History of Foundation Church of the New Birth

      Let's go back to the beginning. It was 1914 and the heyday of modern Spiritualism when Mr. James E. Padgett, a Washington, D.C. attorney and an orthodox Methodist at the time, decided to attend a séance.  His wife Helen had recently passed away, and we can imagine that he was grieving and hoping to receive a message from her. The medium informed him that he possessed the psychic power to receive automatic writings from the spirit world and encouraged him to make the effort. His first attempts resulted in "fish hooks" and "hangers," as he described them, but in time he obtained a writing that was signed by his wife. 

     Being skeptical that it was a genuine communication from Helen, Padgett asked her to provide proof that a spirit was actually writing. She responded by writing about incidents in their lives that could only have been known to both of them. He thought that the material could have come from his own mind but realized that the writing had come more quickly than his mind could formulate the thoughts.

     After reading books on the subject of Spiritualism and attending séances Padgett learned that spirits given the opportunity under the right conditions can communicate with mortals. He was advised to continue taking messages while learning more about the spirit world. In the end, he was able to accept that the writings he questioned did indeed come from his departed wife; that he was experiencing a happiness when she was present and writing that he did not feel otherwise.

     He told Helen he would like to see her progress to the higher, brighter spheres which he had learned were above the earth plane, as it is called. Helen turned to Ann Rollins, Padgett's grandmother, who enlightened her about the Father's Divine Love. She began to seek It earnestly, with Padgett's knowledge. Soon she found herself in the third sphere and wrote that, at his suggestion, she had made the effort to progress spiritually, and it was now fitting that he should do the same. In time Helen brought Jesus of Nazareth to corroborate what she had experienced through praying and longing for the Father's Divine Love.

      Jesus began communicating with Mr. Padgett in late1914 and urged him to pray earnestly with all his heart for the inflowing of the Divine Love into his soul. He explained that while Padgett was naturally a medium, there were many things he (Jesus) couldn't write to him about because Padgett's condition was not elevated enough to receive them. But if Padgett would follow his promptings and pray to receive the Father's transforming Love, his soul's condition would be elevated and the powers of the Love would also elevate his mind and mortal brain.

     Jesus explained to Mr. Padgett why he had selected him from all the men on earth to be developed to receive the highest truths: there were certain qualities in Padgett's constitution, both spiritual and material, that rendered him susceptible to the influence of their powers and purpose. The following paragraph is quoted from his message found in Vol. I of "True Gospel Revealed Anew by Jesus," pp. 2-5: 

"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 circumstance and environment 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."

     Padgett was urged by his wife and grandmother and by Jesus and his disciples to pray for the inflowing of the Divine Love and to let his soul longings go out to the Father often, in order to get into condition to receive the formal messages of truth which they wished to deliver through him. Padgett's mediumship was transformed into a very high quality of receptivity referred to by Jesus as 'par excellence,' which enabled him and his Celestial co-workers to form the necessary rapport that permitted them to transmit the highest truths of the Father through him. Their writings also included the truths of Jesus' birth and life and public ministry; his trial and crucifixion; his family, his disciples; the prevailing Hebrew beliefs and what they expected of a Messiah; God's creation of mankind; the natural love; the spheres of progression in the spirit world; and much more.

     When Jesus began his formal messages, as the highest religious truths are called, he told Padgett that their delivery constituted his second coming to earth, to proclaim once again the glad tidings of the Father's rebestowal of His Divine Love upon His children for their eternal salvation--the great privilege to become Divine and Immortal, which had been lost to mankind with the fall of the first parents.

     The importance of Mr. Padgett's development by the Divine Love cannot be overemphasized. Without his willingness to pray for and receive abundant inflowings of the Love into his soul, with Its powers then acting upon his mind and mortal brain to elevate their spiritual quality, the vital truths of soul salvation and eternal life could not have been delivered by Jesus and his co-workers.

     For ten years, until Padgett's passing into the spirit world in 1923, his Divinely developed psychic instrumentality was the means through which Jesus and other Celestials, as well as many spirits from the planes and spheres below the Celestial Heavens, wrote over 2500 messages.

     Two close friends of Padgett, Dr. Leslie R. Stone, a chiropractor (in the photo), and Mr. Eugene Morgan, a fellow lawyer, were present on innumerable occasions while he was receiving the writings. With others who were also interested, they assisted in Padgett's work of transcribing them. Dr. Stone later became the first publisher of the transcriptions.  With regard to the printing and circulation of the truths, Jesus gave this instruction to Mr. Padgett:

     "...upon you depends the necessity of receiving the truths. No other can do this now, and until they shall have been received, our book must not be printed or circulated, for the world must have all the truth that it is now capable of receiving and assimilating."  (True Gospel Revealed Anew by Jesus, Vol. III, p. 208.)

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