Dr. William Sadler – the founder of the feast
Dr. Sadler was one busy man. He was an accomplished surgeon who also taught surgery and psychiatry at many medical institutions in Chicago. He lectured at many places in his professional work and lectured specifically at McCormick Theological Seminary from 1930-1956 on Pastoral Psychiatry. His list of published works are too long to list here.
Dr. Sadler was a Seventh Day Adventist theologically, and a proponent of Ellen G. White the well known prophetess of the SDA church. He may have even met her as he seems to speak of her in his Appendix in the Mind of Mischief.
In the interests of scientific accuracy on the one hand, and of strict fairness on the other,
it becomes necessary to explain that there are one or two exceptions to the general statement that all cases of psychic phenomena which have come under my observation have turned out to be those of auto-psychism. It is true that practically all the physical phenomena have proved to be fraudulent, while the psychic phenomena are almost invariably explainable by the laws of psychic projection, transference, reality shifting, etc. But many years ago I did meet one trance medium, a woman now deceased, whose visions, revelations, etc., were not tainted with spiritualism. As far as my knowledge extends, at no time did she claim to be under the influence of spirit guides or controls, or to communicate messages from the spirits of departed human beings. Her work was largely of a religious nature and consisted of elevated sayings and religious admonitions. I never had the privilege of making a thoroughgoing psychic analysis of this case, and am not in a position to express myself as to the extent to which her revelations originated in the subconscious realms of her own mind. I make mention of the case merely to record the fact that I have met one instance of psychic phenomena apparently of the trance order that was not in any way associated with spiritualism.
As you can see he was also actively involved in researching and actually debunking the rampant Spiritualism movement of the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. It also shows the 2 works he could not debunk, this woman he speaks of who could be EG White and what ended up being the Urantia Revelations. He even sought out help to understand what was going on from other debunkers even Harry Houdini who was the premiere Spiritualist debuker of the time.
I now felt that I needed help in solving the causes behind this mysterious phenomenon and I called in other doctors and scientists, friends of mine as well as Houdini and Thurston. They were equally unable to furnish any explanation.
Oliva, Sioux (2014-12-12). Dr. Sadler and The Urantia Book: The Historic Origins of a Spiritual Revelation in the 20th Century (p. 6). . Kindle Edition.
So the question would be how come this man who was an active debunker of spiritualistic works and a follower of Christ end up radically changing his worldview after his interaction with the so called sleeping subject and the ensuing revelation that followed? Is the Urantia Book essentially Christian?