Thomas Joseph Sugrue (1907–1953) was an American writer. He is best known today as the writer of There Is a River, the only biography of Edgar Cayce written during Cayce's lifetime and the book that made the psychic a household name in 1942. He also lent his writing talents to the Edgar Cayce Association for Research and Enlightenment for numerous articles and news items.
Life Thomas Sugrue was born in a house on Ward Street in Naugatuck, Connecticut, in 1907 to Michael and Mary Sugrue. He grew up in a staunch Irish Catholic background. His father worked as a mail carrier. His early memories of life in the borough's Irish section were captured in a 1940 autobiographical novel, Such Is the Kingdom, which was recast as the fictional "Kelly Hill".
After graduating in 1924 from Naugatuck High School where dancing was "his favorite pastime" according to a yearbook, Sugrue worked briefly as a teller for the Naugatuck Savings Bank, before attending Washington and Lee University in Virginia, where he graduated with bachelor's and master's degrees in English.
It was there he was introduced to classmate Hugh Lynn Cayce, the eldest son of Edgar and Gertrude Cayce. Edgar Cayce had the strange gift of going into a trance-like state and providing answers to questions. The subjects included diagnosis and treatment of illness, finding hidden items, universal laws, karma, and even past lives.Archives, Edgar Cayce Foundation (www.edgarcayce.org)
Sugrue made the five-hour trip from Lexington to Virginia Beach with Hugh Lynn, thinking that he would debunk a fraud. After meeting Edgar Cayce, he decided that there was no deception. His first reading was given in Virginia Beach on June 7, 1927, at the request of Hugh Lynn.
Sugrue worked as a reporter at the former Naugatuck Daily News, before being hired by the New York Herald Tribune newspaper. In 1934, he joined the staff of The American Magazine and wrote articles covering Athens, Egypt, Palestine, England, and more as he traveled the world. Copies of every issue of The American Magazine between 1934 and 1938 are available for view at the reference desk of the Whittemore Memorial Library in Naugatuck, Connecticut.
At this point, he was taken ill from a rare arthritis disease. Innovatively treated in a clinic for weeks, he left it as a dying person with a few weeks to live. After seeking relief for his condition in Florida, Sugrue moved to Virginia Beach in June 1939 and lived at the Cayces' home until October 1941. With Hugh Lynn Cayce as his nurse, he received readings from Edgar Cayce and treatments for his condition.
On file at Edgar Cayce's A.R.E. headquarters in Virginia Beach are a total of 76 documented psychic readings given specifically for Sugrue by Cayce and a collection of Sugrue's writings. It was during this time that he wrote There Is a River, the biography of Edgar Cayce.
During his lifetime, he wrote seven books, including Starling of the White House, with and for Edmund Starling, the man who protected all U.S. presidents from Woodrow Wilson to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, hosted a New York City radio show Conversations at Eight, and explored the nation of Israel.
"We called it music" - A generation of Jazz, written with and about jazz musician Eddie Condon, is an account of the birth of that musical genre, stretching from lively descriptions of Eddie Condon's life to deep philosophical interpretations.
Watch for the Morning is a report on the events which led to the creation of the State of Israel. With the many questions on esoteric themes he would ask to Arab, Jew and Druze circles he would meet in this process, Watch for the Morning phrases an answer that still has to be put in shared sentences nowadays.
With his 1952 A Catholic Speaks His Mind, his shortest and last book, he puts Christianity in the perspective of religion seen as a universal, structural part of the human civilization.
Sugrue died in 1953 in New York, at the age of 45, during a hip replacement meant to help him walk again.
A letter dated July 15, 1954, from Hugh Lynn Cayce to members of A.R.E. announced the establishment of the Thomas Sugrue Memorial Library at Wainwright House, in Rye, New York. It contains a collection of Sugrue's work.
There is a River
Sugrue's book tells the story of Cayce's life. It relates that Edgar Cayce was born on March 18, 1877, near Beverly, south of Hopkinsville, Kentucky. As a child he played with the 'little folk' and was alleged to have seen his deceased grandfather. He regarded them all as incorporeal because he could see through them if he looked hard enough. Cayce found it very difficult to keep his mind on his lessons at school.Sugrue 2003, pp. 35–40.
He was taken to church when he was 10, and from then he read the Bible, becoming engrossed, and completing a dozen readings by the time he was 12. In May 1889, while reading the Bible in his hut in the woods, he 'saw' a woman with wings who told him that his prayers were answered, and asked him what he wanted most of all. He was frightened, but he said that most of all he wanted to help others, especially sick children. He decided he would like to be a missionary.Sugrue 2003, pp. 41–46.
The next night, after a complaint from the school teacher, his father ruthlessly tested him for spelling, eventually knocking him out of his chair with exasperation. At that point, Cayce 'heard' the voice of the lady who had appeared the day before. She told him that if he could sleep a little 'they' could help him. He begged for a rest and put his head on the spelling book. When his father came back into the room and woke him up, he knew all the answers. In fact, he could repeat anything in the book. His father thought he had been fooling before and knocked him out of the chair again. Eventually, Cayce used all his school books that way.Sugrue 2003, pp. 46–9.
By 1892, the teacher regarded Cayce as his best student. On being questioned, Cayce told the teacher that he saw pictures of the pages in the books. His father became proud of this accomplishment and spread it around, resulting in Cayce becoming "different" from his peers.Sugrue 2003, p. 52.
Shortly after this, Cayce exhibited an ability to diagnose in his sleep. He was struck on the base of the spine by a ball in a school game, after which he began to act very strangely, and eventually was put to bed. He went to sleep and diagnosed the cure, which his family prepared and which cured him as he slept. His father boasted that his son was, "the greatest fellow in the world when he's asleep."Sugrue 2003, pp. 52–54. However, this ability was not demonstrated again for several years.Sugrue 2003, p. 118.
Cayce's uncommon personality is also shown in an unusual incident in which he rode a certain mule back to the farmhouse at the end of a work day. This stunned everyone there, as the mule could not be ridden. The owner, thinking it may be time to break the animal in again, attempted to mount it but was immediately thrown off. Cayce left for his family in the city that evening.Sugrue 2003, p. 67.
1877 to 1912: Kentucky period
In December 1893, the Cayce family moved to Hopkinsville, Kentucky, and occupied 705 West Seventh on the southeast corner of Seventh and Young Streets. A ninth-grade education was often considered more than sufficient for working-class children. Much of the remainder of Cayce's younger years would be characterized by a search for both employment and money.
Throughout his life, Cayce was drawn to church as a member of the Disciples of Christ. He read the Bible once a year every year, taught at Sunday school, and recruited missionaries. He said he could see auras around people, spoke to angels, and heard voices of departed relatives. In his early years, he agonized over whether these psychic abilities were spiritually delivered from the highest source.
In 1900, Cayce formed a business partnership with his father to sell Woodmen of the World Insurance; however, in March he was struck by severe laryngitis that resulted in a complete loss of speech. Unable to work, he lived at home with his parents for almost a year. He then decided to take up the trade of photography, an occupation that would exert less strain on his voice. He began an apprenticeship at the photography studio of W. R. Bowles in Hopkinsville, and eventually became quite talented in his trade.Sugrue 2003, pp. 111–112.
In 1901, a traveling stage hypnotist and entertainer named Hart, who referred to himself as "The Laugh Man", was performing at the Hopkinsville Opera House. Hart heard about Cayce's condition and offered to attempt a cure. Cayce accepted his offer, and the experiment was conducted in the office of Manning Brown, the local throat specialist. Cayce's voice allegedly returned while in a hypnotic trance but disappeared on awakening. Hart tried a posthypnotic suggestion that the voice would continue to function after the trance, but this proved unsuccessful.Sugrue 2003, p. 116.
Since Hart had appointments at other cities, he could not continue his hypnotic treatments of Cayce, but admitted he had failed because Cayce would not go into the third stage of hypnosis to take a suggestion. A New York hypnotist, DrQuackenboss, found the same impediment but, after returning to New York, suggested that Cayce should be prompted to take over his own case while in the second stage of hypnosis. The only local hypnotist, Al Layne, offered to help Cayce restore his voice.Sugrue 2003, pp. 116-120 Layne suggested that Cayce describe the nature of his condition and cure while in a hypnotic trance. Cayce described his own ailment from a first-person plural point of view: "we" instead of the singular "I". In subsequent sessions, when Cayce wanted to indicate that the connection was made to the "entity" of the person that was requesting the reading, he would generally start off with, "We have the body." According to the reading for the "entity" of Cayce, his voice loss was due to psychological paralysis, and could be corrected by increasing the blood flow to the voice box. Layne suggested that the blood flow be increased and Cayce's face supposedly became flushed with blood, and both his chest and throat turned bright red. After 20 minutes, Cayce, still in a trance, declared the treatment over. On awakening, his voice was alleged to have remained normal. Apparently, relapses occurred, but were said to have been corrected by Layne in the same way, and eventually the cure was said to be permanent.