Linda Boston working the video camera for NOW Productions at a J-R Seminar at Prana in August of 1980

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Long-time MSIA minister and initiate, Linda Boston, was introduced to John-Roger in the early days of the Movement. MSIA minister, Lori Matson, interviewed Linda in 2016 as part of a project to compile stories from elders in MSIA. This article is excerpted from that interview.

Linda: It all started for me in late 1975, maybe November. I was living in San Francisco. I was kind of a “seeker,” but I wasn’t involved with any particular discipline. I was just checking out a lot of things.

I had gone to Boston for a wheatgrass juice fast and that’s where I met Michael Bookbinder. Michael was offering readings at the time. I didn’t normally get “readings” but I chose to get one with him. He talked to me about so many things. Everything he said was so accurate. He just read me perfectly and I kept saying, “Where are you getting your information? I mean, do you study with someone? Where is all this coming from?” I could not get it out of him. He was just very coy about it.

Finally Michael told me that there’s this man named John-Roger. He said, “To my sight he has more keys than any master on the planet.” He told me John-Roger was a sound current master. Those were the words he used. And he told me about Discourses that come out once a month. He said, “If you sign up for them, you can get initiated into the sound current.” I’d never heard of a sound current master or the sound current, but I just knew that it was it for me, that it was exactly what I had been looking for all this time.

I went back to San Francisco. My friends were into astrology, with all kinds of different metaphysical interests, but I didn’t share with anyone about the Discourses or about John-Roger. I was very private. I also ordered two cassette tapes: One was called “Practicing the Sound Current” and the other was “Chanting the Sacred Tones.” So there I was, holed up in my room, listening to these tapes and reading the Discourses and having all these experiences! And that went on for like a year. I was not in touch with anyone in MSIA. I had never met J-R. But I was definitely working it. My experience was all inner.

And then about a year later, which would be…let’s see…that would be early 1977, I picked up a New Day Herald and there was a list of MSIA seminars. There was one in San Anselmo, so I went. I met Denise Fertman and some other people. They played a black and white video of J-R. When I heard his voice, I just went, “Oh my God!” The minute I heard his voice, it was like home. I knew this was the guy that I’ve always known! And I just…oh my God.

Soon after that, I decided to go down to L.A. and check out Prana and check out MSIA and all that. I knocked on the door at Prana and Kay Turbak answered the door. She showed me around and introduced me to a few people. I remember Bryan McMullen was one of them. I asked if J-R was there, or if there was any way I could meet him. They told me, “Well, if you stay here a few days, you can go to this retreat in Lake Arrowhead and he’s going to be there.”

So I went to the retreat in Lake Arrowhead and that’s how I first met J-R. I mean…it just…I’ll never forget that moment. The first night, when we circled up for the Light, there was this gnome of a guy standing in the circle directly across from me. And his eyes had a twinkle that was just totally my Daddy! It was just love at first sight. The twinkle in J-R’s eyes was something Spirit did to kind of give me a little nudge, a sign, a “tell”… that J-R’s eyes would remind me of my Daddy’s eyes. My Daddy, whom I adored, had passed away in 1971.

So that’s really it. From then on, I drove down to L.A. every week. I went to Conference. Eventually moved to L.A. That was the beginning and it just…from then on we all lived happily ever after. It’s never changed, but it was definitely all about the sound current, the inner experience of that. It was all about SE’s. And the validation of who J-R really was, a sound current master – the sound current master Spirit chose for me.

Lori: Do you want to share the experience of reading the Discourses and listening to the tape, what that was like?

Linda: The terminology was all new to me at that time – for example, the words “Mystical Traveler” in the Discourses. I would have an experience and think, oh that’s what he means by “Mystical Traveler.” I would play the tapes, and then I would inwardly hear something more. I would think, okay, this isn’t on the tape, but I am experiencing something that is beyond this world, beyond the tape, but the tape is helping key me in to that level.

I can remember a moment being in my room and listening and I had this sense of something so ancient. Like maybe Tibet or … maybe another dimension, another planet. Something that was a kind of monk setting or a place where people gather to chant. But it was…it just felt very ancient and it felt very sacred. I was tuning in to the Sound and the Light. I was becoming aware that the Sound and the Light are the essence of who God is and who we all are.

I had had a connection to the color purple for years. Before I moved to San Francisco I had an experience: I was wearing a purple ribbon when someone broke into my house. I was living in Austin at that time. I was completely protected through that whole incident, and I always connected the protection to the purple. That happened shortly before I moved to San Francisco. In San Francisco, I learned about Saint Germaine. I thought maybe that was what the purple was for me, but once I found J-R I realized the purple was another sign that had led me to him.

Lori: J-R said on the other side you see the Traveler as a purple light.

Linda: Yeah. I also remember having an experience in and around that time of a blue light. This was before I had gone down to L.A. to meet J-R. I wrote to MSIA and asked about the blue light, and they answered back that J-R said not to worry, that it was all part of the spiritual thing.

Another thing is that I was meeting people who felt like family. At that first retreat, which would have been May 1977, I met Pauli, Leigh Taylor-Young, Paul Kaye. I think I rode from Prana to the retreat with Paul Kaye and Glen Barnett and umm…oh, I can’t think of the older man’s name – Ruben Paris. And I met Genie Ford. And of course the staff, Edgar and Michael Sun. Yeah, it was just really special.

I remember during sharing J-R was talking about doing your tone. And he was talking about being connected to your tone at the moment of death. And so when it was my turn to share, I said, “Well, what about since I don’t have a tone?” And I remember he said, “Don’t worry, sweetheart…the HU will take you right into the heart of God.”

Lori: Do you have any other stories about your experiences with J-R? Anything he’s told you over the years that just really impressed you deeply or was transformative?

Linda: I remember some things he told me. Like he once told me I was magic. I had a lot of wonderful moments with him physically. When I got my first initiation in January, 1978, J-R was was still doing the initiations. I remember asking him, “Do you just chant all the time?” And he said, “Yeah.” And I said, “Really?” And he said, “Well, right now I’m talking. So I’m not chanting, I’m talking.” But I’m gonna stop and let you talk, and then I’ll be chanting.” And I remember thinking, wow, that’s amazing. I mean this is just gonna be my whole life. I’m going to be chanting.

After that, we headed to Prana for a seminar. I was sitting right in the front row. Someone sang, then J-R looked right at me and said, “Now that’s what I call chanting to rock and roll.” And I thought, oh my God, he’s knows I’m chanting, or at least trying to keep my tone going through it all.

There’s so much. J-R has been central to my life. I was never on staff. I never had that kind of physical closeness with him that you would on staff, but I felt immensely close to him on all levels including physically. I’ve felt for a long time that connecting to him was the reason I chose to come here this life-time.

My time with J-R physically…my glowing times…were all around Windermere. That’s when I got to have a lot of one-on-one with him. We would all just hang out with the horses…hours and hours just standing by the corral. And he would share about what he saw going on with the animals – the karma they were helping us clear, the experiences that we were all having in another dimension. It was just an amazing time. Those were the years I’ll treasure forever.

I have always loved horses and the country, all of that. I felt like J-R bought me a ranch with all these horses. But I knew other people who felt like J-R bought the ranch for them! Of course he did it for everyone, but I just felt it personally. Those were the best years. He was a crazy cowboy. He was so wild. He had no fear, and he would just do amazingly crazy things. He had some wrecks, a few wrecks. But I mean he was just really a dream cowboy. It was pretty wonderful.

Lori: What were some of the things he would do?

Linda: I wasn’t on this particular ride, but he rode Sonlight down this canyon one time that was just like this (hand pointing about 75 degrees downward) and they tumbled. J-R was all banged up. At a seminar, he mooned the whole group with his bruises. But he just knew that level of the horse/human connection. There’s something about horses. There is a magic there in what they have to share with us and to teach us. He knew that level so well and he shared it and brought it to us. We were all horse-crazy!

I remember he got to a point where it was over for him. One day it was like, “Okay, I’m done with that. I’m probably not going to be riding anymore”. And that was the end of that. That in and of itself taught me something, that…you know…you do move on in your life. You get through certain things, and then they’re always a part of you, so there’s no need to do them physically anymore. I don’t have the physical experience of horses right now, but I have a lot of peace with that because I know that it had its time and place and now it always lives inside me. It’s given to you and then you’ve got it inside.

After we moved up here, which was after J-R was not riding anymore, I got to ride J-R’s horse, Sonlight, for a number of years. And that was very special to me, to get to ride Sonlight. I loved that horse. Really loved him.

I always enjoyed being on the NOW video crew, and that was another way that I got to interact with J-R, personally. I remember one time we were doing this upstairs/downstairs Insight training at 2101. Everything was connected by video. It was a really big deal and I was very involved with the video set-up. I had been working really hard on it. I was tired and probably hadn’t had enough to eat and I passed out while on the camera. J-R called me in his office. I thought he was gonna give me a lot of, “Oh are you okay? You probably need to take some of this, let me check you out.” Instead, he lectured me. He said “You are not taking care of yourself.” It was very interesting because he just brought me right back to that accountability. And I needed to hear that.

So, yeah, we had so much fun with him. He was a lot of fun. It was great being on the crew. I loved it. I just loved it. For years I was going up to Mandeville once a week to edit J-R tapes. You know, Phil Danza has the best job in the world. He plays J-R tapes all day long. For me, to do that once a week was really cool.

Lori: Anything you’re experiencing about J-R now or anything that was something that just really resonated through your life? Some experience you had or something he said?

Linda: Well one thing he said…I don’t know if he said this physically or if he just said it inwardly to me, but while he was still here…not too many years before he left…he said that once he goes, we would have the power of the initiation and the ministry amplified ten-fold. It would be so much greater than it had ever been when he was here. And I came back to that after he left. I tapped into that and started to see what he was saying, what he meant by that. It was apparent to me that it was so perfect – the time we got with him here physically, and then once he left, the accountability for the connection. And it evolves. Just amazing. I’m grateful for every second in my life that I’ve had with J-R and he will always be part of my life, always. He’ll just always be right in my heart, every day, right up to the very end.

Lori: Anything else?

Linda: I just can’t think of anything else to share.

Lori: Okay, that’s great. Alright. Anything you want to say if J-R was here?

Linda: Oh, if J-R were here, I would just say, “J-R do you want to stay for dinner, please? I love you J-R.” I just loved him so much. Inside me, he is love.