Some of Julie’s early work in channel about channeling from 1987.
• Positive results from the media’s derisive attitude toward channeling: When new ideas about reality press against the narrow restrictions and agreements of this culture, fear results. This, however, stimulates interest and discussion. View Section
• Is channeling the “truth”? There are very strong beliefs about channeling and how it should appear. “It is wonderful, and it is nothing special.” People have been “explor(ing) beyond the frontier of ordinary awareness” in many ways throughout history. “The paramount point is to identify what is useful.” Beware of punishing or fearful information. View Section

   Micciah:  We greet you, dear friends.

   Julie:  We do greet you, indeed.  This is Micciah Channel, and I’m Julie Winter.  Micciah is an energy entity who works with me while I’m in trance, and while I’m in the trance state I have access to a point of view that seems to come from a non-physical realm.  This series of programs is drawn primarily from videotapes taken during my regular classes.  We want to expand our circle, and include your energy and interest in our work.
   This program is about channeling and it’s taken from two separate sessions.  We’re going to talk about channeling and the media; that is, the current media reaction to channeling and what that might mean, and whether or not channeling is “the truth.”

   Micciah:  We greet you all, dear friends.  [pause]  You have within you and available to you immense creative powers that have both a chaotic and, paradoxically, ordered nature.  And you live within the framework of certain beliefs, yet in order to utilize so many of these potentials you need to be able to dismantle the beliefs that have become very solid, dense, that seem to safeguard you, and yet some of them hold you in a prison so that you are not free to use what is natural, what is your birthright, what is a delight even though it takes the willingness to risk, to fall, or fly, past your beliefs, to touch these possibilities. So it is frightening, sometimes, as well as exhilarating and exciting.  And, uh, sometimes, depending on the climate in which you are living, the psychological and spiritual climate, it has been dangerous. So when you bump your nose against a new area there is a quality of excitement and of risk, of the need to surrender or to fly.  And you must also have a ground, you know, so that you don’t become knocked off your course in a destructive way.  And support.  Although these explorations are made individually -- certainly no one can make them for you -- the support and the love of friends is crucial.
   So, please, may we have your questions?

   Lanie:  Micciah, could you comment please?  Is there any possible positive result to the seemingly derisive attitude that the media have taken towards the rise of channeling and the rise of new channelers?

   Micciah:  Yes.  Well, channeling is just a word to describe a certain activity or journey, and even the word “channel” describes...,  is used loosely and describes a number of very different things.  But that isn’t really what you are asking.  So, this is a very good example of what we are speaking of.  In your group, in your culture, this kind of work, or play, is alien. You have less and less encompassed a model of reality that included the validity of many states of consciousness.  Many states of consciousness.  You have one set, or frame, that you refer to as reality. And in order to function in the world, one must know what the agreements are.  It does not help you to lose your connection with those agreements.  But when there is an outburst of a kind of activity -- and this activity is very very old, older than you think, maybe older than what you call reality, if one believes in time --, when there is, uh, an outburst of some unacceptable way of behaving, a way that presses out against the restrictions, a way that says maybe you don’t know everything, maybe it is not all nailed down, maybe your beliefs about psychology, or religion, or health have a restrictive..., maybe there are dimensions you haven’t thought of, there is fear.  Fear comes up from the personality aspect of the self, fear comes out of the pores, quite literally.  Fear is a biochemical state, a neurochemical state.  And the fear is very quick to condemn, to push away, to say no; there is an aspect of the fear that would like to say and sometimes does say, “No, we won’t let you speak of this.”
    Really, your culture tolerates quite a lot of diversity.  There are some things you cannot say, you will be punished for saying.  There are many other things you can say.  So the reaction of the personality self when it is confronted with what it wishes to reject, what it feels threatened by, is to try to get that splinter out of its skin, whether it is through the media, which is quite a grand way of doing it, or through personal criticism.  And then it is like a magnet.  Everyone gets together along the lines of their agreement. “We think this is crazy, don’t you?  This is mass hypnosis, don’t you think?  This is a violation of, uh, whatever, don’t you think?  You can’t heal anyone with your hands, that is, uh, a foolish and dangerous concept, don’t you think?”  So the fear catapults itself out from the personality and gathers to itself very quickly, like little filings on a magnet, the reenforcement of agreement.  Now, if you are lucky, there also develops an opposite camp, to give you a little variety.  If you are unlucky, the fear that has really touched something that is deeply protected, the fear will go wild, and a whole group of people can collect around one viewpoint and leap in a very cruel way on anyone who disagrees.  But this will have the effect of stimulating interest.  And part of yourself, part of everyone’s self, whether it is activated or not, has a yearning, has a yearning to explore other dimensions, to be involved with the grandest journey, the grandest space journey of all, which is the journey into what you call inner space.  So there will be talk in the media.
   So, we hope that many voices will spring out and investigate and know there is no one right way.  Your exploration of the other realms is in every creative act, and every night, everyone journeys to dream time.  Sometimes you bring back jewels from the dream time. It is unfortunate that differences in belief and in predilection and in temperament cannot be explored, or that it is hard to explore them without rousing fear and spitefulness.  But those are, uh, protective stances.
   So does that address what you are thinking about?

   Lanie:  For the most part, yes.  Thank you.

   Micciah:  It is also often...  Popular articles are written by people who have little or no breadth for comparison, for understanding. They are presented purely from the tight weaving of the personality self and its entrenched beliefs.  When someone is playing music, for instance, or singing opera, you watch someone on the stage singing opera, or rock music, their eyes do something very similar to what “this one” does when she is engaging in conversation with this realm.  It happens all the time.  It’s not so mysterious.

   Ian: It seems as if there are many people who are making themselves known as channels, especially in Manhattan.

   Micciah:  Always a busy center.

   Ian:  Yes.  My questions are about the quality and the variety of these channels, and, I guess, the veracity.  Another part of that question is about the people who appear to follow these channels.  And the third part of that question is should each of us be looking for our own ways to channel?

   Micciah:  Ah.  All right.  So.  To go back to what we said at the very beginning, you create a language that has solidity so that you can relieve yourselves of both the excitement and the burden of reinventing life as you go along.  And now, you have a phenomenon called channeling, and it is a certain way, and people now have very strong beliefs about it.  “Oh, this person closes her eyes and, uh, the voice sounds funny.  Oh, that must be made up.”  Or “No, no, that is the real article!”  Or this person closes his eyes but the voice sounds like his ordinary voice, or this person remembers what she says, this person does not.  So, you are already in the grip of your solid beliefs.  The cement shoes and the brick bats.  [laughter]
   This, as we have said before, is wonderful, and it is nothing special.  To be able to loosen, or soften, or dissolve a little bit the edges of the borders, the frontiers of your reality, is a normal, human -- and animal and tree -- potential.  You do it all the time.  The real trance is thinking that reality is only one way.  And coercing yourself into the tightness of that way over and over again.  That is the real trance.  So, now you have this artifact called channeling.  It isn’t, it isn’t, it isn’t anything.  It is, uh...  You are as a group of people attempting to explore beyond the frontier of your ordinary awareness, or your commonly recognized awareness.  And that is wonderful, and it has always been done.  The shamans or various groups of people voyaged out from the given context of the commonly held reality.  The magicians, the seers of all time, but also the mothers, the carpenters, the artists, the actors, everyone a little bit, sometimes with more awareness.  This is a way of journeying.  There is no right way.  It is a form you are giving, “this one” is giving at the moment, to a way of hearing and seeing, um --  We are back to the word “bigger.”  Umm.  Um, um, um.  Um. Ummumumumum.  [laughter],  reality.  But since you love to discuss things and define them, of course you will go on saying channeling is one thing or another.  Um, and in some ways you need to identify what is useful.
   The paramount point is to identify what is useful. To follow, because someone says something, is always dangerous.  Don’t, please don’t follow anything we say.  Explore.  Test the ground yourself.  Any information, when it is punitive, when it is, uh, demeaning, is suspect.  So if we say to you, “You don’t know anything.  We are the channel, we will tell you,”  we are demeaning your creativity, your power.  That is suspect coming from this point of view, coming from anyone, anywhere.  You are the creative sources of your being and of your lives.  So this journeying is an expansion of the possibilities of what is in your reality.  Information that encourages you to follow rather than to think, to experiment, to feel, to create, to sense, to dance, we would say that is not so helpful.  But you will have to figure it out yourself.  If you follow and then you are disappointed, you will learn from that.
   So you have at the present time organized this set of beliefs around a very old way of journeying, and you say now, “Well it is channeling.”  All right.
   You, all of you, all of you partake of the vastness, of the intimacy of the web.  And, yes, of course, you have your own guides, you are your own guides.  Seek your own guides.  This is wonderful.  To do this with you is interesting, it is fun.  It is a voyage, and, uh, it is a delight.  If the delight turns into fearfulness,  no.  Question.  “Why do I want to be frightened?  Why do I need to be punished?  Why do I need to be demeaned?  What old voice inside myself does that echo?”  Someone who responds to channeling that is channeling of a punitive, demeaning nature is responding to an echo, the outer echo of an inner belief, yes.  You have to feel you are unworthy or feel you need to be punished to respond to such a thing.  Otherwise you will say, “No.  Turn off the set.”
   We thank you so much, we who are not a we.  We are all of you, and we are the floating frame of this voyager in her bushwhacking into other realms.  We share with you much love, and we bid you a very joyful time.