When I was young, the term “channeling” had a very specific meaning. It was allowing another entity to take over your body and speak through you. Entities like Seth, Ramtha, Abraham, and Jesus became well-known. Most channels go unconscious during the process.
There are several issues with this approach. For one, it is really hard on the physiology of the channel. Most had to stop. They’re breaking their integration of body, mind, and spirit, interfering with their evolution.
Second, divine beings would never take anyone’s autonomy like this, so they were only ever astral beings, even if they offered a fancy or holy name.
It was also difficult to verify that they were who they claimed to be. Some were clearly misrepresenting who they were. (And some channels were putting on an act, at least some of the time.)
More recently, the word channeling has taken on a broader meaning, of getting downloads or intuitive hits or reading the akashic records or flowing energy in various ways. Essentially, it means getting flows from deeper places than the mind.
The old meaning is now called trans-mediumship. This variation in meaning means it’s good to be clear on what someone means when they use the term channeling.
And always remember that the vessel always filters the quality of the information, however high the source. That includes this blog.
For more on this topic, I wrote a related article about a decade ago.
Davidya
Awesome topic David.
One advice given to me when the channels opened up was:
Confirm if there’s truth to what you get
Do not become a slave to anything from the ideology that they are higher. Talk as friend and you get friend like conversation, talk like a slave and you get a master.
Find the difference between your awareness of physical senses and clair senses and learn what new information you have access to when you hold the awareness for each.
Refrain from using emotions and ideology as a roadmap.
Interesting, approach, Stephen.
But I’d agree. Any being that wants any kind of power over you is bad news. Even if they dangle interesting carrots.
The basic principle I use is – how do they feel? Appearances can be entirely misleading and can also point to power issues.
And yes – we each have a dominant sense and style of knowing. For example, we may be visual with a gut knowing or feeling with a somatic knowing, etc.
I agree emotions are not a good way of knowing but fine feelings may be. This gets muddy if we’re not clear on the difference. 🙂
Hi David! I disagree with your comments regarding Divine beings never using channeling (more specific mediumship/temporary body control) as a mean of spiritual guidance and service. Actually this has been a tool used throught all human history, especially in the cycles of cosmic time where humanity were in a more intermediary spiritual level.
But they are indeed rare. The only recent case I know was the Divine entity called The Guide channeled for 22 years by Eva Pierrakos in the 50s well into the 70s almost 80s.
The total body of work is called the “Pathwork”.
She channeled him one a time month, the sessions were recorded and then transcripted into lectures that are avaiable today freely in their website.
There is nothing neutral in the world of duality that Divinity wouldn’t use to express itself and fullfill its Will, there are no limits to God, not even mediumship.
You know that better than me Im certain.
I particularly have never seen any type of spiritual material/scripture — human or channeled — that comes even close to the one shared by The Guide, everything that is possible to be conveyed in human/symbolic language is there. I think you, a curious and analytical cat like me, might like it!
P.S: In the first 30 lectures I — a guy that comes from a more buddhist/vedic perspective — was very “triggered” by certain aspects, I suppose you will too, but my suggestion is to keep going!
Much love! Xoxo
Hi Gui
Here’s where we get into the types of channel. If the being is taking over the person to speak through their body, this is taking over their self-authority and reducing the integration of body, mind, & spirit. That’s very hard on the person. A divine being would never do this. This isn’t to say the entity may present as divine in appearance and claim. I’ve certainly seen that. And people faking it.
On the other hand, if the being is speaking to the person and they are sharing what is being said (the newer type of channel), this may be a divine being. The question to me then is – do they know the difference? Or is this just something that happened? Do they even have celestial perception?
This also may reflect what you mean by “divine.” Guides are typically humans or other races between physical lifetimes. They have a light body but are not divine. Divine beings live in the higher levels. Even a God-realized human is still a human living in a lower level.
I agree that God has no limits. But divine beings have ethics.
I looked at some Pathways material some time ago. I’m glad you found benefit.
Very interesting answer David. For me it’s clear that you have projected some very hard limitations on divinity and divine beings that they simply do not even acknowledge, but is just my opinion and their word of course.
And the part of being taxing to the body is far from being an absolute rule.
“If the being is taking over the person to speak through their body, this is taking over their self-authority and reducing the integration of body, mind, & spirit. That’s very hard on the person.”
First of all that’s not true, in Africa people have been channeling (full body control) for thousands of years and in Brazil for more than a hundred years at least.
Mediums, both while in trance state or normal state that employ the use of witchcraft and magic to interfere with physical reality and peoples lives/minds do get their bodies and minds desregulated very severely and indeed have a high chance of developing a myriad of diseases, being in fact only a question of time.
But use of witchcraft with the help and influence of dark entitities is one thing, mediumship is another.
The authority aspect is also wrong, channeling is not possession, you only enter it if you get into a trance state and open yourself to the inteligence that wants to manifest, and if you enter trance state but refuse to channell usually the manifestation will cease indefinitely.
It’s true that most entities channeled in this way are astral and can change body posture and voice in pretty radical way, and it is also true that the more primitive the entity the more severe/impressionable the physical change will be, and the more taxing it will feel in the body/psyche.
But for the most cases mediums that channel astral entities that are doing divine guided/pro-integration work between lives – which are the majority of the cases — describe positive energies and sensations during and after the manifestation.
And most have the same lifespan as ordinary people, I say this by experience, as Im Brazillian and know many mediums of this type, is super common here.
Channeling is a phenomena as complex and vast as any other spiritual endeavor like yoga, astrology and so on.
But is a consensus that the “caliber” of the entity that is coming through depends on the overall spiritual development of the medium and in the cases regarding divine beings there is usually a karmic/dharmic possibility fixed prior to incarnation.
Highly purified incarnated human beings + the karmic/dharmic relationships necessary are two sets of conditions that might not be very easy to align in this dark age that we have being living the last thousands of years, which could be an explanation to why so little of it is heard of and even deemed impossible by some.
And regarding the types of Guides, yes Im well are of the usual types that you mentioned. The guide from the Pathwork is not that type, it’s divine by his own words, you are allowed to not believe it of course.
I dont want to seem confrontational nor am I trying to convince you of anything, just providing clarity from where Im coming from.
Love talking to you! Good night.
Hi Gui
No, it’s not projecting limitations, it’s my experience. It’s not limitation, it’s the guidelines they operate under. For example, humans have free will, but still must operate within the laws of nature. Every arena has its rules.
Of course, there are differences in physiologies and technique that would influence effects. My tradition warned against such activities for the reasons I mentioned, and I’ve since confirmed this. I’ve seen a number of channelers have to quit and have spoken with a couple of them about it. I’ve also seen the hazards that mediums can face. And not by adding other techniques.
And of course, your experience may be different. And yes, it’s a diverse arena. But I’ve learned it’s better to go higher and avoid the trouble.
Hey David, what do you think of ‚conversation with god‘?
Hi Daniel
I was part of a discussion group that got into them some years ago. There’s some good material in there, but it comes through a context that is incomplete.
I agree. Neal’s communion with God is real enough since the words that come out of his books have a certain weight to it.
However, I find that we are limited to what we are aware of. If you don’t know Brahman, for example, God will only reciprocate up to your awareness in his conversations with you.
Our relationship with God is not limited by God’s availability but by our present receptivity and access.
Maybe Neil is like that?
Exactly, Stephen. This becomes very clear in the embodiment process, where the depth of our clarity is dependent on the quality of the vessel.
Hi David. Interesting subject. I started rereading an old Seth book just the other day I had and felt that there was a lot of good insights there. It’s amazingly technical at points too and hard to follow.
Seems though that channelling isn’t no longer as popular as it was earlier years ago, when youtube seemed to be full of Kryon, Abraham and all sorts of other channelled stuff. Also don’t see as many channelled books released. I remember watching a lot of that stuff at some point and the message almost always was something like “Soon everything will shift, next year humanity will ascend and you’ll be living in a totally different higher reality” and of course next year it was the same thing again. lol
Hi Olli
I found the energy of the Seth books too unpleasant, but I did read one back in the 70’s.
I wouldn’t use YouTube as a gauge of what’s popular. They shift what’s shown to you for income. Some of that is based on popularity, but…. Agreed though, I think entity channelers have faded as it’s really hard on the person and people have gone deeper, into more direct sources.
(laughs) Yes, a friend of mine is tracking the predictions of a coming transition. There are still many talking about it. Personally, I know it’s coming because of all the shifts in consciousness, but I don’t have a sense of when as there’s still too much free will in play.
When I was young, it was a running gag for cartoons to have a guy on the street with a sign saying “The End is Near.” 🙂