JaKayla - Perelman arguments

JaKayla DaBera

Edgar Cayce on ESP - Pereleman

Argument type	Premises/Premise modifiers	Quote	Explanation
Coexistence - Prestige	Values – Universal ·         Health; well-being ·         Doctors are to be trusted Presence – Enthymeme ·         Implicit claim of credibility because of the doctor	“They [the doctors] waited, now, for the results of a telephone call the child’s father had just made to Edgar Cayce’s home… Because the doctors had experienced such telephone calls in the past, and knew the good that could come from them, they’d agreed to go along with whatever they were instructed to do.” (pg. 18)	This quote helps to establish some sort of prestige for Cayce. It does so by asserting his questionable credibility by namedropping in a way. We all consider doctors intelligent and capable individuals. If a medical doctor is willing to try what he is saying (and it works), then why wouldn’t the average person do so?. It also lends one to believe that there is a use for ESP in medicine and that it can be more reliable than medicine.
	Loci – Quantity ·         Vast knowledge ·         Remarkable collection of readings	“Many of the answers to these and other questions may be found in the remarkable collection of psychic readings given by an outstanding clairvoyant, Edgar Cayce …the scope of his psychic ability and of the subjects he treated while in a self-imposed hypnotic sleep are so vast that great portions of the knowledge they contain are still, as yet untapped.” Pg. 10	Again this is about claiming an argument’s truth based on the credibility or prestige of the individual. This is done in this passage by having a premise modifier there that insinuates that Cayce’s huge amounts of successful readings and his vast array of knowledge should convince you that he knows what he is talking about because his has a lot of experience and experience is what matters most the the audience.
	Values-abstract ·         Awareness of one’s purpose	“Serious study of the readings has brought me – through its complete involvement with matters concerning the human body, the human mind, and the human spirit-to a new awareness of man’s real purpose in the earth. Concentration on the vast scope, the universal nature of the Cayce readings, dealing as they do with past, present, and future, has broadened my respect for this most talented of all psychics.” Pg. 223	By claiming that Cayce’s ESP methodology could help explain man’s real purpose on Earth, the author is appealing to the belief that there is some otherworldy reason for everyone’s existencde. And this drive to discover that reason is the motivation for what we do. If Cayce has already been successful in figuring out a way to determine one’s purpose, he and his method should be taken seriously.
Comparison – Enthusiastic Present		“That some of the methods of treatment seem clumsy by today’s standards should not deter doctors of medicine, and doctors of psychology, from examining what Cayce has to say. As long as there are the tragedies of multiple sclerosis, arthritis, cancer, schizophrenia, drug addiction and other ills plaguing mankind, does orthodox medicine have a right to close the door on the possibility that Cayce was giving the true answers to these problems. Does the psychiatrist have a right to refuse to consider that man may have lived before, and that the reason he acts the way he does may be at least partially due to past experiences of other lifetimes?	This argument is kind of like a don’t knock it until you try it type of thing but it is also kind of stating that the present is better than the past especially since we have all of this proof of ESP working so why not just believe it already. Doctors have failed at curing these illnesses so we should be open to looking at alternative sources of information.