Astonishing Legends

The second half of Edgar Cayce's story would see more extraordinary experiences layered over an ordinary and humble man's life.  Even more unimaginable for his tastes was the non-medical information that would later come through him.  Though mostly remaining uncertain about the medical advice he'd been dispensing while in his sleep-like state, his answers to metaphysical questions distressed him, as they conflicted with his traditional Christian beliefs.  While suffering personal hardship and tragedy, Cayce was now also troubled by concepts his mediumship had introduced to him and would continue seeking philosophical reconciliation into his later years, which he would finally achieve.  But what remained constant throughout was Cayce's passion for helping others, and combined with the ever-increasing requests for treatment, it ironically wore down his health and shortened his life.  If we examine the Cayce phenomenon logically, there are several considerations.  If you believe it's impossible for a transcendental intelligence to exist, then Cayce was able to spend decades espousing folk remedies and comments on esoteric metaphysics, which he had merely picked up from voracious reading.  Some would view that as quite a trick for an average man with limited education.  If you believe an intelligence outside our physical reality could exist, then what is the nature of this force that communicated through him?  Who or what was it exactly, what are the mechanics of the process, and could it be trusted?  If omniscient, why did it seem to work with some subjects and not as well with others?  On the other hand, if Cayce was a total fraud, would he have not been found out years ago?  Was it all just a fault of human nature that so many claimed relief for their ailments, growing his popularity to global levels, and why are his readings still studied to this day?  While Cayce and his supporters attempted to conduct formal case studies for the treatments, the conditions for the experiments would not be rigorous or controlled enough to convince the scientific community.  Harder still would be to prove any veracity for his metaphysical teachings.  However, there may be one thing all sides can agree on, and that's Edgar Cayce's overall message to the world.  Rather than self-aggrandizement, his message was one of encouraging love and acceptance of our fellow human beings; of spiritual and personal growth, all of us united in universal truth, regardless of creed or culture.  Hopefully, that would be one "reading" of our shared condition that would be hard to argue against.

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Edgar Cayce is often remembered nowadays as the "father of holistic medicine" and the rightful originator of many of the beliefs and practices of the "New Age" movement. Yet what is remarkable is that although you might naturally think Cayce was a pop-culture product of the 1960s and '70s, his mystical talents gained him worldwide attention beginning from just after the turn of the last century until his death in 1945. Even more astounding was that the valid diagnoses and cures for the ailing that he was first known for apparently came to him while in a sleep-like state and unbeknownst to his conscious mind. Yet Cayce was a hesitant and modest "medium."  Born in 1877 in a farming community just south of Hopkinsville, Kentucky, he experienced interactions with the supernatural throughout his life.  In his early childhood, Cayce claimed he played with invisible "little folk" and could communicate with his deceased grandfather. While in his early teens and suffering from learning disabilities, he said he was visited by an angel who told him his difficulties would be over.  Cayce soon realized he could thoroughly memorize entire books merely by resting his head on one as he slept. As a young adult, Cayce's medical condition led to the discovery that if he laid down and entered his meditative state, diagnosis and treatment would relay through him from a seemingly omniscient source. And not only did this work for himself, but the source could accurately diagnose and offer a remedy to others no matter the distance, with him only needing the name and location of the patient. Even more incredible was that this intelligence could also reveal answers about great mysteries like the Egyptian Pyramids, Atlantis, reincarnation, future wars, and prophecies, to name a few. Ironically, for many years of his life, he would remain skeptical and disturbed about the information that was coming through him regarding these topics.  He preferred to focus on curing the sick while reluctant to gain much profit from his abilities. Whether you believe Edgar Cayce was a gifted healer or a charlatan, there is no doubt his results made him one of the famous names in the subject of metaphysics and arguably the most documented psychic of the 20th century. His legacy lives on as "America's Sleeping Prophet."

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Some time ago, we attempted a hybrid holiday special that combined a traditional episode with a call-in show. Unfortunately, it didn't really go as planned. Still, Scott seemed to think it had some value of some kind, so he talked Forrest into releasing it here and now in 2019. So tonight, the Astonishing Legends team is pleased to present a commercial-free, family-friendly Holiday episode for you to enjoy with or without your loved ones as you see fit. While it contains some fascinating background on the evolution of St. Nicholas, be warned, this is not like anything we've ever released before, but we figured now or never. Happy Holidays listeners, and thank you for your stalwart and ongoing support. We are so grateful to you.

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Those skeptical of the existence of a spirit world will often cite that there is no credible evidence leading to proof, this being the basis for their disbelief.  Yet what constitutes as evidence or proof seems to be a personal decision, as there is an endless supply of visual and audio recordings and environmental data which at the least appear to be genuinely anomalous and unexplainable.  For the mainstream scientific community, these anomalies would need to be consistently repeatable under laboratory conditions for the implications of the data to be accepted.  But for paranormal researchers attempting communication with the "Other Side," although elusive, there are enough occurrences of contextual dialogue that their practices have become meaningful.  The phenomenon of contact with the unseen world via electronic devices is described generally as "Instrumental Trans-Communication" or ITC.  First defined in the 1970s by Ernst Senkowksi, researchers have been refining and evolving new techniques for ITC ever since, employing new technologies and modifying established methodologies.  One such creative experimentation resulted in the "Estes Method," developed by our last episode's guest, Connor J. Randall, and his investigation teammates Karl Pfeiffer and Michelle Tate.  Named for the place where it was first conceived, the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado, the Estes Method has not only added a layer of objectivity to Spirit Box ITC sessions but has also yielded some compelling "evidence."  Join us for another conversation with Connor as he discusses this and other ITC practices used at the Stanley Hotel, which then lead to the experiments seen in the Hellier documentary series.

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The Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado, is not so famous for its beautiful surroundings and accommodations or its famed founder as it is for its connection to a book and a movie.  The Shining was Stephen King's third published novel and a bestseller.  This classic of horror fiction, in turn, inspired the iconic motion picture of the same name by Stanley Kubrick.  And these two works had cemented the idea in the popular imagination that the Stanley Hotel must have some dark history of troubled spirits in residence there.  But as we've all learned, works of fiction often color the actual history of a person or place.  So what is the real story of the Stanley Hotel?  It's best to ask someone who has personal experience, and that's what we've done.  Tonight's guest is Connor J. Randall, whose own childhood supernatural experience at the Stanley led not only to a passion for paranormal research but also to his work there as first a concierge and tour guide and then later as a resident investigator.  Please join us tonight as we hear from someone who had come to know the real spirits of the Stanley Hotel, as they had come to know him.

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At 9:20 p.m. on December 29, 1972, a Lockheed L-1011 TriStar commercial airliner, designated as Eastern Airlines Flight 401, departed John F. Kennedy International Airport in Queens, New York, bound for Miami, Florida.  Onboard were 13 crew members and 163 passengers, 176 souls in all.  It was a routine trip for Flight 401 until 11:32 p.m. when the plane began its approach to Miami International Airport, and an indicator light for the nose landing gear had not lit up.  While the Flight Crew tried to troubleshoot the faulty indicator, the steering yoke was accidentally nudged, causing a function of the autopilot to begin a descent so gradually that no one had noticed.  Ten minutes later, Flight 401 crashed into the Florida Everglades, killing five crew members and 96 passengers.  It would be the first crash of a “Jumbo Jet” and have at the time, the highest number of fatalities from any one-plane accident in U.S. civil aviation history.  But this tragic story doesn’t end there.  A legend was born citing more than 20 accounts from EAL employees and passengers that they had interacted with the ghosts of Captain Bob Loft and Flight Engineer Don Repo who had perished in the crash.  These stories mostly involved other Eastern Airlines L-1011s that had refitted parts salvaged from Flight 401.  Whether out of guilt or an unstoppable sense of duty, these apparitions reportedly appeared to be quite lifelike and were trying to prevent further disasters.  Although Eastern Airlines management vehemently denied these claims, due to the prevalence of these tales in the airline community, one must wonder if there is any truth to them.  Whatever the case, whether from real testimony or a desire to entertain, the legend of the ghosts of Flight 401 helped to make sure the victims and survivors are not forgotten.

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In your final visit to The Midnight Library of the season, and since we now count so many among you as our friends… we thought we might impart to you some rare and useful, magical knowledge. We’re going to tell you all about the powerful Runic alphabet. What you do with it after that is up to you… but we’ll know, so just keep that in mind...friend.

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The accident that killed James Dean was the end of his life, but it was the beginning of a legendary story about the curse of his Porsche, ‘Little Bastard.’ Parts from the car salvaged by amateur racing enthusiasts caused numerous injuries and the death of at least one man on the track. The broken shell of the car traveled around the country as part of a safety exhibition curated by legendary car customizer George Barris. Along the way, several trucks that hauled it crashed, in once case, killing the driver. The car fell apart several times while on display as well and injured bystanders. In this final episode of this series, we’ll take a look at the Curse of James Dean’s Porsche, and when the show is over, you can decide whether or not you believe in it. Of course, the thing to remember about curses is that they don’t particularly care if you believe in them or not.

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In 1931 a man and a machine were both created. James Byron Dean was born to a modest farming family in rural Indiana, and Ferdinand Porsche founded a company in Stuttgart, Germany, to build automobiles. These two men would never meet, but their egos would clash in a way that would redefine charisma, performance, and power that will never be forgotten. In 1955 both man and machine would die in a horrific crash. But is the legend of a curse in a story like this unavoidable? That’s easy for us to analyze in hindsight, but what’s not so easy is to understand are the machinations that caused it to happen. However, we can work towards that understanding tonight in part one of our two-part series on James Dean and Little Bastard.

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What is at the heart of our fears?  We may be afraid to encounter a supernatural specter or a creature from beyond our reality and understanding, or an agent of evil from a more earthly realm, but in either case, what we actually fear is the potential for harm to come to us or our loved ones.  The deadly violence that visits randomly and one we are powerless to stop.  Ironically, our tendency as humans is also to become fascinated by what scares us.  We seek to glimpse into the darkness not only as a vicarious thrill but also as a means of coping.  It is why we find fun in traditions like Halloween and for some, indulging our curiosity in the exploits of serial killers.  As we put to bed the story of the Villisca ax murders, we find that it is a story that contains all the elements of our primal dread.  Acts so horrible they left scars and echoes in the worlds of the living and the dead.  Our guest tonight, author Troy Taylor, helps us piece together the facts and makes a strong case that the killer who committed the shocking murders in Villisca quite likely left a trail of death throughout the Midwest with as many as 30 victims or more.  In the end, what we learn is that there is more to fear from a monster made of flesh and blood.  This was a monster that randomly and wantonly tore flesh and spilled blood, one who was all too real, and one that was never caught.

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