What do you think?
Rate this book
Edgar Cayce: A Seer Out of Season
Edgar Cayce was a healer, a psychic and a seer and for over 40 years he helped people with his gifts. The book gives an eye-witness account of this incredible man, drawing a portrait of Cayce's life from unpublished memoirs, personal dreams and interviews with his friends and relatives. The book includes Cayce's views on health, spirituality, visionary ability and reincarnation and a conclusion on how we may use his insights to create a world of love and harmony.
- GenresBiographySpirituality
Paperback
First published April 3, 1990
20 people are currently reading
60 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
April 17, 2010
This was a very well done exposé on the life of Edgar Cayce. Forget "There is a River". If you really want to know the good, bad and ugly of this man's most unusual life, read this book. It was written by a man who was there, working side by side with Cayce for an entire year (doing his doctoral thesis). The book was written with 50 years of retrospection, by a man still struggling to understand what on earth happened.
The book covers Cayce's triumphs as well as his defeats. It's no propaganda writing. For instance, the reasons for the failure of the Cayce hospital are clearly laid out, in all their human ugliness. One of the reasons the hospital failed is that the doctors couldn't stay out of the nurse's beds. Another reason was that his own readings were telling him to go ahead, right before the economic collapse of the 1930's. This despite the fact the reading were telling his clients to get out of the stock market. It's things like this that has the author still scratching his head 50 years later.
The view presented is balanced, showing both the incredible supernatural accomplishments, as well as the flaws in the man himself. Another example. One of the shortest readings recorded was on the health of Cayce himself, which went basically like this: "You didn't listen to what was suggested last time, so goodbye!"
This is somewhat of a scholarly work, though I didn't have much trouble (this is not my area of expertise), and should be suitable for the lay reader. There's one section where Bro spends a great deal of time trying to "pigeonhole" Cayce (was he a seer, prophet, judge, or what?) in modern theology, which I read but could have skipped without loss, as far as I'm concerned anyway. Nevertheless, it's a great and mind-expanding read which I'd recommend to anyone past their teens (and a college education would probably help).
The book covers Cayce's triumphs as well as his defeats. It's no propaganda writing. For instance, the reasons for the failure of the Cayce hospital are clearly laid out, in all their human ugliness. One of the reasons the hospital failed is that the doctors couldn't stay out of the nurse's beds. Another reason was that his own readings were telling him to go ahead, right before the economic collapse of the 1930's. This despite the fact the reading were telling his clients to get out of the stock market. It's things like this that has the author still scratching his head 50 years later.
The view presented is balanced, showing both the incredible supernatural accomplishments, as well as the flaws in the man himself. Another example. One of the shortest readings recorded was on the health of Cayce himself, which went basically like this: "You didn't listen to what was suggested last time, so goodbye!"
This is somewhat of a scholarly work, though I didn't have much trouble (this is not my area of expertise), and should be suitable for the lay reader. There's one section where Bro spends a great deal of time trying to "pigeonhole" Cayce (was he a seer, prophet, judge, or what?) in modern theology, which I read but could have skipped without loss, as far as I'm concerned anyway. Nevertheless, it's a great and mind-expanding read which I'd recommend to anyone past their teens (and a college education would probably help).
September 16, 2012
I have read this book about 3 times, and I love it. It is purely awe-inspiring, deeply moving, and well-researched, amplified by the fact that Harmon Bro worked firsthand with Edgar Cayce for about one year. Harmon admits in this book that he started out as a skeptic, or at the very least convinced that the information Cayce "channeled" regarding spirituality/religions (and historical events) was mistaken. This book beautifully describes Bro's experiences with Edgar and his family, his secretary Gladys Davis Turner, members of Cayce's non-profit Association for Research and Enlightenment (still located in Virginia Beach, VA), and people whom Cayce's readings healed, helped, and guided. It portrays Edgar as a humble man with incredible gifts whose desire and intention was to help people as much as possible, and also as a man who was not spared challenges, discouragement, and heartache. This is an inspirational, provocative, and rare firsthand account of a peerless man, and his legacy. A comparable book about Cayce is Sidney Kirkpatrick's more recent, "Edgar Cayce: An American Prophet". Kirkpatrick also was a skeptic, who set out to disprove Cayce, and ended up thoroughly researching Cayce's life for 5 years while writing his impressive, detailed biography.
October 24, 2013
What, I wonder, so touched me about this biography of Edgar Cayce? Was it the genuineness of Cayce's enduring covenant of service to God, remembered faithfully and fulfilled as best he was able throughout his life? Was it the way he gave himself to administer so selflessly to so many of his fellow human beings, taking so little for himself in return? Was it in the portrayal of an ordinary, modestly educated man, beset with personal challenges and a fair share of failings but whose heart was opened and who remained obedient to a higher authority, receptive in actual practice to a divine intelligence, a glowing reminder of what is possible for us all? Harmon Hartzel Bro has given us a beautiful portrait of an extraordinary human life, passed in most unusual circumstances. I found the author's thorough, factual rendering of the history of Edgar Cayce to be fascinating, insightful, sensitive and written with an uncommon depth of understanding.
Though Cayce was denied the ability to recollect in his ordinary state of consciousness the unusual trance sessions he channeled, he was nevertheless convinced that the `information' that came through the trances was from God. Harmon Bro is understandably cautious in arguing conclusions about the more mystical aspects of Cayce's reported experiences, though he must have been tempted. A reader can, perhaps, sense that Harmon Bro, an insider of long tenure with Cayce, had learned over time to believe to a great degree in the validity of Cayce's revelations, not only matters of diagnosis and cure which were usually subject to corroboration, but even the furthest reaching, difficult if not impossible to corroborate of Edgar's visions. Bro does not impose his personal beliefs on the reader, however. Writing with a certain objectivity, he leaves open the question of who or what, precisely, Cayce was channeling.
It may be of interest to some readers, as it was to me, to consider the facts Harmon Bro documents about Cayce's work in light of other lines of work that had been developing in the Western hemisphere around the same time frame. Morton Blumenthal, a Manhattan stockbroker, for instance, had come to Edgar Cayce in 1924 to get a reading in hopes of curing a health problem only to learn from a "life reading" that he had known Cayce in prior lives. After being informed he had previously lived as a sage in ancient Egypt, Blumenthal began providing financial support for Cayce, including the purchase of a house in Virginia Beach, ostensibly as a gift to Cayce, and was inspired to begin reading books of an esoteric nature, including one by Ouspensky and some "training exercises" of Gurdjieff that he had evidently acquired. Blumenthal would ask questions about these and other written materials, whereupon Cayce's entranced unconscious reacted as though it knew them all and recommended the same materials for others to read.
Further, In 1931, a Norfolk housewife, Mrs. Barrett, brought together a group of friends in her home for a reading with Cayce to seek information on how to develop psychic powers. Instead, they got instruction on spiritual practice, bringing a new phase to Cayce's readings, now directing the formation of study groups, That first Cayce group, which became known as the No. 1 Study Group, was given the task of writing a spiritual manual, eventually published anonymously in two volumes under the title, A Search For God, (a copy of which I found, coincidentally, among the personal belongings of my father's estate.) This spiritual manual would be based on themes that came from Cayce's readings. The fundamental idea was to `live" the precepts, not just know them.
More study groups were to follow the initial activities of the No. 1 Group, in which study group members would explore for themselves the precepts in A Search for God and share their experiential findings at the weekly group meetings, a practical form for spiritual development. In Harmon Bro's words, "With these readings . . . supplemented by an entire series on healing with prayer and meditation . . . Cayce's work entered the mainstream of serious mysticism. It joined the efforts of devout men and women across centuries of Western faith that had gathered in small groups and prepared manuals for growth as they steeped themselves in prayer, study and service . . . [work] grounded in daily activity."
By Harmon Bro's accounts, Cayce was essentially a good man who cared deeply for other human beings, entities he believed, from the information he received from on High, all came into existence together at the beginning of creation and were in the process of moving through stages of existence in their journey back to the creator. In connection with a covenant between himself and God formed in childhood, Cayce prayed daily for guidance in properly serving his "Master." As for the rest of us, "I don't do anything you can't do," He said, "if you are willing to pay the price."
He appears to have lived what he preached. Cayce once indicated, "Man's pageant must pass and fade, but God works in slower and more secret ways, His wondrous works to perform. He blows no trumpet, He rings no bell. He begins from within, seeking His ends by quiet growth. There is a strange power that men call weakness, a wisdom mistaken for folly. Man has one answer to every problem - power; but that is not God's way... Humanity is doomed to failure when it trusts in its own weak self, and most of us have that failing."
Harmon Bro writes with increasing sensitivity of feeling as his book unfolds, the best material carefully saved for the final third of the book which weighs heavily on Cayce's personal life and struggles. Surely I will remember, if nothing else, the many moving stories, such as Casey's experience in a jail cell after being arrested on a charge of healing without a license.
For my friends, people who share the similar interest, I've sent out notices on this labor of love, saying, "Must Read."
Though Cayce was denied the ability to recollect in his ordinary state of consciousness the unusual trance sessions he channeled, he was nevertheless convinced that the `information' that came through the trances was from God. Harmon Bro is understandably cautious in arguing conclusions about the more mystical aspects of Cayce's reported experiences, though he must have been tempted. A reader can, perhaps, sense that Harmon Bro, an insider of long tenure with Cayce, had learned over time to believe to a great degree in the validity of Cayce's revelations, not only matters of diagnosis and cure which were usually subject to corroboration, but even the furthest reaching, difficult if not impossible to corroborate of Edgar's visions. Bro does not impose his personal beliefs on the reader, however. Writing with a certain objectivity, he leaves open the question of who or what, precisely, Cayce was channeling.
It may be of interest to some readers, as it was to me, to consider the facts Harmon Bro documents about Cayce's work in light of other lines of work that had been developing in the Western hemisphere around the same time frame. Morton Blumenthal, a Manhattan stockbroker, for instance, had come to Edgar Cayce in 1924 to get a reading in hopes of curing a health problem only to learn from a "life reading" that he had known Cayce in prior lives. After being informed he had previously lived as a sage in ancient Egypt, Blumenthal began providing financial support for Cayce, including the purchase of a house in Virginia Beach, ostensibly as a gift to Cayce, and was inspired to begin reading books of an esoteric nature, including one by Ouspensky and some "training exercises" of Gurdjieff that he had evidently acquired. Blumenthal would ask questions about these and other written materials, whereupon Cayce's entranced unconscious reacted as though it knew them all and recommended the same materials for others to read.
Further, In 1931, a Norfolk housewife, Mrs. Barrett, brought together a group of friends in her home for a reading with Cayce to seek information on how to develop psychic powers. Instead, they got instruction on spiritual practice, bringing a new phase to Cayce's readings, now directing the formation of study groups, That first Cayce group, which became known as the No. 1 Study Group, was given the task of writing a spiritual manual, eventually published anonymously in two volumes under the title, A Search For God, (a copy of which I found, coincidentally, among the personal belongings of my father's estate.) This spiritual manual would be based on themes that came from Cayce's readings. The fundamental idea was to `live" the precepts, not just know them.
More study groups were to follow the initial activities of the No. 1 Group, in which study group members would explore for themselves the precepts in A Search for God and share their experiential findings at the weekly group meetings, a practical form for spiritual development. In Harmon Bro's words, "With these readings . . . supplemented by an entire series on healing with prayer and meditation . . . Cayce's work entered the mainstream of serious mysticism. It joined the efforts of devout men and women across centuries of Western faith that had gathered in small groups and prepared manuals for growth as they steeped themselves in prayer, study and service . . . [work] grounded in daily activity."
By Harmon Bro's accounts, Cayce was essentially a good man who cared deeply for other human beings, entities he believed, from the information he received from on High, all came into existence together at the beginning of creation and were in the process of moving through stages of existence in their journey back to the creator. In connection with a covenant between himself and God formed in childhood, Cayce prayed daily for guidance in properly serving his "Master." As for the rest of us, "I don't do anything you can't do," He said, "if you are willing to pay the price."
He appears to have lived what he preached. Cayce once indicated, "Man's pageant must pass and fade, but God works in slower and more secret ways, His wondrous works to perform. He blows no trumpet, He rings no bell. He begins from within, seeking His ends by quiet growth. There is a strange power that men call weakness, a wisdom mistaken for folly. Man has one answer to every problem - power; but that is not God's way... Humanity is doomed to failure when it trusts in its own weak self, and most of us have that failing."
Harmon Bro writes with increasing sensitivity of feeling as his book unfolds, the best material carefully saved for the final third of the book which weighs heavily on Cayce's personal life and struggles. Surely I will remember, if nothing else, the many moving stories, such as Casey's experience in a jail cell after being arrested on a charge of healing without a license.
For my friends, people who share the similar interest, I've sent out notices on this labor of love, saying, "Must Read."
October 21, 2012
I have read this book about 3 times, and I love it. It is purely awe-inspiring, deeply moving, and well-researched, amplified by the fact that Harmon Bro worked firsthand with Edgar Cayce for about one year. Harmon admits in this book that he started out as a skeptic, or at the very least convinced that the information Cayce "channeled" regarding spirituality/religions (and historical events) was mistaken. This book beautifully describes Bro's experiences with Edgar and his family, his secretary Gladys Davis Turner, members of Cayce's non-profit Association for Research and Enlightenment (still located in Virginia Beach, VA), and people whom Cayce's readings healed, helped, and guided. It portrays Edgar as a humble man with incredible gifts whose desire and intention was to help people as much as possible, and also as a man who was not spared challenges, discouragement, and heartache. This is an inspirational, provocative, and rare firsthand account of a peerless man, and his legacy. A comparable book about Cayce is Sidney Kirkpatrick's more recent, "Edgar Cayce: An American Prophet". Kirkpatrick also was a skeptic, who set out to disprove Cayce, and ended up thoroughly researching Cayce's life for 5 years while writing his impressive, detailed biography.
September 7, 2021
I love this book. And it gives a very human side to Cayce that you rarely hear/understand. It explains some of the reasons things fell apart in his efforts to open or sustain the larger clinics. It's a must read for Cayce enthusiasts even if people aren't in full agreement of the author's assessment.
February 2, 2014
Couldn't finish, dragged on and on. Maybe for another time.
September 1, 2009
A tough read, but worth it in the end.
June 22, 2012
I love reading about Edgar Cayce.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews