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Neale Donald Walsch is an American author of the series Conversations with God . The books so far in the series are Conversations With God (books 1-3), Friendship with God, Communion with God, The New Revelations, Tomorrow's God, and What God Wants. His newest book, Home with God: In a Life That Never Ends, was released on March 29, 2006. He was born in Milwaukee September 10, 1943, U.S., and brought up as a Roman Catholic by a family who encouraged his quest for spiritual truth. He studied The Bible, the Rig Veda and the Upanishads. He says his books are not channelled, but rather that they are inspired by God and that they can help a person relate to Him from a modern perspective. The God in his books, for example, says that "there is nothing you have to do." Walsch believes in a pantheistic God, who tries to communicate Himself as being unselfish. His vision expressed is of a New Spirituality: an expansion and unification of all present theologies; a refreshing of them, rendering all of our current sacred teachings even more relevant to our present day and time. He created Humanity's Team as a spiritual movement whose purpose is to communicate and implement New Spirituality beliefs, particularly that we are all one with God and one with life, in a shared global state of being. Walsch has met with some criticism for what some see as appearing overly zealous in finding ways to make money for his spin-off organizations. There are parallels with Walsch's philosophy and that of the Bahá'í Faith, although the Bahá'í Faith does not believe in pantheism. A possibly stronger connection is with Zoroastrianism, whose divinity Ahura Mazda carries many similarities with Walsch's God, including the pantheistic angle. Also, there are similarities with early Gnosticism. The books are also usually broadly categorized within the New Age subculture, somewhat inaccurately since it proposes no religious constructs and is generally in harmony with the underlying themes of mainstream western spiritual culture (e.g. have a basic sense of propriety, live free while respecting the freedom of others, treat others as you would have yourself be treated, honor nature and the supreme being, etc.). Before starting to publish these books in the early 1990s, Walsch suffered a series of crushing blows — a fire that destroyed all of his belongings, the break-up of his marriage, a car accident that left him with a broken neck. Once recovered but alone and unemployed, Walsch was forced to live in a tent in Jackson Hot Springs, just outside Ashland, Oregon, collecting and recycling aluminium cans in order to eat. At the time, Walsch thought his life had come to an end. Despondent, Walsch began his writings after working his way out of homelessness following a short-lived job as a radio talk show host. In 2003, the film Indigo , written by Neale Donald Walsch and James Twyman and directed by Stephen Simon was released. It chronicled the story of the redemption of a grandfather, played by Walsch, through his granddaughter, who is an indigo child. Walsh still lives in Ashland, Oregon. Conversations With God: The Movie opened in U.S. theaters Friday, October 27, 2006 and in Canada, November 10. The film was released on dvd February 27, 2007.
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