Neale Donald Walsch

American author of "Conversations With God, an Uncommon Dialogue," G.P. Putnam's sons, NY 1996. He says that the book "happened" to him in the spring of 1992. In angst over why his life was not working, he began talking to God and the answers came in automatic writing, as he took dictation. As he completed the book in February 1993, he was told specifically that three books would be produced through him, answering questions about life and love, purpose and function - everything. His trilogy has sold more than five million copies by 2001. "Friendship With God" was published in October 1999 and within weeks became a New York bestseller.

Walsch was the youngest of three sons born to an insurance salesman who died in 1990 and a homemaker who died in 1972. His dad discouraged Neale's ambition to become a priest and took a axe to the boy's treasured piano because it took up too much room. His unsympathetic upbringing led Neale to a series of unstable relationships and career problems. By the time he settled down with his fourth wife, Nancy Fleming, a registered nurse, in 1994, he had produced nine kids. (Another article states six marriages) Before his 1992 epiphany, he rotated jobs as a radio talk show host, journalist and publicist. At one time he was homeless for two months, living on a campground.

Walsch lives with his wife Nancy at their retreat, ReCreation, with a 15-member staff in Medford, the woodlands of southern Oregon. At his conferences, people pay up to as much as $725 to hear him speak. Their goal is to give people back to themselves, as they continually tour, answering questions, host workshops and spread the message of his book in which he has God's own word that there is no such thing as good and evil - it's all a matter of "group consciousness," and there is no hell. But there is a heaven that accepts everyone. He presents an appropriate image of the prophet, a large, handsome man with a neatly shaped gray beard.