There Is a River

by Thomas Sugrue

  The material on somnambulism that was gathered and printed during the first half of the nineteenth century would seem to be overwhelming proof of the reality of the phenomenon. Karl du Prel, discussing the subject in The Philosophy of Mysticism, quoted a score of authors and predicted that one of them, Dr. Justinus Kerner, would be “among the most read in the next century.” Dr. Kerner wrote about Frau Hauffe, the “Seeress of Prevorst,” a somnambulist so sensitive that “upon approaching a patient, and even before contact, but still more after it, she at once experienced the same feeling and in the like place as the patient, and to the great astonishment of the latter, could exactly describe all his sufferings, without his having given her any previous verbal information.”

  Many somnambulists experienced this transference of the patient’s symptoms to themselves. They were termed “sensitive.” Others, particularly those who went into deep trance, on awakening neither knew what they had said nor felt any ill effects. These were called “intuitive.” The sensitive type suffered constantly, picking up the pains of those about them, and were in danger of temporary blindness, melancholia, and almost anything else that the person examined was enduring. The intuitive somnambulist, on the other hand, had a rather easy time of it. He went to sleep, woke up, and his work was done. Many experiments were conducted to prove that in this state of trance the entire mechanism of normal physical life retreated beyond reach. A somnambulist would be given something to eat, such as an apple. He would then be put into a trance, and while in that condition be given a different food to eat—perhaps a piece of pastry. He would eat the pastry, relish it, and describe the taste; yet on awakening the only taste in his mouth would be that of the apple. Once a woman somnambulist was kept in a trance for six months, during which time her place of habitation was changed. She accustomed herself to the new house and lived in it, cooking and cleaning and entertaining. Yet when she was awakened finally the place was strange to her and she could not find her way around from room to room.

  As the books on somnambulism rolled off the presses, orthodox medicine rallied to the opposition. Mesmer was condemned as a fraud, and the diverse phenomena discovered by other investigators were damned along with him. The hope for a new system of diagnosing physical ills—a system already inherent in man and magically sure—began to fade. Here is du Prel’s report of one of the “investigations”:

  “When in the year 1831 the professional Commission, which had been engaged in its investigation since its appointment several years before, caused its Report, confirming all the substantial phenomena attributed to somnambulism, to be read in the Medical Academy of Paris, the deep silence of the assembly betrayed the disturbance of their minds. Then, when as usual it was proposed that this report should be printed, an Academician, Castel, rose and protested against the printing of it, because if the facts reported were true, half of our physiological science would be destroyed.”

  Seventy-five years later somnambulism was all but forgotten; orthodox medicine was on the verge of a great era. Thus when the Blackburn brothers and their colleagues took up the study of the intuitive somnambulist Edgar Cayce, they approached him with the same skepticism which had prevailed in their profession a century before. They tried him with the same tests, and they got the same results.

  He was asked to give a reading for the mother of a local dentist. She lived in a nearby town; the name and the address were read to him after he had gone to sleep. He diagnosed her ailment and outlined a system of treatment. He then was asked to describe the room in which the woman lay. He told what color the walls were painted, what pictures were on them, where the windows were located, and where the bed was situated. He located the origin of the steel in the bed springs, mentioned where the cotton in the mattress had been grown, and listed the cities in which the various sections of the bed had been manufactured. The doctors checked the information as far as they could. The description of the room was correct in every detail. They were, however, unable to trace the steel, the cotton, and the wood of the bed. A Tennessee woman who was unable to get relief for her illness volunteered as a patient. She had, he said, a laceration of the stomach. Edgar told her to disregard the doctors. Each morning she was to take a lemon, roll it, cut it in half, and eat one of the halves. She was then to walk as far as she could, rest, walk home, sprinkle salt on the other half of the lemon, eat it, then immediately drink at least two glasses of water. The doctors thought it was a joke. The woman decided to follow the suggestion. In a few weeks she reported that she was feeling fine, could walk several miles, and found her food agreeing with her.

  There were other readings, but they had an irritating habit of turning out in the same way—correct. A Bowling Green man wrote to an acquaintance in New York, describing Edgar’s powers. The man said the whole thing was a fraud. As an experiment a reading was taken on him one morning. Edgar was told to find him in New York and to trace his progress through the streets as he approached his office. Edgar trailed him to a cigar store, then to his office, read part of his mail, and reported on a portion of a telephone conversation. The text of the reading was immediately telegraphed to the man. He wired back, “You are exactly right. I am coming to Bowling Green.” He did come and tried to induce Edgar to go back with him to New York. They would, he said, make a million dollars. Edgar refused.

  In the autumn of 1906 the E.Q.B. Literary Club chose hypnotism for the subject of one of its monthly dinner meetings. By way of demonstration, Edgar was invited to give a reading. Most of the local doctors were to be at the dinner, and many physicians from surrounding localities. In order to be ready for the reading, Edgar ate early, at home. Blackburn called for him. Gertrude, nervous and frightened, demanded a promise of Blackburn.

  “Promise me you won’t try any tricks with him while he is asleep,” she said. “I don’t want any pins stuck in him or any monkey business like that. I want him brought back in as good condition as he is going.”

  “I’ll take care of him,” Blackburn promised.

  At the meeting Edgar went to sleep on a couch that was brought in and placed before the dais. He was given the name and address of a college student who was ill in a dormitory just outside the city. The boy was a patient of one of the doctors present.

  “Yes, we have the body,” he said. “He is recovering from an attack of typhoid fever. The pulse is 96, the temperature 101.4.”

  The doctor in charge of the patient said the diagnosis was correct. A committee of three was dispatched to check on the temperature and pulse. While they were gone an argument arose as to what state of consciousness or unconsciousness Edgar was in. Some said hypnosis, some said trance, some said a dream state. The doctors who were witnessing their first reading wanted to find out. Over Blackburn’s violent protests one of them stuck a needle in Edgar’s arms, hands, and feet. There was no response. Another left the room, returned with a hatpin, and before Blackburn could stop him, thrust it entirely through Edgar’s cheeks. Still there was no response.

  “He’s hardened to all of that,” one of the other doctors said.

  This one opened a penknife and ran the blade under one of Edgar’s fingers. Slowly the nail was lifted away from the flesh.

  There was no indication of pain; no blood flowed. The knife was withdrawn.

  Suddenly Edgar woke up. Immediately he felt pain. The doctors began to apologize. Just a few scientific tests, they said. No harm was meant. Edgar lost his temper. He turned on Blackburn and the other doctors.

  “I’m through,” he said. “I’ve let you do anything you wanted to do with me. I’ve given you my time and never asked that you even be polite enough to think me sincere.

  “I thought you wanted to find out the truth. But you don’t. Nothing will convince you. Nothing will convince any of you.

  “No matter how many miracles you see you will never believe anything that will interfere with your smugness. You take it for granted that every man in the
world is crooked except yourselves. And you will accept no proof of anyone’s honesty.

  “I’ll never try to prove anything to any one of you again. “I’ll never give another reading unless it’s for someone who needs help and believes I can give it to him!”

  He walked out.

  —

  The nail of Edgar’s finger never grew normally again. All that winter it festered and was sore, reminding him of the knife that had tried to find his secret by probing his flesh. There would be no more of that now; the E.Q.B. Literary Club’s investigating committee had ceased to function. But the inquisitors of his conscience remained, and their questions hurt him more than anything that had been done on the night of the dinner.

  Was this strange gift a virtue or a vice? Basically it had only one frightening aspect: it could not be explained—it could not be understood. Should it be used, or should it not be used? Would it be a blight to his children, or would it end, as it had begun, with himself, a strange and errant strand of fate, reaching out to strangle his peace and happiness?

  Edgar had fled from the scientists, but he could not flee from himself. It was never a comfortable feeling to know that a force beyond the knowledge of man was coursing through him, waiting to be tapped, like an underground stream that roars beneath a quiet country field. But beyond this there was a larger disturbance, a cloud that formed often into a storm of fear, driving all other thoughts to cover. Now he faced it at every turn. What if he should pass on to a son or a daughter this wild ability of the mind?

  Gertrude had the same fear, but her love for the exterior Edgar, the friendly, wide-awake young man to whom she had given her heart, was so great that she defied whatever lay within him to intrude on the sanctity of their love. She had in those months a proud, uplifted look, and her eyes dared any but the friends of heaven to walk with her while she waited for the spring.

  TEN

  In November of 1906 the Cayce Studio on College Street held an art exhibit. A collection of paintings, carbon prints, and water colors valued at $40,000 was taken on consignment from one Franz Von Hanfstangl, an art dealer, of New York. The show was well attended, and so many carbon prints and water colors were sold that the remainder was kept for the Christmas season when the show closed and the paintings were returned to New York. Business was so good that Edgar was sure he would be able by spring to start building the house he and Gertrude were planning.

  On December 23rd the College Street Studio was destroyed by fire. None of the pictures was saved. Edgar, reading over his insurance policies, discovered that none of them covered goods on consignment. Von Hanfstangl’s lists showed that the value of the merchandise which had not been returned to him was $8,000. Edgar was broke; the studio was in debt.

  Business went on in the State Street Studio and was better than ever. Edgar worked every day and almost every night, taking only Sunday mornings off to teach his Sunday school class. His only vacation came on the afternoon of March 16, 1907. He stayed at home after lunch that day, pacing up and down the living room of the little cottage on Park Avenue where he and Gertrude now lived, smoking innumerable cigarettes. Now and then Mrs. Evans, who was visiting them, came out of the bedroom to tell him something. Once the nurse, Daisy Dean, emerged and stared at him coldly. Finally Blackburn came out, smiling.

  “Did you hear him?” he said. “He let out a pretty good squawk.”

  Edgar gulped. “It’s a boy?” he asked. He felt foolish.

  “‘A son’ is the technical phrase,” Blackburn said. “Healthy as a wildcat, and Gertrude is fine.”

  Mrs. Evans opened the bedroom door and called to them.

  “Nine-and-a-half pounds,” she said.

  Edgar sat down.

  “I didn’t mean any harm,” he said weakly. “I didn’t know it was like this—so much pain and suffering for Gertrude. Why was I let off so easily?”

  Blackburn restrained a smile. “You’ve suffered,” he said. “And from now on you can worry. There’s another mouth to feed.”

  “I’d like a dozen, but not this way,” Edgar said.

  “Let’s take a reading and find out how to get them some other way,” Blackburn suggested.

  He went back into the bedroom. Mrs. Evans came out with the baby.

  “Isn’t he beautiful?” she said.

  “Yes,” Edgar said, but he didn’t think so. Privately he asked Blackburn if all babies looked like skinned rabbits.

  Blackburn nodded glumly. “Even Cleopatra was like that,” he said, “when she was born. He’ll grow out of it.”

  They named him Hugh Lynn, after Gertrude’s two brothers. Mrs. Evans stayed to look after him until Gertrude was recovered. She declared him to be an angel.

  All that spring and summer the angel cried. He didn’t even stop when the second fire came, in September. It wrecked the State Street Studio, but this time there were no goods on consignment, and the insurance adjustors were inclined to be generous.

  “You’ve had hard luck, Cayce,” one of them said. “Just tell us the amount and we won’t bother checking it. You’ll get the money.”

  Edgar put carpenters to work immediately, and in two weeks was open for business again. Then his partner got frightened and threw the firm into bankruptcy. Frank Potter, the original partner, had sold his interest to Edgar and had been replaced by Lynn, Gertrude’s brother, and Joe Adcock. It was Adcock who initiated bankruptcy, though none of the creditors was worried. The studio was closed for seven minutes while the formalities were staged. Then it opened again. There were more customers than ever.

  Because she had been named as Edgar’s chief creditor in the bankruptcy proceedings, Carrie Salter was called to Bowling Green. She came with her husband, Dr. Thomas Burr House, of Springfield, Tennessee.

  “Edgar, can you imagine me marrying not one doctor, but two?” she said. “He’s not only a medical doctor, but an osteopath.”

  Dr. House was a genial, medium-sized man with handlebar mustaches and brown eyes that twinkled and betrayed him when he tried to tease someone. He liked Bowling Green. It would be a nice place to spend the winter, he thought, before opening an office in Hopkinsville in the spring.

  “You’re supposed to run the studio,” he told Carrie. “We can’t leave.”

  “I’ll stay with Gertrude so Lizzie can go home,” Carrie said. “You run the studio. I don’t know anything about it. Edgar knows what he’s doing anyhow.”

  “I’ll help him,” Dr. House said.

  Thereafter he passed the days in the studio, smoking cigars, watching Edgar take pictures, and talking to the doctors who, out of long habit, stopped in to visit with Edgar and each other. He paid no attention to the business, nor to the talk he heard about the readings. “Very interesting” was all he ever said. He was intent on a vacation, and he was determined that nothing was going to interrupt it.

  Edgar forgot everything but work. He wanted to pay off his debts and be a free man again. He also wanted to leave Bowling Green. The two fires and the bitter experience with the doctors had spoiled his love for the place. He wanted to get away and make a fresh start. Gertrude agreed with him.

  By early spring things were in pretty good shape. Dr. House and Carrie returned to Hopkinsville, and Gertrude and Hugh Lynn went with them for a visit to the Hill. Edgar gave up the cottage and moved into the studio.

  The folks left at the end of March. One evening late in May Dr. House called on the telephone from Hopkinsville.

  “Carrie’s sick,” he said, “and she wants you to come over here and give a reading for her. I’ve had Dr. Haggard up from Nashville and he wants to operate, but she won’t do a thing without getting your consent. You’d better come over. She’s pretty badly off.”

  Edgar took the night train. All the way to Hopkinsville he prayed. Carrie’s faith in him had always made him feel warm and good. She had insisted that the readings were
correct in their diagnoses, and that the power was a gift from God. She had trusted him in other things, too. She had given him money when he needed it, and now, with the money in jeopardy because of the fires, she was putting her life in his hands. Was her faith justified?

  How could he possibly know what was wrong with her? How would Dr. House feel, watching an untrained man go to sleep and diagnose his wife’s condition, while he, a trained physician, stood by, helpless to interfere?

  The next morning, facing the couple in the living room at the Hill, he felt even worse. Carrie was obviously quite sick, and in pain. But her faith was unwavering.

  “A reading will tell what’s wrong with me and what to do for it,” she insisted. “Get it as soon as you can, Edgar. Dr. House will take down what you say.” In the presence of other people she never called her husband anything but Dr. House.

  Edgar went into one of the bedrooms and put himself to sleep, first instructing Dr. House about the suggestions, especially the one for waking him up. That, he had discovered, was the only important point about the phenomenon. Anyone could “conduct” a reading, so long as the proper suggestion for waking was given, and the conductor was careful not to move away from the sleeping body while the trance persisted.

  When he awakened, Dr. House looked glum.

  “Haggard thinks she has a tumor of the abdomen,” he said. “I’ve had all the local doctors in. They agree with the diagnosis.

  “You say there is no tumor. You say she is pregnant, and the trouble is a locked bowel.

  “What you suggest for the locked bowel sounds reasonable—warm oil enemas and some other things.”

  He shook his head.

  “But I don’t see how she can be pregnant. She’s not supposed to be able to have children.”

  Edgar felt miserable. He had hoped that he would agree with the doctors. It would have made things so much easier. W. H. Haggard was one of the leading specialists in Nashville.