Philosophical Speculations

I have watched some videos of people who claim to channel the thoughts of other entities, sometimes aliens, sometimes ascended masters or angelic beings. All the ones I’ve watched have been generic, anodyne, platitudinous and useless. Has anyone come across anyone channelling who gives specific forecasts or detailed instructions – something we couldn’t have delivered ourselves by overindulging in whisky whilst in a good mood?

I'm inclined to think channelers are simply getting in touch with semi-dissociated complexes in their own minds. Does anyone have a more interesting theory about what is going on?

Well, Rudolf Steiner had criticism to say about this type of thing. I think he was criticizing things like seances and mediumship where people lose consciousness to channel a spirit, but it seems like it has relevance to modern channeling.

Now, people become at once suspicious when an activity confined entirely to the soul is expected of them, in order that something independent of themselves should reveal itself. They believe that they themselves give the revelation its content because they prepare themselves to receive it. They expect experiences to which they contribute nothing and which allow them to remain quite passive. Should such people, in addition, be ignorant of the simplest scientific requirements for the comprehension of a given fact, they will take for an objective revelation of non-sensible substances contents and productions of the soul in which the soul's conscious participation is reduced below the level maintained in sense-perception and will-impelled action. Such are the soul-contents provided by the experiences and revelations of the visionary and the medium. But what comes to the fore through such revelations is not a supersensible but a sub-sensible world. Human waking life does not run its course completely within the body; the most conscious part of it runs its course on the boundary between the body and the physical outer world; thus the process of perception with the organs of sense is as much an extra-physical process penetrating into the body as a permeation of this process from out [of] the body; so too, is the life of will, which rests upon the insertion of the human being into the cosmic being, so that what occurs in the human being through his will is simultaneously a link in the chain of cosmic occurrence. In this life of the soul running on the boundary of the physical body, the human being is to a high degree dependent on his physical organization; but the function of thought plays into this activity, and in as much as this is the case, the human being makes himself independent of his bodily organization in the functions of sense perception and willing. In the experiences of the visionary and in mediumistic phenomena the human being becomes completely dependent on his body. He excludes from the life of his soul that function which, in perception and willing, makes him independent of his body. Thus the content and productions of his soul are merely revelations of his bodily life. The experiences of the visionary and the phenomena produced by the medium owe their existence to the fact that a person while thus experiencing and producing is, with his soul, less independent of his body than in ordinary perception and willing. In the experience of the supersensible as indicated in this book, the development of soul-life proceeds in just the opposite direction from that taken by the visionary and the medium. The soul acquires a progressively greater independence of the body than is the case in perceiving and willing. The same independence realized in the experience of pure thought is attained by the soul for a far wider range of activity.

https://rsarchive.org/Books/GA010/Engli ... index.html

Interesting, Luke, though quite what he means by "revelations of bodily life" is an odd way of putting it - if he were a comedian, I'd think he was saying that mediums are talking out of their a**e. But he's not a comedian.

Actually, those who call themselves mediums can sometimes give good specifics. I haven't found someone who calls themself a channeler who gives good or testable specifics yet.

Some 'channelers' could be simply authors who call their sci-fi-like inspirations 'messages'. They may genuinely believe this or they may simply reckon that their books will sell better if claimed to come from beyond. Some inspirations may indeed come from a deeper strata but they necessarily become warped by the person's sympathies, antipathies, preferences, preconceived ideas and so on. We have often said here that NDEs, OBEs and so on are unreliable sources because any experience is necessarily sieved through the subject's conceptual vocabulary. If the person knows only rectangles, he'll describe Heaven as made of the most beautiful rectangles.

"Some inspirations may indeed come from a deeper strata but they necessarily become warped by the person's sympathies, antipathies, preferences, preconceived ideas and so on."

Thanks Cleric. I suppose this must apply to the great man himself, too.

Mediums can sometimes get specifics from ordinary deceased human sources. Channelers seem to want to tune in to more exotic entities.

Ben Iscatus wrote: ↑Sat Dec 23, 2023 5:09 pm Interesting, Luke, though quite what he means by "revelations of bodily life" is an odd way of putting it - if he were a comedian, I'd think he was saying that mediums are talking out of their a**e. But he's not a comedian.

Actually, those who call themselves mediums can sometimes give good specifics. I haven't found someone who calls themself a channeler who gives good or testable specifics yet.

We all dimly have 'revelations of bodily life' when, for ex., our stomach is upset, our heartbeat is really fast, our head is aching, or something similar. These can be called 'revelations' because, in a sense, we are in dialogue with the incorporeal beings that structure our bodily processes. Often, we are being given feedback on something we did with our activity - some unhealthy desires, habits, and corresponding deeds that we are entangled with. Normally we flow along with these habits none the wiser, completely merged with them, but once in a while the higher worlds work through elemental processes and say, "hey, pay more attention and adapt your activity accordingly!" It is as you said on the other thread - "we gain insights from our everyday lives by paying attention to what is..." Michael Levin has spoken at length about the wise cognitive nature of our bodily organism and processes, not simply as a metaphor but as a concrete reality. Yet these days, if the consequences of our actions aren't immediate, we usually write the former off as some random occurrence, bad luck, genetic predisposition, poisoning by evil corporations, etc.

In our normal state, we still confront these revelations with our "I" intact. We can stand apart from the feedback and reflect on it, tracing the consequences to some extent back to spiritual activity, even if in a very dim way. Imagine, however, if the feedback simply overrides your "I" and becomes your consciousness. You are now one with the digestive process, for ex. Any beings involved in this process can then use the opportunity to influence your consciousness, to force visions or messages upon you. Moreover, as Cleric said, these messages can only be understood in so far as they can be captured by our mineralized concepts. Then we not only lack control over where our attention has been directed in spiritual reality, but we can only make sense of that 'region' in the most physicalized, sensory-like way. I'm not saying this is necessarily the case with mediums or channelers, but it's certainly a conceivable possibility if we understand that there are only beings weaving the forms and processes of the World, including those of our own soul and body.

The most amazing thing is that all these accounts, like the NDEs tjssailor speaks of on the other thread, still get credibility even though they are short-lived and customized to cultural and personal expectations and preferences, and sensory-like concepts. The question we need to ask is whether what people who undergo NDEs stumble upon because they were drinking in the hot tub, or whatever, can be systematically trained for. If people can loosen from the physical body, experience higher worlds, then come back into the body and report on their experiences, can this also be done in a more rigorous and objective (and safe) way, without surrendering our "I" consciousness to various beings involved in our soul and bodily life? That is the question. It could only be prejudice that takes stock in the subjective accounts and channeled messages but completely ignores the free and systematic investigation of supersensible realities, or puts them on equal footing without any further consideration. That's like putting the testimony of the sleepwalker on equal footing with the security guard who keeps watch at night.

Thank you Ash for your insights.

Channelers often claim to be spiritually oriented and caring. But as outsiders, we can’t know how enlightened they really are or how much they cultivate their spiritual abilities. This is why I would prefer to judge by results: if I hear output that is worthwhile (detailed, specific, helpful), I would not speak dismissively of them.

Ben Iscatus wrote: ↑Sat Dec 23, 2023 9:51 pm
Channelers often claim to be spiritually oriented and caring. But as outsiders, we can’t know how enlightened they really are or how much they cultivate their spiritual abilities.

Is it the channeler or the channeled you're judging? I'd focus on the channeled.

This is why I would prefer to judge by results: if I hear output that is worthwhile (detailed, specific, helpful), I would not speak dismissively of them.

Maybe the problem is you're getting your exposure to channeling from videos. For things spiritual or philosophical I have always preferred reading. Have you checked out the Seth material? If you've got Kindle, you might try downloading the free sample of Seth Speaks (channeler: Jane Roberts) to get a taste. Or here is a link to someone's condensation of key points.

Hello Scott, happy Xmas!
You make a good point. I'd forgotten about the Seth books. I read 3 of them about 12-15 years ago. Some of it is quite detailed and specific, but the prose is so convoluted that I eventually lost interest. Do you know of any other source that confirms what the Seth spirit says using more natural language?

Ben Iscatus wrote: ↑Mon Dec 25, 2023 5:59 pm Hello Scott, happy Xmas!
You make a good point. I'd forgotten about the Seth books. I read 3 of them about 12-15 years ago. Some of it is quite detailed and specific, but the prose is so convoluted that I eventually lost interest. Do you know of any other source that confirms what the Seth spirit says using more natural language?

Can't say that I do. Though there is other channeled material that I have found interesting, like Geraldine Cummins The Road to Immortality, which purports to describe post-mortem existence in way more detail than one finds in, say, NDE descriptions, which typically only describe the first level (which the channeled source of Cummins book calls "IllusionLand").