WHAT IS CHANNELING?
By Carla L. Rueckert
Channeling is the reproduction by words or sounds of concepts not generated within one’s own conscious mind but transmitted from the subconscious mind or through the subconscious mind into the conscious mind from an impersonal or nonpersonal entity or principle. A good analogy to channeling would be the pipe which carries water. The pipe does not create the water, but rather receives it from a source external to its own identity. There are things a pipe or channel can be and do to enhance the delivery of pure channeling/water through itself: it can keep itself clean and free from corrosion; it can remove obstructions; it can strengthen its walls or enlarge its diameter; it can make new connections. However, the only control it has over the water it channels through itself is the care with which it has allowed itself to be connected; the only control a pipe has over the appropriateness of the position and place of efflux of this water is its care in positioning that opening. And of course, it must obey the mechanical rules of water distribution, which are quite simple, but inexorable.
People are designed to be channels, just as a pipe is designed to carry water. Indeed, in a sense, we all channel our lives moment by moment, thought by thought, relationship by relationship and experience by experience. Seldom is what we say, think and do completely under our conscious control. Almost always we are, to some extent, channeling unconscious thoughts. Any seminar which advertises that it can teach you to “get in touch with your psychic powers” is preparing for itself an extremely easy and potentially fruitful job-fruitful to the seminar holders financially perhaps, and personally almost surely; fruitful to the participants only to the extent of their own intuition and common sense and the tools that they have been given by their instructors. Since there is a gap between what common sense can tell you and what most instructors can express in a single seminar, the student must either learn further by making mistakes, as I did, or come across information such as this which is at least intended to bridge the gap.
There are too many kinds of channeling to mention. Perhaps the image which represents channeling to the average person is that of the spiritualist seance. In this practice, a medium sits with a group of people who wish to communicate with ghosts of one kind or another, relatives, Indian guides, spirit doctors, inner-plane masters, and so forth. This form of mediumship is not the kind of channeling about which I know much, and those who wish to learn to be spiritualistic mediums are advised to go to a Spiritualist church and inquire as to where the nearest center is that offers such a course of teaching. I note this, not because I have any disapproval of the practice, nor because I am unfamiliar with the practice of spiritualistic mediumship, but because it and other well-established and thorough schools of mediumship-the American Indian tradition and its medicine men and women are another good example-offer a perfectly adequate and perhaps somewhat specialized form of instruction to interested students. This book may be of help to one who is already under the instruction of a Spiritualist teacher or an American Indian medicine person, but it can never be a substitute for the support of the whole tradition.
Of course I don’t pretend or expect that this volume can be a substitute for the on-going support of a teacher and a supporting group of other channels and students, but in a less structured line of channeling, the book does become far more helpful.
What other types of channeling are there then? The religious and traditional, for one. The prophets and some few saints in the Christian church were channels. The Old Testament is filled with the beauty of the prophets’ words, most notably Isaiah’s, whose words about the sacrificial lamb were so very prophetic of the Incarnation of Jesus the Christ. These holy men and women saw visions, heard voices. Moses, in fact, heard the words of the Lord straight out and merely reported on the conversation.
Then there are the new-age religions, and independent but vaguely Christian sources which channel archangels, various lesser angelic presences, spiritual masters of various kinds, such as Kuthumi, and of course, Jesus, under various names. In some of the best of this kind of channeling one is uplifted and one’s feelings are elevated to a rarefied joy by the inspirational writing of the channel. The religious channel has an obvious bias, and consequently the message does not “get through” to everyone who happens to read the material. The Bible, for example, is the best-selling channeling of all time, but it does not appeal to every reader and many are the Bibles which carry far more dust than fingerprints. One of my friends recently read STARSEED TRANSMISSIONS, and tossed it aside without a second thought.
“Didn’t you like the work?” I asked.
“I got absolutely nothing out of it,” he replied.
For him the religious content so interfered with his ability to accept the material that all of the superstructure of concept and detail which had so inspired me served to shut his ears. One who desires to channel a religious presence, therefore, will need to come to terms with the fact that the bias of the material will block that material from many listeners and readers.
There is a large category of metaphysical channeling sources and an almost gaudy grab bag of extraterrestrial beings, ascended masters, principles, nature spirits, and uncategorizeable individuals. There are philosophers which offer general counsel as well as a fairly thorough philosophical system in which the counsel is seated which have, in addition to a fairly coherent philosophy and point of view, the willingness to offer rather extensive and personal information to individuals. The ascended masters are channeled by several large and organized groups of instruments, such as the Order of the Rosy Cross, Eckankar and Theosophists. Many a person has channeled Kuthumi; many an Astaran has discovered Zoser for himself, and so forth. The common theme of the inner-master channeling is the belief in the rightness of the proposition that there are some individuals who have, at some point in their life experience, gained access to great and hidden wisdom and who have, after death, chosen to remain both discarnate and available to those of us who seek the truth during our lives on Earth. This belief in a gnostical hierarchy of wisdom predicates that there be someone able to tell the truth-seeker how to find the gatekeeper of each door which unlocks the next layer or hierarchy of understanding, the next piece of wisdom which will, in the end, cause us to become masters ourselves. Most of these systems teach the channeling in a coherent and useable format, and I can only recommend to those who are interested in this kind of channeling that, as always, discrimination should be used, and those powers of discrimination honed carefully, for although one system may seem much like another, each comes with a dogma or doctrine with which it is necessary to be conversant and to accept, at least in some part, in order for the student’s experience with the system to be satisfactory. Indeed, part of middle America, the lodge-Moose, Elk, Mason, Shriner-is a good example of this basic gnostic kind of channeling. I am not saying that your husband or father, boyfriend, or nephew is channeling when he goes to a Shriner’s convention. However, those who structured these organizations were certainly channeling this type of “wisdom” information.
Perhaps the most famous of the metaphysical or philosophical channels is Edgar Cayce, whose channeling indicated that its source was the Akashic Record itself. Cayce’s work has been especially interesting to researchers because of the completeness with which records were kept of sessions in which many evidential details were given which proved to be true and which produced a large number of healings. The accuracy of the healing channelings causes even the most scientifically oriented researcher to express at least some interest in the philosophical material that echoes through the healing material and takes up the center stage of the readings which were supported by those who paid to ask philosophical questions. Edgar Cayce is no longer incarnate, but the same Akashic Record claims now to be present again in the channeling of Awareness by Paul Shockley of the Aquarian Church of Universal Service in McMinnville, Oregon.
There are fairies, and yes, Tinker Bell, I will clap for you! Such are the musings of one who is seriously studying the work with nature spirits of medicine men and women in the American Indian tradition, fairy tale buffs and Findhorn, to name three sources. Findhorn’s account of the contact with the plant devas and the subsequent growing of very large and healthy vegetables in the barren, sandy soil of the northern coast of Scotland is most impressive, and the American Indian tradition is also persuasive in its accounts of the relationship of sensitive Indian men and women with the spirits of their elk, eagle and so forth.
There is a large variety of purported UFO contactees. Phylos, Clarion, and George Hunt Williamson’s channeling of Brother Philip all speak of, or are themselves, allegedly extraterrestrial contacts. There are many channels of a group calling itself the Federation of Planets, the Confederation of Planets or the Confederation of Planets in the Service of the Infinite Creator. I, myself, am one of those channels. Especially interesting is the channeling of Vinod and Probert of “The Nine” and the channeling, which was only possible by Uri Geller’s presence, of Hoova.
Rather than attempting to be complete in any of these categories of channeling I shall dismiss that hopeless task with a shrug and a grin. You see, there are literally millions of people channeling on Earth today, channeling all kinds of entities. Far from such information being rare, it is almost unimaginably plentiful. I have personally channeled hundreds of thousands of words and seen millions more in others’ transcripts and books. The activity is pervasive for a very simple reason: it is part of human nature. And, like any other thing that man can do, it is a thing that most predictably will continue to be done, sometimes poorly, sometimes exquisitely well.