Theos-Talk Archives (November 1995 Message tl00126)

[NOTE: This is part 01 of a two part post and is a bit long but
I couldn't figure out how to be brief -:].

The channelling discussion has been quite interesting
especially since we have every perspective from that of those who
actually channel to those who claim the virtually all
channelling is extremely dangerous and should be avoided at all
costs.
I've never channelled myself but have worked with channels
on a number of occasions on various different projects and would
like to offer a point of view that might be a bit different than
any yet voiced.
I think that first and most important is that one's point
of view of channelling may well be primarily dependent upon one's
concept of exactly what the "conscious self" *is* and what place
it plays in the organization of the whole human constitution
i.e. including both personal/mortal and spiritual/immortal
aspects.
The dispute I would have with standard Theosophical model
which mostly seems to be "don't do it - it is dangerous to give
control up to another entity is that it seems to be based on a
conception of the human psyche that was common in the late 19th
century but has been greatly reformed by a century of the study
of psychology.
Throughout the objections about giving up "conscious"
control is the assumption that there *is* a solid consistent
entity called the "conscious self" that can either be
"controlling" or can "surrender" its control. Problem with this
is that psychology is coming to increasingly understand that
"conscious self" that sits on the "throne" is far more of a
democracy and an often unintegrated and unruly one at that with
many different players than it is a single consistent self. And
it is not only psychology but a good deal of spiritual writing
that also speaks to this. Many on the list have read Gurdjieff
who made a great deal of the fact that the vast number of people
walk through the world almost entirely *asleep* ... that is that
so-called "conscious control" is an illusion. That it takes
enormous energy to remain aware of oneself for even a few
moments and that a rather shocking number of the thoughts
decisions and actions people believe are undertaken as
"conscious" acts are instead motivated by whatever psychological
component or drive happens to be in control of the conscious self
at the moment - and even further that few know what their own
underlying motivations even are.
I remember being quite taken with this thought when I
happened to be reading a bit of Gurdjieff during the Gulf War
several years ago. I remember watching this utterly bizarre wave
of righteous patriotism spreading across the country very
deliberately and even quite openly fed by the US Government -
and especially the military - and eagerly spread by the media. I
remember in particular sitting in a coffee shop and listening to
a conversation at the next booth in which a group of men and
women were discussing the war and the anti-war protesters ...
and I noticed that in their conversation were not only the ideas
but actually entire sentences that were taken almost *verbatim*
from a General's speech the previous day. These people suddenly
appeared to me to be *channelling* that is while each would say
their "conscious self" was fully in control of their words their
energy systems were simply completely saturated with a particular
form of energy the darkly pleasurable buzz of supporting self-
righteous killing that had been deliberately induced as a
vibration in the collective consciousness and words were going
into their ears and back out of their mouths with virtually no
conscious consideration applied to them during their journey.
According to some modern psychology as well as writers like
Gurdjieff that so-called "conscious self" that is allegedly so
dangerous to surrender during channelling may not even exist in
the first place except as a comforting illusion and at the very
least is a far more fluid unstable and inconsistent thing than
is suggested in the old models that frame it as a single
powerful king on a throne and in control of its kingdom.
Perhaps it is helpful to distinguish between the voice - the
words actually coming into verbal manifestation - and the inner
impulses that are behind the formation of those words. From a
particular point of view *everything* a person says is
channelled ... the relevant question being the *nature* of what
is being "channelled" rather than the act of channelling. To
hold as Patrick does that channelling "kama-manasic" entities
is wrong and dangerous ignores the fact that the vast majority of
current human casual conversations are composed of nothing other
than "kama-manasic" impulses being "channelled" by those
talking - its just that those impulses come from urges desires
thoughts and all manner of archetypal constellations within the
people's own energy-systems rather than from an external
"entity". And it seems to me that the nature of the kama-manasic
impulses is far more important a question than is their source:
Take for example two situations ...
A good-hearted person deliberately tries to "channel" an
entity they have come to know and that identifies itself as an
"initiate". It speaks light relatively general spiritual
aphorisms is not particularly deep leaves the person and a few
other people in the room feeling slightly better than before if
very little wiser. Even further say the channeller gave up
"conscious" control to the entity and that they were in fact
slightly deluded ... the entity was not an "initiate" but one of
the countless "kama-manasic" entities that exist in the inner
world that clothed itself in the concept of the "initiate" that
it found in the person's subconscious as a way of presenting
itself in a form comfortable to the channeller and I've watched
a few things do this.
Now move to Rwanda in Africa; a military colonel desiring
for military purposes to move masses of populations into groups
in particular places orders his soldiers to shoot any men
straying from the group and gives orders to deliberately block
UN food trucks from reaching a settlement of starving refugees
because he wants those refugees to be forced to go to another
location all of which has actually happened in recent history.
Now according to one model the person in the first example
would be considered engaged in activities "dangerous" to her
spiritual growth would be seen as channelling a "lower" entity
that was "deluding" her and her group while the colonel in the
second example would not be considered to be "channelling" and
would be seen as being in full "conscious" control of himself.
Looking however primarily at the *impulses* motivating
their respective words both impulses might be said to be "kama-
manasic" but IMO even superficial spiritual aphorisms are
generated by impulses far more refined than the also "kama-
manasic" impulses and motivations that would order unarmed men
shot and starving children to be deprived of food.
Even further considered in a spiritual sense the channel
while in the short term possibly "deluded" might very well have
as the underlying motivation the urge to seek light to seek
something higher and while such an urge may well lead to
lifetimes full of hits and misses of delusions and mistakes and
errors it will inevitably if persisted in ultimately lead the
person completely beyond delusion.
And it might be said that that Colonel was also in grip of
the ultimate delusion - the illusion of separateness as HPB so
aptly put it that would allow him to believe that he could
succeed at what he wanted at the expense of thousands of lives -
only in his case the urge towards light ... the impulse that
would lead him out of the illusion has not yet been born.

The second point has to do with the *nature* of the alleged
danger and delusion a channeller faces. In the Theosophical model
of growth it is a process that extends through many lifetimes
and often what in the short term i.e. considered on the scale
of a single lifetime is delusion may very well when considered
from a much longer perspective be a positive spiritual
characteristic. Sooner or later down the road the mortal
personality layers of the human constitution are going to *have*
to surrender themselves - to their own higher animating spirit
call it by whatever name. This certainly cannot be thought of
as an easy thing to do as at least IMO one of the effects of
the path itself is to produce at first a very powerful
personality. For it to surrender control may not be something it
does all of a sudden but may perhaps be something it learns to
do by degrees. Growth is almost always *conceptualized* in a
small number of large generalized stages but *accomplished* in
thousands of tiny steps. Perhaps those who feel drawn to learn
to channel are in essence "practicing" giving up personality
control - by doing it for short periods of time with entities
that are not threatening or overwhelming ... setting the stage
and developing the patterns that will allow them at some time in
the distant future to give up personality control permanently to
something as overwhelming as the inner human.
Hence considered it terms of one life it may appear as
though a person is being "deluded" or not deluded by a particular
"kama-manasic entity" ... but whether delusion or wisdom its
effects are temporary and will end with the life of the current
personality as it is the current personality asking the
questions and hearing the answers - but this whole issue may be
*secondary* to a more permanent trait that was practiced and
developed ... the basic underlying pattern governing the
interactions between the soul and the personality ... that down
the road may be a necessary spiritual characteristic.
-JRC