Theos-Talk Archives (November 1995 Message tl00330)

JRC:

Some stray comments on your essay on channelling ...

> those who actually channel to those who claim the virtually all
> channelling is extremely dangerous and should be avoided at all
> costs

One of your opening statements seems somewhat biased in painting a
spectrum of possibilities saying it goes from those who actually
do it to those that don't and say never do it. Your spectrum puts
all recognition of danger on the side of the deniers. We can
depict things many ways depending upon the analogies that we give
in explanation. Another analogy as an example might say:

those who actually watch TV all day long to those who claim
that virtually all TV watching is a waste of time and should
be avoided at all costs

This implies that watching TV is good and that those who would not
watch it are doing so due to a lack of proper TV-watching
experience. But someone that watches TV much of the time is not
necessarily better qualified to comment on it.

> 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

That is not the model as I understand it. It may be the way that
certain theosophical writers explained things in the idiom of
their day. That is why we need to give fresh expression to the
ideas so that the culture-specific materials don't get in the way
of the ideas.

You seem to be mixing up two points here. One is the comparison of
the old idea of the human psyche with the theosophical model. The
other is the idea of not giving up control. The idea as I
understand it is that control is not given up but the sense of
ego or personality is dropped. There's an important distinction
here.

> 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.

It is not a particular center of consciousness in our constitution
that maintains the sense of control. It is the dynamic activity of
the stream of consciousness the monadic essence the selfless
observer that retains the 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.

Our personality is composed of a bundle of tendencies of the
Skandhas and is essentially illusory.

> the vast number of people
> walk through the world almost entirely *asleep* ... that is that
> so-called "conscious control" is an illusion.

We're taught that most people go through life asleep to the
spiritual that they lack in self-consciousness.

> 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 ... I noticed that
> ... not only the ideas but actually entire sentences that were
> taken almost *verbatim* from a General's speech the previous day.

This can be observed with any movement of thought that catches the
public attention. People take up the ideas and are changed. Ideas
full of nonsense come to us from the political left as well as
right. We see a change in public thought as "utterly bizarre" or
as a dramatic step forward in the betterment of the world
depending upon our political biases.

> 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 ...
> words were going ... out of their mouths with virtually no
> conscious consideration

This is what happens with any idea that someone considers true. It
is not unique to one extreme on the political spectrum. It happens
even with harmless ideas. It is not chanelling or thought control
but rather inertia. People have ideas but won't freshly rethink
them each time; they choose instead to mouth words that no longer
carry any original thought.

> 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.

Here I see you giving a different definition to channelling that
I've seen it used elsewhere. The traditional use of the word is to
describe a situation of possession where someone else another
entity has temporary control of your physical body. It's not
really channelling when you're aware of a non-physical being and
yourself speak on its behalf.

> 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

There is a big distinction between sharing thoughts and feelings
which we all agree is ok and the equalivant of someone blacking
out losing control of his body having no memory of what
happened and basically standing aside in the astral as another
entity does what it will through the body. That giving up of
control of the body is *not* good.

> A good-hearted person deliberately tries to "channel" ... 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

This is the standard theosophical description of mediumship as
found in Spiritualism. It is mediumship if the medium gives up
the physical body. The person may also stay in control and simply
relate what the entity is saying. In this case it depends upon the
person's training in the occult sciences whether the person can
tell when an impersonation is going on.

> ... a military colonel desiring for military purposes ...
> gives orders to deliberately block UN food trucks from reaching a
> settlement of starving refugees ... according to one model the
> colonel ... would not be considered to be "channelling"

Yes the distinction is that in one case one has give up all
control of the physical and another entity occupies it. In the
other case one is swept along out of control *but still there*
travelling a path of evil. There is a big difference between the
absence of the person when a person is elsewhere and when the
person is present but not in control of inner or outer
circumstances.

> In the Theosophical model ... down the road the mortal
> personality layers of the human constitution are going to *have*
> to surrender themselves - to their own higher animating spirit

The idea of a "surrender" is still taking the standpoint of the
personality and its delusions. There is nothing to surrender.
What is given up is the personality-centric perception of life
not the personality itself. And there is no higher power to
surrender to. It is still our consciousness that is in control
our volition that directs activity. What is different is the bias
and maya that we give up not the personality itself surrendering
to a higher entity.

> 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 some yes for others no. The enhancement of the personality
is secondary. The Path is threefold as we read in higher
Buddhism. One approach leads to self-mastery becoming an Arhat
the second to self-liberation becoming a Pratyeka-Buddha and
the third to becoming a power for good in the world becoming a
Bodhisattva. In all three Paths a basic step is to give up the
activity of mind which acts as a barrier to pure perception and
creates a false sense of personality. That does not mean an end to
the personality but rather an end to the ego-creating activity.

> The final point is that the *meaning* of words like
> "channelling" and "mediumship" has changed enormously since HPB
> and the Masters were writing their comments of the subjects.

Yes. When we study Theosophy we have to take care to use the
terms in the theosophical context and not assume that they mean
the same thing as in popular usage. But that does not mean that
the *ideas* are outmoded just that care must be taken with the
terminology.

> Channelling today IMO varies in at least three different
> important ways:

> there is a far greater degree of sophistication about the inner
> worlds than there was a century ago. ... [people are not] open
> to any damn thing that wanders by ... [and consider] issues of
> protection of keeping free of "lower" entities of attract.

I would question the greater degree of sophistication. Certainly
there are always a few more knowledgable that the rest but most
people I suspect are ready to believe whatever comes to them.

At this point we might make a distinction between channelling and
mediumship. With mediumship someone else is driving the car. With
channelling one keeps one's hands on the steering wheel but also
lets another passanger put his hands on the wheel as well. With
channelling the channeller is still present watching what is
done and able to stop the process at will. With mediumship the
person is absent and has no say in what is done.

> There is a far greater understanding ...[that] one's own
> attitudes and intentions creates a specific inner orientation
> that will determine the nature and level of beings attracted.

You seem to feel that people are much more capable
in dealing with non-physical entities now than in HPB's day and
so channelling would be safer for them. Yet on the other hand you
have observed how quickly people can be overtaken by undesirable
political propaganda. If people are so readily influenced by the
tides of public opinion are they really more balanced and
perceptive than in Blavatsky's time?

> In modern channelling literature ... people being encouraged
> to be extremely specific about the nature of what they are open
> to.

I would hope so but wonder why they need to be open to other
non-physical entities at all?

> a relatively more refined channel whose whole system is charged
> with the unconditional desire for truth and oriented to only be
> open to beings of stature

The need for channelling is based upon the model of how the world
works. It is not I'd say necessary to talk to non-physical
beings in order to come into direct contact with vast storehouses
of knowledge and wisdom. The search for truth does not need to be
personified into invisible entities that come to tell us things.
And higher beings with business on our physical world can and will
have bodies of their own in due time. They are the Dhyani-Chohans
and can currently be found on Globe C.

> This principle also means that those who hold negative
> conceptions of channelling and who find themselves focussing
> heavily on "danger" on fear filled with suspicion about *any*
> voice from the inner worlds should certainly *not* channel
> because that paradigm *itself* will become the filter that will
> effectively block those impulses that are *not* harmful and
> delusional.

Our expectations will bias our perception of the world and
especially so in the case of psychical perceptions. But there is
no need to *entify* thoughtforms and elementals as they come to
us and build pictures in our mind of them as being great beings.
We can be open to truth coming to us without having to calling one
rich vein of manasic content as Mr. Angel a second as Plato and
a third as Zargon from the Neptune Chain.

> the *baseline* human psyche of today is very different than it
> was a century ago - it is far more fluid far less fixed into a
> small set of patterns and perhaps *capable* in some cases of
> withstanding the high voltage of genuinely high spiritual
> entities.

Human nature may *appear* to change from one generation to the
next. This does not mean that humanity per se has radically
evolved. I think it is due to differing classes of humans coming
into birth together. Sometimes there's a generation of more
advanced people; othertimes there's a generation of stragglers.

The direct perception of the spiritual is not a "high voltage"
experience. It is more akin to a dynamic gentleness than to
ear-splitting loud music. It is a qualitative change to our
awareness of life not a quantitative change in the intensity of
anything.

When I hear you mention "genuinely high spiritual entities" my
reaction is to think of how we tend to personify things that we're
not ready to directly experience. I doubt that a channeller is in
direct contact with a real Dhyani-Chohan.

> In observing the inner worlds there appears to me to be a
> sort of physics a set of almost scientific mechanical principles
> that governs interactions between beings in general and the
> human persona and "higher" beings in the particular case of
> channelling.

Yes and this has to do with the nature of the sphere of effects
that surrounds our Globe D earth. There are many levels to this
including the level at which kamaloka is undergone and that
appropriate to devachan. This is not a place where self-conscious
existance is the norm but is rather the backstage to the drama of
life on this sphere of causes.

The different type of interaction which is highly influenced by
subjective expectations is due to the fact that we populate the
sceens with the content of our own consciousness. It is not the
norm to consciously interact with another being except for
perhaps an elemental there.

The same laws of "objective" existance apply to us on higher
planes when we are on the other Globes the other spheres of
effects. But to get there we have to go into dreamless sleep
leaving behind our Globe D human personality and becoming a
different part of ourselves.

> ... the denser regions ... in which ... energy pattern[s]
> itself tightly into fixed form

> [Then] there is a much more immense realm [with] beings are
> almost purely energy. They might be said to have great "wisdom"
> ... nothing to do with what we call "knowledge" ... not a
> series of conceptualizations not a "philosophy"

You describe an experience of a world of forms and a
relatively-formless world. This is all I'd say backstage to our
Globe D earth and not the next objective world Globe E.

> For a human personality structure to be touched even slightly
> by one of these immense beings ... it would have to be
> *extremely* flexible or the energy would simply blow the psyche
> into bits.

We *can* come into touch with higher energies but I don't think
that they should be personified. And there's more to it than
flexibility. The psyche or sense of personality needs to dissapear
or be as transparent as glass.

The sense of "blown into bits" is a Western experience of
transcending the ego-creating activity of mind but the
experience doesn't have to be an explosion nor a sense of
stretching of personality it can simply be pure perception.

The experience make take on a form *to you* of great beings to
interact with but that is an attempt to give a context to
something that is lost as soon as the mind again resumes its
self-creating activity. The same experience may be of communion
with Jesus or God with Daniel H. or with a Tibetan deity for yet
a third person.

> extremely high voltages ... must be first stepped down through
> a series of transformers

This is what the different planes are one after the next. And all
that passes from one plane to the next undergoes dissolution and
passage through a laya-center.

The same is true of the Kingdoms of nature. Each Kingdom steps
down and passes on certain qualities to the lower ones. The
Dhyani-Chohans have transmitted certain knowledge to the elect of
humanity and they further step down this knowledge and wisdom to
less-evolved men and women. There is a Golden Chain of
transmission which we all participate in both receiving and being
responsible for passing on to those that have less.

Apart from this transmission I don't see much that would be
passed on. We have the Dhyani-Chohans supporting Humanity which
then supports the Animal Kingdom etc. All the Kingdoms are
pre-human human or post-human. Beings of innocent wisdom
unstained by material existence and with the scars and richness of
heart of having passed through humanity are the Elementals. Those
with both humanity and something more are the Dhyani-Chohans.

> ... major religions are generated first as a current from one
> of those immense beings [then using the] transformers ...
> composed of "Masters" and "Initiates"

This sounds like the Dhyani-Chohans acting as the Celestial
Bodhisattva of our Globe in initiating the major cycles of our
evolution.

> Now as humanity as a whole evolves ...the rigid hierarchy of
> the power grid - required for *safety* - may be able to become
> more relaxed.

Our ability to perceive truth directly and to rise above the
limitations of the personality come from *within ourselves*. We
change the functioning of our consciousness. This is not because
of becoming "plugged in" into a "high-voltage being of energy".
We are talking about the workings of consciousness not an external
experience where we get something from others.

> Suppose a growing minority of humans possess personality
> structures refined and fluid enough to be able to be "re-wired"
> to withstand higher voltages hence allowing the circuit breakers
> to be bypassed.

Direct insight into life is not dependent upon the wiring of the
personality but rather on its transparancy where it no longer
predominates in our consciousness. The idea of energy flows is a
metaphor and not literally how consciousness works; consciousness
I think is something of its own nature and unique in its own
right.

> Imagine the possibility that instead of the model of pure
> energetic impulses needing large hierarchal religious structures
> with the somewhat immense *downside* and potential for abuse
> such a system has inherent in it to render the impulses safe
> for individual consumption

Which is saying imagine that instead of an established religious
framework for people unable to directly perceive the true nature
of life ...

> that instead a far more decentralized picture became possible
> in which every *community* possessed a few individuals capable of
> responding to the energy itself and adapting it with far greater
> specificity to those living in that place and time.

We have a Protestant model of religion rather than a Catholic one
a model that has individuals with the right to "speak to God
directly" rather than needing a Pope to do it for us.

> While these people might not be able to touch the pure
> unfiltered current they might at least be able to more directly
> contact it after only its first or second transformation and
> remember every *level* in a church hierarchy represents another
> level of "transformers"

And this seems to be yet another definition of a priestcraft.
Instead of priests speaking on behalf of a God we have oracles
speaking on behalf of great invisible beings.

I'm not sure how necessary it is for another priestcraft. Gurus
are fine as personal coaches to the spiritual but I'm not sure
that we need people to seemingly speak to invisible beings on our
behalf. The problem I think is with our lack of direct
insight not with our lack of contact with higher beings.

> ... almost everyone who has power ... in a ... religious ...
> organization will speak out sharply against channelling is ...
> It will mean the foundations of their power will be cut out from
> beneath them.

What you are proposing is an oracle-based spiritualistic religion
with a congregational or decentralized power structure. As an
alternate religion it would be opposed by proponents of other
religions. That opposition though comes from the mistaken belief
that their way is the only true approach to the spiritual. You
seem to be making the same claim for your newly proposed religion.

The same decentralized approach can be found in other religions
like Christianity where we find local break-away churches that
follow their own practice not under the command or subject to the
authority of some national or international religious body.

> We may be now seeing the first admittedly stumbling steps
> towards this very different picture of spiritual and religious
> activity.

I see it as stated to be another reformulation and not
essentially different. The power structure is decentralized. It is
a popular religion for the masses with a priestcraft rather than
a spritual practice with gurus and well-defined practices. The
priests claim to speak on behalf of invisible beings.

The existence of those beings and what they represent would be
presented as part of the dogma of the new religion part of its
teachings which its followers would be expected to accept as
literally true.

This is not a radical breakthrough but rather something which may
have been tried at different times in the past. Wasn't there a time
in early Greece when there were temples to the various Greek gods
with oracles to speak for them and a mythology to explain the
nature of those gods?

> The basic underlying pattern is of certain individuals
> beginning to try to channel "spiritual entities"

You're attempting to help formulate one possible future religion
for the West. It will appeal to certain people that need to
personify the inner workings of life to make them into deities.
When I might attempt the same task I'll stick to something that
more closely follows what I've found in Theosophy and Buddhism.

In your religion "channelling spiritual entities" will be an
important activity. In mine realizing "the nature of mind is
empty clear and unimpeded" will be important.

> i.e. to connect directly instead of through the process of
> entering a religious hierarchy - that is to go "off the grid"
> and seek power directly from sun & wind & etc.

There seems to be a bit of liberal politics here. The idea that
"big is bad" and to disconnect from society and become physically
self-sufficient is I think misguided. We are now a global
community and that interconnectedness is growing not shrinking.
We are becoming increasingly dependend upon one another. That
interdependence is not a bad thing and allows both economic and
cultural growth.

> and of people in communities beginning to go to those channels
> to take advantage of that direct connection instead of for
> instance going to a Catholic priest who will simply adapt
> principles determined in Rome to specific situations.

Again it is simply a matter of different dogma. Your religion
has a teaching that its priests are direct connections to real
deities and the priests of other religions merely parrot the dead
and untrue teachings of their authorities. It's akin to a claim
of "my god's bigger than your god".

Your oracle might say "well I know by personal experience that
I'm channelling a high being from the planet venus." And a
Fundamentalist priest might say "you're a pawn of the devil
whereas I speak for God and know him and have a personal
relationship with him." Priests of yet other religions would make
similar claims.

> And while the first steps *are* difficult and may contain many
> mistakes the underlying pattern itself may ultimately become not
> only a new "religion" but an entirely different concept of what
> religion itself *is*.

Nothing of what you've said leads me to see it as essentially
different from religions of the past. You're just changing a few
of the variables but following the same general pattern. Even the
claim of being something special and above all other religions is
typical.

> And even further the evaluation of the "danger and delusion"
> cannot be done in a vacuum ... but must be done in comparison to
> *hierarchal religion*

The results will be the same. The oracle personifies his own
thinking and insight gives it a name and speaks on behalf of it.
The priest does the same but calls his personification "God"
rather than "higher-plane being".

> ... Might some channels cause trouble by being unclear being
> deluded becoming authoritarian and controlling and thinking they
> should be put on a pedestal?

Both oracles and priests can.

> Certainly but they are causing only the tiniest *fraction* of
> the trouble caused for the identical reasons by modern
> mainstream *priesthoods*.

We'll get the same troubles with oracles as with a priestcraft.
The problem is with the model of a religion for the masses where
special individuals minister to people rathern than a spiritual
practice where gurus act as personal coaches to the development
of individuals in training.

> Its just I believe that we've become so accustomed to such
> abuses have just simply accepted that abuses of hierarchal
> standing are a necessary evil that must be borne to derive the
> positive aspects from religion.

The problem I think is not with a particular organizational
model be it hierarchical network etc. The problem is with the
model of having to go to someone to minister to one. The problem
is with people being setup as intermediaries between us and our
spiritual practices. There is need for intermediaries -- priests or
oracles -- except for those who would bury their heads in the sand
and ignore the calling of the spiritual.

> But to really evaluate channelling we must throw this
> assumption out. For every modern channel that mistakenly advises
> a woman to leave a relationship there are a hundred Baptist
> preachers threatening women with eternal damnation if they dare
> leave the husbands that have beat them from the first day of
> their marriages.

Again we find the tradional claims made on behalf of a favorite
religion. My way someone might say is 100 times better than
your way. Mistakes though are made through human error
through lack of insight and really looking at the particular
situation of the moment. This is done by people of all faiths
and an oracle of Channelity is not any more immune from human
error than the rest.

Of course the channeler operates from a dogma required belief
of his faith which accords semi-omniscience to his
pronouncements which puts him on a par with the Baptist priest
thinking he is speaking for God! <grin>

> I do not channel and would never advise anyone to do it or not
> to do it

That's good because you'd have to be someone's "spiritual doctor"
or guru to be in the position to prescribe a particular practice.

> but I do tip my hat to those who have chosen perhaps without
> knowing it to be what I believe a century from now may be seen
> as the first pioneers to explore a new and wild land

I think that the land of the occult or hidden side of life has
been explored for almost numberless generations. We're just
dabbling in the West with things that have been known far into the
prehistoric past.

> ... a land that might contain benefits currently not even
> dreamed of.

The benefits are in the riches of the spiritual which are open to
all of us and have always been open. We just have to give the
"right knock" and the door will open.

For Western society I expect several new religions to evolve to
account for various temperaments. One possible religion might very
well take the lines of the approach that you outline. My
background though leads me to want to help with religious
formulations along different lines.

-- Eldon