Edgar Cayce and the Skeptic

K[enneth] Paul Johnson, Edgar Cayce In Context: The Readings: Truth and Fiction . Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1998.

Reviewed by David Christopher Lane

David Christopher Lane is professor of philosophy and sociology at Mount San Antonio College (California). He has a Ph.D. from the University of California at San Diego, and his research has focused on such alternative spiritual movements as Eckankar, Radhasoami, and transpersonalism. His "Neural Surfer" website contains much material on these and other related topics.

In this new study of Edgar Cayce, Mr. Johnson exemplifies a most remarkable methodological bias: open mindedness. Unlike typical studies of the paranormal or the transpersonal, where the reader is left with either adopting a believer's or a skeptic's position, Johnson weaves an illuminating pathway by which one can see where Edgar Cayce's readings have been historically and factually inaccurate or where they indicate a potential transrational imperative. In either case, Johnson is masterful in avoiding the pitfalls that usually sink investigations of this kind. As he demonstrated with his pioneering books on the history of the Theosophical Masters, where he literally grounded the metaphysical Great White Brotherhood down into the social and political moorings of the late 19th century, Johnson places Edgar Cayce in the larger, infusing environment of the early and mid-20th century. By doing so, the reader begins to appreciate the religious context out of which Edgar Cayce was operating, and, in turn, how to better appraise the import of his trance readings.

Johnson does not believe he has the final answer on Cayce's psychic abilities. Rather, he has taken a multi-dimensional view of the man and in so doing can easily navigate between the waters of empiricism and occultism, while all along remaining relatively unweathered. Undoubtedly, Johnson is the best guide we have on Edgar Cayce to date.

Having said that, however, my task is not to adopt Johnson's broader phenomenological perspective, but rather to illustrate how a skeptic, particularly one steeped in western science, grapples with the phenomenon of Edgar Cayce. In other words, my task is to "explain" the apparently transpersonal or paranormal elements suggested in the Cayce readings. My approach is decidedly reductionistic (a term I use unhesitatingly and with approval) and therefore tends to look for the simpler, more earthy interpretation of any paranormal claim, whether it be in the realm of ufology, medicine, astrology, or psychic gifts.

Thus, in the case of Edgar Cayce's trance readings I have employed the principal tool of my trade: Occam's Razor. Essentially what this entails is "shaving" down the extraordinary claims surrounding Cayce's readings and attempting to discover a more ordinary explanation. Now Occam's Razor is not a magic blade and it should be remembered that it doesn't always work. It so happens that some phenomena are not quantifiable or reducible.They resist wholesale reductionism and must be understood on entirely new levels of explanation. It may be true to say that a futuristic novel, like Aldous Huxley's Island, is ultimately comprised of letters, 26 individually distinct symbolic units, but entirely misleading to suggest that reading those components in isolation is all that is necessary to understand Huxley's meaning and intention. Obviously, the novel must be read in its entirety (from whole sentences to whole chapters to the whole book) in order to properly appraise all of its various facets.

Thus the spirit of reductionism is not to deflate everything no matter what to its atomic structure, but rather to simplify and reduce those things which are amiable to such reduction. To say that water is H20 is illuminating, since we get a deeper insight into how and why water is formed. It is what philosophers of mind, like the Churchlands, call intertheoretic reduction, an entirely appropriate and meaningful way to grapple with physical mysteries. But to say that the Encyclopedia Britannica is nothing more than alphabet manipulation is to completely miss its most important feature: information. Such information, though comprised of smaller units (whether they are comprised of English, French, or binomial), cannot be comprehended until its higher levels of organization are ascertained and understood: the word, the sentence, the paragraph, the page, the chapter, etc. It is on those higher levels where the fullness of information conveyed in the encyclopedia can be appreciated.

But keep in mind one important caveat: regardless of how sophisticated, or higher level order, our information may be--as in the case of the printed or online versions of the Encyclopedia Britannica--it is always built algorithmically: one step, two step, three steps; A, B, C; one letter, one word, one sentence, one paragraph, etc. Our world is a scaffolding project and the closer we pay attention to the various steps inherent to that scaffolding the more accurate and precise our descriptions of the universe become.

How this relates to the field of parapsychology in general and to Edgar Cayce specifically is twofold: 1) before we entertain theories that are trans-rational we should attempt to discover explanations which are rational or pre-rational; and 2) if it so happens that no adequate scientific explanation is possible, even with our current state of advanced technology, we should not succumb to ad hoc transcendental theorizing. Why? Because the very moment we opt for "sky hooks" (Daniel Dennett's lovely phrase for non-algorithmic guesses in contradistinction to "cranes" which are algorithmic and procedural) we have, more or less, surrendered any hope for a communicable understanding of why so and so actually transpired.

To be sure, this does not mean that we cannot wildly speculate any number of possibilities for the odd event, but rather that we "test" those speculations in the empirical world. If we fail to do this, and this seems to be habitual among various New Age practices and beliefs, we are then left open to an almost infinite array of competing stories which rely more on faith than reason.

In light of this context, I personally don't see anything whatsoever in the Edgar Cayce readings which suggests that something truly psychic or supra-mundane is happening. But this does not mean that I think that Edgar Cayce is a fraud or consciously trying to deceive his audience. To the contrary, I think Cayce appears quite sincere, even if naive, about the origins of his gift. What is perhaps more important, however, is that Cayce has had a profound impact on many people from all walks of life who have found tremendous meaning and purpose in his readings. This ranges from those who were in direct contact with him to those who have only met Cayce through his writings.

Thus the Cayce phenomenon must be tackled in two different ways: 1) From a purely scientific framework. do these experiences represent something genuinely paranormal? And 2) Regardless of their putative origins, what does Cayce "mean" to people? These are, I would suggest, distinct questions and should be handled as such. Otherwise, the tendency is to conflate the two and in the process obfuscating any clear answer that may be apparent to both.

In answering the first question, we must be careful not to be so cynical and so dogmatic that we do not fully investigate all of Cayce's readings. This is why Johnson's approach is so useful and why his book is a necessary prelude to any final indictments on the extra-sensory claims inherent in much of Cayce's predictions. It is one thing for me to think that there is nothing "spooky" going on in Cayce's life and work, but quite another for my opinion to be stretched into a final scientific pronouncement. I have a strong hunch, based upon my reading of Cayce, that there is nothing paranormal happening, but my hunch is merely that and cannot, and indeed should not, be construed as a final closure to the ongoing investigation of Cayce's ideas. Skepticism is an extremely valuable tool in the arsenal of the researcher, but it is a tool among many. Ironically, it is better to have more broad-minded investigators explore Cayce first than having either firm believers like a Jess Stearn or an I.C. Sharma, or hard core skeptics like a James Randi or a Paul Kurtz, try to lionize or debunk him. The reasons for this are simple: the researcher who is unsure of his/her position allows for more conflicting reports to come to the surface, whereas the researcher who is already certain--either pro or con--has a tendency to drown any report which doesn't buttress his/her views.

Thus the scientific investigation of Cayce's psychic abilities must not be prematurely "explained away" by skeptics who have not fully and thoroughly investigated his case. Yet, at the same time, such an investigation should not be hampered by the flowering of hagiography which appears to be growing year by year around Cayce. W. H. Church's novelizations of the Cayce readings are a prime example of what not to do with Cayce's legend. Such crossbreedings of fact and fiction may sell lots of books, but they substantially detract from an unbiased appraisement of the sleeping prophet.

The second question, where one asks how Cayce's life and work has provided meaning to thousands of individuals, is a more complex issue since it involves a wide range of human emotions. Unlike the first query, which I believe can have a final answer (psychic or sociological? paranormal or normal? prophet or folk psychologist?), the question of meaning is an open-ended investigation which by its very nature betrays any single or final response.

Edgar Cayce has become-- whether he would have wished it or not--a religious figure. And as a religious figure he serves as a fulcrum for people's yearning to connect with the mystery of being, the sacredness of life, and the wonder of creation. Edgar Cayce has become a modern myth and because of that exalted status transcends the either/or question of genuineness that skeptics, like myself, want resolved. Even if Cayce's readings turn out to be nothing more than the misidentified projections of his own unconscious mind, the Cayce phenomenon will not disappear because for many followers it is not simply a question of psychic ability. It is, rather, a larger question of sacred meaning and purpose and how they have found both in their relationship with Edgar Cayce's life and work. For these advocates Cayce remains a numinous touchstone and not merely a litmus test for borderline science.

One of the more interesting, if controversial, features of Johnson's book is that he takes a two-track approach in evaluating Cayce's psychic readings. First, Johnson attempts to distinguish fact from fiction in Cayce's proclamations. This modus operandi, refreshingly different from most of the popular studies on Cayce which tend to fuse the two (see W.H. Church's conflations, for instance, in his book Many Happy Returns), allows Johnson to be both critical and sympathetic. Second, while freely admitting where Cayce has made mistakes, Johnson then looks for the possiblity that there may be a deeper religious or spiritual truth buried within the narratives, even if they contain fictitious elements. This is a particularly powerful approach since Cayce's readings tended to be full of spiritual import. Indeed, it may well have been this spiritual aspect that attracted so many to become followers of Cayce's prolific readings. In this regard, Johnson's fascinating profile of Cayce's numerous religious influences (from Theosophy to Bhagat Singh Thind) illustrates that the readings arise from the current fashions of the time.

What a skeptic may wish to find but doesn't is an airtight case for Cayce's paranormal ability. Yet this is not Johnson's fault, since he meticulously tries to substantiate Cayce's clairvoyance, as in the instance of a predicted passage in the Great Pyramid and the right paw of the Sphinx. In both instances, Cayce's information was shown to be inaccurate. Yet despite such disqualifications, Johnson rightly states that Cayce's material remains interesting as a cultural phenomenon despite its "scholarly implausibility." Thus, Edgar Cayce in Context is not so much a study of purported paranormal ability (the evidence being scant or non-existent), but rather an insightful look at how a genuinely sincere "prophet" can change the course of people's live even if his prophecies are not extra-sensory. In other words, Johnson has tapped into the spiritual heart of Cayce and shown him to be a man of deep psychological insights, if not paranormal ones.

Ironically, the finest endorsement of Edgar Cayce's genuineness comes from a most unlikely source: Baba Faqir Chand, the radical Radhasoami guru of Hoshiapur, India. Faqir Chand, who is well known for dismissing any miraculous claims made about his life and work, proudly displayed a letter from Cayce's foundation, the A.R.E. When asked directly about Cayce, Faqir and his successor, Dr. I.C. Sharma, argued that he was an authentic mystic. This is no slight praise since it arises from a lineage which tended to dismiss almost all gurus as frauds. Hence, I think Edgar Cayce's readings will survive into the 21st century not so much as illustrations of psychic ability misread, but as psychological and spiritual documents which resonate with seekers interested in a larger synthesis of New Age thinking. In this light, Edgar Cayce emerges as one of the architects to the modern esoteric revival.

Finally, I think K. Paul Johnson represents a new breed of scholar sorely missing in the academic field. He combines an acute critical judgement with a deeply held spiritual empathy, a rare combination. I think it is for this reason that Johnson's first two books on Theosophy have altered the course of future scholarship in that area. I have no doubt that Johnson's Edgar Cayce In Context will do the same.