Jun 12, 1997

Ramtha Is Solely Knight's, Court Says

June 12, 1997
AP

VIENNA, Austria - The Austrian Supreme Court has ruled that spiritualist J.Z. Knight is the only person allowed to channel Ramtha, the 35,000-year-old warrior she says communicates through her.

The ruling means an end to the five-year career of Ramtha's German-speaking channeler, Julie Ravel.

The ruling, which followed a years-long international legal battle, was made April 22, court spokesman Heinz Klinger said today.

Attorneys received official word only recently.

Knight said she was overjoyed. "I didn't want the German-speaking people of Europe to be misled by someone who, under the name of Ramtha, was distorting his teachings and in some cases teaching things that were directly opposite of his teachings," she said in a news release from Ramtha's School of Enlightenment in Yelm, Thurston County.

"It is up to me to keep the teachings pure and uncorrupted and I take my job quite seriously, as you can see."

According to Knight, this enlightened leader from the lost continent of Atlantis first appeared to her 20 years ago in her kitchen, "bringing the message that God is within," her news release said. Then a housewife in Tacoma, Knight has parlayed her vision into the school - a mansion on a 40-acre ranch - with a following of 3,000 people in 23 countries.

Ravel contends the transcendental gentleman showed up five years ago in her crystal shop in Berlin, Germany, and selected her as his new mouthpiece. She says Knight had gotten "hung up" during channeling and become "unusable" as a medium for Ramtha.

The dispute reached the Austrian courts when Ravel settled in a castle in the village of Rannariedl in Upper Austria with her followers, who call themselves Light Oasis.

Spokesman Klinger said the court issued a cease-and-desist order. The ruling "is valid only inside Austria; it does not apply beyond," he said.

Ravel was also ordered to pay 10,000 Austrian schilling - about $800 - to Knight. Knight's Austrian lawyer, Johannes Hintermayr, was quoted as saying he reserved the right to sue Ravel for damages "in the millions."

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