Baird Thomas Spalding (1857-1953) was an American writer. He is the author of the historical and spiritual book series : Life and Teaching of the Masters of the Far East.

    Life and Teaching of the Masters of the Far East span six volumes and were copyrighted in 1924 and 1937, being published by DeVorss publications in 1964. They describe the travels to India and Tibet and surrounding nations of a research party of eleven scientists in 1894. During their trip they claim to have made contact with "the Great Masters of the Himalayas", immortal beings with whom they lived and studied, gaining a fascinating insight into their lives and spiritual message. This close contact enabled them to witness many of the spiritual principles evinced by these Great Masters translated into their everyday lives, which could be described as 'miracles'. Such examples are walking on water, or manifesting bread to feed the hungry party.

    These books have remained consistently popular with spiritual seekers, those interested in the philosophy of the East and those who enjoy a good story because of their accessible nature and easy-to-follow format. However, despite most of the action taking place in India, the Great Masters make it clear that the greatest embodiment of the Enlightened state is that of the Christ (as personified by Jesus): “The Masters accept that Buddha represents the Way to Enlightenment, but they clearly set forth that Christ IS Enlightenment, or a state of consciousness for which we are all seeking - the Christ light of every individual; therefore, the light of every child born into the world.” (From the foreword, Volume I, Life and Teaching of the Master of the Far East, DeVorss publications.)

Criticisms

    There has been some degree of controversy surrounding Baird Spalding and the authenticity of the events described in the Life and Teachings. Some people have argued that there is no way to prove that these encounters actually took place whilst others feel that, not only is the evidence readily available, the high quality of the teachings contained therein are themselves evidence of contact with a higher power.

    Spalding said that he made extensive notes of his findings, translations of ancient texts in Tibetan, Sanskrit and Hebrew, which have mysteriously never been published. He also trained in post graduate studies at Stanford and Berkeley universities. Records, however, seem to be unforthcoming.

    Spalding discussed quantum physics years before mainstream science picked up on it. He was reported to have had contact with Albert Einstein, Nikola Tesla and Charles Proteus Steinmetz and is said to have taught Tesla and Thomas Edison about the vibrational nature of the universe. Spalding himself was a well-respected geophysicist and mining engineer.

    Within six months of Spalding's death whilst prospecting in Arizona, his book publisher and long term-friend Douglas DeVorss was murdered in what was reported to be a 'heat of passion' killing. A recent documentary made by Jeffery Thayer, executive producer with ReGenesis, is a webisode series entitled "What Happened to Baird?" Evolution website. This discusses the various controversies surrounding Baird Spalding. Baird Thomas Spalding (1857-1953)

Baird T. Spalding was in reality Baird T. Spalding III. His father was number two and Spalding the first was his grandfather.

    Spalding was born in England and at age four he went to India. At age seventeen he finished the University and went to California were he stayed two years. He then travelled to Heidelberg, Germany and studied for eight years and then returned to California for post-graduate work in Archaeology at Berkley and Stanford.

    In the 1890's Spalding begin to write down his experiences in India for hand and then some friends to him wanted typewritten copies and Spalding carried with him for many years these typewritten accounts which later become Volume 1 of Life and Teaching of the Masters of the Far East

    The wife to the builder of the Oakland Municipal Railways then asked Mr. Spalding for the permission to let the California Press in San Francisco print one thousand copies using an inexpensive paper binding, because she wanted to give them away to her friends. Six days after they had been printed and given away, more then 20 000 orders were received for copies of that book (1924)!

    Mr. Spalding was astonished at the interest in his discoveries and experiences so he wrote Volume 2 (1927). Then followed a period of seven years when Mr. Spalding was involved as a research engineering and each day after work he used to answer questions from small groups about the books and his experiences. His work come to halt during the period when he was the technical adviser on all Biblical works in Cecil B. DeMilles moving picture - King of Kings. In 1935 Spalding wrote Volume 3 and had a thirty day tour and visited 30 cities during that time.

    The last part of his life until he left his physical form in 1953, he spent as a world traveler and worked as a research mining engineer. Volume 4 (1948) and Volume 5 (1955) was compiled from his question and answer material. Volume 6 (1996) contains historical reference to Spalding and his articles for the Mind Magazine 1935-37.

The Spalding Foundation:

    Mr. Spalding great grandfather was engaged in trade and took the task carrying a load of goods down the Ganges. However he was not familiar with the behavior of Ganges. under the flood season and was stranded. One boat was near a wall that had been exposed. A native broke through the wall and out fell several gold pieces. Behind a vault they found a book in gold. The book was the second in a series and it gave the location of other books and cities from an ancient civilization.

    He discovered that they had used a system with longitudes and latitudes. The engineers working under the Spalding Foundation were nineteen years finding the location of the city of Gobi given by the book. Spalding's grandfather went there in 1868 and Baird T. Spalding made his first trip there in 1879.

Examples of Baird T. Spalding's Teaching:

Q: How is it possible to bring about a great change under our present condition in which people are drinking, gambling, smoking and doing everything that is bad?
A: The very expression you have used allow those conditions to go on today. We use such thoughtless words that we allow those conditions to continue. It is better to say that nothing but good and perfect can be. See absolute perfection for all.

Q: What is the proper medium for the awakening?
A: The individual awakening. As it is with the individual, it is with the group; as it is with group, it is with the nation, as it is with the nation, it is with the world.

Q: Is it necessary to overcome all flesh?
A: It is not necessary to overcome all flesh, but to put a better conception upon it by the resurrection of this body from a material to a spiritual condition. If we come into true spirit, this flesh is immortalizes always. Why overcome flesh? It is perfectly beautiful and pure, if we overcome the idea that has held it out of that condition."

Q: What about healing?
A: There is no healing. Healing is a name for a condition that comes about. You can not keep perfection away if you allow it to come to you.

Truth:

"Truth is the same regardless of the book that presents it or the teacher who proclaims it."

"If we would find Truth, we must rise above our own weakness and dare to face the Truth wherever it may be found or whatever its discovery may do to the narrow confines of our own beliefs and speculations."

Accomplishment:

"Everything is accomplished under a definitive law. Every individual works with that law if they accomplish anything, even to walking or breathing. There is no doubt about that."

"You can not accomplish a thing unless you stand one with it."

About negative and positive thoughts:

"Greater civilization than ours have lived by it. But they begun to see dual. Then what happened? Duality began to take energy from their bodies to keep duality in existence, and immediately that energy was flowing from their bodies to their own thoughts, building up the psychic condition.

At times we get beyond the hypnotic stage, and then a flash of the real comes trough. Then we do not hesitate to accept it. Each experience of this kind makes us stronger in acceptance. Then we are "about our Father's business."

"Negative thoughts begets a hypnotic influence. Negative thinking takes energy from the body, whereas positive thinking adds and creates energy."

"Humanity is going to see that is far better to be in positive influences at all times. Then we are going to take the great step forward."

Belief:

"We have forgotten our birthright; we are hypnotized into a condition in we do not believe."

"Without belief there can be no creative power"

"You have been told often that if one endeavors to accomplish and succeeds, all can. The power has always existed and always will exist. Why is it kept away? It is because we put up the barriers of disbelief."

The Ideal of Christ:

"There is but one Christ of all mankind. If we stand one with Christ, we are that very thing. Jesus presented the Christ to the world, which all men may present if they will."

"Always, man's divinity is man's higher attitude. It can be proved in every instance."

"You are perfectly free to make the ascension at any instant, and you are always living to a higher level because you are presenting that ideal."

How to look on children:

"'I see the Christ in every face and in every form. When the first child was born, the Christ was born.' If we let the child alone, we never submerge him. The influence surrounding him would keep him completely. All we need to do is to see the Christ in that child. The moment we present that child as the Christ, we bind ourselves together with that child in the greatest enlightenment."

Baird T. Spalding was kind and simple man who lived a simple life. He was always moving and could travel 1000 miles to do a favour for a friend. He spent most time of his life as an research mining engineering. His work seems to have made him rich, because he was always willing to give away money if somebody needed. One thing Mr. Spalding didn't need much for himself was - sleep, only three-four hours each night.

Early, Douglas DeVorss (the founder of DeVorss & Company, Publisher P.O. Box 550 Marina del Rey, CA 90294) and Baird T. Spalding agreed that Mr. Spalding never was to be introduced as a Master, but only as an author, but never the less Mr. Spalding made some extraordinary doings.

One very remarkable thing happened in New York (USA) when he was visiting a friend. Spalding was to lecturing in Montreal (Canada) the same afternoon. At 5.00 his friend asked him if it was not time for him to leave. -"No, Its not until 7:30, and I have plenty of time." It was not until 6.00 he said goodbye and left. His friend was very nervous, because she new that he hardly have time to get ready and go to the airport, much less Montreal! She waited until just before the time for his lecture and then phoned Montreal. - "Please tell me." she said "has Baird Spalding arrived yet? The woman who answered said, "Why, he's walking up on the platform right now."

Baird T. Spalding's teaching was a mixture of Taoism, early Hinduism, Buddhism and Christianity. He believed that the teaching of life was very simply and therefore, he was an opponent to Mysticism and Theosophy and those Christian Sects who denied that man was Divine. He said that the people he knew in Eastern said, it was a heresy to accept man less than Divine. "The person seeing perfection is the Master." - Baird T. Spalding

People who Spalding was in contact with:

Dr. Norwood - Clergyman from New York, who had a small church in Nova Scotia and made a visit to Saint Bartholomew's Church in New York. 109 E 50th St New York, NY 10022 In less than five months, it was overcrowded so Dr. Norwood had to put out loudspeakers outside the church!

F. L. Rawson was a brother to a great engineer in England - Sir. Rawson-Rawson.
F. L. Rawson took 100 men into world war one. They all returned without a scratch on any of them. "There is nothing but God." was his statement to that miracle.

Alexander Graham Bell went to Buffalo, New York to loan 2000 Dollars from Spalding's father and his two brothers. They were small bankers at that time and lend him the money so he could attend Boston Tech and build his telephone.

A letter dated December 2, 1935 tells that:

"....Baird T. Spalding is now carrying on with his research work in Calcutta University. We have met some of his former teachers, Professors Ghose, Physics Department, Jesse Bose, Nag, Roy, Das etc., of Transcendental Physics, Psychology, Chemistry, Metaphysics and philosophy, all of the Science College..."

Baird T. Spalding made some sensational claims during his later years about different kinds of inventions that like the camera to past events, until now his claims has sounded like Science Fiction.

He stated that things could travel faster than Light and of course it sounded impossible to those who believed in Einstein's theory. But now it has come to pass with Faster than Light communication!

Baird T. Spalding's suggested the following books:

Henry Drummond - Love, the Greatest Thing in the World.
Dr. Carrel - Man the unknown (People healed from incurable conditions)

The author Colonel James Churchward is probably the man standing between Douglas DeVorss and Baird T. Spalding on the S.S President Hoover before leaving San Francisco for India to visit the Masters known as Siddhas.

Paul Brunton who became friend with Baird T. Spalding in his last three years, wrote a book entitled Baird T. Spalding as I knew him (1954). Brunton observed that Spalding had a photographic memory: "There was no end to Spalding's ready knowledge. I heard him repeatedly come up with the right answer on almost any topic, any place or any time." but Spalding also "seemed to be unusually malleable and open" and that "everyone had a tendency to take Spalding over".

One of Burton's friends who practiced "clairvoyant vision" and had know Spalding for many years. Told Burton in an interview that: "Baird was under the control of three astral beings." his grandfather Baird Spalding, an old miner and a little child. This could explain why he could be both an excellent writer and make contradictions at the same time. (like living with Jesus for about 2 1/2 years in the mid 90's and then invent the camera to past events and had difficult to find Jesus. When Jesus was giving the Sermon of the Mount, because he didn't know that Jesus was 6'2" tall.)

"Spalding, didn't know when his words were being dictated by an control and when they weren't."

When Baird T. Spalding died he had only $126.72, no property and no fixed address