Baird T. Spalding

Baird Thomas Spalding (1872–1953) was an American spiritual writer and author of the spiritual book series: Life and Teaching of the Masters of the Far East. Although Spalding's books claimed he was born in England in 1857, Spalding was also reported born in North Cohocton, New York, in 1872. 

He spent much of his life as a mining engineer in the American West. Research on his life and the purported eleven-person research expeditions to the Far East beginning in 1894 to study the "Masters" has turned up evidence and pictures that are included in later volumes of his book. Spalding first visited the Far East in the late 1800s, then again in the 1920s, and then again in the 1935 trip to India at the bequest of his publisher, Devorss & Company.

Anecdotal biographical detail was widely promulgated even during his lifetime. At his death in 1953 in Arizona, obituaries conflictingly cited his age as 95 or 107. His birth date is "1872-1873" in the 1880 US census. However, that could mean that was the time he first came to the US, as at that time, it was common for foreigners to be given a new birth date and name when they first arrived in the US.[citation needed] The same date is given in a 1911 California marriage certificate. In other records, his place of birth is given as England, with him emigrating to the US later.

Spalding did briefly visit India in 1935, as there is a US passport application dated 1935 and a Seattle immigration record on his return from India dated 1936. A biography of Spalding, Baird T Spalding As I Knew Him, was published by fellow mystic and DeVorss author David Bruton in 1954. About Spalding's claims regarding his birthplace, Bruton wrote:

On two different occasions, I asked him where he was born. The first time he told me in 'upstate New York;' the second, 'Spalding, England.' During one of his last public lectures, a member of the audience asked where he was born, and he answered, 'In India.' He spoke with equal affection for the 'old family home' in upstate New York, in Spalding, England, and in Canada, Madras Province, India.

In 1924, Spalding published the first volume of Life and Teaching of the Masters of the Far East. It describes the travels to India and Tibet 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 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 Spalding describes as acts that can be accomplished by anyone who comes to know his "TRUE" self. Examples are walking on water or eating bread to feed the hungry party. 

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 Christ - the discovery of man's source of power within himself - that light of God - Christ's consciousness is that "Christ" state: The Masters accept that Buddha represents the Way to Enlightenment, but they clearly set forth that the Christ Consciousness 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.