An eighth-grade dropout from rural Kentucky, Edgar Cayce became a national phenomenon by diagnosing illnesses while apparently unconscious. Born in 1877, he lost his voice after an encounter with a stage hypnotist, then reportedly cured himself under hypnosis with help from osteopath Al Lane.

This episode traces Cayce's path from medical readings to sweeping metaphysical prophecies about reincarnation and Atlantis, the Virginia Beach hospital funded by stockbroker Morton Blumenthal, and the hard skepticism of critics like James Randi and Martin Gardner.

• How Al Lane found that Cayce could speak and diagnose in a trance state
• Wesley Ketchum's promotion and the sensational 1910 New York Times profile
• The failed Cayce Petroleum venture to locate oil in Texas
• Arthur Lammers and the 1923 pivot to past lives and  ...