It took Betsy Otter Thompson forty years to respect her psychic talent.

by Roger Zotti

Betsy Otter Thompson said she wrote her latest book, Walking Through Illusion (O Books), because she was curious about Jesus and the people who surrounded him. At the same time, she says, “It was the honoring of my psychic gift – which revealed itself when I was five years old. Because of the traumatic circumstances around telling someone in my family I could communicate with spirit, I abandoned the gift until midlife.” It took forty years for Betsy “to respect my particular talent, but I finally did and the books followed.”

Betsy describes her book as “a series of interconnected stories about biblical people who either knew Jesus or knew of him and were influenced by him.” Its  technique is Socratic – that is, a question is asked and an answer given. (Note: the questions are as important as the answers.) More, Walking… doesn’t attempt to agree or disagree with the Bible. It is, Betsy says, “an emotional accounting… It’s about people who lived long ago before Christianity began.” Its purpose isn’t to argue about “who is right and who is wrong about what happened then; [its] purpose is to encourage people to live what is right for them now. I believe that when we leave here, we don’t take our beliefs with us anyway – we take the love we found from having them.”

Throughout Betsy’s writing “the principle of action/reaction – or the pulling of energy back to itself – is ever present.” It’s also, she believes, “a force that runs the universe as well as our lives… since I improved my life from using it, I’m trying to help others become aware of the power behind it to improve their own lives.”  Early on, she defines reaction/action as “a little like badminton. It isn’t the speed which you swat that wins the game. It is the finesse with which you deliver the shot.” Examples are provided throughout, as in her chapter about Judas: “If Judas betrayed others,” she writes, “he was betrayed by others.” Later, when she writes about Pilate, we learn that “Pilate condemned himself to whatever he condemned others to.” 

Betsy’s biggest challenge writing Walking Through Illusion – which is available on Amazon.com and in bookstores – involved the publisher of her earlier book, The Mirror Theory.  Initially, her Walking… manuscript was rejected. She edited it and sent it off again, but received no response. She kept editing and emailed it again: Still no reply! Then, she says: “…I heard about a service on the Internet that was helpful in terms of finding publishers and agents and decided to try it: www.publishersandagents.net.”

Later she discovered her previous publisher “was in financial trouble and had been bought out… and probably never even received my emails. Had I not been forced to seek another publisher, I wouldn’t have received the suggestions that made Walking… so much better.” What she learned from the experience “might be helpful to other writers.”

Inspirational and thought-provoking, Walking Through Illusion offers the reader a distinctive way of thinking about life and living it… Learn more by visiting www.betsythompson.com.

Bookmark to: