of his advice, we had a massive collection of additional reference material which we would use to track down the people who received the readings and judge the truth for ourselves. The vast majority of names of these individuals meant little or nothing to us at the onset of our research, for they had led otherwise undistinguished lives as farmers, housewives, building contractors, musicians, students, and nurses—even an Alabama tombstone cutter. Children and adults from nearly any profession one can name came to Cayce for advice.
However, among these individuals were names that we instantly recognized. Composer George Gershwin and Hollywood film pioneer Jesse Lasky had readings, as had inventors Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla, electrical engineers at RCA and NBC, and the president and founder of Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company. Readings were conducted for the mother of Ernest Hemingway, on behalf of the husband of aviator Amelia Earhart, and though shrouded in secrecy, for President Woodrow Wilson. This aspect of Cayce’s work had not heretofore been called attention to because Cayce had never promoted himself. He didn’t trade on the names of the rich and famous who consulted with him for the same reason he didn’t charge a fee for giving readings. He believed that his gift was from God and not to be used for selfish or self-serving purposes, but for the brotherhood of man; what the readings say is our collective purpose or soul’s destiny.
In Hopkinsville, Kentucky, where Cayce lived and worked for the first half of his career, Nancy and I camped at the edge of a farmer’s field, walked the woods where Cayce played as a youth, and visited the tobacco barn where he had first begun communicating with the spirit world. In Selma, Alabama, we visited the First Christian Church, in whose archive we read the minutes once kept by its church secretary, Edgar Cayce. In Cleburne, Texas, we met the son of a newspaper reporter who had worked with Cayce to develop the Desdemona oil fields, one of the largest petroleum and natural gas deposits ever found. In Dayton, Ohio, we interviewed a man whose employer’s dream was to build the hospital dedicated to Cayce’s healing arts. Many others who knew Cayce personally or had received readings came forward with stories that had previously gone unrecorded. As we would discover, their enthusiasm for Cayce went beyond the trance counsel he provided. They enjoyed his company—whether he was teaching Bible study, working alongside them in the photo studio, or joining him at his favorite fishing hole. A humble, kind, and affectionate man, he preferred the company of children, friends, and co-workers over and above his many rich and famous acquaintances. He touched their lives, and they touched his.
Herein lies the theme of this book. Edgar Cayce could not do what he did alone. Deep in a hypnotic trance, he had no conscious memory of anything that was said. He needed someone—more often than not his wife, Gertrude—to guide him into trance and put questions to him. He also needed someone to record and transcribe what he said, a task which would ultimately fall to his devoted secretary, Gladys Davis. He needed plenty of others—physicians, nurses, physical therapists, scientists, engineers, and biblical scholars, even an Alabama tombstone cutter—to help recipients of the readings make the most of the advice that was provided. Most important, he needed someone who genuinely wanted his help. The more deeply felt and true the desire for that help, the longer, more detailed and often more profound was the information that came through. He needed a team, just as the trance readings tell us that all of us need a team or partners with whom, and by design, we are to share life’s experience.
Now, more than two decades after first entering the Cayce vault in Virginia Beach, it is not just Edgar that keeps us coming back for further research and study, but the many people whose lives gave shape and meaning to his trance readings. Understanding their challenges, triumphs, failures, and desires is to understand the higher purpose of our own life’s journey. This is what is meant by “Cayce’s work.” It’s not just his work, but our work, too.
LULU BOYD CAYCE:
ANGELS AND DEMONS
Edgar Cayce’s first reported spirit encounter was with his dead grandfather Tom Cayce, who was killed in 1881 after being thrown from a horse on the family’s Beverly, Kentucky, tobacco farm. The matter didn’t worry Edgar’s mother Carrie, who believed her four-year-old son simply had a vivid imagination. Edgar’s father, Leslie, a failed farmer and heavy drinker, was gone from the house for weeks on end and may not have noticed his son’s increasingly strange behavior. The family member most concerned was Edgar’s twenty-four-year-old aunt, Lulu Boyd Cayce, who recommended that Little Eddy ought to be taken to a doctor. It was either that or to a priest. “He’s got the Devil in him,” Lulu told Edgar’s parents. “No good can come of this.”
Lulu and her extended family members knew how close Little Eddy had been with this grandfather. The child had often napped in Tom’s arms and was never happier than when he was wrapped in Tom’s long overcoat. Tom had taught him to fish, ride on horseback, and tend to the garden. He even helped Edgar build playhouses out of the tall brush that grew along the banks of the Little River, a meandering stream that cut through the Cayce property.
The Lulu Boyd and Clinton Cayce family of Beverly, Kentucky, c. 1882. L. to R.: Maud (with doll); Lulu Boyd; Florence (center); Clinton Cayce; Granville
Edgar had been riding behind Tom on his favorite mare when the tragic accident had occurred. As eyewitnesses told the story, Tom was heading back from the tobacco fields when they stopped at a pond to water the horse. Tom had let Edgar down from the saddle to play in the shallows, his favorite pastime. Moments later the horse was startled by what may have been a water moccasin. The horse reared up, pitching Tom into the water. From shore, Edgar watched as the horse brought its hoofs down on Tom’s chest. A physician who lived nearby was called for help, but Tom was dead before Lulu Boyd’s husband, Clinton, pulled Tom out of the water.
As Lulu soon noticed, Little Eddy seemed undisturbed by the tragedy. Not long after the funeral, she found him standing alone in the tobacco barn. When asked what he was doing, Edgar matter-of-factly declared he was talking with Grandpa. According to Eddy, often times Grandpa was out in the fields too, whispering to farmhands to remind them of chores or how to fix farm machinery. But Grandpa, he said, could sometimes be hard to see. He appeared in “beams of light.” If Edgar looked really hard, he could see right through him.
Edgar’s grandfather Thomas Jefferson Cayce, c. 1875.
The pond where he was thrown from a horse and died in 1881.
Grandpa’s favorite place to sit, Edgar confided, was under the rafters in the barn. Edgar wanted to show Lulu the spot, but she sternly declined. This was strange behavior indeed. But what really frightened her were the stories Edgar said his grandfather had been telling him about the Cayce family’s pre-Civil War past in Virginia. These stories were not the kind easily produced by the vivid imagination of a youngster, but authentic accounts of the Cayce family before coming to Kentucky. Only Tom’s generation would know these things.
Lulu counseled Edgar not to tell anyone about his visions and encouraged Leslie and Carrie to seek help for the child. Further, Edgar continued to exhibit other strange and unnerving behaviors which unsettled the family. Among them was an incident which occurred in 1882, after Edgar’s mother gave birth to a second child, whom the family named Thomas in honor of his deceased grandfather.
