Arthur Ford at SFF Riverside Church

Uh, those of us who are members [clears throat] of the Spiritual Volunteers Fellowship and also members of the Riverside Church are always heartened and strengthened by, uh, the tower of strength which Dr. Jessie Lions, a minister of the church is. We're happy that he's here this afternoon and will lead us in a brief devotional period afterward of welcome, Dr. Lions. [Dr. Lions]: It's hardly necessary, of course for me to welcome you to Riverside when Mr. Kinnear, Mr. Axemen and so many others of Riverside welcome you were glad that you have brought the radiance of your presence here today and particularly today. Hope that this afternoon at the dinner this evening, through the evening hour you will receive a blessing that you search and that on the morrow you will again discover that the power of god is greater than our need for him. Would be my great

happiness if I could spend all the afternoon with you, but if you noticed on the order of worship when the choir at 5:00 sings a requiem in the nie by I have a part in that service so you will excuse me if after reading the scripture and a prayer I tend to these other duties then I will join you for supper. So glad you're here my god bless your coming as you are a blessing to us. It's been suggested that the reading be from the 12th chapter of 1st Corinthians. Words I am sure that you cherish in your hearts. Now concerning spiritual gifts brethren, I do not want you to be uninformed. You know that when you were heathen you are lead

astray to dumb idols, however you may have been moved. Therefore, I want you to understand that no one speaking by the spirit of god ever says Jesus be cursed. And no one can say Jesus is lord except by the Holy Spirit now there are varieties of gifts but the same spirit and there are varieties of service, but the same lord and there are varieties of working, but the same god who inspires them all to everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the spirit for the common good. To one is given through the spirit the utterance of wisdom. To another the utterance of knowledge according to the spirit. To

another faith by the same spirit. To another gift of healing by the one spirit. To another the working of miracles. To another prophecy. To another the ability to distinguish between spirits. To another various kinds of tongues. To another the interpretation of tongues. All these are inspired by one and the same spirit who apportions to each one individually as he wills. For just as the body is one and has many members and all the members of the body though many are one body. So it is with Christ

for by one spirit we are all baptized into one body and all were made to drink of one spirit. These are the 1st verses of the chapter may god bless his word. Let us unite our hearts in prayer. Spirit of god descend upon our hearts clean us from earth through all our pulses move. Stoop to our weakness mighty is thou art. Make us love thee as we ought to love. How can we worship thee our heavenly father without thy blessing? How can we adore thee accept by being willing to hollow thy name?

How can we serve thee unless we dedicate all that we have to thy glory. Thou only art worthy to be served [crowd member coughs] and thy presents we are unable and we are unworthy. We allow ourselves to do what we should not do and we do not fully invest ourselves in thy work forgive us and accept our thanksgiving that thou art able to do with our lives more than we ask or think. We now present, we pray with those whose channels of communication would want only to receive thy word. Use those who would speak and those who would

listen that thy will shall be done. Grant that there shall never be any separation between those two love thee or we know whom we have believed we are persuaded that thou art able to keep us. To keep that which we commit to thee forever and ever. Fine o' lord is the greatness, the power, the glory the victory and the majesty for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is thine. Thine is the kingdom oh lord, thou art exalted as head above all Amen. [different speaker]: It will now be our pleasure to hear a cello solo

given by Professor Charles Crane of the Riverside church [inhale] [tuning instrument] I will play by Arioso Johann Sebastian Bach [cello music begins] [cello music cont.]

[cello music cont.] [cello music cont.] [cello music cont.] [cello music cont.] [cello music cont.]

[cello music cont.] [cello music cont.] [cello music cont.] [cello music cont.]

[cello music ends] [different speaker]: Thank you Professor Crane

it is now my privilege and pleasure, uh, to introduce the speaker of the afternoon all the literally he needs little introduction to this group because I'm sure many of you have heard him speak at earlier times an 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 to the gospel himself to a 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 in the, uh, story of the 4 Harper brothers who started a publishing business on whose pay- payroll I still am. Well these gentleman who began printing books in 1817 were devote Methodist 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 out 'Hey mister! You're stuck! [everyone laughs] [Dr. Lions]: So I think anyone who attempted to introduce Arthur Ford would soon get stuck goes the proper

phrase quite- well come, so without further remarks may I present to you, um, Mr. Arthur Ford who will give us our address for the afternoon. [Ford]: Thank you, Mr. Axeman. I want to thank the locals spiritual frontiers group for organizing this seminar and make it possible for me to be here and especially happy that Mr. Axemen was able to be here with us because he's the man who had the courage to publish my autobiography [clears throat] a few years ago. As seems that everybody these days is writing autobiographies. I wonder sometimes how they get published.

Very interesting that Mr. Crane who played the cello so beautifully showed us the selection from Bach because tonight you're going to hear another Back 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. This Spiritual Frontier's Fellowship was organized a little over 6 years ago. To explore cycical phenomenon as advised 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 had made the church possible in the first place. In this scripture which you heard this afternoon St. Paul nearly 2,000 years ago made a list of those spiritual gifts or psychic gifts if you like and he listed practically every one of those things which concern the psychical researchers and the para-psychologists 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 spirit

manifested in different ways through different people. But that each one could bring in the manifestation sum of the spiritual gifts. And it said that you have these gifts and it 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, the thirteenth chapter of 1st 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 in tune with the divine, then it's perfectly safe for you to explore any part 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 that I can do you can do and greater things because I go to the Father. Now Jesus was not a person who uses words lightly, I'm sure. And I'm quite sure that this Galilean teacher would not said to that

rather unusual group of people gathered around him, none of them very brilliant, none of them very important from a worldly standpoint but he said to them, you have these gifts and you're going to do great 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 Gesthemane when my friends 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're 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 didn't organize the church, he said to his friends "these things that I have done and these so-called miracles which authenticate my mission These things you can do and they took at his word, they did it. And out of these things the church was born. And had 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 phenomenon. And so

have been all the other religions of the world. And everyone of the great religious teacher 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 are hidden from the rest of us. And if you read your bible intelligently you will find that it is not a book written necessarily by men who were inspired but it is a book written about men who possess 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 of them but he was speaking of laws which a few men 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 to let themselves into the so called invisible and become conscious of God in a way greater than most of us can. For forty-five 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. 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 arguments that anyone can bring 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 to face up 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 you who know a little about this subject, that contrary to the usual idea that Oliver Lodge and Conan-Doyle and people like that became interested in psychical things only because they lost their sons of 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 nineties he became interested in psychical phenomena and he

pursued the investigation for thirty 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, 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 for psychical research So these things have gone on for years until today all the world there are

forty-two colleges and universities who have made an academic subject of these vary things which Paul listed in the 12th chapter of 1 Corinthians, nearly two thousand years ago. And so far as I am 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 in every field who have taken the time to look at these facts and

then rendered an honest verdict. And so the evidence is piled up to the point that if a person today tells me that these things are not true, then the burden of proof is upon him rather than upon 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 happened, no informed person any longer questions. So what we're going to do here in the next day or so is to is to discuss together not a few

isolated phenomena. Not a few sensational spooky or weird things that happen sometimes but why we're going to discuss here in the light of findings both in the fields of psychology physical science and religion is the total nature of man is a study in consciousness, is 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 you will read your new testaments again, you will

find that Christianity is not concerned really with immortality. Immortality has been talked about and believed in many different ways and long before the time of the Galilea 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 materialist terms and a great many of us still are, that we found it impossible to believe these scriptural records and to accept these miracles. We couldn't believe in miracles in the old fashioned sense as they, setting aside of law, we couldn't believe in a whimsical God who played favorites. One side has said we know they got no longer plays with loaded dice yet because we knew nothing about what's been done in

this field of [inaudible] 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 the blind faith and people living in our generation. Then there came this tremendous interest on the part of scientists, well physical scientists, and psychologists This deep concern about these things with so much 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 really knew before. And it throws a tremendous light only so called miracle and it was inevitable because these things are basic and all the world religions, that religious people should become interested. But unfortunately a large part of the organized church rush the society because it didn't fit in to their dogmatic schemes or their program of social help for 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

selves. But the tide is changing and I'm convinced on the basis of my own experience and the experience of countless others that this next decade are two 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 lives 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, there have emerged in recent years great movements. We call them the cults with our smug, self-satisfied way of naming things, and we forget that practically every one of the religious movements of which we are a part was a cult at one time, it only became less of a cult, we became sort of respectable that it lost its 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 life of a 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 he said "when a few are gathered together in my name, I will be there." Now what we accomplished already? 1930 in England Maurice Elliott, an Anglican clergyman of ?St. Clare Stobert? and a few others, organized the confraternity to bring together clergymen who had had a convincing psychic experience or who believed in spiritual healing and were willing to stand up and be counted. This group is 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 in their 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. Only when Dr. Temple became Archbishop of Canterbury and great men and clergy demanded that this report be released and made public that it was made public. And very interesting that the present Archbishop of Canterbury, who has just been in our country, preaching around 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 apply to religion. Because the church's fellowship for psychic

study in England today numbers of over 2800 Anglican clergymen and we have eighteen bishops among them. I am not too keen about bishops but we have them we might as well, I was always afraid they might be sort of a fifth column. However they are there. Now that shows the changing attitude and also shows the courage of theologians who were willing to take another look and to change their minds when they are faced with facts, facts which do not destroy anything but rather support and give a scientific basis to those things without which religions of all kinds are absolutely 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 a spiritual frontiers and in less than seven 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 tonight and you'll hear another one tomorrow, Bock 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 never known how to use. And they're finding that these gifts are acceptable and all over this country there is a vast movement among the layman, prayer groups everywhere. Only two weeks ago out at Ohio, Star Daily who was a convict as you know in the penitentiary, a lifer, in solitary confinement he had a psychic experience. His mother appeared to him and others, and he changed his life. He was to conduct a retreat for forty men near Cleveland. He became ill and couldn't get there. He called me up and asked if I'd come and why. He said "we want to hear someone talk who has had an experience." Now, there's a lot of people who talk better than I can and know more about this than I do.

But people are wanting to hear from people who had an experience. That is the purpose of spiritual frontiers and that is the 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 who will practice these simple techniques that we can give you, will find that your spiritual life is that enriched and deepened because of these things and that there is guidance and now let me remind you of the basic problem of

parapsychology and the basic concern of the psychic 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 foundation of materialism and you also, or you may not have proved survival in an 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, now I've never known any honest man who investigated psychic phenomenon and then gave an honest verdict based upon facts and actual experience who did not agree that these things happen. And

[inaudible] once wrote "I've never known any to man who pursued investigations 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 psychic phenomena." I said "you believe in prayer?" He does. "If you pray and if you pray intelligently you are reaching out to something that you call God. We cant define it, but we know there is an intelligence, and if you are then it's a telepathic process because you certainly are not yelling at

him or writing him, and if you will learn to listen, you will find that the answer comes, there's too much evidence, the answer does come. So I suggest you become familiar with some of the literature on the subject and you'll find that there isn't a thing that we're trying to do that doesn't substantiate everything that's really important in whatever religion you profess." Too long we've gone ahead on the theory that religion is simply a matter of factless faith. Faith without facts, and that science on the other hand was a matter of faithless facts. Or facts without faith. That's no longer true.

Physical scientists today will tell you that they know too much about matter to believe in it. And they'll 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 Swann, the astrophysicist recently said, "we scientists today are not so much discovering new facts as we are inventing new theories and they may 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 Dr. Swann, "that's been helpful to you spiritually, just remember that 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's 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'll find anything at at all that has any value. You certainly don't find the God there." Theories are one thing and experiences another, and that is what we're doing here at the spiritual frontiers fellowship. Now

let me assure you that this is not another organization and 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, only of the saints and the mystics of the past which today have been tested and proven true in the laboratories of the scientists and universities. Where honest men and scholars have brought to bear upon the problems of spiritual life and the mental life of man the same keen and dedicated methods which they use in other fields and they're getting the same results and we bring them to you, the confidence because now we can say truly while we today we are sons of God, it is not yet

apparent, but we shall be. [applause] [Host] Thank you Arthur Ford for that inspiring message, Mr. Kinnear now will have some announcements to give to-- to bring to our attention and also speak about the offering. [Kinnear] With those gentleman who offered to help us this afternoon with ushering problems kindly go to the rear and see Mr. Baker? [silence]