Edgar Cayce, America's best-documented psychic, is widely known through three classics, There is a River by Thomas Sugrue, Edgar Cayce, The Sleeping Prophet by Jess Stearn, and Many Mansions by Dr. Gina Cerminara. A more recent entry has won widespread recognition: An American Prophet by Sidney Kirkpatrick.

Many more books have been written about Edgar Cayce's Life and Work and the health advice and remedies that he suggested to thousands of people who came to him asking for help in alleviating their suffering.

Edgar Cayce was born on a farm near Hopkinsville, Kentucky, on March 18, 1877, and died in Virginia Beach, Virginia, January 3, 1945. Early on, he displayed abilities which extended beyond the five senses. At 13, he had a vision of a lady who asked him what he most wanted in life. He told her he wanted to be able to help people, especially children when they were sick. The experience influenced him for the rest of his life. Shortly after that vision, he found that he could absorb the contents of books simply by sleeping on them, which helped him greatly in school. But he completed only seventh grade before going to work.

By 21, at the turn of the century, Edgar Cayce had become a salesman in a stationery company. Unfortunately, his career was suddenly hampered by a paralysis of the throat and vocal chords, leaving him unable to speak above a whisper. He left the stationery company and began work in a photographic studio. His laryngitis baffled doctors. They were unable to find a cure. Eight months passed. Finally, Edgar Cayce asked a hypnotist to help him enter a kind of self-induced sleep that had enabled him to memorize his schoolbooks as a child. In this state, Edgar Edgar spoke normally, diagnosing his own ailment and prescribing a simple treatment. His voice was restored.

A group of physicians from Kentucky began using Edgar Cayce's talent to diagnose some of their most difficult medical cases. Edgar Cayce only needed the name and address of an individual anywhere in the world in order to give a detailed medical diagnosis and treatment. One doctor, Wesley Ketchum, M.D., submitted a report to the Clinical Research Society in Boston. On October 9, 1910, the New York Times picked up the article and carried a full page spread about the farm boy who became a doctor while asleep. This article and those which followed caused people from all over the country to begin seeking Cayce's help.

As the years passed, Edgar Cayce's diagnoses and treatments kept proving accurate. Also, in the sleep state, he would answer any question. The transcripts of these discourses are called “readings”. In 1923, Edgar Cayce began to give readings on the mind and soul as well. Eventually, the readings expanded to include information on meditation, the lost years of Jesus, comparative religions, dream interpretation, prophecy, life after death, prehistoric civilizations, world affairs, psychic and spiritual development. In the collection of 14,305 recorded readings are more than 10,000 different topics.