by Donald Croft Brickner
Once upon a time, as the story really goes, there was a brief awakening of an American minority’s hearts, dreams and hopes — in a mostly mid-1980s-early1990s California social movement that was laughed at (and otherwise blown off entirely) by just about everybody else, who openly believed they were far more realistic as people (never mind a kazillion times more "reasonable").
The movement was called The New Age.
What a bunch of airy-fairy ding-dong-school dolts!
And so on.
It is the primary reason, in fact, the Pacific states were dubbed "The Left Coast."
Its loud-louder-loudest detractors pigeonholed the movement as a loony-tunes circus — one that brought forth a whole new slew of smiling entrepreneurs like specialized book store owners (whose claims struck a lot of folks as suspect), trance channelers and their purportedly sentient "entities," and otherwise made all kinds of ontologically-leaping (bounding, actually) claims — as in: their being true psychics, metaphysically substantial tarot card readers and, perhaps most laughable of all, in-touch with largely friendly and supportive extraterrestrials.
Yes!
And, of course, dolphins, too.
Twits, much?
In the interim, a teensy handful of TV and film stars, led out of the gate in the mid-1980s by actress (and early predominant New Age movement promoter) Shirley MacLaine, whose apparent courage in the face of an obvious career endangerment move was embraced by most movement supporters as pretty damned courageous, at least at the outset.
(MacLaine even co-authored and starred in a two-part TV miniseries based on her best-selling book, Out On a Limb, which offered its own center stage quirks and theatrics … like reportedly having a trance-channeled entity in her cast [along with his channeler] having to learn the scripted recall of the entities’ lines, once reportedly stated previously, in order for the entities — there were two, in this instance — to play "themselves" in her jaw-droppingly bold [and, as we came to learn later about MacLaine, routinely brash] four-hour teleplay — one replete UFOs in the vacinity of justifiably odd Macchu Pichu, Peru.)
Thing is, though, there never were all that many supporters to begin with, even at the "height" of the movement.
It was thus ultimately all — all — widely dismissed as, you know, just plain silly.
During the movement’s waning days as a sometimes hubris-riddled public enterprise, a couple of trance channelers were deemed to be "caught in the act" of being frauds on TV. One of them, Penny Torres-Rubin, who was caught making a snide comment out of character while engaged with her "Ramtha" knock-off entity, "Mafu" who, prior to that, was viewed by many to be a favored channeling source.
Only not by me. "Mafu" never seemed to me to say anything substantive in his/her many tapes.
Contrary to the loud opinions of various glib debunkers on the scene at the time (these were the same guys, by the way, who debunked UFOs and crop circles: their positivistically- biased stances went unchallenged and were largely based upon their pre-evidential convictions that these anomalies could not happen … and so therefore didn’t!
That’s neither logical, nor "reasonable." Rather, it’s the stuff of a global Ostrich Syndrome.
Or, more simply: it’s the stuff of a now-rampant and chronic Denial.
* * * * *
I went into all of this striving to be a reporter who might cover the movement, whose many facets, both engaging and lame, I’d fallen in love with. It never happened, though: the "legitimate" media refused to print any stories that were anything other than derogatory — while New Age magazines made all kinds of huge ontological leaps that couldn’t even be supported on any tenability scale — and so I wasn’t hired by those folks, either, because I might rain on their parade. And I probably would have. I’m still raining on all kinds of claims today.
* * * * *
It’s here I wish to cut to the chase, because available online publishing space, I’ve discovered, has chopped off as much as 20 inches worth of quotes copy in this foot-dragging (and way-overdue) essay. So, here’s the gist of what follows:
The balance of this essay is a collection, selected by me, of quotes made by three different sets of individuals, all joined by their propensity to state what to them are ontological truths. I’ve selected solely quotes by those that date back to the beginnings of their published works, in part to substantiate their prophetic validity.
The "individuals" include three different trance channeled "entities," who remain "at work" today, albeit under most folks’ radar sets: Lazaris, channeled by Jach Pursel of Florida and California; Seth, "trance mediumed" (she hated the term, "channeling") by the late Jane Roberts, formerly of Binghamton, New York; and the always controversial, although I believe real-deal Ramtha, trance channeled by J.Z. Knight of Yelm, Washington, where she runs her own semi-rural community of mostly students.
In recent years, as an aside, J.Z.’s "Ramtha" was a primary commentator in the popular Knight & company-produced film, What the (Bleep) Do We Know? The film has developed both a modest amount of interest along with a cult following. Those three, along with the two sources to follow, may be easily found on every search engine on this planet — and, yes, they may be studied there, still today.* * * * *:
The last two I’ve included aren’t in any conventional way "channelers," although the material they’ve both produced in two non-fiction books provided engaging insights of an ontological nature (consciousness in relationship to the true nature of an unimaginably gigantic and complex greater reality) — as do the channeled personas, above.
Whitley Strieber, arguably the world-wide top godfather of alien abductions and "high strangeness" phenomena — and whose "alternative news" page can be found at www.unknowncountry.com, where his wife, Anne, is the editor — wrote a peculiar but astonishing book entitled, The Key (which can be bought on their website), which is Strieber’s recollections of his unexpected (and arguably altered consciousness) contact with a very intriguing man he calls, "the Master of the Key." The Striebers now spend most of their time in Southern California.
Finally — and the only author of the lot whose 2012 book,
Proof of Heaven — A Neurosurgeon’s Journey into the Afterlife (which made the New York Times best-sellers list last year) promotes his recent-years’ near-death experience, with its own unique, startling punchline — I’ve also quoted the-still-practicing neurosurgeon, Eben Alexander, M.D. of North Carolina.* * * * *
I’d be remiss to overlook Dr. Jon Klimo, heralded west coast psychologist and author of to date the only full-bore legitimate study of its kind on the subject of channeling,
Channeling: Investigations on Receiving Information from Paranormal Sources (1988, 1998). His original version of this book captured an astonishing who’s-who list of most of the then-notable trance channelers who, for good or for ill, populated the height of the New Age movement in the mid-to-late 1980s.Klimo has published his own studies on suicides and the afterlife, and most probably would have made this treatise had I had the room (and time) for more ontological research
. Is he a qualified "expert?" You bet. You may look him up on his own website, www.jonklimo.com.* * * * *
What follows now are selected quotes from the five authors, above, admittedly somewhat "proof-texted" to suit a very powerful implied topic they all shared: ontology. My thing!
ON THE UNFOLDING PRESENT:
"Lazaris," channeled by Jach Pursel, pgs. 60-61,The Sirius Connection — A Workbook," first printing, 1996
"The problem is not that the world is going to come to an end, but that the world isn’t going to come to any end, and you’re all still going to be here, needing to solve all those problems."
"After the suffering you are about to endure, mankind will never again lust after material wealth. You are about to suffocate in your own garbage."
The "Master of the Key," a recollection by Whitley Strieber, pg. 57, The Key, first edition, 2001 "I am here to bring you a promise from on high: if you surrender yourselves to God, you and the earth will be saved. Otherwise, you will be extinct before the end of the age." The "Master of the Key," a recollection by Whitley Strieber, pg. 43, The Key, first edition, 2001
"This is a fallen world…
"To live consciously means to notice and take responsibility. Otherwise, it just happens as it happens. Because you are fallen, you cannot see the difference between the large scale aim of being and the randomness of chance. To be fallen is to be blind. This is the land of the blind."
The "Master of the Key," a recollection by Whitley Strieber, pg. 43, The Key, first edition, 2001
"…as you move from what is more accurately the Old Spirituality into that which is more correctly the New Spirituality — there will be a breakdown of the consensus reality. When a world that has been seen seen as being totally objective is proved to be subjective — when a world which hitherto has been called subjective all of a sudden becomes very objective — then the world will indeed seem very topsy-turvy. The consensus indeed will seem to have come to an end.
"There will be those who face such a reality and decide they cannot deal with it, and therefore choose in their own way to bring it to an end personally and collectively. There will those others, such as those of you who are growing, truly growing spiritually, who will see this not as a time of end, but indeed as a time of beginning — a time when the consensus reality will indeed die, but will also indeed give birth to a new reality, to a New Spirituality, to a new dawn…"
"Lazaris," channeled by Jach Pursel, pg. 212, Lazaris Interviews Book II, 1988"The meek shall inherit the earth… (They are) those who are humble enough in self to surrender to higher will."
The "Master of the Key," a recollection by Whitley Strieber, pg. 33, The Key, first edition, 2001
"You exist in the midst of many other systems of reality, for example, but you do not perceive them. And even when some event intrudes from these systems into your own three-dimensional existence, you are not able to interpret it, for it is distorted by the very fact of entry."
"These are grand times that are coming. They are birthing a new world, a new spirit, and a new understanding. The times that are at hand are Nature’s march. So much so will she be on the march that very few entities are going to have time to think about war. They are going to be thinking about survival. That will build character and allow the humility to see the vanity of war and conquering and borders and mistrust."
"Ramtha," channeled by J.Z. Knight, pg. 38, Ramtha Intensive: Change — the Days to Come, 1987
"I saw the earth as a pale dot in the immense blackness of physical space. I could see that earth was a place where good and evil mixed, and that this constituted one of its unique features. Even on earth there is much more good than evil, but earth is a place where evil is allowed to gain influence in a way that would be entirely impossible at higher levels of existence. That evil could occasionally have the upper hand was known and allowed by the Creator as a necessary consequence of giving the gift of free will to beings like us.
"Small particles of evil were scattered throughout the universe, but the sum total of all that evil was as a grain of sand on a vast beach compared to the goodness, abundance, hope, and unconditional love in which the universe was literally awash. The very fabric of the alternate dimension is love and acceptance, and anything that does not have these qualities appears immediately and obviously out of place there."
"There must be, however, a willingness to admit that there are other dimensions in which you exist. You must also have faith in your physical self — faith that it will be here when you get back, and I assure you it will. There is no other way — and I repeat this — there is no other way of getting firsthand information about other realities except by the exploration and manipulation of your own consciousness.
"Form an assault on secrecy. You are right to fight against official secrecy. It is the greatest present evil."
"Always remember: You create your own reality. There is no fine print. There is no asterisk. You create it all."
"Lazaris," channeled by Jach Pursel, pg 213, Lazaris Interviews Book II, 1988
ON UFOS AND EXTRATERRESTRIALS:
"There will undoubtedly be a time when there will be a proven landing. There have been enough already that are secreted. There is documentation that rather makes it clear that there are these ‘extraterrestrials’…
"Every so often there are what are called the ‘UFO Flaps’ where there are numerous sightings that are seen individually and collectively. In many cases the extraterrestrials are testing. They’re rather testing the waters to see if it’s safe yet. So far it’s been decided that it’s not safe, that indeed it would cause just too much turmoil. It would corner people."
"Lazaris," channeled by Jach Pursel, pgs. 80, Lazaris Interviews Book II, 1988"There are many kinds of extraterrestrials: friendly and not so friendly, teachers, but mainly observers, physical futures warping into the present, and conscious manifestations of subconscious archetypes. There are real E.T.s, and there are imaginary ones."
"Lazaris," channeled by Jach Pursel, pgs. 88-89, Lazaris Interviews Book II, 1988