Psychic medical diagnostician. At his death he left accounts of about 30,000 psychic medical readings and "life readings" (info on the subject's past incarnations) he'd done.
One of the most common reasons given for believing in people such as Cayce is the claim that `there's no way he could have known this stuff by ordinary means; he must have been told this by spirits or been astrally projected back or forth in space or time, etc.' Yet, as with Virginia Tighe's being Bridey Murphy was easily explained by quite ordinary ways of knowing things, so too can Cayce's `knowledge'. Even though Cayce didn't have a formal education much beyond grammar school, he was a voracious reader, especially of occult literature and of osteopathy, and was in contact with many people. Many of his readings would probably only make sense to an osteopath. Martin Gardner cites Cayce's reading of Cayce's own wife as an example. The woman was suffering from tuberculosis:
....from the head, pains along through the body from the second, fifth and sixth dorsals, and from the first and second lumbar...tie-ups here, floating lesions, or lateral lesions, in the muscular and nerve fibers which supply the lower end of the lung and the diaphragm...in conjunction with the sympathetic nerve of the solar plexus, coming in conjunction with the solar plexus at the end of the stomach....The fact that Cayce mentions the lung is taken by his followers as evidence of a correct diagnostic; it counts as a psychic "hit". But what about the incorrect diagnoses: dorsals, lumbar, floating lesions, solar plexus and stomach? Why aren't those counted as diagnostic misses? And why did Cayce recommend osteopathic treatment for people with tuberculosis, epilepsy and cancer?
In addition to osteopathy, Cayce was knowledgeable of homeopathy and naturopathy. Here are a few of the remedies for ailments recommended by Cayce: "Oil of smoke" for a leg sore; "peach-tree poultice" for convulsions; "bedbug juice" for dropsy; and fumes of apple brandy from a charred keg for tuberculosis.
I wonder if any of Cayce's followers have tried his remedy for hemorrhoids.
The fact is that thousands of people consider themselves cured by Cayce and that's enough evidence for true believers. It works! The fact that thousands don't consider themselves cured or can't rationalize an erroneous diagnosis won't deter the true believer.
Gardner notes that Dr. J.B. Rhine, famous for his ESP experiments at Duke University, was not impressed with Cayce. Rhine felt that a psychic reading done for his daughter didn't fit the facts. Defenders of Cayce claim that if a patient has any doubts about Cayce the diagnosis won't be a good one. Yet, what reasonable person wouldn't have doubts about such a man, no matter how kind or sincere he was?
Cayce's defenders provide some classic ad hoc hypotheses to explain away their hero's failures. For example, when Cayce and a famous dowser named Henry Gross set out together to discover buried treasure along the seashore and found nothing, the rationalizers suggested that their psychic powers were accurate because either there once was a buried treasure where they looked but it had been dug up earlier [one wonders why their psychic powers kept this secret from themselves!] or there would be a treasure buried there sometime in the future. The seers were just ahead of their time. [Again, if the seers are so psychic why couldn't they see that the treasure wouldn't be there until their next lifetime??!! It must be very confusing not knowing whether your visions refer to the past, the present or the future!]
Cayce also claimed to be able see and read auras. In 1945, the Association for Research and Enlightenment, Inc., published a Cayce booklet, Auras.
See entries for auras, alternative health practices
and
Bridey Murphy
further reading
Gardner, Martin. Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1957), chs. 16, 17. Cayce's diagnosis of his wife, quoted above, is on page 217.
Randi, James. Flim-Flam! (Buffalo, New York: Prometheus Books,1982), ch. 9.