Flim-Flam! Psychics, ESP, Unicorns, and Other Delusions - James Randi [104]
But can the skeptics prove that Cayce's cures are attributable to ordinary causes? It would require a huge expenditure of money to do the necessary research for such a job, and in most cases the information would not be available anyway. Frankly, the vague, very evasive, simplistic diagnoses and cures attributed to Edgar Cayce hardly need such research. Examination of the record at hand is quite sufficient to deny him sainthood. The large and well-funded organization that he founded survives today as a result of preferred belief, not because of adequate proof.
In a revealing book entitled The Outer Limits of Edgar Cayce's Power, by E. V. and H. L. Cayce, his notable failures are excused in typical fashion. The authors assure us very strongly that the book, though it admits the failures, explains all of them quite satisfactorily. But I'll let you judge for yourself. Here, with the Cayce verbiage stripped away to the essentials, is what they tell us he divined about the Hauptmann/Lindbergh kidnapping case while in a trance:
1. The baby was removed at 8:30 (a.m. or p.m. not specified) from the Lindbergh home by one man. Another man took it and there was a third person in the car.
2. The baby was taken to a small, brown, two-story house in a mill section called Cardova near New Haven. The house used to be green.
3. Schartest Street is mentioned; also Adams Street, which has had its numbers and name changed.
4. The house is shingled. Three men and one woman are with the child. The woman and one man were actually named.
5. The child's hair has been cut and dyed.
6. Cardova is related to the manufacture of leather goods.
7. Red shale and a new macadam road on a "half-street" and "half a mile" are mentioned.
8. The boy has been moved to Jersey City and is not well.
9. Hauptmann is "only partly guilty." Cayce asks for "no publicity on this case."
Well, that's quite a lot of information is it not? Unfortunately, most of it is wrong. True, Adams Street was found, and it had been named only a few weeks earlier. But this information was available to Cayce during one of his rare waking periods. Besides, Adams Street proved a dud. "I've always had my doubts about anything very authentic in such matters," said Cayce when confronted with the facts. Well, so have I, Ed, more now than ever before after examining your record.
But we should give the disciples (and Cayce) a chance to rationalize this one, so here goes with a list of their excuses:
The readings picked up the mental plans of others who had also planned a kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby. (Poor psychic aim.)
The thought patterns of others involved distorted the readings.
Mental static was very heavy.
No wonder Cayce asked for no publicity! It was a great fiasco, and he had psychic egg on his face. But these excuses are accepted by the believers as quite legitimate—to this day.
There are more surprises for us. Cayce even gave diagnoses when the "patients" were dead! How could that be! Surely death is a very serious symptom and should be detectable. But we have failed to take into account the ingenuity of the breed, apparent in the following examples.
Cayce gave a reading on a Monday for a little girl who had died of leukemia on Sunday, the day before. The letter had been written while the child was alive. He gave a long and typical diagnosis and a long and complicated dietary cure. An excerpt from the reading will suffice to show just how lucid and informative it is: "And this depends upon whether one of the things as intended to be done today is done or isn't done, see?"
No, Eddie baby, I'm afraid I don't see at all. The defendants deserve a chance to present their alibis, however, so we'll take a look at those given in this case. The girl, Theodoria Alosio, was diagnosed by Cayce