Divine Dialogues: In Defence of Channelling
I wrote previously about the basic theory that underpins religion: that a selected individual within our world converses with and brings back conversations with beings in another, let’s say supernatural, world — with these conversations and the insights gained then packaged and branded into a spiritual belief system.
This is Religion 101, but the same theory also applies to the who knows how many other such conversations that have occurred over time from people of all cultures and traditions (this is not even including the many and varied less conversational, more ambiguous supernatural experiences that people have).
From what I can tell, all these conversations are essentially the same: they are all divine dialogues, where an individual gains access to a higher source of spiritual wisdom, which they can keep for themselves or share with others if they choose. It is just that some divine dialogues, for whatever reasons, come to be circulated and believed more than others, even to the extent that the wisdom becomes seen as infallible in its authenticity and universal in its applicability.
I’m not arguing against religion. I have my own religious beliefs that I am still working through. I’m more questioning the logic behind why some conversations come to become manifested into widespread spiritual beliefs in our world more than others. These ‘others’ are often dialogues that we might broadly classify as channellings: dialogues that also become sources of shared spiritual guidance without developing the same religious structures around them.
Adopting the academic’s position that there is no such thing as infallibility, channeled revelations should be treated the same as religious revelations (no shit, many reading this would be saying). Given this, and given how much time I will be spending discussing religious texts such as The Bible, it seems only fair to give proper attention to channeled dialogues as well.
Who gets to participate in divine dialogues?
When I finished my last post on interactions with the supernatural world, I landed more on the side of these interactions being bestowed rather than earned: that certain people are granted the role of conversing with supernatural beings, while others aren’t. This is a very ‘religious’ interpretation, as I can see now.
If I could identify the main difference between a religious revelation and a channeled revelation, which both contain profound and often universal spiritual wisdom, it would be that the former discourages the follower to seek their own supernatural experience (all the wisdom they need is essentially within the revelation), where as the latter encourages such experience: their own supernatural experience is where they ultimately find true wisdom. Essentially, one is exclusionary to supernatural experiences, and one is inclusionary.
I would much rather believe that discourse with the divine realm is not exclusive: some privilege ordained on a selected few. That it is available, if merited, to everyone—in theory at least, because it has not been made available to me (I don’t take this personally, I’ve made my mistakes). Perhaps it should be understood as a true democratic process—open to everyone, but also earned (in a spiritual sense). Supernatural contact of any particular type can be experienced by everyone — if for not other reason than the increasing availability of hallucinogenics — however for it to be a meaningful, coherent and above all positive, dialogue requires a certain spiritual maturity in the experiencer.
Leaving aside this flimsy religious/channelled dichotomy, what seems clear is that every instance of divine dialogue should be treated with the same initial degree of both respect and skepticism. Even if we accept that all revealers of divine dialogues are somewhat spiritually advanced — that there is a prerequisite level to receive this information — they are all ultimately still imperfect receptors (albeit some that are more finely tuned than others).
The receptor always influences the message, this also seems clear. This is taught to every aspiring academic researcher — yet to have their dreams of changing the world crushed by reality — who undertakes data collection methods such as interviews, who must be constantly aware of their own personal word views and biases when they attempt to interpret the data they collect. Similarly, the message that is revealed in the material world is not the same as the one transmitted in the spiritual world: it will always contain the biases and baggage of this individual and the cultural context they are imbedded within. It is this cultural context that then dictates how the authenticity of the revealed message is maintained or corrupted as it spreads to other people.
So before we get to the process of channeling itself, we firstly need to understand this potential for corruption. That is, we need to consider how the revealer and their message were/are treated by the society they are embedded within, how the message is passed on and promoted, and thus how widely and through what socially-created lens it comes to be seen by history. The more that a revealed message has been subject to the inherently corrupting influence of humanity, the less we can trust its authenticity.
This is, needless to say, a fairly damning principle by which to judge The Bible and its numerous accounts of divine dialogues. It is, by contrast, an endorsement of the accuracy of modern channeled material: not to mention its relevance to the specific conditions of contemporary society.
The Ra Materials (The Law of One)
Many of the most well known and drawn upon examples of channeled material are quite recent, and thus have had less time to be altered via ‘chain of custody’. An example of this is the ‘Ra’ Materials (often known as The Law of One series), which are less than 40 years old and continue to have a profound influence in conspiracy and alternate spirituality circles. These materials were the product of a prolonged and exhaustive series of channelling sessions between 1981 and 1983 by three individuals: the distinguished physics professor Dr. Don Elkins, his companion and the medium for the material Carla Rueckert, and their collaborator and transcriber Jim McCarty. Their apparent supernatural source was a group of hive-minded entities who collectively referred to themselves as ‘Ra’. There is much more I would love to say about Ra and their/its role in human history, but that is a digression for another day.
Unlike religious texts, channeled information such as the Ra Materials are still fringe enough to remain largely separate from the political and cultural machinations that inevitably distort religious revelation. People tend to find this and other such materials themselves, naturally on their own spiritual path (i.e. the seeker finds the teacher, not vice versa), rather than having them shoved in their faces. This was certainly the case for me, where after seeing them suggested for several months on Amazon, I only looked into them properly after they were mentioned by one of my favourite authors David Wilcock.
In the example of the Ra Materials, the original transcripts of the sessions that birthed the materials have continued to be preserved and even improved (including through an exhaustive re-listening project) by a core group of individuals who make up the organisation L&L Research (including the sole surviving McCarty). They also have a monthly-ish podcast discussing different concepts found in the materials and how they relate to current world events. They are, to a fault, incredibly humble individuals who have a profound loyalty and devotion to the spiritual wisdom found in the materials.
Of course, even having a certain degree of confidence in the accuracy of the materials compared to how they were originally recorded (i.e. the chain of custody process), we also have to have confidence in the authenticity of the message itself (i.e. the interview process).
To reiterate: there is no guarantee that a channeled message has been received in its purest from a benevolent divine entity. In fact, leaving aside infallibility, we must assume some degree of misinformation is always present. Channellings that we should take most seriously are those that align with how academic research is undertaken: systematically, transparently and ethically.
What is characteristic about the Ra Materials is the impressively academic nature in which they were obtained. These materials were the work not of a series of haphazard drug-induced experimentations with the paranormal, but a meticulous and evolving spiritual practice involving its main three protagonists at the time.
Throughout the several years of the Ra contact, the trio were individually and collectively purifying themselves spiritually to ensure that they were creating the conditions most conducive to the receiving of accurate and meaningful information. The entity that they channeled was actually giving advice to them on how they can more effectively understand that entity. It’s best not to think too hard about this.
One particular feature of the Ra Materials that has lead them to be taken so seriously — perhaps even to the problematic extent of a pseudo-religion to some people — is that the entity involved in the transmission actually acknowledges on multiple occasions that they (or at least the channel) have made mistakes in the message that is being revealed and see to correct them. This is, apparently, extremely rare in recorded channellings.
The Ra materials are probably the main channeled source that I draw my current spiritual beliefs from, and they also underpin the work of many of my favourite content creators. In a similar way to The Bible, it combines universal spiritual teachings and metaphysical ponderings with ancient world history and supernatural/extraterrestrial truth bombs.
But there are many others out there, many with direct relevance to The Bible and related Christian beliefs that permeate our culture, both in mainstream and conspiratorial circles. These are the main ones I have come across, and which I will be drawing heavily on to complement and even correct the messages found within religious revelations.
Kim Michaels and the Ascended Jesus
Kim Michaels is a fascinating individual who claims to be in contact with and serve as a messenger for the ‘Ascended Masters’. These masters are spiritual teachers who reside in a higher realm, and are referred to as ‘ascended’ as they have previously been embodied on Earth. After serving their purpose on Earth and transcending their material conditions, they now provide guidance through Michaels on various earthly and spiritual matters.
Along with his general work with the ascended masters, Michaels also claims to make direct contact with Jesus himself. Turns out, Jesus is not a big fan of Christianity. This is obviously controversial stuff (see headings such as ‘Why Christianity is so dangerous’), but the arguments put forward are fairly logical: Christianity has become a centralised religion now effectively divorced from the true spirit and teachings of Jesus; Christianity can only become a force of good in the world if it is reconnected with Jesus; and who better to do this then, well, Jesus himself! He even has his own official website for these purposes.
The Urantia Book
The Urantia Book is epic in several ways. I haven’t read it — it is over a 1000 pages, and dense, so it is more a long term project. It basically tries to explain the whole world, as in the whole world on a cosmic level. Unlike the Ra Materials, it speaks in Biblical language: making it more relevant to recovering Christians than the more intellectual-minded and new-age-leaning Ra. It re-conceptualises Biblical concepts such as The Trinity, Archangels and the original man Adam; provides more detailed and less metaphorical narratives for events such as the Garden of Eden; not to mention a thorough reinterpretation of the life and teachings of Jesus.
One of The Urantia Book’s most significant pieces of wisdom is the story of Lucifer and his rebellion from God. This story is central to understanding some of the ridiculous things we see unfolding in the world at the moment. It is probably the most important negative archetype we need to understand, even the more obvious but far less nuanced figure of Satan. Many argue that if you can understand Lucifer, you can understand the true nature of evil in the world.
Dolores Cannon
So this is a bit different. Dolores Cannon was not a channeller as such, but a hypnotic regressor. Her patients were put into deep trances where they were able to access either other entities, some sort of higher intelligence and/or their own higher selves, who could then provide detailed information about past lives for education and healing purposes.
One of her most notable contributions has been a series of conversations she had with a man who lived during the time of Jesus, and was apparently one of his teachers in the mysterious and largely lost to history sect known as the Essenes. Her conversations with this individual paint a vastly different picture of the life, mission and station of Jesus than The Bible has lead us to believe.
Emmanuel Swedenborg
Swedenborg is one of the oldest sources of channeled information I have come across. He lived in Europe during the middle of the 1700s, and as such his ideas are more deeply steeped in ye olde Christian thought than contemporary sources. Nonetheless, he was pretty wild. He has, among other things, reinterpreted the majority of Genesis into a metaphorical story of the human soul, visited heaven and conversed with angels, perhaps more impressively visited Hell and conversed with demons and/or the devil, while also delving in some extra-terrestrial theorising that was well before its time.
These are just a few of the main channeled sources that I have come across. Other well known materials that I have yet to dig in to include the Seth Materials and the works of Edgar Cayce.
It is worth reiterating that they are all at least a few decades old, some considerably more so, and have presumably come to stand the test of time due to the validity of the spirituality contained in their messages. Each has their own chain of custody process — usually some sort of governing body or institution — that has also allowed the authenticity of this message to (hopefully) be maintained over time.
Of course, if we focus on more recent channellings we can be more confident with the reliability of this process. There are, as becomes apparent after a period of time spent on YouTube, an incredible amount of channeled information being revealed every day, from various claimed supernatural (and/or extraterrestrial) entities. That so much channeled information is being revealed says volumes about the seriousness and uniqueness of the times we are currently living in.
Engaging with this information has its challenges. To try and sort the spiritual wheat from the chaff, One must have some understanding of the character of those who are bringing forth the information into this world: their apparent motivations, the environment they operate in, their ability to avoid transforming into a pseudo religious figure themselves. So, you do unfortunately have to make some sort of judgement on their character. This is a lot of effort, so one of the things I want to do with this page is to try and do much of this background check work for you.
In the end, dealing with channeled material is an exercise in discernment and seeking personal truth. As discussed by Michaels — sorry, Jesus — channeling will always be inherently contradictory. The only way to truly gain personal spiritual truth, it seems, is to make your own contact with this spiritual world. Until, then hopefully this overview provides a good enough starting point.