A New Age Pioneer
 

Mary Lou Keller, of Keller Realty, moved to Sedona in March 1957 and immediately felt that she had found her true home. It was she who launched most of the early New Age activities in Sedona.

Mary Lou lived in a large house located where the Hillside shops are now on Highway 179. It was called the Keller building. Her livingroom held about 60 people. Mary Lou feels the current wave of New Age activities in Sedona may have begun with her interest in Manly Hall's tapes. Manly Hall was the author of an extraordinary reference book called The Secret Teachings of All Ages, as well as other books on metaphysical subjects. Mary Lou put out word that a weekly tape by Manly Hall would be played at her home. Fifteen to 20 people came each week to listen.

Travelers would arrive in Sedona (as they do now) and tell her they didn't know why they were there. "The car just turned in" they would say to explain their presence. Mary Lou kept a list of local New Age-oriented people and put dots in different colors by their names, showing their particular interests. When visitors arrived with information to share, she would start calling the appropriate locals on her list to a meeting at the Keller building. Many came. A steady stream of travelers arrived in Sedona over the years, metaphysicians, psychics, astrologers, mediums and healers. Mary Lou says she felt like a magnet.

She was supported by her Real Estate business and never charged money or took collections at these meetings.

After 22 years of marriage, she and her husband split up over her interest in metaphysics so she lived alone. Because she felt some of the people who came to her meetings were pretty weird, she would ask a friend to stay until everyone had left.

Manly Hall came to give a lecture at Flicker Shack, the only movie house in town until recently. Most of the seats were filled. This was shortly before his death. Mary Lou remembers he didn't look at the audience but upward. He talked faultlessly for several hours. His thoughts were coherent and there were no hesitations. One smoothly worded sentence followed another. Mary Lou was very impressed.

Keller founded the Sedona Church of Light, which met in her home. She began teaching Hatha Yoga as well. Some local people were very upset and shocked by her activities.  Women would turn their backs on her and sniff, she says. She felt severely criticized and judged.

A few years after her arrival, in the early 1960's, a small group came to town. They called themselves the Ruby Focus. Headed by Evangeline and Carmen VanPollen, they felt directed by St. Germaine to open a center. Mary Lou assisted them in getting located. The minister, who was a medium, used to give a little reading to everyone who came to church. After Evangeline died at 87 and her husband at age 91, the group changed their name to Rainbow Focus. The church is still located in the valley below the Airport Mesa vortex. Mary Lou tells the remarkable story of the faith of this group in her article "Echoes of the Past" in the Sedona Vortex Guide Book.

Judy Fisher rented the Keller Building before it was purchased as part of the Hillside complex. A sign in front said New Age Center. People would stop when they came up from Phoenix. Crystals were for sale in front where the realtors office used to be. Mary Lou says Judy would stay in town for a while and then leave, start a center somewhere, and come back. She was a spiritualist minister.

When Judy founded The Church of the Living God, there were big gatherings and meetings. Every Sunday for years the popular church was packed. A message from spirit was given to each person as part of the service.

Judy finally gave up and left town because the reactions from some local people were so negative.

The longest practicing realtor in the city of Sedona, Mary Lou Keller was 83 in 1997. She is busy writing a book about her experiences with New Age activities, tentatively to be called Echoes of Sedona's Past. This lively senior has some fascinating stories to tell.