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for hypnosis, which had made considerable strides since the days of Mesmerism and Andrew Jackson Davis (a seer whose rustic childhood, some noted, closely resembled Cayce’s own). A century before The Search for Bridey Murphy, a Scottish medical practitioner named James Braid had begun using the term hypnotism to demarcate the medically provable applications of trance therapy from its occult associations. Sigmund Freud used hypnosis to begin his researches into the unconscious mind. A more sober view of hypnotism began to reach even the mail-order audience. In 1899, an amateur Chicago hypnotist named Arthur L. Webb published a how-to pamphlet, “Somnambulism,” which set about banishing the ghosts of Mesmerism. “I must … take issue with those who claim the hypnotist is a person of supernatural power,” Webb wrote, calling for the practice to be placed “in the hands of physicians” in order to ensure its fullest potential.

Just prior to the publication of The Search for Bridey Murphy, the British Medical Society cautiously affirmed the medical benefits of hypnotism but condemned its use for probing psychical powers. The American Medical Association concurred, noting—in a statement that could sober up a bottle of liquor—that the practice showed particular promise for “a trained and qualified dentist” who “might use hypnosis for hypnoanesthesia, hypnoanalgesia, or for the allaying of anxiety in relation to dental work.” A tug-of-war developed between those medical authorities who, like the AMA, saw hypnotism as little more than a method of anesthetizing and others who believed it held potential for the exploration of clairvoyance or higher forms of cognition. Philosophers and scientists including Harvard’s William James, British researcher F. W. H. Myers, and Duke University’s J. B. Rhine wanted to strip away a carnival atmosphere without imperiling reasoned inquiries into the potentials of the human mind.

Indeed, within the work of Cayce himself there existed something far more than fodder for reincarnation parties, paperback books, and hobby hypnotists. Cayce was often critical of spiritual trends and shortcuts. When followers who were forming a study group asked him about using mental visualizations or affirmations—precisely the kinds of practices favored in most New Thought circles—he said in a trance reading: “To visualize by picturizing [sic] is to BECOME idol worshippers. Is this pleasing, with thy conception of thy God that has given, ‘Have no other gods before me?’ … Then, let rather thy service ever be, ‘Not my will, O God, but Thine be done in me, through me.’ ”

Those who closely looked into Cayce’s work discovered that it conveyed a consistent set of values. Cayce returned inquirers, again and again, to the principle that the esoteric core of religions, the search for inner knowing, the mystical teachings of the Bible, or any communication received through some kind of metaphysical faculty was worthless unless applied in the pursuit of higher aims, which he conceived in specifically Christian terms. Here, for example, is Cayce during a trance reading in January of 1935, responding to a question on what is required for spiritual growth: “Faith, hope and—MOST of all—PATIENCE! ‘In patience possess ye your souls.’ Be patient even in those periods of exaltation, joy, sorrow, woe. For in this do all become aware of the CONTINUITY of life itself; the more and more that this is made aware in the experience of the soul, more and more may the hope and the faith grow. Be patient.”

“If You Can’t Help Me, No Person on Earth Can”

Cayce’s maturation as an ethicist was often unappreciated during his lifetime. The reach of his empathy may be the truest source of his greatness. During the Christmas season of 1935, Cayce received an urgent letter from a young cousin, a Kentucky college student, who confided, “I am a homosexual.” The twenty-one-year-old had been seeing a psychologist but was obviously receiving nothing of value. “As far as I can explain for a reason for my condition,” he wrote Cayce, “I think masturbation has played