Who Are We?
What a heavenly idea!"
Article by Bill Tomaszewski
Founder of the New Hope Metaphysical Society
The New Hope
Channelers Support Group in Pennsylvania was founded in 1990. Over the years it
has evolved and its visionary leaders have expanded the range of programs,
changed the Group’s name and relocated the meeting site. The Group is now called
The New Hope Metaphysical Society and has its own website.
My
story is about how the idea to start a support group for people who channel
originated and how it grew into what it has become today. It wasn’t my idea but
the concept was channeled to me…I just followed through on the spiritual
guidance. t was in early August of 1990 when I walked up a flight of stairs to
the apartment of the trance channel (Kelly Sheehy) in Lambertville, New Jersey.
I had made an appointment to talk with the angel, Raphael, the entity she
channeled.
That was the
summer, if you recall that the Hollywood film “Ghost” was pulling audiences into
movie theatres. As I was making my way up the stairs, my thoughts wandered to
previous channeled readings I had received from other trance channels. During
those readings I was given the unexpected advice to take a training called
Reiki, and to have it taught by a particular person named Beth Grey from
California. Study “A Course in Miracles” (This channeled information has been
one of the resources I have used as guidance in this challenging world.) Read
Ruth Montgomery’s book, Strangers among Us. I followed all of these suggestions
and they have been life changing for me.
I knew why I
had come to see Kelly and to hear from Raphael. I wanted this channeled angel to
give me insight regarding the idea of trance channelers becoming more accepted
to mainstream society and to themselves. However, it is what you don’t expect to
hear that can change your life. During that private reading, Raphael suggested,
“There should be a group, a gathering of people who channel to share ideas and
experiences to come together simply to discuss this phenomenon that has happened
to all of them. They will learn that this is very important and that they should
be doing this work and they will talk to others in the same positions and it
will clarify to them that they are not losing their mind. They will have the
good feeling that they are not alone.”
For me,
personally, visiting trance channels and conversing with the non-physical
entities had been very helpful. Unanticipated events and troublesome situations,
I believed, were controlling my life. After
a successful career in the army, I left with an honorable discharge and was
ready to conquer the world. I was married with three young boys and a life full
of adventure ahead but the adventures became nightmares when separation and
divorce almost drained the life out of me. I had strayed off my path and found
myself mired in the backwaters of life.
Whenever I
would go one-on-one with these channeled entities, whom I believe have a higher
perspective of our own inner wisdom, I pictured myself walking up to one of the
universe’s information booths to ask for directions out of the forest of my
confusion. A trance channel, for me, became a welcome guidepost pointing the way
out of the woods. I would jokingly comment that the conversations I had with the
spirits were very inexpensive psychotherapy sessions.
After Kelly
Sheehy came out of trance, I told her of Raphael’s proposal to start a support
group for channelers. Linda Kalin, one of the attendees, knew how to type and
made simple notices which I placed on the notice boards of health food stores,
New Age bookstores and even dropped a few off at area newspaper offices.
People began
coming out of their spiritual closets to attend the meetings. Men and women from
all walks of life who were either practicing channeling quietly among their
receptive friends or people who were just interested in channeling were filling
the meeting room.
The number of people who attended fluctuated from ten to more than fifty. The
format for the meetings was informal and for the most part unstructured. It was
conducted in a non-critical atmosphere with attendees encouraged to speak about
their personal experiences and to share their thoughts. We didn’t push what we
individually believed down each others throats; we simply shared what we
individually discovered. For me, this was an important guideline for the Group.
New people
were always attending and they were concerned about how much they would want to
reveal about themselves. They may have learned to shut themselves off from the
world because of unpleasant experiences as children. I had read an article in
Fate Magazine entitled “Voices from Other Worlds” written by Craig Lee. Mr. Lee
quotes a Margo Chandley who was working for four years on a doctorate thesis in
‘transformational psychology’ at the International
College in Westwood, California. She studied fifty
channelers and worked closely with 15. “Not coincidentally,” Chanley says, “many
channelers have parents who were disbelieving of their initial experiences. Many
have abusive parents and the experience becomes repressed. As the years go by,
the channelers are further conditioned by peers in a suppressive way, by the
church (many channels come from Catholic backgrounds) and by social pressure.”
I certainly didn’t look like or act as an authority on channeling. People could
relax and not feel intimidated at the meetings. I would wear my Hawaiian shirts
in an attempt to keep the energy of the meetings light and became known for my
sense of humor. Laughter is a form of healing.
I invited people whose business cards I had seen on the bulletin boards
in New Age bookshops and health food stores in nearby neighborhoods of New Hope
and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. I asked these guest channelers to speak about
their unusual ability, to give the Group background information about their
personal life, and I gave them the opportunity to demonstrate their specialty in
front of a supportive audience. Sometimes even running out of chairs, the Group
attracted many people to the meetings to hear several speaker/channels who
combined their channeling aptitude with unique abilities to entertain, inform or
heal. Lenny Ralls, for instance, would channel celebrities who had made their
transition.
Channeled
explanations for channeling
Amaya, the former Robin Velez would bring along “Isaiah and the Group,” who
would call on people in the audience for some hands-on spiritual healing.
Through Amaya I received this explanation of the channeling process:
“Let us talk
first on the physical phenomena known as energy exchange and/or channeling. Both
the physical and spiritual preparation occurs within the intended trance
channel’s body. The consciousness of that spark of energy, known as the soul,
waiting to incarnate into the mother-to-be’s womb, chooses to enter either
before or after birth. As the child grows, depending on the soul’s purpose,
different functions of the body are manifested or firmed up.
A prominent change takes place in the pituitary-thyroid gland system. As the
child grows into puberty, the glands that stimulate sexual activity are also
stimulated deeply for the energies of paranormal abilities. These glands enlarge
somewhat and spew out a chemical that forms a film like a mucous membrane that
protects these glands.
Channeling is
initiated when the intuitive person learns to enter a self-induced trance. The
heavier and slower vibrations of the channel’s own energy are exchanged with the
finer and higher vibrating energies which are soul material just like you. These
energies have thought, intelligence, intellect and are a part of what we know as
the God Force. Prior to touching down and merging into the channel’s body, the
energies slow down the rate of speed of their vibrations so their thought
patterns can be interpreted and spoken verbally in the channel’s
accustomed language.”
At one of the monthly meetings, I asked the Seraphic Angel, Ascordia, who
communicates through Amy Bortner, to speak about the functional role for
channelers. The reply was, “There were many ways a channeler can be effective in
society. A practical use of channelers would be in the aiding of families of a
loved one who is in a coma. Those who cannot speak their piece any longer, who
are mired in the confines of a coma so that they cannot express their desires;
those who are in great distress, psychological or physical -channelers can be
used to contact either telepathically or another fashion, so as to ascertain the
true desire as to whether they want to maintain their life or not.”
Ascordia
added, “It may be helpful, for instance, to have channelers at the bedside of
comatose patients who have been on life support machines for long periods of
time, who may not be able to express their needs and would like to express them
so as to stop the unnecessary support of their physical body when they no longer
need them. Plus, for those who are dying, who are in hospices, who are in old
age homes who may have experienced this during the death/transition process but
may wish to express through their mouth but do not have any words for it or
cannot speak their piece.
So channelers
can be there to express to the family the process of their death/transition
which oftentimes is very beautiful, very loving and very peaceful but cannot be
expressed in the physical plane adequately at this time and so the channelers
can be mouthpieces for their consciousness.”
Articles about our group were published in a Doylestown, PA newspaper, The
Intelligencer; in The Philadelphia Inquirer; and the Wall Street Journal in
1992. The New Hope Channelers Support Group then became quite a hot item in the
media and members were invited on local radio and television programs.
I returned
home after an appearance on a Philadelphia morning television show to find my
telephone answering machine had recorded more messages that it had ever received
before. People wanted to talk about their personal experiences. People wanted to
share with me the difficult times they had had dealing with loved ones who
didn’t understand anything about metaphysics.
It seemed
that there were many people out in TV and radio land who related to the group I
had created, who just wanted to open up and talk to someone who was willing to
listen without any judgment or criticism. This was just in a small area of the
East Coast of the USA. I wondered how many more people with unusual abilities
were out there with no support.
It has been a long time since I had that date with an angel but the New
Hope Metaphysical Society continues to meet on the fourth Wednesday of the month
at Pebble
Hill Church in
Doylestown, Pennsylvania. Little did I know back in the summer of 1990 that a
heavenly idea would become a "down to earth" reality for over eighteen years.
What am I up
to now? Well, I met my soul mate and moved to England to be with her. Healing
work occupies most of my time. We have just become involved in a distant healing
project of a Ph.D. candidate with a University in the United Kingdom. We also
get together with a group of friends to discuss metaphysics on a regular basis
References:
Amaya -
http://www.amayacenter.com/
Amy Bortner
-Gialuco - http://www.ascordia.com/
Kelly Sheehy
- http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2006-07-27/fineprint.shtml
Contact:
Bill
Tomaszewski
billski@spiritsvision.com.
