Smith, Alson Jesse (1908-1965)
Smith, Alson Jesse (1908-1965)
Writer and lecturer on religion and parapsychology. He was born on August 12, 1908, at Danbury, Connecticut. He studied at Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania (B.A., 1930) and Garrett Biblical Institute (now Garrett Theological Seminary), Evanston, Illinois (B.D., 1933). He was ordained as a minister in the Methodist Episcopal Church, and after a year in Montana (1933-34) he served churches in New York and Connecticut for 20 years (1935-54). He retired from the active ministry in 1954 and became a full-time author and lecturer. In the years after World War II he wrote a number of books including several on the psychic. He was a member of Spiritual Frontiers fellowship (now the International Spiritual Frontiers Fellowship) in its initial years. He died May 17, 1965.
Sources:
Pleasants, Helene, ed. Biographical Dictionary of Parapsychology. New York: Helix Press, 1964.
Smith, Alson Jesse. Faith to Live By. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1949.
——. Immortality: The Scientific Evidence. N.p., 1954.
——. Psychic Source Book. New York: Creative Age Press, 1951.
——. Religion and the New Psychology. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1951.