Channeling
October 31st 2006 07:31
Channeling is an intriguing but much challenged form of spiritual practice. It pushes the boundaries of belief and our concepts of communicating.
By definition, channeling is the exchange of information between the human and spirit world. A spirit will communicates with a human in either an internal dialogue or the human can choose to speak this information to others. This can either happen two ways. There is the trance state where the person is believed to actually leave their physical body and the spirit enters it for a short period. The other form of channeling is conscious channeling. The channeler remains in their body and is aware of their surroundings and the entity speaks through them.
If you do an Internet search of channels you will see just what an amazing array of entities and spirits there are speaking to whoever wants to listen. From Jesus and Buddha through to extra-terrestrials and Egyptian gods, the variety is impressive and sometimes amusing.
Channeling is easily challenged as there is no way of measuring or validating what messages are being given and it really comes down to the indiviuduals faith in the channeler. Sceptics will say it is either out and out fraud to manipulate people or delusion on the part of the medium or channeler. This is particulalrly so when the channeler starts to gather a following.
Yet channeling is a huge part of mainstream religion. Most religions are based on prophets or leaders who communicated directly with God or spirits who guided them to share their insights with others. Jesus himself took retreat away from people to speak directly to God. Moses received the Ten Commandments by this means of communication.
It is our human limitations that pull us back and make us question stepping out of our definable boundaries. These limits serve to protect us and help us function in the tangible world. It is quite natural then to question anything beyond these measurable boundaries. We want to fit in and make others fit in with this model.
However it is the people that push boundaries that help us progress, whether it is individually or as a society. This happens in all fields whether it be arts or medicine. Individuals who are brave enough to try something new or step beyond can later be regarded as revolutionaries or prophets. The real challenge is the belief in self to step across these boundaries.
By definition, channeling is the exchange of information between the human and spirit world. A spirit will communicates with a human in either an internal dialogue or the human can choose to speak this information to others. This can either happen two ways. There is the trance state where the person is believed to actually leave their physical body and the spirit enters it for a short period. The other form of channeling is conscious channeling. The channeler remains in their body and is aware of their surroundings and the entity speaks through them.
If you do an Internet search of channels you will see just what an amazing array of entities and spirits there are speaking to whoever wants to listen. From Jesus and Buddha through to extra-terrestrials and Egyptian gods, the variety is impressive and sometimes amusing.
Channeling is easily challenged as there is no way of measuring or validating what messages are being given and it really comes down to the indiviuduals faith in the channeler. Sceptics will say it is either out and out fraud to manipulate people or delusion on the part of the medium or channeler. This is particulalrly so when the channeler starts to gather a following.
Yet channeling is a huge part of mainstream religion. Most religions are based on prophets or leaders who communicated directly with God or spirits who guided them to share their insights with others. Jesus himself took retreat away from people to speak directly to God. Moses received the Ten Commandments by this means of communication.
It is our human limitations that pull us back and make us question stepping out of our definable boundaries. These limits serve to protect us and help us function in the tangible world. It is quite natural then to question anything beyond these measurable boundaries. We want to fit in and make others fit in with this model.
However it is the people that push boundaries that help us progress, whether it is individually or as a society. This happens in all fields whether it be arts or medicine. Individuals who are brave enough to try something new or step beyond can later be regarded as revolutionaries or prophets. The real challenge is the belief in self to step across these boundaries.
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Comment by Wendi
I've got experience with the Tarot both as a reader and as one who has been read. I'm a huge fan of John Edward and other known mediums, and I believe I've "felt" lost loved ones communicating, particularly through dreams. I believe in hauntings.... yet I have trouble swallowing the term channeling. I'm not sure why. I believe it may be a trust issue.
I like watching paranormal programs on television and deciding for myself which I might believe, and which shows are just obvious creative drama with bad actors for the sake of ratings. The ones I am drawn to always include a skeptic, use scientific equipment, present all the facts and possibilities, and in most cases, allow the viewer to draw their own conclusion. The shows I watch for entertainment (scoffing at the t.v., that is) are the ones that have constant "channeling", by invitation or otherwise. It isn't believable. They're predictable.
One of the guys on one of the shows always ends up channeling someone or some thing. It's a riot... his body jolts, his head tilts back, his voice will often become raspy, his breath thickens... and yet, no matter who or what he's channeling, he NEVER loses his British accent or involuntary verbal quarks. That always puzzled me.
I went to a professional channeler once because I'm open to new things and was curious to know what the experience would be like. I didn't discard or disregard the information the woman offered, but I don't feel she offered me anything concrete that could let me know for sure that she was tapping into something other than her own imagination or good psychology.
I'm open to the possibility that channeling may be more fact than fiction, even if a rare ability. But I can't say for sure I believe it exists because I haven't yet experienced undeniable proof - the personal kind, not the scientific kind. I have to experience it in order to know it.
I like the biblical ties you represented here. I often compare magick with miracles and prayer with meditation.
Comment by Marisa
New Spirit New Energy
I recently met a woman who lets spirits speak through her. When I asked he about her channeling she replied "I don't like to call it channeling, I prefer seeing it as translating energy"
I quite liked that. As you have experienced I believe we can feel the other side as long as we are open to it. Some may hear voices, some may just have an understanding.
Trust is a huge issue here. We are so conditioned to this illuison of a veil seperating the realms that to truly accept we may have communicated or felt across it relies on massive self trust.
Thank you so much for all your posts. I look forward to reading your articles too!
Comment by Wendi
A veil is not a wall. Translucent in most cases, veils are not solid objects we can't see through, or hear through. If you wore a veil, I could still see your face; I could still hear your voice. That's why I love the reference to the veil that separates one realm from another. Each realm is lightly "cloaked", but reachable.
That's one of the problems I had with Christianity describing Heaven and Hell as two completely separate eternal locations. I didn't want to think of my non-christian friends and family burning forever and suffering, and without being able to contact them ever again. That's so final and hard to conceive.
Veils are soft and flowy... it's neat to think that's all that separates us from the Otherworlds.
Heaven and Hell - another great topic, eh? I won't open that can of worms. *grins*
I've enjoyed reading your entries and am looking forward to more. I've subscribed to your blog so should receive email updates. I'll be around, I'm sure.
Comment by Lilla
From The Home Front
Enviro Warrior
Dream Herald
Esoteric Bookshop
I have read Tarot cards for people now for nearly 25 years and have been aware - for a long time - that I'm not really using the cards much at all after a certain point ... I'm chanelling...I'm using the "claire's" I call it; clairaudience, clairvoyance, clairesentience, claircognizance all of them, I'm usually inundadted with smells, sounds, sights and words, sayings and things that only that person knows... I don't see ghosts or grandma standing there behind my clients, and I don't loose my own ego-consciousness like trance mediums.
I think that channelling is possible on many levels using the various "claire's"...even orthodox religions as you so rightly say... I saw John Edwards recently in Brisbane and have written about his "performance" in my blog "an Ordinary Life".. he actually sees the energies... but uses a great deal of clairaudience..too.
It is a fscinating subject and I wanted to ask if you channel yourself in any way or are learning more like me...?
Lilla...
Comment by Marisa
New Spirit New Energy
Lilla-I have been channelling for many years....but didn't realise it! I was doing a pretty intense retreat earler this year when it was bought to my "attention".
I feel now that it's about being open to more than the illusion of what we THINK reality is. I love that you FEEL the energy in so many ways, yet for others its about hearing voices, some see auras. It's all about how we connect and no way is wrong.
The big thing for me has been trusting myself and knowing when its my mind or my divinity relaying the insights. Sometimes its with another spirit, like Kuan Yin or my special friend Elijah, sometimes its just my higher self, which is part of the amazing oneness of universal knowledge.
Comment by Lilla
From The Home Front
Enviro Warrior
Dream Herald
Esoteric Bookshop
look forward to more of your posts...
Lilla...
Comment by Wendi
My kids have inherited many of my "paranormal" tendencies - and when I see them developing in ways I'm familiar, I encourage, assist, and "coach" where I can. But recently, my daughter has been expressing a "gift" with which I have no experience and cannot advise other than encouraging her to trust herself (something I still have trouble practicing myself!). She is able to physically feel death, and she says it has a smell - not flowery sweet, not spicy or musky, but somewhere in between.
I've only experienced that once - the smell that she described, and it was the night my most beloved cat died. I smelled that scent on my doorstep when I came home from work. In fact, it was such a strong sensation I was afraid that someone was there. At the time, I was a single mom in Tulsa and my kids had flewn back to Vegas to visit family, so I was alone. The cat, Isis, met me on the doorstep and followed me into my room. She nuzzled me close in a way she hadn't done before, and we communicated via eye contact in ways I can't even describe. I just started crying and telling her how much I loved her. The next morning, I found her dead beneath my bed. That's the only account I have of "smelling" death, but I didn't recognize what it was I was smelling.
We recently went to Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia for a homeschool field trip and vacation. We were walking the town exploring the buildings and the history when we'd come next to a wall that was about 5 feet high or so. My daughter is twelve and not yet tall enough to look over the wall. At one point, she went a bit pale in the face, clutched her stomach, and stopped where she stood. She called my attention and asked what was on the other side of the wall. I asked her what she thought it was before I looked. She matter of factly said, "That's a cemetery." I asked her how she knew and she described the sensations of scents and a pulling or knotting in her abdomen, but then added that she was confused because while she knew it was an old, old cemetery, she smelled "fresh death".
I never was able to determine what the "fresh" sensation was that she described, but she was 100% right that we were next to a cemetery - and she had no way of knowing that other than "her gut".
Comment by Wendi
My kids have inherited many of my "paranormal" tendencies - and when I see them developing in ways I'm familiar, I encourage, assist, and "coach" where I can. But recently, my daughter has been expressing a "gift" with which I have no experience and cannot advise other than encouraging her to trust herself (something I still have trouble practicing myself!). She is able to physically feel death, and she says it has a smell - not flowery sweet, not spicy or musky, but somewhere in between.
I've only experienced that once - the smell that she described, and it was the night my most beloved cat died. I smelled that scent on my doorstep when I came home from work. In fact, it was such a strong sensation I was afraid that someone was there. At the time, I was a single mom in Tulsa and my kids had flewn back to Vegas to visit family, so I was alone. The cat, Isis, met me on the doorstep and followed me into my room. She nuzzled me close in a way she hadn't done before, and we communicated via eye contact in ways I can't even describe. I just started crying and telling her how much I loved her. The next morning, I found her dead beneath my bed. That's the only account I have of "smelling" death, but I didn't recognize what it was I was smelling.
We recently went to Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia for a homeschool field trip and vacation. We were walking the town exploring the buildings and the history when we'd come next to a wall that was about 5 feet high or so. My daughter is twelve and not yet tall enough to look over the wall. At one point, she went a bit pale in the face, clutched her stomach, and stopped where she stood. She called my attention and asked what was on the other side of the wall. I asked her what she thought it was before I looked. She matter of factly said, "That's a cemetery." I asked her how she knew and she described the sensations of scents and a pulling or knotting in her abdomen, but then added that she was confused because while she knew it was an old, old cemetery, she smelled "fresh death".
I never was able to determine what the "fresh" sensation was that she described, but she was 100% right that we were next to a cemetery - and she had no way of knowing that other than "her gut".
Comment by Wendi