Customer Reviews

Edgar Cayce: An American Prophet

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This is the biggest and best book ever 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.

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!

I am a nuclear physicist and I was most impressed with Cayce's instructions for the building and development of so many of the things we enjoy today. He gave formulas for the development of rubber for tires, he gave instructions for the development of fog lamps (which are used today on airlines) he was even asked by Kellogs to provide a healthy and tasty receipe for a cereal flake, thus the Corn Flake was born!! This book is a must read for anyone. The author has done mankind a service as well, by bringing this man to the forefront so the populus can benefit from his work. A wonderful book, a spectacular man!!

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.

The extensive research done on Edgar Cayce by Sid Kirkpatrick is the most through, objective, ACCURATE account of the life and work of one of the most remarkable men of the past century! Several members of my family were close friends with Mr. Cayce when he lived in Selma, Alabama, and the accounts of them chronicled by Mr. Kirkpatrick in this book were exactly as my records and letters reveal. It was so refreshing to read such a credible account of such an unassuming, amazing man and to overshadow the "tabloid" exploitation of Cayce by publications or people that only distort and impune TRUE psychic abilities. I know from researching my families relationship with Edgar Cayce that he was a caring, honest, sincere person--- but not everyone had a grandfather who could validate Cayce's character and motives first hand. But Sid Kirkpatrick's research and this book have done just that! It's a great tribute to Cayce and the importance of his work to our civilization! P.S. Sid, if you read this I hope you will get in touch with me. I would like some input on a "next step" on what to do with my Cayce material. Thanks! abhall730@cs.com

I am the author of this biography and am responding to the review of February 16, 2002: "a reader from Massachusetts."

Thank you for your interest in my book. FYI, and for others reading your review, I should like to clarify a few points:

(1) prior to taking this book project on, I was not involved in the Cayce organization at all. In fact, I was quite skeptical that there was any truth or insights to be found in the Cayce material. It was only after I began examining Cayce's original correspondence and trance readings (some 150,000 pages) that I came to appreciate the depth, scope, and truth of the material. I also came to appreciate the integrity of Cayce the man. A book which I had intended to write in two years, resulted in a seven year, 40,000 mile journey as I interviewed recipients of the Cayce readings and studied their impact and veracity.

(2) The purpose of this book was not to put Cayce in the context of other channeled material, but to present a truthful study of Cayce life and examine his work in the larger historical context of modern scientific and medical discoveries.

(3) In terms of Cayce's religious "agenda," you fail to point out that it was not until the last years of Cayce's long career that the more overtly spiritual messages began to emerge. Cayce gave some 9,000 medical readings before any past life readings came through. And Cayce himself, more than anyone around him, struggled to come to grips with these readings.

(4) To suggest that people have not gotten any spiritual growth out of what Cayce told them is to ignore the fact that Cayce could be well be considered the father of the New Age movement.

(5) Cayce's so-called "predications" are one of the most misunderstood (and misrepresented) aspects of Cayce's work. Read them for yourself! They represent less than 2% of the Cayce material, and all are prefaced by the greater spiritual message that man makes his own destiny, and that predictions can't, in fact, be given. What a person holds in their head and their heart determines their future. This is not only true for an individual, but for a community and nation. Hence, on the rare occasions which "predictions" were made, they are prefaced with a remark such as, "given the current situation... this will be the result."

A truly compeling account of one man's life and how he helped those who came to him. Mr. Cayce is truly a role model for the world today, a man who stayed totally focussed on his life's mission,to help the sick and those in pain without any thought for his own gain. Ahh, to be half the man he was. I highly recommend this book to everyone. WARNING...reading this book could change your life forever (for the better). Thank you Mr. Kirkpatrick for bringing Mr. Cayce's story to the world. After reading this book I and my friends are joining Mr. Cayce's organization in Virginia Beach, the A.R.E.

Wow, this is a wonderful book ! I thought I knew alot about Edgar Cayce (having visited his organization and joining it in 1985) but this writer has told me things I never knew. Mr. Cayce sure was devoted to his "work" of bringing this "heaven sent" information to the world. I can't imagine what he and his family must have endured...still he (they) held fast to doing the right thing. The world owes them thanks for their sacrifice, and thanks to Sydney Kirkpatrick for telling the world about EDGAR CAYCE. I'm planning another trip now to Virginia Beach...have to get back into that heavenly energey that exsists at the Cayce Institute.

This large volume is by far the most comprehensive ever written about Edgar Cayce--and wonderfully written too. Much more than any other book, it reveals what a bizarre and sacrificial life Edgar Cayce led. According to this book, his unusual psychic abilities manifested most or all of the time--not just when he was in trance. I can't imagine what life must have been like for Edgar Cayce or his wife, children or secretary--he could see auras, he could see and talk to "dead people", he couldn't play cards because he knew what was in his opponents' hand and he could know the contents of a book by just holding it to his forehead ( he made a great book salesman!!) No wonder he and his family spent his early life in denial-trying hard just to be normal. It must have been strange living with someone who could see and hear things you couldn't and who might be reading your mind or emotions at any point in time. The fact that he was so kind, humble and willing to serve must have made it possible to live with him. For the majority of his life he also lived in poverty-unwilling to sell his talent out for big bucks ( and he had the opportunity to do this). I cry when I read about him stuffing newspapers inside his light jacket to ward off freezing temperatures. There is no question that this man led a life of sacrifice. In one of his dreams he found himself in a large white tent surrounded by preachers and evangelists who he knew to be dead-all dressed in white. God's voice boomed out, "Who will warn my people." Jesus stepped forward and God said, " Not yet-it is not time." So someone else stepped forward and said, "Send Cayce, he's down there already." That perhaps, says it all. Cayce led a life of sacrifice to serve as a messenger of God. We owe it to him to hear his message.

Knowing the mental limits of sentient beings is an undertaking for which man has just begun to scratch the surface. With advancements in fields such as mental healing, ESP, and certain segments of homeopathic medicine, we are beginning to see that the human mind is capable of much more than the average person gives themselves credit for. Perhaps the most notable and prolific explorer of the human mind and its capabilities was a poor tobacco farmer named Edgar Cayce. In this excellent biography of Cayce, the author explores Cayce's life from early on until his death in 1945. With in the pages, Kirkpatrick describes many of the amazing incidents attributed to Cayce. For example, healing innumerable patients deemed terminal by doctors of the time, to discovering oil, solving crimes, and perhaps advising two American presidents on political policy. Refreshingly, Kirkpatrick doesn't proselytize the "Word" of Cayce but rather describes the man, and leaves the reader to discover where the line between truth and imagination is drawn. However, with the evidence that Kirkpatrick provides, it is difficult to renounce Cayce as a major shaper of psychology, philosophy and other avenues of the mind.