Edgar Cayce: Where to Find the Sleeping Prophet’s Gravesite

Have you heard of the Medical Medium, Anthony William? He’s sort of our time’s answer to Edgar Cayce, who some consider the “father of holistic medicine.”

I’m not really sure when I first learned about the American clairvoyant and mystic who was also called the Sleeping Prophet because of the way he gave readings. Which was to fall into a trancelike state and channel his higher power to answer questions and provide guidance on everything from healing and nutrition to past lives and Atlantis.

However, I do remember when I learned that he hailed from a town just north of Nashville in Hopkinsville, Kentucky. It was whenever I first started tracking Paracons & Horror Fests.

In March, every year around his birthday (March 18), there’s an Edgar Cayce Hometown Seminar with lectures and events that pays tribute to him. (But not in 2021. Thanks to our old pal and buddy, the fun-stomper, COVID-19.)

Anyway, that’s how I found out he was also buried in Hopkinsville. At that time (2012) we had never been up there yet, so I asked my husband if he’d want to go check it out. He had no idea who Edgar Cayce was, but he said, “Sure!” So off we went.

The Pennyroyal Area Museum

Our first stop was at the Pennyroyal Area Museum, which ended up having an extensive exhibit about Edgar Cayce. I don’t know if at the time I knew we’d find an Edgar Cayce exhibit there or if it was a lucky coincidence. (This was almost 10 years ago. I can barely remember what I ate for breakfast most mornings.)

However, I have a feeling my research may have pointed us in the museum’s direction.

Then afterward we journeyed on to find the gravesite.

But before we look a little bit at Edgar Cayce’s life before talking about his gravesite, two other illuminating exhibits we saw in the museum are worth noting.

The first was the Night Rider raids that were part of the Black Patch Tobacco War that happened in the early 1900s. They sounded terrifying, yet I was curious about the Night Rider reenactments they mentioned that Hopkinsville holds during their Black Patch Festival. Haven’t been to one yet, don’t even know if they still do them (or do them when it’s not a pandemic).

All of that would make a great topic for another post, as would the Kelly encounter, which was another surprising exhibit to read about at the museum.

A Quick History of Edgar Cayce’s Life

Edgar Cayce was born on Mar. 18, 1877, in Beverly, Kentucky, a small town not far from Hopkinsville. He knew from an early age he wanted to be a missionary and help sick people, and when a white woman with wings reportedly visited him, she told him his prayers had been answered.

Early on he learned that it seemed like if he laid his head on a book and “slept” a little while, he could “absorb” the information within the pages.

He was also his first “customer,” so to speak. When he endured a back injury while playing at school, he laid down and went to sleep and that’s when the cure for what ailed him came to him. He told his family to make it. To their surprise, it worked!

But it would be a few years before he developed his talent and put it to work for other people. It was actually when he developed a severe case of laryngitis that he began exploring his talents.

He was introduced to stage hypnotists who attempted to cure him. They learned of his ability and one of them encouraged him to develop it and give readings to the public.

Cayce wasn’t comfortable with that at first, though. It was also because of the laryngitis that he went into the photography profession, and that’s what he pursued instead.

The other problem was that he was a devout Christian. His gift for essentially channeling cures haunted him and gnawed at his morality because that sort of thing was considered demonic.

In the early 1920s, he moved to Virginia which is where he eventually established the Association for Research and Enlightenment in 1931. To this day the A.R.E. continues to study his readings in pursuit of understanding ancient mysteries and practicing holistic health.

During his lifetime Cayce gave tens of thousands of readings. He didn’t start recording them until 1923, though. Over 14,000 are available at the Association for Research and Enlightenment.

Edgar Cayce’s Gravesite

He died in 1945 a few months after suffering a stroke. Even though he and his wife lived in Virginia at the time, he was buried “back home” in Hopkinsville.

His grave is very well marked in the Riverside Cemetery, which is a lovely resting place for him.

3 Interesting Facts About Edgar Cayce

1. In 1971 his sons published a book called The Outer Limits of Edgar Cayce’s Power (affiliate link), in which they claimed he had an 85% accuracy rate.
2. Of course, he also had critics who said he was more quack than prophet but he never participated in any official ESP studies so…who knows?
3. Woodrow Wilson, Thomas Edison, Irving Berlin and George Gershwin were amongst his famous clients.

Check-In

As a student, did you ever try sleeping either on a book or with one tucked under your pillow to try and absorb the information? Asking for a friend…