Edgar Cayce (; March 18, 1877 – January 3, 1945) was an American clairvoyant who reported and chronicled an ability to diagnose diseases and recommend treatments for ailments while asleep. During thousands of transcribed sessions, Cayce answered questions on subjects including healing, reincarnation, dreams, the afterlife, past lives, nutrition, Atlantis, and future events. Cayce said he was a devout Christian and was not a spiritualist or communicating with spirits. Cayce is regarded as a founder of the New Age movement and a principal source of many of the movement's characteristic beliefs.
In 1931, Cayce founded a non-profit organization, the Association for Research and Enlightenment. In 1942, a popular and highly sympathetic biography of Cayce titled There is a River was published by journalist Thomas Sugrue.
Cayce was influenced by a variety of traditions and sources. During the Second Great Awakening, Thomas and Alexander Campbell founded the Disciples of Christ, a church which sought to restore the original Christian teachings and practices. Cayce was raised in the group.
Mesmerism influenced Phineas Parkhurst Quimby's New Thought Movement, which promoted the practice of medical clairvoyants. One of Quimby's patients, Mary Baker Eddy, later founded her own new religious movement, Christian Science. Spiritualism influenced Helena Blavatsky, the founder of Theosophy. Blavatksy's writings detailed topics like reincarnation, Atlantis, Root races, and the Akashic Records.
Homeopathy and Osteopathy were pseudoscientific forms of alternative medicine prevalent in Cayce's lifetime. Cayce would initially attribute his own healing to the care of an osteopath, and he later collaborated with one.
Edgar Cayce first achieved local notoriety for having lost his voice yet being able to speak during hypnosis. Initially, he reported that his voice had spontaneously and inexplicably returned on its own. Later, he began publicly crediting a local osteopath with having restored his voice. The osteopath employed Cayce as a medical clairvoyant who could reportedly diagnose patients at a distance through supernatural means. After declaring bankruptcy, Cayce returned to the role of medical clairvoyant, collaborating with homeopath Wesley Ketchum. In 1910, Ketchum's description of Cayce's readings was covered in a widely reprinted piece in The New York Times. After a falling out with Ketchum, Cayce traveled to Selma, Alabama. An additional collaboration with printer Arthur Lammers led Cayce to Dayton, Ohio. The final chapter of his life was spent in Virginia Beach, Virginia, where he oversaw an institute of his own creation.
An October 10, 1922, Birmingham Post-Herald article quotes Cayce as saying that he had given 8,056 readings to date. He recorded some 13,000 to 14,000 readings after that date. Other abilities attributed to Cayce include astral projection, prophecy, mediumship, access to the Akashic records, Book of Life, and seeing auras, astrology and dreamwork.
Cayce was born on March 18, 1877, in Christian County, Kentucky. His parents, Carrie Elizabeth (née Major) and Leslie Burr Cayce, were farmers and the parents of six children. Cayce was raised in the Disciples of Christ.
In December 1893, the Cayce family moved to Hopkinsville, Kentucky, where they lived at 705 West Seventh, on the southeast corner of Seventh and Young Streets. Cayce received an eighth-grade education. Cayce's education ended in ninth grade because his family could not afford the cost.
On March 14, 1897, Cayce became engaged to Gertrude Evans.
In September, papers announced Cayce had taken a position with John P. Morton and left for Louisville. He began an apprenticeship at the photography studio of W. R. Bowles in Hopkinsville and became proficient in his trade.
In February 1900, Hart the Laugh King, a stage hypnotist, performed in Hopkinsville. He would return to Hopkinsville in 1903. Decades later, Hart would be named as having hypnotized Cayce in an attempt to restore his voice.
According to a 1901 newspaper account, on the night of April 18, 1900, Cayce lost his voice and was unable to speak above a whisper. The condition reportedly forced him to leave his job as a salesman for work in photography instead. In May 1900, the local paper reported that Cayce had been unable to speak above a whisper except when under hypnosis, when his voice returned. In June, papers reported Cayce was attending business college in Louisville. On February 12, 1901, papers reported Cayce had awoken with his voice spontaneously and inexplicably recovered.
The following year, in April 1902, Cayce authored a public endorsement that attributed his cured voice to the treatment of "Osteopath and Electro-Magnetical Doctor" A.C. Layne.
In May 1902, Cayce got a job in a bookshop in Bowling Green, Kentucky. He returned to Hopkinsville to visit his parents in September. The following January, he returned to the town to attend his sister's wedding.
Cayce married Gertrude Evans on June 17, 1903, and she moved to Bowling Green. By June 24, newspapers published stories of Cayce going into a trance to help Layne diagnose a patient who was not physically present. Cayce denied being a spiritualist, saying he was an active member of the Christian Church. An article from 1904 mentions Cayce's refusal to charge for medical readings. In 1904, Cayce claimed he had developed the card game Pit and sent it to Parker Brothers.
Cayce and his wife had three children: Hugh Lynn Cayce (1907–1982), Milton Porter Cayce (1911–1911), and Edgar Evans Cayce (1918–2013). Layne revealed the trance reading activity to the professionals at the boarding house (one of whom was a magistrate and journalist), and the state medical authorities forced him to close his practice. He left to acquire osteopathic qualifications in Franklin.
Cayce and a relative opened a photographic studio in Bowling Green, the studio burned down on December 25, 1906. His first son was born on March 16, 1907, and later that year, a second fire burned down the studio once again. In January 1908, he authored a query to the Nashville Banner newspaper about the phase of the moon at a certain time in 1864. In 1908, Cayce declared bankruptcy.