Pike, Bishop James A.

James A. Pike

Bishop James A. Pike (1913–1969) was aformer official of the Episcopal Church in America, James Albert Pike became a spiritualist after the death of—and subsequent communication from—his oldest son. The bishop’s own untimely death in the Israeli desert, and messages purportedly sent by him through Mediums, further strengthened spiritualists’ case for Survival After Death.

James Pike was born in Oklahoma City on February 14, 1913, the only child of James Albert and Pearl Agatha Pike. He was raised a devout Roman Catholic, attended Mass daily, and planned to be a priest. But he disagreed with the pope’s encyclical on birth control and left the church. Pike earned a doctorate in jurisprudence from Yale in 1938 and practiced law in Washington, D.C., before joining the Episcopal Church in 1944 and again pursuing the priesthood. He was ordained in 1946.

Several of his relatives on both his mother’s and father’s sides of the family possessed psychic ability. While Pike was in college in 1933, on a visit his Aunt Almah Chandler showed extraordinary EXTRASENSORY PER CEPTION (ESP) when tested with Zener cards (now called ESP cards), getting 21 out of 25 right (5 out of 25 is average according to probabilities). And his mother had a clear vision of him in trouble during World War II, slogging around in a muddy field. Fortunately, her vision did not describe a battle scene but only a misguided Pike lost in a new housing development in Arlington, Virginia. Another relative, physician Alfred Pike, received a premonition of his aged mother’s death and a visit from an APPARITION who was able to lead him to information concerning Isaiah Pike, the missing piece in Alfred Pike’s genealogy of the family.

Pike experienced Poltergeist phenomena in at least two of his homes. As the new rector of Christ Church in Poughkeepsie, New York, in 1947, Pike occupied the rectory that had recently been vacated by the former pastor of 46 years. Pike heard books being moved and found candles mysteriously extinguished. Medium Ethel Meyers investigated the rectory and verified its occupation by the former pastor. She also said Pike possessed psychic talents.

In 1953, Pike became dean of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City. Pike often worked and studied in the library, one floor above his residence. While there, he heard shuffling feet and footsteps on the floor and stairs. The senior canon, Canon West, told Pike that the sounds belonged to Bishop Greer, a former resident of the cathedral, who was still looking for a misplaced jeweled pectoral cross lost during his tenancy. In 1968, again via Ethel Meyers, psychic evidence came through that not only Bishop Greer but also a young priest was searching for the cross; the cleric had committed suicide over its loss.

But although Bishop Pike found such events fascinating, he did not pursue any psychical research until February 1966. Pike, who by then was separated, lived in an apartment in Cambridge, England, with his secretary, Maren Bergrud, and chaplain Rev. David Barr. Pike had long been estranged from his eldest son, James Jr., but the two had reconciled at the end of the previous year, and Jim Jr. had lived with his father for four and a half months. The 21-year-old Pike was involved in the hippie scene in San Francisco’s Haight Ashbury district and often used hallucinogenic drugs.

On February 4, prior to returning to Cambridge, Jim Jr. took an overdose of pills and died in New York City. Bishop Pike was devastated. He had his son cremated and spread his ashes over the Pacifi c Ocean just beyond the Golden Gate Bridge.

Beginning February 20, something began to haunt the Cambridge fl at. Postcards, which Jim Jr. had liked to save, appeared on the floor near the bishop’s bed, carefully arranged in a 140-degree angle. Books were found placed in the same manner. From February 22 to 24, Maren Bergrud’s bangs were gradually singed off in a straight line, higher and higher until they were gone; Jim Jr. had hated her hair cut that way. The bishop was found sitting up in bed the night of February 23, entranced, spouting his son’s ideas on the drug culture. Safety pins were sprung open in the same 140-degree angle. Fresh milk turned sour. The heat would turn up without explanation. Butts from Jim’s cigarettes appeared. And a broken clock, stopped for months at 12:15, read 8:19—the probable time in Cambridge corresponding to Jim’s SUICIDE in the States. The clock hands made a 140-degree angle.

Bishop Pike remembered a conversation on psychic research he had had some months before with Canon John Pearce-Higgins, vice provost of Southwark Cathedral and an expert on Spiritualism. He called the canon, who suggested communication through a PLANCHETTE. When that failed, Bishop Pike called the canon again, and he arranged a Séance with medium ENA TWIGG.

On March 2, 1966, Bishop Pike, Maren Bergrud, and Canon Pearce-Higgins called on Twigg; the canon took notes during the session. After examining a passport belonging to Jim Jr., Twigg became very distressed and reported that he was there and trying desperately to get through to his father. He asked forgiveness for the suicide, saying it was an accident, and expressed his love. He liked having the ashes spread at the Golden Gate Bridge. He also urged his father to continue fighting the church officials opposed to the bishop’s controversial beliefs.

Twigg said that Jim Jr. was accompanied by a German intellectual, to whom the bishop had dedicated his most recent book, What Is This Treasure?, which was not yet off the presses. Bishop Pike was shocked, identifying the spirit as liberal theologian Paul Tillich, a great friend and his son’s godfather. Tillich also urged Pike to fight church officials charging the bishop with heresy, and promised to watch over Jim Jr.

On March 14, just four hours before leaving England for the United States, Bishop Pike again sat with Twigg. This time she went into a trance, allowing Jim Jr. to speak directly through her. At this session, Jim prophesied his father would soon leave his post and would be going to Virginia. Pike denied the likelihood of either event, but both happened.

In response to the bishop’s question of how to reach Jim in the States, Jim Jr. recommended finding Father William V. Rauscher, an Episcopal priest in Woodbury, New Jersey and president of the Spiritual Frontiers Fellowship (SFF). Twigg knew nothing of this organization.

By the summer, Pike resigned his post as Episcopal bishop of California and joined the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions in Santa Barbara, where he had more freedom to write. In August and September, Pike sat with medium George Daisley, who again spoke for young Jim and revealed many evidential details. Jim urged his father to stand fast against the charges of doctrinal heresy leveled against him by the bishop of south Florida, charges which Pike countered with his book If This Be Heresy. He founded the New Focus Foundation, led by his secretary Maren Bergrud, as a nonprofit channel for his unorthodox views and calls for church reform. But by fall, Pike’s faith was shaken again as Bergrud killed herself with an overdose of sleeping pills. Pike tried repeatedly to reach her, but with no success.

On September 3, 1967, Pike agreed to sit for a televised Séance on Canadian television with medium Arthur Ford. Ford had met the bishop at Easter the year before in New York and had revealed his connections with the SFF. First, Pike was interviewed by Allen Spraggett, the religion editor of the Toronto Star, at which time he revealed that he had had communications with his son. Up to that time, Pike was known for his unorthodoxy; now his involvement in spiritualism was broadcast to millions. Unexpectedly, Ford lapsed into trance during the program, and again Jim Jr. came through with evidential detail.

Pike and Diane Kennedy, Bergrud’s replacement as director of the New Focus Foundation, along with her brother Scott, had sat with Ena Twigg earlier that year. During the Séance, Jim had told his father that he was making spiritual progress and finding inner peace. The bishop published these communications with Jim Jr. in his book The Other Side. In December, Pike and Kennedy sat with Arthur Ford. Accompanying them was Rev. Rauscher of the SFF and a friend of Kennedy. Jim came through easily and explained many of the unanswered questions about the suicide, and claimed that soon his father would no longer need mediums like Ford to communicate. Bergrud also came through, acknowledging the passing of her position to Diane Kennedy.

Bishop Pike married Kennedy on December 20, 1968. Three days later, Pike’s successor as bishop of California, the Right Rev. C. Kilmer Myers, requested of all bishops and lower clergy that Pike be kept from performing any priestly function—preaching, speaking, public service or administration of the sacraments—in any church in his diocese or elsewhere.

As a result, Pike left the Church and formed the Foundation for Religious Transition in April 1969. That summer, the couple took a long-awaited trip to the Holy Land. On September 1 the Pikes became lost in the desert, and Diane Pike had to leave her husband behind to get help. When she returned, he was missing.

As soon as she heard of Pike’s disappearance, Twigg began trying to reach Jim Jr. for help. On September 4, in a sitting with Canon Pearce-Higgins and her husband Harry, Twigg received a long, painful message from Pike. The men taped her trance utterances, during which Pike struggled with his death and transition to the Other Side. Twigg reached Diane Pike in Jerusalem with her sad news, and searchers finally found his body on September 7. Other mediums, including Ford, had tried to reach Pike.

Before they found his body on a cliff in the Judaean desert near the Dead Sea, Diane Pike had a vision of her husband’s death, in which his spirit, described as white and cloudlike, ascended from his body to join hundreds of people in a joyful celebration. She published the story of the hunt for Pike—and his spiritual journey—in the book Search. She professed belief in the survival of his spirit.

SOURCE:

The Encyclopedia of Ghosts and Spirits– Written by Rosemary Ellen Guiley – September 1, 2007

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