Arthur Ford
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Arthur Augustus Ford
(1896-1971)
American Spiritualist medium and founder of the International General Assembly of Spiritualists. Ford was born January 8, 1896, at Titusville, Florida. As a youth he followed a pilgrimage that took him from Episcopalianism to the Baptists to Unitarianism and finally to the Disciples of Christ. He attended Transylvania College, a Disciples of Christ school in Lexington, Kentucky. Ordained as a Disciples minister, he served a church in Barbourbville, Kentucky.
Ford realized his psychic abilities during World War I. While in the army he would "hear" the names of people he served with, and those names would appear on the casualty lists several days later. In the years after the war he investigated psychic phenomena and eventually joined the Spiritualists. Around 1921 Ford emerged as a trance medium, and "Fletcher," his control for the rest of his life, made his first appearance in trance sessions. He developed a popular following and in 1927 traveled to Great Britain. One of his lectures was attended by veteran Spiritualist Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who enthusiastically a told people the next day, "One of the most amazing things I have ever seen in 41 years of psychic experience was the demonstration of Arthur Ford."
Ford founded a congregation in New York City, but soon experienced conflict with the National Spiritualist Association, the main Spiritualist organization of the time. Ford had come to believe in reincarnation, a belief the association rejected. After many years of tension, in 1936 Ford led in the founding of the General Assembly, which had a more open perspective on reincarnation.
Ford achieved fame far beyond the Spiritualist community in 1928 by allegedly breaking the secret code between the late Houdini and his wife Beatrice. Houdini had arranged with his wife that if he died before she did he would attempt to communicate through a secret code known only to them. Arthur Ford is credited with revealing that code through his control, "Fletcher."
As a result of a tragic auto accident in 1931, in which his sister died, Ford was severely injured and became addicted first to morphine and then to alcohol. In his autobiography Nothing So Strange (1958) he states that it took him 20 years and much suffering to overcome his addiction. (In fact, he never over-came his addiction and suffered from alcoholism until the end of his life.)
In spite of his affliction he impressed numerous people with his abilities, including prominent researchers William McDougall and William G. Roll, Jr. of the Psychical Research Foundation. He also traveled widely to demonstrate his mediumship and in Britain visited the Churches' Fellowship for Psychical and Spiritual Studies. In 1955 Ford was active in the formation of a similar organization in the United States, the Spiritual Frontiers Fellowship, now the Spiritual Frontiers Fellowship.
In 1967 Ford again came into public prominence during a television discussion on life after death, when he went into a trance and delivered several messages to Episcopal bishop James Pike. One claimed to be from Pike's son and another from the prominent theologian Paul Tillich. Duly impressed, Pike later publicly affirmed his belief in the reality of psychic phenomena in his book The Other Side (1968). The television program also revived public interest in Spiritualism and psychic phenomena, and within a month Ford received more than 12,000 letters. It was only after Ford's death that Allen Spraggett and William Rauscher, while compiling materials for his biography, discovered his notes for the session among his papers, revealing the fact that he faked the famous séance.
Ford died in Miami, Florida, January 4, 1971. Shortly after his death, Ruth Montgomery claimed to have received messages from Ford, which were later published in her book A World Beyond (1971).
The most decisive incident in evaluating Ford's medium-ship seems to be his relationship to the Houdini code. The evidence for the authenticity of the code message from the deceased Houdini received through Ford's mediumship is contradictory. The message itself involved a secret code that was supposed to have been known only to Houdini and his wife. The stage magician Dunninger, however, claimed that the code had been published earlier.
The testimony of Houdini's widow is contradictory. She was said to have told a reporter that she did not know what the message would be, although she later wrote an impassioned private letter to columnist Walter Winchell stating emphatically that the message received from Ford was definitely the one agreed upon with Houdini and that she had not previously revealed it to Ford. She insisted it was not a fraud, as some had claimed.
However, New York Graphic reporter Rea Jaure, in a story headlined "Houdini Message A Big Hoax!" (January 10, 1929) stated that Ford had come to her apartment for an interview and admitted that Mrs. Houdini had supplied the code to him. Jaure produced two witnesses who confirmed her story with sworn statements. Ford's attorney produced three witnesses who affirmed that Ford had been elsewhere at the time of the claimed interview. An anonymous man stated that he had been paid to impersonate the medium.
Sources:
Christopher, Milbourne. Mediums, Mystics & The Occult. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1975.
Ford, Arthur. The Life Beyond Death. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1971.
——. Nothing So Strange. New York: Harper, 1958.
——. Spiritual Vibrations. New York: H.P.B. Publishers, 1926.
——. Unknown But Known. New York: Harper, 1968.
——. Why We Survive. Cooksburg, N.Y.: 1952.
Montgomery, Ruth. A World Beyond. New York: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, 1971.
Spraggett, Allen, with William V. Rauscher. Arthur Ford, The Man Who Talked with the Dead. New York: New American Library, 1973.
Tribbe, Frank, ed. An Arthur Ford Anthology: Writing By and About America's Sensitive of the Century. Nevada City, Calif.: Blue Dolphin, 1999.
Wikipedia on Answers.com:
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Arthur Ford
For the Australian rules footballer, see Arthur Ford (footballer). For the soccer player, see Arthur Ford (English footballer).
Arthur Ford (January 8, 1896 – January 4, 1971) was an American psychic spiritual medium, clairaudient and in 1955 founded the Spiritual Frontiers Fellowship.
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Biographical problems
Biographer Allen Spraggett called him American Spiritualism's near pope and society's clairvoyant, comparable with the 19th century medium Daniel Dunglas Home. After a sitting, William McDougall, then psychologist at Harvard University and the 1920 president of the American Society for Psychical Research, said Ford had supernormal powers on page 2 of Spraggett's book, but then later Ford informs the author on page 226, when Ford communicated McDougall the first names of his parents, McDougall said he "was not duly impressed." The American Society for Psychical Research library does not contain any record of Ford and McDougall sittings in its past journals, newsletters, or cross-references. The biographies of Ford offer many inconsistencies. Ford was known as a marvelous teller of tales when it came to his life. Each time Ford told a story it was a little different than the last. One of his friends said, "I don't think he knew what was fact and what wasn't." As with the McDougall story, as shown, the biographer Allen Spraggett also changes and stretches details. This makes a critical review of the history extremely difficult, if not impossible.[1]
Early life
Arthur Ford was born on January 8, 1896 at 10:30 a.m. local time in the small town of Titusville, Florida. He studied Christianity and was offered a ministerial scholarship in 1917 to Transylvania College, a Disciples of Christ school in Lexington, Kentucky. He was ordained as a Disciples minister, and served a church in Barbourville, Kentucky until 1924 when he began touring.
Arthur Ford claimed that during the First World War while serving in the Army that he did not serve outside the States with his company and then later while serving in France[1] he would hear the names of fellow soldiers who were going to die of the 1918 Spanish flu. Later he began to hear the names soldiers who within the next days would appear on the casualty lists. Their names were in exactly the same sequential order on the list as Ford had previously recorded the day before.[2] Ford claimed that sometime before 1932 when he visited India, he had already learned methods of conscious projection from the Hindu religious teacher Swami Paramahansa Yogananda[2] and was constantly in touch with him. In Yogananda's 1946 Autobiography of a Yogi Arthur Ford is not mentioned. Ford stated he was called David by the Hindus, which he said meant "Door to Heaven."[1]
After the war he researched purported psychic phenomena and became a Spiritualist around 1921. In 1924 Ford toured the New England States appearing between the acts of the S.S. Henry's illusion production. The Sphinx, a conjuring periodical stated on August 1924 "he gave one of the finest talks on magic ever heard" in Athol, Massachusetts. He lost his interest in magic and became fascinated with the occult. He became a professional "hot and cold reader" and "billet reader," reading sealed messages given to him by members of his audience. This type of mentalism entertainment was very popular in the 1920s.[3] Ford claimed he could read minds.[2]
Fletcher, the spirit guide
Soon Ford became a trance medium. One day in 1924 a deceased control began to speak from Ford's mouth. Words were delivered slow and deliberately, unlike Ford who spoke rapidly and slurred his words. In a voice sounding very similar to Ford's the control announced himself as Fletcher. Fletcher often ended questions with "no?". This proved to sitters he was French-Canadian. He became Ford's personal guide to the dead in the spirit world for the next three years.[1]
Ford and others were very curious about Fletcher's past life. As was common with Ford he gave a variety of answers that didn't match.[1]
Ford traveled to Britain in 1927 and did a public demonstration of his abilities for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who the next day in the London Express, or possibly the Sunday Express, wrote, "One of the most amazing things I have ever seen in 41 years of psychic experience was the demonstration of Arthur Ford."[2]
In 1965, Ford said,
- "When Fletcher comes, I am totally unconscious. That proves its complete detachment. I can't remember anything. It isn't merely hypnosis. Fletcher is using words through me, using my voice. Naturally, they don't use words over there. Words are physical sounds. He has to interpret thoughts and ideas, that sort of thing, and put them into words." [1]
- "If we ask a discarnate to manifest on earth for even a moment, he has to have an instrument or vehicle suitable for that, so he borrows either the mind or any of the senses that he needs of a human being, In my case, I go to sleep because I was trained by a yoga, In this state of unconsciousness in which my objective mind is pushed aside there is a personality called Fletcher comes through." [2]
Fletcher's dialogue
Ford had an aversion for having his messages verbally recorded. It seems that completely detailed notes were avoided. There is also some question of their accuracy.[1] Ford claimed that it was Fletcher who spoke to the living revealing information that was completely unknown. The following are some examples of dialogue: "You come from part of the country", "I see you have just flown in from the west coast", "You seem to be quite a traveler", "Another preacher tonight", "The worried man in the corner", "The woman with a pencil", "The name is Harry, Henry. No, it is Harrall", "You had a relative who died in World War I".[2]
In a typical sitting with Ford the communications were rambling, disjointed, only infrequently smooth-flowing. There was a lot of groping for the proper phrase, expression or a name. Often Fletcher would make one try at getting some evidential fact straight, then back up and run at it again. For example:
"Anyone here called Melton—Jane Melton?" A hand goes up.
"Your brother Albert is here."
"No, I never had a brother Albert."
"Oh yes, you had."
"No."
"Think again."
Yet out of the meandering, sometimes seemingly random, process emerged—exact names, odd details, exceedingly private trivia—which hit the sitter with dazzling force.
"Oh, I'm sorry. Of course, little Bertie who died young."[1]
Ford claimed he had seen every miracle performed by Jesus duplicated; except the raising of the dead.[1]
The Three Houdini Messages and others
The three key messages Harry Houdini told his wife Bess he would convey from the afterlife were "Forgive, Beatrice, Believe." Arthur Ford successfully conveyed all of these in 1929. Bess, at the time, told the press the only copies of the three messages were locked up in her safety deposit box at the Manufacturers Banks on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, New York City. Her attorney denied this box existed.[3] Later, both Bess and Ford claimed that this incident had been faked, but for different reasons. Bess said it was a conscious fake, but Ford said he had tricked Bess.[4]
A year before the "FORGIVE" message was heard from Houdini's deceased mother and disclosed in a letter by Arthur Ford to Bess Houdini, Arthur Conan Doyle mentioned in a 1930 article that Bess had disclosed the word to a Brooklyn Eagle reporter on March 13, 1927. Bess was quoted as saying that any authentic communication from Mrs. Weiss would have to include the word "FORGIVE". Doyle believed Ford when he said he knew nothing about it.[5]
On page 105 of Houdini: His Life-Story by Harold Kellock, from the recollections and documents of Beatrice Houdini, Harcourt, Brace Co., June, 1928, are disclosed the associated 10 letters, 10 key numbers and key words of the Houdini code as it was used in performance by Harry Houdini and wife Bess. Every letter of B E L I E V E, this secret message from beyond the grave communicated by Arthur Ford to Bess Houdini on January 7, 1929, had been available to the general public for a period of six to seven months if one recognized how to use it. In a statement Bess made to the January 9, 1929 World, Bess said, "I had no idea what combination of words Harry would use and when he sent "BELIEVE" it was a surprise".[5] There is no mention of Kellock and Bess Houdini's public disclosure of the code letters in The Secret Life of Houdini by William Kalush and Larry Sloman.
The Pike Messages
He gained national attention when he claimed to have contacted the dead son of Bishop Pike in 1967 on network TV.
The Sun Myung Moon Sittings
In his book Unknown But Known Ford had recounted two lengthy seances undertaken on behalf of Sun Myung Moon, then an obscure Korean evangelist. The accounts were removed from later editions of the book.
In a sitting on November 1964, Ford said Fletcher mentioned Pieter Alexander, who had learned about Sun Myung Moon's ideas on spiritual growth. According to Alexander (in the seance), Moon denied the theory of reincarnation but taught,
- "Spirits on this side progress, but their progression is helped or hindered by things done or undone on the earth plane. ... Practically everyone on the earth plane is in some fashion being used, either as a means of helping someone here to progress, or to help someone on the earth plane to speak the Word or do the thing that is necessary." [3]
Ford's Hidden Archives
After Arthur Ford's death, Ford's close friend and supporter William V. Rauscher [4] and author Allen Spraggrett discovered Ford's collection of obituaries, newspaper clippings, Who's Who articles, etc. that Ford had hidden away. They were disguised as bound poetry books. Ford read his poetry before giving a reading. There was enough information to indicate that much of the famous Pike messages and others were fraudulent.[6] There were many other things that Ford ordered his secretary to burn before his death that are lost. Ford and his secretary parted company due to a falling out. Ford's secretary claimed Ford had no psychic abilities. The book Arthur Ford: The Man Who Talked with the Dead by Allen Spraggett with William V. Rauscher, New American Library, Inc.,1973 gives the whole story and is the primary source used in Alcock's book.
Spiritual Frontiers Fellowship
Spiritual Frontiers Fellowship or SFF was founded by Arthur Ford in 1956. Their mission is to be "an interfaith, non-profit movement" of religious leaders, writers, and business and professional persons who feel a kinship with and have a concern for the growing Western interest in altered states of consciousness and mystical experiences.
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h Arthur Ford: The Man Who Talked with the Dead by Allen Spraggett with William V. Rauscher, New American Library, Inc.,1973
- ^ a b c d e Nothing So Strange: The Autobiography of Arthur Ford by Arthur Ford in collaboration with Margueritte Harmon Bro, Harper & Row, 1958.
- ^ a b Mediums, Mystics, and the Occult by Milbourne Christopher, Thomas Y. Crowell, Co., 1975
- ^ How I Broke Houdini's Code
- ^ a b Houdini: The Untold Story by Milbourne Christopher, Thomas Y. Crowell Co., 1969
- ^ Arthur Ford: The Man Who Talked with the Dead by Allen Spraggett with William V. Rauscher, New American Library, Inc., 1973
- Alcock, James (1991), Parapsychology: Science or Magic? A Psychological Perspective, Pergamon Press, ISBN 0-08-025772-0
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Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology. Copyright © 2001 by The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
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