Wednesday, April 17, 2013
The Origins of Religious Belief
Scholars have long recognized that all societies and cultures develop various customs, practices, and rituals that are usually described as religion. Defining “religion” has always been a difficult and controversial task. Jared Diamond provided sixteen definitions from various notables as diverse as Michael Shermer and Karl Marx in his book, The World Until Yesterday. For example Daniel Dennett defines religion as, “Social systems whose participants avow belief in a supernatural agent or agents whose approval is to be sought.” William James described religious experience as “feeling at home in the universe.”
Diamond also identified five components of religion including belief in supernaturalism, shared membership in a social movement, visible and costly proofs of commitment, practical rules for behavior, and the belief that supernatural beings can be induced to intervene in worldly life. (In this essay I will use “God” to represent any supernatural deity or deities.) Observing how these five components of religion influenced and benefitted societies in the past provides an excellent way to understand the role of religion in today’s world and in the future.
Reasonable people can disagree on the definition, but the bigger question is, “Why does religion exist at all?” Evolutionary biologists correctly note that religion is a very costly feature in any society. The expense of building churches, temples, and mosques and providing the support for religious leaders is great. The argument is that these resources could be invested in other systems such as education, agricultural, industrial, transportation, and military giving atheistic societies a competitive advantage resulting in the decline or elimination of religious societies. Since this has not happened, religion must provide some evolutionary survival advantage. Many scholars suggest that religion can be thought of as a sort of "scaffolding" which was useful in certain stages of evolution, but is no longer needed in modern developed societies. In this sense religion is similar to junk DNA or the human appendix, useful at one time but no longer required.
Michael Shermer, a science historian and a trained experimental psychologist developed the concepts of patternicity and agency to explain the origin of religion. The human brain is organized to find meaningful patterns in meaningless background noise. An example of patternicity was the ability of the Paleolithic hominids to distinguish shadows on the savanna from hungry predators hiding in the tall grass. Those lacking this ability were removed from the gene pool whereas those with this ability lived long enough to produce offspring with the same ability.
Agency is the human tendency to attribute some cause to everything observed or perceived. In fact the “law” of first cause is one of the most convincing arguments ever given for the existence of God. If everything has a cause and you work backwards through all the causes, you will eventually reach the first cause and that will be God. Even Bertrand Russell, one of the world’s greatest thinkers accepted the argument of first cause earlier in his life.
Jared Diamond proposed the following seven functions of religion: explanation, defusing anxiety, providing comfort, organization and obedience, codes of behavior toward strangers, justifying war, and badges of commitment. Considering these functions against the backdrop of societies evolving through the stages of bands, tribes, chiefdoms, and modern western states provides a prism for understanding the role religion played in the past and what its future might be.
As recently as ten thousand years ago almost everything our ancestors encountered during their lives was a mystery. Yet they had a natural tendency to look for a cause for such things as accidents, weather, scarcity of game, births, and deaths. Michael Shermer calls this agency, attributing a cause for anything that happens. At some early time the idea of God (or Gods) evolved into the agency of choice. Over time as human knowledge and education increased the need for Gods as an explanation decreased. Today, science answers most of the questions previously answered by God.
Small-scale societies are characterized by high levels of anxiety given the various dangers and hardships they face every day. This includes threats posed by wild animals or rival tribes, starvation, infectious diseases, and the dangers of birthing. Religion provided a means of defusing the anxiety caused when people felt like they did not have any control over the situation. Practicing some ritual or custom was preferable too not doing anything in the face of adversity and uncertainty. Religion was also useful for providing comfort in times of grief such as the injury, illness, or death of a member of the group.
Modern societies have reduced the anxiety levels associated with starvation, infectious diseases, animal attacks, and threatening neighbors compared to small-scale societies. Of course, modern societies have not eliminated stress and anxiety. The question becomes, is religion the only way or the best way to deal with anxiety?
The arrival of the chiefdom societies demonstrates the versatility of religion. Chiefs faced increased responsibility for maintaining peace among larger numbers of individuals living in close proximity with others, many who may be strangers. Religion offered a tool for organizing diverse and unrelated individuals into a cohesive group based on a common core of beliefs and customs. This provided a way to induce obedience and establish codes of behavior toward strangers within the group based on some shared belief system that previously depended on being related by blood. In the absence of any legal mechanism of enforcement, the concept of a powerful God capable of punishment and reward would have been a very useful tool for chiefs to use to enforce group rules and customs. The idea of God was also extremely useful to the chief for justifying war. People certain in the knowledge that their beliefs are correct are easily provoked against those with different or opposing dogmas. Blaise Pascal made this point over three-hundred years ago when he said, “Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.”
Loyalty to the group is very important to survival especially in time of conflict with outside groups. Badges of commitments are a way for members to demonstrate their allegiance to the group or society. For example emblems and logos are common among sports fans as a way of demonstrating their support for their team. In more serious matters societies need more convincing ways for group members to display loyalty to their society. Since religious observations are expensive in terms of time and money, they provide an excellent badge of commitment. They can include acts such as spending many hours attending religious services, donating a required portion of one’s income, donning some manner of dress, or even making annual religious pilgrimages to some holy site. Doing these things demonstrates to the group one can be trusted.
Afrol News recently reported (April 13, 2013) that archaeologists have discovered evidence of religious worship in the remote region of Botswana. “Here, our ancestors performed advanced rituals, worshiping the python some 70,000 years ago.” Obviously, no one knows exactly how religion got started thousands of years ago, but I think based on everything we do know that it could have easily happened as follows: (The names “Igor” and “Troken” are of my own making.)
Thousands (perhaps as many as 100,000) of years ago there was a small tribe of our ancestors living in a cave. As with most people they were just trying to survive as best they could. To this end each day the strongest and most able of the adult men left each day to hunt. If the animals moved on they would move and look for another cave. When lightning struck a tree and started a fire, they realized that it was useful for cooking meat and heating the cave. There was one fellow, named Troken who lacked hunting skills and was just a hindrance to their hunting activities. They decided to leave Troken behind to tend the fire and make sure it did not burn out. Troken was very happy to remain in the warm cave with the women and children avoiding the hard labor and dangers of hunting.
After some time, Troken became more proficient as the “keeper of the flame” and to pass his extra time he started experimenting with drawing symbols on the walls of the cave. To his surprise, the hunters were interested and in awe of his results. Eventually, Troken convinced the others that his symbols had mystical powers that only he understood and controlled. On the days when the hunters were successful he would take credit claiming that he was the one who empowered them. If they returned without any game, he would make up some new symbols. He even added various grunts and other sounds to invoke his magic. If someone got sick or injured, he would invoke new chants and symbols to heal them. If they died, he would blame it on bad or evil symbols.
In a short period of time Troken became the most powerful person in the tribe. While the others were out in the cold walking for miles hunting, he was in the cave molesting the women and children (sound familiar?) and working on his chants and cave renditions. At some point, Troken selected one of the young boys as an apprentice to help with the more mundane aspects of his mystical duties. Troken promised Igor that if anything ever happened to him he would take over. Troken did not believe that this would ever happen, because by now he actually believed in his own powers.
One day Troken died and Igor took over. Troken’s death had a profound effect on all the tribe members. To cope with this, Igor expended on Troken’s work and devised an elaborate ritual. He covered him with grass and sticks and surrounded him by food. He then had everyone groan out some new sounds as they danced all around. He eventually hid his body in a deep cave, and informed the others that Troken left on some mysterious journey that they were not to know about. In time Troken became the great god Troken to all the people.
Igor following Troken’s example and took on an understudy and the two of them continued to improve on Troken’s magic. Igor noticed some time around the middle of year that the days began to become shorter and that a certain time about six months later, they started getting longer again. He then did a series of paintings on the cave wall depicting the total loss of the sun and resulting darkness. This terrified the others, so he developed a secret ritual that he would perform at the end of each year to prevent the sun from disappearing. The effect on the others was beyond his wildest expectations. From this day on he enjoyed total power and authority.
Igor demanded that his subjects bow and cater to his every whim or desire no matter how bizarre, barbaric, or byzantine. He took over the entire cave forcing the others to find other refuge. Subjects were required to bring him the first choice of food, clothing, and trinkets of interest. Anyone who displeased him in any way was blamed for any misfortunate that might occur and were then killed as a sacrificed to the great god Troken. Igor and thousands of his successors held total power and domination over all the others.
Over time various technological developments occurred such as agriculture which allow the tribe to remain in one place. This resulted in “territory imperative.” Troken had given them exclusive rights to this land. As other tribes settled in adjacent areas, physical contacts were made. Priest Igor learned that these people had a different set of symbols and magic. He immediately ordered his warrior to kill them in the name of Troken. Troken was the only true god and these others must be destroyed except for the women and children who were made slaves. Priest Igor was satisfied and remained confident and secure in his growing kingdom.
Today religious belief is diverse and declining. According to Wikipedia, Christianity is the largest religion commanding 33% of the world’s population followed by Islam (19.6%), Hinduism (13.4%), Chinese folk religions (6.4%), and Buddhism (5.9%). Less that 1% of the world’s people are Jewish while it estimated that at 20% are nonbelievers.
What is the future of religion? The seven functions of religion suggest a possibility. Education, science, and the accumulation of knowledge has replaced religion’s role of explanation for most people in the world. I think that this trend will continue. Governments have taken over the role of organization and obedience, codes of behavior, and justifying war through the institutions of laws, courts, and law enforcement. Of course this is not as true in countries with theocratic governments. However, the trend is moving toward democratic societies and if this trend continues, religion will decline further. Defusing anxiety and providing comfort will remain the only attractive force for religious belief. Levels of anxiety will always fluctuate with economic conditions, international disputes, and natural disasters. Birth control has lowered the worldwide birth rates from 22 births per 1,000 people to 19 births per 1,000 people in the years from 2000 to 2012. This has resulted in an increased standard of living and the lowering of anxiety. Increasing educational opportunities and globalization are also reducing anxiety worldwide. If all these trends continue, providing comfort may be the last thing that religion has to offer.
Providing comfort especially during times of illness or the death of loved ones has always been a service that religion provided. However secularism is beginning to compete with religion in giving comfort and could easily take over this function. Secularists can accelerate the process of removing religion’s last justification by competing on the grounds of morality and ethics. For example we can replace the “Golden Rule,” which is essentially a self-serving idea of gaining favor by giving favor with the idea that each of us is responsible for the happiness of the people around us. If everyone in the world did just one small “good” deed every day without expecting some reward, what a difference that could make. It can be a simple act of removing a nail from the road or giving a smile to a stranger. We can also share with others the beauty of science and knowledge and the joy of discovery. Above all we need to provide a good education to every child in the world including religious education. Professor Daniel Dennett has long advocated the teaching of all major religions in schools. His hypothesis is the more people know about the various religious doctrines, the more likely they will choose rational human secularism.
Religious belief worldwide is on the decline and with the advancement of science, education, and secularism, religion seems destined for the dust pile of outdated ideas along with Jack in the Beanstalk as relics of mankind’s intellectual infancy. In the words of Denis Diderot, “Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.”
1. The World Until Yesterday: What We Can Learn from Traditional Societies? (2012) by Jared Diamond
2. Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time (2002) by Michael Shermer
3. Blog: Why Religion? (August 31, 2012) by Needlefish Chronicles
Friday, April 5, 2013
Edgar Cayce
Thomas Jefferson Cayce was born in Beverly, KY just seven miles outside Hopkinsville on May 16, 1829. He was a successful farmer growing dark tobacco used in chewing tobacco and cigars. Tom liked to drink and had a reputation as a “water witch” or dowser and was often called on by his neighbors to locate water on their property. Tom was a very religious man and allegedly possessed various psychic abilities including psychokinetic powers. It was said that he could make a broom dance and move a table only using his mind.
The Hopkinsville area was noted for the presence of psychics. “Blind Mary,” a blind black medium was a respected clairvoyant who was often consulted by local businessmen before they made any important decisions. A favorite story repeated in the area concerned a black slave who was raped and murdered on a farm outside of Hopkinsville. Local people claim that her face appeared in a tree that had grown out of her grave.
Thomas Jefferson Cayce married his cousin Sarah Thomas in 1851. Marrying close relatives was not that unusual in the Kentucky at the time. Their son Leslie Burr Cayce was born on July 3, 1853. Leslie married Carrie Elizabeth Major on June 10, 1874. Leslie was an incompetent farmer and a drunk who spent most of his time chasing women and various get-rich-quick schemes. In spite of his short comings as a husband and provider, he and Carrie produced four children and remained together until his death in 1937. Their second child (the first died shortly after birth), Edgar Cayce was born on March 18, 1877 in Beverly, KY.
Edgar proved to be an unusual child right from the start. He spent his first three months screaming and crying constantly until a slave named Patsy Cayce realized that his problem was due to a condition she called “milk breast.” She remedied it by piercing his nipples with a needle releasing a milky white substance thus ending his discomfort and incessant crying. After learning to crawl Edgar became hyperactive moving around faster than anyone could keep an eye on him. During a blinding rain storm he crawled out on the porch and fell off into a large puddle where he remained until Carrie realizes he was missing and rescued him.
At age three Edgar tried to climb over a fence and fell headfirst onto a board with a protruding nail that penetrated his head into his brain cavity. The family pulled the nail out and treated his wound with turpentine. He did not seem to suffer any lasting effects. Not much later he fell into a pond while trying to catch fish with his hands. He would have drowned without the efforts of a former slave who pulled him out and resuscitated him. His mishaps continued and at age eight he was running with a sharp stick in his hands. He tripped and fell ramming the stick through one testicle. He recovered after one year of bed confinement and recuperation. As a young adult he was sleeping on a couch when a cinder from the fireplace set the bedding materials on fire severely burning him. Over the years fire would play a prominent role in his life. He lost two offices and two homes to fire. (It is amazing that he did not acquire the nickname of "Lucky.")
His family, relatives, and neighbors all realized that Edgar was far from a normal child. Many people thought that he was insane. His maternal Grandmother suffered bouts of insanity and had to be locked up in an upstairs bedroom. Edgar would never play with other children preferring the company of eight imaginary friends. He gave them all names and would regularly regale his parents with long and complicated stories about their activities.
At the age of four, Edgar witnessed the death of his beloved Grandfather Tom who died in a horse-riding accident. This was obviously a very traumatic event in his life and one from which he never fully recovered. He started school in Beverly in 1884 and was described by his teacher as dull and backward. It seemed that he was incapable of learning anything until 1890 when an angel appeared to him and revealed that he could memorize his school books simply by sleeping on them. Not surprisingly he suddenly became the top student in his school. In spite of his academic success he quit high school at the age of 16 and went to work on his Grandmother’s farm until she died in August 1893.
In January of 1894 his family moved to Hopkinsville where Edgar found a job working in a bookstore where he met Gertrude Evans. They became engaged on March 14, 1897 but did not marry until June 17, 1903. In 1901 he met Stanley Hart, a well-known hypnotist. Hart was putting on a show and saw Edgar in the audience and invited him up on stage thinking that he was an excellent subject, but he was in fact unable to hypnotize him. Eventually Edgar realized that he could simply lay down on his back and put himself in a trance. While in a trance, a “reader” would ask him questions on any subject. The reader or a transcriber would then record Edgar’s answers. After coming out of the trance, Edgar did not have any memory of what he had said.
In 1900 Edgar became a traveling salesman. He sold life insurance, books, and stationery, and during this time suffered the first of many episodes of nearly losing his voice. During these times his voice was reduced to a faint whisper. Edgar sought medical assistance from an osteopath with the unfortunate name of Dr. Quackenboss who was unable to determine the cause or treatment for his condition. He then went to see Al Layne, an alleged osteopath seeking relief from his affliction. The lost of his voice posed a serious threat to his career as a salesman. On March 31, 1901 with Layne as a reader, Edgar performed his first psychic reading and diagnosed his own condition and proscribed a treatment of “increase the circulation to the affected parts.” Layne carried out his instructions by performing various manipulations and restored his voice. Edgar then took a job at a Bowling Green bookstore.
In August 1902 Layne called him back to Hopkinsville to perform a reading for six-year-old Aime Dietrich who was thought to be mentally retarded as result of suffering diphtheria as an infant. Layne guided Edgar into a trance where he diagnosed the problem as a damaged spine the result of an injury she incurred prior to having diphtheria. He proscribed osteopathic adjustments to her spine which Layne carried out. Within three weeks Aime became a normal bright little girl. From this point on Edgar would perform many readings for Layne’s patients.
In another case Tommy House, the three-month-old son of Dr. Thomas House was suffering from severe convulsions resulting from his premature birth. According to his doctors, Tommy was near death due to malnutrition and lack of sleep. Cayce was summoned to the home and without examining the child lay down and went into a trance so deep that physicians present thought that he was in a coma. They jammed a knife under one of his fingernails in an attempt to bring him out of the trance but he did not even flinch. He then began to speak in a deep voice and reported all of Tommy’s vital signs such as temperature and blood pressure. He diagnosed Tommy’s condition as epilepsy and prescribed a dose of belladonna followed by a wrapping of a hot poultice made from the bark of a peach tree. The doctors present agreed with the diagnosis but said that the treatment was tantamount to murder. In the end Mrs. House made the decision to carry out Edgar’s instructions. After the treatment was administered, Tommy fell into a peaceful sleep and when he awoke he was breathing normally and never suffered convolutions again.
Edgar would go on to perform many medical readings calling for unusual treatments. Once he prescribed “oil of smoke,” oil that was filtered through the smoke of burning wood. When his wife Gertrude was struck down with tuberculosis, he called for her to breathe the “fumes of apple brandy from a charred oak keg” and she was cured. Another time he cured a case of skin cancer with injections made from the skin of a rabbit. In another case he called for a tea prepared from cherry bark taken from the north side of the tree to treat a friend who had lost his voice. The solution was prepared and administered and his friend regained his voice. In January 1914 his son Hugh Lynn severely burns his eyes while playing in the studio with flash powder. Edgar performed a reading and his eye sight was restored. By 1910 he was so famous that The New York Times' publishes a long article on his psychic powers.
In 1904 Edgar opened a photographic studio with Frank Potter in Bowling Green , KY. By all accounts he was an excellent photographer and won numbers of prizes for his work but was a poor businessman. He also had penchant for travel always looking for better opportunities. Over the years Edgar moved many times. He moved to Anniston, AL and then to Selma where he established photography studios where he usually let a partner operate them while he continued to conduct “readings.”
He eventually gave readings on the “life histories” of his subjects. When he conducting a life reading on himself, he discovered that he was living in his eighth reincarnation. Previous he had been a British soldier and once was Xenon (a defender of Troy). He also lived in France during the time of Richelieu, and was the high priest Ra Ta in Egypt. He also claimed to have been Lucius of Cyrene, the actual author of the Gospel of Luke (not the physician Luke). His reading for his oldest son revealed that Hugh Lynn had been Jesus’ apostle Andrew in an earlier incarnation.
In 1923 Edgar hired Gladys Davis, an eighteen-year-old attractive girl as a stenographer to record his readings. They became very close and she remained with him until he died. When he did a life reading on Gladys, it was revealed that she had been the second daughter of Louis XIV in one incarnation and at age seventeen was seduced by the Duke of York who became King James II of England. As a result she became pregnant and gave birth to Edgar Cayce in his fifth incarnation. Later readings put Edgar in communication with the “source” who advised that Edgar and Gladys were meant to be together in their present incarnation but would have to wait until their next incarnation to be reunited. Although they agreed to abstain from any carnal relations, their relationship was a subject of much gossip and speculation. At age fifty-five Gladys was treated for uterine cancer and her attending doctor indicated that she was a virgin.
Edgar even used readings to search for oil and in the 1920's he was a partner in a number of oil ventures in Texas. A group of investors would form a corporation and include Edgar as a part owner and would then use his readings to determine where to drill. Edgar would travel around selling the stock in the company until they had sufficient funds to purchase the required equipment for drilling. They never found oil and always went bankrupt.
He was also involved in several treasure hunting ventures. One was in Bimini where a reading revealed the location of a vault containing more than 120,000 gold and silver coins. Again Edgar was part of a group of investors who spent $10,000 trying to locate the vault. He even went in person to the site in January 1929 to assist in the search. In the end they failed to find any treasure. A later reading provided the location of Blackbeard’s buried treasure at a site near Virginia Beach, VA called “White Hill.” Considerable expense was devoted to finding the treasure without any success.
In 1924 David Kahn introduced Edgar to Morton and Edwin Blumenthal. The brothers were wealthy New York City stockbrokers. In September Edgar did a reading for Morton’s various medical issues. Morton was very pleased with the results and the brothers began to provide him financial support. The Cayce family moved to Virginia Beach in September 1925 and with financial support from the Blumenthal brothers started the Association of National Investigators (ANI). The plan was to build a hospital where patients could stay and receive medical readings and then receive treatments administered by resident doctors in accordance with Edgar's instructions. At the same he picked stocks for Morton and Edwin which reportedly generated very handsome profits making them millionaires.
In 1927 Morton and Edwin provided the money to purchased five parcels of land in Virginia Beach for the hospital and construction began in June of 1928 and was completed and opened on February 11, 1929. At first things went well but by September 1930 the hospital was in serious financial trouble having accumulated debts close to $80,000. At the same time Blumenthal brothers were losing money in the falling stock market and could no longer afford to support Cayce or the hospital. It closed on February 28, 1931 and the property was taken over by creditors. The ANI was reorganized as the Association of Research and Enlightenment (ARE). Although Edgar Cayce died in January 1945, the ARE is still in operation even today.
Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence. In the case of Cayce, claims of his psychic abilities including predictions and healing results are mostly anecdotal. Supporting evidence is scant and his psychic powers were never scrutinized by any competent independent observer. Supporters ignore all his failures including his unsuccessful oil drilling ventures, failed treasure-hunting episodes, and the bankruptcy of the Blumenthal brothers. They had purchased stocks based on Edgar’s stock market readings. The price of these stocks advanced during the boom years of the 1920's as did most stocks during this period. His readings never indicated the crash was coming and his clients never sold out and they eventually lost all their money.
Cayce maintained that the “five human races” were created separately and simultaneously but on different parts of the earth, a claim destroyed by Charles Darwin and molecular biology. He performed countless “life history” readings for numerous people and in every case they were famous well-known historical figures in their previous lives. Surely at least someone would have lived an ordinary existence in a former life such as a cook, stone mason, or bar maid.
In the case of his medical readings and prescribed treatments, they could be easily tested today. For example, epilepsy could be treated with a “dose of belladonna followed by a wrapping of a hot poultice made from the bark of a peach tree.” What rational person would volunteer for such a treatment for epilepsy? And what medical professional would treat tuberculosis with “fumes of apple brandy from a charred oak keg?” These procedures must be dismissed as dangerous quackery inflicted on desperate superstitious and ignorant people. Keep in mind that the standard model of medicine at the time was the homeopathic model. Many of Cayce’s trance-induced diagnoses were common homeopathic treatments and enjoy some success even in modern times.
Edgar Cayce life as a psychic was very predictable given his background. He was raised in a small Kentucky town where most of his family and neighbors were uneducated and superstitious and where encounters with the “spirit” world were common place. Intermarriage with close relatives and mental illness ran in his family. His father was an alcoholic. As a child he suffered a number of serious accidents including falling on a nail that penetrated into his brain.
The Edgar Cayce story says more about the people who believe it than it does about him. Con artists and mystics always have the ability to select vulnerable people who want to believe and are susceptible to various illusions and delusions. Not surprisingly Edgar practiced astrology, a completely proven hoax. But, even today millions believe in astrology and use it to make all their important decisions. Ronald and Nancy Reagan are notable examples.
Michael Shermer’s wonderful book, Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time goes a long way in explaining the phenomenon of people’s belief in tales like the ones attributed to Edgar Cayce, Joseph Smith, and L. Ron Hubbard. In the future the field of neuroscience will provide even better explanations for these irrational beliefs.
Sources:
1. Edgar Cayce, An American Prophet (2000) by Sidney D. Kirkpatrick
2. Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time (1997) by Michael Shermer
The Hopkinsville area was noted for the presence of psychics. “Blind Mary,” a blind black medium was a respected clairvoyant who was often consulted by local businessmen before they made any important decisions. A favorite story repeated in the area concerned a black slave who was raped and murdered on a farm outside of Hopkinsville. Local people claim that her face appeared in a tree that had grown out of her grave.
Thomas Jefferson Cayce married his cousin Sarah Thomas in 1851. Marrying close relatives was not that unusual in the Kentucky at the time. Their son Leslie Burr Cayce was born on July 3, 1853. Leslie married Carrie Elizabeth Major on June 10, 1874. Leslie was an incompetent farmer and a drunk who spent most of his time chasing women and various get-rich-quick schemes. In spite of his short comings as a husband and provider, he and Carrie produced four children and remained together until his death in 1937. Their second child (the first died shortly after birth), Edgar Cayce was born on March 18, 1877 in Beverly, KY.
Edgar proved to be an unusual child right from the start. He spent his first three months screaming and crying constantly until a slave named Patsy Cayce realized that his problem was due to a condition she called “milk breast.” She remedied it by piercing his nipples with a needle releasing a milky white substance thus ending his discomfort and incessant crying. After learning to crawl Edgar became hyperactive moving around faster than anyone could keep an eye on him. During a blinding rain storm he crawled out on the porch and fell off into a large puddle where he remained until Carrie realizes he was missing and rescued him.
At age three Edgar tried to climb over a fence and fell headfirst onto a board with a protruding nail that penetrated his head into his brain cavity. The family pulled the nail out and treated his wound with turpentine. He did not seem to suffer any lasting effects. Not much later he fell into a pond while trying to catch fish with his hands. He would have drowned without the efforts of a former slave who pulled him out and resuscitated him. His mishaps continued and at age eight he was running with a sharp stick in his hands. He tripped and fell ramming the stick through one testicle. He recovered after one year of bed confinement and recuperation. As a young adult he was sleeping on a couch when a cinder from the fireplace set the bedding materials on fire severely burning him. Over the years fire would play a prominent role in his life. He lost two offices and two homes to fire. (It is amazing that he did not acquire the nickname of "Lucky.")
His family, relatives, and neighbors all realized that Edgar was far from a normal child. Many people thought that he was insane. His maternal Grandmother suffered bouts of insanity and had to be locked up in an upstairs bedroom. Edgar would never play with other children preferring the company of eight imaginary friends. He gave them all names and would regularly regale his parents with long and complicated stories about their activities.
At the age of four, Edgar witnessed the death of his beloved Grandfather Tom who died in a horse-riding accident. This was obviously a very traumatic event in his life and one from which he never fully recovered. He started school in Beverly in 1884 and was described by his teacher as dull and backward. It seemed that he was incapable of learning anything until 1890 when an angel appeared to him and revealed that he could memorize his school books simply by sleeping on them. Not surprisingly he suddenly became the top student in his school. In spite of his academic success he quit high school at the age of 16 and went to work on his Grandmother’s farm until she died in August 1893.
In January of 1894 his family moved to Hopkinsville where Edgar found a job working in a bookstore where he met Gertrude Evans. They became engaged on March 14, 1897 but did not marry until June 17, 1903. In 1901 he met Stanley Hart, a well-known hypnotist. Hart was putting on a show and saw Edgar in the audience and invited him up on stage thinking that he was an excellent subject, but he was in fact unable to hypnotize him. Eventually Edgar realized that he could simply lay down on his back and put himself in a trance. While in a trance, a “reader” would ask him questions on any subject. The reader or a transcriber would then record Edgar’s answers. After coming out of the trance, Edgar did not have any memory of what he had said.
In 1900 Edgar became a traveling salesman. He sold life insurance, books, and stationery, and during this time suffered the first of many episodes of nearly losing his voice. During these times his voice was reduced to a faint whisper. Edgar sought medical assistance from an osteopath with the unfortunate name of Dr. Quackenboss who was unable to determine the cause or treatment for his condition. He then went to see Al Layne, an alleged osteopath seeking relief from his affliction. The lost of his voice posed a serious threat to his career as a salesman. On March 31, 1901 with Layne as a reader, Edgar performed his first psychic reading and diagnosed his own condition and proscribed a treatment of “increase the circulation to the affected parts.” Layne carried out his instructions by performing various manipulations and restored his voice. Edgar then took a job at a Bowling Green bookstore.
In August 1902 Layne called him back to Hopkinsville to perform a reading for six-year-old Aime Dietrich who was thought to be mentally retarded as result of suffering diphtheria as an infant. Layne guided Edgar into a trance where he diagnosed the problem as a damaged spine the result of an injury she incurred prior to having diphtheria. He proscribed osteopathic adjustments to her spine which Layne carried out. Within three weeks Aime became a normal bright little girl. From this point on Edgar would perform many readings for Layne’s patients.
In another case Tommy House, the three-month-old son of Dr. Thomas House was suffering from severe convulsions resulting from his premature birth. According to his doctors, Tommy was near death due to malnutrition and lack of sleep. Cayce was summoned to the home and without examining the child lay down and went into a trance so deep that physicians present thought that he was in a coma. They jammed a knife under one of his fingernails in an attempt to bring him out of the trance but he did not even flinch. He then began to speak in a deep voice and reported all of Tommy’s vital signs such as temperature and blood pressure. He diagnosed Tommy’s condition as epilepsy and prescribed a dose of belladonna followed by a wrapping of a hot poultice made from the bark of a peach tree. The doctors present agreed with the diagnosis but said that the treatment was tantamount to murder. In the end Mrs. House made the decision to carry out Edgar’s instructions. After the treatment was administered, Tommy fell into a peaceful sleep and when he awoke he was breathing normally and never suffered convolutions again.
Edgar would go on to perform many medical readings calling for unusual treatments. Once he prescribed “oil of smoke,” oil that was filtered through the smoke of burning wood. When his wife Gertrude was struck down with tuberculosis, he called for her to breathe the “fumes of apple brandy from a charred oak keg” and she was cured. Another time he cured a case of skin cancer with injections made from the skin of a rabbit. In another case he called for a tea prepared from cherry bark taken from the north side of the tree to treat a friend who had lost his voice. The solution was prepared and administered and his friend regained his voice. In January 1914 his son Hugh Lynn severely burns his eyes while playing in the studio with flash powder. Edgar performed a reading and his eye sight was restored. By 1910 he was so famous that The New York Times' publishes a long article on his psychic powers.
In 1904 Edgar opened a photographic studio with Frank Potter in Bowling Green , KY. By all accounts he was an excellent photographer and won numbers of prizes for his work but was a poor businessman. He also had penchant for travel always looking for better opportunities. Over the years Edgar moved many times. He moved to Anniston, AL and then to Selma where he established photography studios where he usually let a partner operate them while he continued to conduct “readings.”
He eventually gave readings on the “life histories” of his subjects. When he conducting a life reading on himself, he discovered that he was living in his eighth reincarnation. Previous he had been a British soldier and once was Xenon (a defender of Troy). He also lived in France during the time of Richelieu, and was the high priest Ra Ta in Egypt. He also claimed to have been Lucius of Cyrene, the actual author of the Gospel of Luke (not the physician Luke). His reading for his oldest son revealed that Hugh Lynn had been Jesus’ apostle Andrew in an earlier incarnation.
In 1923 Edgar hired Gladys Davis, an eighteen-year-old attractive girl as a stenographer to record his readings. They became very close and she remained with him until he died. When he did a life reading on Gladys, it was revealed that she had been the second daughter of Louis XIV in one incarnation and at age seventeen was seduced by the Duke of York who became King James II of England. As a result she became pregnant and gave birth to Edgar Cayce in his fifth incarnation. Later readings put Edgar in communication with the “source” who advised that Edgar and Gladys were meant to be together in their present incarnation but would have to wait until their next incarnation to be reunited. Although they agreed to abstain from any carnal relations, their relationship was a subject of much gossip and speculation. At age fifty-five Gladys was treated for uterine cancer and her attending doctor indicated that she was a virgin.
Edgar even used readings to search for oil and in the 1920's he was a partner in a number of oil ventures in Texas. A group of investors would form a corporation and include Edgar as a part owner and would then use his readings to determine where to drill. Edgar would travel around selling the stock in the company until they had sufficient funds to purchase the required equipment for drilling. They never found oil and always went bankrupt.
He was also involved in several treasure hunting ventures. One was in Bimini where a reading revealed the location of a vault containing more than 120,000 gold and silver coins. Again Edgar was part of a group of investors who spent $10,000 trying to locate the vault. He even went in person to the site in January 1929 to assist in the search. In the end they failed to find any treasure. A later reading provided the location of Blackbeard’s buried treasure at a site near Virginia Beach, VA called “White Hill.” Considerable expense was devoted to finding the treasure without any success.
In 1924 David Kahn introduced Edgar to Morton and Edwin Blumenthal. The brothers were wealthy New York City stockbrokers. In September Edgar did a reading for Morton’s various medical issues. Morton was very pleased with the results and the brothers began to provide him financial support. The Cayce family moved to Virginia Beach in September 1925 and with financial support from the Blumenthal brothers started the Association of National Investigators (ANI). The plan was to build a hospital where patients could stay and receive medical readings and then receive treatments administered by resident doctors in accordance with Edgar's instructions. At the same he picked stocks for Morton and Edwin which reportedly generated very handsome profits making them millionaires.
In 1927 Morton and Edwin provided the money to purchased five parcels of land in Virginia Beach for the hospital and construction began in June of 1928 and was completed and opened on February 11, 1929. At first things went well but by September 1930 the hospital was in serious financial trouble having accumulated debts close to $80,000. At the same time Blumenthal brothers were losing money in the falling stock market and could no longer afford to support Cayce or the hospital. It closed on February 28, 1931 and the property was taken over by creditors. The ANI was reorganized as the Association of Research and Enlightenment (ARE). Although Edgar Cayce died in January 1945, the ARE is still in operation even today.
Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence. In the case of Cayce, claims of his psychic abilities including predictions and healing results are mostly anecdotal. Supporting evidence is scant and his psychic powers were never scrutinized by any competent independent observer. Supporters ignore all his failures including his unsuccessful oil drilling ventures, failed treasure-hunting episodes, and the bankruptcy of the Blumenthal brothers. They had purchased stocks based on Edgar’s stock market readings. The price of these stocks advanced during the boom years of the 1920's as did most stocks during this period. His readings never indicated the crash was coming and his clients never sold out and they eventually lost all their money.
Cayce maintained that the “five human races” were created separately and simultaneously but on different parts of the earth, a claim destroyed by Charles Darwin and molecular biology. He performed countless “life history” readings for numerous people and in every case they were famous well-known historical figures in their previous lives. Surely at least someone would have lived an ordinary existence in a former life such as a cook, stone mason, or bar maid.
In the case of his medical readings and prescribed treatments, they could be easily tested today. For example, epilepsy could be treated with a “dose of belladonna followed by a wrapping of a hot poultice made from the bark of a peach tree.” What rational person would volunteer for such a treatment for epilepsy? And what medical professional would treat tuberculosis with “fumes of apple brandy from a charred oak keg?” These procedures must be dismissed as dangerous quackery inflicted on desperate superstitious and ignorant people. Keep in mind that the standard model of medicine at the time was the homeopathic model. Many of Cayce’s trance-induced diagnoses were common homeopathic treatments and enjoy some success even in modern times.
Edgar Cayce life as a psychic was very predictable given his background. He was raised in a small Kentucky town where most of his family and neighbors were uneducated and superstitious and where encounters with the “spirit” world were common place. Intermarriage with close relatives and mental illness ran in his family. His father was an alcoholic. As a child he suffered a number of serious accidents including falling on a nail that penetrated into his brain.
The Edgar Cayce story says more about the people who believe it than it does about him. Con artists and mystics always have the ability to select vulnerable people who want to believe and are susceptible to various illusions and delusions. Not surprisingly Edgar practiced astrology, a completely proven hoax. But, even today millions believe in astrology and use it to make all their important decisions. Ronald and Nancy Reagan are notable examples.
Michael Shermer’s wonderful book, Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time goes a long way in explaining the phenomenon of people’s belief in tales like the ones attributed to Edgar Cayce, Joseph Smith, and L. Ron Hubbard. In the future the field of neuroscience will provide even better explanations for these irrational beliefs.
Sources:
1. Edgar Cayce, An American Prophet (2000) by Sidney D. Kirkpatrick
2. Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time (1997) by Michael Shermer
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