The Art of Channelling

crystal ballWhen I first came across the idea of channelling, like most people I thought it was to do with connecting with the recently departed. Accordingly, when someone told me that I must have channelled my first book, I took it with a pinch of salt.

Just a few years later, I not only channel daily but I find myself teaching other authors how and why to do it.

Channelling is not a special gift, we all can do it but for many reasons it has been suppressed and sometimes is treated with derision in our society. Fortunately, the word has entered popular culture, with many pop and film stars saying that they channelled their performances.

Virtually all the literary greats will testify that they did not know where their Muse exactly came from but allude to it being external to them.

We also have this gift innately but somehow lose it. For example, seeing a child immersed in a drawing reminds me of the famous Picasso quote …

“All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.”

By learning to channel, we can get back to this child-like state of awe and wonder, but with all the experience and wisdom we’ve amassed over our life times.

Passive vs Active Channelling

I found out there are two types of channelling. Passive channelling is where people let themselves be taken over. When this happens, sometimes the literary output tends to be a bit repetitive, and quite often frankly a bit dull.

When you actively channel, all that happens is that your conscious mind gets out of the loop and you silence your inner critic. You don’t lose control from directing the flow, shape or semantics of the work. You just get ‘in the zone’.

What’s more, you come out with stuff that you amaze yourself with, both from the perspective of quality and the level and detail of information that you didn’t know you knew. This applies equally well to musicians and artists as it does to writers. I’ve lost count of the time when writing where I’ve got access to information that I could not have possibly known which latterly I’ve discovered was true.

So what are you channelling?

Again the common misconception is that we channel recently departed spirits and indeed some people do. More commonly people channel their guides and some say they channel Ascended Masters, angels and archangels. I’ve worked with authors who channel elementals like fairies and others that channel the Sun, Earth, Moon and stars. Again, whether this is all true or not is down to one’s personal belief. As it happens, my favourite theory is that we channel our future selves who of course we strongly morphically resonate with.

Now I don’t doubt this is what people are experiencing but I feel this is likely to be more personal intepretation than fact. What is more likely to be happening is that we are connecting with levels of consciousness that we struggle to explain in our language and three dimensional reality so they end up with names that sound a bit far out. Also, sometimes when people lay claim to channelling x, y or z, all too often, ego sneaks in to play and common sense goes out of the window. Two elements that are not overly healthy in the creative writing process.

Note that some people claim that, “It must be true as they channelled it”.

I prefer to say, “I channelled this so please take it with a pinch of salt but I hope it either proves useful or entertaining.”

I am agnostic about who is channelling what exactly and prefer to focus on the output. What seems to work a treat in this regard is not channelling randonly but giving whatever source is feeding you with information to a structure. In my ecourses and workshops, I use Mind Maps. They have the added bonus of bypassing that inner critic by busying the left hemisphere so the right can be holistic.

It’s worth noting that you are also not limited to channelling the words (or images or sounds). You can also ‘channel’ or conjure up the perfect publisher, sales and marketing contacts, speaking engagements and your readership.

So how do you go about it?

Regular meditative practice is the key. This doesn’t mean sitting cross legged on the floor for an hour chanting “Om”. A good walk so long as you primarily look up is good enough. There are also some great Meditation Machines you can buy nowadays.

Undertaking a yoga, Pilates, Tai Chi or Qi Gong class is also a great way to immerse yourself in the state that is ideal for channelling.

Nowadays, in a busy world, a good entry point to channelling is learning How to Quieten Your Mind

And, if you want to unleash the book inside you, learn How to Channel Your Book
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The Art of Prescience

prescience

The dictionary definition of the word prescience implies it is somehow possible receive fore-knowledge ahead of when things have actually happened.

We can ’see’ this more clearly when we insert a simple hyphen to get “pre-science”.

It could explain how Leonardo da Vinci was able to sketch helicopters and parachutes. Many other scientists and visionaries seem to receive their insights in visions or even dreams.

Newton ’got’ gravity in a split second and took the rest of his life working out the maths of apples falling to earth. The chemist Kekulé dreamt of a snake eating its own tail and then made the intuitive leap to work out the ring structure of the benzene ring which lead to the basis of all organic chemistry.

For mere mortals, making giant leaps of scientific discovery may not be high on our daily To Do lists. However if we are involved in the creative industries, being able to see the ’near-future’ could have its uses. We could ’see’ what is is we need to create, be it the title and words for a book or the scope and shape of a client’s marketing campaign. If you work in the financial sector, knowing what to invest in is obviously useful. Note that there are reasons why we can’t simply get the lottery numbers.

But how do you go about getting into the state where such flashes of insight pop in?

Well the key lies in learning how to enter the meditative state at will – ideally with your eyes open. What then happens is that time and ’The Now’ softens and we find it easier to resonate with both the past and future versions of ’Us’. Rupert Sheldrake describes the mechanism whereby this occurs in his wonderful theories called morphic resonance. By quietening the conscious mind and that inner chatter, past memories become more accessible as do ‘future memories’.

The diagram below shows how an author can tune into the words they have yet to write. If our conscious mind is active, it blocks the flow.

Tuning into Your Future Self

If you don’t know how to meditate and can’t make your mind go blank, help is at hand.

The Manage Your Time with Mindfulness ecourse is designed not only to show you how to stretch time by changing the speed of your thoughts but also how to tune into ‘future memories’.

Writing from the Heart

If you have ever been stuck in front of your computer with words not flowing, there’s a good bet it’s your head that’s in the way.

When we allow our conscious mind to take a back seat, a certain magic unfolds – we get in flow and become what is known as ‘a channel’.

Next Thursday the 8th November at 7pm GMT, I’m honoured to be taking part in the Writing from Your Heart series of teleseminars with Eileen Parr.

I’ll be lifting the lid on what channelling is, and isn’t, and how it’s not about talking to the “Dear Departed” – it’s a natural process we all do from time to time. When we learn to do it under volition, our creativity and productivity soars.

Watch this short video to find out more …

And register for free for my interview and those from 14 other spiritual transformational authors from the US and the UK here

Writing from Your Heart