Gertrude was dramatic and made all the more miraculous because no one before—not in a trance reading or a laboratory—had ever come up with a cure for tuberculosis. There were treatments to prolong a person’s life, but no cure. After taking the first capsule, Gertrude stopped hemorrhaging. The fumes of the apple brandy reduced the congestion in her lungs. Days later her fever broke. A month into the treatments she was decidedly gaining strength.
Gertrude Cayce, c. 1921.
Ironically, it was in the midst of Gertrude’s recovery—in what might be viewed as Ketchum and Cayce’s most spectacular success—that the year-old partnership would come under the most intense scrutiny, criticism, and investigation by the medical profession. Such would be the case many more times in Cayce’s life to come, though in different cities and with other physicians. That Cayce’s trance readings recommended treatments which helped the patients who came to him was beside the point.
In November 1911, while Gertrude was still in bed recovering and Edgar had once again begun suffering from migraine headaches and throat problems, Ketchum was informed by a neighbor that he and Cayce were being investigated by the Christian County Medical Society. A resolution had been passed demanding that a committee of concerned physicians visit the governor and the attorney general to revoke Ketchum’s medical license, end the partnership, and put a stop to what they deemed to be a mockery of medical science.
Knowing that there would be upward of forty-five doctors in the county attending the next medical society meeting, Ketchum considered bringing eyewitnesses and patients whom he and Cayce had helped, along with affidavits. However, the resourceful and wily Ketchum concocted an altogether different scheme. He withdrew a thousand dollars from his bank account. This was all he took with him into the packed meeting which would decide his and in turn, Edgar’s future.
Ketchum entered the crowded meeting room and took a seat in the back. After the session was called to order and the names of the committee members were selected to go to Frankfort to see the governor and attorney general, Ketchum asked that he be permitted to briefly address fellow society members. He walked to the front of the room and put the cash on top of the secretary’s table, where everyone could see it. Then he delivered a short, previously prepared speech. Here, in his own words, is part of what he said:
I’m sorry to have brought this on the doctors of Christian County. But you were born and raised here [and] I came here on the encouragement of quite a number of your top citizens. If you gentlemen want to get the real meat of the bull, I want your help. Of course, if you’re just going to kick me out of the profession, that’s different. But I have a suggestion to offer you. I’d like you to appoint six men to choose one of his most complex cases, then have Cayce lie down and go to sleep and diagnose each of the six cases. If the diagnoses are not absolutely correct, I will turn this money over to any charity you name in Christian County.
A hush fell over the room after Ketchum sat down. Eventually, a physician in the back of the room made a motion that there should be further investigation before their committee visited the attorney general. Ketchum would hear nothing more from the medical society.
Ketchum did, however, engineer a meeting with the attorney general at a gathering of the regional bar association. The meeting was to be held at the Hotel Latham, and Cayce was scheduled to put on a demonstration of his psychic abilities. Ketchum never revealed whose idea the presentation was, but given the presence of the attorney general at the head table, Ketchum’s handiwork was much in evidence.
On the night of the event, Ketchum invited the assembled attorneys to write out questions which he would have Cayce answer. More than a dozen lawyers participated. Ketchum then had Cayce come into the room, lie down on a table, and guided him into trance. Cayce reportedly answered each question. In some cases he provided lengthy, comprehensive responses; in other instances said “yes” or “no.”
The performance made for quite a sensation as the attorneys marveled at Cayce’s uncanny abilities. As Ketchum anticipated, the attorney general pulled him aside after the performance. He had heard about the trouble that Ketchum and Cayce had had with the local medical society. He now understood why.
“I’ll tell you,” the attorney general said, gesturing with his hands. “It’s not far from here to over there. I think this fellow [Cayce] falls through.”
This was all the attorney general said, and all that Ketchum believed he needed to hear him say. “[In] some way and somehow,” Ketchum replied, “he does fall into another sphere about which we know nothing.”
Ketchum had artfully dodged a bullet—not once but twice. His third experience, however, would send him on a one-way cruise to Honolulu.
Dr. Hugo Münsterberg, c. 1908.
HUGO MÜNSTERBERG:
HARVARD COMES TO HOPKINSVILLE
Heightened interest in Edgar Cayce drew the attention and scrutiny of physicians well beyond Hopkinsville. And while Ketchum was proving adept at handling his Kentucky colleagues, he was out of his depth when Dr. Hugo Münsterberg of Harvard University unexpectedly checked into the Latham Hotel and requested to meet with Edgar and his partners.
An imperious and altogether imposing man, who stood six-feet tall and weighed two-hundred-and-fifty pounds, Münsterberg was the most famous academic at the most prestigious institution in the United States. Born and raised in Germany, with an MD from the University of Heidelberg and a PhD from the University of Leipzig, he came to Harvard at the request of William James, the most influential figure in the history of American psychology. He had dined at the White House with two presidents, entertained European royalty in his Boston home, and was the most quoted German intellectual in the world press. He spoke five languages, enjoyed oil painting and portraiture, wrote poetry, played the cello, directed films, authored bestselling books and popular magazine articles, and pioneered technology which would lead to the creation of the modern-day lie detector. Most important to the Cayce story was the joy he took in exposing fraudulent mediums and psychics.
In one highly publicized case in 1909, Münsterberg investigated Eusapia Palladino, an internationally renowned Italian medium who was championed by British psychic researcher Hereward Carrington. Madame Palladino, calling upon her spirit guide John King, could allegedly levitate tables, remotely transport objects from one place to another, spontaneously excite musical instruments to play, and summon otherworldly blasts of wind to blow through rooms with sealed windows and doors. Münsterberg proved otherwise.
Dr. Hugo Münsterberg, seated at center, with his medical students, 1891.
At a séance held in the Manhattan apartment of a wealthy Bostonian, he and two colleagues had joined Palladino around a circular table in a darkened room. At Palladino’s direction, he was seated to the left of the medium with his right foot in contact with her left foot and his right hand in contact with her right hand. Similarly, one of Münsterberg’s colleagues sat to her right with his left hand and left foot touching her
