# Channelling

Source: https://spiritfold.com/Channelling  
Published by the Australian Spiritual Alliance on Spiritfold, licensed CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.

**Channelling** is the practice in which a person, called the "channel" or "channeller", allows an entity to speak through their body for a time. In a broader sense the word covers any receiving or passing on of information through a consciousness other than one's own.[1] The *Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology* treats it as a modern name for what Spiritualists have long called [mediumship](https://spiritfold.com/Mediumship).[2]

## Description

### A channelling session

A session often starts with the channel closing their eyes, sometimes after an invocation (a spoken call or prayer). The entity then speaks through the channel, frequently with a different manner, vocabulary and accent. It may give a talk on a chosen subject or take questions from those present. Typical content includes alternative accounts of history, personal psychic readings, predictions and methods said to heal mind and body. Classes and books that teach people to contact their own spirit guide have also become popular.[1]

Speech in trance is not the only route. The American channel Jane Roberts first received messages through a Ouija board; she later spoke in trance while her husband recorded her words, and she also used automatic writing.[2]

### The entities

The *Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology* lists a wide range of claimed sources: spirits of people long dead, beings from other planets, angels, nature spirits, the channel's own higher self, and Christ or God.[3] Britannica likewise says New Age channellers have claimed contact with Ascended Masters (spiritual beings believed to guide human destiny), with extraterrestrials and, as Spiritualists do, with the dead.[4]

### How channelling differs from Spiritualist mediumship

The key difference is one of purpose. According to the *Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology*, a Spiritualist medium mainly passes on greetings and messages from the dead to living relatives, as evidence that life continues after death. Channelling instead assumes a spirit world that can be consulted to learn about the nature of reality and to receive guidance on how to live. Mediumship was traditionally seen as the gift of a few, while channelling was seen as open to almost anyone, and a channel usually works with one or a few "master teachers" who give regular talks on philosophy.[3] The line is not a hard one: the same work notes that, ever since modern Spiritualism began, many mediums have also worked as channels and many channels as mediums.[2]

## Scope

### What it includes

- An entity speaking through the channel, often in trance[1][2]
- Talks, answers to questions, personal readings and predictions given by the entity[1]
- Channelled writings, some of which have become the basis of religious groups[2]

### What it is not

- Channelling is not proof of the entity it names. The *Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology* suggests that many claimed entities may be fictional creations, and that a spirit guide may often be a personification of the channel's unconscious or "higher self". For followers of channelled teachings, it says, the real question is whether the material goes beyond what the channel could ordinarily produce.[2]
- Channelling is not, in most cases, a mental disorder, according to a 2022 paper in *Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry* by researchers in Italy and the United States. The authors compared it with dissociative trance and possession disorders and with dissociative identity disorder as defined in the DSM-5 and ICD-11 diagnostic manuals. They argued that most channelling is best understood either as an exceptional, non-ordinary mental experience or as a dissociative trance or possession experience that is not a disorder. They left open whether the material comes from the channel's own mind or from other entities, and suggested its source could be studied scientifically.[5]

## Traditions and lineage

### Roots

Channelling continues older forms of religious revelation, such as those of shamans, oracles and prophets. In American religion its nearest forerunner is [Spiritualism](https://spiritfold.com/Spiritualism), the nineteenth-century movement concerned with contacting the dead.[1] The *Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology* traces the channelling of philosophical teachings to Andrew Jackson Davis, who published several volumes of such material. Some channelled books went on to found new religious groups; one example is *Oahspe: The New Age Bible* (1881), channelled by John Ballou Newbrough.[2]

Nineteenth-century Spiritualism also had its "inspirational speakers": trance mediums who gave unprepared platform addresses, often on subjects the audience chose, with content that seemed well beyond their ordinary knowledge. Emma Hardinge Britten and Cora Richmond were among the best known in the United States. The same encyclopedia sees New Age channelling as a striking revival of this trance speaking, with one difference: New Age channels seldom let the audience set the topic of their regular talks.[6]

### The Theosophical line

The theosophical tradition grew from Helena Petrovna Blavatsky's channelling of teachings she credited to the Masters or Mahatmas, and later channels in that tradition included Alice A. Bailey of the Arcane School.[3] Blavatsky was critical of the Spiritualist practice of speaking with the dead and preferred to communicate with Masters. The anthropologist Matt Tomlinson notes that Theosophy shaped much of the twentieth-century New Age movement, and that channelling inspired by Theosophy surged late in that century.[7]

### The modern term

The word "channeling" in its present sense seems to have come from the UFO contactee movement of the 1940s and 1950s, among people who said they received messages from beings in flying saucers.[1][2] Some contactees let their claimed extraterrestrial mentor give trance talks through their own voice, much as a Spiritualist medium might speak for a high teacher, and some contactees had a Spiritualist background.[8]

### The New Age era

One reference work dates the start of modern channelling to 1963, when Jane Roberts (1929–1984) of New York State began channelling an entity called "Seth". Her books, including *The Seth Material* (1970) and *Seth Speaks* (1972), became best sellers and made channelling more popular than it had ever been.[1][2] Mediumship enjoyed a revival from the 1970s within the New Age movement, and although that movement faded in the 1990s, channelling has kept a wide appeal.[4]

Through the 1980s the best-known channels included JZ Knight, who channels "Ramtha", and Jach Pursel, who channels "Lazaris".[2] The actor Shirley MacLaine's New Age autobiographies, and the 1987 television film of *Out on a Limb*, brought channelling into American popular culture.[1] In Scotland, the Findhorn community was sustained in the 1960s by the channelling of Eileen Caddy.[3]

## Context

### Within Spiritualism

Scholars disagree about how closely channelling belongs to Spiritualism, and their views can be grouped under three headings.[9][8]

- **A close relative.** J. Gordon Melton writes that channelling, like most Spiritualist activity, keeps mediumship at its centre. The difference is that a channel usually contacts evolved spirit teachers rather than ordinary departed people. He names some traditional Spiritualist churches with a strong emphasis on channelling as a bridge between classic Spiritualism and the newer groups.[9] John B. Buescher goes further, describing a revival of Spiritualism under the banner of the New Age from the late 1960s.[10]
- **A separate growth.** Melton also says Spiritualists took little interest in the New Age movement and lost ground to channels working outside their movement.[9] Robert and Gracia Fay Ellwood see an obvious likeness to what Melton called "teaching spiritualism", as distinct from mediumship for "ordinary" departed relatives, but find no evident direct link between channelling and classic Spiritualism. They add that channelled entities are often Eastern, or teach Eastern-style doctrines such as karma and reincarnation, unlike the largely Western outlook of the older faith in North America.[8]
- **Influence on belief.** Melton writes that through the twentieth century channelled works brought reincarnation and karma into Spiritualist thinking, although nineteenth-century American Spiritualism had been hostile to the idea of reincarnation.[9] (See [Past life regression](https://spiritfold.com/Past_life_regression) for the range of Spiritualist views on reincarnation.)

Teaching through trance also has an established place inside Spiritualism. The Spiritualists' National Union in Britain names Silver Birch, "channelled through Maurice Barbanell", among the spirit communicators whose teachings have inspired Spiritualists,[11] and in a Montreal Spiritualist church studied by the anthropologist Deirdre Meintel, "deep trance" was also known as channelling.[12]

### In Australian Spiritualism

In Sydney in the late 1970s, a Spiritualist development class attended by the researcher Paul Gillen opened with readings from writings attributed to spirits such as "Silver Birch".[13] Today the New Age Spiritualist Mission in Adelaide says its teaching may include "trance channelling" among forms of mediumship.[14] Others are wary of New Age influence. The Canberra Spiritualist Association's mediumship coursebook warns that New Age ideas have blurred or lost true Spiritualist philosophy in some areas,[7] and a South Australian history finds that New Age spirituality has had limited impact on Spiritualism in that state.[15]

### A Spiritualist perspective

To a Spiritualist, channelling looks like close kin to trance mediumship, and many have been inspired by trance teachings such as those of Silver Birch. What separates them is purpose. Spiritualist mediumship has traditionally sought evidence that a particular loved one lives on, evidence the sitter can check against what they know. Channelling more often seeks teaching from guides, masters or other beings, and it has grown up largely outside the Spiritualist churches.

Spiritualists hold a range of views here. Some churches welcome trance channelling as one form of mediumship; others worry that New Age ideas blur Spiritualist philosophy, including on questions such as reincarnation where Spiritualists themselves differ. A sensible teacher would put the same questions to any channelled message: does it make sense, is it kind, and does it respect the listener's own judgement? A grand name attached to a communicator proves nothing, and no message should frighten anyone or take the place of their own good sense.

## Channelling in Australia

### Spiritualist mediumship

Spiritualism, described as channelling's closest forerunner in American religion,[1] was also important in nineteenth-century Australia. In Melbourne, the Victorian Association of Progressive Spiritualists was founded in 1870, the first association of its kind in Australia. The *Encyclopedia of Melbourne* notes that the movement grew out of mesmerism: the hypnotising of "sensitives" became the model for the trance of mediums.[16] One of its leaders, William Henry Terry, opened premises in Russell Street, Melbourne, in 1870 as a spiritualist bookseller, medium and trance healer, and from that year edited the *Harbinger of Light*, which became the movement's Australasian journal.[17]

Trance speaking reached Australian audiences too. Emma Hardinge Britten, one of the best-known inspirational speakers of the nineteenth century,[6] made a lecture tour of Australia and New Zealand in 1878 and 1879.[18] In Adelaide, a "trance lecturer", Amy Rhodes, started the Order of Light in 1912.[15]

The Melbourne-born psychical researcher Richard Hodgson (1855–1905) became known for exposing fraud by mediums. From 1887, as secretary of the American Society for Psychical Research in Boston, he studied the trance medium Leonore Piper for many years. Sceptical at first, by 1896–97 he had come to accept what her "controls" told him as evidence that personalities survive death and can communicate with the living.[19]

### Modern channelling groups

*Melton's Encyclopedia of American Religions* reports that the annual world tour of Ramtha's School of Enlightenment, the school founded by JZ Knight, has visited Australia. It also lists Australia among the countries where informal networks of groups following *Oahspe* are active.[20]

### The law in South Australia

Section 40 of South Australia's *Summary Offences Act 1953* makes it an offence for a person, intending to defraud, to claim to act as a spiritualist or medium, or to claim to use telepathy, clairvoyance or similar powers. The maximum penalty is a $10,000 fine or two years' imprisonment. The section does not name channelling, and the offence requires an intent to defraud.[21]

## Safety and good practice

The *Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology* observes that it is not always clear whether a trance message comes from a real communicator, an imagined one, or a hidden level of the channel's own mind. As with mediumship in general, it advises judging channelling by the quality of its inspiration and the accuracy of its information and insight.[6]

## Related modalities

- [Psychic reading](https://spiritfold.com/Psychic_reading)
- [Akashic Records](https://spiritfold.com/Akashic_Records)
- [Telepathy](https://spiritfold.com/Telepathy)
- [Clairvoyance](https://spiritfold.com/Clairvoyance)

## References

1. Siegler, Elijah. ["Channeling"](https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/legal-and-political-magazines/channeling). *Contemporary American Religion*, via Encyclopedia.com (accessed 11 October 2026).
2. ["Channeling"](https://www.encyclopedia.com/science/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/channeling). *Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology* (Gale), via Encyclopedia.com (accessed 11 October 2026).
3. ["New Age"](https://www.encyclopedia.com/science/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/new-age). *Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology* (Gale), via Encyclopedia.com (accessed 11 October 2026).
4. Melton, J. Gordon. ["Spiritualism"](https://www.britannica.com/topic/spiritualism-religion). *Encyclopaedia Britannica*. Last updated 6 November 2025; read from the Internet Archive copy of 31 December 2025 (accessed 11 October 2026).
5. Pederzoli, L., P. Tressoldi and H. Wahbeh. "Channeling: a non-pathological possession and dissociative identity experience or something else?". *Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry* 46, no. 2 (2022): 161–169. [doi:10.1007/s11013-021-09730-9](https://doi.org/10.1007/s11013-021-09730-9). Abstract read via [Europe PMC](https://europepmc.org/article/MED/34212272) (accessed 11 October 2026).
6. ["Inspirational Speakers"](https://www.encyclopedia.com/science/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/inspirational-speakers). *Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology* (Gale), via Encyclopedia.com (accessed 12 October 2026).
7. Tomlinson, Matt. *[Speaking with the Dead: An Ethnography of Extrahuman Experience](https://doi.org/10.53288/0465.1.00)*. Earth: punctum books, 2024, p. 140. Open access under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (accessed 12 October 2026).
8. Ellwood, Robert S. and Gracia Fay Ellwood. ["Spiritualism"](https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/legal-and-political-magazines/spiritualism). *Contemporary American Religion* (Macmillan Reference), via Encyclopedia.com (accessed 12 October 2026).
9. Melton, J. Gordon. ["Western Esoteric Family II: Spiritualism & New Age"](https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/western-esoteric-family-ii-spiritualism-new-age). *Melton's Encyclopedia of American Religions* (Gale), via Encyclopedia.com (accessed 12 October 2026).
10. Buescher, John B. ["Spiritualism"](https://www.encyclopedia.com/philosophy-and-religion/other-religious-beliefs-and-general-terms/miscellaneous-religion/spiritualism). *Encyclopedia of Religion*, 2nd ed. (Gale, 2005), via Encyclopedia.com (accessed 12 October 2026).
11. Spiritualists' National Union. ["The Seven Principles"](https://snu.org.uk/about-us/about-spiritualism/the-seven-principles/). SNU (no date shown; accessed 12 October 2026).
12. Meintel, Deirdre. ["When There Is No Conversion: Spiritualists and Personal Religious Change"](https://cas-sca.journals.uvic.ca/index.php/anthropologica/article/download/2436/2224). *Anthropologica* 49 (2007): 149–162 (accessed 12 October 2026).
13. Gillen, Paul. *[The Spiritualists: Gnosis and Ideology](https://figshare.mq.edu.au/articles/thesis/The_spiritualists_gnosis_and_ideology/19431146/1)*. PhD thesis, School of Behavioural Sciences, Macquarie University, 1981, PDF p. 66 (accessed 12 October 2026).
14. New Age Spiritualist Mission Inc. [Home page](https://nasm.org.au/) (no date shown; accessed 12 October 2026).
15. Bartley, Helen and Jill Roe. ["Spiritualism"](https://sahistoryhub.history.sa.gov.au/subjects/spiritualism/). *SA History Hub*, History Trust of South Australia. First published in *The Wakefield Companion to South Australian History* (Wakefield Press, 2001); uploaded 15 May 2015 (accessed 11 October 2026).
16. Gabay, Al. ["Spiritualism and Mesmerism"](https://www.emelbourne.net.au/biogs/EM01410b.htm). *eMelbourne: The Encyclopedia of Melbourne Online*. School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, University of Melbourne, July 2008 (accessed 11 October 2026).
17. Smith, F. B. ["Terry, William Henry (1836–1913)"](https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/terry-william-henry-4704). *Australian Dictionary of Biography*, volume 6. National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, 1976 (accessed 11 October 2026).
18. Wehrstein, K. M. ["Emma Hardinge Britten"](https://psi-encyclopedia.spr.ac.uk/articles/emma-hardinge-britten/). *Psi Encyclopedia*. Society for Psychical Research, last updated 4 September 2026 (accessed 12 October 2026).
19. Smith, F. B. ["Hodgson, Richard (1855–1905)"](https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/hodgson-richard-3777). *Australian Dictionary of Biography*, volume 4. National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, 1972 (accessed 11 October 2026).
20. ["Channeling"](https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/channeling). *Melton's Encyclopedia of American Religions* (Gale), via Encyclopedia.com (accessed 11 October 2026).
21. *Summary Offences Act 1953* (SA), section 40, "Acting as a spiritualist, medium etc with intent to defraud". Authorised version current from 1 July 2026. [South Australian Legislation](https://www.legislation.sa.gov.au/lz?path=%2Fc%2Fa%2Fsummary%20offences%20act%201953) (accessed 11 October 2026).

## Further reading

- Gabay, Al. ["Spiritualism and Mesmerism"](https://www.emelbourne.net.au/biogs/EM01410b.htm). *eMelbourne: The Encyclopedia of Melbourne Online*. University of Melbourne, 2008.
- Melton, J. Gordon. ["Spiritualism"](https://www.britannica.com/topic/spiritualism-religion). *Encyclopaedia Britannica*.
- Pederzoli, L., P. Tressoldi and H. Wahbeh. ["Channeling: a non-pathological possession and dissociative identity experience or something else?"](https://doi.org/10.1007/s11013-021-09730-9). *Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry*, 2022.
- Siegler, Elijah. ["Channeling"](https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/legal-and-political-magazines/channeling). *Contemporary American Religion*.
- Smith, F. B. ["Hodgson, Richard (1855–1905)"](https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/hodgson-richard-3777). *Australian Dictionary of Biography*, 1972.
- ["Channeling"](https://www.encyclopedia.com/science/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/channeling). *Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology*. Gale, via Encyclopedia.com.