Edgar Cayce: An American Prophet

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Summary: AMERICA'S SEER
Review: Edgar Cayce, one of America's well known clairvoyants, is given a thorough examination in this new biography by Sidney Kirkpatrick. Gone is the myth and legend of the man who has captured the hearts and minds of many New Age adherents. In its place, the reader is given an objective overview of this fascinating man whose mystical powers still baffle those of us today. Just who was this Edgar Cayce? What impact if any did he have on the lives of others and of our nation? While reading this book you will be astounded with the answers.

Journey with the author to Hopkinsville, Kentucky where the Cayce clan and related kin provide the foundation for this young seer. We find a family of tobacco growers, misfits and others who share some strange gifts that are known but kept under wraps. Into this environment comes Edgar Cayce who grows up in a conventional lifestyle of his time. Known as a quiet boy and prone to day dreaming there isn't anything extra ordinary about this child.

Kirkpatrick humanizes Cayce. We see the various facets of his life. He has a inferiority complex, a deep love of the Bible, struggles with his gift and is artistic. Cayce struggles throughout his lifetime to help others. We also meet the celeberties, entrepreneurs and government officials who also take an interest in Cayce. Their motivations in using this young man are not always pure or in the best interest of Cayce and the work he is called to do.

I found it fascinating to read the interviews from the entities that possess Cayce's body and give out advice. Even in the written word their presence is frightening and powerful. It is amusing to hear one of them chastise Cayce for not following its advice and its annoyance in answering the "stupid" questions of people who just don't get what is said.

The book also looks at the loves in Cayce's life most notably his relationship with Gladys Davis, his secretary, and a woman he met during his engagement with his fiance. You find a complex man tied up in some strange love triangles. This is an enjoyable work which puts him in the context of his time and also focuses on the investigation of spiritualism, clairvoyance and other mysterious phenomena of the day. You get a clearer historical perspective of what were the attitudes of the day. Oddly enough Cayce was praised and reviled during his day. America was both repelled and attracted to this seer.

Edgar Cayce:An American Prophet is insightful, funny and historical in its presentation of a figure who led an unconventional life during the early 20th century. You will enjoy his story and gain a better perspective on the life of America's greatest Clairvoyant.

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Summary: A Skeptical Author Converted
Review: Having studied the work of Edgar Cayce for many years, I was amazed at how much I learned from this book. The author freely admits that he was a skeptic and originally not interested in writing about Edgar Cayce. However, after researching and studying the voluminous files and interviewing people for six years, this professional writer was converted to a fan of Edgar Cayce.

Kirkpatrick was the first Cayce biographer to be given unrestricted access to the Cayce archives. Since the vast majority of people who had psychic Readings from Cayce are dead, the author was allowed to use real names and publish material that was never made public before. This includes Readings that Cayce gave at the White House and Readings given for famous people, including movie stars.

But the author makes no effort to deify Edgar Cayce. His personal shortcomings and struggles are portrayed in a forthright manner. Intimate family relationships and details highlight the humanity of this gifted seer. Personally, I found I could relate to the struggles of the Cayce family members. Sometimes they made wise choices and sometimes they did not. But through it all they grew, which is what Cayce said is the purpose of our lives.

I have read most of the books available about Edgar Cayce. I recommend this book very highly.

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Summary: Wow, What an Amazing Book!
Review: I had heard of Edgar Cayce for many years but had never read anything about his life before I read this book. I thumbed-through the book, saw how detailed and precise it was with highly-substantiated information, read the praise about the book from previous authors of books on Cayce, and decided that this was the book for me.

The open channel that Cayce was to a higher form of consciousness was truly incredible. The accurate predictions he would make about others' lives and the cures he would come-up with for people who were given virtually no chance to live were indeed remarkable too. Oftentimes doctors would believe that his prescriptions for cures were totally ridiculous and those doctors would be proven wrong again and again.

With the documentation provided by Kirkpartick, one can only conclude that there truly is a higher form of consciousness that exists at all times. And Cayce clearly was very gifted in being able to constantly access this higher form of consciousness.

The gift was not without its downside, though, as Cayce continually experienced hardship in his own life in the areas of money, health, and a series of business partners who clearly took advantage of both him and his great gift to connect with "the source."

If you are at all interested in the arena of metaphysics I highly recommend this book to you.

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Summary: America's contribution to the Metaphysical world
Review: I love this book! I've been a student of the Cayce readings for 15 years and a member of the A.R.E and have read Sugrue's and Bro's biographies. Harmon Bro is a personal friend and both of the previous biographies are great works, but this one surpasses both of them. The detail is absolutely amazing and the devotion to the truth about this amazing man and his work is awe inspiring. Cayce came from very humble beginnings and went on to save many lives through the medical readings. He also brought the metaphysical world to our very fingertips with the life readings. All this in America, the land of great skepticism. Read this book and come away convinced for once and for all that we are much more that just a body!

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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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Summary: Edgar Cayce : An American Prophet
Review: This book is an exceptional telling of a remarkable true story. In the 57 years that I have been active in working with the ideas and data that flowed through Edgar Cayce, I value this book as the deepest examination of the real person and history of Cayce and his contributions to: growth in saving one's soul and one's body and one's world. Kirkpatrick's skill and energy as an investigative journalist make solid and tangible the history and faith of a man possessed by a profound talent lived out in a life of faith and human struggle. This book is both an introduction and summary of much of that which is central in what Cayce taught. It serves this role by depicting in detail how Cayce lived in his own life the spiritual laws he presented. This telling does not canonize Cayce; nor does it psychoanalyse him. The credibility of this book that particularly touched me is based on detailed, explicit, documented investigative journalism.

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Summary: The best book ever written about a unique and amazing man
Review: This is the biggest and best book every written about Edgar Cayce's life. It tells the whole story--and offers insight and compassion about the strange and bizarre lives led by Edgar Cayce and those around him. A must read for anyone interested in Edgar Cayce, or great Americans of the 20th century.