by Marina Michaels
from
TheLightHouseOnLine Website
Note (July 2002):
According to the
statistics my ISP keeps, this is one of the most consistently
popular articles on my Web site. (There are others, two of which are
Choosing a Psychic and The Usual Suspects: What Entities Can Be
Channeled?. I expect a third article, The Usual Suspects: The
Entities I Channel, which I just completed, to likewise become
popular.) So although this article is long, it apparently is
considered to be worth reading. I have made some improvements to the
appearance, and have added some material, so it should be a more
pleasurable experience, aesthetically speaking.
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Mediums--Myth
or Magic?
Associated with mediumship, or channeling as it is now more commonly
called, are a number of myths and stereotypes, along with a number
of outdated ideas. In this article, I present a more modern view of
the process, one that I hope will dispel many of the myths and will
help readers understand what channeling is - and what it isn't. Of
course, in reading this article, it is important that you remember
that it reflects my own perspective on the process; other people
will almost certainly have a somewhat different take on the subject.
Much of what a person experiences as a channel (also called a
channeler) or as someone who seeks out channelers for answers
depends on who you are and what your background is; more on that
later.
Essentially, most people who approach a
channeler for answers or who are first learning to channel hold some
or all of the following beliefs:
-
Belief: The channeler is a conduit
through which the information comes. As such, he or she brings
nothing to the party, so to speak, but instead can be thought of
as a glorified spiritual radio tuning into the information being
broadcast by the entities being channeled. NOT TRUE!
-
Belief: The entities being
channeled, by virtue of either being dead (deceased, departed
from physical life) or by virtue of never having been in a
physical body, are perfected beings who have only the highest
thoughts and intentions toward we lowly and inadequate human
beings. NOT TRUE!
-
Belief: The information coming
through is, therefore, always 100% accurate and always comes
from a high and loving source. NOT TRUE!
-
Belief: Anything that comes through
a channeler, therefore, is never to be questioned, but instead
should be accepted and followed verbatim. NOT TRUE!
-
Belief: Trance channels or channels
who are not conscious of their channeling are more accurate than
conscious channels. NOT TRUE!
Unfortunately, many people continue to
hold these beliefs even after consulting a channeler, or (worse yet)
even after becoming a channeler themselves. It is my belief that
this is not a good thing. What often results is that the person
consulting a channeler suspends all judgment and rational thought
along with their disbelief, often, then, ending up with more of a
mess than they had before they consulted the channeler.
Another unfortunate effect of believing these things is that when,
inevitably, the channeled material turns out to not have been so
perfect, the ensuing disappointment can lead to completely giving up
on consulting channelers or on reading channeled material.
Disgruntled, the disappointed person snorts in derision whenever
anyone else mentions channelers, and swears to never again look in
that corner of the universe.
The mantra for all channelers should be, "I could be wrong." The
mantra for all people who consult channelers or other psychics
should be, "They could be wrong."
Obviously, there must be some kind of middle ground between having
so open a mind that all your marbles fall out and having a mind that
is completely closed to the idea of channeling and to the
information that can come through a good channeler.
There is, and this article attempts to address the beliefs that can
cause disappointment and to introduce some new concepts and ideas
with which to approach your next encounter with channelers or
channeled material. Mediums, or channelers as is now generally
preferred (though I dislike both terms because there are so many
misunderstandings associated with each) are neither mythical nor
magical (well, most of us aren't, most of the time). At least, not
from our own point of view. As always, the truth lies somewhere in
between.
In this article, I introduce some definitions, then I talk about
what kinds of entities can be channeled. Then I talk about the
different kinds of channelers there are, and end with a description
of the channeling process.
In other articles, I provide a few guidelines for evaluating a
channeler, and provide a discussion of how you might, if so
inclined, become a channeler yourself.
Definitions
and a little background information
Basically, channeling is the process of communicating with spirits
who are not currently inhabiting bodies. More specifically, the
communication is based in either telepathic or direct spirit-to-body
contact (or both). The two things are not, as I understand it, the
same thing.
You can think of telepathy as a more refined and subtle form of
verbal communication.
Spirit-to-body contact can and often does involve some amount of
"taking over" of the channeler's body. In extreme cases, this can
become possession, either with conscious agreement from the
channeler or not. Personally, I prefer the telepathic approach, and
that is what I use, so that is my primary focus in this article.
Last century, when spiritualism took root in Western Europe and the
United States, channelers were called mediums. Before that, they
might have been said to "hear voices" (such as with Joan of Arc) or
to be prophets, such as with Muhammad, Jesus, and many of the other
well-known Middle Eastern mystics. The oracles at Delphi were almost
undoubtedly channelers, as were many others in the service of a wide
variety of deities throughout time and history.
Channeling has come to mean communicating with entities who have
either inhabited a body but now don't or who claim to have never
inhabited a body. It is possible to channel someone who is currently
inhabiting a body (and it does get done), though that isn't
generally what people mean when they speak of channeling. For
completeness, though, do bear in mind that the definition includes
this aspect.
Why more channeling now?
Channeling is therefore nothing new, though more people are doing it
and in greater numbers than we know of in history. I believe there
are a number of reasons for this.
The human race as a whole is evolving toward greater capabilities
and new definitions of who and what we are. Part of the nature of
all of life is to grow, evolve, become more complex and ever-varied.
Fundamentally, what we "own" as spirits and human beings is who we
are (what we've made of ourselves, and what we are constantly making
of ourselves), and the relationships we've created with other true
beings.
If the second reason above is true, then it follows that one of the
fundamental and absolutely vital components of any kind of
relationship, whether it is based in physical reality or in spirit
or both, is communication. Without communication, we can have no
relationship. This communication doesn't have to be in words, of
course; body language is one form of non-verbal communication.
Communication can and often does involve spirit-to-spirit
communication as well.
To evolve toward a greater expression of our own reality we must
also evolve all aspects of ourselves. Telepathy is one of the next
evolutionary steps in communication.
What is telepathy?
Telepathy is the process of communicating from mind to mind (or
spirit to spirit, to be more precise) without using a physical
mechanism (such as voice, telephone, email, and what not). Some
might argue that there is some sort of physical mechanism in the
brain that facilitates or makes possible the ability to communicate
telepathically, and I suppose that is a possibility that this is so,
but frankly, I am not interested in the physical side to it, if
there is any.
My reasoning is that even if there is a physical mechanism, it still
is based in our ultimate source, which is spiritual, and I prefer to
look at the source (the spirit and spiritual reasons), or the cause,
than to look at the results, or the effect.
There are many forms of telepathy. Generally, as I experience it, it
is not as portrayed in the fictional works, where a person can hear
every single word as broadcast by another, though telepathy can and
does take that form at times. Telepathy is also not something that
you need to put a lot of effort into, where you wrinkle your
forehead and strain a lot; indeed, such straining can be
counterproductive.
Instead, telepathy is what happens when you relax enough to open
your inner self to communications that flow both ways on a more
fragile and enduring medium than the air. It also very often comes
in the form of what I call a "thought ball," where concepts and
thoughts and words and emotions and sensations and images are all
rolled up into a complexly interrelated whole, somewhat like a large
ball of string. It is then the task of the receiver to unravel that
ball into a linear communication.
Telepathy and translations
The unraveling process in telepathy is nearly identical to
translating from one language into another. You are taking a
communication that came in one form in one language, and you are
trying to convey that communication as clearly and as unaltered in
meaning as possible in another language.
You can see, then, that if the translator is to do a good job, it is
of great importance that the translator has a number of
characteristics, such as being intelligent, well-balanced,
open-minded, highly educated, unbiased as much as is possible,
well-versed in many cultures, knowledgeable about many different
languages, and so on.
You can also see that many people who
aspire to being such translators don't meet up to these
qualifications, and therefore their translations will similarly miss
the mark to some degree. The analogy is exact whether you are
speaking of the kind of translation work that is done at the United
Nations or the kind of translation work that a channeler must do
every time s/he channels.
Dimensional difficulties
The main difference between translating between two human languages
and translating from spirit communications into physical reality is
that the latter kind of translation work is fraught with far more
difficulties.
All human languages share many common constructs and concepts (for
example, mother, father, birth, death; but also, built into them
all, are the inherent recognition of our physical reality and
certain commonly shared beliefs about that reality). In the spirit
world, there are what you might consider to be expanded versions of
those same constructs, plus some.
Thinking of it in terms of dimensions is a very useful analogy. For
example, When you have two dimensions, you have only length and
width, not depth. Trying to imagine what depth would be like from
the perspective of a two-dimensional world might be impossible, or,
if possible, it might be possible only in a distorted way. Once you
add that third dimension, it seems obvious and a matter of course to
you to see what depth is. But try to explain it to your flatlander
friends who are still in the second dimension....
Another analogy might be that of the senses. Imagine trying to
explain taste to someone who has never had the ability to taste
anything. Or smell, touch, sight, hearing, emotions - all of these
would be hard to explain, describe, or discuss with someone who
didn't have experience with these things.
A friend of mine who is now blind but wasn't at one time once told
me of how she was in a discussion once with people who had been
blind from birth. The topic was one that probably all of us have
played with at some time or another: If you had to give up one
sense, which would it be? In this case, the topic was modified
somewhat to assume that the people had the choice of four of our
five senses. My friend said that those people who had been blind
from birth said they would still choose to be blind rather than,
say, deaf.
They couldn't imagine how sight could be
useful - but take away their hearing and they would feel it! Their
main argument was, how could you tell you were approaching something
if you couldn't hear the various small sounds that echoed from those
items or that those items made? My friend found that she could not
explain how sight could perform many of the functions that hearing
was performing for them, and they remained convinced that hearing
was better than sight.
(I'm not taking a position here; I'd
have a hard time choosing too, if I had to choose, because each
sense contributes something uniquely beautiful to our
three-dimensional life.)
The channeler experiences a similar difficulty in trying to
translate the messages being received in that s/he is still within
the world of three dimensions (or the five senses, if you will,
ignoring, for now, the fact that there are of course far more
dimensions, including time, the fourth dimension), yet s/he is
trying to communicate concepts being conveyed from a being who is
inhabiting at least one dimension up (the fifth dimension or
greater), or whose existence is entirely within the spirit realm (I
don't claim to have much knowledge of such; the more I learn, the
more questions I have and the less I think I know) and therefore not
dependent on physical reality as a reference point, though that
greater reality encompasses ours.
Another way to look at it is to think of each dimension as a matrix
that includes any "lower" dimension within it. So, for example, the
second dimension includes within it the first dimension; the third
dimension includes the first and second; the fourth dimension
includes the first, second, and third, and so on. If you were a
person stepping from dimension to dimension, you would continue to
experience each previous dimension, yet from a different
perspective.
In a sense, you are able to view the
previous dimensions as something incorporated within your new
dimension; you could almost say that you are viewing the previous
dimensions from "outside" them.
So why bother channeling? What's the point?
You may be thinking, "this is all very interesting, but so what? Why
bother? What's the use in channeling anyway?" Aside from the idea
that much of the information coming through is pretty interesting,
the tendency is to think that it is information we can live without,
especially since there doesn't seem to be any way to test or confirm
the information.
But what if that information is useful after all, perhaps in ways
that aren't obvious?
Here's another analogy: Let's say that your bed is analogous to the
first dimension, your bedroom is the second dimension, your house
the third dimension, your neighborhood the fourth, and so on. When
you wake in the morning, you exist in the first dimension. While you
are there, you only know what is taking place in bed. (Pretending
that you can't see your room--perhaps you have a canopy bed with
curtains.)
As soon as you draw your bed curtains
aside and step out of bed into the second dimension (your bedroom),
you have a wider and different perspective on your bed (the first
dimension). The bed is still in your scope of experience, yet you
are experiencing it from a different vantage point, and you now see
the context within which it lies (the second dimension, aka your
bedroom).
You can see, for example, that your bed rests upon a floor, of whose
existence you had no clue. This raises a large number of questions
in itself. What is a floor? Who built it? How is it holding your bed
up? And so on. You can also see that your bed is contained within a
greater reality, yet that reality has walls and a ceiling (as well
as the floor).
More questions result.
-
Who made all of this?
-
Did anyone make it?
-
Is this all there is?
-
Is there something greater
within which this room is contained, just as my bed is
contained within this room?
-
What is a wall?
-
What is the nature of a
wall?
-
Are there other walls?
-
Are all walls made the same?
And so on.
When you step out into the hallway and realize that your room is
contained within an even greater context, you get some answers but
more questions. You now see that there are different kinds of walls,
for example, and floors, too, yet the ceiling seems to be the same.
Is there only one kind of ceiling but many walls? If there are many
walls, how many are there?
When you get outside, your reality really opens up, and again you
have more answers yet many more questions. You will also have grown
in ability in that you had to stretch yourself to reach into these
greater realities, and you had to learn new skills in dealing with
these new realities. Although many of the skills are based in what
you learned within your bed, you have also learned new skills as
well.
For example, while lying in your bed, you didn't need to use your
legs much, and when you did, it wasn't for walking. You may even
have wondered what legs were good for. As soon as you stepped
outside the bed's protective coverings, you quickly found out what
legs were good for, yet you had had no conception of walking before.
And once you got outside and discovered, for instance, that legs are
very useful for driving (though not essential), you found you were
very far beyond what you had ever imagined you would be doing with
your body.
Now imagine trying to talk with someone who is still sitting in
their bed. How would you explain what you are experiencing to them?
How do you tell them that you are walking, or what pleasure it
brings to you to walk? How do you describe the world you are in to
someone who has never been outside?
Generally, what you would try to do is use analogies, such as
comparing the sky to the canopy over the bed, and the good green
earth you are walking on to the bed's mattress. Many times, however,
you would find yourself unable to completely convey the reality of
what you are experiencing, though if you are good at what you do,
you may be able to convey enough that the person in his or her bed
is willing to at least take a peek out into their room, and so start
their own journey into a greater reality.
And ask yourself this: What apparent relevance would information
about what a car is, let alone how to drive it, hold for someone who
is still in that bed? You may try to tell them that their legs will
be used in ways they have never imagined, but the greater reality is
still so far removed from the reality of existence in the bed that
you find it impossible at times to convey even a taste of what the
greater reality is like.
You know your friend in that bed is going to think that much, if not
all, of what you are saying is irrelevant and possibly even crazy.
Yet you know from your greater perspective that when they come out
into the greater, more expanded reality that you exist within, this
information will be useful in many ways. When in a world that has
cars, you need to know how to avoid the dangers they pose as well as
to take advantage of their benefits they offer. If you come forth
into the world that contains cars completely naive of any
information on that topic, you will be at a disadvantage. Granted,
it is easier to come up to speed on cars than on, say, other things,
but the analogy is a pretty good one.
The point here is that much of the information coming through in a
channeling session (at least, in the kinds of channeling sessions I
hold) has global significance and is preparing those who are present
(or who get to read the transcripts) for a greater reality. Not even
I, the channeler, am always able to grasp the significance of what
is coming through, and sometimes it seems that the information is
arbitrarily simple or irrelevant. Yet many times I have later gasped
at the stunningly perfect complexity and interrelatedness of
something I received while channeling, where a piece falls into
place and what formerly seemed chaos is now a perfect design.
Other
times I have had to continue to take information on faith, hoping
that someday it will make sense.
Which I don't always do. I talk back to the entities I channel, I
argue with them, I get stubborn and insist on getting something that
is of apparent value today. I always get what I ask for, though
sometimes not in the form or in the time frame I asked to receive it
within.
(The communication flow is easier from the channeler to the entity
being channeled, because the entity is within a matrix that
encompasses the matrix within which the channeler exists. Someone
who has already lived in that bed and has now moved on will
understand the experiences of the person still living in the bed;
the reverse is not necessarily true, unless the person living in the
bed has actually returned to the bed from a greater reality and has
retained that information to a greater degree than most of us have.
But that is getting way beyond the scope of this essay; I'll address
it another time.)
So if you believe in a greater reality or even in a reality that
makes sense, has meaning, has interrelatedness; if, (as Jung and his
followers are fond of saying), you believe there is no such thing as
a coincidence, then channeling can hold a lot of charm and value.
Myself, I have an immense amount of sheer curiosity, so even if the
information isn't necessarily or obviously applicable in a practical
way, I enjoy receiving it.
It also just plain feels good to channel, and seems to do no harm
but instead accomplishes much good in my life and in the lives of
those I channel for, all of which seem as good reasons to do it as
any of the others.
So, you're
saying you talk with dead guys?
Since I believe it is impossible to destroy a spirit, it is a
contradiction in terms to refer to those spirits as "dead guys,"
though I have been known to make such references both out of my own
sense of humor and to make things easier for those around me.
(Though I hasten to add that I did not come up with this term. My
dear and great friend Jeff Duntemann was the first to use
this term with me, and I loved the irreverence of it so much that I
made it mine. Thanks, Jeff!)
However, not all the entities I channel have inhabited bodies from
which they could have died out of, so the term "dead guys" is loose
at best. But yes, in the loosest sense, a channeler speaks with dead
guys.
(Year 2002 note: I wrote this
article in 1996, quite some time before the movie Sixth Sense came
out, which, if you haven't seen it, I highly recommend, if only for
the spectacular jobs of acting by Bruce Willis and Haley Joel Osment,
but also for the information in it.)
This isn't to say that those dead guys are any more enlightened or
able to speak to the human condition than I am. If you aren't
careful, the "dead guy" you are channeling could be Fred, the Garage
mechanic, who just died and is having you on for a lark. Watch for
those automotive analogies.
To be more specific about who you can speak with if you are a
channeler, I'd have to say that the field is wide open - with some
caveats. From my own experiences and deductions and information from
my own channeled sources (the "dead guys"), who you are has a great
deal to do with who you channel.
The Boy Scout
rule
As my main spirit liaison once told someone,
"If you want to hang
about in the pool hall of the souls with the riff-raff and the
hustlers, you can. But you don't have to."
Another saying he is fond
of is, "Like Light attracts like Light," which is tongue-twister way
of saying that birds of a feather flock together.
This means that generally you will attract entities who are on the
same wavelength as you are. If, for example, you as a human being
haven't spent a lot of time on things like living ethically, with
self- and other-honesty, trust, good-heartedness, and so on, or if
you have a lot of judgments about yourself and the world, and a lot
of restrictive beliefs about how things work, then the entities you
attract won't be trustworthy or particularly forthcoming with the
truth, nor will they be trustworthy in other ways, and in general,
when you channel them, you will get slimed, spiritually speaking.
Though you may enjoy it--life is odd that way.
Conversely, if you have been honest and true, and have held and
followed higher standards of decency, honesty, justice, and,
ultimately, love in a deep and universal sense, then you will
attract the kind of entity who likewise holds those things to be
important.
Can you be
more specific? Exactly who can and who cannot be channeled, and why?
I know, I know - you'd like me to be more specific. Unfortunately, to
be as specific as I'd like to be would take up the space of at least
one entire book--perhaps more. But I can be a little more specific
than I am being.
Here's a list of the kinds of entities that can be
channeled, more or less in order of spiritual awareness and
development:
-
Regular human beings, including
yourself
-
Inhabitants of the elemental
world
-
Aliens
-
Ascended and enlightened masters
and angelic sorts of beings
-
The god and goddess of this area
-
The god/goddess who created our
god and goddess
-
The rulers of the universe
-
Potentially more
The different
flavors of channelers
This leads rather neatly into the topic of what different kinds of
channelers there are. Setting aside the moral levels and gradations,
there are several different ways of channeling as well.
Basically, channeling in any form is a
kind of altered state that falls on a spectrum rather than into
discrete categories, here are four of the more distinct points on
that spectrum:
-
Fully conscious channel
-
Altered-state "conscious"
channel, where the feeling while channeling is that you are
fully conscious, but afterward you realize that you were in
a (either slightly or greatly) different focus than normal
waking reality - a kind of superconscious state of awareness
-
Light trance channel (that is,
channeling while in a light trance)
-
Full trance channel
Fully conscious
Briefly, a fully conscious channeler is in a "normal" awake and
aware state, can move about, interrupt him or herself, stop, start,
and so on, without a significant or noticeable interruption to the
flow of the channeling. This is what I used to think I was.
Altered-state "conscious" channel
An altered-state conscious channel is a little off kilter from the
normal waking focus. This is the category I now place myself in.
While channeling, I am as described in the previous paragraph, and I
tend to think I am fully conscious. But afterwards I realize I don't
recall what I was channeling with the same clarity I do normal
waking conscious experiences, and the concepts are not always as
clear as when I was channeling. So I have come to call what I am in
when channeling a "superconscious" state. I can't say whether this
holds true for many other channelers, though I know it does hold
true for some.
(Before I am accused of having a poor memory to start with, or of
not being all that smart, I present my credentials: My IQ is quite
high (much closer to 200 than to 100) and I used to have an almost
photographic memory. Although it isn't nearly as photographic as it
used to be, I have quite a remarkable memory still. In fact, I
believe that these two characteristics help me to be a pretty good
channeler. The wiring is there to help bring in clearer
information.)
Trance channels, light to full
Trance channels are those who go into some kind of trance ranging
from light to heavy in order to channel. In a trance, the channeler
goes off somewhere (far or near), while the entity either
telepathically communicates the message, or comes into the
channeler's body (or at least takes over the operation of that
body), in order to convey the message. Some channelers call this
"full body" channeling.
The usual method versus the MarinaTM
method
In all types of channeling, what I have been told by other psychics
is that the usual method for channeling is for the channeler to
allow the entity being channeled to come into his or her energy
space and to, to a greater or lesser degree, take over the body with
the permission of the channeler. One psychic I met (who is now a
friend) told me when she first met me that I channel differently
from any other person she had seen channel; that instead of allowing
a being to take me over to any degree, I carry on a telepathic
conversation with the entity and then translate the information and
bring it forth through me.
Since this is my process, it is what I
most know about and can talk about, and of course it seems like the
most natural and obvious way to go about channeling. But then, I am
self-taught and taught by the entities I channel, so as usual I am a
bit of a wild rose.
Which isn't to say that no one else does it that way. The friend I
just mentioned realized that she too had often channeled while doing
psychic readings for others (and she is a whiz-bang psychic; one of
the two best I have ever met); she just hadn't realized it because
it wasn't like how anyone else did it--until she met me.
In any of these methods, the channeler is in close and constant
communication with the channelees (the Sources), getting and
translating the message, with the Sources monitoring the translation
and doing their best to make sure the translation stays as accurate
and on track as possible.
Which way is best?
First, let me say that I do not believe there is any one "right" or
best way. Having said that, I will say that the best way for me is
the way I do it, just as the best way for another is the way they do
it.
As Virginia Satir reportedly once said,
"There are 265 different ways to
wash dishes, and they all get the dishes clean."
Still, others are of differing opinions.
This is a sensitive area. Some people like to claim that their way
of channeling, however they channel, is the best or "purest" or
least prone to mistakes and distortions, and I confess that I'm not
immune to the syndrome myself.
For example, some full trance channels are fond of saying that,
because they are in trance, the material they bring through is
"purer" and less distorted than material brought through by "lesser"
channels who are conscious or semi-conscious. Their reasoning is
that supposedly they can "get out of the way" of the message better,
or "let the entity through" better; that is, they allow the entity
to more fully possess their bodies, and that the conscious mind,
with its filters and programming and beliefs, is safely out of the
way, so that the entities can therefore to speak more directly.
This isn't necessarily so.
The fact is that whether you are a fully conscious channel or a
full-blown out-like-a-light trance channel, you are still
translating for the entity with the same set of tools you have
available in any state of consciousness, and with the same beliefs,
rationalizations, filters, biases, and so on. (Which go much deeper
than the conscious mind.)
It is just easier, when you are in a
trance, to pretend that you had nothing to do with the translation,
and to therefore claim to yourself and others that the information
is less fallible. Any trance channel who claims this is denying his
or her contribution to the message, and is denying any
responsibility for what comes through.
This can lead to an amusing circular verification process, which
goes something like this:
-
Channel (speaking as
her/himself): "My opinion is X"
-
Channel (in trance, speaking as
entity): "Yes, X is true"
-
Channel (speaking as her/himself
again): "Since the entity said X is true, it must be true
and not just my opinion"
I try to be on the lookout for this kind
of thing, and am personally relieved when the entities disagree with
me. I am also always ready to admit that if they seem to be agreeing
with me, it could be my own filters getting in the way of the
message.
This rigorous self-policing is a
necessary component of any psychic practice.
The quality of the message
The quality (high or low) of a channeled message will be the same
for a given channel whatever form the channeling takes. A good
channel will produce good, clear messages whatever the channeling
method, and a muddy channel will produce muddy messages. I have
heard one of the very best trance channelers alive today channel,
and he occasionally brings through some (not a lot, but some, still)
fear-based and judgmental material, just as he would if fully
conscious. It is, as far as I know, inescapable that the channeler
imparts his or her own flavoring to the message. In a very real
sense, the medium is the message.
Being a conscious channeler myself, I have a certain bias toward
conscious channeling over trance channeling, though in the end I
think that it is up to each of us to analyze the process and the
results and decide for ourselves what we prefer.
Of course, any person claiming to be a channeler of any stripe may
be a fraud, either partially or completely, consciously or
unknowingly. This is why it is imperative that those who consult
channelers be fully aware of how it is possible for a channeler not
to get all the information (if s/he gets any information at all), so
that the consulters do not give away their power and
self-determination to the consultants (the channelers). If you keep
in mind that the channeler is essentially someone you are
consulting, then perhaps it will be easier to maintain your
perspective and remember who is in charge of your life.
What I find unfortunate about those who claim that their style of
channeling is inherently better and more accurate is that, as I
mentioned earlier, people already tend to lend channeled material
far more unthinking and unexamining credence than it warrants, and
to be told by implication or omission that the material coming
through a particular channel is even less open to critical
examination is to encourage people to stop thinking for themselves
(or continue to not think for themselves), and to not apply their
discernment to whatever messages are coming through.
In either case, I would recommend that
you either avoid such channelers or you take a very large bag of
salt with you when you either read their materials or listen to them
(in person or on video or cassette tapes).
Having said this, I will proceed to describing what the channeling
process is like from my perspective.
The channeling
process
So this brings us to the actual process of channeling itself. Since
this isn't a text on how to channel, but is instead a text on
understanding what channeling is, I won't go into the step-by-step
procedures (and there isn't just one set) of how to channel.
Instead, I'll explain the general sequence of events, and you can
explore from there or read more later when I write something on how
to channel.
One of the fundamental "rules" or "laws" in any endeavor involving
spirits is that there can be no overriding of another entity's free
will. Period. If on entity tries to override another, severe
consequences will occur.
However, it is possible for one entity to give permission to another
to override their will, and to give it on the spirit level where
they may not be aware of the agreement consciously. Although this
sounds like overriding one's will, if the person being overridden
has consented to it, it isn't really. I consider this a kind of
loophole, but I'm not sure I'd change it.
This rule applies in channeling as well. An entity cannot be
channeled unless the channeler agrees to bring the message through.
If you are already a channeler, or are interested in becoming one,
and you hadn't heard this before, take note. Every entity who is
aware enough to try to bring a message through a channeler knows
this rule. If you don't like what's going on - that is, if you don't
like how the entity's energy feels, or if you don't like the tone of
the message or if you even don't like the look of the entity's eyes,
you can ask that entity to leave and s/he will have to.
I say this as an introduction to discussing the channeling process
because the channeling process starts with an invitation: You, the
channeler, invite the entity or entities you wish to channel. You
are not coerced or forced; instead, either an entity contacts you
and asks to be channeled, or you invite an entity, either
specifically or generically (for instance, you might ask for Jesus
to speak through you, or you might ask for the "highest beings of
light possible," meaning the highest beings you are capable of
bringing through). In either case, you have full say over whether
whoever shows up will be allowed to stay and speak.
Once the invitation has been made, then the process of connecting
takes place. If the channeler is a trance channel, s/he goes into
trance sometime around here, and the entity then takes over some
control of the channeler's faculties and allows the entity to speak.
If the channeler is a more conscious channel, then a more conscious
arrangement is arrived at whereby the entity being channeled steps
into the energy field of the channeler, but the channeler remains
aware of his or her surroundings. In some cases, as I mentioned,
instead of a merging in that sense, the channeler makes a telepathic
connection with the spirit.
At this point a communication link of some sort has been established
and the message starts coming through.
If the channeler feels either at this point or at any point during
the session that something isn't right with the connection--either
the entities don't "feel" right or the connection itself isn't
clear - the channeler may do any of the following:
-
mentally request help in
clarifying the message from his or her "known" helpful
entities
-
visualize a better connection
-
ask the invading entity (if
there is such) to leave
There Can Be Only One?
The connection initially is not always smooth and deep. In fact,
what I have noticed for myself is that the initial connection is
almost always a bit rocky. I liken it to the confluence of two
rivers: Initially, the water is turbulent and muddy (the information
coming through is less clear and accurate), but after a while the
waters settle into a more powerful channel and clear flow than was
true for either river alone, and the information flows deeply,
strongly, and clearly. (As clearly as I am capable of.)
This is a key point:
The information coming through is a
collaboration between two entities. As such, it is greater than
either entity alone could bring about.
With some caveats, of course. I am not
claiming to be greater than Jesus, for example (who is one of the
main entities I channel), or even to being anything close to him in
this incarnation, yet I am able to channel him pretty clearly and to
bring through from him messages that are unique because I am as much
a part of the message as he is. Others can also channel Jesus, but I
am the only one who can channel him the way I channel him.
Which brings up a point: Some channels "bring through" information
that says that they are the only ones who can channel entity
So-and-So. I call this the "There can be only one" syndrome.
My interpretation of this is that they
are indeed the only ones who can channel entity So-and-So in the
unique way that they do, but others can channel that same entity.
(Though beware of imitations, eh?) In these cases, the channel is
either consciously or unconsciously interpreting/translating the
message from the entity that says "the connection is unique" so that
it comes through as "this connection is the only possible one."
I understand that in some cases of very public channelers who are
making their living from channeling that entity (and there is
nothing wrong with that--more of us should be able to!), there are
concerns with having people muddy the waters by channeling the same
entity in their own unique way. As I've said before, not all
channels are equally clear. I have read some "Seth" channeling, for
example, that is very muddy indeed and a discredit to the original
material brought through by Jane Roberts (another one who claimed
that she was the only one who could channel Seth).
However, I also think it is faintly ridiculous to try to claim that
some non-incarnate entity who is capable of much is limited in that
he or she is only capable of or interested in channeling through one
being. Yes, it is possible, but imagine someone trying to claim that
God, for example, is only going to speak to humanity through a
single intermediary, and never directly to any one human. Except, of
course, for the intermediaries.
Oh, wait. That's been done, quite successfully, by many major
religions. It's almost as bad as the fundamentalists who told me
that Jesus is dead and therefore can't talk to anybody and that God
specifically does NOT talk to psychics.
Maybe I better use another example.
Imagine this: Every one of us has our own internal ability to
communicate with the unseen. This ability varies from person to
person, but it is there. And every entity likewise has the ability
to communicate with us. Think of it as internal telephones. We all
have them, and they all work with varying degrees of clarity.
Now imagine, if you will, that some entity decides that he or she is
ONLY going to call one person, and likewise that that person is only
going to call that one entity. Yes, it is possible. And certainly,
for many channels, focusing on one entity is their path. But for
many entities, the more channels they can speak through, the more
likely it is that their message is going to go out into the world.
Of course, if the channel becomes very famous, then yes, the entity
can choose to concentrate on that one channel, but that doesn't mean
the entity is only capable of "calling" that channel exclusively.
The distinction between "can't" and "won't" needs to be made here.
Remember, just because it was channeled, doesn't mean it is 100%
accurate.
Back to the main flow of information.
The channeler's awareness
During the process of channeling, the channeler is either
more-or-less fully aware of his or her surroundings, or is off
somewhere in a virtual room where the translation is taking place.
In a sense, you could think of that location as a translation booth,
where the entity and the channeler are meeting to come up with the
translation, and meanwhile the translation of the entity's message
is being broadcast through a loudspeaker system based in that room.
The trance channel may later not recall
what took place in that room, while the conscious channeler usually
does, and there you have what I consider one of the strengths of
conscious channeling: You can later review the channeled material
(assuming it was recorded), and analyze it against your own
awareness of when you felt you were translating more clearly, and
when you thought you had lost the fine focus and were perhaps a bit
muddier. The trance channel doesn't usually have this resource
available, and so has the tendency to think all the material is of
equally high quality. Which it almost never is for any channeler.
If others are present, the channeling is likewise affected.
According to channeled information I have received, those who are
present affect the channeling and are almost as much a part of
creating the message as the channeler. The idea is that even though
those who are present as an apparent audience only seem to be
listening, in fact they are participating in creating the message on
the spirit level.
Think about that next time you listen to
a channeler in person and are tempted to wonder in awe how they can
get that information.
Conclusion
Thank you for bearing with me through this long article. I hope it
has been of interest and value to you, if only to provide a few
smiles along the way. Though of course I hope to have provided more
than that. I hope it has given you some things to think about,
perhaps a new awareness of or perspective on channeling and on
psychics, and perhaps even on your own abilities and experiences.
The Usual
Suspects - What Entities Can Be Channeled?
by Marina Michaels
from
TheLightHouseOnLine Website
The usual suspects - Who can be
channeled
I give some background on the nature of channeling itself in What is
channeling?. In that article, I discuss to some degree the vast
variability of it all, such that it isn't possible without writing a
book to convey the scope of what channeling is. In the end, it can
leave a non-psychic or non-channeler feeling a bit mystified. It is,
as I state elsewhere, somewhat like trying to describe colors to
someone who has been blind all of their life.
However, I can be somewhat more specific when speaking of the kinds
of entities that can be channeled. Briefly, here's one list of the
kinds of entities that can be channeled, more or less in order of
spiritual awareness and development:
-
Regular human beings,
including yourself
-
Inhabitants of the elemental
world
-
Aliens
-
Ascended and enlightened
masters and angelic sorts of beings
-
The god and goddess of this
area
-
The god/goddess who created
our god and goddess
-
Potentially more
Regular human beings
In this category we find regular human beings who have left their
bodies (either through death or sleep). Fred the Car Mechanic, for
instance, or your Aunt Elsie, or Albert Einstein, Friedrich Nietchze
- if the beings was corporate on this planet, it can generally be
channeled, though there must be a match of some sort between the
channeler and the channelee for any message to get through, and the
more filters a channeler might have, the more distorted the message
will be.
Sometimes, even, a channeler will think
they are channeling, say, Albert Einstein when in fact they have
picked up some prankster spirit (if they are fortunate, it is only a
prankster, and not someone with evil intent). Much misinformation
can get conveyed in this fashion.
You can also contact and channel yourself - usually a "future"
version, though you could also contact yourself in the past and even
in the lives that you are living in other times and places.
If you contact someone who is living, that is more in the realm of
telepathy than channeling, though it is possible to channel a living
human too.
Inhabitants of the elemental world
This category includes fairies, gnomes, elves, and the like. Yes,
they exist, in a slightly different dimension. So does Santa Claus.
(And I mean that in all sincerity.) Some people experience these
beings as what they call devas, though devas exist as a separate
class of being: the conscious spirit inherent in plants, rocks,
locales, and so on.
Devas and the inhabitants of the fairy
realm exist more or less in the same dimension and so do know of and
work with each other. Normally, however, you won't experience your
communications with any of these beings as channeling per se, though
you might. The basic nature of these beings is that they are very
close to physical reality and as such are quite grounded in and in a
very real sense a part of that reality.
Communications with them are more like
the sort of telepathic exchanges that can take place between two
humans who are in body, or between a human and an animal.
Aliens
Yes, I know, this makes me uncomfortable too, but I know these guys
exist, so I won't ignore them in this list. As far as I can tell,
most, if not all, aliens exist in a different dimension. They do
have some technological superiority, but this doesn't mean they also
have spiritual or moral superiority over us. Remember this if any of
them come along and try to screw with your head; in particular,
beware of the "Space Brothers" coming to "claim their own." There
are some who are trying to program people into believing they should
take off with aliens if and when the time comes.
Note: I wrote this section of this essay in 1996, long before the
heaven's Gate fiasco, and that is exactly the kind of thing I was
trying to warn people about. The "Space Brothers" do not, for the
most part, have our best interests at heart.
Some people consider contacting the Space Brothers to be a great
privilege or at least a potentially interesting experience. And it
may be, for all I know. I just object to the underhanded trickery
being used; I figure if someone feels they have to trick you into
wanting to join them, or to program you into wanting to go, instead
of just being upfront about it, laying out the pros and cons, and
letting you decide, that perhaps this wonderful place they are
trying to lure you off to isn't perhaps quite the paradise it is
being presented as. Caveat emptor.
Anyway, the point is, you can communicate with these beings. Since
they aren't exactly in the same dimension, I think this qualifies as
channeling under my rather loose definition. Personally, I try to
steer clear of the entire bunch.
Ascended and enlightened masters and
angelic sorts of beings
Another category of entity that can be channeled includes those who
are variously called the ascended masters, enlightened beings, and
also, mixed in with them, the angels and such fairly-well-known
entities as Seth and Lazaris. This category includes
Jesus as well as a number of other beings who realized or remembered
their greater reality while walking the earth, and who are
interested in helping others come to the same kind of realization.
Not all of the beings being channeled who claim to be an ascended
master are such. For that matter, not all of the beings who claim to
be Jesus or whoever are who they claim to be.
I'll repeat this many times because it is very important: Being able
to discern at a very deep level the feeling and intent behind any
entity's communication is a key skill to have while channeling any
entity or while listening to someone else channel. There is a
tendency for people to swallow unthinkingly and without
discrimination anything that is supposedly channeled. They
shouldn't, any more than they should accept and believe everything
that is on the TV news. Listen to your heart!
Most of the entities in this category have particular areas of
interest and affinity. For example,
Seth likes to call himself a
"Probability Master," and speaks often of probabilities and
alternate possibilities. Jesus is very warmly concerned with the
heart and with human relationships, though from such a high level
that sometimes it can be hard to see the relationship between
relationships and what he is saying. He is warm-hearted and has a
wonderful sense of humor.
Other entities have other areas of
interest, and when a topic comes up when I am channeling that can be
best addressed by a different entity, that entity will ask
permission to move forward to speak on it.
The god and goddess of this area
As far as my understanding reaches at this moment, there is a god
and a goddess (or a being who has masculine and feminine aspects)
who are in charge of this region of space. Whether that region is
just earth or the entire solar system or perhaps even a larger area
than that, I am not sure. I believe it is the solar system. This god
and goddess is in some way a part of or an extension of the god and
goddess who created them.
It is useful and fun to contact this level of god and goddess.
You'll get planetary information, globally significant information,
and sound, earth-grounded directions. I have contacted an entity who
calls himself Sol or Helios, and I think he is the god of this
system.
If I have been in touch with the goddess who has co-dominion over
this area with Sol, I am not currently aware of it.
The god/goddess who created our god and
goddess
The god and goddess who created the local area's god and goddess are
the beings that most of us think of as God. At least, according to
my understanding, which could easily (and undoubtedly will) change.
It took me a while to work up the courage to contact God.
Potentially more
There is always another way of organizing this information, which is
one reason why I titled this section "Potentially more." Another
reason is that in addition to these levels of beings, there could be
more.
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