Joe Kaye was an American poet, philosopher, schoolteacher, and author of 11 books. Born in New York City, Joe taught in New York, Hawaii, and Michigan. In Hawaii, he started writing and by the age of 25 he published his first manuscript. He later moved to Michigan and then to Wisconsin, where he developed a tumor which began to give him delusions. His delusions led him to construct a giant labyrinth on a tropical island. He also had an obsession with looking for a message he believed he had left for himself in a past life, in the form of a poem, song, or story. He went insane with paranoia and believed the karma police were coming to take him away. He also became obsessed with cheating death, practicing a religion called Voodoo Botany, believing it would make him a god. On a late night talk show, he made a prophecy about the extinction of the human race. He was sent to rest at Fennimore Place Institute. The maze was never finished. He died broke and penniless.
What most books won’t tell you about the life of Joe Kaye, The False Prophet of Fennimore Place, is that before he thought he might be the reincarnation of Mark Twain, and after he thought he was the reincarnation of Jim Morrison, he thought he might have been a very strange science fiction writer named Philip K. Dick. During the time Joe Kaye believed he might have been Philip K. Dick, he wrote a novel called Blind Savior, in which he not only attempted to blend all major religions (Hindu/Jewish/Buddhist/Christian/Muslim/Taoist) into one, but also attempted to say all major religions were started by the same person reincarnated again and again. He buried the story in an unknown location. The world was not ready.
