Pike had heard about "Poltergeist," but had no clear idea of what it was. Then he remembered vaguely that it had something to do with disturbances caused by the Spirit of a dead person in the house where he had lived before during his earthly life. Could it be that? Then he admitted, "for the first time I am before the real possibility that the source of all this can be my son - dead but still alive."

This point was a crossroad and Bishop Pike had the necessary courage to go ahead in his researches, strange and uncommon for a "Prince" of the Reformed Church. His confessions are sometimes of a moving sincerity, "It cost me a lot to even accept the possibility that it was Jim, because I did not believe that he continued to live." Moreover, neither Maren, his secretary, nor David, his chaplain, believed in afterlife! "However, Pike says, we could not think of another explanation. This was a result, I now understand, of our ingenuity and our lack of knowledge in relation to the entire field of the psychic phenomena."

To whom should he turn to in such an emergency? Then he remembered the Reverend Pearce-Higgins who understood these things because of his psychic experiences, as well as his participation in the organization of his church sponsoring this research.

Therefore, on the morning of February 28, Bishop Pike called the Rev. Pearce-Higgins, told him about the ongoing and asked for his advice.

Pearce-Higgins explained to his eminent friend, newly converted on things of this nature, that there were two plausible explanations for the phenomena: they were either expression of hostility to someone who had come to occupy the house in which lived the Spirit, now disembodied, or they were resources to draw someone's attention. In short, Pearce-Higgins made an appointment for Bishop with a very well known medium in London, Mrs. Ena Twig, and through her, Pike could finally talk, face to face, with his dead son.

The Bishop's prejudgment regarding the practice of mediumship began to falter. He expected to find, at Mrs. Twig's, heavy curtains, frilly silk lampshades, exotic ornaments and a semidarkness cluttered with objects and furniture - a caricature of mediumship shown in certain movies. Instead, the room was so simple and common that when writing later about it in his book, he could not remember the details to describe it.

THE THEOLOGIAN PAUL TILLICH WAS PRESENT

It would be impossible to reproduce the entire conversation and the natural distress caused by the need to say a lot in a few words, in a small space of time. However, it is easy to imagine the scene: on one side of life, the son who committed suicide recently removed from a life with no horizons due to the terrible pressure of drugs. On the other side an anxious father, witnessing a phenomenon that was unusual to him and which he, a couple of weeks before, would never have thought of watching, much less cause.

The session counted with the somewhat surprising presence of the Spirit of the eminent theologian Paul Tillich, a friend of Pike, who seemed to be helping Jim in the spiritual world. The Bishop was very much shocked and moved when he was told about the presence of his great friend, recently disembodied. Further, how could a medium know that Pike's new book, being published at that time in the United States, contained a dedication to Paul Tillich?

- The boy - said Tillich - was a visionary, born out of his time. He found a bewildering society where sensitivity is classified as weakness.

To a question of the Bishop on whether it would be a good thing to disclose the reality of afterlife and communicability, the answer came from Paul Tillich and it was very cautious:

- The fire on the plains can cause chaos if not controlled. Work carefully, but keep in mind the words: "Know the truth and the truth will set you free!"

This was how the first psychic session attended by Bishop James A. Pike ended.

Thereafter, he devoted himself willingly and with intelligence to the study of these phenomena, to reading books and keeping contact with who could instruct him on the matter. He made use of mediums again, both in England and in the United States. Under strange conditions, as predicted by the Spirit of his son, he found an organization in the United States, also linked to the Church, who helped him in his studies.

Here we see, in all its crude reality, the difficulties facing the knowledge of the truth that, according to Christ, one day will free us. This is a remarkable man, a Bishop of a large Christian community, author of successful books on his specialty, an eminent preacher of a doctrine based on the fact of the survival of the human Spirit. This man confessed that he did not believe in afterlife, and he admits that he never read a single book or essay about psychic experiences, which are so widely disclosed today.

LIFE AFTER DEATH, AS SOMETHING NATURAL

The rest of the book - and there are still about 200 of the 300 pages that form it - is a faithful narrative, describing step by step a long and painful search for the truth contained in the psychic phenomena, so familiar to the followers of Spiritism.

His first surprise was the extraordinary amount of existing books on the subject, something that up to that moment had passed unnoticed to him. His conclusion, after much study, meditation, and watching manifestations of various kinds are summarized in his own words. He says, "My personal experiences, along with the facts that I was led to search as a result of them - as much as the analyzes by respected scientists in their fields of activity who also devoted careful attention to the data in more than one psychic area - allow me to say that life after death is a "natural" thing. It is to be expected of the human psyche which seems to be already in eternal life." He goes on saying that he could not yet have stated this in his last book. Moreover, the beliefs raised by the evidence of facts were few, indeed, but based on very sound and experimental foundations.

A true and inner revolution takes place when we discover that what served us as a base of our structure of thinking and of our life, suddenly no longer serves us. Moreover, the new truth discovered needs to be meditated, fitted into our ideas, and finally proclaimed in an honest and sincere testimony. It is necessary to open space for it in our spirit, and throw away all the junk that clutters and darkens it. Therefore, young Pike's spirit, after his afflictions were soothed in the new spiritual dimension and certainly very much helped by his friends, stated through George Daisley's mediumship:

- I am so happy to see that you decided to face the challenge... encouraging others to search for their loved ones. Tell them to be very careful verifying all the facts.

He said later:

- I am trying hard to learn that to be dead is actually to be more alive. It is an excellent idea to tell the facts. This should have been done long ago. In addition, one by one, the truths that the Spiritist Doctrine has taught us a long time ago start to arrive. For example, in a tentative to contact the spirit of Maren Bergrud, his secretary, who had also committed suicide, the Bishop is told that she is still very confused and unable to speak. 

THE REACTION WAS IMMEDIATE AND STRONG 

Spirits were taking care of her with all the affection and attention, but Maren suffered very much, and was in a state of great confusion. "This was disturbing - Pike writes - but it reflected what I had learned to be common: that those who die of a violent death, or commit suicide, have a greater difficulty to adjust to the other side."

After some time and after a program taped for the Canadian television with the famous medium Arthur Ford, the thing exploded in the press, like a bomb, the screaming headlines: Bishop Pike claimed to have talked to his dead son! As if it was something extraordinary for someone in this world to talk to Spirits...

The reaction of friends and of known and unknown people was ready and plentiful. Letters, cables, and phone calls poured down on the Bishop. Some to help, to offer consolation, suggestions, tell about similar facts, others to say the biggest nonsense and to insult him. A priest colleague wrote an article to "prove" that Pike had not spoken to the Spirit of his son, but with the devil. In that article, even facts that were in the public domain, because they had already been published by newspapers, were truncated. A pity ... However, who could convince a father that the Spirit to whom he spoke was of the devil and not of his own son? Do we not know the words, expressions, tendencies, likes, and dislikes of our children?

"Many Christians - Pike says, somewhat stunned - do not believe that we can communicate with Spirits, but accept the "resurrection of Christ." "We could expect, he goes on, that those Christians accepted with great joy the proof that their faith is not in vain.  Instead, the response is overwhelmingly negative, full of passion and intolerance."

At the end of this long and arduous adventure, the Bishop was convinced of the survival of his son Jim. Many questions still left him without adequate answers, but it is accepted that after a life dedicated to the dogma and orthodox thinking that froze in formulas the Christianity of Christ, much stayed not understood and not accepted. Now, however, the Bishop James A. Pike is also in the spiritual world. Certainly, he is there continuing his studies and research. Someday, he will come back as a manifesting, or as a reincarnated Spirit, to tell us the rest of his story. It will sure become a very well known story to all of us Spiritists: that the Spirit preexists, survives, and reincarnates. That the laws of God are just and infallible and are not beset with intolerant dogmatism. Finally, that we are all brothers in search of illumination and peace.