Arthur Ford (Park Chambers Hotel) John Purdia - Gil Baker

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[music] [music] [music] [Speaker]: Thank you professor

?inaudible? It is now my privilege and pleasure uh, to introduce the speaker of the afternoon although literally he needs little introduction to this group because i'm sure many of you have heard him speak at earlier times and are probably familiar with his autobiography "Nothing So Strange." I could spend a good deal of time here recounting his good qualities, his cordiality, his integrity, his receptiveness to the call which is his uh, as a member of the uh, spiritual volunteers fellowship, as a minister of the gospel himself to make the testimony of what we call the psychic relevant in the area of the spiritual. I have in recent months been giving considerable time to doing some research and some writing and the uh,

story of the four Harper brothers who started a publishing business on whose pay-payroll I still am. Well these gentleman who began printing books in 1817 were devout Methodists and James Harper, the eldest, was not only, for a short time, mayor of New York, but he was a founder of the Washingtonian total abstinence society. He was not much of a man for public speaking but because of his job he was called occasionally to give an address. One time he was speaking and coming to that time which is experienced by everyone who was on the platform such as this was suddenly lost for a phrase that somehow wouldn't come and as he's waiting for the proper word a small boy up in the balcony yelled down, "Hey mister, you're stuck!" So I think anyone who attempted to the introduce Arthur Ford would soon get stuck cuz the proper phrase quite won't come so without further remarks, I

present to you Mr. Arthur Ford who will give us our address for the afternoon. [Ford]: Thank you, ?exman? I want to thank the local spiritual frontiers group for organizing this seminar and making it possible for me to be here. I'm especially happy that the ?exman? was able to be here with us because he's the man who had the courage to publish my autobiography a few years ago. It seems that everybody these days is writing autobiographies. I wonder sometimes how they get published. It's very interesting that Mr. Crane, who played the

cello, so beautifully, chose a selection from Bach because tonight you're going to hear another Bach and I think one who is making a tremendous contribution to the religious thought of our day. This afternoon, I am to talk to you briefly about Spiritual Frontiers Fellowship. What it means, what it can mean, what it has meant to a great many people already. The Spiritual Frontiers Fellowship was organized a little over 6 years ago to explore psychical phenomenon as it applies to prayer, healing, and the idea of the communion of saints. It hasn't anything new to

say because it is dealing with the things which made the church possible in the first place. In the scripture which you heard this afternoon, St. Paul, nearly 2000 years ago, made a list of those spiritual gifts, or psychic gifts as you like, and he listed practically every one of those things which concerned the psychical researchers and the parapsychologists today. And he made it very clear that these were perfectly natural things that everyone had some endowment of the spirit and that the one supreme spirt manifested in different ways through different people but that each one could bring in the manifestations some of the spiritual

gifts. And he said you have these gifts and he made it quite clear that you should use them, but he said I will show you the better way and then he gives us that remarkable definition of love in the 13th chapter of first Corinthians. And the word which he uses for love is the same word that Jesus used when he said God is love and he who abideth in love abideth in God and God abideth in him. In other words, the word love is synonymous with his concept of God. He says make this your aim and then seek spiritual gifts. In other words he was simply saying

that if you are god-centered, if your motives are right, and if you are spiritually entombed with the divine then it's perfectly safe for you to explore any part of God's universe, and you are perfectly wise. In using those gifts which you possess and which Jesus recognized in even the poorest of us, when he said the things I can do, you can do and greater things because I go to the father. Now jesus was not a person to use words lightly I'm sure. And I'm quite sure of it this Galilean teacher would not have said to that rather unusual group of people gathered around him. None of them very brilliant, none of them

very important from worldly standpoint. But he said to them you have these gifts and you're going to do greater things. In other words if I have healed you can heal, and if I have been able to communicate with the father, you can communicate with the father. And if in the wilderness and in the garden of guests that even my friends have deserted me, angels came and comforted me. You too can have angelic visitations and you can have guidance. Now these things are either true or they are not true. Jesus knew what he was talking about or else he was just another hysteric, deluded, and promising things which could not be fulfilled. But the interesting thing is

that long before the church was organized we must remember that Jesus did not organize the church, he said to his friends, these things that I have done, these so called miracles which authenticate my mission, these things you can do and they took him at his word, they did it, and out of these things a church was born. And had it not been for their ability to demonstrate these things which he showed them how to do, there would be no church. For the church was born in psychical phenomena. As so had been all the other religions of the world and every one of the great religious teachers that history has known have been people who have had the

ability for a moment at least once in a while to lift their consciousness into a higher dimension and become aware of things that were hidden from the rest of us and if you read your bible intelligently you find that it is not a book written necessarily by men who were inspired but it is a book written about men who possessed unusual abilities and spiritual gifts and who were inspired. Most of the men who wrote the New Testament were simply writing about historical figures who had demonstrated spiritual laws. And so when Jesus said the things I do you can do, he was speaking not of miracles in the sense that we used to believe in them

but he was speaking of laws which a few men have always understood. And which even during the history of the church when the church has drifted away from the spiritual gifts and lost the reality and kept the dogma, there have always been a few here and there who have been able to lift themselves into the so-called invisible and become conscious of God in a way greater than most of us can. For 45 years I have been conscious of certain psychic gifts. They came unsought and at first were very frightening. They came into my life at a time when these things were not

so well understood. And I'm quite frank to tell you that for the first ten years that these things were happening to me and through me my sole interest was to get rid of them. There isn't any argument that anyone can ring against psychical phenomena that I haven't used myself. There isn't any objection you can raise against these things that I haven't used myself. But one if he is honest is compelled at some point face up to facts. In 1927, because my friendship with Sir Oliver Lodge and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, I was finally willing to admit that probably

other people could preach better than I could but that maybe these gifts could be used in the service of the kingdom and so I accepted them. And may I say this to you who know little about this subject that contrary to the usual idea that all the Lodge and Conan Doyle and people like that became interested in psychical things only because they lost their sons in World War I let me remind you that long before Conan Doyle wrote any of the stories that made him famous way back in the 90's he became interested in psychic phenomena and he pursued the investigation for 30 years and the World War and the loss of his son Kingsley had nothing whatever to do with his interest in the subject but when he saw Europe bathed in tears,

he felt that if he had had an experience of reality, if he had anything to say concerning life after death that without which religion is meaningless, then he owed it to these people the same thing is true of Oliver Lodge. Oliver Lodge began his investigation in 1889, one of the first of that Cambridge group who organized the first society of psychical research. So these things have gone on through the years until today, all over the world are 42 colleges and universities who have made an academic subject of these very things which Paul listed in the 12th chapter of first Corinthians nearly 2000 years ago. And so far as I'm concerned psychical phenomena are the spiritual gifts

are all to be found within the context of the New Testament and so far as spiritual frontiers is concerned the frame of reference is the New Testament verified, bulwarked by the experiences of countless people who had spontaneous psychic or spiritual experiences and by the findings of competent scientists of every field who have taken the time to look at these facts and have then rendered an honest verdict and so the evidence has piled up to the point that if a person today tells me that these things are not true then the burden of proof is up on him rather than up on me.

For I have never seen any fact which could be substantiated or backed up which would deny the reality of psychical phenomena. Our interpretations may differ, and they do but that these things happen no informed person any longer questions. So what we're going to do here in the next day or so is to discuss together. Not a few isolated phenomena, not a few sensational spooky or weird things that happen sometimes but what we're going to discuss here in the light of findings both in the field of psychology, physical science and

religion is the total nature of man. It's a study in consciousness. It's a study of those things which make personality what it really is and what Jesus declared it to be. The only thing in the universe so important that it survives even physical death and if you will read your New Testaments again you will find that Christianity is not concerned really with immortality. Immortality has been talked about, believed in many different ways and long before the time of the Galilean. But the one unique

contribution of Christianity to religious thought is just here and Jesus considered it so important that he demonstrated in his own person and then said you can do the same thing. And that is the survival, not of a part of your personality, not of a segment of your mind, but the survival of a total personality with mind, memory and character. And apart from that there's nothing in Christianity that can't be found in the other world religions. That is the thing upon which the church is founded. Now the tragedy is that in a scientific age when science was largely mechanistic and when we were thinking in materialistic terms in and

a great many of us still are, that we found it impossible to believe these scriptual records and to accept these miracles. We couldn't believe in miracles in the old fashioned sense as they uh, setting aside of law. We couldn't believe in a whimsical god who played favorites. As one side has said we know that god no longer plays with loaded dice. And yet because we knew nothing about what's been done in this field of psychical research and parapsychology, most of us were confused and we were compelled either to ignore the so-called miracles or to accept them if we could on a blind faith and that was very difficult for people

living in our generation. Then there came this tremendous interest on the part of scientists, both physical scientists and psychologists, this deep concern about these things which so many people claim that were happening to them and things which did happen to me and to many people like me. And so out of that has grown an understanding of mind, the nature of mind and how it functions that we never knew before. And it throws a tremendous light on these so-called miracles and it was inevitable because these things are basic in all the world religions. That religious people should become interested

unfortunately, a large part of the organized church brushed us aside because it didn't fit in to their dogmatic schemes or their program of social helpful people. I'm afraid that a great many people thought it was rather unhealthy to become so interested in spiritual gifts that we might lose touch with reality as we know it through our physical senses but the tide is changing and I'm convinced based on my own experience and the experience of countless others that this next decade will be notable in history for 2 things. First will

be that our new understanding of nuclear energy will compel us to find an alternative to war as we've known it in the past and this new study of personality in depth, a study of the whole of man. Mind, body and soul will bring back into the religious life of the people a sense of reality which countless millions do not have today. And because they do not have it and cannot find it in their churches, they have emerged in recent years great movements we call them the cults with our smug sort of a self-satisfied way of naming things and we forget that practically every one of the religious movements that which we are a part was a cult at one time it

only became less than a cult we became so respectable that it lost it's power. I don't refer to these great metaphysical movements and these psychic movements as cults. They are basic Christianity and they are the emerging church and they are going to bring about again in the light of the church that thing which gave power and meaning to the early church. That sense of the church visible and invisible. The real communion of saints. The thing that Jesus was talking about when a few are gathered together in my name, I will be there. Now what have we accomplished alright, in 1930 in England Maurice ?inaudible? of Anglican clergymen with St. ?inaudible? and a few others

organized the ?inaudible? [cough] to bring together clergymen who had a convincing psychic experience or who believed in a spiritual healing and were willing to stand up and be counted. This grew to such a strong group in a few years that the late archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Lang, appointed a commission to study these things and he appointed his own men and they brought him the report. They were to find out just what relation these things had to the church and how they could be used but unfortunately the report was so favorable that the Archbishop of Canterbury filed it away. And it was only when Doctor Temple became Archbishop of Canterbury, and a great many clergymen demanded that the report be released and made public that it was made public

and it's very interesting that the present Archbishop of Canterbury who had just been in our country, preaching around in various Cathedrals, wherever he has preached has chosen for his subject the transfiguration. The most psychic story in the New Testament and it's quite evident when you listen to Dr. Ramsey that he knew something about psychic things and how these things applied to [cuts out] meaningless. St. Paul made that quite clear. Six and a half years ago a small group of us in America who knew what was going on in England formed a similar fellowship called the Spiritual Frontiers, and in less than 7 years we have

grown almost as big as the English fellowship and some of the greatest minds in the church in America today are actively in this field, You'll hear one of them tonight and you'll hear another one tomorrow. Bach and Blackburn. And next week, those of us who are here with you today and tomorrow, will be speaking in the Episcopal cathedral in Harrisburg and the bishop will be presiding. It shows that there is a new breath sweeping through the church and people today are finding a sense of power and people are developing spiritual gifts which they've always had but they've never known how to use and they're finding that these gifts are acceptable and all over this country is a vast movement among the laymen. Prayer

groups everywhere. Only two weeks ago out at Ohio, Star Daily, who was a convict as you know in the penitentiary as a lifer, in solitary confinement he had a psychic experience. His mother appeared to him and others and it changed his life. He was to conduct a retreat for 40 men near Cleveland who became ill and couldn't get there. They called me up and asked if I'd come and why. They said we want to hear someone talk who has had an experience. Now a lot of people can talk about them better than I can and know more about this than I do. But people are wanting to hear from people who had an experience and that is the purpose of Spiritual Frontiers and that's our purpose in being here. And tomorrow our job will be to give you briefly simple

techniques which will unlock spiritual doors for you. Doors through which you may walk into a new world of power and significance and some of you will be healers before the year is out and some of you will be seeing the so-called invisible and all of you will practice these simple techniques that we can give you, will find that your spiritual life is enriched and deepened because of these things and that there is guidance and now let me remind you that the basic problem of parapsychology and the basic concern of the psychical research societies has been to find out whether mind could function apart from the physical brain. If they could prove that, then they would have solved

the major problem that concerns mankind because if even for a brief moment you can function mentally and spiritually without regard to time or space and apart from this biological brain then you have destroyed the very foundations of materialism and you also while you may not have proved survival in absolute sense, you have at least enlarged the probabilities of survival because if I can function and I have and many of you have, I hear these stories all the time. For even a moment apart from this physical makeup then the resurrection story is not only possible it is very probable

and while we have no absolute proof of anything in this universe we do have positive proof and so we can take another look at our New Testaments in the light of what we know and the thing comes to life. And I have never known any honest man who investigated psychical phenomena and then gave an honest verdict based upon facts and actual experience who did not agree that these things happen. And as Oliver Lodge once wrote, I have never known any man who if he pursued investigation to the point of making an interpretation did not admit that the most logical explanation of all this is the simple one that under certain conditions, minds incarnate and discarnate can impinge upon each other and

when you pray you demonstrate that. Preacher said to me the other day I can go for prayer but I don't go for the psychic phenomena I said do you believe in prayer, he does, well if you pray and if you are praying intelligently, you are reaching out to something that you call god we can't define it but we know there is an intelligence and if you are then it's a telepathic process because you certainly aren't yelling at him and you're not writing it and if you will learn to listen you will find that the answer comes to much evidence, the answer does come. So I suggest to you that you become familiar with some of the literature on this subject and you will find that there isn't a thing that we're trying to do that doesn't substantiate

everything that is really important in whatever religion you profess. Too long we've gone ahead on a theory that religion is simply a matter of factless faith, faith without facts. And that science on the other hand is a matter of faithless facts, or facts without faith. That's no longer true. Physical science today will tell you they know too much about matter to believe in it. And they will also tell you that you are very foolish to discard any spiritual experience or belief that has been helpful to you simply because there is some new theory advanced by the scientists because as Doctor Swan, the astrophysicist recently said,

We scientists today are not so much discovering new facts as we are inventing new theories and that they have no relation whatever to reality. They're really a working hypothesis and we step out upon them with the same kind of faith that you employ when you pray. We hope they will work but before you discard anything, says Doctor Swan, that's been helpful to you spiritually, just remember behind every scientific laboratory there is a junk pile of discarded theories which didn't work. Which we hoped would work. And behind every theological seminary there is an equally large junk pile of discarded dogmas which men once believed but which they no longer believe. But in neither place

says this great scientist you find anything at all that has any value any you certainly don't find a god there. Theories are one thing, experiences are another and that's what we're doing here in this spiritual frontiers fellowship. Let me assure you that this is not another organization. It is not a group of people who are trying to prove anything. We're simply trying to use the things which have already been proven in the lives not only of the saints and the mystics of the past but which today have been tested and proven true in the laboratories of the scientists and in the universities. Where honest men and scholars have brought to bear upon the problems of the spiritual life and the mental

life of man the same team and dedicated methods which they use in other fields and they're getting the same results. And we bring them to you with confidence because now we can say truly are we today the sons of god it is not yet apparent but we shall be. [Applause] [Speaker] Thank you Arthur Ford for that inspiring message. Mr. Kanir will now have some analysis to get through to bring to our attention and also speak about the offering