Edgar Cayce 

	

Edgar Cayce (1877-1945) - "The Sleeping Prophet".

The New York Times once ran a front-page story celebrating him as "the most fascinating man in America." Although educated only through the eighth-grade, he was called upon by world leaders (such as Woodrow Wilson) and prominent scientists (such as Thomas Edison) to advise them on their most pressing issues. Treasure hunters, stock brokers, and oil-men made millions of dollars from his talents. And, in a hypnotic trance so deep he was twice pronounced clinically dead, he diagnosed illnesses with astonishing accuracy and prescribed medical treatments that were years ahead of their time, curing hundreds of people with intractable diseases. 

Known as the "sleeping prophet," Edgar Cayce was a simple man from rural Kentucky who went on to lead an extraordinarily eventful life. Though he had no idea where his powers of perception came from, through years of hardship and personal struggle, he developed his gifts to help others in need. And even as he became famous for his sensational achievements, Cayce never courted the limelight, and he lived much of his life in poverty. His greatest legacy may be the spiritual wisdom he brought from the "other side." 

Edgar Cayce was born on a farm near Hopkinsville, Kentucky, on March 18, 1877.   At the age of six or seven, he told his parents that he could sometimes see visions, occasionally talking to relatives who had recently died. 
For the most part, his family attributed these experiences to his overactive imagination and paid little attention to them. Then, at the age of thirteen, he had a vision which would influence him for the rest of his life: a beautiful woman appeared to him and asked him what he most wanted in life. He told her that, more than anything, he wanted to help others — especially children when they were sick.

Shortly after the experience, Edgar displayed a talent that could no longer be explained by his family in terms of the boy’s imagination. Edgar could sleep on his school books and acquire a photographic memory of their entire contents. It was found that he could sleep on any book, paper or document, and upon awakening, be able to repeat back, word for word, any length of material — even if it contained words which were far beyond his limited education. The gift helped him in school, but gradually faded. 

At the age of twenty-one he developed a gradual throat paralysis which threatened the loss of his voice. When doctors were unable to find a cause for his condition, Cayce entered the same hypnotic sleep that had enabled him to learn his school lessons years before. In that state, he was able to recommend a cure which successfully repaired his throat muscles and restored his voice. It was soon discovered that he could do the same for others. 

Daily, for over forty years of his adult life, Cayce would lie down on a couch with his hands folded over his stomach and allow himself to enter a self-induced sleep state. Then, provided with the name and location of an individual — anywhere in the world — he would speak in a normal voice and give answers to any questions about that person that he was asked. 

For many years these readings dealt mainly with medical problems.  And, in the beginning, (in 1909), Edgar Cayce felt as if he had been placed in a precarious position. On the one hand, this business of readings was very strange to him. He knew nothing about medicine or the diagnosing of illness. On the other hand, he only wanted to live a normal life in Hopkinsville with a wife and a family. Yet a friend of his argued that he had a moral obligation if his talent could be helpful to people. Finally, after a great deal of prayer, after talking it over with his family, and after looking to his Bible for guidance, he agreed to continue.

Often the readings puzzled him — many times he didn’t even understand what he had said after he had awakened and looked at what Layne had written down — but he never forgot to say a prayer of thanksgiving when someone got well because of his gift.

As his fame grew, however, so did the number of skeptics. Many people came to Virginia Beach to expose him as a fraud, but in time all were convinced of the legitimacy of what he was doing. Many stayed in Virginia Beach and received readings for themselves. One staunch Catholic writer, named Thomas Sugrue, came to Virginia Beach to investigate what he thought had to be trickery and ended up writing There is a River, the biography of Edgar Cayce which was published in 1943 while he was still alive. 

During the height of World War II, sacks of mail were delivered to Cayce with ever-growing requests for readings. Despite the readings’ warning that he should give no more than two a day, Cayce began giving eight in an effort to keep up. 

In the spring of 1944, Edgar began to grow weak. His own readings advised him to rest, but he felt a tremendous obligation to those who were asking for his help. Finally, he collapsed from sheer exhaustion, and just as he gave his first reading for himself, he gave his last reading for himself — in September of 1944. He died on January 3, 1945. 

After his death, Gladys Davis took charge of the project of cataloguing and indexing all of the 14,145 readings. Gladys finished indexing the readings in 1971, more than a quarter of century after Cayce had died! After the indexing, she discovered that the readings covered more than 10,000 different subjects — nearly every question imaginable had been asked: on health, reincarnation, dreams, psychic phenomena, spiritual growth, comparative religions, astrology, prophecies, world affairs, and much more.

It is recorded that people came from all over asking how they too could become more psychic. Cayce’s response was that the goal should be to become more spiritual for psychic is of the soul, and, as an individual became more spiritual, psychic ability would develop naturally.