Channelling

(Note: This post is an expansion of a comment I made in answer to a question about a particular channelled book. Here I would like to make some remarks about channelling in general.)

My peculiarity is that I am someone who has written about a channelling experience, or what would normally be called such, who basically distrusts most channelling experiences. I think the problem is twofold. First of all, in many cases the medium affects the message. The technique involved means that the process cannot be pure. If the communication is received through the medium's mind and brain, as most are, these inevitably leave their imprint on how it comes out. Wherever it may originate, it is like a light shone through a coloured glass and the glass lends its own hue to the end product. The medium's belief system, cultural background and personality will all have at least some effect on the contents, rather like an artist who expresses an inspiration according to his own nature. How much effect depends on the medium's ability to be detached from the contents of his or her own psyche, preferences, prejudices and the like, and connect to the soul or higher self, but it cannot be 100% pure since none of us are that.

But then there is the question of the origin of the message. Where does it come from? And practically always it comes from discarnate beings on the inner planes, as one may call the non -physical worlds, who are still separate from God. So they may have more apparent knowledge of these worlds but it is still refracted through the prism of their own limited understanding. That is assuming the communicators are not demonic which they clearly sometimes are. In many non-demonic cases my impression is that the communicating beings are talking from the mental plane which (using conventional occult terminology) is above the astral or psychic plane but below that of real spiritual union which is the location of the soul when it is one with God. So they were still talking from the level of their own thoughts and experiences rather than genuine spiritual insight such as possessed by the hierarchy of saints.
 So in Christian terms they are in purgatory, even if it is a higher and possibly blissful form of purgatory, rather than heaven, and I think this is the case for the great majority of the beings who talk through channellings.

So we can posit various forms of channelling. These exclude all fakes and frauds which probably account for a large number. But when the phenomenon is real the sources might come from:

1.     The recently dead such as are contacted in spiritualistic seances. These rarely have much of real interest to communicate since they are ordinary souls with little spiritual experience or insight. The messages are usually also confused and inconclusive because of the difficulties of communication.

2.     Demons that come through deliberately to mislead and/or to absorb energy from those that fall prey to their machinations. Orthodox religion would put all in this category and point to various Biblical prohibitions but when spiritual visitations and phenomena happen in the lives of the saints it is more forgiving so I think we can learn to exercise discrimination and in this way develop our spiritual antennae. Having said that, no doubt a number of communications truly are demonic in origin so we should not go to the other extreme of gullible naivety with regard to such things.

3.     Souls that have made some progress up through the spiritual planes. Bear in mind that after death we have the opportunity to rise through the spiritual worlds as we throw off attachments pertaining to lower levels and identify more with aspects of our being that relate to higher ones. Lower and higher here describing, on the one hand, primary attunements to physical, emotional, mental and spiritual states, and, on the other, degrees of closeness to God. From our perspective in this material world souls might appear to have great wisdom because they are speaking with knowledge of higher planes of existence and awareness of the wholeness of life and the reality of God. And yet they might still be on the outside looking in from the even higher perspective of a soul that has become one with God and fully realised its Christ nature. 

4.  Souls that have realised their Christ nature in its fullness. In these souls the light of Christ has been born and grown and now completely illuminates their entire being. They have died with Christ and risen with him. They have become men made perfect and thus transcended the purely human kingdom to become members of the kingdom of heaven. In them the process of theosis has reached its culmination. Their minds are irradiated with the wisdom of God and their hearts afire with his love. They are fully individual but one with all life having consciously united in themselves both matter and spirit to become a new creation. This is the goal for all of us and, incidentally, why spiritual paths that deny matter or this world as opposed to subjecting it to the light of spirit are incomplete. The goal of existence is not to return to what we were before we were born but to become this new and higher creation in which aspects of God that relate to him in his essence and those that relate to him as he is in expression are combined and integrated. The divine pattern for this, of course, is Christ.

Practically all channelling comes from sources 1-3. But to confuse matters many claim to come from source 4, whether because of deliberate deception or because some souls that have achieved a certain amount of post mortem spiritual awakening genuinely believe themselves to have attained a fuller state of understanding than they actually have. That happens in this world and souls that have a tendency to over-estimate themselves and their spiritual status will probably continue to do so after death until they learn better. I do believe that there are some communications from source 4 but they are few and far between. You must judge these things by their fruits and by the 'tone' of the communication, how it strikes the heart and how it elevates and purifies the mind. Souls from source 4 certainly do try to communicate with their disciples in this world but they chiefly do so by spiritual means, that is to say by means of the intuition. Their aim is to bring their pupils up to where they themselves are which is why, for the most part, they work on the level of the soul. 

That's it really. Channelling is a very old phenomenon but it chiefly relates to lower levels of spirituality. Given my history it would be strange for me to dismiss it out of hand and I certainly don't do that because there have been valuable and inspiring messages transmitted in this way. But it is not wise to become too attached to outer things, especially as the field is full of illusion and half truths. The best advice remains that provided in the epistle of St John. "Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God." And remember that just because some parts of a message might be true does not mean that all are. After all, one of the devil's oldest tricks is to disguise the bitterness of a lie with the sweetness of truth.


Note: 
What I have described here concerns the form of channeling where there is a real being communicating, but many incidents are not of this kind. In the higher worlds there exist thought forms and clouds of psychic energy which the mediumistic can contact and which can give the impression of a communicating entity even though there is none. These have come about from the thoughts, dreams and imaginings of humanity and, as it were, hang around on the mental or 'astral' planes from where they may be picked up telepathically or through automatic writing or other means by those who are sensitive to such things. They may contain generalities of a spiritual or occult nature but little really illuminating. This is just one more element of the pot pourri that is the channelling phenomenon and another reason to treat the whole thing with caution and discrimination.