Channeling: Use Your Psychic Powers to Contact your Spirit Guides

by Shirley Humphreys Battie

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New York: Sterling Publishing Company, 2006. 144 pp.   $14.95

Shirley Humphreys Battie has written a short, thorough book on channeling. Her premise is that anyone has the ability to learn the skill and channel. The aim of this book is to show readers how to go into a trance, expand consciousness and heighten inner senses, so they can be fine tuned to receive messages from the world of spirit. Channeling is written so that any reader can peruse and comprehend it. It is not an academic book. It is concisely written, with a fairly long introduction to set the tenor of the book, and seven chapters to explain the author's premise. Many pertinent illustrations are interspersed throughout the book, along with boxed comments, exercises and other important messages that are strategically placed.

Unfortunately, no references are listed for readers who want to research this subject further, and there is no bibliography, leaving the impression that information contained within the book is purely the author's original observations. The only information about the author is a short personal account included in the introduction, which adds an enticing bit of mystique about her. As a mother and grandmother, the survivor of two miserable marriages, she had the gumption to start discussion groups while living and working in Italy, on topics such as life after death and psychic spiritual connections. In 1990, returning to England, Beattie started meditating and immediately connected with spirit guides. Battie lists the following reasons for meditation and channeling:

• To contact your guides and spirit teachers
• To make contact with your Higher Self, your soul
• To take the first step towards clairvoyance and mediumship
• To assist in healing yourself and others
• To enable travel to the past or future
• As the first step towards channeling
• To raise your vibrations. (p. 18).

Battie proposes that perhaps readers have already channeled information without even realizing it. This occurs, for instance, when people wonder why they made a certain remark, or where a thought or idea might have come from [that is unusually helpful]. (p. 6). Battie suggests we might want to learn to channel in order to have access to all the help and information needed for spiritual growth and enlightenment. (p. 12). She relates, "You will draw to you guides who have the same field of interest as yourself and who will provide you with a greater understanding of the world in which you live." (Ibid.).

Chapters instruct readers on different ways to access channeling such as meditation and trance. The chapter on channeling for guidance and healing stresses the importance of being very clear on what we are seeking. (p. 36). In the chapter about meeting our guide, the author states that a spirit guide is on a higher vibration plane than a meditation guide. (p. 60). The author also answers some of the questions we might have about how to judge if what the guide says is true or not, what kinds of guides people might attract, and if the same guide always stays with the same person. (p. 71). Her hypothesis is that we generally meet our guide for the first time during meditation. Battie states, "In the deepest state (of trance) the channeller's soul leaves the body and is taken to other realms by his guides. He enjoys a reality not accessible in a normal conscious state." (p. 60). In addition, readers are instructed about what kinds of questions to ask of guides, and how to frame these questions.

Subsequent chapters focus on deepening our channeling practice and raising our vibration to the highest possible level. Battie then gives problem-solving advice on what we need to do if a connection cannot be made, if a changeover of guides occurs, when it is not appropriate to contact a guide, becoming too dependent upon a guide, and dealing with doubts. The author also provides us with an in-depth description on channeling angels, masters and sages. Other entities that can be channeled, Battie states, come from all levels of spirit form: animals, elementals, and fairies, beings of legends and myths, and great historical or religious figures. (p. 101).

Battie ends with a chapter on channeling for other people. With confidence built up by practice, the reader, who is learning the technique and is audibly channeling, can record words to be played later.

The book gives good advice in personal responsibility. If what is being channeled seems and feels good and true then individuals can heed it. The structure of the book is sound and helpful, and the relatively short length makes it palatable to even the casual reader.

Review by Liz Donnelly
Doctoral Student
Holos University Graduate Seminary 
www.HolosUniversity.org

Book reviews by Daniel J. Benor, MD, ABHM, IJHC Editor, unless otherwise indicated.

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