The "New Age" movement has once again made it fashionable to be involved in occult practices. There have been other periods in recent history when this has been the case, most notably *fin de siecle* Europe (IE the 1890's) and more recently the late Sixties "Age of Aquarius" which faded into the "Me" decade and its plethora of self-help, "Human Potential" organizations. This era did not truly die. The "Me" decade became the age of the Yuppie, and the "New Age" emerged from the human potential movement and handed everyone out a crystal.
The main problem with the neo-Aquarian movement is that the whole concept of evil is so blithely scoffed at. "There's no such thing as evil," says the New Ager, "there is only imbalance." This is a refrain you hear all the time, not just from the practitioners, but from so-called channeled entities. In this essay, I wish to show you that there is something very dangerous in channeling, something which has been ignored to the peril of not only the channelers, but those who consult them.
In the 1890s, when mediumship was quite a fad, somebody estimated that only 25% of the mediums were actually contacting spirits. Fully 75% were charlatans, who used elaborate and not-so-elaborate means to fake contacts with spirits at séances. The famous magician Harry Houdini drew large crowds to seminars he conducted to show people just how the flim-flam artists conducted their phony séances.
There is evidence that much of the people who are self-described channels are doing the same thing. "Ramtha", the famous "channeled being of light", was shown to be a fake on national television when 60 Minutes did an expose on the former housewife in Oregon who "channels" him at $300.00 a session.
This, however, leaves 25% of authentic channelers, if you use the old figures, which I suspect to be pretty true now as it was in the Turn of the Century. And just as Dion Fortune, one of the foremost occultists to come out of the Order of the Golden Dawn, had warned about the mediums of her day, I must sound anew a very important warning:
CHANNELING IS DANGEROUS, not only to the channel, but to those who consult them as well. Most channelled entities come from a facet of reality that is woven, warp and woof, into the reality our physical senses can penetrate. This realm is known to the Native American as well as the Ancient Norse as the Middle World. (Mitgard) These entities from here are people who once had bodies but have died and for some reason have become lost on their way to the "West". (The realm of the dead) They crave the sensations of embodiment, and so they roam, trying to find a living person they can possess for this purpose.
Channels "invite" these entities into themselves in their quest for knowledge. And these entities are more than willing to give them whatever "knowledge" they sense within the conscious and subconscious dreams and hopes of their living host, and create whatever personality they sense.
Their host would like, be it the personality of a starship captain from Planet Zed, or a cranky ancient Egyptian priest. These "earthbounds" are only as dangerous as their embodied personalities were. Unfortunately, those humans that wind up "earthbound" were usually mentally disturbed in life, and this mental disharmony can cause mental damage to even the most adjusted person who opens themselves up to them.
Even more dangerous is the fact that entities that never HAVE had bodies and can truly be called "evil spirits" also make themselves available to the potential channel. These entities have been known since time immemorial as "demons," "devils," "pretas,"(Sanskrit: Hungry Ones), "kwaidan," (Japanese: Unquiet Spirits) "asuras," (Indo-persian: Not-gods) "djinni" (Arabic: Demon) and "gan'n"(Teneh Athapascan: Evil Spirit (of the mountains). In all cultures that have practiced magic(k), these spirits were actively guarded against. It is a relatively recent occurrence that some magicians and Wiccans have abandoned the warding practices that have been used for millennia for protection against them. The magick circle, unlike what Gerald Gardner has claimed, is to keep these negative entities OUT, not to keep the good magick in until it is cast, which although a nice thought, is totally erroneous.
Protection From Negative Energy & Negative Entities
The most basic protection is the magick circle. Those magicians or Wiccans who work without a circle are worse off than an aerialist who does his trapeze act without a net. If you fall down, you bite the dust REAL HARD. The circle is a line drawn in the dust of matter that says to beings of evil to stay clear under pain of intervention by the forces of Good.
If you cannot draw a circle in the earth or with chalk or with a line of corn meal or (better) cattail pollen (called Hod'nt'n by the Teneh), you should smudge the area where a ceremonial or a healing will take place, or use one of the good banishing rituals at www.spiritual.com.au, or if all else fails or if you cannot do anything else without drawing too much attention (like in a public place) visualize yourself encased in a shimmering globe of white or violet light, or wrapped in white or violet smoke or fog. Under no circumstances should you feel or show fear. Fear is a way these entities can get to you. Affirmations against fear are a good way to combat these feelings. I like the "litany against fear" from the Frank Herbert S-F classic "Dune." The book is a work of fiction, but the actual litany sounds like it was taken from an old Wiccan Book of Shadows.
"I will not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little death that brings total annihilation. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me, and when it is gone I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain."
If you must invoke a spirit, even if it's identified as an angel, DO NOT invoke it without being well situated in a GREATER THEURGIC CIRCLE. This is well documented in books on high magick, and I will not detail it here. Invocations are truly risky business, not the province of dabblers. This kind of working is something I encourage you not to attempt, and do not do myself, even though I have been active in the occult for years. Unless you are especially adept and power-FULL, this is something extremely prone to backfiring on you. I also believe that the practice of automatic writing and ouija is far too risky to be fooled with, as well as direct consultation of spirits for divination.
Symbolic divination like Tarot and casting runes should be done after protecting yourself as I have detailed above. And most importantly, stay well away from the rituals that allow discarnates to possess a person who desires to become a channel. You will quite possibly put your mental health and even your soul in grave peril if you do this. It is my belief that Aleister Crowley, who was a giant in occult philosophy up to the point where he seemingly went crazy and dissipated himself in debauchery and drug abuse, was pushed over the edge by his contact with Aiwass, a discarnate entity whom he allowed to possess him. It may not have been the only thing that did it, but it was certainly one of the major elements in his fall.
Any path that teaches you to disengage your rational mind is extremely dangerous. Logic and rationality are very important, and are a gift from Usen'. Anything that short-circuits the faculties of intellect and critical thought is very dangerous. "Turn off your mind/Relax and float downstream..."* is a tempting proposition, but also a dangerous one. This not only opens you up for possible possession, but also to domination from fellow human beings too.
The alpha state, which can be extremely perilous when used in mind control, is also the state that the shaman uses in their travels through Non-Ordinary Reality. The difference is that shamanic training teaches an individual how to enter the Shamanic State of Consciousness in an aware manner, and to maintain total control of yourself within it. One practice that is useful in cultivating this ability is lucid (aware) dreaming. Brett Hallett, a student of the Cherokee Medicine Path, gave me this method to retain awareness in the Dreamtime:
Look at your hands or your feet while you are in the dream. If you can, looking at your reflection in a shiny surface like water, or a mirror, or highly polished stone is even better. It takes exertion of Will to do this but it does work very well.
Another helpful thing to use when learning lucid dreaming techniques is affirmations. One good one is this. "I will remain aware and in control in the Dreamtime. When I wake up, I will remember all that I see. So shall it be." Go to sleep with this either on your mind or on your lips. Another practice that cultivates awareness in the Alpha state are the Harner shamanic exercises. The book "The Way Of The Shaman" details a few of Dr. Harner's methods.
In summation, there are some very important things to remember regarding any sort of occult practice and the reality of negative energy & entities.
1.) Do NOT open yourself to entities other than your Power Animal, which is your "lower" self, which doesn't necessarily mean inferior but just more instinctual and a source of the primal power that makes a shaman do things; and your Inner Shaman (Inner Teacher, Inner Wizard) which is also known as the Guardian Angel, which is the personification of your "higher" or spiritual self. One can have several Power Animals (the more you get, the higher the level of shamanic power) but only ONE Inner Shaman. The Inner Shaman must be gotten through the journey to the Upper World, and no other way. A Power Animal can be dreamt about, or seen in glimpses of the Non-Ordinary Reality one sometimes gets after some training, but unless you take the Upper World journey and meet your Inner Shaman there, there is a good chance this entity identifying itself as your Teacher is in truth an earthbound or worse.
2.) Any spiritual discipline which teaches you to reject rational thought and/or refers to logical, critical thought as "maya" or illusion is dangerous, especially when it is also taught that one must give allegiance to a "spiritual master" or a group.
3.) Do NOT try channeling even in a dabbling sort of way, or even consult a channel. The information a fake channeler will give you is entirely useless, and you’re throwing money away on a fraud anyway. The information an authentic channeled entity may give you will be untrustworthy, and possibly even HARMFUL.
4.) Learn a way of warding yourself from attack or possession by earthbounds or gan'n. Do NOT show fear or even THINK fearful thoughts when confronted by malevolent entities.
5.) Practice lucid dreaming and travel in the Upper and Lower Worlds.
6.) Do NOT allow yourself under any circumstances to be hypnotized.
I hope this has been thought-provoking and helpful, and perhaps even sanity-saving for you. Books with further information that I recommend are Psychic Self-Defense, by Dion Fortune, and The Way Of The Shaman, by Michael Harner.
