Spiritual Truth
and
Life Journeys:
Biography of Don Kemp
by Jeff Roby
Copyright 2011
All Rights Reserved
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
ebook version published by
Jeffrey A. Roby at Smashwords
email: jeffroby@aol.com
Photographs have been removed from this edition to comply with website file size restrictions.
To view all photographs printed in the original book, please visit the gallery page at:
http://donkemp.yolasite.com
Printed version by Western Newspaper Publishing Co.,
Indianapolis, Indiana, USA
ISBN: 978-0-9847783-0-0
First Edition, November 2011
DEDICATION
This book is dedicated to the memory of Don Kemp, the most unusual and profound being encountered on this planet by myself and numerous others. It was his desire to publish the tenets of Spiritualism as he learned them through teachers both living and in spirit. It was my desire to transcribe these ideas and combine them with the fascinating story of his colorful life. May we all enjoy the adventure, love each other, and grow to higher evolvement allowing us the collective opportunity to return to the center of our original creator.
FOREWORD
I have always been a healthy skeptic on metaphysical topics in general…that was until I met the medium Don Kemp.
I was seventeen when I read my first spiritual/metaphysical book and have been educating myself on the subject ever since. Even though I had read many such books by the time I was thirty, I had no real firsthand personal experience with the subject. Most religions tell us about our eternal soul (or spirit) and an afterlife in one form or another, but I was looking for evidence, a “real” personal experience that would prove to me beyond a doubt, the reality of our true spiritual nature.
They say you should be careful what you wish for because you just might get it. And “getting it” is exactly what began to happen to me on a Sunday morning, twenty-some years ago, when I saw a small ad for a psychic development class that met at a local church in Broad Ripple. On the following rainy Wednesday evening I was on the road to this mysterious church which I knew absolutely nothing about. As I slowly drove by the address, I found that it was not the type of church I was expecting but instead just a two-story, 1940’s house with a modest porch off the front and a sign on the railing that read ‘Progressive Spiritualist Church’. I could see some activity going on inside so I parked across the street and walked up to the front door where I was immediately greeted by a man who introduced himself as Don Kemp.
He asked if I had ever been there before and I told him I had seen the ad in the Sunday paper and was interested in spiritual/metaphysical things and thought I would check it out. He smiled warmly and started telling me about the Wednesday night group and asked if I had ever had a psychic reading before? Before I could answer he also asked me “Have you ever heard of psychometry?” I told him that I had and he asked to hold my watch to “pick up on my energy.” He held it between his hands, slowly rubbing it between his fingers, and he looked up at the ceiling, nodding his head as if listening to someone talking. Within seconds he started telling me “I see flashing bulbs going off all around you,” and he moved his hands around with his fingers exploding from closed fists mimicking flash bulbs going off. “Are you a photographer or do you have something to do with photography? And I also have an Orie and Clay and Hank and Henry with me. Do you know who these people are, because they know you?”
Flabbergasted, my mind raced to comprehend exactly what was going on here––how was it possible that a complete stranger could know exact, detailed information about me and my family? I was still standing there with my mouth hanging open as he continued, “I have Bill here too. Is this your grandfather on your father’s side?” Bewildered, I answered “Yes, Bill is my grandfather.” What I didn’t tell him was that the other four names were my grandfather’s four brothers––all deceased! And, yes, for the past 13 years I had been a professional photographer.
Now, you have to understand that I had never met this man before, no one knew I was going to attend this class, and I didn’t come in carrying a camera or anything else that would have clued him in on how I made my living. I didn’t even look like a photographer. I could have been a salesman or office worker for all he knew. Plus, how could he have known five of my relative’s names (two of which are old, uncommon names that you really don’t hear anymore), that all five were brothers, and how could he have singled out Bill as my grandfather? What made the experience even more bizarre was that Don kept looking over at an empty space next to him as if he were talking to somebody who I couldn’t see. To the empty space he said, “Hold on now, I’ll tell him––just give me a minute. You’re going to have to back up now, you’re getting too close.” Then he turned to me and told me some more personal and family information that no one except my family would have possibly known. We were still in the entry way of the church with other people coming in around us but I was only aware of what Don was telling me.
The last thing Don said to me was “The car you’re driving has some kind of problem with the front, right tire. No, it isn’t the tire, it has something to do with the gearing. The gearing on the front right wheel is grinding, like gears grinding, and if you don’t take it in to get it fixed you could have an accident! Your grandfather says he loves you and to get that car fixed!” Then, just like a candle blown out, Don stopped talking and motioned for me to follow him into the kitchen where everyone was already sitting around the table ready to start the meeting.
The rest of that night was just a blur for me. As I sat there trying to pay attention to the topic being discussed, my mind was busy trying to wrap itself around the reality of what had just transpired. After much contemplation on the way home and over the next few days, I came to the only possible conclusion: Don Kemp was absolutely able to pass through the veil that separates this life and the afterlife and he was able to communicate with the spirits of my deceased family members.
The real topper happened three days later when I drove my car home from the grocery store. I noticed a grinding sound coming out of the front, right wheel, just as Don had described it! The following morning I took it to my mechanic; he told me the gearing on my front, right wheel would have to be re-packed, re-lubricated and re-sealed.
How Don was able to know what he did, I have no idea. But what I began to learn that night, and what I’ve come to understand since, is that there is much more to this life and our true beings, than we will ever know or ever hope to comprehend. After that night, it was if a heavy weight had been lifted off of me. I was free in a way that I had never been free before. I no longer feared my own death and the feeling that came with that realization was amazing.
Think about it: we all live our lives in the shadow of our fears. The fear of what other people might think or say about us, the fear of losing our family, our job, or all of our personal possessions (which we think somehow represents who and what we truly are). The fear list goes on and on. When you take the time to really think about it, though, there is only one ultimate fear which is the root of all fears. That is the fear of our own mortality––the fear of our own physical death.
But when you have a real, authentic spiritual experience, when you truly come to the realization that your soul self is independent of your physical body, then the idea of death suddenly loses its power, from that point forward. When you realize, and truly know, that you are an eternal spiritual being having a very brief human experience, your life can never be the same. When you no longer fear physical death, then what else can you really be afraid of? Your life suddenly opens up and becomes a totally different experience.
Don Kemp, without knowing it, gave me a great gift that night which profoundly changed my life experience, from that moment forward. I only visited with Don on two other occasions over the years before I found out that he had passed away in 1999. This special book that Jeff has so skillfully woven together, pulls back the curtain, and lets us see into and experience a mystic’s life story with all the color, mystery and joy that you would expect from such a spiritual life lived.
Kevin Carmean, President
Carmean Productions Inc., Indianapolis IN
A still & video production company
PROLOGUE
“In 1938 I was twelve years old and living with my foster parents on a farm in northern Ohio. It was a desolate area so far back 'Tobacco Road' that cars couldn't get there unless they were pulled through the mud by workhorses. Our biggest dream was to have an electric light bulb in the kitchen but we knew it wasn't gonna happen anytime soon. An indoor bathroom wasn't even in the realm of possibilities. But we'd almost saved enough money to have a telephone installed.
“On a cold January night I was in bed on the second floor of the farm house. Besides having no electricity, the only heat was produced by an iron potbelly stove in the kitchen and not much warmth ever managed to drift all the way upstairs to my straw tick bed where I buried myself under a pile of patchwork quilts. The windows were so drafty you could feel the icy winter air blowing into the house along with flurries of snow.
“At some point in the middle of this night, my dead brother Cecil appeared in a bright flash of light at the foot of my bed. He was wearing a marching band uniform and stood in a circle of white light accompanied by an old gray-haired man wearing a suit, and a teenage Indian girl holding roses. All three were of solid form but at the same time I could see right through them. The white misty light they brought flowed around them like a soft glowing cloud in the middle of my dingy bedroom.
“Of course, at that time, I didn't know the guy in the band uniform was my dead brother. He came to me again twenty-some years later to explain a few things. It was also later when I learned that the man in the suit was my spirit guide doctor of philosophy, Dr. Woods, and the Indian girl was my Indian spirit messenger guide, Red Rose.
“But for a twelve year old farm boy trying to sleep on an cold January night, these three visitors caused me quite a fright. My screams brought my foster father, George, upstairs in a hurry to find out the cause of this commotion. And to my shock, he walked right through the misty physical forms without realizing they existed.
“A little while later, my trio of spirit visitors appeared again; the guy in the band uniform lowered his baton and pointed it straight at me...and I screamed again. This time George was less enthusiastic about climbing the cold staircase and again told me I was dreaming and to shut up and go back to sleep.
“My three visitors tried again later that same night. It was colder than ever. I was distraught. George was NOT amused. He swung his lantern in a wide arc as he stomped around my room to prove to me that there were no strangers standing in my room in the middle of the night. As he angrily pounded down the staircase, I pulled the covers over my head and said out loud, ‘I don't know who y'all are or WHAT you are, but you're causing me too much of a problem. DON'T come back.’
“They didn't come back for quite a few years, but when they did, they changed my life forever. Surprisingly enough, their visit on that January night wasn't my first experience of spiritual phenomenon. From the age of five, I had been aware of a feeling in the middle of the night where my body seemed to lighten and pull up and away from the bed. I always thought it was a dream; but several times I had the sensation of physically being pulled through the air, out of the house, soaring into the night sky and through the cosmos toward a bright star. It was a dizzying, bizarre sensation that I equated with death. But I always woke up later with a start, out of breath, and so exhausted under the weight of blankets that I couldn't even muster the strength to get up. This happened most nights, after midnight, and I come to identify it as the exhausted sleep of an overworked farm boy.
“But when my dead brother, Cecil, came to me in my adulthood and explained the visitation of the three spirits, he also told me that I had been going through nightly teachings since the age of five on the Star Planet and the planet of Uranus, the most electrically charged planet of the solar system. Bizarre as it sounded, the information kinda felt right to me but at the same time I thought it probably best to not tell anybody else. Some people already thought I was out of my mind.”
Chapter 1
Living the Life and Loving It!
I was friend and confidant to Don Kemp during the fifteen years leading up to his death in 1999. I watched him talk to congregations about the philosophy of Spiritualism, instruct students who were on the path to spiritual discovery, and demonstrate his uncanny ability to “communicate with the spirit world” to provide personal insights to willing sitters which he referred to as “doing readings.”
I don’t know how to explain it. I don’t know if it all was authentic. All I know is that this strange little man with very little formal education amassed a following of committed students and clients from all over the world. And based on his claim of intergalactic travel, possibly had followers from corners of the universe that we’ve yet to discover. This is the story of his life as he told it to me and a small group of friends.
Don Kemp's ability to transcend the veil that separates mortal life from spirit world and to bring forth messages from loved ones in spirit became so popular that he received phone calls from all over the world. Local police detectives used him as a source for leads. Socialites and celebrities came to his house wearing dark glasses and hats (one wealthy, elderly woman refused to leave the back seat of her Bentley and sent her driver to the house to bring Don back to her car). Famous, and infamous, big business dealers came for help in surviving their latest power snafu (including one art dealer whose court trial brought church leaders, interested observers and media attention from all over the world). A powerful business owner drove down from Chicago hoping for information that would help him get the edge over his adversaries who wanted to kill him along with members of his "family" and staff. At least one elected politician repeatedly snuck into his house but she would never publicly admit to consulting Don for spiritual guidance. There was the basketball star’s wife who had trouble locating missing jewelry (followed by a suspicious house fire), the sports team owner’s widow who suddenly found herself in the headlines when she took over ownership, the elderly billionaire descendants of a historical industrialist/inventor, and the persistent TV celebrity status-seeking psychic whose reading fees grew monumentally, unlike her clairvoyant abilities.
Don was an unassuming man: the friendly, elderly gentleman you might bump into at the grocery store. If you sat next to him at a lunch counter it was inevitable that you'd become involved in a lengthy conversation with him about anything, even something as low key as the price of gasoline. Most people remember him as the short (five foot two inch), white-haired and nearly bald gentleman who always wore a round turquoise with mother-of-pearl inlay American Indian medallion on a bolo rawhide strap around his neck. His fingers were crowded with a platinum diamond, a trio of diamonds on yellow gold, a white gold band with a swarm of tiny diamonds, and a large turquoise and silver ring with the image of a bright blue bird (which he claimed was a messenger of “happiness”). He usually wore blue jeans, cowboy boots or sneakers, short-sleeved shirt and a dark tweed sport coat. He always drove a late model luxury American-made car and waiting inside was usually at least one white poodle or mixed breed dog.
Over his lifetime he shared his world with an assortment of animals. Often, they were dogs that he rescued from shelters; sometimes though, they were backyard visitors who showed up and just never went away. When I first met him, he was surrounded by two overweight fluffy white poodles and a domineering white cat who oversaw everything that went on in the busy College Avenue double. The backyard wasn’t much but it was fenced in and provided a safe area for the dogs. In the recent past, he had lost a chubby dark mixed-breed mutt that had been with Don (he swore) for nearly twenty years. Photo albums in the living room showed an array of dogs and cats along with assorted family and friends, predominantly showcasing his stepmother, Ruby, whom he devotedly cared for all of his adult life.
Don was exceedingly polite to everyone he passed and often got caught up in casual conversation that delayed him in his rounds. He insisted on paying all his bills in person, claiming that he didn't trust banks, the postal system, or any other branch of the government. It was suspected that he mainly liked visiting the people behind the counter at the utility companies, department stores, tire store, bank, or to whatever entity he was making payment. And bill-paying day did, most certainly, take a whole day to complete. It was usually Monday, his day off from doing readings, when he could get out of the house and enjoy driving his prize possession automobile (it was a Cadillac when I first met him but he switched to Lincolns shortly after).
For a simple country boy who didn't know what central heating was like until adulthood, his later life took on a whole different climate. From a childhood where telephone service was a luxury his family enjoyed only part of the year, he was happy to have modern digital telephones in three rooms of his home along with the newest version of the answering machine. In the early 1980s he was thrilled to get one of the first available mobile phones so that he could be reached anywhere. It required an electric outlet or car lighter adaptor, was the size of a small suitcase, heavier than a power drill, and he never really became very comfortable using it.
He luxuriated in having wall-to-wall carpet in his heated AND air-conditioned home. No splurging was too excessive. He was thrilled to drive a new luxury car, trading up to the newest model every couple of years. His first top-of-the-line car, a silver Cadillac, was actually a gift from a longtime client couple who became devoted friends when Don helped them ride the traumatic wave of business loss and success. Symbols of wealth like jewelry and fur coats also became treasured possessions because they reminded him of how far he had come from the poverty level existence on the farm during his early years. At the grocery store, he reveled in the most expensive cuts of meat and mountains of supplies to stage a barbecue feast or holiday meal for as many friends as he could squeeze into his home.
He always remembered birthdays and special anniversaries and took note of preferences so that he could have an angel food cake on hand for one friend, or chocolate for another. Even to the point of having a non-chocolate alternative for the friend who was allergic. Don didn't drink (much) but always made sure there was some beer or wine on hand for visitors who enjoyed them. He also became known for his home baked bread which he happily distributed among friends.
Thanksgiving was always a very special day for him, not only for the opportunity to show gratitude, but also because it enabled him the opportunity to fix a huge meal(s) for a full day of entertaining friends who had no family left, or were estranged from theirs. His invitation was usually followed by “and bring whoever doesn’t have a place to go.”