My miracle story

Anything is possible when it involves what human beings do

I’m going to tell you where I got my email address, suzanne@mightycompanions.org. The Mighty Companions website is vintage, with things I did years ago that I still reference. Mighty Companions comes from a famous passage in A Course in Miracles, which is just one of the spiritual systems I’ve worked with:

Now comes a period of settling down. This is a quiet time, in which the teacher of God rests a while in reasonable peace. Now he consolidates his learning. Now he begins to see the transfer value of what he has learned. Its potential is literally staggering, and the teacher of God is now at the point in his progress at which he sees in it his whole way out. 'Give up what you do not want, and keep what you do.' The teacher of God needs this period of respite...when he is ready to go on, he goes with mighty companions beside him. Now he rests a while, and gathers them before going on. He will not go on from here alone. – A Course in Miracles

It was the name I used for the family foundation I created in 1989, and it was right not only for who I was then but for who I still am. After years of doing projects with mighty teams, I’m hunting up another bunch now.

After being cautioned thirty-five years ago to not to tell anyone this story by a person who could have gone to jail if the story got out, I’m presuming, so many years later, that no attention would be paid anymore, so, for the first time publicly, here goes.

Although this person could have been arrested for what he did for me, he would not have gotten into trouble for the impact he had on me. It wasn’t just that he saved me a good amount of money, but what happened with him let me know that when human beings are involved what seems impossible might not be. I have this faith that any pickle that is souring my life might be able to be transcended, and if you find me pushy when we are stuck on something at least you’ll know where my attitude comes from.

In the mid-1980s I got randomly selected for an IRS audit. At the time my house was a hotbed for projects and events. It was a high time for consciousness, where we were rolling out from the human potential movement, trying to create an intelligent, peaceful, beautiful world, and my home was an oasis for teachers and teachings that were bringing us into the realization that all is one. We bent spoons with astronaut Brian O'Leary, had a purification ritual with Tibet's Shartze Monks, and I frequently gave the floor to speakers, often when they were passing through L. A. on book tours, where I got connected to leaders of thought like Peter Russell, Marilyn Ferguson, Barbara Marx Hubbard, Michael Murphy, Willis Harman, Marianne Williamson, and Lex Hixon.

I thought of all of this as public service, and, to get income tax deductions for the considerable amount I spent to do my programs, I filed the money I laid out as business deductions. The problem was that to get business deductions profit has to be in your game plan, but since I didn’t charge anything I’d had no profit. My IRS auditor informed me that unless I found some way to justify deductions he would have to disallow some ten years of them and I’d have to pay taxes on that money.

I was dismissed, as IRS policy dictates, and told to come back in a few weeks with anything I could find but it was hopeless. There was no way to justify anything. And, in some desperation, I invited my auditor to come to an event to see what I spent that money on. Lo and behold he came. And he came again. And again. At some point, that I remember as if it just occurred, he spirited me away from the guests to the laundry room where we had a discussion about how he could go to jail for what he was going to do. He said he saw the value I was delivering and he didn’t want to do anything to get in the way of that, so he was going to pass me as if I was in conformity with the regulations for business deductions. The immunity from taxation would last another three years, and he warned me that after that I’d have to do something else to get deductions. In 1989 I created Mighty Companions, a non-profit corporation, so expenses for what I’ve produced ever since are pre-tax dollars.

There’s even more to the IRS story. For years my auditor sent me Christmas cards that he’d write messages on, like telling me that he put me in his prayers every night. When he went on his honeymoon to Thailand, he brought me back this gift.

Somewhere along the way I lost contact with him. Now that we have the internet, I periodically look for him. Unsuccessfully. 

Isn’t that a wonderful story? I know now that nothing involving humans is impossible. No matter what the situation that officially looks immovable, you just may touch someone’s heart where under a hard shell a human being is lurking. If you and I ever hit an impasse and I keep pushing you, maybe come to my house. Post Covid it isn’t glowing with new age sparkles, but you’d find it to be a loving household where things like a minute of this recent birthday celebration, that resident daughter, Jamie, made for New York twin sister, Liza, could go a ways to soften any hard hearts.

PS: Speaking of tax-deductible donations, you get one if you donate to stream a film that will shock you if you aren’t tuned into how voter suppression gives presidential elections to people who don’t win. Alternatively, it’s being made available to watch free, so do watch and pass along the invite: https://www.gregpalast.com/vigilantes-inc-free-download. I’m a supporter of filmmaker Greg Palast – there’s a story I might tell someday of how that came to be – who’s a rare frontline person fighting for us all! Vigilantes Inc. is recommended by Thom Hartmann (“You’ve got to see this movie. It’s mind-blowing.”), a supporter of mine whose Substack is a must-read for me. The film producers include Martin Sheen and the documentary is narrated by Rosario Dawson.

PPS: I still haven’t shelled out any money for people sending me to schemers who are looking with any urgency for how to turn the world into a loving place. Just give me a tip and $100 will come your way.

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