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Freedom Barry: A Biography
By Tirza
Ericson
Freedom Barry was born on
March 28, 1921 in East Parsonsfield, Maine. Freedom, as his given
name, came to typify the Truth of his journey in life.
After graduation from High School, he went to Boston where he
majored in piano at The New England Conservatory of Music. At 20,
he experienced the nature of miracle and the meaning of his given
name. With a heart condition that required Digitalis, and
near-sightedness that required thick-lens glasses, his life seemed
very limited.
A student friend of his at the school dormitory kept suggesting he
should see what Christian Science had to offer. Resistance finally
gave way to acquiescence, and he attended his first service at the
Mother Church there. With his glasses off, he could clearly read
quotations from Scripture and Mary Baker Eddy’s words chiseled in
the limestone walls of the church. Suddenly, he recognized that
Truth had set him free from both impaired vision and a
malfunctioning heart. He returned to his room in the dormitory,
threw his Digitalis into the trash, and his heart has sustained his
lifelong embodiment of the freedom of Truth lived as Individual
Spiritual Awakening.
In 1944, Freedom moved to Los Angeles, California. Winthrop
Chandler, a long-time friend of Freedom’s wrote:
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An acquaintance who knew of Freedom’s involvement in
metaphysics took a copy of Neville’s Your Faith Is Your
Fortune to him with instruction to return it to the library as
she had no interest in it. He spent the evening and well into the
morning hours reading it with absorption. The next evening, he
finished his first reading of it, and before returning it to the
library, he phoned the publisher who informed him that Neville
lived in Los Angeles and lectured two evenings each week at the
Wilshire-Ebell, where all his books were available. Freedom
immersed himself in those books and lectures. He went backstage and
asked Neville if he taught privately. ‘No’ was the decisive answer,
but he quickly answered, ‘Mind is the operant power, and the
premise proves itself in performance.’ This took place in 1958 when
Neville was writing his then new book The Law and the
Promise, and he invited members of his audience to share with
him their proofs of his teaching. Freedom sent him three case
histories in rapid succession, and before the book was published,
Neville had persuaded Freedom to move to San Francisco as the
resident teacher of his work.
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Neville’s San Francisco agents Lord and Jordan rented Freedom space
in their metaphysical bookstore which seated 30. He gave his first
lectures there on February 1, 1960. After Neville’s annual two-week
San Francisco lecture series in July 1960 (in which he repeatedly
urged his students to avail themselves of Freedom’s teaching), he
moved to larger quarters that would seat 150 at the Marines’
Memorial Club.
In August of 1962, at Neville’s urging him to get a book in print
as a useful auxiliary to the teaching, Freedom went to Laguna
Beach, California where he wrote I Do in ten days.
In I Do, Freedom writes in a chapter called 'The
Discovery';
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One forenoon late in September of 1960 while I was walking
east on Post Street in busy downtown San Francisco, I entertained
the most extraordinary experience in my spiritual development.
Quite suddenly I became aware that I was not my body, although I
most assuredly was its life. To my illumined sense, my being was
totally invisible, although I was far more real than I had ever
felt myself to be up to that moment. Not only was I invisible and
real, but that invisible reality was the actual substance of all
that I beheld, and I was beholding the same objects that had become
familiar to me from living in that exciting city.
To my apprehension, I was the Bay Bridge; I was the Bohemian Club;
I was the pebble I sensed so keenly under my foot; I was the
traffic signal at the corner; I was even the newspaper vendor.
Everything I was seeing was just as I had always seen it, except
that in this experience no object or person even seemed to have
existence independently of my perception of its being. To my
invisible reality, the perception and I, the perceiver, were one
and the same substance.
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So his experience to him proved “In him we live and move and
have our being.” (Acts 17:28)
And that was just the beginning…
After moving to California’s central coast, he was a tour guide at
Hearst Castle from 1967-1983; was the narrator of Milford Haven
USA, (a 60 episode radio drama for the BBC); performed in 12
productions at the Pewter Plough Playhouse; and 3 productions for
the Classic American Theatre. He has also made a number of radio
and TV commercials for local businesses.
In addition to I Do, Freedom has written Passkey,
Seven Salient Subjects, and Gate of the Year. To
order, contact: lifeslight.org.
© Tirza Ericson/Imaginal Productions 2006
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