Medium wins channeling right

The Guardian/June 9, 1997
By Kate Connolly

Vienna -- A medium and author has won the sole right to "contact" a 30,000-year-old spirit.

Judy Z. Knight, an American, claims to have close spiritual ties with Ramtha, who she says has relayed messages to her since 1978. But in September 1992, she claims, her psychic channel became "disturbed" by Judith Ravell of Berlin, who says she started contacting Ramtha about that time. The legal battle has been dragged through Austria's courts for three years.

The country's supreme court has awarded copyright to Knight and ordered Ravell to drop her claim to be in contact with Ramtha. Ravell has held several seminars and festivals in Salzburg at which she has passed on what she claims to be the spirit's messages.

Ramtha, said to be the leader of the sunken continent of Atlantis, is much sought after in esoteric circles in Europe and the United States. Knight secured her U.S. copyright in the late 1970s after claiming that he told her she was the only medium with right of access to him.

The court told Ravell that her psychic interruption over the past five years had left Knight "hanging in spiritual limbo," and it ordered Ravell to pay $800 in damages. Knight's lawyers are looking for thousands more. Ramtha was unavailable for comment.