How David Kahn Met Edgar Cayce
I was fifteen years old when I first met the tall, Lincolnesque man named Edgar Cayce. At that time we were living in a place called Hampton Court, in Lexington, Kentucky. We had just moved into this beautiful new twelve-room home—my father and mother and nine children. I was the oldest son. In that pre-supermarket era of the early 1900s, my father, Solomon Kahn, owned and operated a very successful group of grocery stores.
Soon after we moved into our new home, the William DeLaney family moved in next door. Mr. DeLaney had made a fortune in hardwood lumber. His wife had been terribly crippled in an automobile accident. Totally paralyzed, she was confined to a wheelchair and could not even lift her hands to comb her hair. They had a son seven or eight years old.
Mrs. DeLaney and my mother became good friends; my mother would visit with her and help her out in any way she could. Mr. DeLaney, we learned, had tried all over the world to help his wife find something or someone who could restore her health.
That we were devoutly Jewish, and they devout Roman Catholics, in no way impeded our growing friendship, but it did play an important role in events relative to possible help for Mrs. DeLaney. These began one day when Mr. DeLaney said to me, "David, there's a man named Edgar Cayce in Hopkinsville, Kentucky. They claim he has psychic powers. They claim he does incredible things. I've telephoned him to come to Lexington to give a diagnosis—he calls it a reading—on the physical and mental condition of my wife."
Mr. DeLaney said this Cayce, whose regular business was photography, had agreed to come. But, he said, there was a serious problem in which I might be able to help. Roman Catholics were not supposed to deal with such people.
"I'd like to know if you would object to coming to our house when Mr. Cayce arrives, to cooperate with him and to take down the reading?"
I not only had no objection; I was thrilled. To me it sounded like a great adventure in an area of life which at that time I knew virtually nothing about at all.
Two days later, Edgar Cayce arrived in Lexington. To me he seemed quite old—in fact he was only thirty. It was in the cold months of the year; I believe December. Yet he had come all this way without an overcoat. I was tremendously impressed by this man. He looked like some backwoods Kentucky farmer, but I knew at once that he was much more. He had a kindly face, but it was his eyes that I noticed. They were grayish blue but the tone—even the color—seemed to change. At one moment you might almost think he was dreaming. Then you would feel those eyes seeing right through you. I felt this deep look when we first met. He was fair complexioned, and his face was long and thin. The cheekbones were high. He stood very erect, very slender, and spoke very deliberately. He told me he was in the photography business. His specialties, he said, were children and railroads. He seemed interested in me as a possible subject for future pictures.
When he walked into the house, Mr. DeLaney asked him if he wanted to see Mrs. DeLaney. Cayce said no, he preferred not to at that time. He wanted to give the reading first. Then he would meet her and see how closely the impression he got when he saw her fitted into the reading he gave.
I noticed that once or twice he said "we" instead of "I." Some time later, I asked him why he did this. Cayce said, "I—and the forces that give me this power—we work together."
He said that by himself he did nothing; he was simply a channel by which and through which the information flowed. That first day, before the reading, he gave me a black book with some suggestions neatly typed in it. I was to give him these suggestions, he said, at the proper time. He said that he would lie on his back, with his hands placed across his abdomen and his feet close together and he would look at the ceiling. I was then to say to him, "Now, Mr. Cayce, you are going to sleep. . . ."
Carefully he explained how I was to sit by him and say what was typed out in the book. Then when we said the words that would come at the end, "I am through . . . ready for questions . . ." I would ask for any questions Mr. DeLaney or his doctor felt they wanted answered.
The typing in the black book consisted of suggestions for putting him into what we would now describe as a hypnotic sleep, in which he would absolutely sever himself from his conscious mind and would have no awareness of his own words. After telling him that he was to go to sleep, I would say, "You will hear me and follow the suggestions that I make to you. Answer slowly and distinctly because I am writing in longhand." After this, I followed his instructions by saying, "Mr. Cayce, you are now at 58 Hampton Court in Apartment 1-A, in Lexington, Kentucky. Present in this room are Mr. William DeLaney, and Mr. DeLaney's physician, and David E. Kahn. You will allow your mind to go to the rear of the apartment and there you will locate Mrs. DeLaney. When you have found her body you will go over it in great detail. Tell us any physical condition you find that might need correction."
I was, of course, a neophyte at this kind of thing. I followed his instructions precisely, giving the first suggestions just as his eyes were about to close. If the person giving the instructions waited even a few seconds beyond this point to give the order, Cayce would go into a natural sleep but would not be able to speak or to answer questions. Fundamentally, although there were minor changes and additions, the form of suggestion we used then was never changed in all the years and thousands of readings that followed.
The DeLaney reading was given on the floor of their living room; Cayce was simply too long for their sofa. I sat beside him with pads and pencils. Cayce in trance repeated each statement of mine; I wrote it all down, whatever he said or repeated.
After I gave the order to him to let his mind go to the back of the apartment, he said, "Yes, we have the body and mind of Mrs. DeLaney here." He proceeded then to go over her like a doctor, giving blood pressure and blood count and other physiological details.
Then—lying there on the living room floor in hypnotic sleep—he made the statement that the woman was a paralytic and he described her condition in medical detail. At Cayce's insistence, none of this information had been given to him by the husband when he called, neither the nature of her ailment nor the cause.
Still in trance, Cayce stated that the family had lived in Fort Thomas, Kentucky, and that Mrs. DeLaney had been in a horse and buggy accident in which she had leaped from the surrey and struck the base of her spine against the step. He said that six or seven years later she had been in an automobile accident and that this second accident brought out the original injury. This combination of conditions brought on total paralysis.
As I wrote all this down in longhand, I recall that he used a number of words I did not know how to spell. When he used the term osteopath—the word was unfamiliar to me at that time—this largely unschooled Kentuckian asleep on the floor spelled the word precisely and explained what it meant. He said that one had just arrived in Lexington, a Dr. Barbee. There was no indication of how, having just arrived in the city himself, Cayce could know this obscure piece of information.
Still in sleep, he also gave a prescription for several medicines and mixtures which were to be taken internally.
After he had answered our questions, he said, "We are through for the present." I then gave the suggestion, "Now, Mr. Cayce, you've given an excellent description of Mrs. DeLaney's condition. Thoroughly relaxed and perfectly refreshed, without any ill effects of any kind from the condition of the patient whom you have discussed, within three minutes you will wake up."
I took out my watch and waited. Three minutes later, to the second, his eyes opened and with a little jerk of his head he sat up and asked, "How was the reading?"
I read back to him what he had said.
A moment later, Mrs. DeLaney came into the room in her wheelchair and Cayce met her for the first time. She was very heavy because she had spent so much time in the wheelchair. Only five foot five, she weighed two hundred pounds or more.
As soon as the reading was over, I hurried downtown with the prescription to one of Lexington's leading pharmacists. He did business with us—my father bought some of his patent medicines for resale in our stores. I told him to fill the prescriptions exactly as I had written them down. He didn't question them because there was nothing in them to cause him alarm.
Nevertheless, some days after she had taken the medicines, Mrs. DeLaney broke out in a rash from head to foot. Her physician indicated that he had been afraid something of this sort might happen. He said he could suggest nothing because he had no way of knowing which of the remedies had caused the rash.
Feeling deep responsibility, I sent a telegram to Cayce. I gave no information. I simply asked him to tell us the condition of Mrs. DeLaney now and to advise us. To answer, he would go into a trance reading which his wife would take down. In about two hours, a wire came back. The purport of its message: "If you will fill the prescriptions as given you will get the results promised the patient." It said further that if the massages, osteopathic treatments, and medicines suggested were taken, as directed, she would be able to resume her normal life. It stated that black sulphur, although a part of the prescription, was missing from the prescription made by the druggist.
This was Cayce's reply. I took the telegram down to the pharmacist. He said he had never heard of black sulphur. He got out the pharmacology and showed me that no such item as black sulphur was listed in it. So he had used regular sulphur.
I went back and asked Mr. DeLaney if I could wire Cayce again and ask him where we could find out about or get hold of black sulphur. We sent the telegram. The answer came back: Parke, Davis, Detroit, Michigan.
On receipt of this information, the pharmacist himself called the company in Detroit. They had the item, which was apparently new on the market, and they sent it. A few days after it was taken, the rash was gone.
For Mrs. Delaney, Cayce's suggestions for treatment proved successful. The DeLaneys also located Dr. Barbee, who had just moved to Lexington. A short time after Mrs. DeLaney began osteopathic treatments, she was able to lift her arms, comb her hair, and feed herself. A few years later—just before I lost track of her—she was driving her own car, looked radiant, could get around on her own and, although not actually cured, could live to a considerable degree a normal life.
Some years later, William DeLaney appeared before Notary Public A. L. Meiler in Fayette County, Kentucky, and duly attested to the truth in the following statement:
"Mrs. DeLaney has been a sufferer for a number of years; and several years ago I heard of the ability of Dr. Cayce, and requested that he come to Lexington, which he did. He was the first to correctly diagnose Mrs. DeLaney's trouble; altho' she had been to a number of physicians throughout the country. . . .
"As a result of my acquaintance with Dr. Cayce in connection with this work; I have no hesitancy in saying, that he has wonderful hidden power. . . ."
It was signed by W. E. DeLaney.
For me, this was the beginning of what the future was to mean and involve. I was convinced that when Cayce in his hypnotic sleep made a statement it could be relied on. His answer to a question would be a right answer, if the question was asked properly; if not, you got an improper answer.
He told me then and repeated on many occasions, "I don't know anything about this, but I've been doing this work for a long time, and people tell me that I'm able to describe their conditions, and if they do what we say in the readings, they get results. If I ever find out that I give wrong information, or hurt anybody, or it doesn't work out, I'll never give another reading. But so far, I've been doing it ever since I was a little boy, and experiences with my family have taught me that if they can't be cured they can be helped. . . ."
For me, I had met a miracle man, I had seen him and heard him. And he was no fraud or demon-possessed force of evil. He was a human being with a human nature and all its virtues and failings. But a being who also had this other quality, this other psychic avenue, this other source, as if he could reach out to all knowledge and take at will what he required.
When the reading at the DeLaney's was over, I took Mr. Cayce next door to our home to meet my mother and the family. Cayce was a very friendly fellow, very affable and willing to talk about his work. Even then, at the very start, he did not seem like a stranger. I felt as if I'd always known him. He agreed to stay with us a week. And, of course, he gave us all readings. Everyone in the family.
David E. Kahn observed, "This was the beginning of the warm and wonderful relationship between the Cayces and the Kahns. It was a relationship that lasted a lifetime."
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