People who engage with the New Message from God will hear Marshall Summers referred to as Marshall Vian Summers. When I first met him in 1988, he was just Marshall Summers. I’m a little fuzzy on the details of this, but I understand that the name “Vian” was given to him from the same source of the messages he has been receiving. I understand that “Vian” is a word meaning “messenger” in a language of the source of the messages. I don’t know exactly when this occurred, but I do know that the book “The Great Waves of Change,” published in 2009, was published under the name Marshall Vian Summers. And yes, I am slightly amused that the Vians were a powerful race encountered by the Enterprise in the Star Trek TOS episode “The Empath.” Ok, I’ve gotten that out of my system, now I can go on.
I am writing this to describe my experience of Marshall Vian Summers. He was only Marshall Summers when I first met him. He was only one of many people who were considered “channelers” at the time. He was by no means the most well-known channeler in 1988. We didn’t converse very much during the period of 1988-1989, but he was unfailingly nice at the time.
When I resumed my study of the New Message in April 2010, I was in email correspondence with the Society for the New Message from God, a name for Marshall’s mostly-volunteer staff. One of the email’s said “Marshall sends his greetings.” I have reviewed a total of 29 books at Amazon by living authors. I’ve only received comments about my reviews from two of those living authors. One is William Stillman, and the other is Marshall Vian Summers. Marshall considered my review of “The Great Waves of Change” to be a fair review. We haven’t talked all that much, but he’s been about as nice to me as someone with his enormous job description can be.
I have had the opportunity to watch Marshall speak in his own capacity on multiple occasions in webcasts. At this point, I’d like you to conduct a thought experiment. Suppose you had an experience of God speaking to you. Suppose this expanded into a large series of messages, which you were instructed to not only study and internalize, but to share with others. How would you respond? I bring this experiment up to testify that Marshall, when speaking in his own capacity, speaks and acts like someone who has thought this through about as much as a person who has had this kind of experience can. At this point, I’m recalling the Philip K. Dick story “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale,” where the protagonist discovers that the memory/experience he most deeply longed for was something that was actually so.
I had a number of brief conversations with Marshall during Encampment. One of these conversations was on the evening of September 15, the third day. I had picked a spot in the room where one of the loudspeakers was close to my good ear. Marshall had earlier picked a spot to sit that was next to that spot. I was already seated when Marshall came to his seat, and I quoted a Bible verse that I’m not sure he was familiar with.
Me: “Now the man Moses was very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the earth.” (Numbers 12:3, KJV)
Marshall: Meek?
Me: As in not making great claims on his own behalf.
I testify that Marshall Vian Summers is a similar kind of person to what Moses was like in his day, a combination of certainty and humility. Why am I connected with him? I consider that somewhat mysterious, but there it is. Who is Marshall Vian Summers to me? A man whom Knowledge put on an unimaginably miraculous trajectory (something to which I aspire).
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Thank you, Douglas! Beautiful blog and your subtitle makes me smile…
With sober and straightforward words, Douglas remarkably describes the simplicity and discretion of a man whose experience and task is overwhelming.
Certainly, this testimony reaffirms the perception of all of us who not personally knowing Marshall Vian Summers, but every day we witness the enormous power of transformation of the New Message.
I am so enjoying what you share about your first experiences with the New Message, gems of information about what things were like back in the 1980s when it all started, it helps to crystallize things for me now. And a question keep popping into my head (one I wanted to ask in reply to an earlier post) but I don’t know how appropriate this format is for asking questions. So I don’t expect an answer but I wanted you to know I am curious about what caused the interruption in your study of the New Message – you broke off in 1989 and returned in 2010 – I am wondering what prompted this and what you were doing in the interim (you sidetracked to study the Course in Miracles perhaps?).
Plus I wanted to say that this post confirms the idea I had already formed of Marshall for myself so far.