Church of Divine Man

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Church of Divine Man

The Church of Divine Man grew out of the work of Lewis Bostwick (1918-1995), a psychic and teacher in the San Francisco Bay area who in 1973 founded two organizations, the Berkeley Psychic Institute, a teaching center, and the Church of Divine Man, a spiritual community embodying the beliefs that Bostwick, who served as the church's archbishop during his last years, had come to hold. Bostwick saw the development of psychic abilities and the emergence of a mystic consciousness as primary over any doctrinal statements and had argued for what he termed "psychic freedom." He had little use for ideological or philosophical perspectives that tended to divide people. He stressed the abilities each person had for manifesting psychic talents and noted Jesus' words, "What I can do, you can do and greater than these shall you do."

The Berkeley Psychic Institute offers a wide range of courses in psychic development and awareness for the general public along with serving as the seminary for the training of ministers for the Church of the Divine Man. Ministers become accomplished teachers and practitioners of meditation, psychic healing, and clairvoyance. Ministers take an intensive course in clairvoyance. They also learn to do past-life readings, and rein-carnation is generally accepted by those associated with the church.

The church grew through the mid-1970s and in 1976 a branch in Seattle, Washington, opened under the leadership of Bishops Menuard Slusher and Mary Ellen Flora. Additional churches have been founded throughout California. In Anaheim, the Church of the Rose, an affiliated congregation, operates the Southern California Psychic Institute. More recently, the Seattle branch has become independent of the Berkeley branch but continues to operate under the same name with branches in Washington and Oregon. It operates the Washington Psychic Institute.

The Church of Divine Man is headquartered at 2018 Allison Way, Berkeley, CA 94704. It publishes a tabloid newspaper, The Psychic Reader, which in 1986 had superseded its earlier periodical, This Is Your Psychic Life. Deja Vu Publishing is an independent associated publishing concern.