Sleeping Lucy

"Sleeping Lucy" Ainsworth (1819-1895) was a medical clairvoyant who in many ways foreshadowed the more famous Edgar Cayce (1877-1945). Sleeping Lucy treated patients at her home at 12 Liberty St. in Montpelier, Vermont. She lived in a trim brick house that was her residence from 1860 to 1876.

Early in her life, in Calais, Vermont, she became deathly ill and fell into a coma. She heard a voice tell her that she would get well if she drank a medicine prepared in a certain way. In a loud voice she repeated these instructions and her brother George heard them and prepared the formula. News of her cure spread, and she soon began treating patients by going into a trance to employ her psychic ability to diagnose and recommend treatment for the many patients who called upon her. She never claimed to be a fortune teller or spiritualist.

Lucy's medical practice flourished in Montpelier. So great were the demands on her time that she employed a secretary, Everett Raddin, to manage her business affairs and use mesmerism to help induce her trances. She expanded her practice by selling herbal preparations by mail and shipped them worldwide. Her practice continued after she moved to Boston in 1876, where she married Raddin. But her finances began to fail and she died of colon cancer in 1895 after falling into a final coma. Sometime after her death, her brother Luther issued this postcard as a memento.