James E. Padgett, born in 1852, was not a cult leader or follower, but an orthodox Methodist who taught Sunday school for many years at the Trinity Methodist Church in Washington, D.C. By profession, he was an attorney for 43 years until his death in 1923. Padgett never received any money for his mediumship, nor did he strive for or receive any notoriety.
Esq. Padgett's mediumship developed at the age of 62 under a unique set of circumstances. In fact, he did not even believe in mediumship, but when his wife Helen died in February, 1914, his grief, coupled with a continuing experience of her presence, led him to attend a séance held by a medium named Mrs. Maltby. She astonishingly told Padgett that he had the rare ability to receive automatic writings from spirits, that his wife Helen wanted to write to him, and she encouraged him to try. On his first attempt his pencil moved automatically, but only produced what he called "fish hooks" and "hangers."
Eventually, after numerous tries, a message signed by his wife Helen was detected on the paper. This short personal note indicated that she was with him frequently and was pleased that she was able to communicate with him. Still, he questioned the source of these writings and demanded more proof. The writings that followed told of events in their lives that only the two of them could have known. However, Padgett felt that this information could be coming from thoughts originating in his own mind, although the writings came more rapidly than his own thought processes, and the author kept insisting that it was not his own mind but hers relaying the messages. She constantly wrote of her love for him and how happy it made her to be with him.
Intrigued and perplexed by these events, and wishing to set his mind at rest, he began a serious study of spiritualism. Much of the information differed from his orthodox Christian views and portrayed an after-life in a spirit world where one continued to learn and progress through various realms. He also learned that, if given the chance and under the right circumstances, spirit-mortal communication could occur.
Subsequently, he asked his wife what plane or sphere she was in. Helen wrote back that she was in a plane of the second sphere where there was a degree of happiness and light and that her ability to visit him and write by controlling his brain and hand was "quite easy". As a result, at this time she wasn't interested in attempting to progress to higher spheres. Mr. Padgett relayed to his close friend, Dr. Leslie R. Stone, that he could feel her presence intensely at these times and that it made him feel a happiness that was alien to him except when she wrote.
In his spiritual studies Padgett had discovered that a spirit could progress in spirit life to greater happiness and higher spheres, and he encouraged Helen to do this. Helen did so, with the help of Padgett's grandmother, Ann Rollins, who was later described by Helen as "a glorious spirit dwelling in the high celestial heavens." Ann told her that in order to progress to these higher Celestial realms one must "pray to the heavenly Father for His Love through earnest longing of soul."
These sessions, originally held to obtain writings from Helen, had become infused with a deep religious note, replacing the personal material. Helen prayed as she was instructed. Her prayers were soon answered and as this Love entered her soul she experienced her thoughts and desires being purified. This, in turn, became reflected through a changed soul, causing her spirit body to become brighter and more ethereal. Helen had reached the Third Sphere, she said, and was considerably happier. She suggested that Padgett and his four friends who had witnessed these sessions (Dr. Leslie R. Stone, Mr. Eugene Morgan, Dr. Goerger, and Mr. Rollison Colburn), should do the same thing since "the soul is the same, whether in the flesh or spirit body, [and] it could be transformed by prayer to the Father for His Divine Love. Not by ordinary intellectual prayers that come from the head, but from the heart and soul."
Padgett at first couldn't believe this but was informed in subsequent writings that he should not doubt, and that Jesus himself, still interested in helping mankind, would write through Padgett of this sacred truth, if Padgett would allow him. Though this did eventually happen, Padgett, feeling that it was absurd to believe Jesus had written, destroyed the first message signed "Jesus of the Bible". One of the four witnesses, Mr. Colburn, was skeptical to the point of leaving the group; however, Goerger, Morgan and Stone shared an intuitive sense that the message was genuine. On September 28, 1914, Jesus delivered his first formal message through Padgett – a long message which urged Padgett to pray for God's Love, and stated that certain passages in the New Testament, thoroughly believed in by Padgett, were false.
Esq. Padgett was still doubtful, however, because many of the ideas about soul progression, Divine Love (the essence of God), and falsehoods in the Bible, went against what he had been taught and what he had been teaching others in Sunday school. Yet, in reflecting on this and discussing it with his close friend, Dr. Stone, he finally came to the realization that this being the case, there was no way these differing ideas could have come from his own mind and that all these spirits, including Jesus, must be who they said they were. It was at this point that Padgett and his friends began to pray as they had been instructed:
...letting our soul longings go out to the Heavenly Father, and in time a feeling came glowing involuntarily into the region of our hearts. We felt this emotion grow stronger and stronger with continued fervid prayers and as we did so, our faith in God became solidified and absolute. Never before had he, nor I [Dr. Stone], felt so sure of the real existence of the Father and His Divine Love and mercy. The cold intellectual concept which we had entertained of Him had through prayers for His Love been transformed into a warm, glowing, living feeling of closeness, of at-onement with the Heavenly Father, whose Love and mercy and goodness we could sense were personal and real.
Padgett continued to follow the advice of ongoing messages from Helen, Ann Rollins, and, above all, from Jesus, encouraging him to keep praying for the Father's Love so that he could eventually receive messages of religious importance for humanity from the highest Celestial spirits, including Jesus and his apostles. This progression in Divine Love was necessary in order to change the condition of Padgett's soul to more closely match that of the Celestial spirits so that his brain could be changed enough to enable it to receive and his hand to automatically write the thoughts that they desired to impart regarding God, Jesus' mission on earth, the New Testament and Christianity.
The following message from Jesus proclaims:
I Am Here, Jesus....I know that it will be difficult to make men believe in communications that may come through mediums, and that the churches will antagonize the reception of such communications, but I want to tell you that there will be such power exerted by the spirits of the Kingdom, that no efforts on the part of men or churches will be able to withstand these efforts of the spirits. Just as soon as mortals get in condition to receive these truths, they will be given all the powers necessary, and the truths will come with such force and exactness, that the erroneous beliefs will have to give way and let the truths that I speak of take their places.
The following statement in a letter from Jesus tried to reassure Padgett about the source of the material coming through his hand:
What you have written [are] my thoughts – you did not think any of these thoughts. There are many messages to be written and I am anxious that you receive them in order that they may be delivered to the world, for the world is now awakening to a greater realization of the fact that man is spiritual and must have spiritual food.
Jesus told Padgett he hadn't been selected due to his being less sinful than other men or that he was the best medium that had ever lived, but that it was because he had been willing to believe that Jesus could actually come to him and that he was willing to ask for, and open to receiving, the Divine Love as he had been encouraged. Jesus reveals:
There are certain qualities in your constitution, both spiritual and material, that render you susceptible to the influences of our powers and to the use by us for the purpose of our design and work, which determines one to choose you for the work in the way in which I and the other high spirits have heretofore used you; and it may seem strange to you that in all the long ages preceding, I have not found one human with the qualification to fit him for the work.
I have used others before, but they have failed to submit their minds and souls and beliefs and forethoughts to our influence and directions as you have so far done. Many humans have the qualified conditions of spiritual and material makeup to perform our wishes and work, but as they all have free wills, which we cannot compel, and as circumstances and environments and education and beliefs are elements which affect and determine the possibility of our finding an instrument suitable for our purposes, we have not been able to find a medium who was qualified to be used for our work....
All things in the spirit world, as well as on earth, are controlled by immutable laws, and all spirits as well as mortals are subject to those laws. The law of rapport and communication must be complied with by spirits, no matter how much elevated, and also by humans; and no spirit, by reason of the possession of any supposed power, can set aside this law. But while spirits have not this power, yet they may have such knowledge of conditions that they can discern what qualities in the condition of a human are susceptible to the influence, and molding by the spirits, so that as a result thereof, the law may be brought into operation. And this briefly will explain to you why I selected you as my medium and mouthpiece.
Jesus' disciples also wrote through Padgett to reassure him of the source of his automatic writings:
I am the true Andrew of the Bible, and no other, and you must believe that I am. I know that you may have doubts as to so many of the disciples of the Master coming to you to write, but you must not be surprised at that fact, for who are more interested in the great work that you are to do than the disciples of the Master, who know that his teachings are the truth, and that mankind needs them at this time, more than at any time in the history of the world.
A letter from St. James, Apostle of Jesus, states the importance of God's Love, Divine Love, as the way to new birth and true immortality:
No founder of any race or sect has ever taught the new birth, or the inflowing of the Divine Love in contradistinction to that of the natural love. And the teachings of Jesus are the only ones that reveal to man the existence of this Divine Love, and how to obtain it, so you see the importance of this truth coming to man. I must say here, that without the possession of this Love, no spirit can enter the celestial spheres....The teachings of the other founders will show men the way to a life of happiness, and to what they may suppose is continuous existence. But the teachings of Jesus are the only ones that declare and lead men to a realization of the true immortality of the soul.
The importance of love is also eloquently expressed by the Apostle Paul, who was knocked off his horse and slain in the spirit by his encounter with the resurrected Jesus when Paul (then Saul) was on his way to Damasus to persecute Christians. This experience transformed him into Christianity's greatest evangelist. In his letter to the Corinthians, Paul indicates that the highest gift of all, is love:
If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. (1 Cor 13:1-3)
A few verses later, Paul makes a powerful statement of the indestructible nature of love, even as prophecies and knowledge undergo change and obsolescence:
Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love. (1 Cor 13 8-13)
In his letter to the Romans, Paul expressed the conviction that nothing can separate us from God's Love: "For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus." (Romans 8:38-39)
Alfred North Whitehead, a famous British scholar who contributed significantly to twentieth-century logic, philosophy of science and metaphysics, said that religion must face change in the same spirit as does science. The principles of religion may be eternal, but the understanding and expression of those principles requires continual development . . . an evolution of religious doctrine through revelation.
The important question regarding anything which claims to be revelation is: Does it add to our present relationship with God and understanding of God? Paul states in 1 Cor 13:6,12: ". . . how will I benefit you unless I speak to you in some revelation or prophecy or teaching? . . . since you are eager for spiritual gifts, strive to excel in them for building up the church." "Let us then pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding." (Romans 14:19)
The essence of the Padgett messages is to help one fully understand Jesus and his profound, unique contribution to the world. These astonishing, pivotal communications offer a fresh revelation of the gospel which originally inspired Christianity . . . the message of God's Divine Love being available to humanity, and the true path to immortality. Whether we believe it is from Jesus, as thousands of New Birth Christians do, or from Pagett's unconscious interpretation of Jesus, the value of his work is astounding and deserves serious study.