Kirkwood, Annie (1937-)

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Kirkwood, Annie (1937-)

Annie Kirkwood, a contemporary channel, was born Annie Marie DeLeon in 1937 in Fort Worth, Texas. As a young woman, she married and had three children, all sons. In 1965 she became a licensed vocational nurse. In 1985 she married Byron Ray Kirkwood (1946-), an electrical engineer, like her, the parent of children from a previous marriage. He is the president of CompuRep, a company that represents businesses in the computer/networking field.

During the 1980s, Annie Kirkwood began to read New Age literature and was especially impressed with the writings of Ruth Montgomery. She also became concerned with the coming changes predicted for the planet and how she might act so that her family might get through them in the best way. At a bookstore, her attention was caught by a volume, The God-Mind Connection by Jean Foster, in which Foster's contact with some noncorporeal entities known as the "Brotherhood" are described as well as instructions on channeling.

Kirkwood began her own attempts to communicate with the Brotherhood through a process she called cosmic dictation, generally referred to as automatic writing. After some initial difficulties, she made contact with the Brotherhood and came to identify them with the biblical Holy Spirit, whom Jesus left when He returned to heaven as counselors for believers. The various entities in the Brotherhood do not use any personal identities they once might have had. Early in her messages, the Brotherhood instructed her to gather her family together, teach them to pray and meditate, and begin weekly family meetings. Each week she received material for these gatherings. The family members were invited to discuss problems and ask questions aimed at assisting all to get through the times ahead.

Shortly after she established contact, an entity who identified herself as Mary the Mother of Jesus came through with a message for the world that she wished to communicate through Kirkwood. Over a four-year period (1987-1991), Kirkwood received brief daily messages from Mary (in addition to the ones from the Brotherhood) that she later compiled into a book, Mary's Message to the World. That book, published in 1992, became a post-New Age bestseller. Two years later she compiled the material from the Brotherhood as Messages to Our Family from the Brotherhood, Mary and Jesus, as a manual for development. The teachings consist of a metaphysical and mystical approach to Christianity not unlike that offered by the Unity School of Christianity or A Course in Miracles.

In the wake of the success of her first book, Kirkwood and her husband began B&A Products, a company to distribute spiritual books and products for emergency preparedness. Meanwhile, she continues to receive messages from the Brotherhood.