"Just talked to a walk-in," I told my wife two weeks ago.

"A what?" she asked, her eyebrows raised.

"A walk-in," I repeated. "And in the flesh. I even interviewed him on my radio program."

I was talking about the world-famous Englishman, Sir Jason Winters, a confirmed walk-in, who miraculously healed himself of terminal cancer in 1977 by using herbal medicine obtained from three different continents.

What is a walk-in? The term was popularized by American writer, Ruth Montgomery, in her book, Strangers Among Us, published in 1979. The subtitle of that book is Enlightened Beings from a World to Come.

According to Montgomery, "A walk-in is a high-minded entity who is permitted to take over the body of another human being who wishes to depart. They are enlightened beings who, after successfully completing numerous incarnations, have attained sufficient awareness of the meaning of life that they can forgo the time-consuming process of birth and childhood, returning directly to adult bodies."

World figures

That is rather heady stuff likely to be dismissed as nonsense by the average person. But Montgomery's spirit guides have told her that several known world figures were in fact walk-ins. And they gave the following examples: Mahatma Gandhi, who led a passive resistance that freed India from British colonial rule; Benjamin Franklin, American statesman, author, publisher, scientist and inventor; Abraham Lincoln, who abolished slavery and led the United States into a bloody civil war; and Emmanuel Swedenborg, the scientist/mystic who talked with angels. Others mentioned in her book were Meister Eckhart, Shankara and the Biblical prophet Joseph.

Montgomery wrote: "A walk-in returns to physical being to help others help themselves, planting seed-concepts that will grow and flourish for the benefit of mankind."

Montgomery's guides said not all walk-ins are famous people or world leaders. "Many are working quietly among us today, going about their unsung task of helping us to understand ourselves, to seek inner guidance and to develop a philosophy that will sustain us through the trying times ahead."

She said walk-ins seldom reveal themselves because "to do so would imperil the good work for which they returned to physical being." Or they may not even be aware that they are one, even after several years of the substitution.

"In fact," she said, "you may even be a walk-in yourself." An unknown correspondent, who wrote Ruth Montgomery a letter and who turned out to be a walk-in herself, explained the process of the switch-over.

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