Listen to Your Grandpa

If I wanted to summarize the life of Hashi-Hanta, I could say she was a good-time girl who died, met God, reanimated herself and moved to Pasadena, but it wasn’t that simple.

She has also, during various periods of her life, dated Elvis Presley, gone to jail as a political activist and belonged to the American Indian movement that occupied Alcatraz in the late 1960s.

By her own definition, Hashi-Hanta, now 53, was a hell-raiser in her youth, but it wasn’t hell where she ended up after an automobile accident 27 years ago.

It was a place in a forest where deer prettier than Bambi romped and puppy dogs yapped and all of her dead relatives gathered and waved. A little like Malibu Canyon as seen through the eyes of “The Brady Bunch.”

All of this is contained in a book she has written called “Pathway to the Spirit World,” which she and her husband, Rupert Lopez, published.

It isn’t the first near-death experience I’ve ever heard about, but I was intrigued by the publicity blurb accompanying the book that asked, “What happens to wild women when they die?” I’ve always wondered.

Hashi-Hanta was happy to share that with me in an upstairs office in Old Pasadena where she and Rupert run an investment business and from which Hashi, if I may, plans the seminars God told her to embark upon.

Wild women, she assured me, go to heaven just like everyone else. Hell, by her account, is a place which sounds very much like where we are now.

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Hashi met Elvis before she met God, which somehow seems appropriate under the circumstances. The meeting occurred in Hollywood--and this is important--before Elvis died, not after. While she believes spirit manifestation after death is possible, she doesn’t buy the many reports of his sightings.

“If he is seen at all,” she said in a manner of dismissal, “it will certainly not be in a 7-Eleven buying beer and cat food.”

Hashi was introduced to the King of Graceland by a friend and remembers him as kind, courteous, funny, caring and respectful. She could not say the same for his pet chimp Scatter whose idea of fun was to pull up her skirt.

It was during the Elvis Epoch when, as a wild woman, Hashi was in an automobile accident in Tijuana, Mexico. Transported to a hospital in L.A. with multiple injuries, she “died” while being prepared for surgery.

“The next thing I knew I was standing on a flat dirt area,” she said, carefully sizing up my attitude. “In front of me was a wooded hillside with birds singing and animals playing. I remember thinking what a wonderful place for a picnic!”

A Native American, Hashi is a dark-eyed woman with the kind of penetrating stare that challenges you not to believe her. It is a look which, while not necessarily hostile, doesn’t invite mockery.

“Tell me about God,” I said, trying not to appear, well, cheeky. It’s a term my mother used. Don’t you be cheeky with me, boy! Since that was often accompanied by a whop to the head, I avoid cheekiness whenever possible.

“He looked good,” Hashi said. “Not like a movie star, but good.”

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In fact, as she later explained, God appeared in the image of her own people, a Choctaw; not old, not young, but kindly and radiating love. Native Americans refer to him as grandfather.

Hashi knew, as they communicated telepathically, that if she wanted to she could step forward off the flat place where she stood and be in eternal paradise rather than in L.A.

But grandfather gave her a glimpse of what Earth would be in the future unless somebody did something, and she decided to return to the world of the living and help. In effect, grandfather told her to go forth and recycle.

Well, since then Hashi has heard from grandfather in spiritual whispers, and he’s told her to organize “power circle” seminars for $20 a head to discuss spirituality, history, personal relationships and finances.

God didn’t tell her to write a book and hire a press agent, but he did tell her to take a private polygraph test to verify their conversation, the positive results of which she is happy to furnish. He has offered no assistance, however, in tracking down the man who gave her the test in order to have me discuss it with him.

But that’s OK. God moves in mysterious ways and offers mysterious messages. At this very moment, in fact, I am feeling a ghostly whop on the side of the head and the admonition not to be cheeky, but I can’t help it. It’s just my way.

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Al Martinez can be reached through the Internet at al.martinez@latimes.com