The James Ford ISM Archive

James Ishmael Ford is a well known and well-loved figure in both Unitarian and American Zen Buddhist Circles. Prior to his roles as a Unitarian Universalist Minister and Zen Buddhist Roshi, he was an ordained priest and bishop within the Independent Sacramental Movement for several years.

During his ministry and interaction with the many clergy, orders and denominations within the Independent Sacramental Movement, he acquired and preserved many liturgies, rituals, booklets and publications from a wide spectrum of expressions of the Independent Sacrament Movement.

This archive, which we have named in his honour, has been digitized, organized and preserved here with his support. The Apostolic Johannite Church also wishes to acknowledge the assistance and care of Rev. Donald Donato in helping see that this archive is available for laity, clergy, historians and interested parties both within and without the Independent Sacramental Movement.

Organization of the archive

Because the bulk of the archive is made up of works published by ecclesiastical bodies within the movement, we have organized the material grouped by those bodies. There are a few cases where the logical category is an individual author – James Ford himself, Karl Pruter, Lewis Keizer – and a few texts which don’t fit any scheme neatly, which fall into the “Misc or Unknown” category.

Texts are presented in each category in an embedded PDF reader. The sizing of the reader is intended for reading on a laptop or desktop computer. The scans are difficult to render well on a small screen mobile device.

If you have any questions or feedback about the Archive or would like to request or donate any materials, please contact [email protected].

Categories

Presented in alphabetical order. Click each link to see the documents themselves. Where documents are sufficiently numerous or differing in nature for one organization (such as liturgies, newsletters, directories), these have been separated out by links at the top of their respective pages

Once on the page, note that scrolling within the reader scrolls the PDF document, to scroll the whole page you must position your pointer outside the reader.

African Orthodox Church

Anglican Episcopal Church of North America

Antiochian Orthodox

Apostolic Episcopal Church

Church of Antioch

Community of the Love of Christ

Ecclesia Gnostica Mysteriorum

Evangelical Catholic Church

Fraternitas Rosæ Crucis – Aeth Priesthood

Federation of Saint Thomas Christians

George Burke and Holy Protection Monastery

Holy Order of the Rose Cross

Holy Orthodox Synod of America

James Ford

Johannine Catholic Church

Karl Pruter

Lewis Keizer

Liberal Catholic Church (includes LCC International material)

Misc or Unknown

New Age Community (Apostolic Order)

New Church Universal

Old Catholic Church

Old Catholic Church of America

Old Catholic Episcopal Church

Orthodox Catholic Church of America

Orthodox Old Roman Catholic Communion

Synod of Independent Sacramental Churches

The Christian Community

The Independent

Theosophical Society

Valentinian Gnostic Church