Prime Time Replay:
Michael Brown
on the Phenomenon of Channeling
MsgId: *high_strangeness(4)
Date: Tue Jun 3 22:03:34 EDT 1997
From: Moderator At: 168.100.204.161
Welcome to High Strangeness on Prime Time Live! My name is Patrick Huyghe and I will be the moderator this evening. Our guest is anthropologist Michael Brown. Our topic is channeling--the use of alternate states of consciousness to contact the spirits of the deceased, extraterrestrials, and others.Michael F. Brown is Lambert Professor of Anthropology and Latin American Studies at Williams College in Massachusetts. His new book, The Channeling Zone: American Spirituality in an Anxious Age (Harvard University Press), is the product of four years of study of the phenomenon. In the book, Brown explores the practices and beliefs of American channelers and their clients. Drawing on his earlier research on shamans in the Amazon, Brown acts as a "participant-observer" and digs beneath the fluff of this modern form of American spiritualism.
In this nicely-balanced, socio-anthropological survey, Professor Brown considers the future of the channeling phenomeon -- which is often dismissed by scholars -- and examines its impact on American culture at large. Now let's begin our conversation: You are a tenured professor at a respected school, Professor Brown. Why did you choose to study such an unorthodox topic?
MsgId: *high_strangeness(7)
Date: Tue Jun 3 22:06:00 EDT 1997
From: Michael_Brown At: 137.165.20.9
Sheer outrageousness, I guess . . . Actually, I was living in Santa Fe, NM, in the late 80s, writing another book, and I became aware of the range and intensity of alternative spiritual practice. Yet I could find little in the way of balanced writing about it. So I decided to jump in, using the same skills that I honed as an anthropologist working in the Peruvian Amazon.
MsgId: *high_strangeness(9)
Date: Tue Jun 3 22:07:48 EDT 1997
From: Moderator At: 168.100.204.161
Is channeling a peculiarly American phenomenon, or is it worldwide?
MsgId: *high_strangeness(10)
Date: Tue Jun 3 22:08:50 EDT 1997
From: Michael_Brown At: 137.165.20.9
Well, spirit mediumship, which is virtually identical to channeling, is practiced almost everywhere in the world in some form. But it seemed to me that many aspects of contemporary channeling are peculiarly American, so that became one of the foci of my book.
MsgId: *high_strangeness(11)
Date: Tue Jun 3 22:09:54 EDT 1997
From: Moderator At: 168.100.204.161
What IS the difference between spirit mediumship and channeling?
MsgId: *high_strangeness(12)
Date: Tue Jun 3 22:11:18 EDT 1997
From: Michael_Brown At: 137.165.20.9
I'm not sure there is one. Classic spirit mediumship treats the medium as a more or less passive vehicle for the visiting spirit. Many American channels (a term most use in preference to channelers), in contrast, don't like the idea of passivity. They believe that they enter into an active alliance with their entities or spirits.
MsgId: *high_strangeness(13)
Date: Tue Jun 3 22:12:22 EDT 1997
From: Moderator At: 168.100.204.161
And what are the aspects of channeling you found to be peculiarly American?
MsgId: *high_strangeness(14)
Date: Tue Jun 3 22:14:07 EDT 1997
From: Michael_Brown At: 137.165.20.9
The idea that humans are infinitely perfectable is totally American. For at least two centuries, we as a people have believed that our possibilities are endless and that we can constantly improve ourselves. This is quite different from the attitude of many other cultures, where people are believed to be born into a particular station in life, with all that this entails.
MsgId: *high_strangeness(15)
Date: Tue Jun 3 22:14:49 EDT 1997
From: Moderator At: 168.100.204.161
After meeting so many of them during your 4 years of study, what are your feelings toward channelers? Do you feel they are sincere?
MsgId: *high_strangeness(16)
Date: Tue Jun 3 22:15:13 EDT 1997
From: guest At: 205.240.25.98
Did you find that channels were generally aware of other channels? Did they have a sense of professional community?
MsgId: *high_strangeness(17)
Date: Tue Jun 3 22:15:48 EDT 1997
From: Michael_Brown At: 137.165.20.9
I felt that the majority are sincere in their beliefs. That doesn't mean that I accept their beliefs as literally true, however. As an anthropologist I'm interested in people's *social* reality -- that is, what they believe to be true and how that affects their behavior in the world. If you want to pursue that a bit more, I can elaborate.
MsgId: *high_strangeness(19)
Date: Tue Jun 3 22:19:07 EDT 1997
From: Moderator At: 168.100.204.161
I see. You call yourself a "participant-observer." During your 4 year study, did you ever manage to channel yourself?
MsgId: *high_strangeness(20)
Date: Tue Jun 3 22:20:48 EDT 1997
From: Michael_Brown At: 137.165.20.9
As I explain in my book, The Channeling Zone, I participated in a weekend seminar designed to teach me and a dozen others how to channel. The instructor defined channeling pretty loosely, however, so all of us managed to "channel," although I'd have to say that my own proficiency is limited.
MsgId: *high_strangeness(21)
Date: Tue Jun 3 22:21:33 EDT 1997
From: guest At: 205.240.25.98
Even if there is nothing "paranormal" about what's happening in the channeler's world, don't you think there's some evidence of "emergent behavior" in this channelling phenomena?
MsgId: *high_strangeness(22)
Date: Tue Jun 3 22:21:56 EDT 1997
From: Moderator At: 168.100.204.161
There is not a word in your book that suggests there might be a "spark of the divine" in any of the channeling experiences about which you write. So I take it you do not believe that these messages are what they claim to be.
MsgId: *high_strangeness(23)
Date: Tue Jun 3 22:24:17 EDT 1997
From: Michael_Brown At: 137.165.20.9
Let me catch up to the questions (still having trouble staying on line here -- must be the spirits acting up). Personally, I didn't experience anything that I considered paranormal, though I should add that I'm not a professional skeptic. That is, I'm willing to accept paranormal phenomena in principle. I just didn't experience any doing this fieldwork.Let me address Patrick's question about the "spark of the divine." I was actually quite moved by some of the channeling I saw, especially when it was in a group context, and I describe that in the book. So it seems like a valid religious practice in responsible hands. But again, the book doesn't take a position on the objective reality of channeling as a phenomenon.
MsgId: *high_strangeness(25)
Date: Tue Jun 3 22:28:21 EDT 1997
From: Moderator At: 168.100.204.161
I don't know if you've caught up with the questions yet, but you touched on a very interesting point in your book. What role does sex/gender play in channeling? Why are most channel female and most spirits male?
MsgId: *high_strangeness(26)
Date: Tue Jun 3 22:30:39 EDT 1997
From: Michael_Brown At: 137.165.20.9
There's lots of gender play in American channeling. Many female channels desribe it as "empowering" to channel male spirits or energies. For most male channels, the simple act of channeling feels feminine to them because it involves intuition. I also talk about the emergence of genderless beings, which was a theme picked up in the Heaven's Gate community, as seen in the voluntary castration of some male members and the use of unisex clothing by everyone in the group.
MsgId: *high_strangeness(27)
Date: Tue Jun 3 22:31:36 EDT 1997
From: Moderator At: 168.100.204.161
Yes. What is this new trend in the 1990s toward genderless spirits?
MsgId: *high_strangeness(28)
Date: Tue Jun 3 22:33:01 EDT 1997
From: Michael_Brown At: 137.165.20.9
I think that it expresses much of the anxiety associated with the gender wars of our time. People feel that they should strive for some state of being that's above or beyond their identity as men or women. So genderless beings meet that need for a way of understanding that's uninflected by gender or a sexual identity.
MsgId: *high_strangeness(29)
Date: Tue Jun 3 22:33:48 EDT 1997
From: Moderator At: 168.100.204.161
Are people attracted to channeling when they are dissatisfied with traditional religion?
MsgId: *high_strangeness(30)
Date: Tue Jun 3 22:35:23 EDT 1997
From: Michael_Brown At: 137.165.20.9
Sure, most of the people I met were distanced from the religion of their upbringing. Women, especially, tire of being marginalized by mainline churches. In channeling, they find an opportunity to experience spiritual mastery. That was true even back in the 19th century, when women dominated the spiritualist movement for similar reasons.
MsgId: *high_strangeness(32)
Date: Tue Jun 3 22:36:53 EDT 1997
From: Moderator At: 168.100.204.161
So is the channeling phenomenon primarily spiritual, extraterrestrial, or psychological/therapeutic?
MsgId: *high_strangeness(33)
Date: Tue Jun 3 22:38:08 EDT 1997
From: guest At: 208.11.196.211
Is channeling really strange, or is it another sense?
MsgId: *high_strangeness(34)
Date: Tue Jun 3 22:38:38 EDT 1997
From: guest At: 205.240.25.101
So is the channeling phenomenon primarily SOCIAL, spiritual, extraterrestrial, or psychological/therapeutic
MsgId: *high_strangeness(35)
Date: Tue Jun 3 22:38:54 EDT 1997
From: Michael_Brown At: 137.165.20.9
All of the above. The therapeutic vision permeates everything these days, no? Aren't we always talking about "healing"? Certainly many channels and their clients are interested in ET spirits, but many also focus on Native Americans or historical figures or miscellaneous ascended masters . . . As is true everywhere, people give the gods the face or identity that's meaningful to them in view of their needs, cultural assumptions, etc.
MsgId: *high_strangeness(37)
Date: Tue Jun 3 22:40:36 EDT 1997
From: guest At: 205.240.25.101
Can think of one thing that makes channeling dangerous?
MsgId: *high_strangeness(38)
Date: Tue Jun 3 22:40:46 EDT 1997
From: Moderator At: 168.100.204.161
What does channeling tell us about the future of religion in America?
MsgId: *high_strangeness(39)
Date: Tue Jun 3 22:41:46 EDT 1997
From: Michael_Brown At: 137.165.20.9
As for the guest's question about whether channeling is strange, I'd have to say that many channels practice it in a way that's not particularly strange or dramatic. In fact, many see the channeling as a state that should become as normal as breathing. Other channels, of course, engage in truly dramatic, full-trance channeling that can be weird to an outsider. I guess the question of strangeness is ultimately subjective. I eventually became comfortable with people's channeling performances.There's a real fragmentation of religion going on in America now. Millions are moving to conservative, evangelical churches. But paradoxically, millions of others are gravitating to new religions (e.g., Scientology), American versions of Eastern religions, and other forms of alternative spirituality. We've become a religious shopping mall with hundreds of choices.
The question about channeling's dangers is important. My assessment is that channeling isn't any more dangerous than other forms of religion. (How many terrorist channelers have hijacked jets or organized a religious war?) But there are, of course, dangers for naive or psychological vulnerable people. I receive lots of letters from readers who have family members who've been taken advantage of by unscrupulous gurus. You can say the same about unscrupulous lawyers, though.
MsgId: *high_strangeness(41)
Date: Tue Jun 3 22:44:55 EDT 1997
From: Moderator At: 168.100.204.161
What is the difference between a trance channel and a conscious channel? And why are conscious channels more popular in the 1990s -- isn't this a diluted form of channeling?
MsgId: *high_strangeness(43)
Date: Tue Jun 3 22:47:51 EDT 1997
From: Michael_Brown At: 137.165.20.9
My book talks about the friendly debate between conscious and trance channels. Basically, trance channels argue that they open themselves completely to spiritual forces or energies, and the information that they produce is "uncontaminated by ego". But conscious channels reply that serving as a passive vehicle for spirits doesn't produce personal growth, which is the whole point of channeling or any other spiritual practice. So they try to achieve a balance: they are present and yet available to their entity. Trance channels reply that the information that conscious channels produce is easily contaminated . . . and so the debate goes. But overall, the move is definitely in the direction of conscious channeling.
MsgId: *high_strangeness(45)
Date: Tue Jun 3 22:50:44 EDT 1997
From: Moderator At: 168.100.204.161
Do you have any idea how many channelers there are out there in the US? How big a phenomenon is this?
MsgId: *high_strangeness(47)
Date: Tue Jun 3 22:53:19 EDT 1997
From: Michael_Brown At: 137.165.20.9
It's hard to say how many people are involved today. Millions have bought and read channeled books like "A Course in Miracles" or JZ Knight's many books, but they may have had no direct experience with channeling. Surprisingly, there are growing numbers of psychotherapists who use channeling in dealing with clients. So to some extent I see channeling becoming mainstreamed, for better or for worse.
MsgId: *high_strangeness(46)
Date: Tue Jun 3 22:52:10 EDT 1997
From: guest At: 205.240.25.101
In other contexts, you've spoken about the shallow understanding most new-agers have of the true nature of shamanism. How does this manifest itself in the channeling zone?
MsgId: *high_strangeness(48)
Date: Tue Jun 3 22:55:04 EDT 1997
From: Michael_Brown At: 137.165.20.9
In answer to the wonderful question about shamanism, I've argued in print that most New Agers have a rosy and totally unrealistic vision of shamanism. In places where shamanism is practiced, it is a life and death struggle against the evil of sorcery. That aspect of shamanism is mostly edited out of New Age versions of the practice.
MsgId: *high_strangeness(49)
Date: Tue Jun 3 22:56:26 EDT 1997
From: Moderator At: 168.100.204.161
One final question...can't channeling be seen as a kind of "celebration" of our multiple selves -- including the "god" in all of us?
MsgId: *high_strangeness(50)
Date: Tue Jun 3 22:58:39 EDT 1997
From: Michael_Brown At: 137.165.20.9
Yes, channeling explores and celebrates the feeling that many of us have that we are multiple, that we have distinct parts with separate identities. (This is what many people explore using online personas in chat groups.) So for some channels and their clients, channeling is a kind of identity-play that they find rewarding, uplifting. As an anthropologist, I can accept that dimension of channeling without taking a position on its ultimate reality.
MsgId: *high_strangeness(53)
Date: Tue Jun 3 23:00:32 EDT 1997
From: Moderator At: 168.100.204.161
I'm afraid that we've run out of time. Thank you, Professor Brown for an enlightening interview. I highly recommend your book, The Channeling Zone, to the OMNI audience. For High Strangeness, this is Patrick Huyghe. Goodnight!
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