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Channelling or channeling is the communication of information to or through a person (the channel or medium), from a purported spirit or other supernatural entity outside the mind (or self) of the channel. Channelling is part of the belief systems and rituals of many religions, such as shamanism, Candomblé, Voodoo, Kardecism, Umbanda, and more.
General Channellers claim to have channelled ascended masters like Buddha, Jesus, or St. Germain.; people that have died; angels; higher dimensional beings; and extra-terrestrials of a spiritual or more evolved nature. Channelling is a popular source of revealed teachings in some New Age groups. Well known channellers like Diandra (Salem), Esther Hicks (Abraham), Jane Roberts (Seth), and Lee Carroll (Kryon) have volumes of teachings on angels, chakras, higher dimensions, future predictions, manifestation, meditation, non-judgment, now moment, past lives, and spirituality. The channels, depending upon their expertise, tap many tools to ‘channelize’ their psychic energy. They may use tarot cards, crystal balls, gems or dream analysis. They use their psychic abilities of clairvoyance, clairaudience, and clairsentience. One type of channeling is 'Conscious voice channelling,' in which the channeller calms his or her mind and 'connects to the energy' of the source being channeled. The source uses the vocabulary of the channeller. Channellers in this state usually have their eyes closed and are conscious of the room and what is being said. They then, allegedly, allow the source to speak through them by staying in this calm state. A less common form of channeling, 'Trance channelling,' occurs through deeper meditation in which the channeller appears to have their consciousness leave their body and the 'source' enters. Observers may notice the channeller's voice and mannerisms change when the transition is complete. This is not related to multiple personalities. The trance channeller will later reconnect to their physical body and the session will be over. The depth of the trance varies, with some channelers recollecting the entirety of the session while others are conscious of little or none of what transpires. Deep full-trance channeling is relatively rare. Trance channelling appears to use the same dynamics as astral travel. Research The late professor Marcello Truzzi, a sociologist formerly at Eastern Michigan University who co-founded the "Committee for Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal" and the "Center for Scientific Anomalies Research", preferred to maintain what he calls "constructive skepticism" until someone comes forward with channel information that is evidential. Criticisms The claims of some channels have been found to be without merit, such as Mina Crandon. Harry Houdini was a famous debunker of psychics who claimed they could channel spirits. James Randi offers a million dollar prize to anyone who can prove they can do anything paranormal (as do many other skeptic organisations). Despite these money prizes, famous channellers such as John Edward, Sylvia Browne and James Van Praagh have not attempted to claim them. Critics claim that channellers and other psychics use techniques like cold reading and hot reading to appear to have mystic powers. Scientists have criticized the claim that chanelling is an actual phenomenon. See for example rebuttals put forward by the Australian Skeptics. Examples John Edward's show "Crossing Over" has been criticised for heavy editing, audience planting, hidden microphones and other techniques for information gathering *. Sylvia Browne has gotten many things badly wrong - famously, upon hearing miners caught in an accident were all alive while on a chat show, she stated that she had known it all along, while criticising people who claim, after the fact, that they had known something all along. Then, later in the show, when it was revealed that twelve out of thirteen of the miners were actually dead, claimed that she had known that all along - without offering an explanation to her previous contradictory claim*. James Van Praagh is noted to often ask questions to a person, then restate their answers as if spirits had told him that information*. Other channellers, who provide messages of inspiration, as opposed to information about individuals, often provide little in the way of testable information about their claims, but typically can gather large followings. Some may characterize these groups as "New Age," though they typically include successful professional people, especially those in service and healing professions, who resonate with the messages or have had convincing one-on-one experiences with the channeller which they consider evidentiary. Trance channeling Trance Channeling is a form of communication and is very closely related to what people would consider Telepathy. A very close comparison to something we use everyday is the telephone. People can talk all over the world as long as the signals can be sent and received. The difference with Trance Channeling is that you can send and receive messages or other energies across time and space or between dimensions. In the case with telephones, analog and digital signals and sent electromagnetically to an electronic components that translate the signals into a form that we can recognize as speech by the coils and magnets in the earpiece or other speaker connected to the phone. When discussing trance channeling, ideas are projected by the entity to your brain. To the outside world, it will appear as if one is bipolar as one will be speaking and receiving messages through one’s body. This all takes place in real time so it does appear as if the entity have taken over your body while talking with you. The conversation can be harsh or very casual. One can break the trance to disconnect the conversation with the entity. There are two types of channelling using the spoken word; Conscious voice channelling and trance channelling. Conscious voice channelling is when the channeller calms their mind down and connects to the energy of the source being channeled. The source uses the vocabulary of the channeller to speak through them. The channeller usually has their eyes closed and is conscious of the room and what is being said but they are allowing the source to speak through them by calming their mind. Trance channelling is when the channeller does not want to become one with the energy of the source being channelled through them. A trance channeller therefore through meditation has their consciousness leave their body and the source consciousness enters it. Observers will notice the channeller's voice change when the transition is complete. This is not related to multiple personalities. The trance channeller makes a freewill choice for their consciousness to reconnect with their physical body. Trance channelling uses the same dynamics as astral travel. Carl Jung Psychologist Carl Jung put forward theories for supernatural claims like ESP and channeling. These theories focused on his concept of the collective unconscious, an ancestral memory passed on for all of human history in the form of symbols. According to the theory while many of the symbols are conveyed to individuals in dreams, waking experiences by ordinary people of a prescient nature can frequently be traced back to what Jung called Synchronicity, or “meaningful coincidence.” According to Jung symbols of the collective unconscious are not random byproducts of a specific time and place, not simply the associations that Freud outlined earlier when Psychology was in its infancy. Just as the seemingly arcane events of a dream can suddenly become clear to the dreamer with the aid of specific symbols, waking events can coalesce with the aid of the collective unconscious and signal (like a dream) one or more future events to a person. Despite the use of “coincidence” in the theory of Synchronicity Jung did not view these moments of foresight as random or unexplainable. He did not deny the validity of predicting the passage of events. What he did dispute was the supernatural element presumed by professed clairvoyants and their followers. The “believer” in the supernatural attributes visions and prescience to specifically gifted individuals, while Jung saw these visions as inherent to human thought. According to Jung the “gifted” are simply individuals who do not ignore the interaction of their waking mind with the collective unconscious, who learn to interpret symbols present in our everyday lives. Books and channelled texts Several notable books describe the entering of a trance state to allow the dead to speak through the medium or channel, or a spiritual guide to convey messages from other spirit men to listeners (see séance). Entities and mediums Channelling in fiction In fantasy literature, the term channelling is sometimes used in other ways, particularly to describe a person's ability to draw on some form of magical power. The Wheel of Time series, for example, uses the term extensively (although it is by no means the only work to do so). See also | ||||||||
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