Messages Through the Medium

One day in February 1966, in his Cambridge, England, apartment, the Rt. Rev. James A. Pike found his clocks stopped at 8:19--the hour corresponding to the time when his son, James Jr., had shot himself to death in New York City two weeks earlier. The strange coincidence, according to Pike, was accompanied by other unexplained phenomena: his books were mysteriously moved from place to place; clusters of safety pins appeared "where they had not been before, all open to the position that the hands of a clock are in at 8:19."

With Fletcher's Help. The series of curious incidents eventually convinced Pike, who was at Cambridge University on a sabbatical leave from his California diocese, that James Jr. was trying to contact him from beyond the grave. Last week Pike revealed that he had communicated with his son no fewer than six times since then with the help of assorted sympathetic mediums. The most recent--and most dramatic--encounter took place last month in Toronto, where Pike participated in a televised seance with the Rev. Arthur A. Ford of Philadelphia, a Disciples of Christ minister and a professional medium who claims that a "spirit control" named "Fletcher" speaks through his vocal cords.

After Ford went into a trance, "Fletcher" reported the forms of several of Pike's deceased friends emerging from "a great massive light." Some skeptics were unkind enough to suggest that Pike might have used this pipeline to the beyond to clear up his doubts about such doctrines as the Trinity and Virgin Birth, but the conversations were rather prosaic. A chat between Pike and his predecessor as Bishop of California, the Rt. Rev. Karl Block, dwelled on the problems of buying church property. An exchange with the late father of British theologian Donald MacKinnon elicited the helpful information that MacKinnon once owned two cats.

First Person. More moving was the encounter between Pike and his son. "Fletcher" reported to Pike: "This boy says that before he came over he was confused and mentally disturbed. He wants you to understand that you, nor any other member of the family, have any right to feel that you failed him in any way." Later, according to Pike, James Jr. told him directly: "I want you to realize this, that I enjoyed the time I was with you."

With uncharacteristic certainty, Pike believes that the conversations with his son are genuine. "I feel that it is James who communicates with me," he says. "It is convincing in that the source of these communications, who I take to be him, is so familiar with so many family facts. The trend of the messages seems to be a desire to convince that there is life after death."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.