EDGAR CAYCE An American Prophet by SIDNEY D. KIRKPATRICK Riverhead Books $16 (softcover) reviewed by William Munns, co-coordinator, A.R.E. Pacific Northwest Region Rarely does a new biography demand immediate attention as does Edgar Cayce: An American Prophet. I have been known to start reading a biography in the middle, where the interesting life events occur. However, this biography captivated me from the introduction, where Kirkpatrick chronicles the young Edgar Cayce going to a relative’s home to give a reading for a dying child. The stories of Edgar Cayce’s psychic ability are hard to forget at the hand of the author, a well-known investigative journalist, author, and Hollywood screenwriter. A marvelous feat of this biography over earlier ones is that this telling brings the man, Edgar Cayce, to life, rather than merely telling more stories of his psychic abilities. We feel his sadness at losing the hospital for which he worked so diligently. We experience his anxiety as he discovers the unfamiliar concept of reincarnation in his psychic readings. We are tantalized by the youthful awakening of the mysteries of his teenage love for Gertrude, who later becomes his wife, and the frustrations of a man trying to support a family on a photographer’s salary. If you don’t know the life story of Edgar Cayce, you’re in for a treat. It’s hard to put down Kirkpatrick’s 520-page tale about this simple man with a modest ego and a talent so magnificent that even he could not understand it. Cayce began his life with psychic abilities, seeing angels, talking with his dead grandfather, and remembering the entire text of books after he literally slept on them. After nearly forty years, his life of service resulted in more than 14,000 well-documented psychic readings, most of them answering questions about health problems. One might well ask why this body of work is even more famous now than at Edgar Cayce’s death in 1945; and why the continuing interest — enough to fill several hundred books? Clearly, the answers lie in the efficacy of the material and the range of answers to life’s most baffling questions. The author’s five years of research into the writing of this book led to the discovery of individuals who were connected to Edgar Cayce in many ways. Kirpatrick says that the network of people who had readings is astounding. People from all over the world (including Presidents Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt and inventor Nicolas Tesla) came to Cayce for readings and created a network of supporters who make the Cayce legacy unforgettable. The many people who came to be present for readings and ask questions provided a close network of friends who came to love and admire the man, Edgar Cayce, in ways that we can never know. What we can know, Sidney Kirpatrick reveals to us in this truly fascinating biography.