My uncle Jack Kidd was the finest literary scholar I’ve ever known–which is saying something. In my career teaching college English, I bumped into quite a few good lit scholars. But to Jack, whose mind was both encyclopedic and analytic, literature, history and the thought of a given era–the philosophy and theology–were all inextricably interwoven and were all well known to him. To him, learning was a lifelong pursuit, as it is for me, but he was more a traditional scholar, and I’m more–I’m not sure of the correct word, but it might be mystical.
Let me explain the contrast. Jack wrote verse his whole life, and so have I. Jack’s poems tended to be either religious or historical in nature. His religious poems embraced theology; they never questioned it. His poems about people and events in history were well researched and factually consistent with other written accounts. His poetry remains largely unpublished, as mine does, but he wrote book-length poems about the battles of Gettysburg and the Little Bighorn that I find very impressive. He wrote an equally impressive work called the Easter Trilogy, which is about the Crucifixion and the Resurrection. They are all works of a scholarly writer, and I think they deserve to be read, even if literary critics might accuse them of being old-fashioned in their form.
My own path as a poet has never led me to write about historical events or historical people as a scholar would. I think my poems are consistently about people and their struggles to endure life. I try to reveal humanity, what it feels like to live. I try to explore the experience of life, what each of us has in common with all people, something that might even be defined as our connection to God. I’ve always said that I write for God first, dead poets second and anyone else third. I think that’s why I was never driven to publish. And, incidentally, I’ve never written anything I would call a pointedly religious poem.
Jack admired my work, and I admire his. He considered me the heir to his efforts, and even his wife and his children have told me that in some ways he thought of me as a son. I am who I am now largely because of Jack’s influence, and in some ways I think of him as a father. And I believe he might have worried a little about my soul.
Jack was a Christian. He liked church and its rituals. Not surprising for someone so immersed in English literature and history, he eventually chose the Episcopal Church. I admire that he searched among the denominations and made a choice. But I myself choose not to seek God through church. It was late in life that I found the term that best describes me. I am a Christine.
“Christine” was a term used to describe the early followers of Christ. That was in the days before an official church arose, before there was dogma. Through time, followers of Jesus morphed into followers of the church. Eventually, dogma declared that the only way to salvation was through the church. Yet Jesus said that He was the way. That’s why I follow Him, directly. I make Him my role model.
I do believe that there are a multitude of paths to God, perhaps as many as there are individual souls. Even atheists are on their way to God; they just don’t know it. But it does seem to me that the best way to God is the most direct way. Could a person get there without Jesus? I suspect that people have without consciously following Jesus, but I doubt that they have without being guided by the Christ energy, which is the eternal and divine part of Jesus. I’m sure that my own way is with Jesus. I did have some help in finding that way, though. More about that in a few paragraphs.
The barriers between Eastern religions and Western religions began to tumble during the 20th Century, thanks largely to a few people who surely are considered prophets by those in the eternal world but are largely dismissed as crackpots in this world. In 1908, an American preacher and medical doctor named Levi H. Dowling wrote The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ, a book channeled from the Akashic Records. This book gives a detailed account of the life of Jesus and that of John the Baptist as well. It tells us that Jesus–or the Christ energy, if you will (Jesus was the man; the Christ energy was the divine soul within Him)–returns to earth at the beginning of every new astrological age in order to raise human consciousness and bring us closer to reunion with our maker. It also depicts Jesus as teaching His followers about reincarnation and karma. Thus, the early Christines were reincarnationists. That is one difference between a Christine and many of today’s Christians.
Levi Dowling died shortly after publishing his book, which is still in print, but at about that time a devout young man from, interestingly, Christian County, Kentucky, began channeling cures for sick people, with remarkable success. Edgar Cayce (pronounced like Kasey) became known s “America’s Sleeping Prophet” after he expanded to give readings on the ancient past, God, Jesus, reincarnation and even his clients’ past lives. Cayce died in 1945, but his Association for Research and Enlightenment, located in Virginia Beach, Virginia, continues to spread his message, partly through books based on his channeled information. In fact, his biography, There Is a River, by Thomas Sugrue, is the book that put me on the path that I follow today.
While Elizabeth Claire Prophet’s Reincarnation: The Missing Link in Christianity is a scholarly rather than a channeled book, it looks deeply into the likelihood that Jesus taught reincarnation and examines how and why the church removed reincarnation and karma from its teaching. If it hadn’t done so, Eastern and Western religions would not look as completely different as they do today. (And yes, Prophet really was the author’s real name, her married name.) One point that Ms. Prophet makes, and which I knew from previous reading, is that at the time of Jesus, some Jewish sects believed in reincarnation. They called it by a word that translates into “resurrection.” It turns out that “reincarnation” is a relatively new word in English.
More than half of the people alive today believe in reincarnation. Some of us know about some of our past lives.
So, yes, I am a reincarnationist and a follower of Jesus. So are many of my friends. For me, the greatest single validation came in early 1997 when an emotionally painful episode led me to book a reading with a trance channel who was said to work with a very God-oriented spirit. The spirit, Ramoth, knew all about me and why I was there, and he wasted no time in telling me about Jesus and also about a life I’d had centuries ago in Europe. Ramoth saw me as a priest, 38 years old and sad because I had no children. That was the tip of the iceberg. I’ve been Ramoth’s student ever since–I even married the channel. My book about what I’ve experienced and what I’ve learned through Ramoth, Where the Spirit Led: My Improbable Journey into the Coming Age and What I Learned, will be released by 6th Books in early 2025.
Because of my journey with Ramoth, I’ve seen miraculous things with my own eyes. In an earlier blog, I mentioned my great-uncle Bob Meador, who told me that believing is good but knowing is better. Because of events since 1997, I know some things. I don’t have to believe them anymore–I know them. I have friends whose lives have paralleled mine, but their job isn’t to write about what they know. Mine is.
I’ve heard people say that channeled spirits are always demons. That is absolutely not true. Why would a demon be able to contact us and an angel not? Which is more powerful? Obviously, the one closer to the source of power. If angels come in some sort of rank, from weakest to most powerful, how could the weakest angel not be greater in power than the strongest demon? Besides, the Bible itself gives us an easy test to determine the nature of a channeled spirit. Go to John’s first epistle, not the Gospel According to John. The epistle is close to the back of the New Testament, near Revelation.. Read Chapter 4. It tells how to test a spirit that is being channeled. The King James version deviates from a direct translation from the much earlier Greek version, which refers to “inspired speech.” By “inspired speech,” John meant channeled speech. Just ask: “Are you of God and light? Do you represent Jesus?” A demon will evade those questions. An angel will say: “Yes.” Never converse with a demon. The spirit I consult, Ramoth, is definitely of God and light.
You might or might not know people like me, but the world is full of them. Ramoth says it always has been. Certainly there is no shortage of them in the Old Testament. As this new age dawns, there will be more and more people experiencing what I’ve experienced, knowing what I know. We’ll have to get through some growing pains, but they won’t last forever. We’ll have the opportunity to become more like Jesus and less like what we’ve been. Just look at the news. What a mess we live in. Let’s make it better.
Ramoth ends every session with these words: “You are loved.” We all are. That’s a good thing.
I hope you return here for my net blog. And take care.