Paranormal phenomena seen in connection with channeling

Channeling is a process whereby an individual (the ”channeler”) claims to have been invaded by a spirit entity, which speaks through the channeler. It is claimed to be the ability to make contact with divine creatures and levels of consciousness, which is thought to possess informations of spiritual value for people, and through the body mediate communication from these levels.

The phenomenon plays a great role within the New Age environment.

Channeling is grown out of the 19^th century spiritualistic and occult environments, where special so-called ”mediums” received messages from for instance dead relatives and passed on these to a circle of people at special ”séances”. In this early ”channeling” the ability to be ”medium” were perceived as exclusive and something, which not all were able to.

The modern channeling-phenomenon, where you no longer speak of ”medium”, but of ”the channel” (that is to say: the one who channels), has roots in Theosophy, and its conceptions of The Great White Brotherhood, a hierarchy of spiritual masters (see my article The fascism of Theosophy).

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, who is one of the founders of Theosophical Society, became in New York in 1873 precisely involved in the American spiritualist movement, where she established herself as medium and started to give séances. After the foundation of Theosophical Society in 1875 she started her first book, ”Isis Unveiled”, which was published in 1877. The year after she and Harry Steel Olcott moved to India, where Blavatsky started to receive ”messages” from so-called Mahatmas, spiritual masters.

After that Richard Hodgson, in his 1885 report to the Society for Psychical Research (SPR), concluded that Blavatsky was a fraud, and didn´t receive the claimed messages, but invented them herself, she moved to London, where she tried to recover after the scandal. The report has later been questioned, though. In London Blavatsky began her life as an author.

Influenced by the works of Madame Blavatsky, another theosophist, Alice Bailey, described the majority of her own works as having been telepathically dictated to her by a “master of the Wisdom”, initially referred to only as “the Tibetan”, or by the initials “D,K.”, later identified as Djwal Khul.

The theosophical influenced UFO religions are an expression of the modern making use of channeling with for instance messages from space gods and galactic masters.

Within the New Age environment channeling today plays a still greater role as one of the many rituals, and, contrary to the early spiritualistic forerunners, channeling is considered as an indwelling ability, which all people can learn, if they open their spiritual consciousness. In this way there is held courses and educations on channeling. It is therefore the same Consumer Capitalistic spirituality, where you can buy yourself to spiritual authority, which also is seen in all kinds of other connections within the New Age environment (see my articles Six common traits of New Age that distort spirituality, and Management theory and the self-help industry).

There are in that way many non-enlightened New Age teachers today – (they might very well have strange paranormal abilities, it doesn´t matter in this question) – who get authority by claiming, that their teaching, either is coming from a state of enlightenment, is being channeled from some kind of divine source, or are coming from clairvoyant abilities.

If such teachers put their teaching forward in this way, you can be hundred procent sure, that this teacher has a problem with ego-inflation - if he is not directly a fraud  -and them there are thousands of within New Age (see my articles The ego-inflation in the New Age and self-help environment, and Spiritual crises as the cause of paranormal phenomena) Why? Because no real enlightened master, or sober spiritual teacher, would argue in this way. True enlightened masters, or sober spiritual teachers, speak from their own source, and are always characterized by humility. Just look at Dalai Lama, who incessantly claims, that he hasn´t reached the full Rigpa, and that he is just a beginner. True enlightened masters, as well as sober spiritual teachers, are also always philosophers, who are giving reasons and presenting arguments to support conclusions.

Beside the already above-mentioned links, there are especially three problems with channeling:

1) The one problem is the thought distortion called Truth by Authority. Truth by Authority is about taking statements to be true simply because an alleged authority (experts, teachers, states of enlightenment, divine sources, paranormal abilities, etc.) on the matter has said/justified that they are true. A level of critical thinking is always appropriate, because the statement may be based on magical thinking, false premises, faulty reasoning, wishful thinking or vested interests.

People, who in their arguments/teachings, again and again, have to defer to some authority (experts, teachers, states of enlightenment, divine sources, paranormal abilities) in order to justify their arguments/teachings, are hundred procent on the wrong track, even if they should have some paranormal abilities. It is interesting to see, that true enlightened masters, as well as sober spiritual teachers, never do this. And interesting, that probably most of the many people, who have made a business of being clairvoyant/mediums/channelers etc., will fall for Truth by Authority.

3) Another problem is, that spiritual seen, then nobody can tell you about your karmacially structures, or your spiritual evolution. All people, models or techniques - clairvoyants, channelers, regression therapists, shamans, Theosophy, Astrologers, prophets etc. etc. - who are claiming they can help you karmacial – that is: with your spiritual growth - are cognitional and ethical delusional and deceptive.

The genuine karmacially structures do not lie in the collective time, but in the universal time, which work in synchronism with the Now. If the karma idea is used spiritual seen correctly, then the focus, instead of being projected out in something afar (past lifes, a guru, birth, the future, Theosophy), will be present in something very near, namely only in the most intensive experiences of this actual life, and after that: in this actual Now with its possibility of realizing your innermost (read more about karma in my article What is karma?).

So the universal images are lying as a kind of dream-tracks and song-lines in your actual life here and now. Only here and now they can be discovered. Only Man himself can find the progressive karma. The consciousness has the key in its life. It helps nothing, what people through a system may be able to think about the collective time, or fantasize about karmacially experiences and spiritual evolution. Many of these experiences (for example about past lifes) – and which have a certain reality for either the clairvoyant or the channeler – are collective fantasies (see my articles Paranormal phenomena seen in connection with clairvoyance, Paranormal phenomena seen in connection with spiritual practice, and Paranormal phenomena seen in connection with mystical experiences).

3) The third problem is the problem of pseudohistory. Pseudohistory is purported history such as Afrocentrism, creationism, holocaust revisionism and the catastrophism of Immanuel Velikovsky. Pseudohistory should be distinguished from the ancient texts it is based on. The sagas, legends, myths and histories, which have been passed on orally or in written documents by ancient peoples are sometimes called pseudohistory. Some of it is pseudohistory, some of it is flawed history and some of isn´ t history at all.

Pseudohistory should also be distinguished from historical fiction and fantasy. Anyone who cites a work of historical fiction as if it were a historical text is a practicing pseudohistorian. There are also writers of historical fiction who intentionally falsify and invent ancient history. A technique to do this is to claim to find an ancient document and publishing it in order to express one´ s own ideas. An example is The Celestine Prophecy, and The WingMakers story. A variation on this theme is to claim that one is channeling a book from some ancient being, e.g, The Urantia Book and Bringers of the Dawn (see my article The pseudoscience of New Age and reductionism). 

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