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Edgar Cayce was one of the most humble and influential people of his day, a man whose outstanding psychic abilities appeared to heal hundreds of patients. The F.B.I. and even master magician Henry Houdini couldn't debunk or explain Cayce's amazing gifts. Biographer Sidney D. Kirkpatrick has no interest in probing the question of whether Cayce had legitimate psychic powers. Rather he presents an evenhanded story about the life of this American prophet, using a myriad of sources, including transcripts of his trances as well as Cayce's personal letters and papers. (Kirkpatrick is the only author to be granted unrestricted access.)
What makes this biography especially fresh and lasting is Kirkpatrick's excellent storytelling skills, evidenced in his opening pages when he describes Cayce entering his characteristic trance to diagnose a seemingly dying infant in the other room. Although Cayce prescribed a seemingly lethal dose of the homeopathic belladonna (deadly nightshade), the baby survived and was healed. Whether telling of these miraculous moments or the horrifying harassment in Cayce's life, Kirkpatrick always stays grounded in documented facts and clear information. Cayce aficionados will enjoy especially the accounts of encounters with George Gershwin, Marilyn Monroe, and even the likelihood that he met with President Woodrow Wilson. --Tara West
From Publishers Weekly
Celebrated during his lifetime for his alleged psychic abilities, Cayce's memory has been enshrined today for his remarks on astrology, the future, reincarnation, the lost years of Jesus, the mysterious kingdom of Atlantis and other secrets of the universe. Cayce has been the subject of innumerable memoirs and exegetical analyses, but none quite so massive or so detailed as this bulky hagiography. Kirkpatrick, author of the bestseller A Cast of Killers, has followed standard procedure in presenting Cayce's life in resolutely uncritical terms. Beginning with Cayce's moony youth in rural Kentucky and continuing through his dotage as a (claimed) channel for the Archangel Michael at the Association for Research and Enlightenment Inc., Kirkpatrick recites every apocryphal story of Cayce's marvelous work. He furnishes eye-glazingly copious arcana of value only to the most devoted acolyte: the names, for example, of the other men who lived in the boarding house Cayce occupied in 1902 and 1903, and the exact nature of the relationships Cayce is said to have enjoyed in previous lives with his much younger secretary and "soul mate," Gladys Davis. Relying on the recorded testimony of Cayce and his aged disciples and other dubious evidence, Kirkpatrick writes only in glowing superlatives; the prophet's every deed was a miracle, the photographs he took of "museum quality." If Cayce ever made a mistake or had an off day, it has been surgically excised from this record. (Sept.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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