is reasonable to conclude that Hart’s appraisal of Edgar’s condition was correct. Edgar’s laryngitis was psychosomatic, a condition which could be helped with hypnosis. However, his condition was also partly physiological. His vocal chords were constricted when he was in a waking state. This was perhaps because Edgar, in a waking state, was trying so hard to suppress his psychic gifts. With his desire to please Gertrude, earn a better income, and lead a normal life, he had strayed far from the promise he had made to the angel of his youth. The “voice” within him was trying to be heard, and the only way to suppress it was to constrict his vocal chords. This condition, too, may also have been treated with hypnosis, but Hart didn’t know how to put the correct suggestion to Edgar when he was under. When hypnotized, Edgar had powers over his own body that were far beyond what Hart, or anyone else, could imagine.
Hart gave up on Edgar. But others took up where he left off. College professor William Girao, who had been in the audience at the Opera House, wrote to John Quackenboss in New York, who was considered one of the foremost experts in hypnotism. The fact that he was also an ardent believer that illness could be healed by a person learning to marshal the forces of the unconscious mind would prove to be most helpful.
Quackenboss took the case on and made repeated visits to Hopkinsville. Before he began his experiments, he questioned Edgar and his parents at length, listened to Leslie’s account of Edgar’s childhood experiences, and took copious notes.
In one experiment, when Edgar was asked to sleep for twenty-four hours, he immediately closed his eyes and went to sleep. Not just this, Edgar appeared to be comatose. He didn’t awaken for twenty-four hours—precisely to the minute. This was a modest breakthrough, as it showed that when Edgar was put into a deep trance, he truly did what was asked of him. However, it didn’t cure his condition.
After Quackenboss gave up, Girao continued to experiment and engaged the help of Al Layne, the only person he knew in Hopkinsville who had training in hypnotism. A delicate middle-aged man with a pencil-thin gray mustache and a prominent bald spot on the top of his head, Layne weighed less than 120 pounds, in contrast to his wife, Ada, a heavy, large-breasted, robust woman. As would soon prove helpful, Layne was predisposed to assist Girao because he knew Edgar personally. Layne’s wife, Ada, employed Edgar’s younger sister Anne Cayce and Gertrude’s aunt Carrie Salter at Anderson’s Department Store.
Though Layne called himself both a hypnotist and physician and operated a small office at the back of Anderson’s Department Store, he had little formal training. The extent of his certification was a correspondence course. Still, he had a modest following of dedicated clients, many of them people such as himself, who suffered stomach ailments and who had found no relief from standard allopathic medicine. Like Professor Girao, he was an ardent believer in a popular slogan of the day, “Every man his own doctor,” and was part of a groundswell of popular interest in what today would be called holistic health. Hypnotism was merely one aspect of a medical treatment that also included osteopathy, the science of manipulating or realigning human vertebrae to permit the body to heal itself, and homeopathy, a treatment based on the use of natural remedies to trigger the body’s own immune response.
Al Layne, taken from a newspaper article, c. 1906.
Al Layne’s newspaper ad, c. 1902.
Edgar, as Layne concluded, was in desperate need of both osteopathy and homeopathy, but it was hypnotism that he and Girao applied first. As in the earlier experimentation with Quackenboss, Edgar went into trance easily and would speak in a normal voice. But as soon as Edgar came out of trance, the laryngitis returned. The only thing new they learned from their efforts was the observation that Edgar was unusually talkative in his trance state. Layne could actually carry on a conversation with him. Edgar would stop talking only when the suggestion was made that he go into a deeper trance, at which point communication would cease altogether.
Layne and Girao put their findings into a letter to Quackenboss. In response, the New York hypnotist said that he had observed a similar tendency when working with Edgar. He noted a particular point in the hypnosis process when Edgar’s unconscious self seemed to “take charge.” An avenue to explore, Quackenboss suggested, was to put Edgar “under” and ask Edgar’s unconscious self what he thought should be done to restore his voice.
Edgar’s parents were reluctant to let their son be hypnotized yet again. He had lost sixty pounds and as Edgar himself admitted, was a “nervous wreck.” Now, along with his Bible, he carried a pencil and pad, which was the only way he could communicate with the outside world.
Gertrude, too, had suffered. Already thin, she now looked anorexic. She had dropped out of college and rarely ventured into public to attend the many social and church gatherings around which her life had previously revolved. She also hadn’t attended Edgar’s hypnotic sessions with Quackenboss, Girao, and Layne. Edgar’s public embarrassment on the Holland’s Opera House stage was humiliation enough.
With Edgar’s blessing, Layne convinced Leslie and Carrie to let him try one more experiment. On Sunday afternoon, March 31, 1901, less than two weeks after his twenty-fourth birthday, he and Layne retreated to the Cayce’s upstairs parlor. Edgar lay down on the family’s horsehair sofa, and Layne pulled up a chair to sit next to him. Edgar’s mother stood alongside Layne. Leslie was seated in a chair across from his son.
Edgar put himself into trance, as he had learned to do from having undergone so many previous experiments. Just as Edgar’s pupils began to dilate and his eyelashes fluttered and when he looked as if he was going “under,” Layne made his first suggestion.
“You are now asleep and will be able to tell us what we want to know,” Layne said. “You have before you the body of Edgar Cayce. Describe his condition and tell us what is wrong.”
Edgar began to mumble, then his throat cleared and he spoke. “Yes,” he said. “We can see the body.”
Layne told Edgar’s father to write down what was being said. Leslie scrambled to do so but was so disconcerted by what was happening to realize that a pad and paper were within easy reach. He instead ran into the kitchen and retrieved the pencil that was tied to the grocery list. Even so, he was too flustered to write anything coherent down on the paper. What Edgar said is today pieced together from the recollections of Edgar’s mother and Layne.
In the normal physical state this body is unable to speak due to partial paralysis of the inferior muscles of the vocal cords, produced by nerve strain. This is a psychological condition producing a physical effect and may be removed by increasing the circulation to the affected parts by suggestion while in this unconscious condition. That is the only thing that will do it.
Layne would note the curious way that Edgar was addressing himself in the third person. He also spoke more slowly than he normally would in a conscious state, enunciating each individual consonant and vowel as if he were translating from some foreign language.
“Increase the circulation to the affected parts,” Layne then commanded.
Edgar replied: “The circulation is beginning to increase. It is increasing.”
Layne leaned over to look at Edgar. Just as the “sleeping” Cayce had said, the circulation to his throat actually appeared to increase. He could see his neck begin swelling with blood to the point that Leslie was compelled to lean over and unbutton his son’s shirt collar. The upper portion of his chest, then throat, slowly turned pink. The pink deepened
