"Edgar Cayce, the Geeking Prophet" Part 2

(Part 1 appeared about a month ago as "Edgar Cayce, the Geeking

Prophet". It dealt with Mary Ellen Carter's book "Edgar Cayce on

Prophecy".)

Oh, man, the crap I have waded through this last couple of weeks or

so. I posted that article of mine about Edgar Cayce on the two Edgar

Cayce groups (alt.dreams.edgar-cayce & alt.prophecies.cayce), and the

results were pretty dismal. Just two reply posts which hardly covered

their authors in glory, and a lengthy e-mail. The writer of the

e-mail was so unbelievably literal-minded and humorless that he

actually asked me if I knew that Hugh Lynn Cayce was Edgar's son! He

had read the part of the article where I wrote "[Carter's book was]

..edited by Hugh Lynn CAYCE, no doubt a coincidence of names", and

somehow missed the broad sarcasm implied by capitalizing the last

name. Now, really, did anybody else out there miss the joke? I doubt

it. As we shall see, almost everything released to the public about

E.C. gets filtered through his adoring family, which of course was my

point by writing that line.

As with the 'netposts, the e-mail, though quite long, made no good

points except that there was other Cayce literature out there that I

hadn't read, like "There is a River, the Story of Edgar Cayce", and so

forth. Well, since then, I've downloaded and printed about a hundred

pages of stuff from back issues of Atlantis Rising, which is sort of

like the Cayceite's version of "The Stark Fist of Removal". I've sent

for and read "There is a River", and now I've got "Edgar Cayce's Story

of Jesus" and "Looking Inward" by, guess who, Hugh Lynn CAYCE (no

doubt just a coincidence of names!).

Anyway, faced with such a mass of material which ranges all the way

from simple biography of a very, very boring man's life to his

speculations about Atlantis and Jesus right on through his current

disciples' obsessions with New Age pseudoscience, I soon realized that

a detailed critique would have to be broken up in parts so that each

aspect of Cayce's life and work could be adequately demolished. My

first article, "Edgar Cayce, the Geeking Prophet", has been found to

be quite sound and factual by my subsequent studies, with the possible

exception of my remarks about the Ph.D. thesis. It turns out it was

written by Harmon Bro, and is alleged to be favorable to Cayce, but it

also turns out that, not only is the thesis itself is not easy to

find, but even details on the elusive Bro are almost nonexistent. I am

still actively searching for both. Kind of an odd reticence from the

Cayceites, considering their tendency to magnify every shred of

"legitimizing" propaganda they get their hands on. As far as the rest

of my coverage of Carter's "Edgar Cayce On Prophecy" goes, there's

hardly more I could add except detailed ridicule of his readings,

which, considering what you're about to read, is really unnecessary

overkill, at this point.

I have often been accused of prejudice when approaching subjects

like this which I admittedly knew little about until recently (I am

referring specifically to Cayce, not Atlantis and the rest of it).

Let me answer that charge this way: When you achieve a certain level

of knowledge, you begin to build a matrix of information that

interlocks. When, later, you are fed some bullshit cockamamy story

about this or that, you realize from your earlier studies in fields

that overlap the story that, if this story is true, then many other

things that you know or believe to be true would have to be wrong.

Let me give a brief example, if I may. Back when we were doing Bob's

Slacktime Funhouse during the Right Rigid Rev. Mike Rofone's tenure as

co-host (he was the one before me, and Rev. Rock in Hand took over

from me, so now you've got the lineage straight), we had a guy

contribute a tape of a young man doing a story about the hot-headed

ice borers of Antarctica. This guy, the contributor in the studio,

insisted that the story was true; that a science magazine had printed

it! I thought about it, and decided that if the story were true, it

contradicted a lot of things I thought I already knew about

Antarctica, metabolic-rates-to-food-need ratios and predator-to-prey

ratios, etc. etc. The story sounded hoaky to me, and I said so.

Next week, on the Hour of Slack, here comes Rev. Stang, revealing that

the story was an April Fool's send-up by Discover Magazine. Well,

well, well! Just amazing, huh? That's the kind of prejudice I

proudly plead guilty to, folks. Eat me if you can't handle it. And

that's the kind of prejudice I brought to my study of Edgar Cayce. If

anyone claims to be channeling information about Atlantis, Lemuria,

Mu, La, Da and Oz, then I know that if they're right, a hell of a lot

of generally accepted science facts are wrong.

My position on scientific method: It is infallible. Scientists are

fallible, tests are often flawed, experiments go wrong or produce

unexpected results, initial hypotheses are often modified, but the

METHOD is correct! Further, I have found that most truly top notch

scientists are at least pretty high-grade Pinks, or even unsaved

SubGeniuses! Robert Bakker (paleontology), Stephen Hawkings (physics)

and Stephen Jay Gould (evolution theory) come immediately to mind in

this connection. I may or may not agree with everything they say,

but they are worth reading.

My endorsement of scientific method is germaine. Over and over again,

from Velikovsky to Berlitz to van Daniken right on through Cayce, we

find variants of this remark: "Well, that's according to CONVENTIONAL

(or ORTHODOX or MAINSTREAM) science, which is part of the

establishment which seeks to suppress the truth, etc. etc." The

implication is consistently that orthodox science is either paddling

up the wrong tree with a leaky canoe or it is participating in some

massive "cover-up" of some fairly large body of facts. My own

readings into many branches of scientific endeavor has shown me quite

the opposite. Most scientists (there are infamous exceptions!) are

interested in the truth, no matter what it is. A point of view I

agree with and share. Many scientists are highly original thinkers

and some even possess a truly well-developed sense of humor. There is

no doubt that much great science has been reduced to a mere tool in

the hands of lying Pink humans who serve the Conspiracy, but most of

this work is done in popular distillations of real scientific

literature. When you go to the real thing, you find out many unusual

facts that will never appear in a newspaper or Time magazine.

So, you may ask, why Edgar Cayce? Why is it so important to criticize

what has been written about him? First off, I don't like liars, even

when they are deluded and/or well-meaning, which Cayce was not. Edgar

Cayce was a liar, and his defenders in print are liars. To make the

claims that Cayce did or to defend and expand upon his stories is

plain, simple lying. The articles I will post after this one will

explain that point more than adequately. Second, this type of

fuzzy-logic crap serves the Conspiracy, and for that, they MUST PAY!!!

(Here's where the Holocaustian in me comes out.) I don't feel like

sitting around on my duff waiting for XDay to even the score! I've

already lived under the Conspiracy of Normals for 39 years too long,

and just waiting out the next 8 months (as of this writing) AIN'T

GONNA GET IT FOR ME!!! As long as the Con can keep Normals happily

bleating bullshit about Jesus, astrology, pyramid prophecies and

what's on TV tonight, they ain't gonna know the truth about the

Conspiracy and how to defeat it! The Conspiracy programs these sheep,

that means WE CAN DO IT, TOO!

I choose not to allow the Pinks their comfortable delusion of thinking

that the newspaper and the TV are giving them the real world with no

choice but to accept it. I choose not to allow the Con the delusion

of believing they can keep most of the Normals under control

indefinitely. I choose not to wait for XDay to begin my battle

against the Normal mindset, because I also choose to believe that XDay

might NOT happen! When it's a DONE DEAL and the goods ARE DELIVERED,

I'll believe it. Until then, I will wage my private war against the

human monkeys in order to keep laying groundwork for the Revolution

sure to come eventually if XDay doesn't. Heresy, you say? Yeah, so

what? Better read Revelation X carefully, is all I can say.

Edgar Cayce, Jeane Dixon, Ruth Montgomery and all the rest are part

and parcel of the pie-in-the-sky ignore-the-plug-ugly-truth CONSPIRACY

of Normal cattle happy in their corporate-designed feedlots, and for

that they have aroused my DIREST IRE!!!

So now, we face the topic at hand, Edgar Cayce's life work and legacy

to his next generation of followers. Part One was the original

article "...the Geeking Prophet". Part 3 will be a detailed critique

of "There is a River". In subsequent articles, I'm going to dissect

"Edgar Cayce's Story of Jesus" and then I will launch into the New Age

slop being served up by his current followers in their official

magazine, "Atlantis Rising". After that, who knows? I might rip into

scientologists or skinheads. Anyway, the Cayce articles are all

clearly labeled, so if they're too long or boring, just skip'em.

"Surely if the subconscious mind of Edgar Cayce created all this

intricate detail as a work of fiction, then that fiction in itself

must stand as a masterful accomplishment."

Jeffrey Furst, author of "Edgar Cayce's Story of Jesus"

"Well, yes. My point exactly."

Nolan Voyde, author of this article

GLOSSARY OF TERMS

Pink: A Normal human ape.

Normal: A Pink mere human lower primate; anything pertaining to Pinks

and/or Pinkness.

SubGenius: A mutant; a member of the Universal Church of the

SubGenius; a semiyeti hybrid; an inherently superior being.

Mutant: What I am, what nearly all of you are likely not.

Conspiracy: The whole idiot system devised by Normals who are also

enslaved to it; the military-industrial complex; Pink culture.

"Bob": Someone to fear if you don't belong to his Church; someone to

probably fear even if you DO belong to his Church.

Subsite: Keyword to a web page you really need to see.

alt.slack: Our main newsgroup. I hang out there.

XDay: The Day of Doom for Normals, just like you probably already

figured; July 5, 1998.

Holocaustians: Mutants who want XDay to start in their own backyards,

RIGHT NOW!!!

"Edgar Cayce, the Geeking Prophet" Part 3

A critical review of "There is a River: The Story of Edgar Cayce"

Man, where to begin on this? There's lot of ground to cover,

believe me. I suppose an overview of the book is in order, first,

then we'll get into the contents. I tell you, this piece of work is

as quintessentially a Normal human Conspiracy product as you could ask

for, so dig what I did to it. I'll try not to write articles this

long as a habit, but I didn't want to leave out any important details.

The book was recommended to me via e-mail by a Cayce fan who

seems to feel that my earlier choice, "Edgar Cayce on Prophecy",

didn't kiss Edgar's ass enough to present the right image of him to

the world. Even though that book was edited by Hugh Lynn Cayce,

Edgar's eldest son. While "There is a River" is a slightly more

sophisticated propaganda piece, it ultimately hardly comes off better

than the other, and in fact provides more reasons than ever to regard

Cayce as a rank faker.

It was written by Thomas Sugrue. When we peruse the photos in this

edition, who do we find breaking bread with the Cayces and claiming in

the text a long-standing close relationship with them? Why, Thomas

Sugrue, that's who. And Sugrue's book features a Foreword written

by... Charles Thomas CAYCE (no doubt just a coincidence of names!),

who is the President of Edgar's Association for Research and

Enlightenment. If all this doesn't make Sugrue virtually the Cayce's

official in-house hagiographer, I don't know what else possibly could.

Incidentally, Sugrue was confined to a wheelchair, a situation that

wasn't changed by his close association with the Great Healer and his

family. Hmm.

One of the most striking contrasts between "There is a River" and

"Edgar Cayce on Prophecy" is the reports on Cayce's readings. Both

"On Prophecy" and another book, "Edgar Cayce's Photographic Legacy",

at least had the modicum of honesty to report Cayce's readings as they

were actually spoken. As I demonstrated in the first essay, his

speaking style in a trance state was convoluted, ungrammatical,

ambiguous and replete with often-repeated words and phrases like

"same" and "see?". "River" and this other book "Looking Inward" (by

Hugh Lynn CAYCE, no doubt just a coincidence of names!), feature

considerably cleaned-up versions of his readings. I assume this is

one of the reasons why "River" was recommended to me. Sugrue,

however, does not admit anywhere in his book that any editing was done

on Cayce's speaking style. We can either assume that Cayce had two

distinct styles of speaking in trance, or that his words have been

edited to suit the aims of his promoters. I have taken the latter

choice. It goes without saying that anyone who reads only "River"

will come away with an impression of a much more articulate person

than Edgar Cayce really was.

A few words about hypnotism, since it played such a primary role in

Cayce's prophetic abilities. It is both a logical conclusion and a

demonstrated fact that hypnosis is entirely voluntary, and no one has

ever demonstrated any knowledge under hypnosis that they did not

possess previously, in a waking state. As for the first premise, I

offer the following suggestions as evidence: No one can be hypnotised

who does not desire to be, while people who want to be hypnotised can

be "put under" almost anywhere, anytime under almost any conditions.

The existence of so-called "autohypnosis" is de facto evidence that

the whole process and state of hypnosis is voluntary and UNDER THE

CONTROL OF THE SUBJECT. Nothing has ever been done by a hypnotic

subject that they could not do in a normal, waking state, if they

desired to. Furthermore, faking a hypnotic trance is usually only

detectable by an experienced expert.*

No hypnotized person has ever demonstrated knowledge of any subject

that they did not previously possess. This premise touches directly

on our current subject, since we are being led to believe by Cayce's

followers that he was able to channel secret "knowledge" that he did

not otherwise possess in a waking state. Part of this attempt at

deception involves having us believe that Cayce was practically

illiterate and therefore could not have come by his revelations in the

conventional manner; that is, experience, books or schooling. One of

the Cayce family's proudest and oft-produced souvenirs is, in fact, a

newspaper clipping that refers to Cayce as "illiterate" (mention of

this clipping occurs in almost every book about him). Although his

followers are careful not to say that word themselves, the impression

is assiduously fostered. He was most certainly not illiterate, and in

fact was a quite well-practiced and skilled reader, as I will show.

Cayce attended school through the seventh grade. How did he

accomplish even that much, if he couldn't read? Around the seventh

grade, even though I did poorly on schoolwork because it bored me, I

was beginning to read Freud. On the basis of my own academic record,

I could almost claim a level of illiteracy comparable to that implied

for Cayce, yet I am far from illiterate. Like myself, Cayce was a

dedicated reader, but lacked interest in the humdrum of common school

lessons. After that, our commonality ends. I decided to seek Truth

in logic, science and critical skepticism (not to mention in "Bob"),

whereas Cayce decided to use his mind to hoodwink rubes.

But, we're getting ahead of ourselves a little, here. Let's begin at

the beginning, as it were, with Sugrue's whitewashed version of young

Edgar Cayce's upbringing. The one salient fact that jumps out to the

reader after 50 pages or so of "River" is that Cayce's early life (as

presented by Sugrue) was BORING BORING BORING!!!! I'm sure you can

imagine that living in rural 1880's Kentucky among a load of

Bible-totin' hicks would hardly involve a constant round of kick-ass

adventure, but even so, Cayce comes off like the dullest of the lot!

Apparently, his chief activity was daydreaming, followed by reading

the Bible over and over and over, again. Little Edgar NEVER did

anything wrong! To judge from Sugrue's account, Edgar never

masturbated or tormented small animals or engaged in any form of

wilfull mischief, like almost all boys in all times and places. When

Edgar thought about girls, it was never in connection with getting

some pussy, always instead as part of his dream of being a well-to-do

preacher with a perfect house, a perfect wife, perfect kids and the

unquestioning respect of all the local citizenry. YAWN!

Early on, it seems, Edgar developed a habit of deceiving. It began

with his claims to be able to learn from books by sleeping on them!

Sugrue attempts to foster the notion that Edgar could learn a book

simply by placing it under his pillow and sleeping on it, yet offers

enough evidence to contradict himself right in this same book. For

example, almost every instance of Cayce learning by sleeping on a book

is accompanied by admissions that he did actually first read those

books in a waking state, often in the presence of witnesses! It was

later, while asleep, we are told, that he was able to assimilate the

knowledge and repeat it afterwards.

We are treated to one particularly hilarious example of his ability to

memorize large bodies of facts when his father, Leslie Cayce, "proved"

Edgar's talent by reading to him while (assuming Edgar was) asleep the

text of a speech by a local politician at least three times. Edgar

was later able to give a halting, boring version of this speech in

public, thereby "proving" he could learn while asleep. The original

delivery time of the speech (by the politician) is said to be around

one hour, but Sugrue admits it took Edgar an hour and a half. Later,

Gertrude (who became Mrs. Cayce) admits to Edgar that his version of

it "nearly killed" his audience.

It never seems to have occurred to anyone to truly test Cayce by

placing a sealed book under his pillow. He always had to read them

first, act stupid, then sleep on them and claim he learned it that

way. It is helpful to remember at all times that these stories are

all told by Cayce's loyal family before being filtered through the

Credulous Believer Sugrue. Sugrue admits frankly in his Preface that

he never interviewed anyone other than Cayce's family and a small

handful of close friends for material.

After a great deal more ennui-inspiring "facts" about Cayce's

goody-two-shoes childhood, we learn that he found employment as a

young man in... a BOOKSTORE! Then, other jobs in more bookstores!

Sugrue conscientiously avoids mentioning the obvious, which is that

Cayce undeniably had access to all sorts of books at all times. And,

amazingly enough, almost every reading he ever gave after that period

is based on knowledge that was current in books published around that

time! For example, gold compounds/solutions and low-level electric

currents were both pseudomedical fads in those days, and sure enough,

Cayce's "cures" expanded upon both of these trends quite extensively.

An example of Cayce's "clairvoyance" is given on page 22 of "River"

which bears rehashing here. Sugrue claims that once Cayce prescribed

something called "Oil of Smoke" (it is never explained what is in this

"oil"). After everyone searches for and fails to find it, Cayce then

astounds them by a second reading in which he says the elusive oil is

to be found on a store shelf in Louisville. Sure enough, it's found

there. Sugrue finally reveals to us eighty-three pages later that

Cayce, previous to these readings, worked at a bookstore in...

Louisville! AMAZING! Like, I just know that he could never have

possibly been to that particular drugstore! Even though he lived in

Louisville for months and had already been into faith-healing for

years and had a great interest in hokum folk remedies and had a

retentive mind, how could he have possibly known about that medicine

unless he was psychic?

Cayce, like many another "prophet", always left himself an "out" in

case things went wrong. As he developed his style, he learned to give

very complicated and invariably ambiguously worded instructions to his

patients, involving hours of searching for and preparing ingredients

and doing massages, etc. This way, any time there was no "cure"

forthcoming, some trivial deviation from his prescription could be

pointed to as the cause of failure. Yes, you made the castor oil

packs and the crushed grape poultices and found the elusive tincture

of myrrh and hopped about on one foot by the light of the full moon

with a cat tied around your right ankle, but YOU FAILED TO TAKE THE

ENEMAS AT THE RIGHT TIME OF THE DAY!!! No wonder you weren't cured!

In addition, Cayce's patients were constantly screened for, and

reminded that they had to have, the right attitude. I mean, it IS

faith-healing, right?

The literature on Cayce is replete with examples such as these (I made

up only the part about hopping about with a cat under the full moon),

but the best example of this aspect of Edgar's style is his

oil-drilling venture. It seems that Cayce got involved as a partner

in a psychically-directed oil-drilling venture in Texas. Despite

drilling where Cayce told them to, in an area surrounded by successful

wells, the venture nevertheless failed utterly! Cayce's excuse? A

reading in which he claimed that "unless all parties involved were of

one mind" on how the money should be spent (according to Cayce's

wishes, that is), the well would not produce. Since Cayce's partners

were evidently intent upon spending some of their hoped-for millions

upon amenities for themselves instead of giving it to Jesus, the well

failed. So said Cayce, anyway.

Cayce ran through a succession of boosters, partners and financial

backers, none of whom stayed around for more than a couple of years,

or so. None of whom did anything but lose their shirts subsequent to

their association with him, and none of whom have ever been

interviewed about his effect on their lives. One partner got busted

and forced out of the faith-healing biz by the authorities, his oil

partners went bankrupt following his instructions, and others are

mentioned as doomed losers who essentially got what they deserved by

not doing EXACTLY as Edgar wished. Certainly, no one was ever

prevented from going broke by their association with him.

Edgar himself did once get busted and convicted of illegal medical

practice by a court of law in Michigan, by the way. That makes at

least twice he was shut down by legal means in two different states,

and once he was arrested in New York, but the charges were dismissed.

He wasn't actually arrested the first time, in Kentucky, but his

partner, Layne, was "requested" to cease practice and close their

office.**

Eventually, the psychic healer met up with a wealthy eccentric named

Lammers, who introduced Edgar to the concept of doing readings on

pseudosciences and weird philosophy. During and after his period

under Lammers' influence came the readings on subjects ranging from

Atlantis to angels. Lammers lost his fortune soon after meeting

Edgar, however, and like the others he was discarded. At this point,

I should note that throughout Sugrue's book, there is not one single

mention of Atlantis. Not one. Given the heavily edited readings and

the Cayce family's desire to appear "respectable", it was no doubt

deemed wise to save the REALLY off-the-wall stuff for people who had

progressed further into Cayce's spell. In fact, I regard the omission

of his Atlantis (and Mu and La and Da and Oz) readings as the single

most remarkable feature of this book! It can only be interpreted as a

rather blatant and purposeful deliberate oversight by Sugrue.

Meanwhile, back on the healing thing. It might interest you to know

that this advocate of mental and physical purity was a cigaret

chain-smoker who ACTUALLY PRESCRIBED SMOKING AS BEING

HEALTHFUL! I'm serious! It's right here, in his (and Sugrue's) own

words! Funny how the great psychic healer failed to predict that

smoking would soon be found by "orthodox" medical practitioners to be

not the least bit beneficial in any way whatsoever.***

There's more. In one reading, he prescribed "radioactive" treatments,

obtainable through an "appliance" that was manufactured and sold by

the Association for Research and Enlightenment. I feel that here,

perhaps, he didn't mean radioactive, as in like uranium or radium or

plutonium, but was actually misusing the word in connection with what

was really an electrical device, but this serves to confirm that he

was full of ambiguous crap either way.

Speaking of ambiguities, one of his favorite verbal formulations was

something along the lines of "...there is an imbalance in the glands,

some of which are overactive, and others are underactive, etc..."

Which glands are doing which is never specified, and their actual

effect is never accurately described, either. Just take the enema and

believe (he really did often prescribe enemas). Not surprisingly, the

A.R.E.'s files are full of cases that didn't work out too well, but WE

WON'T DWELL ON THOSE, will we? We don't want to embarrass good Mr.

Cayce, do we? Besides, they didn't follow his weird, lengthy

instructions EXACTLY, so they don't count. Let's talk about the

"arthritic" woman who responded favorably to hours of massage and

attention and concoctions containing alcohol. She wasn't cured, but

she did start feeling a little better!****

Once, the mystic/researcher J.B. Rhine heard of Cayce, and requested a

reading. The reading (about Rhine's daughter) was so far off the mark

that Rhine's interest lapsed and he declined to even meet Cayce

personally. Rhine was hardly the most skeptical psychic researcher

ever, so Cayce's reading must have really sucked.

Cayce himself led a rather leisured life, as befits a Great Prophet.

His daily routine as described by Sugrue consisted of rising in the

morning to black coffee, cigarets and Bible-reading, followed by a

vigorous session of gardening, fishing or putting up preserves in

jars. Then, an exhausting round of readings while sleeping, followed

by an athletic interlude of chain-smoking in front of a typewriter,

answering the mail. Then lunch. Then, another trance-reading while

supine on a couch, followed by another blood-stirring but physically

taxing session of gardening, fishing or light carpentry. Then dinner.

Then, the newspaper and perhaps a card game before listening to the

news on the radio. What a demanding schedule! I am IN AWE of this

man's STAMINA! In fact, Sugrue tells us that, in addition to all

these incredible demands on Cayce's body and mind, he (Sugrue) "whiled

away hours" with Cayce on golf courses!

Cayce's death sums up everything in a nutshell. When Hugh Lynn went

off to war, Edgar was forced to answer all the mail, instead of some

of it, and the strain of overwork broke his health! So, what does

Edgar prescribe for himself? A vacation! That's right, more rest and

leisure than he was already getting! Quitting smoking, on the other

hand, was apparently not considered a viable option. His ambiguous

readings continued even in his own case, when he said that he would

either get well, or die. He had a stroke and died.

I could have included more in this section of my essay, but the

essential points have been covered, for now. I mean, this thing could

go on and on, but I've got to stop somewhere, or end up wasting all my

time on it. This will also sort of give you a feel for what I'm doing

to St.Paul in my book, but in a longer format with more references.

I'm going into Cayce's teachings on Jesus next, and hopefully it will

result in a shorter piece. I tried to make this as brief as possible,

and I even left out a lot that I originally intended to cover, but

then I realized I'd be writing a complete book for no money. Besides,

I've created a starting point for bringing this lying Pink down, and

anyone interested can easily go on from here.

Praise "Bob",

Rev. Dr. Nolan Voyde

*The case of Kenneth Bianchi, one of the Hillside Stranglers, comes to

mind. For a while, he managed to convince doctors that he was a

multiple personality case by faking a hypnotic state.

**There is a very interesting photo of a newspaper clipping about his

New York bust in "Edgar Cayce's Photographic Legacy" by David M.

Leary, especially the last paragraph. His scrapes with the law are one

of several interesting parallels between Cayce's career and that of

Joseph Smith, as outlined in "Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon". I

admit I can't remember the author's name, and the book is in Atlanta,

where I no longer live, but I have read it, and if there's a request

for her name, I'll call the library and get it, I guarantee.

***Believe it or not, I have an authentic tape recording of a 1930's

radio ad in which smoking cigarets is endorsed as beneficial by OPERA

SINGERS! It's real, not a parody. Edgar Cayce was no more able to

see ahead of his own times than you or I.

****Although Sugrue claims a "cure" for this woman, her last letter to

the Cayces clearly says "I seldom have even a touch of arthritis, but

..a dose of the medicine...sets me on my feet again." Sounds like

improvement, but not a cure. Given the activity and massage routine

(including denatured-or-grain alcohol-based massage lotion)

prescribed, it would indeed have been surprising if her joints didn't

loosen up some.The condition the woman suffered from was allegedly

diagnosed by doctors as "arthritis" from an unidentifiable infection.

Arthritis simply means any form of infection of the joints, so we

never do discover exactly what was ailing her. She also suffered

"severe night sweats" and other symptoms, including lumps next to her

bones, gas pains and scaly red spots on her skin. Cayce's stated

cause for the red scaly spots? "Impure circulation", and an imbalance

of glandular activity. In short, his standard diagnosis for almost

everyone. At least he advised her to lay off cabbage, which probably

helped with the gas pains, but hardly required a psychic to think of

it. The "medicine" she took? Atomidine, an iodine solution developed

by a Hindu doctor educated at Oxford who had "dreams". Atomidine was

also prescribed for "infantile paralysis" (among yet other ailments),

particularly as a preventative during epidemics. It was prescribed by

Cayce for internal and external use, as a nose spray and sometimes in

conjunction with operating his "appliances". Apart from iodine, no

other ingredients for this wonder drug are mentioned (I'd bet money

that alcohol was in there, somewhere!). This prescription comes from

a guy (Cayce, not the Hindu) who also recommended breathing ozone,

absorbing ultraviolet rays and smoking. Three real good habits. You

might say, "Well, at least she improved!" But I say, "Peter Popoff

probably would have done just as well."