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Pursel charges customers an average of $700 a year, and he has quite a few customers. "Lazaris is so popular," he says, "that, yeah, a lot of money gets made." But Pursel makes his real money as an art dealer and is opening a second gallery, on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. As for channeling, "it's not a business; it's a labor of love." He adds a dark warning that others are less worthy. "There's some loony tunes out there," he says.
Probably the most celebrated of all current channelers is J.Z. Knight, a handsome ex-housewife in Yelm, Wash., who has performed for thousands at a price of $150 each per session. She speaks for Ramtha, a 35,000-year-old warrior who reports that he once lived on Atlantis. He has even dictated a book, I Am Ramtha, published in Portland, Ore., by Beyond Words Publishing and illustrated with photographs of Knight going into a trance on The Merv Griffin Show. Sample words of Ramthan wisdom: "Who be I? I am a notorious entity. I have that which is called a reputation. Know you what that is? Controversial, and I do what I say I do. What I am here to do is not to change people's minds, only to engage them and allow the wonderments for those that desire them to come to pass. I have been you, and I have become the other side of what you are . . ."
The sayings of Ramtha have brought Knight substantial rewards, including a luxurious mansion complete with spa, swimming pool and Arabian horses. A spokesman deprecates talk of her wealth, however, by noting that she pays a staff of 14 and that the tax collectors are insatiable.
Jo Ann Karl is a tall blond who says she was an up-and-coming business executive until she discovered the supernatural seven years ago. She was on a business trip in the Midwest when she first felt herself drifting through space outside her body. She tried to ignore the experience, but it kept recurring. Now she gets $15 a customer for channeling the archangel Gabriel and a spirit named Ashtar.
"The lesson I learned in one of my past lives was about taking risks," says Karl. "I was married to St. Peter. We traveled widely with Jesus, teaching with him. After he was crucified, we continued to teach and travel for several more years, until we were caught by the Romans. Peter was crucified, and I was thrown to the lions, after being raped and pilloried. Now I understand why I've always been afraid of big animals."
Karl's spirit guides had been advising her to go to the Incan empire's sacred Lake Titicaca in Bolivia (the Andes seem to be a favorite way station for UFOs). "They sort of told us we would meet them," she says. "I won't believe it until I see them and talk to them and feel the panel on the spaceship. But maybe it is time for people to know they have help." And so, starry-eyed and full of hope, Karl headed southward, and she did catch a distant glimpse of what she took to be a spaceship. "It looked like a whole lot of orange light," she says. "A blast of light spherical in shape. It was big and far away."