Ruth Montgomery
Leslie Flint
James Van Praagh
Brian E. Hurst
Featured Mediums
Ruth Montgomery |
Leslie Flint |
James Van Praagh |
Brian E. Hurst |
NEW!!!
|
 |
| Ruth Montgomery, April 2000 |
Ruth
Montgomery opened the door. She looked very much the same as
on the jacket of her latest book "The World To Come: The Guide's
Long-Awaited Predictions for the Dawning Age"
(Harmony Books, New York). She had a flawless hairdo, barely noticeable
makeup and smiling, young eyes trained during the decades of her journalist's
practice to notice everything from the first glance and reach behind the masks.
At the same time, she was different in her beautiful condo apartment with
a magnificent view on blue Gulf of Mexico (in Naples, Florida). This amazing
woman, the best-selling author of fifteen books on New Age topics, a top White
House correspondent who covered every administration from Roosevelt through
Johnson, seemed small and fragile against the vastness of the ocean that she was
showing me from her balcony. It reminded me of her 15 books that "very much
exhausted the field," as she would say to me in one hour from now. How
could this body of work possibly come from this tiny and fragile woman? Suddenly
I felt a strong and inquiring glance on my face. Was it she or one of her Guides
measuring me and deciding which questions I would ask and which ones I would
'forget?'
There was such a contrast between the strength of her
spirit and the fragility of her human form. It brought to my mind a story from
one of her books. She wrote how she made the clouds of the nearing hurricane
retreat back to the ocean. "She was probably standing here, on the same
balcony at a time," I thought and doubted very much the conclusion of that
story, in which Ruth Montgomery assured her readers that everyone who is willing
to concentrate hard enough, can do the same. I couldn't. I threw away my
prepared questions and decided to accept the guidance, offered by her invisible
and famous Guides.
T: Are you still receiving daily messages from your Guides?
R: Yes, but I only do it at three o'clock in afternoon, and now I invariably forget three o'clock. I don't do at any other time, so they are not as prolific as they were when I was remembering it all the time. I am so unscheduled now due to my age.
T:
When did you start to receive the messages?
R: Must been about thirty years ago.
T: Over time, did your
Guides change? Are they the same entities?
R: Well, Lily and Arthur are the same? But I never
have known who else was in the Group. Lily told me one time that there were
twelve of them, but I did never ask who the others were.
T: You never asked? But were
they angels, or they were people who were born and lived on earth?
R: I think they were people like us who lived a
number of lives.
T: How long is your daily
session with them?
R: Well, it used to be quite long, I mean, they would
fill up the page, but now it is very brief, more like a paragraph.
T: Do you change their text,
of course, you edit…
R: (R.M. interrupts me): No, I do never edit what
they write.
T: Your handwriting is
weightless. It is probably easy to guide you
R: Of course, I do them on a typewriter.
T: Do you think that your
experience as a journalist with the need to keep the deadlines created the
discipline needed for automatic writing?
R: Yes, but I wish they would give me some discipline
now… when I barely remember what
I thought an instant ago.
T: But do you think if you
try to sit behind the computer some other time they will not be there?
R: Do not mention the computer to me! I bought one a
few years ago and just nearly lost my mind. I just couldn't do it. It was
driving me crazy. It really was making me sick. So I got them to take it back.
It did cost me five hundred dollars, but they did take it back. And I
immediately got well again. I tell
you, it's beyond me.
T: Are you using a
typewriter on a work processor?
R: I am using an electric typewriter. I've used it
for a million years.
T: What kind?
R: It is an IBM electric typewriter, 30 years the
same typewriter.
T: Are you somehow
archiving/preserving the material that you receive? Or do you start a book on a
certain theme, which you choose? For instance, "World Beyond" is about
what happens to us after our death. Do you choose the theme, or do they tell you
what to write about?
R: No,
we don't start with a book, it is a daily thing. I usually ask them a question,
and then they respond. They don't volunteer material. I have to ask them a
question.
T: I was amazed by the
structure of your books. It seems to flow so easily and freely, but the
structure comes through. The news come first, then the development and then
beautiful conclusion as an elevating outcome of everything that was told before.
R: I think, that the newspaper background certainly
helped me because I was getting so many letters from readers. When my books
began coming out, people didn't discuss this subject. My books were pioneering
and several people wrote me, "This is the first time I ever believed
because I have been reading your column for years, and I know that you write
truth not fiction."
T: It is such an amazing
transition that you have been going through because you worked in the most
conservative place on the earth. It really was the last place where a person
could turn around and become a New Age person.
R: That's right! It certainly surprised me! I had no
intention of getting into it. But this
material that I was bringing through... "Search
for the Truth" was my first one. The philosophy that my Guides were
dictating was so beautiful, and so alien to my own philosophy that I was quite
transformed by it. Then they began telling me to write a book about it. My
mother was saying to me, "Don't you dare!" She said, "The
presidents call you by your first name and invite you to dinner in the White
House. If this book came out, they would think that you were a cuckoo!" And
it was probably true…
But anyway, the guides kept saying, "This is not
meant just for you, it is for everybody. Now publish that book." So I
finally did. They were more persistent than my mother.
T: I think, because you were
a journalist, you made it available to people. Because out there were a lot of
good New Age books that are too difficult to read, too complicated to follow…
R: Yes, because they were written in such
highfaluting words that … Of course, Edgar Cayce wrote in biblical style… I
mean, he spoke in biblical English, which is very hard to follow. At least, the
Guides were speaking plain English.
T: May I ask you, how old
you were, when you started out as a journalist?
R: I am 87 now.
T: Oh my God, you look 67.
R: Thank you. I am afraid, I don't, but… I must
have been… I think I was in my
fifties when I began to receive messages.
T: Were you already retired
from the White House, or you did start to receive messages in parallel to your
daily work as a White House correspondent?
R: I was still covering the White House in
Washington, in the State Department, when this began.
T: You worked for six
presidents…
R: I did not work for them, but I covered them.
T: Whom did you find the
most sympathetic and trustable?
R: I was always very fond of Eisenhower. He had this
cute little crooked smile, you know. He was very endearing…
T: He was very popular in
the Soviet Union, because he was there at the time World War II came to its end,
when Americans and Russians met on the Elba River. It symbolized the end of that
hated, bloody war.
R: This was the time, when I was in Russia, when
Eisenhower was president and Nixon was his vice-president.
T: That was the most
disastrous time in Russia… But now, today, we are here, in America.
R: Come on… let's go in the next room. I'll show
you my presidential collection.
[We walk in the next room where the walls are covered
with framed and glassed photos. Ruth Montgomery showed me around.]
R: Here is Eisenhower, Truman, again Truman, John
Kennedy, Johnson on both sides. Lyndon Johnson wrote here, "To Bob's
terrific wife, Ruth Montgomery."
T: Did your husband work
also in the White House?
R: Not in the newspaper business, he was not a
writer. This is his photo…
T: He was a nice man! Did he
support your writing?
R: He was very loyal, but it worried him, he always
backed me up on it. But he wasn't interested in it.
T: It is amazing that you
had a wonderful relationship with him in spite of the fact that he thought
differently.
R: Yes, well… He was a Methodist minister's son.
His father was a Methodist minister, but I don't think that this had any bearing
on Bob's beliefs. He was just a good Christian, but I don't think that he took
to them much either. (On the same
wall) Here are First Ladies and Vice Presidents.
T: This was your destiny, I
suppose, to find yourself working amid all of them! How long did it take to
become a White House journalist?
R: Well, there were several steps in there. I worked
my way through college out of newspaper in Waco, Texas.
T: On your graduation photo
you are so beautiful. Bob and you were a picture perfect couple, I suppose. How
long were your married?
R: I was married for 57 years to the same good man.
He had to be good to put up with me for that long.
T: And it was a great loss,
when he was gone. Have you lived alone since that time?
R: Yes, I sure miss him.
T: I have met some older
women who communicate with the spirit world and all of them have vivid and very
alive minds. The belief is that communicating with the spirit world is a sign of
being a cuckoo or mentally sick. But it is not true. On the contrary, it seems
that communicating with the spirit world heals. In Los Angeles, I have met two
women over 80 who communicate with the spirit world. Both of them founded their
own churches and both have absolutely clear, vivid and young minds, great senses
of humor and great interests in everything. They are interested in politics,
world affairs, watch films, read books, travel, visit people, enjoy good company
and discussions. One of them, Trudy, regretted only one thing that she revealed
her age to her birthday party guests. She told me, "When they learned that
I reached 90 they stopped calling and coming. My true age seemed to scare them
off." Both of them stay young inside. People have to understand that
communicating with the spirit world doesn’t lead to insanity. On the contrary,
it leads to spiritual health.
R: Well, like most people [in my shoes] would do, I
felt terrible when Bob died. But otherwise, I knew, that they have not gone any
place, they are still alive. And one thing that does for you is this: it makes
you realize that there is no such thing as death.
T: I think that it is true.
I have a question and I don't know how to word it. Politics are politics. I have
witnessed Fascism And Communism -- they use the same words to achieve the same
results, and they both collapsed. Why did you change your field? Maybe you
reached the level when a person says, "I have seen it all," and moves
on searching for deeper truth? What made you look into New Age being at the top
of your career? Or, on the contrary, were you chosen by Spirit to become a
channel?
R: I certainly have been chosen by them, because I
certainly did not seek them. But I guess it was meeting Arthur Ford and getting
to be friends with him. He convinced me that there was something to this. He
said that psychically he was getting that I could do automatic writing. I did
not know even what that was. But he told me how to go about it, how to hold the
pencil. It always begins with the pencil. And so, when this waiting began, I
thought, "What's going on here," because I knew I wasn't doing
anything. I couldn't even let the pencil go. It wasn't me who wrote.
T: How did you meet him?
R: I had read about him because I had read a little
bit in this field. When I saw in the paper that he was coming to Washington,
close to the place where I was living, to make a speech at a church, I went to
hear him. Afterwards I went up and introduced myself. I was doing a weekly
column then. I asked him if I could interview him for that column. He said, yes,
of course. So we made a date for the next morning. I went over and interviewed
him. Everything he was telling me while he was in trance was true, or came true
right away. So, we became friends. Every time he came to Washington, he called
and let me know.
T: Do you have your own
premonitions, psychic type intuition, plus the automatic writing? Has the
psychic in you developed over time?
R: I don't think so. We all have those abilities and
I don't think that I am a natural born psychic. I get answers but they don't
always come true.
T: Maybe they are not
supposed to come true but show us the variety of possibilities, and confirm over
and over again that both sides progress rapidly. What do you think about the
earth's shift on its axis?
R: My Guides were writing about that in my earlier
books a very long time ago. Like Edgar Cayce said, it would be around the turn
of the century. But about three-four years before the turn of the century they
begin telling me that it would be postponed, that it would be not then. It would
be a number of years later. So now they're indicating it probably wouldn't be
before 2012.
T: Yes, they are talking
about 2012. I am ready to go, but I am thinking about the next generation. I am
not sure that our kids are anxious to die.
R: Certainly, it would be crowded if we all go at
once to the other side.
T: Who knows, maybe this way
it is shorter and better?
R: I am ready any time. I lived too long already.
T: It is all only an
experience. I think we all are guinea pigs in a strange experiment: someone
wants to know how long we will put up and keep the mind going?
R: My
memory is already gone. On the other side, I hope, I will find it again.
T: No, no, you are
absolutely wonderful, you are fully here.
R: I know, but… my mother in her last years used to
say, "I lived too long." Oh boy, and I find myself saying that now.
T: Was your mother a
Christian?
R: Oh yes.
T: And she of course, didn't
believe in any of this?
R: No.
T: Your books did not
transform her beliefs?
R: Well, they did not seem to. However, I remember,
when she was, you know, practically dying in hospital, she said, "Ruth,
does it hurt to die?" And I said, "Oh no, Mother. No, you can hurt
until you die, but then it is very peaceful." And she said, "How did
it happen that you know more about this than other people?" And I gave her
a very stupid response, I said, "Do you remember, I wrote those
books?" And she said, "Oh yes!"
T: But what did your father
think about that?
R: He went twenty years before my mother died. I
haven't gone into this when he passed. But I began truly believing in this, when
I was getting messages from him and Arthur Ford. Now he is one of The Guides.
T: What did your father say
to you?
R: When dad was giving me his little messages, I
wrote back to him, "When you were here, you said that there wasn't any
afterlife. You said, when you are dead, you are dead."
And he answered, "I have learned a few things since that time."
T: Did he ever express worry
about you, or did he advise you to do this or that?
R: Oh! After he died, you mean?
T:
Yes.
R: No, I think, the only advice that he gave me was
to listen to the Guides. No, he did not try to tell me what to do.
T: Did your mother come
through also?
R: Oh yes. In my last book, there were all of them;
there were a lot of messages from my husband Bob as well.
T: It seems that he misses
you too. Isn't it a mystery to receive messages that prove life after death?
R: It certainly surprised me. When these messages
began, to tell the truth, I was still very much a doubter.
T: I understand, because our
doubts never stop.
R: That's
right, you think that it couldn't come from me.
T: Maybe, the ability to
receive messages from beyond comes before you become a believer. What kind of
family did you come from? Your parents were not poor, and they did not start all
over in America.
R: Oh no. My ancestors came over before the American
Revolution in 1776.
T: From England?
R: Well, some came from England, and some came from
Germany.
T: Were you born here, in
the East Coast?
R: No, I was born in the Middle West, which was
Southern Indiana, Illinois. I am
from the heartland. Then we moved to Texas, when I was a senior in high school.
The trouble with the Americans is that they move all the time.
T: But in your childhood,
did you have a kind of psychic visions, or experiences.
R: No, I
had no imaginary playmates or anything. I was totally unprepared to do this.
T: But how did the readers
see you? Did they accept you right away?
R: Yes, they did, it's amazing. I was getting
wonderful letters from them, I still do.
T: How many letters did you
receive roughly?
R: Of course, there have been tens of thousands of
them. I don't save them.
T: You don't save them?
R: I have no space to keep them. But they usually
start by saying: "You have changed my life for the better."
And then they go on from there. However, the philosophy of my Guides has
changed their lives…
T: …for the better. May I
use this sentence to describe your relations with your fans?
R: Yes.
T: Did your relationship
with the White House change after your published your first New Age books? Or
did they accept your new role?
R: I have a little doubt of the White House accepting
it, but they did not change.
I doubted that presidents at that time were reading
my books…
T: But it is incredible to
have such a talent. I believe that your books prepared people for new times and
new ways of thinking about themselves and their relations with the Universe. You
covered the past, you covered the future, your covered the reincarnation issues,
and when Arthur Ford died -- the afterlife -- and what happens to us after
death. You wrote about aliens, walk-ins, and prophecies. About what are you
going to write in your next book?
R: No! No, no! I say very plainly in this interview,
no! I think I exhausted the field, frankly.
T: I am impressed by the
wealth of knowledge and the strength of your spirit.
R: I did not expect readers to love my books, believe
me. I thought, nobody would read them, so it didn't matter what I said…
T: Who do you like among
other New Age authors?
R: I have macular deterioration now, so I cannot read
very much, so I am not reading in the field like I did at the beginning.
T: What do you think is
going on with American culture today and our entire civilization?
R: I wouldn't even call it civilization any more. A
friend dragged me to a movie about six months ago, which was "American
Beauty." If I hadn't been with her, I would have walked out. I thought that
it was such dirty talk. And now it is okay, and it got all the prizes. Well, I
remember good movies we had when I was growing up.
T: What kind of films did
you like?
R: I think that my favorite of all times was
"Gone With the Wind."
T: Oh, that was a great
movie. And that was a time of great American movie stars as well. Who did you
like most?
R: Well, I guess, maybe Clark Gable was my favorite
man actor.
T: He played in the
"Gone With the Wind" … Maybe somebody else…
R: I am trying to think. Oh, dear! There were so many
good ones in those days. It is sad what's happened to our culture today.
T: This is why they tell us
that the earth will shake on its axis, I think.
R: One way for God to wipe the slate clean, isn't it?
And say, "I love all of you!"
T: When you covered the
White House, what was the theme of your columns?
R: Politics
T: Political news?
R: Yes, and foreign news. Couldn't be further removed
from this subject.
T: Yes. If you would write
today about the political news, what would you consider the greatest news?
R: After Monica there isn't much left.
T: I think it was her
function to show us something important, but what?
R: To wake us up, all of us!
T: When you covered the
White House, did you have something to do with the First Ladies also?
R: Yes.
T: Who did you consider the
most influential or interesting?
R: I guess, the most influential has been Hilary
Clinton, but I liked Mamie Eisenhower. She was so cute, so merry.
T: How do you manage now
daily things, like food? Does someone come to help you, or bring you…?
R: I've had a maid for ten years. She comes once a
week. But I am thinking of getting somebody else, because she has no more time.
Yes, somebody else to come another day. But friends bring me prepared dinners
sometimes, the ones that they get from the delicatessen. But they are not very
good, you know. This is why I am so thin. I am trying to put weight on. But you
cannot do it with this kind of food.
T: I cannot keep it off,
whatever I do. I am dieting or not -- it is still here.
R: Start smoking again.
T: (Laughing) It is good
advice…
R: It is terrible to me to say that… But I was
trying to lose weight -- believe it or not, a number of years ago and I went
back to smoking. Oh boy! It rolled off. I think smoking destroys your appetite.
I have no appetite at all. It is very easy for me not to eat. Now I should be
eating, but…
T: We should have brought
you something. We arrived one hour early, and we waited in the coffee shop
around the corner. I was wondering if I should call you and ask what to pick up
for you from there. But my common sense, of course, stopped me. May I ask you, I
think, I wrote you about it -- if you think, Yeltsin is a walk-in?
R: I never asked the Guides, but I wouldn't think so.
He was a little too screwy, wasn't he?
T: I think he was. Around
his birthday in the year 1992, I suppose, he suffered a heart attack. He
happened to be in the Ukraine, in a small and quiet city. There were two days
when he was out, and TASS announced that he was dying. It was in the news in
America as well. And suddenly, on third day, he was well.
R: Do you think that somebody else walked in?
T: At that time, I met a Los
Angeles healer Joe Gonzales. He asked, "Do you know what is happening to
the Russian president?" I answered that he was probably dying. But the
healer sensed that an exchange of souls was taking place. Later I noticed that
the presidential forehead had changed noticeable. The initial Yeltsin had very
many horizontal lines on his forehead …
R: A low forehead?
T: Right, his forehead
became high and clear overnight. And had an obvious mission, I believe. The
post-perestroika Russia was heading toward fascism. The red color was becoming
brown. With Zhiranovski at the lead, Russia headed toward National Socialism, in
other words -- Nazi type fascism. Yeltsin had to stop it, and he did.
R: You do make him sound like a walk-in.
T: Look, what I found on the
Internet -- a strange mistake! The printout reads that Yeltsin was born in
Sverdlovsk, Ukraine.
R: Oh, for God's sake!
T: Yes, Sverdlovsk is a big
Russian city, not a Ukrainian city.
R: It is quite a big mistake.
T: The most interesting
mistake. Yes, Yeltsin was born in Sverdlovsk, but the walk-in was
"born" in Ukraine. Today, Yeltsin is gone, and it seems that the
walk-in who changed the pattern of bloody violence in Russian history, isn't
interested in revealing his true identity. Did you have psychically gifted
people in your family?
R: I had an aunt who was a psychic.
T: What was her name?
R: Charlotte
Cunningham. We called her Lottie.
T: And how was she psychic?
What does she do? Did she see the future, or heal people?
R: No, she did not do any of those things. The only
reason we considered her psychic, was once when she was a young girl, she came
to the breakfast table and said that she dreamed the neighbor's house had burned
down. Pretty soon, while eating breakfast they heard sirens and the house of
that neighbor was on fire.
T: She had a psychic
premonition. Maybe later she never used her psychic abilities consciously? Did
she use them later, when she grew up?
R: I don't know. She was a generation ahead of me.
T: Of course, there had to
be a psychic gene in family. What do you think about Lily, how did he find you?
R: Lily is Savonarola. Do you remember, he was a 17th
century monk, and probably, he couldn't allow women around, but I was good
enough for writing.
T: And he gave you a mission
to write. It is amazing.
R: Please, tell him to let me go. I am tired of it
now. I was thinking I'd better autograph those books before I fully forget it.
T: May I cast a look at all
your books on that shelf? It is amazing how many books you have written. Have
you been blessed with a good editor?
R: Oh, no! In our days they do no advertising for
you.
T: Yes, in our days, the authors wear too much hats
of writing and marketing and promoting and selling their book! Sooner or later
it has change for the sake of communication between the humans on the earth!
Writer has to write! Thank you very much for your time. It was such a
pleasure to meet you and to hear your talk. You speak with the same lightness
and exactness as you write. Your handwriting certainly fits the requirements of
automatic writing. Какое легкое
перо
-- You pen seems to fly, there is no weight in your hand.
R: Oh, please, mercy! Do you want a piece of candy?
It is right under your hand…
T: Oh, thank you, instead of
a candy may I ask a cigarette…
R: I thought I was the only sinner here. (Ruth
Montgomery laughs offering me a cigarette). She wants to start her diet now.
T: Thank you very much, I am
afraid, you are tired.
R: I was born tired. I am always tired. Cannot get
any energy back. Over a year ago I fell in the kitchen and broke my pelvis. That
is why I am in pain. When the fire alarm goes off, and they tell you that you
have go immediately to the stairs--don't use the elevators-- and walk out, I
just sit here. We have fire alarms through the building, and every once in a
while they go on… And I decided that it would be better to sit here and
surrender…
And again I was caught by a dual impression -- a fire
alarm, a woman alone in her 14th floor apartment giving up, tired,
ready for a transition. At the same time I felt the presence of her strong
spiritual energy, clear thinking and curious mind. It was time to say 'goodbye'.
During the traditional hug and words like "you're a darling," I took
my chances and checked how she would express what she really thinks. She did the
same. While hugging, she cast a fast glance in my direction measuring how
seriously I would take the word 'a
darling?' Our curious eyes met and
we started laughing. If the interview had started from here, it would unfold
along a different route. But why should the interview be different? Ruth
Montgomery, the herald of New Age movement, owes us at least one more book about
her amazing life and unusual career. Before I could say that, she took the words
out of my mouth correcting "a darling" to "Write your book fast!" Somehow she conveyed me her
thought, "Nothing else matters…"
Naples, Florida
