From then on I accepted reincarnation as a fundamental belief, and I continued to read all I could about psychics and their experiences. Later I joined the Cayce organization in Virginia Beach, the Association for Research and Enlightenment (A.R.E.) and in two states where I lived, I formed Search for God study groups, using the two books that Cayce guided into print with his readings for the first study group.

So I didn’t mind at all pushing my way through almost 600 pages of a new biography of Cayce. Edgar Cayce: An American Prophet by Sidney D. Kirkpatrick was reviewed in Venture Inward, the A.R.E. magazine which later excerpted parts of it dealing with Cayce’s soul mate, Gladys Davis, who transcribed hundreds of his readings and indeed made this her life’s work.

This biography is very thorough, well documented, and generous with the details of Cayce’s childhood and his early visions of invisible playmates, his marriage to Gertrude, his children, his frustrations at trying to find oil in Texas, his struggles with friends who betrayed him, his successful photography business, the building of the hospital in Virginia Beach and its subsequent loss, and the continual growth of his psychic gifts.

Cayce could lie down on a couch, put himself into a deep trance, and give readings of which he remained completely unaware. First came the medical readings in which Cayce, with no education or medical training, would examine a body, describe it completely, and prescribe treatments that inevitably worked if they were followed exactly. Then followed the life readings where Cayce using the Akashic records, revealed past lives and their effects on the current life, but only to the degree that was helpful to the person.

Kirkpatrick has neither sanctified nor vilified Cayce for the experiences he had. The author keeps a reporter’s detachment as well as a careful choice of important events and incidents in Cayce’s life. He shows Cayce as a most human being: a chain smoker, an avid fisherman who planted a tree in a floating pot so it could be moved around the dock to shade him as the sun moved, a fervent Bible student from childhood on, a long-time Sunday school teacher, a devoted but much absent husband, and ironically a man who ignored his readings about his own health. He chose instead to continue to give more readings than his body could endure until he suffered two strokes and finally died on January 2, 1945.

The Source through which Cayce received information constantly warned him against using his power for anything but the good of mankind. Occasionally Cayce channeled the Archangel Michael whose thunderous pronouncements stunned all the witnesses. Every reading by Cayce was filtered through his personal Christian beliefs so reincarnation was outside of his conventional mind set, but he came to understand and accept what he spoke in trance.