Mound Builders: Edgar Cayce's Forgotten Record of Ancient America

Rating:
Summary: sensationalized, highly conjectural, poorly written book
Review: I actually rather enjoyed reading this book. Unlike previous popularizations of this subject such as Silverberg's much-overrated Mound Builders, it does not blindly adopt any particular scientific dogma.

Unfortunately, the authors, despite their assertions to the contrary, seem determined to find in Edgar Cayce a well-nigh infallible guide to the prehistory of the Americas, and are all too willing to distort scientific evidence to conform to their own New Age dogma of truth, much as academic archaeologists have so often done. The book, like most sensational books for the masses, tries to treat so many different topics that there is not enough room for supporting evidence for their assertions. They would have been better advised to choose one of their 20 or 30 topics and treat it in depth.

Perhaps the nadir of the book is chapter 12, where the Book of Mormon is used as
scientific evidence without any investigation of the origins of this highly suspect text..., and the existence of such mythical figures as Noah, Abraham and Jesus is assumed as hard historical fact. Even the Tower of Babel is dragged in. Reading this rigmarole one feels as if centuries of scientific progress have vanished, and one is back in the middle ages.

In a certain sense however, the book reads like a college-text. That is to say, its language is at once bland and politically correct ad nauseam. American indians are fulsomely praised as possessing a culture of unexampled richness, and a rather nervous note warns readers against experimenting with psychelic mushrooms (one of the authors is a psychologist involved in official evaluations of drug-war offenders.) The grammar is often confused.

The authors seem unaware of much of the evidence for pre-Columbian visitors in America. For example, they ignore the quite substantial evidence for Phoenicians on the Brazilian coast (they built a massive fortress there which is still standing.) In fact, the authors include precious little hard fact even about the Mound Builders. They should have at least added a bibliography. In chapter 13 the authors provide a list of 30 Cayce assertions concerning pre-Columbian America, and claim that science has validated virtually all of them. This is not true. It is correct however that man was present in the Americas long before 9500 B.C., and Cayce's information on the Norse appears valid, although I believe several researchers had found evidence for this long before Cayce. But the other Cayce information concerning American prehistory remains in the category of 'unproven'. The authors betray at every turn an extreme bias in Cayce's favor. In their minds apparently, if his assertions have not or cannot be disproven, then they are probably true.

In spite of all these grievous faults, the book still has something to contribute. It may help to
counteract the academic dogmatists who still cling to the theory that the Americas were
exclusively settled via the Bering Strait, and it may contribute to sustain interest in Edgar
Cayce, who was certainly a fascinating character, who successfully treated many illnesses by remedies he prescribed while in a trance. The book offers very many black-and-white illustrations and maps of the mounds that are otherwise unobtainable at such a reasonable price. There are much better books on pre-Columbian contact, but none to my knowledge on the Cayce connection

Rating:
Summary: Update Your Knowledge and Grow Yourself
Review: You know what you know - don't you? Do you know what you don't know? You probably know by now everything the teachers told you in school was not true, a product of ignorance or just plan wrong (if not then you are indeed in for a shock with this book). Get ready to learn some truth from this book. These authors are not shy about being straight forward with their assertions, for example: "...just about everything archaeologists have ardently believed about ancient America is wrong" or "Finally, it is important for readers to understand that the vast majority of 'facts' recorded in history books about ancient America simply aren't true. Since 1997, almost all of the most sacred 'truths' in academic archaeology have been proven false by archaeologists willing to risk their reputation and academic standing." The authors report, "...the events that occurred in the Americas in the remote past were far more complex than had ever been imagined." This work of Greg Little, John Van Auken and Lora Little further the 1960s adage "question authority" while following the key principle of get your facts straight and document your facts. This book is a shot across the bow of established archaeology, anthropology, history, political correctness, and those who think of psychic phenomena in general and the famous American psychic Edgar Cayce as nothing but nutty business perpetrated by nutty people. The evidence is very carefully presented in this book. This evidence will be very difficult for the orthodox scientist to reject if they are interested in truth and the scientific method. I bet your teachers did not teach you about Atlantis, Mu, and ancient Egyptians, Chinese, Japanese or the Lost Tribes of Israel involvement in ancient America and how that influenced the mound building cultures of America (shucks, my teachers never even told me about mound builders period). Your teachers may have mentioned the Norse people visited America a few hundred years before Columbus - although they probably did not tell you of evidence of the Norse being in Oklahoma! Mine sure did not. The authors are intellectually honest saying clearly when the evidence is lacking and/or Cayce was wrong (not that Cayce ever claimed to be infallible). For me the underlying context of this book is spiritual. Yes I was interested in the archeology, anthropology, historical and educational aspects of this book, however, the book gives rational/scientific evidence that support spiritual concepts that I have interest in as well. All the above is a long way to say I found the book a good factual read and food for though that will grow me spiritually. Who could ask for more than that from a book?

Rating:
Summary: Update Your Knowledge and Grow Yourself
Review: You know what you know - don't you? Do you know what you don't know? You probably know by now everything the teachers told you in school was not true, a product of ignorance or just plan wrong (if not then you are indeed in for a shock with this book). Get ready to learn some truth from this book. These authors are not shy about being straight forward with their assertions, for example: "...just about everything archaeologists have ardently believed about ancient America is wrong" or "Finally, it is important for readers to understand that the vast majority of 'facts' recorded in history books about ancient America simply aren't true. Since 1997, almost all of the most sacred 'truths' in academic archaeology have been proven false by archaeologists willing to risk their reputation and academic standing." The authors report, "...the events that occurred in the Americas in the remote past were far more complex than had ever been imagined." This work of Greg Little, John Van Auken and Lora Little further the 1960s adage "question authority" while following the key principle of get your facts straight and document your facts. This book is a shot across the bow of established archaeology, anthropology, history, political correctness, and those who think of psychic phenomena in general and the famous American psychic Edgar Cayce as nothing but nutty business perpetrated by nutty people. The evidence is very carefully presented in this book. This evidence will be very difficult for the orthodox scientist to reject if they are interested in truth and the scientific method. I bet your teachers did not teach you about Atlantis, Mu, and ancient Egyptians, Chinese, Japanese or the Lost Tribes of Israel involvement in ancient America and how that influenced the mound building cultures of America (shucks, my teachers never even told me about mound builders period). Your teachers may have mentioned the Norse people visited America a few hundred years before Columbus - although they probably did not tell you of evidence of the Norse being in Oklahoma! Mine sure did not. The authors are intellectually honest saying clearly when the evidence is lacking and/or Cayce was wrong (not that Cayce ever claimed to be infallible). For me the underlying context of this book is spiritual. Yes I was interested in the archeology, anthropology, historical and educational aspects of this book, however, the book gives rational/scientific evidence that support spiritual concepts that I have interest in as well. All the above is a long way to say I found the book a good factual read and food for though that will grow me spiritually. Who could ask for more than that from a book?