We hear the term channeling in many different spheres. It is the ability to be able to receive messages and information from the unseen – Deities, those who have passed, Otherworld/ other dimensional spirits and beings, and so forth. This also includes our ancestral soul – the one we carry within us, a part of us, that which holds all the lives we have lived before this one.
Every single person can, and does channel. We each have a soul, and it is through the soul that we are able to channel. It is the soul that connects to them, that experiences that message, and takes it into the brain to process it and understand what is being shared with us.
Complications of Channeling
Channeling is not a specialized skills that only some have. It is an ability you already possess. The problem I see most often comes in two parts.
Listening
First is listening. To be able to hear, we must first be able to listen. Listening requires us to open our mind to the possibility, and train the brain to listen for what is coming in.
Listening seems like an easy task, but really think about how you listen in life. When someone is telling you a something, are you giving them your full attention? No distractions? This requires some honest reflection here. We want to say yes, we want to believe that we are really listening and giving our full attention to what they are saying to us, but we live in world built for distractions. We are taught that multi-tasking is important. That time is money and thus we should hit the highlights and move on. All of these things create barriers to really listening.
Think about a conversation you have had recently. Did your mind pick out some key points you wanted to respond to, so as they were still talking, you were also formulating your response in your head? This is actually more common then one might think. Our brains have been trained to do this. It is one of things we are taught throughout our education years as children – To pick out and focus on key points, and create arguments around them. I am not talking arguments in the way of hostile, but more civilized debates, yet both are seen in interpersonal communication.
So before we can truly receive the messages being given to us, we have to be able to really listen.
Trusting
The Second issue I think is much harder – Trusting. I hear practitioners often talk about the trust factor in the form of trusting the entity talking to them, which is important, but the biggest hurdle I see is in trusting ourselves.
I see people struggle all the time with trusting themselves. Questioning the validity of their experiences with channeling from a place of “was it my imagination?” When society has told us that these kinds of experiences are not real, it is just coming from ourselves/ our mind, or worse that there is something wrong with us like a mental illness. I think this has lessened a little over recent years, yet we are still a long way from acceptance of these experiences being real by their standards.
Even in spiritual and magical communities, others will place doubts and say people are making it up. Like there are only certain people who have this ability, or my personal favorite that we will get into shortly “It isn’t the same as mine so they must be false” attitude.
Part of the issue also comes from a place of science. The way that science goes about proving something in the physical world, and people trying to apply the same strict standards to spiritual/ mystical experiences. This just doesn’t work. There is much in science that gives us clues and foundations for how it can work, that gives it validity, yet science is limited.
Trust in the physical world is hard enough – but trusting a spiritual/ mystical experience requires us to trust in ourselves.
Checks and Balances
I am sure there are some people who have no trouble trusting and sitting firmly in the validity of their experiences from the start. I have never met one, but that doesn’t mean they are not out there. For most of us though it takes time and work to build that trust.
For me, it was about creating checks for myself. I found tarot to be the best tool for the conversations and visions experienced in trance and spirit walking. After the experience I would grab my deck and ask it to show me the message. It was always consistent, which for me was proof of the experience. Just by sheer odds it should have varied, but it never did.
It all connected and gave me tools that worked. Through channeling my Guide I have been given many different tools, techniques, and even spells. The results of them were spot on. They all flowed together and gave tangible results in my physical life. The power contained within them was greater then anything else I had experienced by using the instructions/ techniques of others. I’m a results based person – so the results gave validity to the information being received in this way.
These were some of my own checks and balances in the beginning. I needed them and they helped me to develop real trust in myself, in my Guides, and in my experiences. It took time (years) before I finally let go of the need for them in a validity sense. They are still tools I use but they have nothing to do with the aspect of belief or trust. I trust my Guide completely and the spiritual/mystical experiences I have. It does not mean I do not use discernment in the interpretations, but I never doubt the experience or messages anymore.
Alignment With Others
So I said we would get back to this – “It isn’t the same as mine so they must be false.”
We are not going to pretend that there are not charlatans in the spiritual/ magical community. People who are false. Who use manipulation, fear, and observance techniques in order to make money off of people. They have convoluted the idea of channeling and the validity of it. I do not have an answer for this, because only they truly know if they have had experience or not. The best I can say is if someone is actively pursuing you with channeled information for you but you have to pay them for it – they are probably fake. Otherwise, listen to your intuition – not your ego but your intuition.
The problem that charlatans complicate though, is this idea that if their experience doesn’t match mine, then they must be false (or you question if yours is). We have people channeling Deities, Angels, Aliens, Multidimensional beings, people from history, and so many more. They all seem so very different, and even at odds with each other from an existence perspective. Yet it is in perspective that we can see their overlap.
Each person channels from the perspective of their own language and personal understanding of their language. The form and name they see is shaped by their own connections, personal beliefs. How they process the messages and experiences are going to be shaped by their religious or physical world context. On the surface, the experiences and messages from all these different people do not seem to fit together, they do not align, and may vary greatly from your own. Yet this is the surface.
When we channel, we are also processing this information and the senses of it in our mind. Our mind uses the language, context, and imagery that we have, that we can understand, and that we are familiar with. On the surface it looks different, but the messages, what they are showing us and telling us is not.
I have listened to a lot of different people who claim to channel. There are some who I do not see resonance with at all, but many others that I do. How we interpret that experience is different, but the underlying messages, what they are giving us is aligned. The way they describe the experience is familiar. The lessons and messages they are pointing to, at the core, is the same.
We see this same type of concept across cultures. Every culture and religion has some sort of underworld and Death Deity. On the surface they can look very different, have very distinct features that have been shaped by the language, culture, and imagery of those people, yet we can see all the similarities and resonate aspects between them.
Look beyond the surface – find the resonance. It is in the resonance that we see clearly. Where we connect and where we can find more pieces to our own puzzle – the questions we are seeking answers to. We are all a piece of the puzzle, and being given different pieces. It is through sharing with, and listening to, each other where we are able to see the full picture.
Time to Channel
People already know how to channel in an unintentional way, because it comes from the soul. We just need to open our mind to the possibility – believe it is true. Pay attention and Listen. Explore and trust.
There are lots of ways to hone the skill to do it in an intentional way. It starts with meditation. I know how much some people hate hearing that because meditation in the way it is commonly presented is difficult if not impossible for some. If you struggle with meditation I highly suggest you check out this video by Ivy the Occultist . I think those that struggle will find some helpful tips here.
Work on getting into Trance spaces. My personal favorite, and the easiest I have found for people, is using the mantra/mala technique which I wrote about Here.
Put in checks if you need to in the beginning. Explore what those might be for you. Learn to trust yourself and your experiences to the point where it doesn’t matter what anyone says – you know what you experienced.
Listen to others having these experiences. Listen to your intuition and find ones you resonate with. Look beyond the surface though. It doesn’t serve your growth to only surround yourself with, and listen to, those who appear like you. Our differences give us more depth, other perspectives, and new ways to explain what we ourselves are experiencing but find it hard to put into context that others can understand.
It is time to channel with intention, and every single person has the ability to do so.
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