Book Review: 'Edgar Cayce: An American Prophet' (2012)

Sidney D. Kirkpatrick is the first writer to be given full access to Edgar Cayce's letters and papers, and it shows: Edgar Cayce: An American Prophet, the massive biography of the humble Kentucky farm boy whose gift for psychic healing brought him both worldwide fame and personal hardship, presents an exhaustive (and exhausting) account of his many diagnostic successes and entrepreneurial failures. But Kirkpatrick skimps in places where he should have delved, barely glossing over Cayce's rumored affairs and his readings for Marilyn Monroe and U.S. government officials (including Presidents Wilson and Truman). B-