I arrived early at Hernando's on Melrose hopingto get a good table.
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Hernando's is one of those trendy sidewalkrestaurants, with Mexican national colors in the awning, wroughtiron tables and chairs, and separated from the sidewalk by only athin iron railing. The place was filling with trendy Hollywood-typepeople wearing either business suits or designer jeans. Most of thewomen wore little makeup and had long slightly curled or straighthair.
Elise soon joined me, also wearing jeans, butnot the kind in the Melrose shops. Somehow, she looked like anacademic, or at least that was what she projected.
I rose and greeted her with a handshake thatseemed appropriate. This was not a date. She was keeping a feelingof distance, probably treating me as if I were Tina's territory. Weexchanged some small talk, ordered iced tea, and tostadas for whichHernando's is famous.
"Tell me about your project that involvessomething about channeling," she said drinking her tea.
"It is really not about channeling per se; itis about remote sensing. It involves a civil case. I would like toknow about channeling to see whether it is related. What was yourbottom line in your dissertation?" I inquired.
"Let me start at the beginning. About fouryears ago, a friend invited me to go to a channeling, not a bigevent such as we attended last night, bur a living room full ofpeople in The Valley. I was expecting to see a bunch of weirdoes,but was surprised to see normal looking people from allbackgrounds.
"When the channel arrived, I was surprisedbecause he was so normal looking, with a slight build, probably ofMediterranean descent, wire-rimmed circular glasses, and wearing ablack T-shirt with a Nike logo. He introduced himself with a mildvoice. He took a lot longer to go into trance than does Herondus.Before he began to channel, he went through a few head movements asthough he had to shake his head to form the channeling connection.Then, his entity, or the spirit, or whatever he was channeling,came through in a loud, gruff, choppy voice, talking amile-a-minute. He said he brought us greetings from anothercivilization on a planet in the direction of, but not near, thePleiades. He went on to say that their civilization was moreevolved than ours and they wanted to communicate certain ideas tohelp us in our evolution.
"What I heard was very similar to ideas ofeastern spiritual philosophies, with some interesting twists. Doyou want to hear about those?"
"Maybe later. Right now, I am more interestedin the phenomenon or mechanism rather than the message."
"I attended about sixty changelings in SouthernCalifornia and then studied the channeled messages of forty ofthose channels. The entities that were channeled were quite varied,some were historical figures, some Greek gods, some were said to beEgyptian gods, and others were biblical figures.
"I won't try to give you all that data, I'llsend you a copy of my dissertation.
"I concluded, after much study, that some ofthe channels were channeling their own subconscious, generalknowledge, and belief system: the message was 100% theirs. Otherswere channeling the message of some external spiritual entity andthen overlaying it with their own stuff: the message might be 10%or 90% theirs depending on the channel."
"Where does Herondus fit in that spectrum?" Iasked.
"I think he is about 90% entity most of thetime. I believe the form of the message is as Herondus wasdescribing last night, pre-symbolic: it comes to him as abstractideas and pictures. The channel's brain and brain ware, as Herondusdescribed it last night, converts the message to language. Thattranslation process is where the channels education and beliefsystem can filter the input.
"Another thing I found was that a person with agreat intellect will channel a message of high intellectual contentand a dull person will channel a dull message."
"How did you get interested in channeling? Tinahas mentioned that you were not really too interested in psychicphenomena."
I replied, "I wasn't, until I started to havesome unusual experiences myself. I am embarrassed to say that Ihave been having conversations with an entity or entities who callthemselves Uriel. Their voice appears to come from a spot of lightthat can be in broken glass bottle or under a rock," Ireplied.
"I'd call that channeling!" she said with awide grin. "Except, you aredoing the channeling. You might make it seem to come from the spotof light to agree with your belief system. People who hear voicesdirecting them are often diagnosed as schizophrenics. You aresurely not one of them. The spot of light appearing to talk isprobably a dream kind of thing."
I felt relieved as I said, "Yes, it does happensometimes when I am dozing off. Are there any hazards in doing thisform of channeling?"
"Yes, but only for those like Darren Wilemanwho trance channels Herondus. He is great, but sometimes othertrance channels go kind of bonkers after a while, and start sayingbizarre stuff or get their own ego involved in themessage.
"Since you are doing this semiconsciously youcan evaluate what is coming through. If it starts to get reallystrange, tell the entity to stop coming through, or simply stopwhen it happens. It all is under your control. Does the messageseem reasonable to you?"
I thought a minute and then said, "Yes, Ireceived instructions on some scientific things about space-timethat I should learn about. Then, a few days later, I get a legalcase involving those same subjects and am forced to learn about it.It is really strange."
She lit up with a big smile and said, "That maynot be as strange as you think. I have heard of people channelingmessages from the future. Maybe your 'Uriel' is your future self, aguide from outside space-time or someone else from the future. I'dbet you’ll figure this out someday."
The waitress brought our tostadas.
As I was adjusting my plate I added, "I hope Iwill. I am a little overwhelmed about this now."
"I am sure you will," she replied as shestarted to eat.
We engaged in small talk for a while we ate. Aswe were finishing, Elise said, "Tina is one of my dearest friends.How long have you
