The Founder

Founder of the Church of Universal Spirituality, Mr. Jeff Crawford has brought together his experience in religion, philosophy and music to guide the creation of the Universal Spirituality concept.

Born in Queens, New York, and baptized as an Episcopalian, Jeff attended St. John’s Lutheran school and church.  At the end of second grade, during a world studies exam, Jeff suffered a sudden, unexpected partial loss of eyesight resulting in permanent legal blindness.  After a fruitless year of struggle in third grade, Jeff was removed from St. John’s and began home instruction.  During this time, his weakening health placed him in several hospitals with one stay lasting two and a half months.  At one point during this long hospital stay, his eyesight failed completely and his chance of survival was poor.  Fortunately and miraculously, the doctors discovered an unusual vitamin mal-absorption condition that caused his eyesight to fail.  With aggressive vitamin therapy injections, the doctors reversed the total blindness and stabilized his level of sight to the point at which it is today.  Because of Jeff’s fragile physical condition, home instruction continued throughout much of his elementary school education.

In 1964, Jeff’s entire family was baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. For the next few years Jeff attended the church and studied the Mormon religion.  Although Mormonism had some fresh new spiritual ideas, such as a living prophet, the church (at that time) had a deep-rooted human prejudice that affected the Crawford family’s spiritual understanding. By the late 60s, the family fell away from the Mormon Church and dropped all religious affiliations.

In January of 1966, Jeff was enrolled in Public School 179 in Bay Side Queens New York.  For the first time in three years, since the loss of his eyesight, Jeff was going to attend a traditional public school.  PS179 was a city public school with a special class for students who were blind and/or visually impaired.  The teacher was a hardball, school board of education instructor for the disabled with not much sense of compassion or sensitivity for a student with Jeff’s medical history.  Through continuous humiliation and constant out-bursts of yelling by the instructor, all of Jeff’s self-esteem and health gains were destroyed.  Again, the city public school board of education recommended home instruction.

Throughout this period, Jeff began to develop a real interest in music.  At age 12, he began to play the drums and did for several bands directed by his older brother.  Through his brother’s influence, Jeff also started playing the organ, providing special keyboard effects and solos on a home-built oscillator.  The freedom of home school instruction along with Jeff’s growing appreciation for music production, guided him to a deeper interest in sound recording.  In 1967, Jeff’s Mom bought the family a seven and a half-inch reel-to-reel recorder with “sound on sound” capability.  Immediately Jeff started fooling around with the tape deck, recording music, environmental sounds and other audio effects to create conceptual music tape compositions.

In the fall of 1972 at age 17, Jeff attended Grover Cleveland high school as a freshman. Again, Jeff was enrolled in a traditional public high school setting, only this time with a much better outcome.  Grover Cleveland was very supportive and provided Jeff with opportunities that allowed him to explore his full potential.  Music and art along with long philosophical discussions with fellow classmates made Grover Cleveland a memorable learning experience.  Unbeknownst to Jeff, Grover Cleveland would also play another important role in his life with the attendance and introduction to his future wife.

Upon graduation from Grover Cleveland in January of 1976, Jeff took a year off from his academic life, concentrating on music performance and directing the Jay Fingers Band where he played organ and mini-Moog synthesizer.  After a year and a half with the band and three months delivering fresh Italian cheese to pizza shops in downtown Brooklyn, Jeff enrolled in Syracuse University.  In January 1977 during a typical lake effect winter snowstorm, Jeff started classes at Syracuse.  Syracuse University was a challenge. However, the real challenge for Jeff was trying to find a place for his talents, and special accommodations for his educational needs at a major, New York university.

At first, Jeff took some basic requirement courses along with an intro to psychology class.  Psychology was of interest to Jeff because of the therapy necessary for him to overcome the psychological damage inflicted at PS179.  Unfortunately, the instructor who taught the psychology class was a “pull-yourself-up-by-your-boot straps” clinical psychologist.  His idea of special accommodations was “I’ll have a student read you out-loud the test in the back of the class room.”  Jeff also took a philosophy class, “Plato’s Republic.”  The philosophy department was very kind to Jeff.  When it came time for a test, the instructor of the course had Jeff come to his office and they would discuss the exam while the professor took notes.

Because Jeff was interested in electronic music and sound recording, he tried to enter the school of communications.  He met with the dean of Newhouse School of Communications. Jeff was told very honestly by the dean, there were 128 units to graduation and only 12 units in elective courses that would possibly apply to audio engineering and sound recording.  The dean went on to say that Jeff should return to New York City and continue working in the electronic music studio, producing tapes and original compositions.  Jeff returned to the philosophy department and continued studying logic and philosophy.

After a year and a half of Syracuse University, Jeff was ready to move on.  In the summer of 1978 Jeff and his Mom left Queens for good and moved to Stockton California where his Mom bought a duplex.  Immediately, Jeff started building a small recording studio.  In 1980, Jeff opened Fingers Audio Productions.  Fingers studio was an 8-track analog recording studio that specialized in electronic music production.  For the next seven years, Jeff operated the studio providing recording services to local bands and businesses.  In 1983, Jeff married his high school sweetheart and they moved next door in the duplex to his mom and the studio.

As Jeff continued to improve his artistic musical abilities, he became involved with the peace movement and the Beyond War organization.  It was clear to Jeff that a violent approach to anything was counterproductive and in fact, increased the potential level of violence for all.  A peaceful way was the only way to the Earth’s continuation.  In 1982, Jeff began working on what would be his most significant music project, “Signs for a Troubled Planet.”  Signs for a Trouble Planet was a collection of electronic music compositions and “pop songs.” It took more then two years to assemble, with the final work “Trylight” (the first piece on the album) being composed in 1986.

In 1987, the University of the Pacific (UOP) hired Jeff to work as the Production Director for their public radio station. This was Jeff’s first real full-time job.  Jeff loved producing for KUOP and gave everything he could to the students and the station.  In 1988, his mother passed away suddenly and for the first time Jeff truly understood what it meant to be disabled and independent. Jeff and his wife moved closer to the university and the radio station, where Jeff continued to work. In 1997 Jeff’s wife gave birth to their first son. Then in May of 2000 Jeff’s job at the radio station ended after the station was foolishly out-sourced to a large public radio firm in Sacramento.  Upon Jeff’s unemployment, he began producing multimedia projects on CD.  Jeff mastered and produced five original music CD projects and a full web site, entitled “Jeff D. Crawford: a Producer Profile.”  In 2002, Jeff’s wife gave birth to their second son.

After the world-changing events of September 11, 2001, Jeff realized a completely new concept of God.  Instead of God and Man as separate beings, God and Man were one and the same.  The relationship between God and Man was the same as the relationship between the physical world and the spiritual realm or like the human mind and the organic brain.  Jeff began to work on this new concept of spirituality.  He started sharing his ideas with friends and soon learned that as long as people believe in God as an external entity, the world would never be safe from terrorists.  Thus in 2004 Jeff secured the domain name for the Church of Universal Spirituality (http://www.thechurchofus.net) and started formalizing the concept of the church.

Today, Jeff is the web master of The Church Of Universal Spirituality web site, gives talks on violence addiction, teaches music and computer technology, trains students in sound recording arts, manages the Digital Recording Studio at the University of the Pacific; and continues to compose music as a way of expressing his concerns and love for planet Earth.