Our human desire to contact our dearly departed is probably as old as our attempts to understand death. One minute someone we love is warm and breathing. Later, they are cold and still. Seemingly never to return.
Where do they go? Can we contact them again?
Throughout our history, some people have claimed to be a spiritual link, or communications medium, between the living and the dead. The act is often referred to as “channeling”. Channeling takes many forms. One is to allow the spirit to speak aloud through the medium. Another is to write down that which the medium hears from the spirit in the form of a book or other kinds of text. Sometimes this is called “automatic writing.”
Here we will briefly introduce some of the more well-known channeling texts;
Most Christians and Jewish people believe that the Bible is the inspired word of God, in either a literal or metaphorical sense, He spoke through the many writers of those books.
Muslims believe that the Quran (literal translation: “recitation”) was verbally revealed to Muhammad through the angel Gabriel.
The “Book of Commandments” is an early compilation of the prophecies of Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormon Church. It was later edited and ultimately became part of the Mormon scriptures known as the “Doctrines and Covenants.”
Among the more modern channeled texts are the “Seth” books. These famous writings were dictated through Jane Roberts to her husband from a voice she called “Seth”. One of Seth’s core beliefs is that each individual is responsible for creating their own experiences and life circumstances.
Esther Hicks “interprets” a collective entity called Abraham, who say they are the essence of all religions. Similar to Seth, the Abraham-Hicks teachings are based on the idea that people create their own reality by choosing thoughts and emotions. They believe in on-going reincarnation and choosing the lives you want to live that will offer ever-growing spirituality.
“Conversations with God” is a series of dialogues written into book forms by Neale Donald Walsch. The dialogues originated when Walsch was at a very low point in his life and wrote an impassioned letter to God, asking for answers to his most troubling questions. After he finished, he heard God ask if he really wanted the answers. He has been dictating God’s answers to his questions ever since.
On October 21, 1965, Helen Schucman heard an “inner voice” (referred to as “Jesus”) said to her, “This is a Course in Miracles, please take notes.” The next day, she told her work supervisor, William Thetford, about the incident and what she had written. He encouraged her to continue, and offered to type out the notes she had hand written. “A Course in Miracles” is an interconnected text, workbook, and “manual for teachers” which was very influential and controversial in the years after it’s publication. It teaches a non-dualistic philosophy similar to many eastern religions. God is the only reality, creating the universe out of infinite love; everything we experience is only illusion.
