Baird T. Spalding

Baird Thomas Spalding (1872–1953) was an American writer, author of the spiritual book series: Life and Teaching of the Masters of the Far East.

Biography

Although Spalding's books claimed he was born in England in 1857, Spalding was born in North Cohocton, New York in 1872. He spent much of his life as a mining engineer in the American West. Research on his life and the purported eleven person research expeditions to the Far East beginning in 1894 to study the "Masters" has turned up no evidence (names, sponsors, travel or research records, etc.) they ever took place. Instead, they determined Spalding did not visit the Far East until his 1935-36 trip to India at the bequest of his publisher, DeVorss, and, further, that his books are works of fiction. Anecdotal biographical detail was widely promulgated even during his lifetime. At his death in 1953 in Arizona, obituaries conflictingly cited his age as 95 or 107. His date of birth is given as "1872-1873" in the 1880 US census The same date is given in a 1911 California marriage certificate, but his place of birth is now given as England.