Edgar Cayce was born
in 1877 in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, where his parents operated a small tobacco farm. Such an ordinary
beginning for the possessor of such an unusual if not extraordinary title
"The Sleeping Prophet".
Cayce was best known for his abilities
as a psychic diagnostician. Although he had no medical training and no
more than an eighth grade education he was cited with many accounts of
accurately diagnosing illnesses and injuries. He did not even have to meet
his patients. They could be in another country half way around the world; he
merely needed the ailing individual's name and where the individual resided. His
diagnosis would be conveyed in laymen's terms followed by his instructions
for holistic treatments of the condition. Remarkably, people who followed
his recommendations for treatment reported excellent results.
There were no hocus-pocus rituals involved
in his methods. Cayce would simply remove his shoes, lie down on a couch,
loosen his tie, close his eyes, and relax. As he fell off to sleep
questions would be put to him and he would respond verbally. Someone would
have to transcribe the sessions into writing for accurate telling as Cayce
would have no recollection of what he had foretold once awakened.
Cayce was regarded as one of the great prophets
of the 20th century and the most documented psychic of all time. His
clairvoyant prowess was not limited to the well-being of the physical
person but is credited with predictions of many global events. It is said
that many powerful politicians, not excluding presidents, came to him for
aide in matters ranging from their own health to world peace.
Cayce usually did only two readings a day,
as his sessions were draining on his own health. During WWII, he received
thousands of requests begging him for some word about loved ones overseas.
Cayce felt he could not refuse such requests and performed as many as
seven a day in hopes of giving aide to others, even though his own
predictions warned him that overextending himself would lead to his
demise. On New Year's Day, 1945, he foretold that he would be buried on
January 5th 1945. This last prediction - like so many others - proved to
be true.