In 2004, an A.R.E. member walked into the Edgar Cayce Foundation office and announced that he knew how to recover the eight missing readings on Bimini/Atlantis. "All we have to do is find Gladys Davis's shorthand notebooks for those readings and have someone transcribe them," he said excitedly, after introducing himself as Alfredo Salas from Madrid, Spain.

Apparently, Amos C. Preston and several other potential investors had arranged for the Bimini readings (the 996 series) beginning in 1926, as well as a later series of readings about lost treasure in Broad Creek Channel, Monroe County, Florida (the 1274 series). Early explorations at both of these sites did not produce anticipated results.

When A.R.E. was organized in 1931, the same A. C. Preston was appointed its first business manager. A reading in late 1931 suggests that he was looking for ways to establish a source of income for the new A.R.E. Soon, however, Preston - a long-time sufferer from psoriasis - became very ill. Apparently during this illness in early 1932, Hugh Lynn Cayce, the acting manager, loaned Preston 8 of the Bimini readings and 17 of the Florida readings, perhaps with the hope of re-energizing explorations at both sites. Unfortunately, no copies of the readings were made before they were loaned to Preston. According to correspondence in April 1932 between Preston and Edgar Cayce, Preston was improving, following the treatment in his reading, but had serious financial challenges. After this, Preston virtually disappears from our records, as do the borrowed readings. A note in his file indicates that he died in 1937 or 1938.

The month after Alfredo's visit, he e-mailed me from Spain suggesting we contact Preston's relatives about the missing readings. Our records indicate that the late Robert Adriance, long-time A.R.E. supporter and staff member, tried to contact Preston's family in 1968 with no success.

While this is our most dramatic "cold case" on missing readings, other once-recorded readings are also not on file. During Gladys Davis Turner's efforts to organize and preserve the readings after Edgar Cayce's death, she identified 88 other readings apparently once documented, but no longer in the readings files. For some of them, the file contains a summary of the reading by someone present at the time. For example, the first reading for Edgar Cayce (294-1) is represented by a report by Dr. Wesley Ketchum. And there were apparently quite a number of "pre-Gladys" readings for which no records exist.

After Gladys became Cayce's secretary in 1923 and began assigning "case numbers," she occasionally assigned a number to an individual mentioned in a reading whose identity she wanted to protect. Thirty-five such unused case numbers carry the note: "No personal reading. Case number given to preserve identity." (See 936-1, for example.) There are seven other cases where a reading number was assigned and the reading was attempted, but never completed. (Reading 433-5 is an example.)

The reading numbers on file result in a count of 14,306 readings. However, if we reduce that by the 25 readings borrowed and not returned, 88 readings no longer in file, 35 case numbers never used, and 7 readings attempted but not completed, the result is 14,151 readings.

One more anomaly: Cayce gave a reading with information for three children. That single reading was duplicated, assigned to their individual case numbers (1179, 1188, and 1206), and filed in three places along with other individual readings for those same children.

So how many unique Edgar Cayce readings are on file? Our best estimate is 14,149 readings. While I have been working in the E.C.F. office, one individual returned to us the original of a reading for which we had only a copy in file. How wonderful it would be if a reading that made its way back to us was one for which we had no copy!

By the way, if you or your family have originals of readings by Edgar Cayce or any correspondence from him or historical photos, we hope you will consider bequeathing such documents to the Edgar Cayce Foundation at an appropriate time. We will lovingly preserve them for future generations.