Edgar Cayce: An American Prophet

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The Barnes & Noble Review
Book Reviews The stuff of Edgar Cayce's mesmerizing life (1877-1945) could fill a score of biographies. A psychic medium whose clients included farmer's wives, oil magnates, and, perhaps, just perhaps, one American President, Cayce moved trancelike through a rapidly changing world. Previous memoirs and biographies have touched on the strange incidents of the Kentucky prophet's life, but Kirkpatrick's full access to the Cayce Foundation archives and family memories give this chronicle a new jolt. For Kirkpatrick, this project must have seemed a welcome change from his New York Times bestseller A Cast of Killers
— Tim Flannigan

Scott McLemee

[Edgar Cayce, An American Prophet] is far better researched than most such efforts. The product is a book at once irresistible and (in all senses) incredible...From letters, memoirs and recollections, Kirkpatrick assembles a chronicle of Cayce's waking life that is far richer than anything previously available. The somewhat mythologized account offered by earlier biographies is not so much demolished as filled in with details...Newsday Book Review

The New Yorker

This engaging biography reads like a codex for the New Age...lets the facts of his subject's life speak for themselves.
—October 2, 2000

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 Cahners Business Information.|

Library Journal

Psychic healer Cayce (1877-1945) had no medical training yet correctly diagnosed illnesses and prescribed original and effective medical treatments while in a trance. During these "readings," Cayce would also predict future happenings (the 1929 stock market crash, no less) and interpret past lives and historical events. Beginning with Cayce's birth and early years in Kentucky, Kirkpatrick (Lords of Sipan) chronicles Cayce's unsuccessful ventures as a photographer and oil prospector, leading to his eventual decision to devote his life to the work of healing. Unlike Cayce's other biographers, who were affiliated with the Cayce Foundation, Kirkpatrick steers a middle course; he does not completely believe in or refute the effectiveness of Cayce's medical readings: "The true measure of Edgar Cayce's contribution to medicine rests in the holistic approach he brought to help the people who came to him." This fair, fascinating, and well-researched biography of one of 20th-century America's most famous psychics is recommended for public and academic libraries.--Lucille M. Boone, San Jose P.L., CA Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.\

New Yorker

Kirkpatric provides details and sympathy and lets the bizarre facts of his subject's life speak for themselves.

Kirkus Reviews

An exhaustive biography of the legendary psychic (1877-1945), likely to entrance Cayce's fans but try the patience of unbelievers.