"What is Channeling?"

Channeling is a spiritual practice. When a person begins to channel, he embarks on a voyage of discovery. It is a voyage that will take him deeply into himself and into the world around him. It can open the Universe to him.

Curiosity is also a good reason to undertake channeling. Healthy curiosity is one of the motivating forces of the universe. This is a good motivation. It is the kind of curiosity that inspired Einstein. It is not the motivation that seeks to have what we already know enforced. It is the desire to know simply and openly for its own sake. Channeling is exploring and opening new paths with our consciousness.

The ultimate motivation for channeling is service. No one is forced to channel. In truth, it is a practice that we willingly undertake. No karma requires us to do it. Those who so choose say in effect, “I would like to receive and work with this energy.” Channels are always volunteers.

For myself I can say that the energy I work with is so much wiser than my normal consciousness. (See excerpts from Alex’s channeling sessions.) When I channel I feel tremendously energized and uplifted by it. There are unlimited things that the energy can do, the energy is unlimited. It is the channel that is always the limit.

“Channeling” is a new word for what once was known as “mediumship.” The dictionary tells us that a “medium” is “an individual held to be a channel of communication between the earthly world and the world of the spirits.” To be a medium meant to be a means by which consciousness of one kind found its way from one place to another. More specifically, mediumship meant the ability of humans to receive messages from discarnate or spirit beings and to make the messages known to others through themselves.

The tradition of mediums was that they made themselves available as instruments, much like musical instruments, to another consciousness. Mediumship can be traced to Biblical times and no doubt goes back into prehistory. As the world’s religions conceived of this behavior, the “God” or “gods” made their will known, foretold pre-ordained events, or otherwise communicated with ordinary people through the person who was possessed by the divinity.

The spirit had need of a person who was willing to permit himself to be used as a vehicle of communication. The “oracle” (from the Latin word meaning “to speak”) was known among the Romans and the Greeks, the Japanese, Jews, Indians, Chinese, and many other peoples, as a person who communicated with the gods. Often the oracle entered into a trance state to deliver the message.

Where do these ‘entities’ come from? They can come from anywhere at all. From the lowest, most primitive places or from the most exalted, the most divine, even from the Creative Force, which is the ultimate force of the universe.

There are those who don’t believe that you can channel this force; that it would destroy you with its power or that it is so remote it is unreachable. I disagree. I wouldn’t put it past the Creative Force to do anything, including channel itself through humans, as it is supposed to have done in Bible stories.

Unfortunately, there are “demonic forces” that can be channeled, and there are people who channel them. The notion that one can be “possessed” against one’s will by these forces is not entirely true. Almost always the channel has invited the entity in voluntarily and then changed his mind only to discover that it was not easy to regain control of the body. In other cases the channel unwittingly left the door open for a negative entity. Nevertheless, with the right training and with some skilled outside help, it is almost always possible to regain control form an unwanted entity.

Most channels throughout history had a very limited cosmological viewpoint, were tainted by superstition, and had virtually on understanding of what they were actually doing. As a result, some of the worst sources of information about channeling have been the channels themselves.

What distinguishes me from other channels in general (though surely not all) is that I have a very great interest in understanding what is exactly taking place. I want to know where it comes from, how it works, and what it all means. I am not content just to do it, I need to know what I am doing so that I can teach others how.

There are many nuances and differences in the roles of the channel in different cultures and at different times. Prophecy in the Old Testament for example, took on the notion of the futuristic and of fate. That is, that the God Yahweh was not only clarifying the situation of the moment through the prophet but also giving instructions about what had to be done in the future.

Yahweh either spoke to or put thoughts into the head of Moses from the Burning Bush, for example. These thought contained instructions. Moses later did things that he didn’t believe were possible, according to the Bible even as he was about to do them. They weren’t done by him, he was the channel for the energy that worked the miracles.

There existed a place for channeling and prophecy or oracular behavior within the context of religion but it was not always limited to that. Many channels functioned as heretics to the established religious beliefs of their times. The aspect of revelation was always central to the nature of channeling. The problem with this was that there existed an intrinsic conflict between religion (or rather, religious leaders as the Establishment) and those who served a higher authority.

As a Power that is supposed to be constant, consistent and truthful, embodying a dogma about life and the nature of the universe and God (as they perceived and understood God) with rules about every aspect of life, Religion was inherently incapable of change and the acceptance of new prophecy that might conflict with that which they already held sacristant. Therefore, Religion was always fearful of something as inherently spontaneous and uncontrollable as channeling.

Channeling constantly offers the possibility that the “god, gods,” or “God” can change all the rules at a moment’s notice. It is very hard for the people who are invested with positions of power in institutionalized religion (the priestly class or even the common people who want the universe and society to be orderly and predictable) to entertain the notion of novel information that might change important aspects of their lives.

If God speaks once and you write it all down, and if you have ten commandments and you want to add another, you’ve unsettled things quite a bit. Mohammed was The Prophet, but after Mohammed there were no others permitted. If God changes His mind (gets another prophet to add to the original message), what happens to Mohammed? Was he wrong?

The original prophet (who after all, was just a human being who channeled divine energy), was often thought of as a semi-divine or divine being himself. Religions often started with the prophet, they embraced prophecy, and then they immediately banned it. And prophets who came thereafter were no longer regarded as divine but as demonic.

People have an attachment to the old and new truths challenge that. Truth meets us in all areas where we are ‘stuck’ in old ways of thinking and doing. It challenges us to think in new ways. Prophecy and channeling, when it is Truth that is channeled, can be very confronting and challenging to individuals as well as the Establishment. That’s why channels have gotten into trouble with the authorities (as did John The Baptist) since ancient times.  The truth often requires us to throw away all of our coping devices, all of the ways we have developed to deal with the problems of our lives, our crutches. Few people find this to be easy.

The ‘opening’ that the channel offers gives us an opportunity to explore new territory, within our lives and in our consciousness. If we ever come to the point in our lives where we are ready to explore bravely, then the channel can be like Columbus inviting you to get onto his ship.

Confusion about whether you are talking to the devil or talking to angels often doesn’t have anything to do with angels or devils. It has to do with fear. Fearful people have always accused people of consorting with demons, whether true or not.

If a person is in a channeling situation and they want to know whether someone is channeling a demon or an angel, the answer has a lot to do with where the questioner’s mind is at that moment. If a person is asleep and someone comes into the room and startles him by throwing on the light, he might very well be angry. He might think it was a demon that threw on the light and molested his sleep. But more likely it was an angel.

Sometimes people don’t want to be told that they can change their lives, for example, that they are responsible for their condition. They can cite all kinds of evidence as to why they have no power over their lives. “I didn’t come here to hear this, this is fraud! This is the Devil!” People often come to spiritual things unprepared. But then, can one ever be prepared enough for the unexpected encounter with the Light?

If you acknowledge that you have doubts about the voracity of channeling (which is quite normal for persons experiencing it for the first time), and are willing to set that aside for a brief space of time, then you have a chance to get something from a channel. If you are not willing to do that then you probably won’t get much benefit at all. If someone’s ‘own stuff’ is in the way, how can that person tell whether a channel is bringing through something of value?

Channeling goes against everything we are taught in childhood and especially everything we are taught in school. We are taught to see everything through our conscious, ‘rational’ minds, to objectify the experience of life and to look at it in a very ‘masculine,’ utilitarian and anti-emotional way.

Although the highest level of science has a large intuitive component in it, that intuitive insight must always be quantified and brought ‘down-to-earth’ to be placed in a box where the rational mind can grasp it. We are taught to try to control thoughts and ideas, to work them, shape them, mold and manipulate them.

We are never taught to let thoughts or ideas work on us. We are never taught to contemplate in the truest sense of the word (to look deeply into things). The Contemplum was an open space where Roman soothsayers carefully observed the auguries (prophecies and predictions).

One of the approaches to understanding the universe is through the practice of a craft or an art. The ultimate prayer and meditation is the deep immersion of the self in a practice of a craft or an art. Music and weaving speak directly to me as spiritual practices that are similar to the channel’s art.

When a channel receives and transmits the message or the energy of an entity, the channel is, so-to-speak, part of one thread of the overall fabric of the universe. Looking at the thread, the pattern of the whole cloth may not be entirely obvious (as in brocade where many colored threads disappear and reappear later at varying intervals without showing how they are connected form beneath the surface of the cloth). After examining many such threads, like we experience many diverse energies in the universe, eventually the patterns begin to evidence themselves.

Channeling has opened many doors for me. I once thought I knew what the differences were between a channel, a prophet, an oracle, etc. I now feel that they are all different aspects of the same thing. These practices all converge, so-to-speak, at the apex of the pyramid. To put it another way, the fingers and the toes are connected but they are unaware of it themselves.

The procedure of channeling involves a form of meditation. Most types of meditation are practices that are meant to get the ‘little self’ out of the way so that in the silence one can hear the ‘Absolute.’ All meditation does this in one way or another. My technique is original, and I have developed it out of several practices that I have combined in a very practical way. Meditation is a means towards an end. Therefore, it is not the meditation that is mysterious or mystical but rather the results that are.

Channeling is not for people who have spiritual agendas. It is a path that leads us, but we do not know where it leads until it takes us there. We must give up notions of a goal and become involved in the process, the ‘journey.’ Some people come into channeling and they want to produce results right away. When this doesn’t happen, they work from their subconscious and their egos.

When we surrender to the process, we simply show up, do our part and wait. And the universe delivers in its own time, and in the ways that it sees fit. Flowers bloom in their season and wheat ripens in the fields in its own time. It is the same with us.

In a way, the best channel is ‘lazy’ (doesn’t care about results or try too hard to produce them), un-ambitious (doesn’t care about fame or worldly success), pliable (willing to be guided and directed), and unstructured (the straight line is notnecessarily the shortest distance between two points in a non-Euclidean universe).

It’s not what you do but what you don’t do that makes you a good channel. Learning how to be a good channel is about learning how to get out of the way. But what do we mean by this? When you are out of the way, your ego, your agendas, are out of the way, your bodily preoccupation is out of the way, your emotions and intellectual obsessions are out of the way.

What is left is a big hole (within the whole).  What happens is that people have to be prepared to let go of control over their thought processes (but not of their emotions because in order to get emotion out of the way, emotion has to be sidelined so that you do not react to what is happening through you. Emotional turbulence clouds transmission).

People need to open their minds to a kind of thought process that is revelationary. It isn’t a passive state, but rather a receptive one. I like the term ‘listening mode,’ which is receptive, as opposed to ‘talking mode,’ which is active. Listening is a receptive, quiet, non-judgmental process. In the ‘talking mode’ the mind is expressing the personality. When we express ourselves, we create and recreate ourselves.

The first barrier to success in channeling is fear and the second is amazement. Often, people are simply awestruck at what happens to them. The awestruck response is as much a barrier as fear because it is an emotional response which is a reaction that takes you out of the experience and puts you into the role of a viewer. You become ‘the dancer’ rather than ‘the dance.’

Channeling is very much a ‘being’ state (though it involves actions.) It has all the appearance of doing but it is not. What it is not is the ‘little you,’ it is the ‘higher you.’ It is not the part that normally runs the show, so-to-speak.

In the same way, the human mind is innately creative in the sense that we must come forth from it as a function of our very nature. It expresses itself automatically in the world. It is this that must be set aside. If you are an artist of course, you remain present at all times to mediate the inspiration. But as a channel you are an ‘instrument-for-hire.’

It is evident that mediums have always been used throughout the world, whatever the tradition, to render miracles for the supernatural world. This is a supposition on my part, but apparently ‘the gods’ need humans to make themselves felt from time to time. I like to think that this makes us co-creationists with all that is Divine in the universe.