Wesley Ketchum was fearless in applying Cayce’s readings.
The reading that most convinced Ketchum of the potential of the Cayce readings was for George Dalton, the wealthy owner of Hopkinsville’s brickworks. Dalton—who weighed well over two hundred pounds—had broken his right leg both below and above the knee. Hopkinsville’s other doctors said that Dalton would never walk again and that amputation would be necessary. But Ketchum—on trance advice from Cayce—said that the knee could be healed.
The subsequent reading recommended that Ketchum bore holes in the kneecap and leg bones, insert nails into them, and put Dalton in traction. Ketchum was dubious, at best. Inserting metal screws or nails into bone was a procedure that had never before been performed in Kentucky or anywhere else in the United States. However, there was no harm in trying the procedure. The worst case scenario was that Dalton would lose his leg, which is what the other physicians anticipated from the start. Ketchum had nails made to Cayce’s specifications. Assisted by another doctor and two nurses, he bore holes in the knee and leg bones and then inserted the nails. Two months later Dalton was back on his feet. The nails were still in his leg seventeen years later when he died.
Ketchum described these and other radical procedures in his lectures. With the eventual front page article about their work in The New York Times, celebrities began to seek Edgar’s counsel. Among them was inventor Thomas Edison and electrical genius Nikola Tesla, who consulted Cayce in Bowling Green. Unfortunately this was years before Cayce had a dedicated stenographer to record the readings and save copies for later study. Like an eventual reading that was given for President Woodrow Wilson, documentation on what came through is scant, and hearsay at best. However, almost overnight, everyone wanted a Cayce reading. Ketchum and Cayce would have more patients than they could possibly accommodate.
Ketchum thus proposed a formal partnership. Cayce would provide trance counsel, Edgar’s father would conduct the readings, and Albert Noe, the manager and later owner of the Hopkinsville’s Latham Hotel, would provide the financing. The idea seemed to be a good one: patients would make an appointment to consult Ketchum, who would then charge a fee for his services. Along with those services would come a trance reading performed by Edgar. Half the income generated by the partnership was to go to the Cayces. The other half would go to Ketchum and Noe, who would pay the partnership’s overhead expenses. In addition, it would finance a move to bring Cayce and his family from Bowling Green and establish a photography studio in Hopkinsville. The only caveat, and one that was critically important to Edgar, was that Ketchum had to solemnly promise that readings were to be given “for sick people only” and that no one in desperate need would be turned away. The racetrack readings with Joe Dickey had taught him all he wanted to know about using his gifts otherwise.
Gertrude, a young mother at this point, wasn’t keen on the idea. She was dubious of any business in which Leslie was a partner, as Edgar’s father had proven himself to be unreliable. She was equally concerned about the freewheeling Ketchum, who had a reputation as a gambler and was rumored to be having an affair with his office receptionist. For all of Ketchum’s talk of unleashing Cayce’s incredible potential, the good doctor’s primary interest was in gaining social prominence and power, and as he himself later admitted, availing himself of personal information he had obtained through Cayce in trance to further his cause.
Knowing in advance that Gertrude would not approve, Edgar went ahead with the plan. He believed that in time Gertrude would come to realize that the business of giving psychic readings had to be accorded the same degree of professionalism as his photography business. He needed an established place patients could go to, preferably close to home in Hopkinsville. Moreover, after an unexplained fire had destroyed his Bowling Green photo studio in December 1906 and with the birth of his son Hugh Lynn the following year, he desperately needed the income that the partnership would provide. The arrangement permitted him to both earn a living as a photographer and give readings for people in need.
Gertrude with first born, Hugh Lynn Cayce, 1907.
Having increasingly learned to put his trust in the readings, he volunteered to let the Source itself make the decision if this partnership was a good idea or not. The message that came through was decidedly positive. The Source indicated that “the work” should be supported by those who benefited from the readings and the credibility that the readings generated. The more people believed in the value of the information, the more Cayce and his partners would gain materially from it. But the most important aspect of this reading was the suggestion that the ultimate purpose of the work was not to provide diagnostic insights. Rather, as Carrie House had long ago said, they were to help people “open” their minds and accept the truth of the “ethereal” or “spiritual world.” The Source would then offer an important clue to the future success or failure of the work. “The minute we gain credence and give credit to ourselves,” came the message, “we lose it.”
Edgar, Leslie, Noe, and Ketchum chose to make their headquarters in a suite of rooms on the top floor of Hopkinsville’s Thompson Building, a large redbrick building adjacent to the Hopper Brothers Bookstore. A long-running joke was that Edgar Cayce had finally moved up in the world since leaving the Hopper Brothers Bookstore. Upstairs, that is.
A sign reading the Cayce Photo Studio was posted outside on the street. In the hallway at the top of the stairs, another sign marked the entrance to Edgar’s three-room photo studio, which was outfitted with the most modern photographic equipment. A few yards further down the hall was a third sign, written in smaller letters, reading: “Psychic Diagnostician.” Here the door opened into a suite of offices that were connected through the back to the photo studio. However, patients were not normally invited into these offices and rarely got to meet Edgar Cayce in person. Those who desired to come to Hopkinsville for a reading and be examined by a physician would meet with Ketchum at his office. Personal contact between Edgar and his patients was viewed as an unnecessary interference in Edgar’s personal life and unnecessary to the business of conducting daily trance sessions. It didn’t matter where a patient resided for Cayce to give an accurate reading.
Due to the unique nature of their proposed partnership and before their formal five-year contract was signed, several prominent Hopkinsville judges, among them John T. Hanberry, were invited to witness a reading to give their honest opinion as to whether or not laws would be broken by conducting their business. Judge Hanberry, who had previously received his own medical reading, concurred with the others in giving his blessing. He was so impressed by the demonstration that he offered to purchase Cayce’s contract from Noe and Ketchum, which they declined.
Readings were begun the same day that the documents were signed. Before the end of the first week, nine patients had received and paid for readings. Mrs. Eleanor Sledge, who received a reading three weeks later, came to Ketchum suffering from debilitating migraine headaches. Cayce—in trance—suggested that the problem was the result of a lesion that had grown on her spine, which could be removed through osteopathic manipulation. Her eventual cure, less than two months later, was considered nothing short of miraculous.
Waiting room in Dr. Ketchum’s office, c. 1910.