Have any independent scholars published statistical analyses of Cayce’s prediction accuracy?
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Executive summary
No independent, peer-reviewed statistical analyses of Edgar Cayce’s prediction accuracy appear in the provided search results; available sources are popular articles, organization pages, books and blogs that recount or promote Cayce’s readings without reporting formal statistical evaluations [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]. Most material in the results treats Cayce’s predictions anecdotally or devotionally rather than analytically: public retellings claim hits (e.g., alleged forecasts about China, world wars, markets) but do not present rigorous methodology, sample frames, or error rates [2] [3] [1].
1. What the readily available sources actually are — and what they do
The corpus returned by the search is dominated by popular and devotional treatments: an advocacy piece on TheHeartySoul repeating dramatic forecasts and climate claims [1], the Association for Research and Enlightenment (A.R.E.) page framing Cayce’s readings as prophetic and spiritually consistent [2], a Medium retrospective asserting that “many” predictions were “at least partially validated” [3], a commercial book listing at Barnes & Noble [4], and several hobbyist or blog reposts summarizing 2025 predictions [5] [6]. None of these items report an independent, statistical audit of Cayce’s readings; they present narratives, selective examples, and interpretive commentary rather than reproducible, quantitative analyses [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6].
2. What a legitimate statistical analysis would need — and what’s missing
A credible, independent audit would require a defined corpus of Cayce’s predictions, clear dating and testable outcome definitions, pre-specified success criteria, and exposure of selection processes to avoid hindsight bias. The provided sources do not describe such procedures; they instead highlight individual “hits” (e.g., geopolitical notes about China or wartime alliances) and sweeping claims about climate and spiritual change without documenting the denominator of failed or vague forecasts [2] [3] [1]. Therefore, methodological transparency necessary for statistical inference is not present in these items [2] [3] [1].
3. Claims of accuracy in the promotional and retrospective pieces
Promotional and retrospective sources assert that Cayce predicted events later seen as true — for example, geopolitical shifts and economic forecasts — and use selective examples to support those assertions [3] [2]. TheHeartySoul article attributes very specific near-term forecasts (e.g., December 2025 as pivotal for psychic awakening and polar ice melt) without offering follow-up assessment or measurement of accuracy [1]. These narratives serve persuasion and readership more than scientific validation [1] [3] [4].
4. Competing perspectives and implicit agendas in the materials
The A.R.E. page and several books clearly have an institutional or commercial interest in preserving Cayce’s reputation; their content emphasizes continuity and spiritual meaning in readings [2] [4]. Conversely, independent popular outlets and blogs often sensationalize or reinterpret readings to fit contemporary concerns [1] [5] [6]. The result is overlapping but non-rigorous accounts that present Cayce as “validated” by history without confronting alternative readings, null results, or the methodological pitfalls of post-hoc matching [2] [3] [1].
5. What the available sources do not say
None of the supplied items present or cite a published, peer‑reviewed statistical study measuring Cayce’s hit rate, false positives, or comparing his forecasts to reasonable baselines (not found in current reporting). The sources do not supply raw data, coding rules, or independent replication attempts that would permit meta-analysis or formal verification [2] [3] [1].
6. Practical next steps if you want a rigorous answer
If you seek an independent statistical assessment, you will need to locate scholarship outside the current results: cross-disciplinary work in history of prophecy, forecasting evaluation, or applied statistics; archives of Cayce readings for primary coding; and any peer‑reviewed audits (available sources do not mention such studies here) [2] [3]. Expect obstacles: defining objective success for many of Cayce’s metaphysical or symbolic statements will be contested and requires pre-registered coding rules.
Limitations: this analysis relies solely on the six search results supplied; I cite those items directly and do not infer the existence of other scholarship beyond them [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6].