Pike, James A(lbert) (1913-1969)

Former Episcopalian bishop of California, whose bestselling book The Other Side (1968) was a powerful argument for psychic phenomena and communication with the dead. Pike was born on February 14, 1913, in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. He was educated at the University of Santa Clara (1930-32), the University of California at Los Angeles (1932-33), the University of Southern California (A.B., 1934; LL.B., 1936), and Yale University (J.S.D., 1938). He later studied at Virginia Theological Seminary (1945-46), General Theological Seminary (1936-47), and Union Theological Seminary (B.D. magna cum laude, 1951).

Though raised a Roman Catholic, he converted to the Episcopal Church, in which he was ordained a priest in 1944. He was successively curate of St. John's Church, Washington, D.C. (1944-46), chaplain at Vassar College (1947-49), chaplain and head of the department of religion at Columbia University (1949-52), adjunct professor of religion and law (1952-58), and dean of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, New York City (1952-58). He was elected the bishop coadjutor (i.e., with right of succession) of the diocese of California, San Francisco in 1958 and became bishop a few months later.

During his pastoral career, Pike wrote a number of popular books, but his popularity jumped significantly in 1964 with the publication of A Time for Christian Candor (1964). That volume became one of several volumes published during the 1960s that offered somewhat radical reinterpretations of traditional Christian doctrines, ideas freely discussed in a seminary context, but rarely openly discussed between pastors and church members. This volume, two subsequent titles, If This Be Heresy (1967) and You and the New Morality (1967), the admission of some failures in his personal life, and some happenings at the cathedral in San Francisco, combined to create significant enemies in the church. Pike was forced out of office. He resigned as bishop in 1966 to become theologian in residence at the Center for Study of Democratic Institutions in Santa Barbara, California.

Among the personal problems with which Pike was confronted was the death of his son Jim, who had committed suicide at the age of twenty after experimenting with LSD. In a 1967 Canadian television program, American medium Arthur A. Ford communicated a message to Pike apparently from his son Jim. The message, in the full glare of the television lights, was highly evidential and was augmented by strongly suggestive messages purportedly from several of Pike's deceased colleagues, including theologian Paul Tillich. Pike soon publicly affirmed his belief in the reality of the phenomena he had experienced, and this affirmation made up the substance of his book The Other Side (1968). More quietly he also received messages through mediums Ena Twigg in London and George Daisley in Santa Barbara.

In 1969 he founded, with his wife Diane, the Foundation of Religious Transition to focus upon people who, like himself, had problems because of their demythologizing approach to Christian belief and practice. Soon afterward, Pike died when he wandered off and became lost in the Israeli desert in 1969. (Three days before the discovery of his body a communication claiming to be from him came through medium Ena Twigg stating what had occurred and where the body would be found.)

Diane Pike changed the name of the foundation to the Bishop Pike Foundation, and it eventually (1972) merged into the Love Project (now the Teleos Foundation) led by Arleen Lorrance. Diane and Lorrance have worked together ever since.

In the early 1970s, following the medium Arthur Ford's death, author Alan Spragett (who had hosted the television show during which Ford spoke to Pike) discovered material in Ford's papers which conclusively proved that Ford had faked the séance. Ford's fraud was discovered in his papers, which had been left in the care of William Rauscher, an Episcopal minister in New Jersey, in a file of material that contained all of the "evidential" facts stated by the supposedly entranced Ford. Prior to the television séance Ford had thoroughly researched Pike's career.

Sources:

Berger, Arthur S., and Joyce Berger. The Encyclopedia of Parapsychology and Psychical Research. New York: Paragon House, 1991.

Spragett, Alan, with William Rauscher. Arthur Ford: The Man Who Talked with the Dead. New York: New American Library, 1973.