The Right Channel

by George Brooks

About twenty of us were squeezed into the living room of a small Brooklyn apartment awaiting the counsel of Laurie Lamb, a New York trance medium. It was 1986 and my life was in shambles. I had moved back home from New Mexico following a failed marriage, and was currently sleeping on a therma-rest pad in friend's apartment in Park Slope. I felt confused, disoriented and adrift. I'd try anything.

After a brief introduction, Laurie closed her eyes and went into a trance. She returned as a gruff authoritarian male admonishing us to get our acts together least we send the world to rack and ruin. This manifestation was followed by a kindly old lady who dispensed instruction like a daily advice columnist. Other entities also made an appearance -- a Native American shaman, a bawdy, flirtatious dame, an upper-crust matron -- seven or eight in all. They were so colorful and diverting, I found it difficult to attend to what was actually said. The diagnosis of a small lump on the back of my neck, never actually examined, later proved correct -- undigested milk fat. However, all in all, I left the event, skepticism intact.

Ten years later, I met with my second trance medium, Robert Johnson, at his apartment on the upper west side. I was interviewing him for a segment of On the Edge, a television show I produced, bi-weekly, for Manhattan Neighborhood Network. Robert was a hypnotherapist as well as a channeler for a group of otherworldly entities called "The Tutelage of Alpha Centauri." A plump, middle-aged man with a shock of white hair, a jacket and a necktie, Robert looked more like the car salesman he once was than any new age guide. However, I found his soft, confidential tone disarming and grew to like him as I learned the details of his unexpected spiritual journey, including a talking statute of Saint Jude and the discovery of a hidden talent for visions.

At my request, the Tutelage of Alpha Centauri was channeled for me and the cameras. Shirt loosened at the collar, tie gone, eyes lids lowered and speech somewhat clipped and archaic, the entity greeted me. What actor, I thought, could not have easily accomplished such transformation? I greeted the entity in return. He spoke with clarity and wisdom. I suspend judgement and listened.

The Tutelage told me about my own work, about how this show I was making that night would be aired more than once -- which it was, and that I would eventually have a production company -- which I did for my film series, Secrets of Life and Death. I was pointedly told not to seek perfection as there is no such thing -- an on-target bit of advise as perfectionism has long been a failing of mine.

To the general audience the Tutelage advised regular meditation. It was explained that there are three elements to a human being: the body, the soul (the autonomic nervous system) and the spirit. The body creates a wall that makes it difficult for the spirit to penetrate with its wisdom. Meditation lowers the wall and allows us to receive inspiration through our soul, the body's intermediary. This bit about the soul reminds me of PMH Atwater's research on the after effects of Near Death Experience on the mind -- in particular the limbic system, which is part of the autonomic nervous system. Apparently it gets a big boost from celestial encounters (See Chapter 20 of Near Death Experience: the rest of the story). A similar message about the important of meditation is currently being encouraged in a new YouTube video titled Awaken. Side note: I have some issues with the manipulative feel of this film, but not with its message.

Robert, not the tutelage, shared an interesting insight about channeling, which has stayed with me all these years: We All Channel! Channeling is not a special gift of the talented few. We receive wisdom from the divine all the time. We just fail to recognize it sometimes. For example, when I do a tarot reading or consult the iChing, I am channeling. In meditation, when I am flooded with ideas, I am also channeling. I no longer fight these thoughts in order to achieve an empty mind space; I accept them as a gift. When I am in my dream group or grief coaching, similarly, I receive insights and inspirations. Often they are stunningly on target. While my ego would like to take credit, I know I am simply a conduit for a deeper wisdom.

My biggest hesitation about channeling has been its susceptibility to fraud. See my early blog post on this. We all hate to be fooled, deceived or hoodwinked. So we are cautious when it comes to these arenas so difficult to verify. Are we not more inclined to believe the report, for example, of neurosurgeon and near death experiencer Eben Alexander regarding the after life because he was so steeped in medical science and such a disbeliever at the start? Disinterest and disbelief are the best credentials for credulity. However, when we relate to channeling as divine inspiration, it no longer matters whether Laurie Lamb or Robert Johnson are "really" being inhabited by spiritual entities. What matters is the quality of what is revealed. Do the words make sense? Are they life-enhancing and wise? Do they resonate with our hearts and souls?

I suspect that some channeling frauds may have begun as true transmitters of wisdom. However, fame and fortune can enlarge the ego, which invariably lead to folly.

Jeffery A. Marks, the next guest appearing on the teleconference series, The Mystery and Magic of Life, is not a trance medium, he is a psychic. That is, he is not inhabited by an otherworldly entity who takes control over his body and dispenses wisdom. Rather he receives visions and feelings that he has learned to heed and interpret and which turn out to be remarkably accurate. He obtains his information from the spirits of deceased human beings.

Robert Johnson explained in his interview that the entities he channels are of a higher order -- like angels. Other channeled entities such as Abraham, Seth, Ramtha, the Pleiadian Collective, God, etc, claim a similar higher authority. This is important to keep in mind as we begin to open to communications from the other dimensions. The view of heaven provided by people who have had near death experiences or by the newly departed souls in Jeffery's study will reflect some of the limitations of mortal beings -- augmented, of course, by their heavenly experience. Do not expect them to have all the answers.

NDE -- Glimpses of the Other Side

In a previous blog, I discussed some of the ways we learn about the territory of death and after death. The most familiar resource is religion. It is the main purpose of religion to provide a theological framework for why we are here and what it all mean. Invariably religions predict a relationship between behaviors in this life and rewards or punishments in the next. It has been suggested that religious doctrine gives society its moral compass and motivation for being good. Authority for this religious doctrine is almost always attributed to God or some divine being by way of inspiration to a specially chosen prophet (e.g. Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, Joseph Smith). Eventually the charismatic teachings of these religious messengers evolve into formulated rules of behavior. Considering the number of wars that are grounded in religious fervor, one might question the underlying definition of "being good," or the calibration of the proffered moral compass. Nevertheless, for many people in the world, religion has been a source of comfort and guidance regarding the mysteries of death.

A more down-to-earth source of information about death comes from the dying themselves. This too I mentioned in the earlier blog. The visions and communications of the dying, termed "nearing death awareness" by Kelley and Callanan in their book Final Gifts, provide a first hand-glimpse of the possibilities of death. Terminally ill patients frequently speak of a journey or trip they are about to take. Some report advanced traveling in the mind or spirit to various places around the world or in otherworldly realms, not unlike fledgling learning how to fly. There are also descriptions of visitations by deceased relative and friend, and if observed in those moments the dying do indeed appear to be looking at something invisible to others. Moments before her death, my friend Marianne, who had been unconscious, suddenly sat up in bed and gazed off into the distance, a look of beatific awe and amazement on her face. It was the sort of look that makes you turn to see what is there, followed by goosebumps upon seeing only the wall. Another friend told me that during her mother's final days she (the mother) seemed to have acquired the skill of astral projection, since she was able to report the details of her children's conversations conducted well out-of-ear-shot. The LA Times article, "Taking Life's Final Exit" provides a lovely summary the Final Gifts book along with other intriguing reports on "nearing death awareness.

A third source of information about death comes from people who have revived after being declared clinically dead. In his seminal book, Life After Life, Raymond Moody's recounts the many common features of "near-death experience" (NDE) -- a long dark tunnel, disembodied observation of one's physical body and the activities around it, a feeling of profound inner peace and contentment, bright golden light, the appearance of deceased friends and relative and/or an otherworldly being to assist in a life review and the subsequent return to the living. Moody's book is largely anecdotal and he makes no claims about proof of an afterlife, but he is clearly impressed by the reports of his subjects and discounts any rational scientific explanation. For a sample of a near-death encounter see Mellen-Thomas story. While not all near-deathers claim the spiritual insights of Mellen-Thomas, almost all report the loss of any fear about death after their experience--a comforting result in and of itself. The two near-deathers I interviewed in the course of making my film series, Secrets of Life and Death, both describe their reluctance and disappointment at returning to the living, so wonderful was their glimpse of the other side.

Those uncomfortable with the implications of NDE have sought physiological and psychological explanations, e.g. drug induced hallucination, brain shutdown, oxygen deprivation, depersonalization and birth memory. Discussion of the scientific viewpoint may be found on HowStuffWorks and Wikipedia. Evidence that favors the survival of consciousness after death is reported by Kenneth Ring in a paper written for the Journal of Near Death Studies and summarized on the NDE website. The jury is still out on where NDE proves or disproves life after death. Read the material and decide for yourself. Ultimately it boils down to what you believe in, and that may have a lot more to do with your own life experiences than any rational argument.

In my next blog I will describe a fourth source of after-death information -- communications from the dead themselves  These communications come to us in three distinct ways: channeled (not so very different from the way religions initially acquire their own death knowledge); electronically or telephonically transmitted -- also known as electronic voice phenomenon (EVP) or Instrumental TransCommunication (ITC); and dream visitations.

If you have any personal experiences or research related to this subject please share with the rest of us.