nor any other school ever made any of the grant money available to Mr. Cayce to further study what he was doing for the people he helped.
Some people wanted Edgar to dress up in costume, hide behind curtains and appear mysterious. They even volunteered to pay him $1,000 a day to do this. Edgar refused. He would have nothing to do with any action that made his ability appear to be fraudulent. Edgar Cayce was not only honest to a fault with the skill God had given him he was also true to himself.
Medical authorities always remained skeptical of Cayce, discounting his readings because he had no formal medical training. Yet, despite this, Cayce’s treatment recommendations worked when the recommendations of allopathic doctors failed.
Consider how humiliating this would have been for these doctors: a man with a 9th grade education is able to correctly diagnosis, prescribe and heal people at a distance by going to sleep! The irony was that the physicians, who truly cared deeply about healing their patients, followed what Edgar said. The other doctors, who refused to believe his readings, would not.
Sometimes it was difficult for Edgar Cayce to understand within himself what this ability could do. Yet, Cayce was a man so pure of heart, that even though he often questioned himself, he continued to pray every day for Divine guidance. Sometimes he wondered if he should be doing this medical psychic work at all. Yet his patients were devoted to him. Cayce’s readings were successfully used to help his son with horrific photographic powder flash burns to his face and eyes. Edgar helped his wife, Gertrude with a life threatening illness. His readings helped his other son as well.
Cayce struggled with finances all of his life. Money was a chronic problem, primarily because he did not charge and was spending so much time helping people that he had difficulty developing his photographic career into a financially viable business. Edgar inherently knew to his very core, that to use his ability to charge large sums of money, or to help only those who could pay, would engender an absolute loss of that ability.
At one point in the readings, Mr. Cayce was advised to open a hospital in Virginia Beach, Virginia, which he did in November of 1928. There the hospital could charge people a nominal fee to defray the expenses of the hospital. Once the hospital was opened it was routinely booked three months in advance. The entire load of identifying treatments fell to Mr. Cayce and instead of doing the four readings a day that the readings advised, he raised them to six a day. From June 1943 to June 1944, Cayce gave 1385 readings. He did not want to say no to anyone in need. Finally, in one of the readings, he was told to rest or he would die. While he did rest for several months, he passed away in Jan of 1945 at the age of 68.
One might wonder why doing these readings was so exhausting for him; wasn’t the energy coming from God? After all, wasn’t he asleep and resting during the readings? Doing the readings was utterly exhausting because when any mortal soul acts as a medium, or conduit for the energy of the Divine, they literally are using their own body as a type of step-down transformer, making the energy of the Divine, the information of healing available on a level that the patient and the family would readily use. Mr. Cayce may have appeared to be resting, but he was in fact working most diligently. Even in the resting/sleeping state, it takes great concentration, discipline and skill to host such powerful energy, day after day, week after week, and year after year – for your entire life.
And what a life! Upon his death, Edgar Cayce left behind a life’s work of some 30,000 readings! This legacy of invaluable information, remedies, procedures and devices are still in use to this day. Perhaps we will never fully appreciate the degree of Edgar Cayce’s sacrifice. However, we can at least now have a greater respect for the depth of his pure love for humanity and the dynamic example of his tremendous service to all mankind.
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