1942 to 2000
Edgar Cayce books in order
The list starts with There Is a River, Thomas Sugrue’s 1942 biography, and runs through Sidney Kirkpatrick’s An American Prophet of 2000. Cayce wrote almost none of them. His work is the readings, which other people took down, so the shelf holds biographies by outside writers, study-group lessons built from the readings and a handful of books by his two sons.
- Books here18, from 1942 to 2000
- By outside writers11
- By his sons3
- Study groups, A.R.E.4 pamphlets and lesson books
- Free downloadsNone
- Borrowable online17 of the 18
The shelf
Eighteen books across sixty years
Each spine stands at the year its book came out, as tall as its printed page count and colored by who wrote it. Where two books share a year the spines are nudged apart and a small line runs back to the true year on the axis. Tap a spine for the facts, or go to the list under the shelf.
In order
The books, with where to read each
- 1942
There Is a River
Thomas Sugrue · Henry Holt · x, 453 pages
The first biography. Sugrue lived in the Cayce house from 1939 to 1941 while he wrote it. Holt’s copyright date is December 8, 1942, and Cayce wrote on December 9 that a copy had already gone out from the publisher. A Norfolk paper and the association’s own chronology say 1943. Revised in 1945, with a 1973 A.R.E. Press paperback.
- 1942
A Search for God, Book I
A.R.E. study groups · 134 pages in the 1992 printing
Lessons worked out by the first study group, which began on September 14, 1931, and published by the Norfolk, Virginia group after eleven years. The page count is from the 1992 A.R.E. Press printing, since we did not see the 1942 one.
- 1945
Auras
A.R.E. · 20 pages in the 1973 printing
A short pamphlet on the colors of the aura, credited to him on later printings. First published in 1945, going by its 1973 renewal.
Buy from the A.R.E.No lending copy found. - 1946
What I Believe
Credited to Edgar Cayce · A.R.E. · 48 pages in the 1978 printing
A short statement of belief, and the one title here that reads as personal. We could not open the 1946 printing, so the facts come from the renewal record and the 1978 edition.
- 1950
A Search for God, Book II
A.R.E. study groups · E. Cayce Publishing Co. · 136 pages
The second set of lessons, five years after he died. The copy that lends is a 1988 reprint.
- 1950
Many Mansions
Gina Cerminara · William Sloane Associates · 304 pages
Cerminara’s study of the life readings and reincarnation. The note under reading 900-465 shows a copy being sent to one of the early readers in December 1950. To look up the life readings it discusses by date and place, use the Reading Finder.
- 1956
Edgar Cayce, Mystery Man of Miracles
Joseph Millard · Fawcett · 207 pages
A short popular biography. It was reprinted in 1967 at 223 pages, which is the copy the Internet Archive lends, and again by the A.R.E. Press in 2007.
- 1964
Venture Inward
Hugh Lynn Cayce · Harper & Row · xxiv, 227 pages
The older son on his father, the readings and the A.R.E. The 1985 edition adds the subtitle Edgar Cayce’s story and the mysteries of the unconscious mind.
- 1967
Edgar Cayce, the Sleeping Prophet
Jess Stearn · Doubleday · 280 pages
The book that put the nickname on a cover. The Bantam paperback of 1968 runs 287 pages. Notes under later readings show people writing in after it, one as late as 1974, under reading 5286-1.
- 1968
Edgar Cayce on Atlantis
Edgar Evans Cayce, edited by Hugh Lynn Cayce · Hawthorn Books · 170 pages
The younger son on the Atlantis readings. What the readings say, and where, has its own page on Atlantis.
- 1971
The Outer Limits of Edgar Cayce’s Power
Edgar Evans Cayce and Hugh Lynn Cayce · Harper & Row · 154 pages
Both sons. The A.R.E. points to Hugh Lynn’s second chapter, Edgar Cayce As We Knew Him, for what the man was like.
- 1972
My Years with Edgar Cayce
Mary Ellen Carter, with Gladys Davis Turner · Harper & Row · xiv, 140 pages
The story of his stenographer, who took down most of the readings. The A.R.E.’s own notes point to pages 130 to 132 for Gertrude’s last illness, which ties in with how he died.
- 1982
The Edgar Cayce Primer
Herbert B. Puryear, edited by Richard I. Abrams · Bantam Books · xiii, 247 pages
A one-volume introduction to the readings, published by Bantam together with the association.
Buy from the A.R.E.No lending copy found. - 1989
A Seer Out of Season
Harmon Hartzell Bro · NAL Books · x, 418 pages
A biography by a religion scholar who knew him in his last years, and the son of Marguerite Harmon Bro, who wrote the 1943 Coronet article. Reissued in 1996 and by the A.R.E. Press in 2011.
- 1998
Edgar Cayce in Context
K. Paul Johnson · State University of New York Press · xi, 178 pages
A university-press look at the readings, subtitled The Readings, Truth and Fiction. It is the only title here from a university press.
- 1998
Edgar Cayce on the Akashic Records
Kevin J. Todeschi · A.R.E. Press · xix, 181 pages
A guide to the records idea in the readings. Our own count of where the word first appears is on the akashic records page.
- 1999
My Life as a Seer
Compiled and edited by A. Robert Smith · St. Martin’s Press · xxvii, 365 pages
Sold as his lost memoirs, assembled by an editor. It comes closest to his own voice in print, though the readings are the real record. The Internet Archive lends the 2002 paperback.
- 2000
Edgar Cayce, an American Prophet
Sidney D. Kirkpatrick · Riverhead Books · 564 pages
The longest biography on the shelf and the newest.
Why so few are his
He wrote almost nothing himself
He left a few letters and the readings. A reading is spoken, and his wife or another conductor asked the questions while Gladys Davis took down the answer, so even the biggest body of work behind the name is a transcript. Everything on the shelf either quotes that transcript, retells it or sorts it into lessons.
The first book mattered more than the rest. In the notes the A.R.E. filed with the readings, we found the title There Is a River 861 times. Of the 528 mentions we could date by the closest date written before them, 288 fall in 1943, against 57 in 1942 and 79 in 1944. Many of the letters behind them come from people who read it and wrote in for a reading, and the readings were already coming in at nearly twice the earlier rate by then, as the last two years show.
The readings themselves are not in any of these books in full. Paying members of the A.R.E. can search every one online, and our own index counts them by year and place. For the newspapers that covered him before any book existed, see the newspaper page.
- 861
- times There Is a River is named in the file notes
- 288
- of the 528 dated mentions fall in 1943
- 0
- of the 18 books are free downloads
Where to start
Pick the book by the question
- Who was he, and how did it start?
- There Is a River, written while he was alive and published with his knowledge. For the newest and longest account, An American Prophet.
- What did the readings say about past lives?
- Many Mansions, which the A.R.E. was already sending to readers in 1950.
- What did he say about Atlantis?
- Edgar Cayce on Atlantis, then our Atlantis page for the places he named.
- How did the work run from day to day?
- My Years with Edgar Cayce, by the woman who took down the readings, and Venture Inward for the family side.
- What did he forecast?
- None of these books scores the forecasts against what happened. We did that on the predictions page.
Copyright
None is a free download, and why
Every early title was renewed, so none has passed into the public domain. We link only to lending pages on the Internet Archive, where you can borrow a scanned copy for a limited time, and to the A.R.E. for buying. Books from 1964 on needed no renewal and stay protected. We do not link to unauthorized PDFs.
| Book | Published | Renewed |
|---|---|---|
| There Is a River | December 8, 1942 | 1969 |
| There Is a River, revised edition | December 10, 1945 | 1973 |
| A Search for God, Book I | 1942 | Renewed, registration R478163 |
| A Search for God, Book II | 1950 | 1978 |
| Auras | 1945 | 1973 |
| What I Believe | 1946 | 1974 |
| Many Mansions | 1950 | 1978 |
| Mystery Man of Miracles | 1956 | 1984 and 1989 |
Questions
About the books
Which Edgar Cayce book should I read first?
Start with the question you came with. For the life, read There Is a River, the 1942 biography by Thomas Sugrue. For reincarnation, read Gina Cerminara's Many Mansions of 1950. For Atlantis, read Edgar Evans Cayce's 1968 book. For the family's own view, read Hugh Lynn Cayce's Venture Inward of 1964.
Did Edgar Cayce write any books himself?
Almost none. His own words are in the readings, which others took down, and the books were written about him or compiled from the transcripts. A Search for God came from the A.R.E. study groups. My Life as a Seer, billed as his lost memoirs, is a 1999 collection compiled and edited by A. Robert Smith.
Is There Is a River free to read online?
No. The copyright on the 1942 edition was renewed in 1969, and the revised 1945 edition in 1973, so it is still protected. You can borrow a digital copy through the Internet Archive's lending library, and the A.R.E. Press has reissued it in print.
Who wrote There Is a River?
Thomas Sugrue, a New York newspaperman born in 1907 who came to live with the Cayces in 1939, ill, and stayed until 1941 while he worked on it. Henry Holt published it. Cayce visited him in Florida in 1944, and Sugrue wrote the editorial that marked his death in the association's bulletin.
What is A Search for God?
The study-group lessons drawn from the readings. The first study group began on September 14, 1931, and Book I came out in 1942 from the Norfolk, Virginia group after eleven years of work. Book II followed in 1950. It is the A.R.E.'s own book, not an outsider's.
Did There Is a River bring him more work?
It looks that way. We found the title named 861 times in the file notes of 593 readings. Of the 528 mentions we could date by the nearest date written before them, 288 fall in 1943, against 57 in 1942 and 79 in 1944. On December 9, 1942 he wrote that a copy had already gone out from the publisher.
Sources
- Publisher, year and page counts: the edition records on Open Library, which carry Library of Congress and OCLC numbers, for example There Is a River, and the item records on the Internet Archive. Where a first printing was not seen, the page says which printing the count comes from.
- Lending copies: the item pages on the Internet Archive linked in the list, each opened to confirm it exists.
- Renewals: the Stanford Copyright Renewal Database, as searched for this section.
- Dates, Sugrue’s years in the house, the study group and the mentions of the first book: the note sections under each reading in the full text, and the year-by-year chronology under reading 254-1. The counts of mentions are ours.
- The bibliography in the Wikipedia entry on him, used to find the later titles.