John E. Fetzer – The Quest for the New Age

Aired Wednesday, 22 August 2018, 8:00 PM ET

John E. Fetzer – The Quest for the New Age

My personal life quest and the theme of Destination Unlimited is to find the crossroads of science and spirituality. This is an age old quest going back to the philosopher-scientists of ancient Greece and other civilizations in antiquity. A revisioning of this quest began in the late 19th and early 20th century. The 20th century’s New Age, as it is called, was thought to have been birthed in California and other progressive thinking communities. What most are not aware of is that it actually was the Midwest that was the first cradle of advanced spiritual expansion and that the father of this quest was a successful media mogul and venerated owner of a baseball team.

John E. Fetzer, born in 1901, was a radio pioneer who built a communications empire and was the sole owner of the Detroit Tigers 1961 to 1983. Behind the scenes, he was a seeker who believed that happiness, positivity and peace on earth could be found through a pathway to a higher intelligence. He used his resources to fund this quest, with research studies at Stanford, Duke and Princeton, including the ground breaking research into ESP by J.B. Rhine.

This hidden quest is being revealed for the first time by my guests this evening on Destination Unlimited, Fetzer biographer Brian C. Wilson and Fetzer’s nephew, Bruce Fetzer. Brian C. Wilson is professor of American Religious History in the Department of Comparative Religion at Western Michigan University. He is the author of Dr. John Harvey Kellogg and the Religion of Biologic Living and Yankees in Michigan.

Bruce Fetzer is President, CEO and a trustee of the Fetzer Memorial Trust, a former trustee and treasurer of the John E. Fetzer Institute, a former trustee and member of the Foundation Financial Officers Group chairman of the FFOG compensation survey, and advisor to other nonprofits. They join me this week to discuss the just published book, John E Fetzer and the Quest for the New Age.