Part I: The Life of Edgar Cayce

Part II: Edgar Cayce’s Method

Part III: Miracle Readings 1-3

Story Four:

This next miracle healing session is one of the most amazing stories I have ever heard.

Aime L. Dietrich, who was born on January, 7th, 1897 in Hopkinsville, was a perfectly healthy baby, until around Febuary of 1899 when she had an attack of “La Grippe”, which was followed by two violent convulsions each lasting about twenty minutes. These convulsions would return at irregular intervals, becoming more and more severe, and would cause her body to become perfectly rigid and fall over. These convulsions continued to take place for the next two years, at which time she was taken to Dr. Linthicum in Evansville, Indiana. A second Doctor, Dr. Walker, was also present, and both doctors diagnosed her as having a very peculiar type of nervousness ailing her. They treated her for several months, but after no results were realized for some time, the treatment was stopped.

Next, Dr. Oldham of Hopkinsville was consulted, and he also failed after attempting treatment first for three months, and then for four more months without results.

At this time, she was six years old and just kept on getting worse. She would have as many as TWENTY convulsions in one day, and her mind had been described as having gone blank, with all of her reasoning power completely gone.

Next, on March 1st, 1902, she was taken to Dr. Hoppe, who gave her a thorough examination, and pronounced her to be perfectly physically healthy, despite the brain affection, to which he commented that only nine cases of this were ever reported in Medical Records, and unfortunately, all nine had died. He told the family that nothing could be done, and that she would inevitably pass away soon by one of these attacks.

It was at this time, that Edgar Cayce was asked to diagnose the case. He went into his trance state, and diagnosed her case “as one of congestion at the base of the brain”. He outlined how to proceed to cure her, and the Doctor present treated her accordingly every day for three weeks, using Mr. Cayce occasionally to follow up treatment as the case developed.

According to the family, her mind began to clear up around the eighth day, and within three months, she was IN PERFECT HEALTH, and the disorder never came back.

The Family was absolutely and ecstatically thrilled! They eventually went to the local press with the story, and Edgar’s fame grew tremendously.

Aime, totally healed, went on to graduate at the top of her class.

This case was very important to Edgar as well as the family and girl, because it showed him the wondrous potential of his powers, and led him to fully embrace his gift.

This case can be verified, as there is a sworn affidavit by Aime’s father which has been filed away and preserved at the A.R.E. and can be seen in its entirety here; http://countingdownto2012.com/edgar-cayces-first-miracle-reading-by-doug-simpson/

The successful treatment of Aime L. Dietrich is actually what initially led to Dr. Ketchum enlisting Edgar’s help for this next miracle healing that I will discuss. C.H. Dietrich was a fellow Ohioan of Dr. Ketchum, and was also the local school superintendent. Since C.H. was a man of such high substance, and had SWORN by Edgar, (after all, Edgar had miraculously saved his daughters life), Dr. Ketchum was not so quick to write him off as the fraud many people believed him to be.

Story 5

One day, during a football scrimmage, a local boy on the team suddenly keeled over, unconscious. When he awoke, he seemed completely out of it, and was only able to mumble incoherently. He also began to suffer from violent seizures, and would sit in a chair for hours, in a state of total incoherence. The family, being wealthy aristocrats, were able to consult doctors and specialists from all over the country. After all the diagnoses, it seemed to be a hopeless case of “Dementia Praecox”.

Dr. Ketchum was finally consulted, and he began his two hour examination of the young man. He reported him to be physically normal, but severely impaired mentally. He was unable to answer the simplest questions, responding indiscriminately with a yes or no, before clamming up. After the parents agreed to give the Doctor all the money he needed for any medical treatments, Dr. Ketchum decided to take him to the brain specialists he knew in New York. They tested and observed him for fourteen days, before confirming him as a hopeless case of “Dementia Praecox”.

Dr. Ketchum then took him to the top neurologist in Cleveland, with yet another diagnosis of Dementia Praecox. On the train ride back, He remembered that his friend’s daughter had been successfully cured by Edgar, and he decided to get in touch with him. He contacted a fellow physician who knew him, Dr. T. B. House, and despite his strong suggestion to NOT use Edgar, he introducing them a few weeks later.

They arrived at Edgar’s photography studio in Bowling Greene, and after Dr. House introduced him as a friend of Dietrich, and said that he had a case for him, Edgar took off his stiff starched white collar, and lay down on a couch. Ketchum wrote the name and address of the patient on a piece of paper, and handed it to Dr. House.

House said to the in-tranced Cayce, “you have before you the body of [omitted], of Hopkinsville Kentucky. Go over this body and tell us what you find.

Cayce diagnosed him with a mental disturbance and commented that he was in a stage of rapid deterioration. He prescribed a little known drug, and set out a plan describing when and how much to administer.

Feeling as if there was nothing left to lose due to the fact that the most qualified medical practitioners in the country deemed the boy hopeless, Dr. Ketchum bought the remedy suggested by Cayce, and began administering it in increased dosages for weeks.

Finally, after a few months, Ketchum received a call from the boy’s mother, who happily informed him that her son had come downstairs and coherently asked her what was for breakfast. After another week, he made a full recovery.

Ketchum took all the credit, and Edgar was ok with that, because he knew that Dr. Ketchum simply wanted his record to be legitimate so he could continue to practice medicine, and they both knew that Edgar’s method was as unorthodox as it got.

From then on, any time that Dr. Ketchum failed to diagnose and treat a patient, he would visit his secret psychic. [Stearn]

Story 6

Once while Cayce was doing a reading for a sick man at a distant location, he correctly described the room that the man sat in without ever having visited the house.

This is described in detail in the following paragraph from the biography of Edgar Cayce entitled “The Sleeping Prophet”;

“…Another time, tested by a medical committee headed by Dr. John Blachburn of Bowling Green, he described the distant room in which his subject lay. He pictured wallpaper, decorations, furnishings, even to a corner night table; described the bed and bedding, naming the manufacturer. The next day, it was [investigated] and it all checked out”.

Story 7

In multiple readings, Edgar would either pause for a moment as if something had gone wrong, or actually cut the reading off short for seemingly no reason at all. In almost every single one of these cases that was investigated, there was a specific reason why he did this. One specific example of this, happened during a reading for a very sick man who was thousands of miles away. While giving the reading, he reportedly stopped in the middle of a sentence, and exclaimed “he’s gone”. The next day, it was found out that the man for whom he was doing the reading had passed away at 8:20 pm the previous night; the exact moment that Edgar suddenly stopped the reading. [Stearn]

After all the research that I have done for this blog post, I am sufficiently convinced in the amazing abilities of Edgar Cayce. The precise medical diagnoses that he has given throughout the years are made even more incredible by the fact that this man had only a seventh grade education. Some people have reported him as being completely illiterate even, yet, when in trance, he was more knowledgeable than the doctors of his time, and apparently was known to even speak fluid Italian and French when necessary!

Stay tuned for Part V: Edgar Cayce’s Predictions

Sources:

Stearn, Jess. The Sleeping Prophet. Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Company Inc., 1967. Print.

http://countingdownto2012.com/edgar-cayces-first-miracle-reading-by-doug-simpson/