Channeling

A Bibliographic Exploration

Joel Bjorling, Joel Bjorling

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781000517613
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Originally published in 1992, Channeling is a comprehensive bibliography on the subject of channeling. The book defines channeling as any message received or conveyed from transcendent entities and covers material on the history of channeling, those that have claimed to transcend death, contact with UFOs and contemporary channeling groups. The book acts as a research guide and seeks to outline the historical roots of channeling, explaining its major teachings and considers its significance as a spiritual movement. It provides sources from books, booklets, articles, and ephemeral material and offers a comprehensive list of both primary and secondary materials related to channeling, the bibliography takes the most diverse and useful sources of the time. This volume although published almost 30 years ago, still provides a unique and insightful collection for academics of religion, in particular those researchingspiritualism and the occult.

1

Channeling: A Historical Approach

The phenomenon and practice of mediumship have existed from antiquity. The medium is a human channel through which spirits of the departed communicate with persons on earth. The earliest communications with spirits were in dreams. If the living could see and converse with the dead, then they had not vanished forever. Dreams contributed to a belief in the immortality of the soul. The belief that the living can communicate with the dead is the basic premise of spiritualism from which practices as mediumship and channeling are derived.¹

Ancestral worship was one of the earliest forerunners of mediumship and spiritualism. Ancestors were believed to give visible protection to their descendents and were thought to have superior wisdom.² Odell and Schwartzbaum state that ancestral veneration is based on the theory that deceased ancestors are dependent on the attention of the living, and that they rely upon them for their sustenance and continued existence. They are also concerned with the welfare of their kin group and they intervene for good or evil in their affairs.³

The truest forerunner of the medium was the shaman. Shamans are those who deal directly with spirits. They are found among the Voguls, Ostyak, Ona, Eskimo, and Yahga tribes. They were some of the most powerful persons in the tribe.⁴ Eliade states that

a definitive feature of the shaman is (his) capability of entering into a state of ecstasy in order to participate directly in the spiritual dimension of reality, as healer, diviner, clairvoyant, and psychopomp (an escort of the soul of the deceased into the realm of the dead).⁵

Shamanism can be traced to Paleolithic times. Essential to shamanism is the assumption that in the multileveled cosmology, spirits and deities existing at the upper and lower levels have the power to affect the lives of human beings in the earth world. Shamans have a relationship with guardian spirits who often appear to them in animal form. An ordinary individual may be protected and directed by a guardian spirit, but a shaman, unlike an ordinary individual, has the ability to enter into an ecstatic state “in order to intervene on a wide scale in the attaining of the spirit world.” To the shaman, shamanism is a vocation. The shamanism is not possessed by spirits, but is transformed by, and is a vehicle for, them.

Necromancy is also a forerunner of mediumship. It is found in India, ancient Egypt, China, and Persia and was known among the ancient Romans and Greeks.⁶ Ancient Greece was a world “crowded with supernatural power,” and

the events of life seemed to depend upon the wills of demons and gods. To discover that will, the curious Greeks consulted soothsayers and oracles, who divined the future by reading the stars, interpreting dreams, examining the entrails of animals, or observing the flight of birds.⁷

Public oracles were established at temples in Greece. At Delphi, priestesses called the Pythia gave messages while in trance. They inhaled a “divine” gas which emanated from beneath the temple, chewed narcotic laurel leaves which caused them to fall into a delirium and convulsions, “and thus (they were) inspired (to utter) incoherent words which the priests translated to the people.”⁸ The priestess in the tower of Beilos in Babylonia also received her messages while in trance.

Two prominent and immediate ancestors of contemporary mediumship and modern spiritualism were Emanuel Swedenborg and Franz Mesmer.

Emanuel Swedenborg

Emanuel Swedenborg was born in Stockholm, Sweden, January 25, 1685. The son of a Lutheran minister, he was educated at Uppsala, and in England, France, Holland, and Germany. He studied metallurgy, geology, and chemistry and was an Assessor on the Board of Mines and a legislator in the Diet. His studies in physiology and psychology caused him to ponder the idea of the spirit. In his mid-fifties, Swedenborg turned to theology. In 1736, he began experiencing unusual dreams and out-of-the-body states. He ultimately found his scientific and other intellectual pursuits unsatisfying and he began to follow Divine guidance.⁹ He collected his experiences, which included conversations with angels in heaven, into books such as Heaven and Hell, Divine Love and Wisdom, and The True Christian Religion.

One of Swedenborg’s primary teachings was the Law of Correspondences. Simply stated, Swedenborg believed that there are two realms of existence: the physical (phenomenal), and the spiritual (real). These realms are counterparts of one another. Similarly, the Bible has an internal and external sense. Swedenborg denied the orthodox interpretation of the Trinity and instead of one God in three persons, he taught that God was one in three principles, each of which were manifest in Jesus Christ. Thus, the Father is the principle of love, “infallible and exhaustless;” the Son is the principle of Divine Wisdom; and the Holy Spirit is the “energy of divinity which operates in humans to inspire, console, and sanctify them.” Swedenborg wrote that 1770 was the beginning of the New Age when the New Jerusalem as envisioned by Saint John appeared. The twelve foundation jewels of the New Jerusalem are “the genuine verities that shine forth in the Old and New Testament, and its crystal walls (are) the doctrinal truths that Swedenborg’s writings had revealed.”

The Swedenborgian movement did not intend to start a new church but was a forum of persons interested in Swedenborg’s writings. Robert Hindmarsh established weekly meetings in England in 1783 which he called the “Theosophic...