20,000 Winks

Two remarkable tales of things that should not be possible, one Cabinet to hold them all. Enjoy the tour!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
is an open book, all of these amazing tales are
right there on display, just waiting for us to explore.
Welcome to the cabinet of curiosities. We normally don't trust

(00:28):
someone who fell asleep on the job. If a waiter
decided to have a nap without taking our order, we
might find another place to eat. And long haul truckers
have been known on occasion to doze at the wheel,
putting themselves and those around them in immense danger. But
what happens when someone is having a crisis of faith,
when the world has become too overwhelming and they need

(00:49):
a reminder of why they believe what they believe in
the first place. A preacher should be able to step
in and guide that person, unless, of course, that preacher
also happens to not off. Stories of sleeping or trance
preachers originated in Germany during the sixteenth and seventeenth century. However,
sleeping preachers have existed all over the world, including Alabama,

(01:11):
southern France, and Iowa. One such man was a fellow
from Kentucky named Ed. Born one of six children, Ed
had always been a bit of a special boy. As
a child, he once claimed to have seen his dead grandfather.
Now ten years old, his family introduced him to the
church and it became his life. Over the next two years,

(01:33):
he read the Bible cover to cover twelve times. His
supernatural dealings only grew from there. One day, while reading
the Bible by himself, he was visited by a woman
with wings on her back, who asked him what he
wanted to do with his life. He gazed upon her
glowing figure and told her that he wanted to become
a missionary so that he could help others through faith.

(01:55):
The following day proved less inspiring. Ed wasn't a particularly
good student as a child, and a complaint from his
teacher had angered his father. Apparently he'd been having trouble
with his spelling. The boy sat in a chair all
night his father, calling out words, only to have Ed
fail each time. His father smacked him, sending his son

(02:15):
to the floor, and that's when Ed's guardian angel came back.
She told him to sleep and they would help him
get through it. Ed asked his father for a break
so he could rest his head. His father woke him
up a short while later, and miraculously his son knew
how to spell every word in the book. This set

(02:35):
Ed on a path of strange and inexplainable occurrences while
he slept. For example, he once diagnosed a cure for
his own back injury in his sleep, which his parents
administered to great success the following day. As he got older,
he needed to find work to help his family. He
started a business with his father selling insurance, but a
case of bad laryngitis took his voice away completely. After

(02:59):
a year spent at home recovering, his voice still had
it returned, so he sought the help of a hypnotist,
who said that he had a cure. As it turned out,
Ed's voice was just fine when he was in a
hypnotic trance. That is, it was after he awoke that
his voice disappeared again. He saw two other hypnotists who
believed they could help, and the third, al Lane, was

(03:20):
able to break through. While Lane had Ed in a trance,
Ed spoke as though someone else were there with him,
perhaps the woman with the wings from his childhood. He
referred to himself in the plural, saying things like we
and us. As the hypnotist had him described his situation
that hypnotist suggested the voice loss was psychosomatic, not physical,

(03:41):
and that a rush of blood in the voice box
would restore it. Ed or the entity controlling him, did
as told. His throat burned and his chest ached, but
after twenty minutes the treatment was done, and when Ed
awoke his voice had returned. Lane wondered how far his
subject's talents extend it and whether they could work on others.

(04:02):
Could Ed cure someone else while asleep under hypnosis? Lane
started by using himself as a guinea pig. He placed
Ed in a trance and asked him to diagnose and
prescribe cures to Lane's own health problems. Ed did the
same for as hypnotist as he had done for himself,
helping to put Lane on the path through recovery. Lane

(04:22):
saw potential in ed'sibilities, and Ed finally got his chance
to help people, just as he had told the angel
as a child. He gave free readings to locals, putting
himself into a hypnotic trance and diagnosing their ailments, and
news spread quickly about his feet, earning him coverage in
local newspapers. But all the hype weighed heavily on him.
He was worried that if one person died from his

(04:44):
suggested treatments, he might be labeled a murderer. He eventually
stopped and sought more traditional employment as a bookshop clerk,
then a photographer, but fate would one day bring him
back to his true calling. By l he was living
in Selma, Alabama and diagnosing more than just the sick.
Businessmen wanted insight into the stock market, Treasure hunters asked

(05:07):
him to locate lost gold, and gamblers wanted the inside
scoop on the latest horse races, but Ed wanted none
of that, opting only to help cure the sick. In
three though, he was convinced by Arthur Lamber's, a student,
to explore the possibility of reincarnation. While in a trance,
Ed told Lambours about his past lives, a holy, un

(05:29):
Christian thing to do, as he felt reincarnation went against
church teachings. Lambours, on the other hand, had gotten all
the proof he needed that astrology and reincarnation were as
real as the hair on his head. From there, Ed
traveled with Lambours to Ohio for deeper metaphysical studies, which
put him at odds with his Christian upbringing ed pivoted

(05:51):
back to work and healing, reconciling the metaphysical work with
his religion, and moving to Virginia Beach. In y eight,
he helped to open a hospital dedicated to the scientific
study of his hypnotic readings, and that hospital still exists
by the way outliving ed by nearly a century, and
it continues to help those seeking spiritual enlightenment and healing.

(06:14):
As a result, Ed or Edgar Casey, as history remembers him,
has been immortalized as a man of faith who never
let doubt or sickness stop him from helping as many
people as he could, and all he had to do
was take a little nap. When an animal is hurt

(06:45):
or dying, it tries to hide the pain so it
doesn't end up as food for something else. A broken
paw or a mangy coat might signify the animal as
in distress or weak, but it will never let another
creature see it if it can help it. Even our
own pets, no matter how much affection we show to them,
do their best to shield us from their ailments. But
sometimes the connection between human and animal is too strong

(07:08):
to hide, even though they might not be able to
communicate in words. Our pets can show us how much
we mean to them in other ways. At the turn
of the century, John Charles Thompson, Wyoming's Surveyor General, had
a colleague named Jim, and Jim was known all over
his owner's hometown of Cheyenne for being kind and loving.
He also had a funny affectation. Jim, it seems, could laugh.

(07:32):
He was known as the laughing Dog, and when he
would see someone he recognized, he would let out a
kind of audible chuckle. Jim the Collie was a beloved
member of Thompson's family, closer to John than almost anyone,
which made one fateful night in nineteen o five very
difficult for the Surveyor General. John had been walking with
a friend down in Denver, Colorado Street around seven thirty

(07:55):
pm when he came upon an animal lying in the
middle of the road. Thompson hurried over and noticed the
animal was a dog. Even stranger, it looked just like Jim.
The dog was hurt, but there was no doubt about it.
This was Jim. He was unable to stand and could
barely lift his head, but even in pain, Jim let
out his familiar laugh when he saw his beloved owner

(08:17):
hunched over him. General Thompson did his best to comfort
the dog, but whatever had hurt him had mortally wounded him.
John stroked his fur, told him goodbye, and it wasn't
long before Jim succumbed to his injuries. He passed away
there in the street, his best friend right by his side.
Thompson and his friend crossed the street and then looked

(08:38):
back at the dog, but it had disappeared. It hadn't
miraculously gotten up and walked away. It had vanished. John
wasn't sure what to think, but he left and headed
back to his hotel. The following day, a letter arrived
from his wife, and it bore the sad news that
his beloved colleague, Jim, had been involved in an accident
the previous night around seven thirty pm. Not in Denver, Colorado, though,

(09:04):
but back home in Cheyenne, Wyoming. The bond between a
person and their pets is unbreakable. Distance and time cannot
keep them apart. It seems Jim was proof of that.
John believed that the dog he had witnessed in the
street wasn't a look alike, but a real visit by
the dog's spirit, a fantasy, perhaps, but also maybe a

(09:28):
way for a faithful friend to say goodbye one last time.
I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet
of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn
more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com.
The show was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership

(09:52):
with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show
called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show,
and you can learn all about it over at the
World of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious. Yeah,