Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Sources of Channeling Errors

Before generally embracing quality channeled information, we must address the issue of channeling errors and the potential sources of it. By definition, the message comes through the channel; who in turn can distort (corrupt) the message and produce errors because of personal beliefs, limitations in conceptual knowledge and other (e.g., psychological health and personal integrity). Another source of potential error is the limited knowledge of the channeling source; all sources are not going to be highly evolved masters.

In considering potential sources of error in channeling, it would be useful to understand how channeling works. It is my understanding that the spiritual source transmits its information to the channel in the form of impressions or feelings that are “translated” by the channel into human language (1). At a given point in human evolutionary time and personal history, an individual channel will have language and conceptual limitations relative to spiritual, scientific, psychological, and social messages; this is the first potential source of message distortion. The next source is the opinions and biases of the channel. These may be thought of as resonant points within the channel’s mental energy field. They can create a blockage or interference (the corruption) in the channeled message. In many regards these are often related to the channel’s psychological and spiritual maturity. Overall, there are many points for breakdown and distortion in the perfect channeling of the source’s message.

Esther Hicks writes in the preface to her book, The Amazing power of Deliberate Intent (2), “They [Abraham Group] told me, in the beginning of my receiving them, that I was a particularly good translator for them because I didn’t have strong biases or opinions that would make it difficult for me to receive them clearly….it was that I wasn’t pushing hard against anything”. In the same book, the Abraham Group discusses the opportunity of error that arises is translating information from one language to another; and they end with: “And that is why we do not think it is a good idea for you to count on Esther’s translation, either. We think you should get your own”.

A minor, but telling example of how a channel’s personal beliefs distort the message is the language distortion, or slant, in the quality channeling information Edgar Cayce provided to us. Because of his very deep, fundamental Christian belief system, Cayce channeled his spiritually related information through the language of the King James Bible, which I experience getting in the way of message’s information. Cayce’s orthodox Protestant belief system was so strong that when he started getting information on reincarnation in response to client questions about reincarnation and past lives, he was thrown into a personal crisis; and he had to overcome his initial aversion and doubts before he was able to continue his great work (3). It is a testimony to Cayce’s commitment that he overcame his strong personal religious bias against the deeper spiritual aspects of his work.

Many people have had a personal experience with a medium or channel where they noticed (or had an intuitive feeling) about a distortion in the provided information. Michael Crichton in the second half of his book “Travels”, describes his extensive “field research” with British mediums during a period when he was directing the filming of The Great Train Robbery (4). Every evening after he had finished the day’s filming, he would walk past a Spiritualist church, where he got into the habit of stopping for a reading from various mediums. Crichton describes how he could tell when the medium’s message was of good quality and when they were getting in the way. He came away with an informed skepticism in mediumship and channeling.

Sometimes a channel will be asked a question whose answer is beyond the intellectual knowledge and concepts of the channel to “translate”, and the source will say that it is not able or worth going more into this. Susy Smith, who channeled an entity she called James through her typewriter, wanted to know more about the nature of space in the spiritual realm; but when she asked for more, the source typed: “This is beyond you. Einstein could understand it, or possibly one who has had a deep illumination, but not one with your limited training” (5). When I read and studied the material that Susy Smith channeled, I found considerable corruption (using a method that of comparing the information from a group of sources); and I fournd that her material to be an example of how a spiritual message can be corrupted by what was probably the biases of the channel.

Another good example of how a person’s belief system creates errors in a spiritual message is Rick Warren’s The Purpose Driven Life (6). I found that there are deep spiritual insights and messages throughout Warren’s book; it is an inspired work that could be considered channeled using the broader definition. Much of it is very consistent with the messages from the quality channeling (and other) sources that I am using here, but his message is totally presented within an evangelical Christian background and biblical context. For example, in his message about life being eternal and the importance of living our human life with an awareness of ourselves as eternal beings, he places this within the context that how we live our life will determine our eternal relationship with God—whether we will end up in heaven or hell. Warren’s total belief in the Bible providing the fullness of God’s word blinds him to the possibility of reincarnation and a deeper understanding of the spiritual realm and ourselves as souls.

In spite of all the potential sources of errors, the potential for expanding human spiritual knowledge and practice with “quality” information from channeling and other new sources is so great that it is worth taking on the challenge. Our objective will be to find a way to minimize and isolate the inevitable errors that occur. In truth this is probably a much easier problem than the one of reconciling the large differences in the world’s existing religions, all of which came from or rely heavily on channeled information. I will present this approach in a future post

(1) This explanation was provided to me by Christie Pennington, the channeler of The Lightspeakers.
(2) Abraham-Hicks Material: Hicks, Esther, The Amazing power of Deliberate Intent: Living the Art of Allowing, Hay House (2006).
(3) Langley, Noel, Edgar Cayce on Reincarnation, Warner Books (1967) pp 11-13.
(4) Crichton, Michael, Travels, Alford Knopf (1988).
(5) Smith, Susy, The Book of James, G. P. Putnam’s Sons (1974) p 28.
(6) Warren, Rick, The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth am I Here For?, Zondervan (2002)

Copyright by Douglas Kinney

Saturday, January 24, 2009

More on Doomsday Predictions

In my last blog I discussed the 2012 predictions of major Earth changes. This is a follow-up with information from the Channel Kryon’s web page for 2007 Q&A (question 1). Here is the question: Dear Kryon, why do there seem to be more and more discrepancies between channeled information? It looks to me that more and more we seem to be divided into two camps – the catastrophe camp and the ecstasy camp. I know that one explanation could be put on personal belief of the channel, but this doesn't explain such differences in the channeled information at this time. How does this work exactly?

Kryon goes into their answer by using the analogy of human’s watching traffic: how when everything is flowing smoothly, nobody pays much attention. But when there is an accident, especially a big one, a large crowd will gather. Then they give an overview of our future being composed of many potential outcomes, some with higher probabilities than others. Now let me quote them of the following:

“When a Human channel or prophet comes back from a vision and gives you doom and gloom predictions, here is what they are really saying: "A beautiful angel came to me carrying the potentials of the planet in each hand... good and bad. I chose the bad one since it looked a lot more interesting!" Do you see? And who exactly gave this news? Was it the angel who carried the whole picture and was silent, or the Human who chose to channel only the parts that were dramatic? So you see, all information is given, but only the parts that the Humans wish to take back with them are shared. This places the power into the hands of Humans and the responsibility of the messages is theirs alone. It has always been this way and again we remind you that all your earth's scriptures were given to you by Humans... all the scriptures in all the religions of the planet.”

“Remember, dear ones, that channeling is the mind of the Human Being interpreting inter-dimensional information from a place that can be confusing and definitely not 3D [spiritual domain and not Earthlike]. Therefore, it takes practice, wisdom and a countenance that is studying mastery. Beware of the casual prophet, for they will use their gifts to create unintentional drama, and many Humans will follow them, giving seeming credibility.”

Earlier in the answer, Kryon said, “As far as entities on this side of the veil giving you another story, I stop and remind you that no entity can give you the future – and Kryon hasn't done that, either. What Kryon has done is to congratulate you for changing the planet, and remind you what is possible, and the potentials that you have. No entity on the other side of the veil is going to come in and give you doom and gloom predictions. That is a Human's interpretation of information they saw through their own discernment filter.”

Copyright by Douglas Kinney

Thursday, January 22, 2009

2012 and Earth Changes

Over the last several years there have been predictions about major Earth changes, which many see as a cleansing. After having gone through three previous predictions of Earth changes (mid 1980s for the harmonic convergence, early 1990s and 2000), I feel a sense of immunity because nothing in way of major Earth changes happened. This does not mean that one cannot pick up seeming indicators of change. Even I experience something when I was at a Dick Sutphen public event where he did a group hypnotic progression into the future. When he had us go to 2012, I felt a physical jolt and a sense of discontinuity along with visions of great changes in New York and London. Others in the group had even strong visions of Earth changes with rising seas and damage to the cities. Sutphen has conducted many of these group sessions and most people see major Earth changes. He is not the only person or source predicting changes.

I am still skeptical, so I check with some other sources—three of my favorite channels: Abraham by Esther Hicks, The Guides by Ron Scolastico, and The Lightspeakers by Christie Pennington. Abraham is their usually manner basically say it is nonsense. The Guides say that we as humans like to predict future calamities in order to motivate ourselves to make changes in ourselves and society. The Lightspeakers say that there will be changes in the consciousness of many people (those who choose to make them) but no major physical changes.

It seems obviously that something is going on. Sutphen and others are serious investigators, and I don’t want to totally discount them. I think I have some information that might reconcile the two viewpoints. I ran across it in a book 2012: Crossing the Bridge to the Future by Mark Borax. Much of the book is about Borax being trained by the famous astrologer and visionary William Lonsdale. At one point (p. 88-89) Lonsdale tells Borax:

“Atlantis was an incredible place, an amazing place, one of the greatest stages in human development so far. But at a certain point, towards the end, a small sub-group of elite became drunk with power. The forces they’d unleashed backfired. …
‘The resulting impact set in motion the primary downfall of the species. This is the main karma of humanity we’ve been repeating in various ways every since. …
“Because during the Harmonic Convergence of 1987 to 2012 a great purging is taking place in which the current world drama is intended to replicate what went wrong in Atlantis so we can make it right.
“The reason the story’s coming out now is because you can’t turn around an entrenched karmic pattern until you sufficiently recreate enough of it to have something to work with. …”

I have always had trouble understanding the Atlantis thing, but Borax and several other sources have given me a better perspective and understanding (see some of Delores Cannon’s books). What I believe is going on is that we again have the technology to destroy our civilization, and this is bringing back race memories of terrible earth quakes, floods and land falling into the ocean. In meditative-hypnotic settings such as those Sutphen conducts, these race memories are rising up. It is challenging (motivating) us to “do it right this time.” This would generally be consistent with what The Guides and The Lightspeakers have said: some of us are motivating ourselves to create a better civilization and to environment.

Copyright by Douglas Kinney