[narrator]
in every culture,
shamans have been people who appear to have the ability
to communicate with a higher realm,
cure the sick, and even see into the future.
But perhaps the most astounding of them all
is a modern-day prophet from the hills of Kentucky
named Edgar Cayce.
[man]
the most significant Christian mystic of the 20th century.
[woman]
He became incredibly famous
for his readings and his healings.
He could predict future or he could heal someone
all at once.
[Shimkhada]
before or after him.
[narrator]
and came from humble beginnings,
but over his lifetime, he would become world-renowned,
recording more than 14,000 psychic readings,
making him one of the most prolific and documented mediums
of the 20th century.
Edgar spent his first 20 years
focusing on health readings for people.
But he didn't go and examine the people.
He could access them clairvoyantly
and actually see the condition of their body,
the blood condition, the injuries they had had,
and start to prescribe a way of overcoming
the ailment they were dealing with.
And he would give them sometimes very strange formulas
to get through toward healing.
[narrator]
and had not even attended high school.
He claimed that visions of the past, present, and future,
would come to him while in a self-induced trance.
It was this practice that earned him the nickname
"The Sleeping Prophet."
Edgar Cayce would lay down on a couch
and put himself into a self-induced hypnotic state.
[Cayce]
and his eyelids would flutter,
like they do when we're in REM sleep,
He would wake up and have absolutely no memory
of what he had said.
[narrator]
while in a trance,
a rare audio recording reveals that he spoke clearly
and gave very specific instructions
when providing health remedies.
[narrator]
are still used today.
And in fact, he was one of the first people
to introduce holistic medicine to the Western World
in which body, mind, and spirit are considered together
in the management and prevention of illnesses.
[Van Auken]
that people had to fix their thinking
and you had to have higher help.
You needed your mind on the right attitude.
It needed to be expectant,
and you needed some of the life force
of the spirit flowing better.
[narrator]
that a holistic approach to life
was not only beneficial to a person's health,
but might also lead to more people
awakening their own innate psychic abilities
and learning to access a higher realm of knowledge,
just as he did.
Einstein said, "All existence is energy."
And that energy is being interconnected
through the ether.
I think Edgar was correct when he said
that you can tap into all sorts of information
through the ether.