#47 The Metaphysical Thomas Jefferson: A Medium Channels A Founding Father
October 22nd, 2021
Johnny Burke: Welcome to Closer to Venus, I’m Johnny Burke. Today’s guest is Suzanne Munson, whose book The Metaphysical Thomas Jefferson was just released last month to Amazon. It’s a truly unique work as Suzanne presents herself as a scribe, and not the author, as she employed a respect of medium Jana Ana to channel an entity presenting as Thomas Jefferson. Ever wondered what it would be like to talk with one of our founding fathers? that’s exactly what we’re going to talk about today- Suzanne, welcome to the show.
Suzanne Munson: Hey Johnny.
Johnny Burke: really an incredible concept. What gave you the idea to write the book?
Suzanne Munson: Well, thinking about America’s government for a good while, I wrote a book several years ago called Jefferson’s Godfather. That was about Jefferson’s mentor George Wythe, who set him on the road to statesmanship. And so that book, even though it was a biography of a founding father, it really was about the founding of the government of this country. And that’s what the Metaphysical Thomas Jefferson is about. Primarily, there are other questions that Jefferson is asked, but my main goal was asking him what he thought about today’s government, and had it strayed from the founding principles.
Johnny Burke: It’s a very interesting concept, and you used a medium to channel the entity. Was there any particular inspiration for that?
Suzanne Munson: Yes. I was on two parallel journeys several years ago. I had one foot in the material world. I was writing this book about a founding father, but at the same time my husband died. And so, I began metaphysical journey at that time. Two parallel journeys.
And so, Iwent to a writer’s retreat and I met an amateur medium. She had written a book, and her book was out on the shelf, and we were encouraged to read each other’s books. And so, her book was called Friends in High Places. And I thought that was kind of cute. So, she was a medium and a Ghostbuster. And she had written about some of her ghostbusting stories, civil war characters. And so, anyway, I thought that was pretty interesting. So, we were suitemates and so I said, well, Katie, do you think you can channel my late husband? He had died six months earlier, and she said, yeah, probably I can. So, she took his name and that was all she had to go on. She went in another room, closed the door and came back later with notes, and her notes were very specific, regarding my late husband. She even described what he was wearing. So after that, I joined this group called the Institute of Noetic Sciences, and It’s was founded by an astronaut, Edgar Mitchell, to try to bridge spirituality with science. And so one of the early speakers that I heard there was Irene Kendig, who had written a book about the readings by this medium. And her book was an international award winner, very well thought of, and so I thought, well, if she feels that this woman has credibility, maybe I’ll give her a try, maybe I’ll ask her to call my husband. So, I felt nervous about it, and finally got up enough courage to make an appointment with her. And that was, maybe six years ago. And since then, I’ve had many sessions, maybe once or twice a year, usually twice a year. Not only with my late husband, but with my mother and father, departed friends. And so, and I had great confidence in this medium. She really did bring my loved ones through in a very real way. At the beginning of every reading, she gives me a reading about myself, where I am at that point. I think, she’s got to be psychic as well as a medium. Sometimes she would just show me as happy. Sometimes she would show me as needing a vacation and you’re working too hard. And your spirits are telling you, your guides are telling you you’re working too hard.
A year and a half ago, the people on the other side, our support system, they were telling me something different. And this is kind of strange, but it did happen. So Janet said that people on the other side are seeing you. And these are not necessarily my family and friends. These are at a higher level. They’re seeing you as a metaphysical historian. And I thought, well, that’s a pretty Interesting. And so I always took very, very good notes from the sessions. All the sessions were recorded, but I never wanted to go back and listen to an hour of talk. So I took really, really good minutes so that I could go back, several months later or years later and read those notes, because you forget a lot. And so then that popped up in two sessions; the people, my guides on the other side saw me as some kind of scribe doing some very important work. So I just wrote that down. I didn’t really think much about it. And then the thought came to me last March, I think a year ago that, if I can connect with ordinary people, why not somebody famous, why not Thomas Jefferson? Because I’d written about him in this earlier book. And I’ve always been interested in him, being a Virginian especially. And so, is he too busy to talk to me or too important to talk to me? So, I approached it with some trepidation. And I asked Janet whether she channeled historic figures, she said that she did, but I didn’t tell her who I wanted to talk to. And so, we arranged a time to talk. She said, who do you want to talk to today? And I said, Thomas Jefferson. And she didn’t miss a beat. She brought him in.
Johnny Burke: What I also think is really interesting about this concept is that there is book written in the late 19th century called The Dweller on Two Planets. And the book is apparently channeled by a man named Frederick Spencer Oliver. And he gave the entity called Phylos the Tibetan, who was apparently a spirit that had past lives in Atlantis and gave Phylos a Tibet credit as the author. What you’re doing wasn’t done in quite the same fashion- channeling is channeling. So, I wanted to ask if you’ve ever heard of that book before?
Suzanne Munson: No, I’ve not heard of that book. I’ve not heard of any channeling books of historic figures. There are some out there. The difference between my book and that one, which was published what, more than a hundred years ago, right? Okay. I don’t have the voice of Thomas Jefferson, but I have the recordings that clearly show that I’m the one who’s asking the questions and receiving the answers and I’m typing furiously away on my laptop, as the answers come through. So, it’s very clear that I’m not the author of Jefferson’s words. So that just leaves two conclusions. Either the medium is making it all up, or we’re hearing from an entity that is presenting as Thomas Jefferson. There are only two conclusions you can reach about that.
And the medium, she’s a lovely lady, but she majored in elementary education. She never liked history as a subject. She knew very little Jeffersonian history, just that he was president and wrote the declaration of independence. She didn’t know anything about Sally Hemmings and the other things that the rest of us here in Virginia, at least, we know a lot about these things.
Johnny Burke: In your journey, you did some research into mediumship, and you discovered that there are non-profits that actually certified the mediums, they check the results, they do the peer tests. You did all that before you just jumped into this.
Suzanne Munson: That’s right. That’s why our creator gave us intuition for one thing, and that’s important because you can get a feeling of somebody is a charlatan who’s just trying to make money, is just going to take you for a ride. But also, I had verification from probably a dozen readings with this particular medium, that her readings were accurate. And I brought some of my buddies in on it too. I didn’t want to be the lone ranger out there, you know, the only kook in the group.
And so, I lost a very close friend a couple of years ago, there were three of us who were very dear friends. So, I brought my other friend in on it, and I said, well, let’s call up our friend. So she came over and we went in a room, closed the door, and we had an appointment with Janet and our friend came through and very specifically, she had some concerns. We knew what her concerns were. We gave the medium no clue about any of that, and she came through as the person that we had known. And then my friend, who was sitting there with me got a reading about something that was going on in her family, very specific to her family. The medium said, your brother needs you. And then an hour or two later, her brother called her, and he said, I need you, there was illness in the family.
Johnny Burke: it’s amazing that mediumship is becoming more important and recognized as not just a sham, because there are non-profits like Forever Family Foundation that actually certify the mediums. And one woman that I interviewed recently, who was on the Netflix show, Surviving Death, told me that most of the mediums that go through that program, the majority don’t make it and don’t get certified. And you can’t pay them, they don’t accept any money or anything like that. And they basically, test you for accuracy. So, I think it definitely gives this whole concept a lot of credence,
Suzanne Munson: Yes, and there are medical doctors who are writing about this now. As a matter of fact, on the back cover of my book, I have praise of my book by a medical doctor who’s written about the afterlife. He’s probably the world’s expert in near-death experiences. Also at universities, the science of mediumship is being studied as a science. There are blind tests that are being conducted about their readings, and also, the brainwaves of mediums are being studied. There’s a difference in their brainwaves from regular people.
Johnny Burke: Which probably comes from being an empath or intuitive, a term we’re beginning to hear more and more, which covers a lot of different areas. So, about the founding father, Thomas Jefferson, what did his cadence sound like?
Suzanne Munson: Well, of course, I didn’t hear his voice. The medium heard his voice, but she was just really striving very hard to bring him through. I don’t think she was using modern terminology necessarily. I think he did use some modern terminology that I thought was interesting, because he’s fully aware of what’s going on here. He didn’t just go in the grave in 1826 and rest there forever. He’s at a much higher plane now and he’s been following what has been going on in this country Since he died. Yeah. But he knows about the internet, and he knows very much what’s going on at the University of Virginia, the college he founded. He knows about what’s going on in Congress, and also, I was very surprised that he talked about disenfranchisement of women as well as people of color. And he talked a lot about that. That was not part of his thinking in the 18th century. They did enjoy the company of women, but they thought they were intellectual inferiors. They’d been taught that. And as well as the intellectual qualities of people of color. They clearly thought that they were inferior, but of course, all of his views about those things have changed. He’s very aware of current events.
Johnny Burke: It’s fascinating to think of the spirit of Thomas Jefferson is aware of the internet. So, from your contact and from the whole experience, do you get the impression that spirits like him are actually aware of this plane the whole time, or are they in different places? what are your thoughts?
Suzanne Munson: Well, our souls are far greater than we think. I’ve been told that, if I were to see my soul or if I were to see your soul, they’re huge. We just have maybe a part of our souls, our greater soul and in physical form at one time. And so, he definitely is seeing, not just the United States, bu. he sees what’s going on on our planet. he’s really not very happy about that. He’s very disturbed about it.
Johnny Burke: I noticed that, in the book he’s obviously not very happy with our government. Is it true that he actually tries to persuade or actually influence the current congressmen?
Suzanne Munson: He says that he tries to influence the new people who come in because some of them do come in with good intentions. And he says, he tries to whisper in their ears as best he can, to remind them of their oath; remember you pledged to serve the people, not the wealthy interests. Don’t go down this path of feathering your nest and forgetting the needs of the people. And I think that sometimes I hear little reminders, or I get pieces of inspiration. There’s an old-fashioned term for that: my muse gave me this music, or my muse gave me this poetry. I think sometimes we do get little nudges from side about good things.
Johnny Burke: I would agree. And I’ve heard that quite a few times. So he’s not very happy about our government. Did he give any hint about the last administration or recent events, or did that not get covered?
Suzanne Munson: Well, the corruption in government has been building for many generations. If you go back to the 19th century, you’ll find Congress was very corrupt then. We tend to think that back in the old days, things were better, but there was a lot of cronyism and money did talk back then as it does today.
I think Jefferson would agree with the comedian Robin Williams, who said that congressmen, ought to wear a NASCAR jacket so we can see who sponsors them.
Johnny Burke: That’s incredible.
Suzanne Munson: I put that in about Robin Williams, I give a talk on America’s first leadership crisis, and I always end it with a bunch of jokes about politicians. Anyway, he would agree with Robin Williams because he is very concerned that the wealthy interests have bought out Congress. And that many, many people in Congress in Washington are serving themselves and the wealthy interests and not the people that they were supposed to represent.
Johnny Burke: Exactly. I remember reading a long time ago he was not a fan of organized religion. Has any of that changed?
Suzanne Munson: No, he’s still not a fan of organized religion. When he went to Paris to be ambassador to France, he saw firsthand the corruption of the church. Of course, it was most corrupt during the Middle Ages, but still there was a lot of collusion between religion and government of the Kings and the Popes and the bishops and the gilded altars and getting away from the basic teachings of Christ. So, I think he was very much afraid that that might come to America.
And he has seen a distortion of Christ teachings in the churches. Not all churches, but he said that Jesus is very much present on the planet, that his words have power, that he is accessible to individuals, but not so much in churches. I don’t think he condemned every church. I’m sure we all know of some churches that are very good, that do teach the doctrine of love and forgiveness and generosity, but there are others who are all about power and prejudice and division and raising money and judgment and self-service, but he does say that the entity of Jesus very much present here, but more among individuals than in institutions.
Johnny Burke: I remember reading that he had said Jesus had withdrawn from the churches. That’s a pretty powerful statement, which does not surprise me in the least- as huge as that is. I think a lot of people are searching for spirituality and I guess we all have to start someplace, but what I’ve heard quite a bit is that in church, you can only go so far growing until you just hit this wall.
Suzanne Munson: When you go to Europe, you see very clearly that people have withdrawn from the church there. the churches are empty, rightly so, because the doctrine of love and charity, has not been taught so much. They have the gilded altars, and they have the great wealth that the bishops live in palaces that people have voted with your feet. Now, this is not true of all churches of course; there are churches that are thriving in Europe and good churches here. So, he doesn’t condemn the whole lot of them, but you’d have to be very discerning about where his spirit is now. Spirit of Jesus.
Johnny Burke: I thought that was interesting coming from someone who actually wrote the Jefferson Bible. I’m pretty sure that in that Bible, he basically takes a lot of the miracles out of it because he was a materialist. So, I think a lot of us would be really curious about if his views have changed or not. So, we know what he thinks about the government, we’re aware of what he thinks about religion. What other questions did you ask him?
Suzanne Munson: Well, just one more word about the Jefferson Bible. I did ask him what he thought about that and in that Bible, he wanted to put Jesus first and foremost in the book, and just focus on his teachings and not so much on miracles and other things. But he does say that miracles can and do happen, but that we should focus mainly on, the teachings of Jesus
Johnny Burke: But he did take the miracles out-
Suzanne Munson: of that book he did.
Johnny Burke: Right. So, what do you think he would do if he were president today?
Suzanne Munson: Well, he said that if he were to come in all by himself today, he could do very little because there would be a great deal of opposition to the reforms that he would want to make. He said that he would have to come into Congress first and he would have to form a small circle.
Johnny Burke: The question I had about the Jefferson Bible is that he basically removed the miracles from the Bible. A lot of the things that he thought were edited and were not accurate, but his goal with that was to focus on the teachings of Jesus. Correct?
Suzanne Munson: That’s correct Yes.
Johnny Burke: Has any of his views changed about that?
Suzanne Munson: I thought he took the miracles out because he was a materialist at the time, of course he’s not now, but he wanted to bring more power to the people that don’t expect somebody to create miracles for you to save you, that you have the power within yourself to do what is right.
Johnny Burke: Did he mention anything that he regretted putting into or leaving out of the declaration of independence?
Suzanne Munson: Oh, that’s a good question. That was kind of a funny exchange. He’s very pleased with that document, but he says basically these are my words been put in a closet, put on a shelf that people, even on the 4th of July, they don’t read it anymore. He wants to people to read it and I included it at the back of the book. I have the declaration of independence. He said, people need to read it and pay attention to it because it’s important. And he said that in recent years that some people have got all hung up on it because of gender issues. All men are created equal. Of course, he used the word men in the generic sense, but back then an 18th century, that was really more true that women were not allowed to vote and of course, people of color were in their situation.
So it really was about white men in the beginning, but it was the whole system was designed to open up to more people, to people of color and women as time went on. He seemed to be very irritated about people nitpicking about the gender words; all men are created equal, and the medium said he actually did a raspberry sound about that.
Johnny Burke: So it sounds like he even had a little bit of a sense of humor.
Suzanne Munson: Yeah, he did. And he just feels that those gender questions are extraneous and they’re not to the point and that we need to get to the point of the freedoms that are expressed in that document.
Johnny Burke: What did he think about some of the founding fathers? and has his views or his feelings changed since he’s now in spirit?
Suzanne Munson: Well, he’s much more mellow about all the founding fathers, and we do get mellow on the other side, we are much less judgmental. We lose a lot of that resentments and petty power plays and all tha.t Apparently, we lose that when we cross over. Anyway, he said some pretty interesting things, he was funny about Alexander Hamilton. They certainly had their differences. He’s very much aware of what’s going on today. He said about Alexander Hamilton, who would have thought that he would have become a
Johnny Burke: song and dance man. that’s pretty funny!
Suzanne Munson: Yeah. And he said that Alexander Hamilton, from his place in spirit is a little bit embarrassed about that. Alexander Hamilton did kind of whisper in the ear of the creator of that play. The purpose of it was really to entertain, but also to give people a little bit of history. And if people learned a little bit of history in the process, that was good, but that it’s very difficult to characterize the founding fathers as either good or bad. I think Jefferson doesn’t come off too well in that play. We went immediately from Alexander Hamilton to John Adams. Before we leave Alexander Hamilton, Jefferson, I don’t think he had seen the play, but he knew about it. He said, well, I hope nobody makes a song and dance man out of me. So I said, well you are, you’re in it!
Johnny Burke: Whether you like it or not!
Suzanne Munson: Yeah. So then we went to John Adams, and he said, now there’s a song and dance man. And the medium said as if he were joking with Adams, maybe Adams was listening to all this. I don’t know. They were enemies at one point in their careers, but they became very good close friends and then their last 20 years and communicated. And he said that Adam’s heart was in the right place.
And also that he was more open to listening to women. And of course, there’s the famous letter by his wife, Abigail Adams, about don’t forget the women when you’re doing all this freedom stuff. But I think the most interesting revelation was about George Washington. Jefferson says that we’ve made frozen icons of all the founding fathers. They were all flesh and blood people. They all had their faults and their foibles. And he said that Washington, by the time he became president, he had been in not just one war, but two wars: the French and Indian war and the American revolution. And that he had seen a lot of blood and gore and that really affected his psyche and using modern terms, that Washington suffered from PTSD post-traumatic stress disorder.
And that Jefferson was his vice president for I think, three years. And so they did work together and, Jefferson said that Washington wasn’t always present, that his mind was somewhere else. Part of the time, but that could count on him for wisdom, especially wisdom about military matters.
Johnny Burke: Didn’t he say that Ben Franklin was good guy, admitted when he was wrong, but was a little bit spacey?
Suzanne Munson: Yeah. He said he could go off on little tangents when they were gathered together, and they’d have to bring him back to the topic at hand. What Ben Franklin added to the discussions was levity, the sense of humor that they all needed to laugh every now and then, because they were dealing with these very serious issues about how to form this new government that would be the best government ever devised by man with some inspiration from above.
So anyway, Franklin was humorous, he also would listen, he wouldn’t be confrontational if he didn’t agree with someone, he would always ask questions and be very respectful of people. And that was a very clever way to bring people around to your own thinking. I need to use that tactic more.
Johnny Burke: All right. I think a lot of us do. Now going back to the medium sessions, did any other entities come through Thomas Jefferson?
Suzanne Munson: One, much to my surprise. I wrote a chapter on slavery. Those who are not familiar with Jefferson story, a little background: In the 1970s, a biographer, Fawn Brodie, wrote a very explosive book about Jefferson’s alleged relationship with his slave mistress, Sally Hemmings. And that was major news back then, and also helped change the perception of Jefferson in the modern age. People became more curious about him as a slave owner and as somebody who possibly fathered children with slave women. So, I asked Jefferson about that- we had to talk about that, before the book was complete, and he didn’t really want to go there. He was very cagey about it, and by the way, before we get into that, let me talk about Sally Hemmings. We have to make it very clear that Jefferson’s wife was dead before he had any relationship with anybody else. And on her death bed, she died young and he was only 39 when his wife died. He had a whole life ahead of him.
And on her death bed, I think she had suffered through several stepmothers, and she asked him to please pledge on his word of honor that he would never remarry, because she did not want her children brought up by a stepmother. And so, Sally Hemmings comes to Monticello as a young slave girl. As it turns out she was fathered by Jefferson’s wife’s father. So she was Jefferson’s wife’s half-sister. She was three quarters white. Her grandmother had been a slave, had a relationship with the owner of a slave ship. And so Sally was three quarters, white. She had long, straight hair down to her waist. She was described as very beautiful. Jefferson said that yes, he does see Sally in their present state, that he has great respect for her, but he really doesn’t want to talk about their early 19th century relationship because he had run that scene in his mind so many times he said, ad nauseum, that he’d rather talk about their present relationship in spirit form, that he had great respect for her. So anyway, the medium says, well, there’s a woman trying to come into this conversation, and she didn’t know anything about Sally Hemmings.
And so, she said, could she possibly be a slave woman? And so I said, well, I guess so we’re talking about Sally Hemmings. so. This woman intervened. Of course I didn’t hear, I could only hear what the medium was saying, Sally said, yes, she said I had great resentment toward you, towards your two-faced way of being. You had respect for me in private, you loved me very much in private, and then you listened to me in private, but you would never acknowledge me publicly. And I had tremendous resentments about that. And then she went on to say, but now from my place in spirit, I realized that I did make a difference and, I have no regrets from my time in the flesh.
And so I end that chapter with saying that Sally did make a huge difference in this past century, because before the century, slavery and Sally Hemmings were not talked about a whole lot when you took a tour of Monticello, but now her story and the story of her children and the story of the slaves is very much a part of the overall story at Monticello. So Sally is aware from her place in spirit that she did make a difference and she’s making a difference right now in the 21st century. So she’s at peace with that.
Johnny Burke: It’s amazing to hear a dialogue between two spirits, albeit through a medium, but still, I think we could learn a lot about that. For those of us that are not politically astute, what do you think are the biggest takeaways from this experience that we need to know about?
Suzanne Munson: Regardless of your political persuasion, I think most people are disillusioned with what’s going on in our government, what’s been going on for quite a long time. So if you read the book, you’ll find that the first chapter on government is really pretty gloomy. He’s really very negative about what’s been going on. And so finally I said, can’t you say something positive?
Johnny Burke: Hilarious. What I wouldn’t give to actually see a vision of him feeding the medium his dialogue. Probably won’t get to see it in this lifetime, but pretty interesting stuff.
Suzanne Munson: I try to end each chapter with a little note of hope, he is trying to whisper in the ears of some of the people up there, but, the main takeaway, and this is how I end the book WWJD, what would Jefferson do? we end with his call for people in Washington to form circles of integrity. And they would be small circles at first, but as they enlarged, the people within the circle of integrity would protect each other. They would remind each other of their oath to serve the people. And, at some point, the group would be large enough that they could. bring about the reforms that are needed.
There’s big money, big power behind a lot that’s going on that people, in his mind, are not serving individuals. They’re serving wealthy interests. Other people, they’re lining their own pockets. Once they get in, they realize that there are so many ways to get rich here. And so many of them do get rich in Congress. They start out not wealthy and we wonder how that happened. He is for term limits, he really doesn’t like the idea of limiting somebody who’s good, who should be there. But he said that term limits make people complacent. They know they’re going to probably get reelected, and they start losing idea being public servants, they become servants to themselves and to the big wealthy interests
Johnny Burke: I think a good note to end this on Thomas Jefferson’s advice: ” light will always defeat the darkness, but we need the light to shine on the darkness to expose it just so we know it’s there”. Listeners, read the book, send it to your congressmen.
Suzanne, thanks so much for joining us today. excellent, stuff, how can our listeners find you online?
Suzanne Munson: Well, the book is titled The Metaphysical Thomas Jefferson, if you go to Amazon books and type in the name, Thomas Jefferson, it’s trending right up there with some of the big guys and it’s been number one in, political commentary, short reads for a number of days.
Johnny Burke: Excellent. What about your website?
Suzanne Munson: It’s www Suzanne Munson, S U Z a N N E Munson, M U N S O n-author.com.
For more info: www.suzannemunson-author.com