The Conditionalist Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 2

I. Spiritualist Inroads Through “Spiritual Frontiers Fellowship”

One of its recent adaptations, a seemingly innocuous but actually subversive movement spiritually, is the recently established Spiritual Frontiers Fellowship, ¹ founded in March, 1956. Its frankly stated purpose, in the editorial masthead of its official journal, is: “To encourage the study within the Churches of psychic phenomena as related to personal immortality, spiritual healing, and prayer.” ² CFF2 1230.2

With officers and an executive council of twenty-four, more than half of whom are clergymen of the Methodist, Presbyterian, Congregationalist, Episcopalian, Baptist, a nd other Christian churches, it is really a front organization, or fringe movement, for the inculcation of spiritistic principles and practices in the established churches. It operates through conferences, seminars, and lectures, with research groups and recommended literature. A single issue of its journal, Spiritual Frontiers (May-June, 1958), reporting the “Spring Conference” of 1958, contains the following startling features. CFF2 1231.1

1. REINCARNATION NAIVELY TAUGHT AT FRONTIERS CONFERENCE

The 1958 conference, held in a Methodist church in Chicago, first heard an address on “Man’s Spiritual Quest,” ³ by Hugh L. Cayce, who. teaches reincarnation. Said Cayce: “We are in a physical body.” A “psychically sensitive person” can move out into “the realm of mind, and spirit while in an unconscious state,” and “report back on conditions... anywhere in the world.” ⁴ Man, he maintained, was “created” to be a “spiritual being.” He was “not made for Earth and not limited to Earth.” Moreover, he was “created long before he carne to this world and was caught here in physical life for only a comparatively short time,” the soul then “returning to the consciousness of God and to the spiritual realm.” ⁶ He likewise refers to “memories of lives farther back than this life,” and speaks of “a world of higher mind, a superconscious or OverSoul.” That, of course, is simply reincarnationism. CFF2 1232.1

2. IN TOUCH WITH LOVED ONES IN SPIRITUAL REALM

The then-president of the Fellowship, Methodist pastor Dr. Paul L. Higgins, speaking on “The Communion of Saints,” boldly stated that “even death cannot separate us from our dear ones who have gone to the heavenly realms, for we can be in touch with them.” ⁷ CFF2 1232.2

He cited Tertullian as advocating “actual communion with the souls gone to the heavenly realm.” This was, he added, “part of the life of the early Church.” ⁸ He said he was “aware” of the “presence... of loved ones, though they were not visible to the physical eye.” ⁹ He claims that “many great saints of the church have had communication with the spirit world.” ¹⁰ CFF2 1232.3

3. “FRONTIERS” EDITOR ON “METHODS OF PSYCHIC RESEARCH.”

Reverend Dr. Edmond G. Dyett, editor of Spiritual Frontiers, speaking on psychic research, discussed candidly “the survival of human personality after death” ¹¹ and “the life beyond the physical.” He referred to Dr. Rhine’s parapsychology researches ¹² and “life beyond the physical,” ¹⁴ and also to Hereward Carrington’s “psychic survival,” “trance control,” and “the possibility of self-conscious survival after death.” The “case” is being built up, he held, for “personal continuity of life.” CFF2 1233.1

4. MEDIUM FORD’S ADROITLY FRANK “TALK.”

Internationally famous American Spiritualist medium Arthur Ford made the following uninhibited points in one of the high lights of the conference: CFF2 1233.2

“When we explore the psychic faculties we are not dabbling in something new and strange. We are just trying to remind the people in the churches of something that has always been part of the Christian Gospel, but has been neglected for centuries.” ¹⁶ CFF2 1233.3

The “basic meaning” of “psychic” is “breath of God,” “that which makes man a living soul.” It is “a common endowment of the human race.” CFF2 1233.4

“Mediums are not unique people.” All spiritual people “may truly be called mediums.” CFF2 1233.5

“Christianity began with psychic phenomena in the experience of the disciples on the Day of Pentecost.” They are the “gifts of the Spirit.” CFF2 1233.6

The “real ‘Communion of Saints’” is “between the two sides of life.” CFF2 1233.7

“We have a spiritual body as well as a physical body. In this spiritual body we rise from earth when death releases it from the physical. That is what the resurrection of the body means to me. In that spiritual body as our vehicle of expression we go on through eternity.” ¹⁷ CFF2 1233.8

“Our continued life” will go on “with ever increasing fellowship with God.” CFF2 1234.1

In a Cleveland area seminar Ford demonstrated extrasensory perceptions in “getting messages from the unseen world for various persons in the audience of about 150.” ¹⁸ Many were “impressed” by the demonstration. And with ail of these gatherings healing services are conducted. CFF2 1234.2

5. “BOOK REVIEW” AND “NOTES” ON THE PSYCHIC

The “Book Review” was on Nothing So Strange, the autobiography of Spiritualist Arthur Ford, with Margueritte H. Bro as collaborator. “Excommunicated” from the Baptist Church at sixteen, Ford early became CFF2 1234.3

“aware of his peculiar ability to foresee things that would come about; and this puzzled and alarmed him, because he suspected if people knew about it, he would be regarded as a touch peculiar.” ¹⁹ CFF2 1234.4

Developing his “particular abilities,” he gives his “philosophy of life,” and CFF2 1234.5

“stoutly maintains we are all psychic, and that we may develop the ability to use extra-sensory perceptions much as he has, by following his suggestions which come from his own lifetime of practice in the field.” ²⁰ CFF2 1234.6

The “Notes on Books” for lending includes The Power of Faith Healing, Psychic and Divine, by Shaw Desmond, the British psychic; Healing the Mind, on “Extra-Sensory Perception,” by Dr. R. Connell and Geraldine Cummins; Towards the Hereafter, by R. M. Lester; The Case for Psychic Survival, by Hereward Carrington, dealing with “psychic research,” the “medium” and the “control”; and Unbidden Guests, by W. O. Stevens, on “psychic phenomena.” ²¹ CFF2 1234.7

6. “BOOK SERVICE” SPECIALIZES IN THE PSYCHIC

The “Book Service,” on the back page, lists, among others, for sale:
The Case for Psychic Survival (Carrington)
You Will Survive After Death (Sherwood Eddy) Nothing So Strange (Ford and Bro)
Psychical Research, and The Imprisoned Splendor (R. C. Johnson)
The Psychic Message of the Scriptures (T. Rowland Powel)
Immortality, The Scientific Evidence (Alson J. Smith)
You Will Live After Death (Sherman).” ²² CFF2 1234.8

Such is the startling interpenetration of the churches with metaphysical precepts and practices that are but thinly veiled Spiritualism. Its acceptance is very widespread, and goes hand in hand with open and avowed Spiritualism. CFF2 1235.1

7. CONTINUING EMPHASIS ON PSYCHIC AND SPIRITISTIC

Three years later (September, 1961) Spiritual Frontiers reported on its annual conference at Chicago. Four extracts must suffice, showing the unchanging emphasis. CFF2 1235.2

Presbyterian editor of Church Management, the late Dr. William H. Leach, speaking on “The Relationship of Psychic Research in the Church,” and touching on “outer space and inner man” and “extra-sensory perceptions” and “psychic communication,” declared: CFF2 1235.3

“If two people can use telepathy on earth, as so many do, then communication should be possible between the living and those who survive after death. CFF2 1235.4

“For these reasons I say the Church needs much research in these realms-prayer, spiritual healing and psychic communications. It will not be an easy battle to get the Churches to accept this.” ²³ CFF2 1235.5

But, he adds, the message of Spiritual Frontiers Fellowship is “gaining recognition,” and such studies will “eventually establish” themselves in the thinking of the churches. ²⁴ CFF2 1235.6

Physician John W. Aitken, becoming interested through Spiritualist Arthur Ford’s book, started a study group, believing that “communication with the dead is possible.” He had Ford “spend some time with the group,” giving “messages” and discussing communications with the “other side.” Aitken says frankly that evidence of the “psychic” has “tremendous implications for all religions.” He states that CFF2 1235.7

“it proves that a man has spiritual nature and that death does not end one’s life. And I am grateful to Spiritualists for keeping this realization alive through the years.” ²⁵ CFF2 1236.1

What candor! What clearer acknowledgment of common ground with Spiritualism could be made! CFF2 1236.2

Metaphysicist George C. LeGros, speaking on “Metaphysical Prayer,” and reaching up into the “ocean of God,” candidly remarked: CFF2 1236.3

“Our immediate lesson ins to move out into the world of spirit, and out of the world of matter. How can anyone doubt that there is continuation of life for the true self, the divine self, after it throws off the physical body? Many of us hold this conviction based on psychic experiences which to us seem sufficient proof of continuing life.” ²⁶ CFF2 1236.4

Here again the innate divinity of man is linked to the immortality of the soul. The two are constantly in conjunction. CFF2 1236.5

And Engineer John R. Haile, at a Los Angeles meeting of “members only,” declared that we are “on the threshold of a great new age... i f the human soul has only half a chance to really come into its own.” ²⁷ CFF2 1236.6

8. SPIRITUALIST BOOKS INTERSPERSED IN LIST

After an announcement that Dr. Harmon H. Bro and “Rev. Arthur Ford” (Spiritualist) would be the speakers at the “Midwest Fall Seminar,” the “Library Notes” lists in its “New Additions,” The Evidence for Survival From Claimed Memories of Former Incarnations (1961), by Ian Stevenson. ²⁸ And the “Book Service List” includes two volumes by Spiritualist W. Stainton Moses-Spirit Teachings and More Spirit Teachings; also Leslie D. Weatherhead’s The Case for Reincarnation. The tenor of the list may be judged by such titles as More Than We Are (Bro); Life Beyond the Sunset (Buell); The Supreme Adventure (Crookall); The Bible as Psychic History (Elliott); Life After Death (Harlow); and The Unobstructed Universe (White). ²⁹ It is significant that certain of these books are advertised in standard Spiritualist literature. CFF2 1236.7

9. “THIRD BIRTH” AND ‘NEXT DIMENSION.”

In the May, 1962, issue, the address of vice-president Rev. Roy A. Burkhart, at the 1962 annual conference, on “A Faith Greater Than Life,” refers to “the experience we erroneously call death.” ³⁰ This “greater faith” is to see death as the “third birth,” the “next dimension”—an expression thrice used. And he cites the resurrection of Christ on Easter morning as proving that “death is a lie.” ³¹ And in the report of the retiring president (Rev. George Wright) Arthur Ford is referred to as a “speaker and sensitive.” ³² Such are the current penetrations of Spiritualism within the churches. CFF2 1237.1