My Mystical Spiritual Journey

By Richard R. Koebbe

Richard Koebbe was raised, Christian. At the age of 21, while serving in the United States Army, his Christian belief was systematically dismantled by a brilliant Army associate, Peter Kakalonis, who was an atheist. Being disillusioned, Richard prayed to God, if there was one to show him the truth, but no answer came. When no answer came, and with no moral compass, Richard became an agnostic. He was immoral in business and unfaithful to his wife, having one affair after another. His prayer was answered years later, but not in the way he expected. His life was turned upside down when he met and fell in love with a woman of extraordinary psychic ability. She was able to contact Richard's departed Grandmother, Emma in a most dramatic way. In one amazing night, Richard realizes that death is not final and there is an afterlife. This revelation opens him up to the occult and through a series of personal psychic experiences ultimately leads him to conclusions about God and the Universe and why we are here.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jan 21, 2021
• ISBN: 9781098339258

Book preview

Conclusion

My Mystical Spiritual Journey

My Memoir

Chapter 1

My formative years

I was born on February 24, 1934, to Julia and Joseph Koebbe in the middle of the great depression of 1929. I was the first one in my family to be born in a hospital. I arrived at approximately 6 AM. My grandmother told me there were 8 inches of snow that day. I was born breech, and it was touch and go as to whether my mother and I would live, but we both made it. The problematic birth left my mother unable to have children again. I had always wanted brothers and sisters, but that was not to be.

My father was an inactive Catholic, and my mother raised Evangelical Protestantism. They were married in a Catholic Church. I was baptized Catholic. I can vaguely remember them occasionlly taking me to mass with them. On my mother’s side, my grandmother Emma was Catholic, whereas my grandfather was Evangelical Protestant. I can remember my grandmother Emma taking me to a Catholic grotto as a small boy. In the grotto was a statue of Mary holding the baby Jesus. I asked her where we came from, and she said God made us. I asked her who created God. She told me God just is, which did not make sense to me even though I was only six years old. Did not everything have a beginning and an end, I thought?

Even though times were tough, my father, Joseph, who was very entrepreneurial, started an appliance business on a shoestring. Somehow, he convinced the Crosley Corporation to floorplan their appliance line of refrigerators, washers, and radios for his store. I loved my dad dearly, and even as a small child, he would take me with him whenever possible. He was a kind and generous man. Despite the depression, the store did very well, and he moved into a larger facility in the Findlay Market area of Cincinnati.

My mother, Julia, was maternal in every way, almost to a fault. She always worried about me being exposed to germs and getting constipated. I remember having to drink a tablespoon of mineral oil every day. I was isolated from other children until I went to school. My mother held me out of kindergarten and started me directly into the first grade. She spent a great deal of time homeschooling me, reading to me, and teaching me the alphabet, how to count and read simple words like the color red. I also could write my name in the script. The isolation left me shy and withdrawn.

The school, Washington Junior High, was in Camp Washington, a suburb of Cincinnati. The classes were arranged into level I, level II, and level III. Because I had never gone to kindergarten, I was placed in the lower level III. I can remember how terrified it was for me on that first day of school. My mother took me to the principal’s office and signed me in, and left. I was alone for the first time in a strange place with many children that I did not know. Also, for the first time in my life, I was around children of my age. I was overwhelmed and shy. My mother did an excellent job of homeschooling because within two weeks, I moved to level II, and four weeks later to the level I, where I remained through my first eight years until graduation.

On December 14, 1941, my father was killed in an explosion. His. appliance store in Findlay Market developed a natural gas leak bringing down his building and the building next door. He died of inhaling natural gas before they could remove him from the wreckage. My mother was a physical wreck, continually crying. She was unable to bring herself to tell me that my father had been killed. Instead, when I asked why his car was sitting in front of the house and where was my dad, my Uncle Robert sat me down and told me that my dad had died. I did not know what that meant. My first realization of death was at the funeral home when I walked up to the casket and touched my father's cold hand. I believed it was just a bad dream. Eventually, I realized that I would never see him again. It was the first time that I realized that living things have a beginning and an end.

After the funeral, my mother and I moved to Fairmount on Beekman Street, with my Grandmother Emma, Grandfather George, Uncle Robert, and spinster Aunt Anne. Shortly after that, World War II broke out, and I remember listening to President Roosevelt on the only radio we owned. My Uncle Robert joined the Navy; my mother and Aunt Anne went to work at the Wright Aeronautical Corporation, making aircraft engines. For the next four years, I rarely saw my mother and aunt Anne as they worked on the second shift. When I left for school, my mother would be getting home from work and going to bed. After school, I would help my grandfather George, working in his victory garden.

A few years later, for the first time, I started attending a fundamentalist protestant church regularly with my best friend, Bradley Berryman, and his family. I learned all the bible stories from Adam and Eve to Noah’s Ark. I understood that there was a Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. I pictured God as a large, powerful man sitting in heaven on a magnificent throne, judging people for their sins and casting them in the fiery furnace of hell if they were evil. By his side was his son, Jesus, also a God. I never knew who the Holy Ghost was. I was vaguely aware that there were other religions practiced in other parts of the world. I learned a little about Judaism. I knew that the Jews wrote the Old Testament of the bible and that they did not believe Jesus was the son of God. I had heard about Muslims but had no idea as to what they thought. Once I listened to my mother speak about Hindus. She said that they believed in reincarnation and could come back after they died as another human being or as an animal. I thought that was ridiculous. At that point in my life, I could care less about spiritual things. I was more interested in playing baseball, football, building models, and riding my bike.

Chapter 2

My Marriage

In 1952, after I graduated from Hughes High School, I went to work at General Electric in a pre-engineering co-op program helping with the design of the J-47 jet engines.

That same year, I prematurely married my high school girlfriend, Norma Jean MacAnally. She was