By Shelley Germeaux, Daytrippin’ West Coast Correspondent

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Now that the pay-per-view show entitled The Spirit of John Lennon has made its television debut, grossing over $8 million in one night, my in-box has been full of emails dismissing the show outright for its sensationalist production.

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The show claims to have contacted John’s spirit during seances, psychic readings, EVP’s (electronic voice phenomena) and through channeled music by an Indian guru. The manner in which this show was produced, through scary background music and a narrator who sounds like the guy from the Twilight Zone, shot down any chance of the show being taken seriously. The best part of the show was the Indian guru who channeled a beautiful song from John on a sitar. When translated into an American style, it did sound like something John might have written. But most of the show reminded me of an over-produced magic show.

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This tells me it is a good time to talk about the serious side of John’s spirit communications, for those having a penchant for the “other side.”  To be honest, I’m a closet spiritualist myself and am definitely a believer in the paranormal because of my own experiences. Many years ago I began having profound dreams, strange coincidences and paranormal occurrences about John Lennon and I couldn’t deny his presence in my personal life.

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I haven’t really talked about it openly as of yet.  But one thing I can say for sure is that the feeling of his presence with me caused me to do the writing and research I have done about his life and the Beatles, which led me to Daytrippin’ Magazine. So to that end, if I’ve done something positive for his memory, then perhaps I’m fulfilling a worthwhile purpose on his behalf.

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There are other people braver than I, who have published their experiences with John Lennon’s spirit, and this is the subject of this article.

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A couple of weeks ago I received an email from a friend of mine, Linda Keen, asking if Daytrippin’ readers would be interested in a review of her book, Across the Universe With John Lennon. First published in 1994, I had loved the book, and the similarity in my experiences inspired me to write to Linda and form a friendship that has lasted over 10 years.  I remember reading it at that time with rapt interest, shocked into realizing that I had not been imagining John’s presence after all. There was a lot more going on here than any of us understood. It changed my life and helped me to accept the profound spiritual guidance that John seemed to be offering. But would fans take the information seriously?

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The same week that Linda wrote me, I had, coincidentally, just finished reading  Jewelle St. James’ book called All You Need Is Love, about her discovery of a past life with John in England in the 1700s. I had assumed that this book would simply be a discussion of her dreams, past life regressions, and things like that, that wouldn’t necessarily prove anything. Imagine my surprise when I could not put the book down, reading into the wee hours of the morning until I had reached the very last word.

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She had actually backed up her dreams and psychic readings with genealogical type research, including traveling to England, finally uncovering documents that proved the existence of the lifetime in question.  It provided an element of proof of reincarnation that was stunning.

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Later that week, the advertisement for the John Lennon seance on TV appeared, and I thought, well it’s time to separate the wheat from the chaff.

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Here is a discussion of the books that have already been out there, hiding on bookshelves and on Amazon all these years, without too much excitement or publicity. These authors have really compelling, truthful and loving stories to tell, without giving a hoot about their own fame. They just want to get their stories out there, and have had to go to considerable personal expense to do it. The courage to do this, as I have myself discovered, is hard to come by. One has to go beyond the fear of ridicule from others, but also their own doubts.

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Here are the books that are available should you want to pursue this subject:

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by Jason Leen, (Illumination Arts Publishing Company, 1982, 1989)

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This was the first book that was published, from all I can tell, about John’s afterlife. Jason is a clairaudient who wrote The Death of the Prophet in 1979, the channeled works of Kahlil Gibran, who died in 1931. John came to Jason three nights after he died, only to say he was being kept strongly on the earth plane because of all the people who were grieving for him. He says he has a lot of adjustments to make to his new form, and that he needs to heal, but that he would be in contact.

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Throughout 1981, John related what he experienced when he died, and what he was seeing and feeling. Jason describes John’s reaction at seeing his mother Julia waiting for him, and all she tells him.

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After explaining the seven different heavenly realms, she explains that since John was such a powerful spokesman for the world, he is being asked to continue his work with humanity. She assures him that the world will listen. He learns that the earth is about to awaken, but that first, humanity must awaken and arise. He will be one of the spirit beings to interact with people on earth to get this message across.

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He describes the various dimensions he is introduced to, and the realization that his thought alone can take him to a different place. He learns that Heaven is what you imagine it to be, and is as good as you can allow it. He talks about his wish to stay on the earth plane to help humanity. That he will be here as the planet goes through immense shifts and changes in the coming years.

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The transmissions include many metaphysical terms about frequency changes, heightened awareness, and electromagnetic changes within our DNA that must occur in order to successfully accommodate the required growth.

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More information about Jason is at http://jandj-publishing.com/

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by Linda Keen

(Hampton Roads, 1999)
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First self-published under the name John Lennon in Heaven in 1994, it was reissued in 1999 under the new title, along with her 2nd book, Intuition Magic. Linda and her husband owned and operated an Intuition school in Holland, and before John came along, Linda was teaching many techniques to help people develop their psychic and intuition skills to better their own lives.

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When John suddenly appeared in a profound dream in 1986, her life began to change. Quoting from the introduction, where Linda describes the dream, she says, “I am visiting a woman who is planning to write a book entitled John Lennon in Heaven. She is going to converse with John about what it is like to exist after death, and apparently, he is very eager to participate–in fact, he has organized the whole thing himself . . .as I awaken, the quality of it lingers in my whole body and mind, leaving me inspired yet perplexed.”

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Despite her efforts to dismiss the dream, John began popping up in her mind regularly; laughing at something she said, or giving her some advice. She couldn’t get him out of her mind, and she began searching for anything having to do with John Lennon and the Beatles. She became a Beatle fan all over again. The dreams began to increase. One night she dreamt that she was lifting John out of a grave, whereupon he got up on his feet and put her jeans on. In March of 1987 she made the decision to try and contact him directly.

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From there on, the book describes her conversations with him, the spiritual lessons he taught her, the realizations about God, and the lessons he learned about his life. She helped him through his own grief, and he helped her through her doubts. He finally convinces her to get a computer (remember it was the early 90’s!) and begin writing a book, so she could communicate what he was teaching her to the world. It was a friendship based on spiritual guidance that grew and continues to this day.

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It is a fantastic journey through the soul’s growth and through spiritual teachings. As John always believed during his lifetime, he teaches her that reality extends way beyond what we can see. There is much more to the ultimate truth.

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Since the publication of her book in 1994, many people have contacted Linda to tell her about their own connection to John. Linda has a website at www.keenintuition.com .

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All You Need is Love (second edition; May 2009)

by Jewelle St. James

(St. James Publishing, 2003)

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Published in 1995 as Imagine: A Past Life with John Lennon, this edition continues the story and adds photos. Jewelle was a Canadian housewife and begins her story with the morning after John was murdered, December 9, 1980. She had not been a Beatle fan at all. She hadn’t even listened to the album, Imagine. But for some reason unknown to her, news on the television of his death caused a tidal wave of grief she could not recover from or explain.

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Over the coming weeks, her embarrassment at the torrent of sadness and uncontrollable tears caused her to employ extreme efforts to get over it, to save face in front of her concerned family and friends, but it was futile. She would get in the car with the kids only to hear Starting Over on the radio, and suddenly burst into sobs. No one understood why she was obsessing over a dead rock star that she had never really cared for while he was alive. Neither did she. And now she was becoming a Beatle fan, collecting everything she could on John’s life.

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She had the luck of being born into a psychic family, and after about three years of struggling emotionally, she approached her mother and sister, at separate times, with her problem.  She wanted an explanation that perhaps transcended current day reality. They told her such specific information about a lifetime that her and John shared, down to the names, that she began a search to discover whether any of it was true.

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From there Jewelle discovers that her grief in this lifetime was a result of unhealed grief from the prior lifetime. John, in a prior life as the love of her life, John Baron, had died suddenly of illness, and she herself had died of a broken heart soon after.

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She travels to England, where she eventually discovers records that actually document the existence of the two people she and John were. Soon she understands the unhealed emotions that needed to now be allowed expression. This is a story of karmic healing that is inspiring and fascinating, especially when it is realized that healing a prior lifetime also heals the current lifetime, and the soul for the rest of eternity.

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Jewelle has a website at www.pastlifewithjohnlennon.com

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By John Edward

(Princess Books, 2002)

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John Edward is internationally acclaimed as a psychic medium. He has hosted his own television show Crossing Over with John Edward, been a frequent guest on Larry King Live and many other shows. He also was featured in the HBO documentary Life After Life.

When John Edward was in Seattle a few years ago, tickets to his show were selling like hotcakes so I decided to go see what he was all about. Coincidentally, the day I bought the tickets, I happened to see this book prominently displayed as I was walking through a discount bookstore.

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I immediately bought the book, and as I read through it I discovered a chapter called “Legends of Rock”. I turned to it instantly and began to read about how Carl Perkins’ daughter had wanted to have a reading with John Edward in 1998 after her dad died. A friend set the reading up, only saying what the daughter’s first name was. The reading was significant because John did not know who her father was, until, befuddled, he said “Elvis is with your dad..who was your dad?” Amazed, the daughter then admitted that Carl Perkins was her father and that he was the one who wrote Blue Suede Shoes.

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Following the full description of this reading, which is fully outlined in the book, to my surprise Mr. Edward then recounts a story about John Lennon that I had been familiar with in part, from the 1998 video (VHS) called Paul McCartney and Carl Perkins: My Old Friend. I had no idea the story was in the book, and I learned some details that had not been on the video.

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In 1981, just after John Lennon died, Paul and Linda invited Carl to stay with them in Montserrat. Paul wanted Carl’s help recording a song called Get It for his new album, Tug Of War. Carl spent eight days with them, and George and Ringo had been there to help out as well. It was a great time between old friends who had shared such a legendary musical past.

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The night before he left, a song came to Carl that summed up his warm feelings about the visit, and he couldn’t get it out of his mind. It was so strong that Carl didn’t even write it down, which was strange for him.  He usually always wrote his songs down immediately.

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In the morning, Carl Perkins sang the song, which he named My Old Friend, for Linda and Paul, saying it was his gift for having him as a guest. Half way through the song, after singing “if we never meet again this side of life, in a little while, over yonder, where there’s peace and quiet, my old friend, won’t you think about me every now and then?” tears streamed down Paul’s face and he stood up and stepped outside.

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Not knowing what the matter was, Carl stopped and Linda put her arms around him, thanking him for helping Paul to connect with his grief over John Lennon’s death. Now this next part was not in the video, but according to the book, Linda explained that the last time Paul talked to John, he had said the same line to Paul, “think of me every now and then, my old friend.”

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Carl had no doubt that the song was from John Lennon, as a gift to Paul.

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The story doesn’t end there. The only reason this story is known publicly is because Carl told the story while being filmed in 1997 for what would later become part of the video I mentioned above. When he got done telling the story on camera, sitting in his studio, and sang the refrain, his wife buzzed in on the intercom, and said, “Carl, Paul McCartney just called.” Carl was so stunned at the coincidence he turned to the camera, speechless, and said “you tell me this boy has not got a connection to the spirit world!”

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Carl Perkins coincidentally died exactly one year to the day later, after suffering two strokes. If he had not been inspired to do a video in 1997 on his musical career, and recounted this experience, we would never have known the story.

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