The snow-draped grave site of Gertrude and Edgar Cayce
at Hopkinsville, Kentucky, on February 12, 2010

At Hopkinsville, Edgar Cayce
Is the Most Famous Native Son.

By Ron Fritze from Athens, Alabama
Posted March 11, 2010

Recently, my old friend and roommate Brian Coutts invited me to come to Bowling Green, Kentucky, and give a lecture about the myth of Prince Madoc and the Welsh Indians on the American frontier. I would be speaking in the Kentucky Live program sponsored by the Western Kentucky University Libraries. Although my lecture was scheduled for 11 February at 7 p.m., I drove up early to Bowling Green with a view to missing the Nashville rush hour, which I managed to do.

Best Mex this Side of Texas

Brian, his wife Karen, and I met some other people at a very nice Mexican restaurant across the street from the Barnes and Noble where I would be giving my talk. The place is named Garcia’s Grille and I highly recommend it. They served the best Mexican food I have eaten since moving from Texas almost nine years ago. We were joined by some other Western Kentucky faculty and enjoyed a very pleasant meal. Later I gave my talk and it went well. Several in the receptive audience even bought copies of my new book and wanted them signed.

For those unfamiliar with Kentucky’s geography, Bowling Green is about sixty miles east of Hopkinsville. So what, you might ask? Since you’ve already read the title of this essay, you probably have your suspicions. Hopkinsville is the birthplace of Edgar Cayce, the sleeping prophet. And if you are a frequent reader of my essays, you know that I am drawn to places with connections to pseudo-history and pseudo-science like a moth is drawn to a flame. I just want to see them. So my plan for Friday morning was to drive to Hopkinsville and check it out.

After a pleasant rest at Brian and Karen’s comfortable home, I sat with Brian for some time in the early morning light, drinking coffee and enjoying good conversation. It was good to catch up with an old friend. Then I got on the road, which treated me kindly the entire trip. As most of you know, the winter of 2009-2010 has been a cold one with lots of snow. But no snow or storm plagued my journey. Instead, I had two very nice, mostly sunny days for travel.

Trying to Find His Voice,
Edgar Slipped into a Trance.
The Outcome Was Epic.

Who was Edgar Cayce? As I mentioned, he is known as the “sleeping prophet.” Edgar Cayce (1877-1945) was born into a farming family who lived near Hopkinsville. He grew up in Hopkinsville and attended school there through the age of thirteen and to the level of the seventh grade. Taking up the profession of being a photographer, Cayce began working in Hopkinsville. Then in 1901, he developed a paralysis of the throat and could not speak. Asking a local hypnotist to put him into a trance, Cayce not only spoke, but also provided the hypnotist with a diagnosis and a remedy for his paralysis of the throat. Coming out of the trance, the young photographer had recovered the ability to speak. After several more session with the hypnotist, Cayce was completely cured. Word of Cayce’s wondrous experience spread quickly, inspiring a stream of seekers to visit the young man in search of medical advice.

Cayce’s method was to lie down on a couch and go to sleep or slip into a trance. When that happened, someone would read him a question and the sleeping Cayce would answer it. At first the questions pertained to medical issues, but then Cayce began receiving requests for prophecies and contacts with the dead. Some unscrupulous people even persuaded Cayce to give them some prophecies that could be used for financial gain. Realizing that prophecies tied to financial speculation would very likely jeopardize his ability to tap into his psychic gift, Cayce grew wise and refused participate in that activity.

Two Archives:
One in the Ether,
The Other at Virginia Beach

During his lifetime, Cayce gave over 14,000 psychic readings, which were carefully transcribed and are archived at the Association for Enlightenment and Research (AER). The AER was founded by Cayce in 1931 and is located in Virginia Beach, Virginia.

The interesting thing is that Cayce’s medical diagnoses tended to be effective, so people continued to use his services. He called himself a “psychic diagnostician” on his business card, although he never sought to make a fortune from his ability. According to Cayce, his ability to make good medical diagnoses and other predictions was based on the existence of reincarnation. Such a belief conflicted with Cayce’s membership in the Disciplines of Christ and his devout adherence to most of its tenets and doctrines. Clearly, the seeming cognitive dissonance inherent in his situation did not bother Cayce, who claimed to have lived many lives in the past, including some on ancient Atlantis. He said that his healing abilities in his present life derived from knowledge he’d attained in a previous life as an accomplished doctor in ancient Greece.

It is important to remember that when he was conscious, Cayce did not remember any of this stuff. The sleeping Cayce was an entirely different man, quickly entering into the stream of astral projection, where he could channel contact with the dead, tap into his and others’ past lives, and consult the Akashic Records.

The Akashic Records are an archive of occult knowledge. They are stored in the ether. Madame Helena Blavatsky and the Theosophical Society first revealed the existence of the Akashic Records during the latter half of the nineteenth century. Ever since, these supersensible records have provided a ready library of universal knowledge for people who possess the ability to step out of their bodies and enter the archive. As for me, the best I can hope for is the Library of Congress.

530 West Seventh Street
Edgar spent part of his childhood here.

When Awake,
He Championed Homeopathy.

Cayce’s ability to provide psychic diagnoses from a trance state complimented the enthusiastic advocacy of healthy living he dispensed from the waking side of his being. He also maintained a close relationship with Dr. Wesley Ketchum, a doctor of homeopathic medicine who practiced in Hopkinsville, and no doubt taught Cayce the secrets of his craft. Homeopathy medicine is based on the principle of “like curing like.” The foundational technique is to treat ailing patients with small doses of substances which in larger dosages would actually create the symptoms they are suffering from.

In addition to useful medical advice, Cayce’s readings provided content for a psychic repository of information about the life and times of former Atlanteans. As the readings unfolded into a body of work, Cayce began to construct an outline of the history of the lost continent.

It also appears that Cayce was the first person to reveal, or to imagine, the existence of mysterious energy crystals in the homes and temples of Atlanteans. The revelation gained currency, and nowadays you are likely to find reference to those crystals not only in fictional works of novels and films, but also in books advertised as non-fictional accounts of the lost civilization, thus raising the status of the Akashic Records to that of primary source material.

From Atlantis,
It's a Short Journey
To the Realm of Pseudo-History.

Cayce’s reach gradually began to extend into ancient Egypt, where his astral contacts revealed all sorts of mysteries and profound truths. The fact that professors of Egyptology know nothing about these mysteries and remain more than a little skeptical about them has absolutely no currency with Cayce’s acolytes and borrowers.

Atlantis and Egypt became are the ancient places where Cayce moved from medical diagnoses into the realm of pseudo-history.

Besides living in Hopkinsville, Cayce also spent some time in Bowling Green and Louisville before moving to Virginia Beach. The library of Western Kentucky University possesses the business records and photographs from the photography studio he operated in Bowling Green.

No Time for Jeff Davis Today.

My drive down Highway 68 to Hopkinsville was an easy one. Along the way I passed the newly constructed monument to Jefferson Davis at Fairview. It is an obelisk that looks ever so much like the San Jacinto monument in Texas, only smaller. I say that as an objective Hoosier rather than as an adoptive Texan with nineteen years of residence under the Lone Star — and also as one who eventually fell under sway of the mantra that everything is bigger in Texas. I must confess: I didn’t not stop to honor President Davis. I was on a mission to see Edgar Cayce and was not to be distracted. Besides, my ancestors wore blue. I am a Lincoln man.

Approaching Hopkinsville, I wondered about where I should go to get started. I knew of a visitor’s bureau on Fort Campbell Boulevard, so I went there. Good move. Yes, I was a bit worried that asking about Edgar Cayce might raise some eyebrows. Not so! He is Hopkinsville’s most famous native son.

The Pennyroyal Area Museum in the 1914 Post Office building

The receptionist at the visitor’s bureau put me in contact with a very nice woman named Cheryl Cook, who is the executive director of the Convention and Visitor’s Bureau. She gave me a brochure, nicely done, with two full pages on Cayce, including a detailed map of houses and buildings associated with his life. Ms. Cook told me she was planning an even more detailed guide. She also gave me a map to the Riverside Cemetery where Cayce and his wife Gertrude are buried. In addition, she advised me to make my first stop at the Pennyroyal Area Museum, but cautioned that the exhibits were closed so that the heating and air conditioning system could be replaced.

In Hopkinsville’s pleasant and historic downtown, I parked in front of the museum. I could see all sorts of older but nicely kept-up buildings, including one of those old movie theaters, this one with the mysterious name of Alahambra Theatre. Old movie houses are another of my loves, equal to Carnegie libraries in my personal pantheon architectural delights.

Kentucky Courtesy

The Pennyroyal Area Museum occupies a prominent place in the old Post Office building, which was dedicated in 1914. As such, it is a great place for a museum. Entering the structure, I saw obvious signs of construction. But the gift shop was open and a friendly woman asked if she could help. I’ve come to see the Edgar Cayce exhibits, I replied. She said the exhibits were closed, but that she would check with the museum director about letting me have a look. Very generously, they did allow me to look, turning on the lights with a gracious invitation to enjoy.

The Arnold Cottage at 1910 South Main Street

The museum features a great collection of photographs, artifacts, and memorabilia having to do with Edgar Cayce. I took a lot of good pictures. In the gift shop, I bought a couple of postcards of Edgar Cayce and noticed a couple of books on Cayce that I didn’t know existed, including one titled Edgar Cayce’s Egypt. The pleasant woman who is director of the museum came out to see me and provided another map with directions for finding Cayce’s grave, which included a photograph pointing out the relation of the grave to a little chapel on the cemetery grounds. She also invited me to attend the next Cayce conference, an annual affair. The people I met in Hopkinsville were all friendly and hospitable. I would look forward to a return trip on that basis alone.

The drive from the Pennyroyal Area Museum to the Riverside Cemetery passed quickly. Thanks to the two helpful maps, I easily located the Cayces’s graves. Someone had considerately added a little sign to guide visitors. The two tombstones of Edgar and Gertrude Cayce are very modest, befitting the fact that the psychic physician eschewed getting rich off of his readings. And finding the graves on that sunshiny day was a personal bonus because I had assumed that the prophet was buried in Virginia Beach. We did not speak during my visit as I haven’t yet learned how to astral project. I would imagine that others visitors have managed make contact.

1723 East Seventh Street
The Cayces lived here for a short while.

With time to spare, I drove into town to search for four houses where Cayce had lived while in Hopkinsville. A fifth, the country house where he lived as a baby, unfortunately fell into such a state of dilapidation that it had to be torn down.

In 1893 Cayce’s parents moved into Hopkinsville and took up residence at 705 W. Seventh Street. A few years later they moved to 530 W. Seventh Street, which the family occupied in the late 1890s during Edgar's childhood. Cayce briefly lived at houses located at 1723 E. Seventh Street and 1931 E. Seventh Street. I was not able to locate the latter as there was no parking or sidewalks on that section of the street. Cayce’s last dwelling in Hopkinsville was the Arnold Cottage located at 1910 South Main Street in a neighborhood of generally much larger Victorian style houses. I also managed to get some pictures of the Dalton Building at Seventh and Virginia. It was the site of Dr. Ketchum’s office where Cayce gave some of his readings from 1905 to 1912.

Next Time,
I'm Ordering Burgers

My one regret is that I did not stop to eat at Ferrell’s on 1001 S. Main. The Hopkinsville brochure claims that they serve the best hamburgers in western Kentucky. Intrigued, I drove by the restaurant, which appeared on the cityscape as a classic local diner, its name emblazoned in red neon on a kelly green sign. But I was worried about getting snared by the Nashville rush hour traffic during my drive home. So I hit the road.

After I got back and e-mailed my good friend and writing partner Eb Bowles about the trip, he told me that he had eaten at Ferrell’s during last summer’s Travels with Godzilla and that the food was great. With visions of burgers soaring on the ether, I’ve found yet another reason to revisit Hopkinsville. If you get the chance, check it out. Hopkinsville is a nice town with some pleasant and helpful people. While you’re there, be sure to visit the Pennyroyal Area Museum. Edgar Cayce is just one of their very interesting exhibits. And, of course, visit Cayce’s grave. You might have better luck than me in the art of channeling. If you do, I’d love to hear what the sleeping psychic has to say in these waning days before the end of time in 2012.