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Edgar Cayce – Joseph Millard

New Year's Day was cold, and all day the thermometer dropped. There was no heat at all in the factory. Shivering uncontrollably and blue with cold, Edgar kept on until the last photo was made. He returned to the studio in a daze of agony.

His two young assistants, Barnes and Porter, were there.  They got him out of his coat and gloves and into a chair beside the glowing stove. He sat there for a few minutes, then quietly toppled forward on his face.

The boys lugged him to the couch and tried to revive him.

When they discovered there was no sign of breathing, pulse, or heartbeat, they were terrified and bolted out to find doctors.

Several came and worked futilely to resuscitate him.

They were discussing which undertaker to call when Blackburn walked in. He listened in stunned horror to what had occurred and what they had done. Edgar's lip was mashed and two teeth broken off where they had tried to force whiskey down his throat. His feet were blistered raw from hot bricks. Each new arrival had tried a shot of morphine or strychnine without first checking with the others. Blackburn totalled these shots and blanched. Altogether, they had given Edgar enough of the deadly drugs to kill a horse.

Blackburn looked down at the body of his friend, the man who was like no other on earth. He tried every test without finding one sign of life, yet suddenly he knew with an unshakable conviction that Edgar Cayce was not dead.

"He's in a deep trance," he said, drawing a chair close. "I feel certain of it. If he is, maybe he'll respond to suggestion the way he does when he cures his own throat condition."

"You're wasting your time, John," one of the doctors said, buttoning his coat to leave. "You can't talk a corpse back to life."

The rest drifted out, leaving Blackburn alone, droning his suggestions over and over. "The body will return to normal condition. Breathing and heartbeat will resume, circulation will return to normal."

His voice grew hoarse with strain, and sweat gathered on his forehead. Suddenly Edgar shuddered, sighed, and opened his eyes. "Must sleep again," he mumbled. "suggest the body heal itself."

Again breath and heartbeat ceased. Blackburn talked on and on. "The body will reject the poisons. It will heal the injuries."

After nearly an hour, he saw that wherever a shot had been injected into Edgar's arm the flesh was puffed out in a dark mound. Comprehension rushed over him. Obedient to his suggestion, Edgar's body had rejected the poisons and was holding them trapped just under the skin. He snatched an empty hypodermic and used it to suck out the fatal doses. Blood began to circulate again under the waxen skin.

Edgar opened his eyes. "I feel pretty good now, except where those butchers mangled me. Tell your brother, Dr. Jim, that he's finally going to get that dental work he's always teasing me about." Edgar slept around the clock and returned to the studio almost completely restored. However, he was more sober and thoughtful, and the frenzy of driving for business had subsided to a more reasonable activity.