Some Reflections about Channeling and the Creative Process

 

Recent blog articles encourage consideration of human thought processes and I have now decided to offer some further posts on the topic of 'channeling.'  The word 'channel' has long been synonymous with trance mediumship.  In the "Prefatory Remarks" to Biography of Mrs. J. H. Conant (1873) Allen Putnam wrote: "She has been the channel through which more than ten thousand different spirits have sent messages to their kindred and friends on earth."

 

The first memoir of Daniel Dunglas Home (1833-1886) Incidents In My Life (1862) is supplemented by Experiences in Spiritualism with Mr. D. D. Home (1869) by Viscount Adare.  The latter book offers data of 78 seances with Adare having acknowledged in his Preface that he endeavored to write down as well as he could the substance of what Home said while in a trance.  A previous blog article includes commentary about the 'channeled book' Health: Its Recovery and Maintenance (1929) featuring 12 lectures delivered through trance medium Eileen Garrett; while another article considers "Channeled Perspectives of the Brain" via Edgar Cayce and Eileen Garrett.

 

I should remind my readers that not all claims by 'trance channelers' do I accept as signifying authentic so-called 'psychic phenomena.'  Throughout the articles presented at this blog, I've carefully researched and considered these cases and found them well-documented or otherwise wouldn't mention them.

 

When my book Testament was published in 1997, I decided not to have a by-line as the nonfiction book was a case study consisting of transcribed recordings of interviews and audio journals.  The declaration on the book's cover "Transcribed by Mark Russell Bell" made some people unfamiliar with the book think it was a 'channeled book.'  To this I reply that at least it was not channeled in any unconscious way — the technique of trance channelers.  Perhaps I should have specified 'Interviews transcribed by'; however, records of trance communications attest to individual human minds being influenced in their thoughts and decisions by other intelligences in the ascended realm, leading us to contemplate our perceptions and understanding of our individual identities.

 

The diverse psychic phenomena chronicled in numerous books suggest human beings have a shared 'subconscious' mind and this all-knowing Source of human creativity is the reason one will be able to find curious 'co-incidences' and synchronicities related even to commercial art forms such as movies and television shows.  A book that years ago made an impression on me was The Making of Kubrick's 2001 edited by Jerome Agel (1970).  The screenplay for "2001: A Space Odyssey" was written by Arthur C. Clarke in collaboration with Stanley Kubrick.  Clarke later commented about investigations of paranormal phenomena for television documentary programs such as "Arthur C. Clarke's World of Strange Powers" (1985) — see my post "The Poltergeist In Retrospect".  Agel's book includes some quotations of Clarke concerning his perspective as "2001" novelist/screenwriter.

"We recently discovered there is actually a Buddhist sect that worships a large, black rectangular slab.  The analogy of the Kaaba has also been mentioned.  Though I certainly did not have it in mind at the time, the fact that the Black Stone sacred to Moslems is reputed to be a meteorite is more than quaint coincidence."

"We had our first freakout in Los Angeles.  A kid went up to the screen and screamed, 'It's God, it's God.'  The movie seems to be alive.  People are telling Stanley and me things we didn't realize were in the movie.  A theological student said he saw the Sign of the Cross — and he may have, which would have been interesting, since Stanley is a Jew and I'm an atheist."

"There's an awful lot of symbolism in my fiction, some of it intentional, some unconscious."

"I don't know what to think about UFOs.  They're being seen by reliable people.  There may be something odd going on."

"Many people thought I was some kind of nut when I predicted the enormous and revolutionary impact of communications satellites."

Some other details presented in Agel's book include Michaela Williams of The Chicago Daily News Panorama mentioning the discovery of an authentic living counterpart to the fictional character Dr. Chandra and Douglas Trumbull stating that alternative scenes had been considered during the making of the film.  Trumbull was quoted:

"At an early stage, all the astronauts were to make it to the room in the penultimate scene.  I told Stanley to kill all except Bowman, and he told me I was ridiculously stupid."

When I worked as a publicity writer for Paramount Pictures between 1987 and 1995, I gained experience writing about and researching a variety of subjects associated with movie plotlines as I developed press kit production information and press releases.  Many films had metaphysical themes, including "The Butcher's Wife" (psychic abilities), "Dead Again" (reincarnation), "Fire In The Sky" (UFOlogy), "Ghost," "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade," "Leap of Faith" (spiritual healing), "Scrooged," several "Star Trek" films, and "We're No Angels."  In 1995 I began working on a case study of my experiences after visiting Oklahoma to investigate a contemporary 'talking poltergeist' haunting.

 

I noticed that when the first ad for my book appeared in the January 7, 1997 issue of Daily Variety, the printing made everything darker and the tape recorder (lower center) shown in the ad photograph ended up resembling the famous ‘Monolith’ of “2001: A Space Odyssey.”

 Eileen Garrett (1893-1970)

 
The first autobiographical book written by Eileen J. Garrett was My Life as a Search for the Meaning of Mediumship (1939).  After becoming aware of having psychic abilities, she became a member of a London spiritualist society and joined a circle for psychic development.  This is how Eileen Garrett described in the book her first trance experience after setting out to learn about "the way in which the clairvoyant functioned."

I met the new circle, composed of half a dozen women, who gathered together once a week in a dark room at the society’s headquarters.  The meeting opened with the Lord’s Prayer; I was then requested to place the tips of my fingers on the surface of a table with those of the other women.  Each time that I was present they claimed that the table moved more rapidly and spelled out more swiftly, tapping out messages “from the dead” using the accent of the table leg on the floor.
 
I was intrigued by these experiments and tried them out at home with my husband and our friends.  We had excellent results and received some unexpected communications.  I recall one episode in which a cousin of my husband, who was sitting with us, asked the alleged communicating intelligence, to inform him of the exact address of the place where he was born.  He did not know himself at that time, and only verified the truth of what was told him later.  This type of objective verification impressed me enough to make me continue my investigations.
 
The third time that I sat in the circle with the group of women, something unexpected happened.  I found myself growing drowsy and before I knew it I was sound asleep.  When I came to I was being roused and shaken by the other women who seemed frightened and upset.  I found myself in a somewhat nauseated and giddy condition with an effect of lights playing before my eyes.  I heard them that say that in my sleep I had given evidence of their dead ones being present, entities who spoke to them all.  I was thoroughly frightened at what had occurred and I hurried home to tell my husband; he was indignant and said, “This is awful.  You must not go to that society any more.”  For the moment I had a sense of relief that his decision had put an end to these experiments.

The secretary of the society advised Garrett to consult a friend of hers, a Swiss man named Mr. Huhnli.

I went one day, in trepidation, to see Mr. Huhnli by appointment, at his modest rooms in Lambeth; I was relieved to find him a gentle and simple person.  He asked me what had been happening to me and said that he had received a letter from the secretary of the spiritualist society telling him something of my problem.  I told him of my experience and he listened sympathetically, suggesting that I sit down quietly in a chair and relax.  I did so and felt myself becoming sleepy again; he told me not to worry about it, and again I lost consciousness.  When I awakened, he said, "I want to talk to you of what has been happening while you were asleep.  You are potentially a trance medium of great power."  I had not heard these terms before and asked him to tell me what trance really was.  He explained that it was a condition dependent on an extreme passivity of mind and that it could either be of a light or a profound nature.  In this deeply entranced state, the individual lost control over his own consciousness, in what appeared to be a sleep-like state; but at this time, some external "spirit" intelligence might enter in and take control of the organism, and he added, "This is what has happened in your case.  I spoke with the controlling entity who used your mechanism whilst you were apparently asleep.  He is a man of unusual intelligence, who declares that he is an Oriental; he wishes to do serious work to prove the validity of the theory of survival.  He gives the name of Uvani."
 
Mr. Huhnli's words bewildered and frightened me.  I left as quickly as I could, and when I found myself again in the street, I was sure that none of this experience had really occurred to me.  I jumped into a taxi, rushed home to my husband and told him the whole story.  He was most annoyed that I had seen fit to go and visit this stranger, and then in angry tones he assured me that if such things had taken place, I was not merely on the brink of insanity, but had already lost my reason.  I began to think he was right, and for the first time in my life I knew the meaning of fear.  For weeks I never slept without a light burning in my room, and wondered all the time if this unknown, Uvani, saw and heard everything that I did in my daily life.  I also wondered if this Oriental might not be a figment of my imagination; I could hardly believe that I had "made him up," as I had no particular interest in Orientals.  I endured this state of conflict as long as I could alone, then in desperation, I went back to see Mr. Huhnli again.
 
When I returned to Mr. Huhnli, I explained to him that what troubled me, was the possibility that if this personality, the control, Uvani, really existed in such close relation to me, that he could certainly spy on my most intimate and private behaviour.  He assured me that the control personality would not be interested in such matters, and had succeeded in reaching me for some profound purpose.  I was somewhat relieved when Mr. Huhnli said, "Your control may not approach you unless you prepare the way for him by going into an entranced state."  I replied, "I must have it in my power, then, to avoid trance, and so dispense with him."
 
He doubted whether this was possible and he feared that if I did so, I might harm my health; for the control personality, he explained, had already established himself through me and had made his purpose clear, having stated that he came to try to prove the truth of survival after death.  I doubted the whole thing, but the sincerity and honesty of Mr. Huhnli made me trust him, and believe what he said about those mysterious areas of my being, which I did not understand, and over which I had no control.
 
Mr. Huhnli then suggested that he could help me to deal with both myself and the control, if I would continue to allow him to speak with this Uvani whilst I was in a trance; and that he could thus help to direct and train him.  I followed Mr. Huhnli's suggestions as far as I could and gradually came to accept his point of view, that I had the makings of a mental medium.

Eileen Garrett commented in her 1939 memoir that her experiences made her "aware that there was some Force outside myself which worked through me to produce supernormal functioning."  Here are some other observations of Garrett from the book.

In ancient times it was known to teachers, leaders and many others that inspiration was the power which linked man with the Supreme Forces of the Universe.  When this power of true communication with the Highest was lost to man, he not only forgot the method by which he had reached those states, but also the memory of this inspiration; what remains to him of this inspiration, man still reveres in his Sacred Scriptures as the living Word of God.

Mind, in the universal sense, I know to be without and not within the human body.  I am able to see the impressions emanating from the outer universe register in the magnetic field of all living organisms.  As such ideas, sensations and emotions reach man from without, they are, I recognize, received by certain centres located within his own magnetic field; these impressions are then passed on to register within the physical body.  From my own experience, I am prepared to state that the brain of man registers and directs the activity of only a limited part of the impressions of his own mind.  For the mind of man consists not only of the conscious and the subconscious, but of the superconscious as well; and of these three areas, the subconscious and the superconscious are, as I sense and see them, located in the magnetic field; the conscious mind simply registers within the body a limited pattern of daily living.
 
Mind is the true force that creates all things in the Universe.  Just as the architect must image in his own mind the building he will some day erect, so must mind in the Universe, conceive all things before they can be born.  First comes the image or vision to the artist or creator and then follows the realisation of the dream in a completed work of art, or a world.

12/26/13 Update: In relation to my noticing synchronicities involving the word Bell since accepting the word as the last part of my pen name in 1995, I have an additional fact to share about "2001: A Space Odyssey."  I have learned that the title of the song that the computer HAL 9000 sings in the movie is "Daisy Bell".  A 2011 article about this facet of the movie is "Little-known sci-fi fact: Why HAL 9000 sang 'Daisy' in 2001" by Don Kaye.  It turns out that HAL 9000 wasn't the first computer in fact or fiction to warble the song.