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Former Rogue Valley radio host finds success in conversations with God Photo by JIM CRAVEN Sunday Sep 14, 1997 at 2:00 AM Feb 17, 2011 at 11:18 AM BILL VARBLE Neal Donald Walsch of Ashland, known locally as radio personality BobWhite, pets his dog, Lady as he reflects on his success as author of thebest-selling Conversations with God. In February of 1991, Neal Walsch's life felt like a cruel joke. He'dbeen fired from his job, he was depressed, and he was broke. Sitting on the couch one sleepless night, he started crying out to anindifferent universe, writing on a yellow legal pad to nobody in particular. Tell me the rules, he wrote. I want to know the rules! Walsch says that's when a voice came out of the silence. Do you really want answers? it said. Or are you justventing? It was a moment that would change everything. The answers started coming, and I began to write, he says.I wrote until 7:30 a.m. It was the birth of Conversations With God, Book One. Firstpublished in May of 1995, the book has found a home on the New York Timesbest seller list (it's number seven this week). It was joined last May bya second book in the series (it's number 12 this week). The two books areroaring toward the 1.5 million mark in combined sales. Walsch says the books were dictated to him by God. Walsch, who turned 54 Wednesday, is now a full-blown publishing phenomenonwith speaking tours, retreats, a non-profit foundation (Re-Creations) anda staff of eight. Unlike God, who apparently can still be reached directly,Walsch must be approached through a schedule coordinator in Portland. All this after 30-something years in radio. Walsch's last radio stintwas at KOPE in Central Point as Bob White, the co-host of a show calledRadioactive Talk. The first God book was published in a trade paperback edition by HamptonRoads, a metaphysical publisher in Charlottesville, Va. It was then boughtby publishing giant Putnam, which in November of 1996 published a hardcoveredition that shot onto the New York Times best seller list within weeksand has since become a fixture. Book two, also from Hampton, sold 300,000copies in eight weeks and has been on the list almost four months. The books are selling briskly at Barnes and Noble in Medford and BloomsburyBooks in Ashland. He (Walsch) used to come around and make sure we had them in stock,says Karen Chapman of Bloomsbury. It was an easy one to forget becauseit was such a small publisher. Now, of course, the first one is back-ordered. Book one focuses on individuals and relationships. Book two is a globalperspective including economics and ecology. Walsch says a third book, focusingon time, space and the cosmos, is targeted for Christmas of 1998, also fromHampton. A leather-bound, three-volume collector's edition of the seriescould be out in time for the millennium. Walsch says it's a point of integritywith him to work with Hampton, although Putman would offer a much largeradvance. The books have been translated into 24 languages, including Chinese.Their Web site is .They have spun off video and audio tapes on which Ed Asner and Ellen Burstyntake turns in the role of God. Neal Donald Walsch grew up in a Roman Catholic home in Milwaukee, Wisc.,where he was an altar boy and thought about becoming a priest. He marriedfive times and had nine children during a radio career that took him toMilwaukee, Wis., Baltimore, Md., and San Diego, Calif. About 10 years ago he was living in a tent at the Jackson Hot Springscampground near Ashland when he talked his way into a $25-a-week, part-timejob on radio station KYJC. His car had been stolen, so he wanted a job nearthe bus line. He later moved to KCMX, where he called himself thecaped crusader, a reference to his outspoken style. When he was firedat KCMX, some observers thought he'd ruffled too many feathers by needlingthe Medford City Council on the air about its unadvertised appointment ofMike Borwick of Medford to the council, a move that seemed to fly in theface of a city resolution that called for such positions to be advertised. Walsch says he believes getting fired was probably economics. I asked for a raise, and they told me I was already making so muchthey couldn't afford me, he says. He moved to KOPE, where he was widely seen as a token liberal. KOPE executiveAlan Corbeth did not return phone calls requesting an interview for thisstory. Walsch's gray hair and beard and professorial glasses give him a somewhatascetic look as he takes a break from a meeting at his Ashland home highabove the Bear Creek Valley. Stroking his dog, Lady, he says he sometimesmisses being Bob White, a guy with a day job and some privacy. I never intended to write a book, he says. But he's not surprised. I see clearly that when God intends something to happen, it happens,he says. He and his wife, Nancy, are shopping for rural property in Southern Oregonwhere they can hold seminars. Despite the changes in his life, Walsch says he has the same friendshe's had for years. One is former Jackson County commissioner Jeff Goldenof Ashland. He's the same as he always was, which is different from everybodyelse, Golden says. Golden says he's read most of Walsch's first book and says it's in linewith the Walsch he's known for years. A central idea of the books is thatwe create our own lives. It really takes you to a new way of thinking, Golden saysof the book. He (Walsch) has this explosively fertile mind that doesn'thave much in the way of boxes around it. He's busted loose from the thingsthat chain our thinking. Former colleague Dick Huston of Medford is more skeptical. Huston hiredWalsch at KCMX. The two had a talk show with Huston as the conservativeand Walsch the liberal. Bob (Walsch) always wanted to make it big, Huston says. He'sgot a brilliant mind, he's very intellectual, and he handled callers verywell. But I don't think he believes those ideas. Huston describes Walsch as a manipulator who wanted to be on a networkof talk shows like Rush Limbaugh. I think he found a way to do it, Huston says. He says he hasn't read Walsch's books. Walsch insists the books are records of a voice he hears. He calls theresult inspired writing. It's a life experience all of us have, he says. I'verecognized it. We've called it intuition, inspiration ... When Jeffersonwrote the Declaration of Independence, we say he was inspired, but we neversay: ` whom?' I call it God. God often gets gabby around 4:20 a.m., Walsch says. He says God's voiceis a voiceless voice, much like your own voice. God says things such as, I've been talking forever. When will youlisten? Walsch tried typing God's words on a computer but found it pushed himtoo much into a left-brain, or analytical, mode, so he went back to longhand.When the words come too fast for Walsch to keep up, God takes breaks. I literally say, `Whoa, slow down,' and the data coming in willstop for a time, Walsch says. He says having God talk to you is a little like being in church. I have the reverence for the moment I used to have in church, smellingthe incense and flowers, but it's also a feeling of being connected one-on-onewith my maker, he says. Walsch says his only prayer is: Please help me to understand thatthis problem has already been solved for me. He says God promises:Even before you ask I will have answered. Walsch says his seminars (with 20 percent of the seats set aside freeto low-income people) draw all ages, more women than men, and few fundamentalistChristians or New Age people. We get the middle of the spectrum, he says. Unitarians,Presbyterians, Methodists, Catholics, Jews. Walsch's God is not punitive, jealous, or angry. Most people do not believe how good God is, he says. And what if the whole thing is a mistake? After all, history is fullof people who said God talked to them -- saints, certainly, but also madmenand tyrants. The day I stop questioning is the day I become dangerous,Walsch says. There's one rule: If everyone did what the book suggests,would the world be better or worse?