Edgar Cayce Foundation

Archive founded in 1948 documenting the life and work of Edgar Cayce, his family, the Edgar Cayce Foundation, Atlantic University, and the Association for Research and Enlightenment in Virginia Beach, Virginia 

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tools of the archival trade @ECF

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Here at ECF we often work with “legacy formats,” or audiovisual material no longer supported by modern technology. In addition to preserving paper documents, the archives also contains a wealth of resources such as film and audio reels, cassettes, records, and photographic slides. Today we fired up the projector to explore some boxes of slides that date from the 1950s through the 1970s and determine possible candidates for digitization in the future.

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This letterhead represents the first effort to study the Cayce work in Virginia Beach. Edgar Cayce and his board of trustees founded the Association of National Investigators on May 6th, 1927. According to Thomas Sugrue’s There Is A River, A.N.I’s purpose was to “engage in general psychic research, and to provide for the practical application of any knowledge obtainable through the medium of psychic phenomena” (276). A membership gave access to the Association’s body of research as well as treatments at the newly built Cayce Hospital. A.N.I. dissolved in 1930 as a result of difficulties stemming from the Great Depression, but its members rallied around Cayce and formed the present Association for Research and Enlightenment the following year.

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On today’s date in 1952 Gladys Davis married fellow A.R.E. member Al Turner. Gladys Davis Turner (1905-1986) served as Edgar Cayce’s stenographer and secretary beginning in 1923 and dedicated her life to protecting the archives of the Cayce work. She built her cottage, "Glad Niche," in the early 1950s. Mary Ellen Carter in “My Years with Edgar Cayce: The Personal Story of Gladys Davis Turner” writes that the cottage, “situated adjacent to the headquarters property, ...was already a lovely setting which Al enhanced by his labors as nurseryman and gardener. He taught the many children who came to visit how to respect and care for the natural environment - reminding Gladys of Edgar Cayce's own love of nature" (138-139).  These photographs reside in the archives of the Edgar Cayce Foundation and are open for research.

citation:

Mary Ellen Carter, “My Years with Edgar Cayce: The Personal Story of Gladys Davis Turner.” New York: Harper and Row, Publishers, 1972.

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The ECF archives holds a selection of books from the Cayce family’s personal libraries. This beautiful edition of Wonder Book (1851) by Nathaniel Hawthorne belonged to Gertrude Evans Cayce, Edgar’s wife. She inscribed her name in 1900, when Edgar worked for the J.P. Morton bookstore in Louisville, Kentucky. - Cayce Family Papers Collection (at Association For Research and Enlightenment)

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Edgar Cayce (1877-1945) at the age of 22 in 1899

Welcome to the official Tumblr of the Edgar Cayce Foundation! In 1948, ECF was chartered by the Commonwealth of Virginia to provide permanent legal and physical custody of historical resources including: 

The Edgar Cayce readings

Related correspondence and records (original stenographer notebooks, appointment books, research studies)

Cayce family text and photographic materials 

files of Hugh Lynn Cayce, Gladys Davis Turner, and other early staff members of the Association for Research and Enlightenment, ECF, and Atlantic University