Like most physicians in Hopkinsville, Dr. Haggard wanted no part of what he deemed “trickery.” Dr. Jackson shared his colleague’s skepticism, but as the family’s longtime physician, he had seen the inexplicable. Cayce, with Al Layne’s help, had provided trance advice that had helped a child recover from whooping cough and had correctly diagnosed a case of scarlet fever.
Caroline (Carrie Salter) House, c. 1907.
Edith Estella Smith, (Gertrude’s cousin), old Salter home place.
Western State Kentucky Hospital (the Lunatic Asylum built by Gertrude’s grandfather) where Dr. and Carrie House worked and where Gertrude feared Edgar might one day become a patient.
In what was deemed to be an even more startling trance discourse, Cayce had detailed the location of blood clots in a patient’s lung. And along with more routinely recommended treatments, he advised the use of state-of-the-art electromagnetic therapy. Physicians hadn’t followed up; such therapy had never been used before in Kentucky and was considered experimental at best. Jackson had been left wondering if the treatment might have helped. But it was too late now. The patient had died.
Dr. House also didn’t believe that Edgar or anyone else could diagnose illness in his sleep, but he, like Jackson, knew Cayce too intimately to believe that he was a charlatan. His in-law didn’t charge for his services, seek publicity, or encourage anyone to obtain trance readings. After Al Layne had left for medical school in 1904, people found their way to Cayce’s Bowling Green photo studio by word of mouth. House believed that the people who came to Cayce were predisposed that Cayce could help, and hence the people heard what they wanted to hear. Physicians working with Edgar did the rest.
Only a dying child, such as Tommy Jr., was another matter altogether. The child was beyond help. The only reason that Dr. House reluctantly agreed to wire Cayce in Bowling Green was to indulge headstrong Carrie, who to his mind was overcome with fear and unwilling to accept what he deemed to be the inevitable.
Edgar arrived by train to Hopkinsville in the midst of a rainstorm. Gertrude’s brother Lynn picked him up at the station and drove him the mile and a quarter to the house. Both were drenched head to foot when they stepped into the house. Carrie, holding her infant son, was seated in the parlor by the fireplace, surrounded by family members. There were no pleasantries, only an awkward silence as Dr. Haggard, disgruntled that Cayce was to be consulted, packed his bags and left. He encouraged Dr. Jackson to do the same lest he was investigated as had been Layne. “Let the child die in peace” was the message he conveyed to House family, whether he spoke the words or not.
Carrie asked if Edgar wanted to examine Tommy. Edgar demurred. In his conscious state he could no more diagnose the child’s condition than he could speak a foreign language or play a musical instrument. Besides, he was anguished to see Carrie and her child in such distress. Gertrude likely hadn’t accompanied Edgar to The Hill that night for this same reason. Perhaps, too, she was protesting the fact that Edgar, despite his promise to her, was back experimenting with his gifts.
Dr. House, accompanied by Jackson, conducted the session in the master bedroom adjoining the parlor. The process, previously developed by Layne, was for him to read from a small leather-bound pocket notebook. He had only to sit beside Edgar as he went into trance, watching for his in-law’s eyelashes to flutter, before putting the suggestions to him.
Similar to the routine he practiced with Layne and would do without significant variation for the next thirty-six years, Edgar took off his jacket and shoes, removed his tie and collar, and lay down on a large oak bed. He pulled a down comforter over his stocking feet, adjusted himself on his back. Then, with feet together and finger tips at his temples, Edgar concentrated on a spot on the ceiling. When he felt himself about to drift off to sleep, he slowly lowered his hands and crossed them over his chest.
With the rain pounding on the roof and the weak cries of the dying child in the next room, Edgar’s breathing deepened and his eyelashes fluttered.
“You have before you the body of Thomas House Jr. of Hopkinsville, Kentucky,” Dr. House said, inserting his son’s name into the paragraph he read from the pocket notebook. “Diagnose his illness and recommend a cure.”
Edgar looked fast asleep, only Dr. House knew better. He had once seen his in-law go into a trance so deep that fellow physicians, conducting an experiment, had removed one of Cayce’s fingernails, and another had stuck a hypodermic needle into his foot. Edgar hadn’t so much as stirred. Yet the “sleeping” Cayce answered questions as if he were fully conscious.
Edgar began to speak in his normal voice. Here, and in many instances to come, his first words were garbled, almost a hum, as if a musical instrument were being tuned. Then his voice cleared and his words became well-modulated and easy to understand. “Yes, we have the body and mind of Thomas House Jr. here,” he said.
Cayce proceeded to recite the infant’s temperature and blood pressure. As House and Jackson would note, the information was correct. They had taken Tommy’s vitals a few minutes before Edgar’s arrival at The Hill. Only Edgar had not examined the child. How would he know?
Cayce—in trance—next described the condition of Tommy’s organs, doing so in such a detailed and detached manner that House and Jackson were left with the impression that he was a physician conducting an autopsy. In this case, however, the physician looked to be asleep and his patient was cradled in his mother’s arms in the next room. This information, too, appeared to be correct or to conform to what House and Jackson supposed. Only there was no way to know such things for certain. Was Edgar somehow reading their minds, picking up on what the two physicians were thinking?
House and Jackson soon dismissed this possibility when Cayce described an epileptic condition which he declared was causing the child’s severe infantile spasms, nausea, and vomiting. Further, Cayce explained that this condition was the outcome of the child’s premature birth, which in turn had been the result of his mother’s poor physical condition during the early months of her pregnancy. In conclusion, Cayce recommended that the child be given a measured dose of belladonna, administered orally, to be followed by wrapping his body in a steaming hot poultice made from the bark of a peach tree.
The session ended as mysteriously as it had begun. “We are through for the present.”
Reading from the same notebook, House instructed Cayce to regain consciousness. Cayce dutifully followed the command and awoke.
In the few minutes that it took Edgar to regain consciousness, stretch his arms and legs, and then sit up from the bed, the two physicians had already left the room. Edgar was alone. Worried that the trance session had been a failure and wondering whether the reading was successful, he walked across the room and peered through the partially open door. House and Jackson were in the parlor, deep in discussion and obviously agitated.
The two physicians both agreed that the diagnosis sounded reasonable. The recommended cure was what upset them. Belladonna, a toxic form of deadly nightshade, could be lethal. Even if the peach-tree poultice could somehow leach the poison out of the child’s system, administering a large dose of the drug to an infant in little Tommy’s condition was murder. Jackson made his feeling clear to Carrie: “You’ll kill little Tommy for sure.”
Dr. House concurred. Homeopathic belladonna could be used to treat lung and kidney ailments, but pure belladonna, as Cayce had recommended, was used only in topical ointments.
Edgar joined the others in the parlor but couldn’t contribute to the ensuing discussion. He didn’t remember anything