The Search for Bridey Murphy (13 page)

To Hazel I raged against reincarnation, the book, and even
Cayce himself. But Hazel scarcely looked up from her own reading; she merely remarked something to the effect that I would be getting back to the book again sooner or later and that I might as well pick it up now. I did.

Taking up where I had left off, I was glad to learn, at least, that Cayce had also found himself in consternation. He simply did not understand this reincarnation business. He was afraid at first that it might be anti-Christian. As to this part of the Cayce story, let’s refer again to
Many Mansions
:

Cayce’s inner turmoil is not difficult to understand. He had been brought up in an atmosphere of strict, orthodox Christianity, with no instruction in the teachings of the great world religions other than his own. At that time, therefore, he was unaware for the most part of the many profound points of similarity between his faith and other faiths, and had had no opportunity to appreciate the ethical and spiritual light which burns in lamps other than that of his own form of Christianity. He was particularly uninformed with regard to that cardinal teaching of Hinduism and Buddhism—reincarnation.

He was repelled, in fact, by the very word, confusing reincarnation, as some people do, with the doctrine of transmigration of souls—namely that man returns to earth, after death, in an animal form…. The readings themselves soon disabused Cayce of this confusion. Reincarnation, the readings explained, does not mean the return of human beings to animal form; it is not merely a superstition of ignorant people. It is a thoroughly respectable doctrine, both from the religious and the philosophic point of view. Millions of educated people in Indian and Buddhist countries believe it intelligently, and guide their lives by its ethical principles. There are, to be sure, many sects in India and the East that teach the transmigration of the human soul to animal forms; but this is only a misinterpretation of the true reincarnation principle. Even Christianity has garbled and mistaken forms; one must not permit a narrow acquaintance with the distorted versions to close one’s mind to the possibility of truth in the original.

Lammers was able to add to the clarification given by the readings themselves. Reincarnation means
evolution
, he explained: the evolution of the spirit of man through many successive lifetimes on earth—sometimes as a man, sometimes as a woman, now as a pauper, now as a prince, here belonging to one race, there to another—until finally the spirit has reached
the perfection enjoined on us by Christ. The soul is like an actor who takes different roles and wears different costumes on different nights; or like a hand that puts on the glove of a material body for a little while, and when the glove is threadbare, slips out and later dons another glove. Any number of men of intellect in our hemisphere have accepted this idea, and written about it. Schopenhauer thoroughly believed in it. So did Emerson, Walt Whitman, Goethe, Giordano Bruno, Plotinus, Pythagoras, Plato.

Consoled to some extent, Cayce was persuaded to continue his probing of this other dimension in man—to give more readings, that is, on the subject of past lifetimes. As the new brand of readings grew in number—they were called “life readings” for lack of a better name, and ultimately totaled about twenty-five hundred—Cayce’s doubts began to dissolve. Historically the readings rooted out information which almost always surprised the unschooled Cayce, to whom they would be read after he awakened. In one instance Cayce told a man that he had been a stool-dipper in a previous incarnation. No one present, however, had the slightest hint as to what a stool-dipper was. But digging for facts unearthed the answer that this referred to the job, in the early-American witch-hunting days, of strapping alleged witches to stools and dipping them into a pool of water.

In another case a man was told that during his previous incarnation he had been a Confederate soldier in the Civil War, and the reading gave his former name and address. Naturally the man was anxious to learn whether he could actually find records which would verify this account, and so he began his search. Finally tracing the records to the state historical library, he found that there had, indeed, been such a person, that the person had lived where Cayce specified and had enlisted in Lee’s army as a color-bearer in 1862.

Aside from these historical confirmations, there was another phase, the psychological, which in many respects was most convincing. In the cases involving psychological analyses the predictive accuracy of the Cayce readings could be checked during the present lifetime. Even for people he never saw, Cayce forecast character delineations, talents, physical defects, assigning their origin to previous incarnations, when they had, according to Cayce, begun to develop.

From this recording of the Cayce story, however, it should not be deduced that I accepted the whole matter without further question. Far from it. Granted that the books I read had seemed sensible and forceful; nevertheless, the whole thing was still not quite comprehensible to a mind that had been so long trained in another school. I was ready to concede that there must have been a man named Edgar Cayce and that this man had somehow managed some remarkable performances. But that was all.

I did, however, concur in the thought set forth by Dr. Cerminara on the very last page of her book:

Yes, I could agree that here was a matter which at least merited further consideration. Hazel agreed too. So, armed with three questions, we flew off on the first part of our search—we would chase down the Cayce story, trying to learn for ourselves just how much truth it contained. Our aim was to seek out doctors, lawyers, businessmen—anyone who could give us his firsthand experience with Cayce. Each interview would start with these questions: First: Could Cayce have been a fraud? Next: What about his medical diagnoses? Could he really diagnose clairvoyantly for strangers who were miles away? Last: What about this reincarnation idea?

Our first stop was Virginia Beach, Virginia, the central office of the Association for Research and Enlightenment, an organization formed by friends of Edgar Cayce some time before his death. The primary purpose of the association is to integrate research in science, religion, and philosophy, with particular emphasis on demonstrating that these are all spokes in the same wheel.

There we met Edgar Cayce’s son, Hugh Lynn, who, inciden
tally, inherited none of his father’s psychic talents. Young Cayce, an official of the association, still maintains all the Cayce data, publishes a monthly bulletin as a means of keeping in touch with the members, lectures on various aspects of his father’s work.

As I reflect upon my first meeting with Hugh Lynn Cayce I wonder why he didn’t run me out of his house. My skepticism, together with blatant charges that some of the claims made for his father seemed to me to be excessive, would not have won any Dale Carnegie awards. But Hugh Lynn’s pleasant manner never faltered; he had apparently grown accustomed to people like me popping into his office just to tell him that they suspected it was all nonsense.

Hugh Cayce cordially answered all our questions and then, at our request, led us to a sizable vault where all his father’s readings were filed. Hazel and I studied the case records, follow-ups, testimonials, and other data, stopping once in a while to fire more questions at Hugh Lynn. Then we flew off to New York to get to the core of our Cayce inquiry—to put our three basic questions to those people on the list already compiled.

There was no doubt regarding the answer to our first question. There had been nothing fraudulent about Edgar Cayce. Quite to the contrary, he had been a pious, sincere Christian who personally held himself responsible for helping others to the very best of his ability.

My question as to whether Cayce might possibly have been a fraud was greeted with answers ranging from laughter at my ignorance to shocked indignation at my presumptuousness. One Manhattan manufacturer, livid with rage at such a question, stood up and ordered me out of his office. “How can you even use the word ‘fraud’ in the same sentence with the name of Edgar Cayce?” he roared. “That man saved my life; time and again he helped my friends, my family, and thousands of others. How dare you ask such a question?”

At a safe distance I hastily apologized, explaining that my purpose was not to make charges but only to check certain points. Somehow I managed to pacify the enraged tycoon, and then he proceeded to outline his own fascinating experiences with Cayce. It was easy to understand why some of his reports, although they were well documented and attested by several witnesses, had not found their way into any of the books about Cayce. They
were simply too fantastic! The authors had reasoned, I suppose, that it would be hard enough for the readers to believe the less extravagant Cayce accomplishments.

At any rate, when we had finished quizzing all those who were on our list, the answer to question number one was patent: Cayce most assuredly was no fraud.

In getting the answer to our second question, which concerned Cayce’s diagnostic ability, my real purpose was to learn whether his clairvoyance had been genuine. I still could not get into my head the conception of a man who could lie down in Virginia and describe accurately the detailed events of a scene taking place in New York at that very moment. There are many who take for granted the possibility of clairvoyance. To me, however, the whole idea had always—before my studies in extrasensory perception—been incredible. And I was still without conviction that reliable clairvoyance could be repeatedly demonstrated under test conditions.

Hazel and I started first with what the doctors had to say about Cayce. In this respect the Sherwood Eddy report,
¹
was particularly enlightening. In addition we made our own inquiries; we were delighted to find that doctors who had known Cayce and had utilized his unique faculty were quite willing to discuss the matter at some length. These medics, corroborating the Eddy poll, agreed that Cayce’s accuracy,
on patients whom he had never even seen
, ran between 80 and 100 per cent. One doctor insisted that he had never known Cayce to make a single mistake in diagnosis, and for many years he had turned to Cayce for assistance with his most difficult cases.

We didn’t stop with the doctors. We wanted to get the story directly from some of the people who had been helped. But no matter where we went—from lawyers to authors to steelworkers—it was the same old story: Cayce worked wonders.

A lawyer recounted an example of the Cayce accuracy. A friend of the lawyer had broken his leg. Recognizing it as an opportunity to test Cayce, the attorney telegraphed for a reading on the friend, asking what should be done about the badly fractured right leg. After the reading he received a telegram from Cayce which
stated that nothing was wrong with the right leg. At first this appeared to be an error on Cayce’s part, but the lawyer soon realized that he had referred to his friend’s “right leg” when it was actually the left leg which had been fractured. When the error was corrected, a second reading followed, and this time the sleeping clairvoyant described the injury in detail, specifying the treatment that would be the most effective. “Remarkable!” concluded the attorney, and he shook his head in wonder while he reflected on the incident.

Once again we encountered cases which will probably never be printed in a book. But printable or not, all the cases added up to a clear-cut affirmation on the question of Cayce’s clairvoyant ability.

When we came to our last question—“this reincarnation idea”—our job was somewhat more complicated. Aware that this question was somewhat nebulous, we reinforced it with further inquiry: “Did you have a Cayce life reading? If so, has it in your opinion proved sound?… Were any of these readings obviously ridiculous?… Did you by any chance find the life readings as convincing as the health readings?… What sort of evidence emerged from your reading or from any others about which you may have knowledge?… Is there someone else to whom you can refer us on this particular issue?”

Here was a matter on which clear-cut verdicts could hardly be expected. In contrast to the health readings, the accuracy of which could frequently be checked immediately, the Cayce readings involving previous lifetimes produced evidence of a different nature. If the reading, for instance, referred one to an existence a few hundred years previous, it was no easy matter to pin down the details for a positive verification. It was true, however, that historical records frequently yielded confirmation of obscure personalities and details as specified in the readings.

As one busy executive put it, “No, I don’t have the ironclad, loophole-free brand evidence. All I know is that I found my own reading very impressive. Cayce told me things about my own character and personality, bringing in various other circumstances, that I have not only found to be accurate, but also very helpful. I believe the whole principle set forth by the Caycegreadings, and I try to live my life accordingly.”

We interviewed a very charming woman who told us that she
had asked for Cayce readings for each of her two sons shortly after their birth. Both readings were made more than twenty years ago, yet the detailed projections made by Cayce, which were based, he had indicated, on their former earth experiences, have proved singularly true, even to the extent of predicting skills, traits, hobbies, interests, and professions.

But to me the most surprising aspect of our survey was the unexpectedly large number of sound, sensible individuals who accepted reincarnation with complete respect. While I was bashfully hiding behind terms like “reincarnation stuff,” the people we interviewed were guilty of no such pussyfooting. To the contrary, they spoke out forcefully, with neither hesitation nor embarrassment, pointing out that careful thought would almost inevitably lead one to admit the possibility of this other dimension. They began, in fact, to make me see the whole thing a little more clearly. One engineer, for instance, put it this way: