This tape is unique in the entire Bartholomew archive: it is not a Bartholomew session at all, but a talk given by Dr. John Aiken — the physician and lifelong seeker whose friendship with Mary-Margaret Moore made the channeling possible — in which he recounts in his own words how Bartholomew first appeared, how Justin Moore was brought into the work, and how he himself came, over decades of inquiry, to trust what he was witnessing. It is an essential document for understanding the human circumstances out of which the Bartholomew material emerged.

Context: Dr. John Aiken, a general practitioner and long-time student of psychic phenomena, delivered this informal talk to a group already familiar with the Bartholomew teachings. He spoke from personal experience and with characteristic directness, prefacing his remarks with a characteristic disclaimer: the only expertise he claimed was in his own experience, which no one else could match or dispute. He urged his listeners not to take his account — or anyone else's — on faith, but to check everything against their own inner knowing.

Dr. Aiken's Background — A Lifelong Seeker: Dr. Aiken traced the arc of his own spiritual journey as the essential context for understanding how he recognized Bartholomew as authentic when others might have dismissed it. His interest in hypnosis began after reading Morey Bernstein's The Search for Bridey Murphy, and he used hypnotic regression occasionally in his medical practice, particularly for pain relief — his wife, an obstetrician, employed it without ever calling it hypnosis, since that word frightened patients. His deeper awakening was catalyzed by the death of his son, a young Navy radar operator whose plane went down in March 1951 during the Korean War. Determined to find out whether the death of the body was the end of life, he spent years exploring psychic communication, including time with Arthur Ford — whom he considered one of the genuinely clear channels, accurate about 80% of the time. In 1957, a second blow fell: another close friend died in a sailboat storm. These losses drove him from comfortable atheism into a serious engagement with the mystical traditions — the Christian mystics, the Hindu and Buddhist teachings — and eventually to the confirmation that life continues after death. By the time Bartholomew appeared, Dr. Aiken had the background to know what he was dealing with.

The First Meeting with Mary-Margaret — and the First Session: Dr. Aiken first met Mary-Margaret Moore around 1963, at a gathering in Los Angeles connected with the Stanford Research Institute's federally financed psychedelics research program. Over the following years she became a friend, visiting the Aikens in various homes — California, British Columbia, Taos. At one point during a hypnotic regression at the Aikens' home she spontaneously moved into a past life in ancient Palestine, apparently connected with one of the Old Testament prophets. Then, some time later, she came to Dr. Aiken with personal problems and suggested that hypnosis might help trace their source. On December 3, 1977, she came down for that session. The induction worked well; she moved into a past life as an elderly Greek monk in charge of copying manuscripts in a monastery. And then, mid-session, something interrupted. A different entity — different in personality, different in feeling — came through and said: "We have been working with this woman for a long time. We are glad to have this opportunity to speak to her more directly through you." It gave instructions for what Mary-Margaret should quietly say to herself — "Remember why we came here" — and described what effect this would have on the person whose problem she had come to address. When Mary-Margaret returned to normal consciousness and Dr. Aiken told her what had happened, her reaction was immediate and emphatic: "You mean I'm going to be a psychic? I don't want any part of that." He tried to reassure her that this felt different from anything he had encountered before — it spoke, he said, "as one with authority."

The Naming of Bartholomew: The entity, when it interrupted the Greek monk past life, was asked for its name and gave the name of the monk: Bartholomew. Dr. Aiken later pressed the entity on this: "You were not that Bartholomew — that was the past life personality you came in through." The entity agreed: it was not that historical person, but the vibrational resonance was close enough to use as an entry point for this work. When Dr. Aiken asked for its real name, the entity said names are not important. If it gave an impressive name, people would become overly excited about it. And if it said "I am Jesus," people would be turned off immediately — he had heard of psychics who claimed exactly that, with predictable results. "Call me Bartholomew. Call me Joe if you want. Names don't matter. What matters is whether what I say feels true to you and whether you do something with it." The name stuck, even though the entity never actually inhabited that particular earth lifetime.

Justin Moore — The Botulism Crisis and His Conversion: For months after the first session, Mary-Margaret kept the channeling entirely secret from her husband Justin. She and Dr. Aiken would slip away to a bedroom with a tape recorder whenever the Moores visited. Then, in early 1978, Justin attended a prison conference in a town in Mexico where approximately 35 people fell seriously ill with botulism from food poisoning; two or three died, and Justin himself came very close to dying. While recovering at the Aikens' home, he began asking Mary-Margaret urgent questions about life and death. She finally told him about Bartholomew. His first direct conversation with the entity was electric. Bartholomew told him plainly: "Mr. Moore, you made a commitment before you came into this lifetime to go for the top spiritual attainment. You have been failing your commitment. And so has the woman. There is important work for you to do in this lifetime, and it is time you got busy with it." Justin's response — repeated three times — was simply: "Yes, master." Mary-Margaret said afterward that you would not have recognized him as the same man. He had answered all his questions before Justin could ask them.

Sightings of Bartholomew — The Light Phenomenon: Dr. Aiken reported that five different people in Socorro, independently of one another, told him they had seen a light or presence around Mary-Margaret during sessions. When he described what they had seen and showed one of them a picture of a radiant head, she confirmed: "Yes, that's exactly what it was." The same phenomenon was later reported by someone in a Detroit group who had attended a workshop there. When Dr. Aiken asked Bartholomew about it, the response was characteristic: "Let us just say that Bartholomew has never been absent from any of our gatherings."

On Trusting — But Not Blindly: Dr. Aiken closed with the epistemological caution that ran through everything he said. He rated Bartholomew at about 95% accuracy in his experience — higher than any other psychic source he had encountered — but he did not accept everything without checking it against his own understanding. Bartholomew himself had said: "Remember, this woman makes mistakes. There are mistakes in communicating. My brother Bartholomew makes mistakes. There are mistakes at all levels." The Buddha's instruction applied: do not believe something simply because it is written in scripture, or because a teacher said it, or because tradition teaches it — verify it from your own experience. Dr. Aiken's own formulation, drawn from St. Paul, was: "I know whom I have believed" — not believed on someone else's word, but known from direct experience. That, he said, is the only expertise anyone can genuinely claim. And it is enough.