Blueprints for Liberty: How Cooperatives are Designing the Freedom Cities of Tomorrow

Cheryl Johnson: [00:00:00] Hello everyone and welcome. I am super excited to have Suzanne Munson. She has written a book called The Metaphysical Thomas Jefferson. This is a really interesting [00:01:00] read. It's really short and sweet, but there's a lot of really good information in there about Thomas Jefferson and I was excited when I saw her profile and wanted to interview her. 

So, she graciously accepted, which I fully appreciate, and I'll give her a few minutes to introduce herself and her book. It's a slightly different take than I think most people are used to, and there's going to be some people, I'm sure, who will either agree or disagree, but that's okay, because to me, that's what the world's all about, is we don't all have to agree on everything. 

But, opening our minds and looking at things through a different perspective can be an interesting way of expanding our horizons. So, Suzanne? I'll turn it over to you. 

Suzanne Munson: Hi, Cheryl. Thanks for the invitation. Fun to talk to you. A fellow Virginian. Yes. Well, you began with talking about my second book, which is the metaphysical Thomas Jefferson.[00:02:00] 

And so I'd like to say that I write in two genres. One is traditional history. My first book was about Jefferson's mentor outstanding founding father, George Wythe, and that book is called Jefferson's Godfather. And for that I used only what all historians use, and that is physical evidence letters reports, other biographies, and so on. 

Anything I could get my hands on that was written about this founding father and about Thomas Jefferson's youth. So that book was about Thomas Jefferson's youth traditional history. Then, so I was on really two paths at that time. My husband died in 2013. I had retired from the, what I call the downtown world. 

And so I've always written as part of my various careers, but I never had time to write my own stuff. So, so I was on a parallel journey. I was writing this first book of traditional [00:03:00] history and then when my husband died, I began a kind of a metaphysical path. And after he died, I would go outside and I would say, you know, where are you? 

I'm not hearing anything. You know, some people get signs from their, you know, Departed, but I'm not hearing anything. Just crickets at night. And so, that went on for a while. And then I went to a writer's retreat at Nimrod Hall in Bath County, a wonderful place. And I met an amateur medium there. 

who was an author and a poet. And she had written a book called Friends in High Places, which I thought was kind of a cute title, because in addition to be, you know, very, a very grounded personality, she also deals with the spirit world. So all this was new to me. And so I said well, Katie, you, do you channel people? 

She said, yeah, I can. And you know, I don't charge for it. I just taught myself how to do it. [00:04:00] So I thought that was really interesting. So I said, this was six months after my husband died. So I said could you channel my husband? And she said, yeah, probably. What's, what's his name? And she had a yellow notepad and she went in her room. 

And she came out about a half hour later and described him perfectly, and I had never talked to her about my husband. She didn't know anything about him. So I that began my metaphysical journey. Not long after that, I attended a meeting of IONS, the Institute of Noetic Sciences. We meet once a month here in Richmond, Virginia. 

And that was founded by astronaut Edgar Mitchell, who had sort of an epiphany coming back from the moon. And his new mission in life was to form an organization that would bridge science with spirituality. Trying to use scientific principles to prove certain spiritual principles. [00:05:00] So, In one of those meetings of IONS, there was an author who had written a book of readings by a medium, and conversations with Jerry and others I thought who had died, and the book won a number of awards, and so I looked at the medium that she, the author had worked with, and I thought, well, if she's good enough for this book maybe I'll give her a call, and maybe she can connect me with my late husband. 

So she lives in Indiana, I live in Virginia, and she, she has a website, her name is Jana Anna. She's very sweet and is a healer, and so I asked to speak to my husband, and he, he, To I believe he came through. There were little sayings that she, from her perspective, could never have come up with that were part of his vernacular. 

And and a [00:06:00] lot of other disclosures about family and what various family members were doing. So, I was fascinated by that, and I went on to ask her to channel my parents and various friends who had departed, and I, I felt that I was getting something authentic coming through. So, after a while, I thought, and I had published this book about Thomas Jefferson's youth with his mentor, and I thought, well, if I can talk to regular people, why can't I talk to somebody famous? 

And you know, it's, why not Thomas Jefferson, and would he be too busy or too smart, you know, to talk to me, or would he think that I was just bothering him in the spirit world, wherever he is, whatever he's doing. So I contacted the medium, and I didn't tell her who I wanted to access, didn't want to give her any time to [00:07:00] prepare. 

And so she said, what do you want to do today? And I said, I want to talk to Thomas Jefferson. Well, I had previously asked her if she had channeled historic figures, and she said she had, and she had done so for some writers. I'm not sure exactly what other books might have been involved. This is a new genre, speaking with historic spirits. 

But anyway, so she paused a little bit and brought in an entity that said he was Thomas Jefferson. And so, I said, I tried to be very respectful. And I said, I have an idea for a book of your current views from where you are of how our government has evolved and what's going on in Washington and in our major institutions and in our universities, our media, our military, our foreign policy, all those things.[00:08:00] 

And so I said Would you be interested in working with me on this project? And he said, I think that your heart is in the right place. In other words, I wasn't doing this to make a ton of money. I didn't expect to do that. But I did want to put a different perspective on what's going on today from the words of a founding father who was instrumental in giving us our democratic republic and what he might think of what's going on today. 

So, oh, so simultaneously, I kind of, I went on Amazon and I found eight living authors who had written recent Jefferson books, and I got their emails, most of them were attached to a university of some sort. And so I emailed them and I didn't tell them what I was really doing. I said, of course, of course, they would never have cooperated with me. 

But I said, I have taught [00:09:00] classes on the on Thomas Jefferson and his Youth and so on. And so I have a question that, that might be part of a class project, and that is, if you could talk to Thomas Jefferson today, what questions would you ask? So eight very kindly authors, not knowing what they were involved with, gave me excellent questions to ask Jefferson. 

So I used all of those as well as my own, but I was really glad that I had asked, asked these guys to participate because some of those questions I wouldn't have had myself. So, I had eight sessions by phone with an entity presenting as Thomas Jefferson. And I just would type very furiously on my laptop. 

But I would get a recording. I wouldn't rely on my own notes. I got recordings [00:10:00] of each session, and so I would go through each recording many, many times to make sure that I had every word that was correct that came through. And so I ended up with with a good book, I think, a short book. But it hits a lot of hot buttons for today, and so it's had a good response, it's got pretty good ratings on Amazon, it's been out a couple of years. 

I was giving lectures on the book, but I stopped doing that because half of the class loved the lecture and the other half thought it was crazy. So I kind of keep my mouth shut about my metaphysical journeys but I, I do I do like to talk to people like you on podcasts because I think you, you are open minded and I think people who listen to you are open minded. 

So, that's really what I do now to talk about my book. I don't teach classes [00:11:00] anymore. (ad here) 

Cheryl Johnson: Well, it's interesting because I think, you know, talking about the metaphysical in, in general, I tell people if, if you would have even asked me probably a year or two ago, you know, about such things It's not that I don't, I didn't believe that they didn't happen, that these types of experiences weren't available to us, or, you know, when we start talking about, like, astrology, we think of, well, I'm old enough that we open a newspaper, you know, I'm a Cancer, I read my horoscope, you know, that was my idea of what astrology was, and, and all of these things that are esoteric, you know, kind of ethereal kind of things, but, okay. 

This is a little bit unrelated, but I think the first time that I really, and I consider myself a very religious and spiritual person who feels like I, you know, when I pray, I [00:12:00] communicate with God, and I think, Oh, well, if I can communicate with God, you know, why, why is it such a leap of faith to think I couldn't communicate with other people who aren't in my physical presence, you know? 

And so that was kind of a little bit of an eye opening experience for me, but this is going to sound off topic, but it really isn't. In 2017, I think it was, my husband and I went to a family reunion in Jackson, Wyoming, and my family has a cabin up there. And my husband was super excited to go to the solar eclipse. 

And I was like, meh, whatever, you know, I was willing to tag along and the cabin was probably an hour away from where you could get 100 percent totality and all of my family, except for me and my husband and I think my daughter. I'm not totally sure. [00:13:00] I don't remember, but they were fine staying at the cabin and getting 99 percent totality. 

And. My husband's like, no, we're, we're going the extra hour. We are going to drive the extra hour. And I'm like, well, okay, whatever. I was just like, I'm along for the ride. I don't care. We got there and, you know, got situated. We were in this valley, lots of, you know, it's Jackson, Wyoming. So there's lots of really high mountains and things around us. 

Very, very beautiful valley. But there was cows and, you know, various animals. There were quite a few people who drove into that valley, but, you know, it wasn't overcrowded by any means. And I remember as, you know, as the sun, moon, or whatever, was blocking whatever, the sun was being blocked. You know, it was, it was interesting, and, you know, you felt the temperature drop, you felt it get darker. 

It was interesting, and you know, we got to about 99 percent totality, and I was like, yeah, that's pretty cool. But when it hit 100 percent totality, [00:14:00] I was like, Whoa, this, this is really a different experience and you can't even explain it. It's just something you have to experience. And I mean, like the cows were, they didn't, they didn't moo at 99 percent totality. 

And they didn't moo on the other end when it was, you know, past totality and, you know, 99 percent the other side. They mooed when it was 100 percent totality. And of course the crickets came out and there was just like this. There was like this energy in the air. I just couldn't explain it. I was like, wow, this is amazing. 

It's like, oh, this is kind of, this is interesting, you know, and then, you know, we went, went on about our life. And then this last 2024, we went to Cleveland this year where we could witness totality. And, and once again, it was an extremely. Interesting experience and there was a lot more people there, obviously, we got fortunate enough to sit right on the banks [00:15:00] of the one of the Great Lakes. 

Can't remember exactly which one it is right there in Cleveland, but, you know, it was just, it's just an energy and that's, I guess, was the first time I really started understanding that there were these energy fields around me. And that for whatever reason, I just wasn't experiencing them. And so I started looking into this a whole lot more, and trying to understand a little bit more about these energy fields. 

And then I joined this mastermind. And a gentleman there turned me on to the idea of conscious leadership. And I was like, oh, is that kind of like servant leadership? He's, no. I was like, quiet leadership, you know, kind of being empathetic and, you know, being in tune with the people around you kind of thing, kind of, and he's like, no, and I'm like, well, what is this conscious leadership? 

He goes, ah, you're just gonna have to kind of go figure it out yourself. And so in my journey of trying to understand human consciousness more and more, I've [00:16:00] been really opening my mind to a lot more of these ideas that I even a couple years ago might not have been willing to open my mind to, and I think that's why your book captured me. 

Number one, I'm an avid lover of history. I love Thomas Jefferson, and if I could talk to Thomas Jefferson, I would be like, okay. So, you know, all the questions that you ask him were questions I would have asked him, and things like that. I thought, oh, this, this sounds really interesting. So, if you don't mind just kind of going a little bit through, in the very beginning of your book, book you talk about quantum physics and human consciousness. 

Talk about that just a little bit, and we'll go from there. Is that okay? 

Suzanne Munson: Yeah, you're really on to something about the different energy fields, and in my journey studying human consciousness, the evolution of human consciousness I began with I think the breakthrough decade in the Western Hemisphere for all this was the [00:17:00] 70s with the first two books that I think are the most important. 

One was written by a University of Virginia doctor, I'm sure you're familiar with it, Life After Life by Dr. Raymond Moody. It is a worldwide sensation, 13 million copies sold. And so we have what I've learned from the near death experience, which is what Dr. Moody studied. He studied only 100 cases of people who, say, were on the operating table and had a clinical death. 

no brain action, no heart action, no action whatsoever, and left their bodies and had an out of body experience and came back sometime later to tell about what they had experienced. And so that is called the near death experience. So one explanation for that, if you want to get into energy levels, is that Physicists have discovered in the 20th and [00:18:00] 21st century that everything in the universe is connected at the most, at the smallest, smallest, smallest level that we have discovered. we're all linked in an energy field. It's a vast energy field and rocks have, have energy. Their energy's dense. Trees are a little less dense. The human body is dense. It has dense energy. But the part of us that animates the body is of a much lighter energy. And that is the energy that survives physical death, and you can call it, I don't like to call it soul because, you know, that's kind of a religious term, or spirit, or whatever. 

So the scientific term, or the commonly used term now by scientists is human consciousness, is consciousness. That is the part [00:19:00] that is eternal. That leaves the dense matter. One thing some of these near death experiencers say when they leave their bodies and look down on their pitiful little bodies on the operating table. 

They say, what a mess. And they say, oh, that's my meat body. That's not me, you know. I'm, I'm still here and what's going on? I thought I was down there. I thought I was my body. I'm not my body. Who am I? Where am I going? So there's a lot of perplexion right in the beginning and then they all have common experiences. 

There are four or five common experiences. And so Dr. Moody's research of a hundred people, a hundred patients at the University of Virginia in 19, published in 1975. His studies have been replicated scores of times by other medical doctors, by psychiatrists, PhD researchers, and there are literally tens of [00:20:00] thousands of near death experience accounts out there where our higher energy leaves our dense energy and goes on to another dimension. They say that there's just a very thin veil between us and the other side and those who've, who've left this dimension and gone on to another dimension. There's a very thin veil between that us. Now me, personally, I've never personally been able to penetrate that veil because i don't have the gift of mediumship. When We grew up in the 20th century and a lot of people still in the 20, 21st century. We were all taught that mediums are charlatans. That they prey on gullible people and they only want money. And that may have been true of some, maybe in the 19th century, I don't know. I think there's one bad word about them, psychics in the bible, but you have to take that you have to take the [00:21:00] times into account, because there were a lot of charlatans running around there, oracles and so on, who could, you know, said they could predict the outcome of a war, or how long you were going to live, or whatever although I do think there were probably some authentic people as well, but they were a bunch of charlatans. 

So I think the Bible was warning people against the charlatans. But in the 21st century mediums have come into their own. I think they're gaining respect. There was a cute little girl from Long Island who was the Long Island medium who had a big following on TV for a number of years. And oh, there've been many, many books by mediums about what they do and their readings. The brains of mediums have been studied at, at the university level. And they do they're, they have different brain, brain waves. And their brains are configured a little bit differently from ours. That I think may come from the practice that they have opening the portal between this [00:22:00] dimension and the other dimension. So there are only three ways of looking at my metaphysical Thomas Jefferson book. The first is, I wrote it. The second is the medium made it all up. And the third is that we're hearing somebody, from somebody, who says he's Thomas Jefferson. There's only three ways of looking at it, okay? Number one, I have eight hours of recordings still on my computer, I can send it to anybody. 

And they clearly show that I'm the one who's asking the questions. I am not providing the answers. Number two, the medium majored in elementary education. She knew very little about Thomas Jefferson except that he was president and wrote the Declaration of Independence. That's about all she knew. 

And she didn't know who Sally Hemings was, for example. And we had a little session about Sally Hemings. Well of course we had to do that, his slave, alleged slave [00:23:00] mistress. And then the third assumption is that we, we did talk to somebody who says he's Thomas Jefferson, so, there's only three ways of looking at it, and I pretty much debunk the first two. 

So, I leave it open, you know. Have a willing suspension of disbelief. But even if you don't believe in the mediumship part of the book, I hope you will agree that it's worth reading because Jefferson, what's in the book is what Jefferson would probably say if I were writing the book. Now, if I were writing the book, well, there's no way I could have written it because the ideas are not my own, but one thing I certainly wouldn't have done is use modern terminology. 

I would have been smart enough to know if I was faking it, you know, to use 18th century lingo. And but he he's fully cognizant of what's going on today in the United States and elsewhere. And so when we were [00:24:00] talking about universities and we started talking about university athletics, he used the term cash cow. 

Well, I wouldn't be stupid enough to put that in a book if I wrote it. That's a totally modern term. Uh, but he used it because apparently spirits don't just go float on a cloud and, you know, play a harp they are around and they're watching, and he says he's, he roams the halls of Congress that once were sacred, and he's very disturbed about what's going on there. So he uses some other modern terminology, like ego, that was not used in his time. And so I have to explain that in the book, that, that I, I wrote down exactly what came through. And so, it's an interesting book, even if you can't accept the mediumship part still worth reading. [00:25:00] 

Cheryl Johnson: It is, and I think what I found most fascinating, not, fascinating isn't probably the right word, but I'm also avid student of the Constitution. 

I wouldn't call myself a constitutional scholar by any means, but a lot of people will ask, ask me, you know, why, why go back to this old document? Why go back, you know, the people who wrote it back then, the times were different, you know, we need to be more modern in our thinking, and we have so many new challenges And this didn't come from your book, but I'm sure you've heard the quote of Thomas Jefferson where like every 17 years we need to redo the constitution or something because, you know, times do change, there's no doubt. 

But, you know, watching Supreme Court decisions And there's always the two schools of thought. There's the, you know, strict constitutionalist side of things, and then there's the other side that, you know, wants to kind of, I guess, modernize things and, and create or [00:26:00] interpret laws based on our current, you know, way of thinking and doing things. 

And as I was reading the book, It's clear that he, rightfully so, you know, has a bias toward, you know, their ways of, of thinking and doing, and I think I didn't, it came across to me, and, you know, not in an arrogant kind of way from him, that, you know, they didn't just come up with these ideas, these, these weren't just, oh, you know, this, this sounds great, and, and as he walked the halls of Congress, and, you know, the things you're talking about, He talks about these people with egos. 

He talks about people who are motivated by money. They're either get into this profession, and it shouldn't be a profession. It really should be a servant leadership type position. But, you know, get into this profession with good intentions and then get corrupted by the system or You know, just are purely power hungry and, you know, don't even get into it for the right [00:27:00] intentions, and that's something that we've all, I think, come to the conclusion. 

I interviewed somebody on my podcast not too long ago, and he was talking about how money has just truly corrupted politics. We all know that. We all say that, but none of us are really willing to do what's necessary to step back and say, Hey, we really, we have the power to fix this. And I think that's kind of what came through is, you know, we, they gave us the power. 

This, this was such a unique idea at the time, and even to this day, it's a unique idea that we the people have the power to fix things, to, you know, um, to right the wrongs that have happened. And that's where I think, and I mean, I love the Constitution, but the Declaration of Independence. You know, you ask him, you know, well, if you could change something, and it's like, well, I guess maybe, [00:28:00] you know, if I lived in the modern world, I wouldn't say all men are created equal. 

I'd say all people are created equal. Right. 

Suzanne Munson: Well, the funny thing about that was he said a lot of people are quibbling about those words now in the introduction. And And that's not getting to the heart of the Declaration of Independence, you know, the whole meat of it. And he, and the medium said that he blew a raspberry about that. 

I know, 

Cheryl Johnson: I laughed, I was like, oh, okay. 

Suzanne Munson: All this trivial criticism of, you know, all men are created equal. Well, of course he, well, 

Cheryl Johnson: yeah, 

Suzanne Munson: we can argue that one. But anyway, if he were rewriting it, he would say all people. All human beings, whatever. 

Cheryl Johnson: And he talks about, you know, how we, we've, he wishes that we didn't have these biases, especially in his day, against, you know, colored people, and how women, you know, talks about his own family, how his father was demeaned women. 

You know, and he didn't agree with that and he didn't like [00:29:00] that. I think the thing that I like is it makes these people human. It's like, there's a lot of things that are going on in the country and the world today that I don't like. But as one person, I don't necessarily feel like I'm in a position. 

I mean, certainly I want to do my part to effectuate that change. I'm just one person. And I think he kind of, on some level, felt the same way. He knew he was onto something, he knew this was pretty profound, but he couldn't change the world overnight. 

Suzanne Munson: Right. Well, he did say that every country should have a revolution periodically, you know, of course he did support the French Revolution, maybe a little longer than he should have when after all the bloodletting took place. 

But So I, so he does say in the book that we do need a new revolution in this country, but not of the bloody sort, not a physical uprising. He says that we need a revolution of [00:30:00] integrity is what we need in Washington. And so, I asked him, I said, well, you have all these criticisms of government today. 

I said, what would you do if, you know, you were president of the United States today? And he said, well, I could do very little because I would not have a following for all of the reforms that I would want to make. He said, you first have to have a following. You can't do it by yourself. And of course, we have all these checks and balances now so that one person can't just sweep everything off the table. And so he said, I might start in Congress, and I would try to gather around me a circle of integrity, people who had not been bought out by the system and by big money who had not lost their principles, who are not feathering their [00:31:00] nests. to the extent that some of them do who really do consider themselves servant leaders, servant, public servants. 

And, and I know a few of those I, I think my Congresswoman here in Virginia, Abigail Spanberger, I think she's a genuine public servant. And there are people in Congress, I think, The newer ones, particularly, who do come in, you know, wanting to serve the people. There are others who are just ideologues, you know, who don't know anything about doing a budget or being objective about anything, you know, or devoting their intellect to a subject. 

an issue, a problem. So he said that he, once the circle of integrity enlarges, then these reforms could be made, such as term limits. He said he really doesn't like the idea of term limits, because if somebody's doing a wonderful job, they should be allowed to to keep going. But the way the system is, the way people are being [00:32:00] compromised by money and favors and having their egos stroked, the it's better to have, have the term limits now. So, yeah, there's a lot of that sort of thing in the book. And also, one thing that really surprised me, one of the questions that came from one of the professors who had written another book about him, was who is the person who influenced you most in life? Well, I was fully expecting him to talk about the man that I wrote about. 

about who I considered his greatest mentor and gave him his best ideas. In fact, the three things that he want, that Jefferson wanted on his tombstone, I can trace all those things back to his teacher, George Wythe. And I do so in my first book called Jefferson's Godfather. Anyway, I was a little disappointed that he said it wasn't George Wythe who had the greatest influence on him. 

I think they kind of sparred. I think they're they went back and forth with ideas and they were a [00:33:00] good uh, challenged each other's ideas and he said that he needed challenging because, and he did say that about George Wythe that Jefferson, of course, knew that he was very, very bright, and he would make declarations as a young man, as a college student, and put a period beside them, and, but his mentor would, would ask him a line of questions and maybe change his attitude about something. 

Anyway, so I was expecting George Wythe to come through as his greatest influencer, but he said, no, it was his mother. Well, I was under the assumption that he and his mother had a cool relationship because I read, I wrote, read this book called Founding Mothers or something. It was about all the mothers of the presidents from Washington on to current day. 

And so, The authors couldn't find any praise that Jefferson had of his mother. He seemed distant, and when [00:34:00] she died, he just had a note, sort of a passing note to somebody. I suppose you heard that my mother has died. Anyway, so the assumption was made that they, that he didn't honor her. Anyway, so he said no, that she had a tremendous influence on him. 

She had mental issues, and she was from a very prominent family the Randolphs, and they were known, some of them, to have some mental issues, a lot of inbreeding, cousins, first cousins, marrying first cousins, so on. Anyway he said she had some issues that could be treated today with medicine or therapy, but there was no treatment. 

At the time, but that she would the gift that she gave him was that she would drop everything she was doing when he was speaking to her. And she would listen to him. She would look him in the eye, and he said, just that bit of attention, that amount of attention from a parent, his [00:35:00] priceless. Now he adored his father, but his father was gone a lot. 

He was a surveyor. And he died when Jefferson was 14. And so Jefferson was in great need of serious, good adult mentors at that time. And that is the beginning of my first book Jefferson's Godfather, about his time in Williamsburg as a young college student and how he could easily have turned out not to be a great statesman. 

He could have just been a gentleman. plantation owner and spent his time at cards and drinking and gossiping and so on. And he acknowledges that in a letter that he wrote to a grandson that he could have gone another way, but he chose to associate with men of, older men of learning scholars, men who were important to the future of the country. 

George Wythe being one of those. So lots of surprises in the book. I'm sure you found [00:36:00] some as well. Yeah, I did. 

Cheryl Johnson: Yeah, and honestly, his mother was probably one of them. And I guess it's interesting because so many of his answers to the questions Things I, I think I would hoped that he would, would have said, but it would have, so it didn't surprise me, I guess, because that's what I was hoping his answer would be. 

I was hoping he was a founding father who was really believed in the vision of what they were creating and recognizing that it truly was. It's a unique and special thing. And I think, I'm not sure if it was in the books. I've read so much about Thomas Jefferson. It's hard for me to always distinguish where I read things. 

You know, he didn't serve in the military in terms of, you know, fighting in the war and things like that. which I think surprises a lot of people because we all think [00:37:00] that our founding fathers were all these. You know, Samuel Adams type people but he stayed in in Virginia and, and he did, I mean, he absolutely had a passion for Virginia and it was his home and, you know, obviously he spent the overwhelming majority of his time there except for, you know, trips here and there to go other places, maybe Philadelphia and a few other places. 

So, I don't know. I I didn't feel like when I read it, there was anything earth shattering about it. Like, oh wow, he said something that just totally caught me off guard. I found it more reassuring and more of a, okay. And, and as I read it, it, in my mind, made, made me better appreciate the medium. Because it's like, okay, this is, this is weird. Because it. If this is something I would have [00:38:00] expected him to say, then I would have expected the medium to say it through him, you know what I mean? And, and have already known that information, but yet it's, I guess I'll leave it a little open ended so that people will want to read it and they can come to their own conclusion, but yet know that my conclusion was that it was real. 

And like I said, there wasn't anything earth shattering that made me recognize that it was real. It was just more of a reassurance. But it was real. 

Suzanne Munson: Right. He his talents were not in the military arena. His talents were in government. And so during the war, he was wartime governor of Virginia and Virginia, even though we weren't even close to winning the Revolutionary War. 

In fact, it looked dismal for the most part until the French came in to help us. And so [00:39:00] he had to flee for his life when the British came after him as governor of Virginia. He just barely escaped from Monticello just hours before they came to nab him, and he would have had a quick and bitter end, I'm sure. 

so again, government was his, was his talent, and he wrote about it. He was a prolific writer and he and there was letters between him and George Wythe, the man I wrote about, about what formed the government and also between John Adams and George Wythe. What shape should the government have? Should you have, you know, two Legislative bodies, the Senate and Congress, and how often should people be elected? 

Should how should judges be chosen? They, they went through the whole gamut very carefully, and Virginia, Even before Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, and it was published July 4th, back in June, [00:40:00] Virginia was already acting as if it was an independent little country. And, you know, they were writing their own constitution, which was very similar to the one that eventually we adopted. 

Their own Declaration of Rights, they were redoing the court system the only institute of higher learning. William Mary, they couldn't wait to reform that because even though it was a very old college, second oldest in America after Harvard, it needed reforming because the most of the faculty were disgruntled clergymen from England, not particularly inspiring. 

So, Jefferson, I appointed the man I wrote about George with to be America's first law professor and he in his 10 years as America's first law professor, trained 200 of our best leaders at the state and national level. So, part of what I write about is the power of one. Now, one thing that did surprise me a little bit when [00:41:00] we get into Jefferson's wish for this country, a great wish of his, of course, was religious freedom. 

And that's one of the three achievements that he lists on his tombstone. Number one is author of the Declaration of Independence. Number two, author of the Statute of, Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, which was later incorporated in the First Amendment. And number three, father of the University of Virginia. 

And he didn't list president, he didn't list foreign ambassador, didn't list any of that. Governor. He only wanted achievements that he thought benefited mankind on his tombstone. And so religious this one of the things that That I thought was interesting, and I thought, felt that it was very comforting, was what he said in the chapter on religion. Now he was thought to be an irreligious person in his day, and he did not like organized religion. Um, he [00:42:00] had seen its corruption as ambassador to France. He toured Europe and lived in France. And he, and it was in the 18th century, still, there's still a great deal of corruption in the established churches over there. 

And You know, a lot of it was about power and greed, as opposed to taking care of the common people and love and kindness and generosity. A lot of it was about judgment and power and greed. And he, and he sees that in some of today's religious institutions that are about judgment. Money, Power. 

And so he said I asked him about Jesus and he said that Jesus he had encountered his spirit and that he, he is a real, for real, and but he has withdrawn his spirit from some of these churches that are No longer really teaching Christianity, but have kind of gone off on a tangent. And religious freedom was extremely important to him, [00:43:00] because the people in Europe were not free. 

Although there had been the Reformation, and there were, you know, some Protestant sects in various countries. I think they still had a government supported church in in France where he was. And and even in Virginia, people like Patrick Henry felt that we were all going to go to perdition unless we had a an established church that we all gave our money to, and we were all taxed to support. 

Well, that church happened to be the Church of the Establishment. which was the former Church of England, and then that became disestablished and became eventually the Episcopal Church. Well, that was the Church of the Elite, because the Protestant people who were breaking out of that mold were, were not the old Tidewater Plantation people. 

the old power structure. They were other people with different ideas. The power structure wanted their religion to be dominant [00:44:00] and they wanted everybody to pay taxes for it. Well, those were the things that Jefferson opposed. No, no taxes for any religion. People should find their own way. That was very important to him. (ad here) 

Cheryl Johnson: Yeah. I've done some research. I was doing a presentation down in Lynchburg. on the First Amendment. And the First Amendment wasn't always the First Amendment. There was actually an amendment before the First Amendment that didn't go through. But what I think most people don't recognize is because when we say religion, we always think of organized religion. 

We think of people, you know, organizing into a group of people and, you know, attending a specific church and paying your tithes, your whatever, your money to those, that church, whether it be a state run church or just, you know, your local community church. But originally, the original wording was not freedom of religion. 

It was freedom of conscience. And, [00:45:00] you know, that just eliminates the whole idea of organized religion. It just means that you're allowed to think and believe the way you want to think and believe. And whether that is, involves organized religion or not. Or whether that involves Christianity, or some other Eastern religion, or Islam, or whatever religion. 

And I think when people understand that that's really what the Founding Fathers were thinking when they put together the Bill of Rights, was this freedom of conscience. And I can't exactly remember how they landed on the word religion and decided to use the word religion. It wasn't the original, and it was predominantly the conversation was around conscience, conscious, not consciousness, but you know, you're, you know, you're right to believe the way you want to believe. 

And when you really dig into the first, I'm always like, okay, why does the First Amendment and the Bill of Rights have, you know, all of these different [00:46:00] things where the other ones are very specific to one topic. But really, they're all very important. Interrelated. And the reason that it did become the First Amendment, because they felt it was so important that you be able to think, speak, write, you know, how you feel, and that you could gather together and peaceably assemble and, and all of these things are, are surround that one fundamental right, because if you don't have that one fundamental right, nothing else really matters. 

And that's why they were so adamant that it be the first, and that they encompass and, and specify, think, read, write, you know, all of that. 

Suzanne Munson: That's right. 

Cheryl Johnson: And I, so when, you know, you read about Thomas Jefferson and other founding fathers who were deists or they didn't believe in this religion or they didn't believe, yeah, they didn't because they really [00:47:00] believed that that, they, in their heart. 

believe that was fundamentally the most important thing, freedom you could actually have. 

Suzanne Munson: Yeah. Well, Jefferson in his later years had a project that's today called the Jefferson Bible. And he was a big fan of, of Jesus, of the teachings of Jesus. And so what he did was, because he was fluent in different languages, he took the different versions of the Bible, Latin, Greek, a couple of modern languages, Hebrew, and he did a cut and paste job, and he, of the four Gospels, because he only, he didn't want anything written by anybody other than Jesus, or said by anybody other than Jesus. 

Just the simple teachings of, of Jesus. And so, he took out some things from the Gospels, like the miracles, he wasn't quite sure about the miracles, maybe was that superstition, or what was [00:48:00] that, and just got down to the basic teachings of love and compassion and forgiveness. And so, he published the Bible he didn't call it the Bible, he called it the Life and Teachings of Jesus of Nazareth or something like that. 

Anyway, if you want to read it, it's up on Amazon it's called the Jefferson Bible, and I have a copy, but the fact is even though he probably didn't really relate too much to what was going on in church at the time, make, I don't know whether he went to church or not, but let's say he didn't, he still honored the teachings of Jesus Christ. 

and he still honored the being of Jesus Christ. So I think that's kind of been forgotten. But it's, it's worth reading. I've got a copy of the Jefferson Bible. I, I read it. 

Cheryl Johnson: Oh, yeah. A good idea. Okay. Well, thank you. I really appreciate your time today and sharing your thoughts and ideas. And I highly recommend the book. 

Like it [00:49:00] is short and sweet and to the point. And I think it's very enlightening. And like I said, Whether you choose to believe the metaphysical side of it, or just, you know, find it interesting, I do believe it will expand your horizon a little bit, and hopefully give you a better understanding of, you know, what Thomas Jefferson did believe, and possibly what he might believe today. 

You know, looking at the world as it exists today. 

Suzanne Munson: Yes, it's called the Metaphysical Thomas Jefferson, and it's on Amazon, and it's pretty well related rated. Okay, 

Cheryl Johnson: yeah, and I'll have it in the show notes linked to it, so people can go ahead and do that. And there'll be more information about Suzanne and her life. 

her ventures, the things that she's doing in there too. So, feel free to go through the show notes and I encourage you to look at her other works because I, if you're a student of history, I'm sure you'll thoroughly enjoy them. And I, I do think George Wythe is definitely [00:50:00] a fascinating figure in and of himself, which we didn't, we touched on, but didn't talk about too much, because he, he's one of those people that I believe isn't even mentioned as a founding father oftentimes, but yet had a profound influence on them. 

So 

Suzanne Munson: that's correct. 

Cheryl Johnson: All righty. Well, thank you so much for your time. All right. Thank you, Cheryl. All righty. We'll see you later.