Rating: 
Summary: Impressed by Kirkpatrick and Cayce
Review: I'm normally not interested in books about psychics or psychic phenomina. But I happened to see Mr. Kirkpatrick interviewed on News 12, New Jersey, and was impressed by his sincerity and depth of knowledge. I was even more impressed when I read his book. Edgar Cayce comes to life in Kirkpatrick's hands--the psychic is not the card-board figure as portrayed in the "Sleeping Prophet," but a flesh and blood husband and father coming to grips with a gift beyond his (or anyone else's) comprehension. This book should be on everyone's reading list!
Rating:
Summary: Top Notch Reporting, Riveting Narrative!
Review: Kirkpatrick's exhaustive research is in the best tradition of investigative reporting, without resorting to the currently-fashionable "invention" of unknown conversations and alliances. Neither an advocate nor a skeptic, he presents documented and substantiated events in an evenhanded way, trusting the reader to reach his/her own conclusion; whether it be bemused doubt, grudging acceptance, or wholehearted endorsement of the remarkable achievements of his subject. While a reader may choose to entertain "informed disbelief," one cannot deny the skill and care that went into compiling this historical biography. It is engaging, well-written, never resorting to cheap suspense or literary license, but sticking to the facts. Kirkpatrick is a master storyteller, in the best tradition of White, Manchester and Durant.
Rating:
Summary: Edgar Cayce - New Insights
Review: MAGNETIC! - a MUST read.
Rating:
Summary: A Christian Interested in Cayce
Review: My son gave me this book for my birthday. At first I was relunctant to read it because I believed that the work of Edgar Cayce ran contrary to my Christian beliefs. I was wrong. Though there are a lot of things about Cayce which may not comfortably fit into orthodox Christianity, there are many other aspects of Cayce's work which are directly applicable to Christian principles. I urge all Christians to give this fascinating book a close look. Like me, you might be surprised what you find!
Rating:
Summary: Exciting to Read and Spiritually Uplifting
Review: Over and over again, while reading this book, I was amazed at the new information I was receiving about everything from health to past lives to religion. Just when I thought I read the most incredible example of Cayce's psychic ability, something else came along to top it. The great thing about this book is how the story of the man is deftly woven through many factual accounts of his remarkable psychic powers. Very few books about spiritual topics and psychic phenomena give you such detail and hard facts to prove they are more than supposition or wishful thinking. The author's research and attention to detail is mindboggling to say the least but his writing is, at the same time, colorful, descriptive and easy to read. Thousands of lives were deeply affected, changed, and saved as a result of the Cayce readings, and I believe many more people (including me) will change their way of thinking and their way of being in this world after reading this biography. Two warnings though--you need to approach this book with an open mind, and, be prepared for a roller coaster ride of emotions as you follow Cayce's tumultuous life. Just when you think it couldn't get worse, it does. Just when you think it couldn't be more incredible, it takes your breath away. In summary, I highly recommend reading Edgar Cayce, An American Prophet!
Rating:
Summary: Delighted To Discover This Book
Review: Over the past twenty-five years I have read a dozen or more books about Edgar Cayce, and thought that I knew just about everything there was to know. I was delighted to discover how wrong I was. Sidney Kirkpatrick's bio is full of new and interesting material and insights--so much that I read the book twice, and am now considering reading it yet again.
Rating:
Summary: A Real World Wonder
Review: Sidney Kirkpatrick succeeds where many chroniclers of the spiritually gifted fail. He approaches the life of a person with Christlike gifts, in this case Edgar Caycee, as an unremarkable human being who was guided, by fate and remarkable circumstance, to the discovery of "supernatural" gifts. The extraordinary series of events which Kirkpatrick details of how Edgar Cayce first became aware of the ability to heal which dwelt within his being is simply riveting. If you are an Edgar Cayce fan, you will love this book. If you are a skeptic, this book may very well change your life.
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding research and objectivity
Review: Sidney Kirkpatrick's is an amazing book about an amazing man. I've been fascinated by Edgar Cayce for years. Having read several earlier Cayce biographies -- each with its own strengths and weaknesses -- I applaud Mr. Kirkpatrick on the substantial research he performed to compile the book. This biography is more credible than earlier ones and is the book I would hand to any skeptic without fear of ridicule. I learned more about Edgar Cayce from this book -- and from a broader, more detailed perspective -- than from any other source I've encountered.
Rating: 
Summary: I Do Not Bear A Message: I Am The Message
Review: Sidney R. Kirkpatrick's Edgar Cayce: An American Prophet methodically considers the facts in the life of a man whose story may be the best documented Fortean case study in modern history. Kirkpatrick writes well, and has clearly immersed himself in his subject. Considering that Cayce's personal history ostensibly involved dowsing, ancestors with unusual powers, a lifelong relationship with fairies ("little folk"), visitations from message - bearing, heaven - sent angels, mysterious turbaned men who disappear after uttering cryptic warnings, devastating, unexplainable fires, remarkable medical diagnoses given while in a trance state, accurate prophesies about the future, unaccountable knowledge of past events in the lives of strangers, ghosts, and shadowy government conspiracies, Cayce's abilities, encounters, and experiences were extraordinary indeed. Kirkpatrick takes the reader on a cautious, careful trip through the first half of Cayce's life in the American South and Midwest, supporting his case with persuasive evidence gathered from a variety of respected sources over a period of decades. However, Kirkpatrick occasionally seems too willing to accept Cayce's more unusual experiences at face value, and offers little in the way of skepticism, disbelief, or alternative explanations; for instance, the role that multiple family tragedies and serious head injuries may have played in Cayce's childhood experiences and later development go almost completely unexamined. Therefore, the book has Cayce's stamp upon it rather than Kirkpatrick's: from time to time Kirkpatrick seems more like a mild - mannered Cayce apologist than he does an unbiased, objective biographer. For discriminating readers, the real problem with both Cayce's story and Kirkpatrick's biography comes in the later half of Cayce's life, when people began asking 'the Source' - the voice which responded to questions put to Cayce while in trance - about astrology, reincarnation, and death. As in most of the 'New Age' channeling cases of the eighties, suddenly Edgar, his family, and seemingly everyone they know has been a notorious historical figure at some point in their karmic cycle, a Helen of Troy, a Hector, an Achilles, or a Queen of England, a Pharaoh, or an apostle of Jesus Christ: no fishwives or shoemakers here. Cayce's young son, according to the Source, has been both a Pharaoh and one of Christ's apostles; Cayce's attractive, hard working young assistant, Gladys Davis, has been not only a British queen, but, as such, was also Cayce's own royal mother. With this lengthy series of revelations, Cayce's and Kirkpatrick's credibility quickly wilts, as the Source's claims become increasingly overextended, outlandish, and absurd. Readers may find themselves listlessly awaiting their own favorite historical figure to mthe, be it Diana of Nemi, Bishop Pontopippidan, Genghis Khan, Ponce de Leon, Cromwell, Major Andre, or Catherine the Great. Sadly, Cayce, his family, and his followers whole - heartedly embraced the Source's pronouncements concerning their past lives, love affairs, and relationships. As Cayce and many of those around him were financially destitute, barely educated, and often hungry, Kirkpatrick should have thoroughly considered what needs these attractive grandiosities may have filled, and how these compensatory beliefs affected their individual and collective psyches. Cayce and his friends and followers were almost all fervent Christians -- Cayce was a biblical scholar and lecturer -- but clearly they all desperately needed something greater and closer to home to believe in. It's not difficult to understand why Cayce had so many followers: not only did he medically heal hundreds of people during his lifetime, but the Source's metaphysical doctrine continually emphasized the universe as a wholly benevolent place, one composed of a rich, intricate fabric of meaning, spiritual guidance, and continuous second chances. In the Source's cosmology, there is no such thing as genuine evil, but only pathology, vulnerability, misunderstanding, guilt, and a world of imperfect souls struggling towards the Godhead. Ultimately, there is enough hard evidence to make a case for the validity of much of the otherwise inexplicable anomalous phenomena in the first half of Cayce's existence. Due to the substantial documentation, many of the events in Cayce's life can be used as Fortean test cases to establish standards by which the other paranormal phenomena can be judged and weighted. As the lives of Carl Jung, Hilda Doolitle, and William Butler Yeats attest, subjective experience -- especially concerning paranormal phenomena -- should never be mocked or dismissed out of hand. However, some Fortean phenomena, such as the notorious events believed to have occurred throughout the life of science fiction writer Philip K. Dick, appear to be the product of delusion, mental illness, or any number of other psychological factors, many of which are presently little understood, when compared to the Cayce evidence. Edgar Cayce: An American Prophet will make an interesting object lesson for Forteans, including as it does detailed, well - supported information about the wide range of paranormal phenomena which dominated Cayce's life. Harry Houdini, Nicolas Telsa, Thomas Edison, and an American president also make brief appearances. Readers who credit all of Cayce's metaphysical divinations may also want to read the late Joe Fisher's harrowing The Siren Call of Hungry Ghosts (2001) for another perspective on the validity and dangers of surrendering the human will to 'channeled' 'spirit guides' and the presumed souls of the dead.
Rating:
Summary: I Do Not Bear A Message: I Am The Message
Review: Sidney R. Kirkpatrick's Edgar Cayce: An American Prophet methodically considers the facts in the life of a man whose story may be the best documented Fortean case study in modern history. Kirkpatrick writes well, and has clearly immersed himself in his subject. Considering that Cayce's personal history ostensibly involved dowsing, ancestors with unusual powers, a lifelong relationship with fairies ("little folk"), visitations from message - bearing, heaven - sent angels, mysterious turbaned men who disappear after uttering cryptic warnings, devastating, unexplainable fires, remarkable medical diagnoses given while in a trance state, accurate prophesies about the future, unaccountable knowledge of past events in the lives of strangers, ghosts, and shadowy government conspiracies, Cayce's abilities, encounters, and experiences were extraordinary indeed. Kirkpatrick takes the reader on a cautious, careful trip through the first half of Cayce's life in the American South and Midwest, supporting his case with persuasive evidence gathered from a variety of respected sources over a period of decades. However, Kirkpatrick occasionally seems too willing to accept Cayce's more unusual experiences at face value, and offers little in the way of skepticism, disbelief, or alternative explanations; for instance, the role that multiple family tragedies and serious head injuries may have played in Cayce's childhood experiences and later development go almost completely unexamined. Therefore, the book has Cayce's stamp upon it rather than Kirkpatrick's: from time to time Kirkpatrick seems more like a mild - mannered Cayce apologist than he does an unbiased, objective biographer. For discriminating readers, the real problem with both Cayce's story and Kirkpatrick's biography comes in the later half of Cayce's life, when people began asking 'the Source' - the voice which responded to questions put to Cayce while in trance - about astrology, reincarnation, and death. As in most of the 'New Age' channeling cases of the eighties, suddenly Edgar, his family, and seemingly everyone they know has been a notorious historical figure at some point in their karmic cycle, a Helen of Troy, a Hector, an Achilles, or a Queen of England, a Pharaoh, or an apostle of Jesus Christ: no fishwives or shoemakers here. Cayce's young son, according to the Source, has been both a Pharaoh and one of Christ's apostles; Cayce's attractive, hard working young assistant, Gladys Davis, has been not only a British queen, but, as such, was also Cayce's own royal mother. With this lengthy series of revelations, Cayce's and Kirkpatrick's credibility quickly wilts, as the Source's claims become increasingly overextended, outlandish, and absurd. Readers may find themselves listlessly awaiting their own favorite historical figure to mthe, be it Diana of Nemi, Bishop Pontopippidan, Genghis Khan, Ponce de Leon, Cromwell, Major Andre, or Catherine the Great. Sadly, Cayce, his family, and his followers whole - heartedly embraced the Source's pronouncements concerning their past lives, love affairs, and relationships. As Cayce and many of those around him were financially destitute, barely educated, and often hungry, Kirkpatrick should have thoroughly considered what needs these attractive grandiosities may have filled, and how these compensatory beliefs affected their individual and collective psyches. Cayce and his friends and followers were almost all fervent Christians -- Cayce was a biblical scholar and lecturer -- but clearly they all desperately needed something greater and closer to home to believe in. It's not difficult to understand why Cayce had so many followers: not only did he medically heal hundreds of people during his lifetime, but the Source's metaphysical doctrine continually emphasized the universe as a wholly benevolent place, one composed of a rich, intricate fabric of meaning, spiritual guidance, and continuous second chances. In the Source's cosmology, there is no such thing as genuine evil, but only pathology, vulnerability, misunderstanding, guilt, and a world of imperfect souls struggling towards the Godhead. Ultimately, there is enough hard evidence to make a case for the validity of much of the otherwise inexplicable anomalous phenomena in the first half of Cayce's existence. Due to the substantial documentation, many of the events in Cayce's life can be used as Fortean test cases to establish standards by which the other paranormal phenomena can be judged and weighted. As the lives of Carl Jung, Hilda Doolitle, and William Butler Yeats attest, subjective experience -- especially concerning paranormal phenomena -- should never be mocked or dismissed out of hand. However, some Fortean phenomena, such as the notorious events believed to have occurred throughout the life of science fiction writer Philip K. Dick, appear to be the product of delusion, mental illness, or any number of other psychological factors, many of which are presently little understood, when compared to the Cayce evidence. Edgar Cayce: An American Prophet will make an interesting object lesson for Forteans, including as it does detailed, well - supported information about the wide range of paranormal phenomena which dominated Cayce's life. Harry Houdini, Nicolas Telsa, Thomas Edison, and an American president also make brief appearances. Readers who credit all of Cayce's metaphysical divinations may also want to read the late Joe Fisher's harrowing The Siren Call of Hungry Ghosts (2001) for another perspective on the validity and dangers of surrendering the human will to 'channeled' 'spirit guides' and the presumed souls of the dead.
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