Life After Chase: Rev. Donald (Don) Kunze

A Spiritual Journey Through Retirement
 
By Rev. Don Kunze
 
Settling into my eighth decade on this planet, news of persons of my era making their final transition is a constant reminder of unfinished business. Some goals no longer have a purpose, but new ones born out of curiosity of what lies ahead keep me engaged. Life after Chase has been about the freedom that comes with retirement to pursue what has become one’s passion. The following reflections offer a window into my journey, but first a look back to my time at Chase. 
 
The Rockefeller Years
Following a period working in the aerospace Industry with Pratt & Whitney Aircraft, United Technologies and General Dynamics, my career with Chase began in 1970 when I attended the Credit Training Program. For the next 15 years I rotated through a number of disciplines in the International Department, beginning with a corporate lending assignment in London as Chase began its aggressive international expansion under David Rockefeller. Following came a credit training role for the Chase’s branch network in Europe. Returning to New York, I worked for Tony Terracciano, who had assumed responsibility for Chase’s International Banking operations. The extraction of the banking staff during the fall of Saigon in April 1975 is a well imprinted memory. My next assignment was working with Ed Riegelhaupt, International’s Planning and Development Group executive, evaluating investments in Germany, Africa, the Middle East, the Caribbean, Venezuela, Australia and Japan.  
 
I then settled into a position in Planning and Development for the Southern African Region under Langdon (Don) Palmer. Don loved fly fishing and found Africa had some marvelous fly-fishing rivers to experience. It was quite the experience stepping into Africa’s colonial economies.
 
I worked on David’s state visits to nine countries in Sub-Sahara Africa. State dinners, parades, tours, entertainment and business meetings filled 3+ weeks of travel. (Photo below: Clockwise from upper left: Army parades; Frank Stankard, executive vice president for international banking during my time at Chase. David Rockefeller and Landon Palmer; Angolan oil rig tour; and Guinea President Ahmed SékouTouré chauffeuring David in his own car.)
 
 
 
 
 

  

 

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Traveling to Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia) during their civil war, South Africa during the days of anti-apartheid violence, Liberia, just before its revolution in 1979, the Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Sudan, Kenya, Senegal and Nigeria offered the experience of a changing continent.
 
When the opportunity came to move to the Middle East (Lebanon was considered the Paris of the Middle East back then), I felt it was time to makes roots in the United States with my young family, I left Chase to work for an institutional investment management firm whose business focused on managing corporate and union retirement plans. I was with that firm until I retired.
 
The Seeds Are Planted at Chase
For several months in late 1979, a Chase colleague had encouraged me to take meditation classes. It was during that enlightenment period when EST (Erhard Seminars Training) was popular. This idea didn’t exactly fit into my left-brain analytical mind, so I continued to politely decline. Then one early spring Monday morning in 1980, I received a call that meditation classes were being offered conveniently in Midtown beginning on Thursday. I was given a telephone number to call if interested. Not understanding exactly why, I called the number that afternoon. I had no idea how my life was about to change as I was to embark on a journey that has continued to this day.
 
In the meditation group, I found myself with a teacher who could read my mind – a scary experience at first. I was introduced to channeling and a wise spirit guide. The part that initially was very initially unsettling was this spirit guide had access to my Akashic records, where all my history of thought and actions throughout all my lifetimes are stored. I had no secrets! There were about 12 of us in the group, all professional people, from the chairman of an insurance company to a priest, who participated in workshops given by this spirit guide.
 
The Journey Continues
I had studied aeronautical engineering at MIT and Cornell and finance at the University of Chicago's business school. With my analytical left brain, I found my right brain a very reluctant learner, but over the following 30 years the spirit world kept sending me more teachers until I fully endorsed the purpose I had agreed to when I entered into this incarnation. I followed the wisdom of Jesus in A Course in Miracles, scribed by the channel Helen Schucman, and Emmanuel, who channeled through Pat Rodegast, who gave talks and answered questions at the Westport (Connecticut) Women’s Club on Friday nights. Archangel Gabriel followed, channeled through Rev. Penny Donovan from 1987 to 1999, and then Jesus thereafter.
 
In anticipation of my retirement, I attended All Faiths Seminary International (AFSI) and was ordained in 2013. The seminary was founded by Rabbi Joseph Gelberman, who lost his family in the Holocaust but found his purpose in starting the first interfaith seminary in NYC. I was raised in a Christian Presbyterian denomination. Science, psychology, spirituality and mysticism provide the foundation upon which I am currently exploring mysteries of consciousness as a non-denominational minister and AFSI staff member.  
 
The Camino Lectures
Retirement is not without some adventures. In my 76th year (2018), my son had just returned from an 18-month off-road motor bike adventure, traveling from Connecticut to the bottom of South America. He then suggested it might be fun to celebrate my approaching birthday by walking the Camino de Santiago de Compostella. The Camino is a ninth century religious pilgrimage starting from various points in Europe to the reported resting place of the Apostle James in Santiago, Spain. In modern times, the most popular route is the Camino Frances, a 500-mile journey across northern Spain, beginning in the Basque region of France at the base of the Pyrenees in St.-Jean-Pied-de-Port. My son took charge of getting the family involved. Originally the Camino is traveled for spiritual and meditation reasons, although now a great percentage of pilgrims are adventuresome hikers looking to receive the certificate of completion upon arrival in Santiago. Qualifying for the certificate, which states the number of kilometers traveled, requires only 100 km of walking or 200 km, if on horse or bike. There are now two certificates, one for persons walking for spiritual reasons and the other for traveling for the adventure. I collected both. To relive life on the Camino, I share my experiences with lectures in libraries and other community settings. (Below is a photo of my family group that shared the challenge of the Camino.)
 
Keeping Busy
Besides family time (six grandkids) and working on keeping my body exercised, my days are spent on the teaching staff of AFSI, hosting discussion groups on mysticism, A Course in Miracles and the teachings of various channeled works.
 
I attended many of Archangel Gabriel’s recorded workshops that have become themes of lectures I give. One is the history of the civilization of Atlantis, from the peak of the civilization 50,000 years ago to its final days 12,500 years ago. I am currently writing a comparative history of Atlantis as described by Plato in his Socratic dialogues of Timeas and Critias, the writings of Leadbeater, Steiner and Scott-Elliot of the Theosophical Society (1880s), Edgar Cayce’s 700 past life readings (1923-1944) of individuals who lived on Atlantis, Archangel Gabriel’s two recorded workshops on Atlantis (1987, 1998) and, finally, current individuals who report memories of their past lives on Atlantis.  
 
I also lecture on Gabriel’s 1991 workshop about extraterrestrials: where they come from, why they come, their purpose, why they abduct humans, cattle mutilation, crop circles, their different races, their advanced technology, etc. I give talks on the 1994 Ariel School (Zimbabwe) incident where a UFO landed next to an elementary school playground and two aliens exited and communicated with a few of the 60 children. This incident, released as a documentary in 2022, Ariel Phenomenon, was investigated by John Mack, Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard, who also studied alien abductions and was a key presenter at the alien abduction conference held at MIT in 1992. 
 
I lecture on the story of Michael Pasakarnis (Wolf’s Message), a resident of my town of Plymouth, Massachusetts, that became a book (2014) and award-winning documentary (2025). Finally, I lecture about the fourth-grade educated mystic and polymath Walter Russell. In 1920, at the age of 49, as quantum theory was challenging Newtonian physics, he experienced the separation of his consciousness from his body and was taken to a higher dimension where he said he was given all knowledge behind the science of creation. This knowledge about which he wrote about in a book was distributed to the scientific community in 1926. The material challenged many of the accepted scientific theories of that era; Nicola Tesla told Russell it would be a thousand years before man would be ready for this knowledge. In 1948 Russell and his wife founded the University of Science and Philosophy (philosophy.org) whose purpose is to counter the decline of human character that is sending our civilization into another downward cycle. Russell often quoted the poet Edwin Markham’s warning, “In vain do we build the city if we do not first build the man.”  
 
I am a member of The Parliament of the World’s Religions, The Institute on Religion in the Age of Science, The International Society of Science and Religion, The University of Science and Philosophy and The Sacred Garden Fellowship. It is likely in the next few years that the U.S. government will be forced to acknowledge that contact has been made with extraterrestrials. Just before his death in 1955, my father, who investigated plane crashes for the government, told me UFOs are real. I was 13 at the time and an ardent reader about anything UFO-related. That fascination has stayed with me over all these years.
 
It is an exciting time to be alive as mankind moves into a more enlightened world. But first the old ways and institutions must crumble to make way for a more peaceful world. It will take the superior minds and technology of aliens to wake up mankind to how backward our civilization is.
 
I almost feel as though I am on a soapbox in Hyde Park! Watch the film, Wolf’s Message, and subscribe to the streaming service Gaia to fill in the details.
 
Joy to All!