John E. Fetzer, the Fetzer Institute, and the New Age Movement, Part 2

When I discovered the existence of the New Age Movement, strangely, the lady I extracted the phrase “New Age Movement” from (Phyllis Warren) did speak to me of events taking place in my home town of Fort Wayne, Indiana. One year later, on March 10, 1982, the day of the New Agers’ long awaited “Syzygy”. I read in a Detroit Free Press article of a John Davis giving a talk that same day on “the three stages of the Christ’s Reappearance.” It was in 1988 that Marilyn Ferguson went out of her way to make an unexpected telephone call to me that she was attending a large world-level event in Kalamazoo, Michigan, held by a “Fetzer Foundation.” Newspaper articles I then read contemporaneous with that event told of many notables in attendance including the widow of assassinated Egyptian Prime Minister Anwar Sadat, Robert Muller of UNESCO, Willis Harman, Laurence Rockefeller, and many others.

What I did not know until the past seven months, starting on December 30, 2018, the day the Detroit Free Press ran a full two and a half page story on former Detroit Tiger owner John E. Fetzer was that a very major center of New Age activity had been centered not so much in California or London, but in Kalamazoo, Michigan — 125 miles from me as the crow flies.

What I also did not know was that John E. Fetzer had financed much of the New Age activity I had been witnessing. I certainly did not know then that John E. Fetzer had graduated from Emmanuel Missionary College in Berrien Springs, Michigan as the class valedictorian. Ironically, he had given his valedictory speech on his chosen topic of “Faith of Our Fathers.” It was a faith from which he shortly after radically departed. Ironically, it was the same faith as in which I was raised in my formative years — the Seventh Day Adventist Church.

It appears to me, sadly, that John Fetzer tossed out his Bible and replaced it with his new chosen Bible — first Tesla (with his fascination for technology of radio waves and beyond) and then later with such New Age sources as “The Book of Urantia” (said by some of the Fetzer Institute website sources to have possibly been written by one Kellogg (also a former Seventh Day Adventist). Fetzer was later to put faith in The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ. He also became a true devotee of Alice Ann Bailey and had his close associates recite her channeled “Great Invocation” at his Monday Night meetings that are detailed in Brian C. Wilson’s John E. Fetzer and the Quest for the New Age as well as the numerous original sources that Brian C. Wilson used. Those sources were obtainable and downloaded by me from the Fetzer Institute’s website.

It also became obvious to me that there had to have been Evangelical “cult expert” sources who were aware of these Fetzer connections back in 1982. They tried frantically to stop my work against the New Age Movement. I now know, for example, that Richard Halverson, president of International Christian Leadership had his personal file on the “Institute of Noetice Sciences,” furnished him by his good friends, Paul and Diane Temple. Paul N. Temple was the co-founder and CEO of the Institute of Noetic Sciences. During this very time, John E. Fetzer was on the Board of Directors of IONS (Institue of Noetic Sciences).

It is now my educated guess that the very sophisticated video equipment I witnessed filming Benjamin Creme’s lecture in Detroit on November 4, 1981, most likely was furnished by Mr. Fetzer. He owned a large network of radio and television stations as well as the Detroit Tigers. The video was never circulated. Extremely professional bright sodium lighting was employed that night. I suspect I might have personally ruined that video for them. At the end of the evening, everybody was to recite “The Great Invocation.” After that, Benjamin Creme was to deliver a message directly channeled through him by “Maitreya the Christ.”

Benjamin Creme requested those present to gather closely together for that recitation. A very prim and proper well-dressed black lady who looked like she could have been active and a pillar of the church in any local Baptist church sat next to me. I said to her as gently as I could, “I hope it doesn’t offend you, but I will not say the Great Invocation with you. I will say my own prayer.” She responded, “no, Honey, that’s alright.” I said, “the reason I will not say the Great Invocation is that the Bible very clearly said that the antichrist would declare that Jesus was not the Christ. Benjamin Creme has said all evening that Jesus is not the Christ — but Maitreya is.” The woman parroted back what Benjamin Creme had said all evening: “there’s been many Christs.” I said to her, “there’s been only one and HIS NAME IS JESUS.” From a few rows around, people were looking at me as if I were from outer space.” Friends who came with me were cowering back, afraid I would be ripped limb from limb.

Benjamin Creme re-entered after that intermission and again tu rned his head as close to a full spin of the head as I have ever witnessed. Then he and the audience started chanting: “From the point of light within the Mind of God, May light stream forth . . .

Simultaneous with that, I went nice and loud (the acoustics were wonderful!) “Our Father, who art in Heaven — Hallowed be THY NAME.” I did that every stanza as they recited it. Finally they came to the culmination of their “Great Invocation”: “May light and love and power restore the plan on earth and may it seal the door where evil dwells (sort of New Age talk for getting rid of us monotheistic dissidents). Again, I went nice and loud: “MAY JESUS CHRIST RETURN TO EARTH AND END THE EVIL PRESENT IN THIS ROOM TONIGHT.”

Well, the funniest thing happened, or may I say it didn’t happen. The audience was expectantly waiting from the transmission from “Maitreya.” Benjamin Creme waited, waited, and waited. Finally, he said to the audience, that will be all, you are dismissed.”

I note for the record that if Benjamin Creme had been making things up, he could have said anything. He was honestly waiting for whatever spirit possessing him to take over. It appears plainly that Maitreya could not come out and play at the Unity Center for Holistic Living on November 4, 1981,

I have now learned from my extensive downloading and reading of the Fetzer archives that John E. Fetzer suffered a great disappointment when the Creme promised “Day of Declaration” of May 20, 1982, did not occur. The worldwide newspaper ads of which I suspect Fetzer had been a primary donor ran on April 25, 1982. On April 25, 1982, Fetzer’s chosen psychic, channeler, Jim Gordon, sent John E. Fetzer a letter of congratulations. Earlier on March 10, 1982, Gordon had told Fetzer that the new cycle, including the Bailey prophesied “cleansing action” was beginning.

Benjamin Creme concocted a story that I never believed, mainly because he did not come up with it until five days after he and I had a serious debate over local WRIF Detroit rock station, Sunday night interview. The New Agers had the confidence that Alice Bailey books had given them that no significant opposition could develop. It developed and suddenly they were on the run. It is now clear to me from reading the Fetzer archives that John Fetzer was in some respects in May 1982 like the original 1844 Adventists who sat on the mountain expecting the immediate Second Coming that William Miller had told them would happen on a specific date. It was a huge disappointment to them. May 20, 1982 was a similar huge disappointment for John E. Fetzer.

Fetzer sold his network of radio and television stations and then the Detroit Tigers so he could follow the channeled messages from Jim Gordon and the demons possessing Gordon to establish the Fetzer Institute so the New Age Movement could continue after the 1982 disappointment. I have also now read in those Fetzer archives that they are now confident that they will now succeed whereas in 1982 they failed — because now a majority hold New Age beliefs.

Time and events will tell, but I think it would be good for the souls of those at the Fetzer Institute who think they are duty bound to implement John E. Fetzer’s vision for the New Age to realize that perhaps if John E. Fetzer could come back and talk to them, he would now beg them to cease and desist, much as Jesus warned in the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus.

My first feelings towards John E. Fetzer were of anger. However, the more I have listened to the Fetzer archive tapes of conversations between him and Jim Gordon, I am realizing I was listening to a thoroughly hypnotized or brain-washed gullible man who was almost child-like in his belief in reincarnation, “the Ascended Masters,” and a “New Gospel for the New Age.” He was, bluntly and tragically, deceived.

I would charitably tell the crew left behind: Carolyn Dailey, Attorney Mike Gergely, Bruce Fetzer and the rest of the crew is that “you don’t have to go through with this. The eternal consequences for those worshiping the Beast and his image were clearly spelled out in Scripture 2,000 years ago. I submit that should have much more credibility than any “Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ” and the Alice Bailey writings.

May the Lord keep us all free from New Age temptation and deliver us from New Age evil.

E-Mail Constance Cumbey: cumbey@gmail.com