"So I guess you must hate Hermes... right?... Why?"Amazingly, I was asked this question by a friend who runs a place that attracts and hosts New Age events. When the comment came out, well, my mouth rounded into an "O" and I said, "On the contrary I DON'T hate Hermes..."
This very strange conversation came about because apparently, my big mouth has given me a reputation as a skeptic and a hater of channellers.
It's not true, I don't hate real channellers. I don't even hate the fake ones, or the ones that THINK they are channelling something from the spirit world. In fact, I am always on the lookout for psychics, witches, shamans and magicians who really have the powers they are supposed to have. And yes, I DO compliment and encourage the ones whom I feel have real talent. It is simply that I find myself unable to swallow or agree with something that I feel is a blatent lie or a huge self-deception.
I think that I am a pretty judgemental person... but that judgemental nature has also allowed me to see past a great deal of deception. In the past, I would not hesitate to challenge a blatent charlatan. I think I have toned down a lot these days. BUT, I still have a big mouth, what can I say, the ol' leopard can't really change those spots.
I don't really have a problem with the traditional spirit mediums that are a part of culture in Singapore, sure, not all of them get possessed by the gods all the time, and certainly, when the gods do fail to "show" there is some trickery on their part. (When I was much younger, I had the opportunity to hear the testamony of a "tang ki" who admitted that on occasion when the appropriate god failed to make an appearance, he was forced to resort to acting. ) However, the mediums in question do actually get possessed by the spirits often enough so that their credibility is intact. Also, they perform traditional feats of strength or endurance (slashing oneself does come to mind, as well as sitting on a chair of nails, all done without injury to the "tang ki" in question) to show a kind of rough proof that they have really been "ridden upon" by the gods.
I do question however the modern phenomena of "channelling". I mean, WHAT IS IT? Does the channeller actually get possessed by the spirit in question? Is the channeller actually conscious when possession happens? Or is the channel merely a clairvoyant and/or clairaudient middleman in the world of spirits and does not get possessed at all? I think that some places in the West at least, there is a distinction made between channelling and trance-mediumship. The former usually doesn't entail possession but the latter certainly does.
The problem with Singapore is that there isn't that kind of distinction and as a result, there is a great deal of variety in how "channelling" is conducted. The range of what a channeller does locally runs the gamut from what appears to be a very mild case of a "full possession" (I use very because I have never witnessed any of the non-traditional channellers do even a small percentage of the feats that the traditional "tang ki" does) to someone who is obviously completely conscious, and speaks and sounds exactly like himself/herself in terms of speech and tone even when he or she is "channelling" some highly evolved being.
This has led me to question the modern New Age channeller.
1. Without the traditional shows of "proof" of the gods' presence, how DO we know that the the channeller is really channelling some entity?
2. Noticeably, even the "tang ki"s admit that the spirits don't always show up when requested through prayer and ritual. How is it that most channellers can seemingly "command" the presence of the being in question whenever they are asked?
I mean, consider this seriously. Do you honestly think that the Archangel Michael has the time to come over and answer questions whenever he is called? For that matter, does he even deal with pretty human concerns. I'd think with the level of power he is at, he won't see or communicate with humans very often.
3. What is the standard proceedure behind "channelling"?
Considering what is required of the channeller... one would think that some kind of psychic ability is involved. Even if the channeller isn't functioning as a trance medium, based on what people expect from channelling, a channeller ought to have some kind of clairvoyance and/or clairaudience so that they can most importantly HEAR what the being in question is trying to convey to them.
With regards to Question 3, I once asked a channeller (and yes, by coincidence it was someone chanelling Lord Hermes) what is it that he sees or hears when Hermes communicates with him. Well, the answer was a real shocker.
Apparently, the channel has never physically seen or heard from "Lord Hermes". So then I asked, JUST HOW does he know Hermes is communicating with him? How does the "Lord Hermes" he is channelling actually answer questions posed to him? It took a bit of questioning, but I found out that the channel actually sees flashes of images in his mind when focusing on my questions.
AH HA! I was onto something. I went around to a few more channels and asked them about their communication with their patron being. Apparently, quite a lot of them have never actually seen or heard with their physical vision and hearing, the being they are channelling. So how were they getting their messages? Well, through what is known as the "Mind's Eye Vision".
Here I have to digress a little and talk a bit about what I feel the definition of "psychic ability" is. I am of the opinion that INTUITION is something that everyone has. Some people have a lot of it, some don't. And some people aren't even aware it exists. However, with some training, most people can make use of their intuition at a level that helps them in their daily life. Most often intuition comes as a sort of gut feeling or a sense of something, with some training in visualisation and meditation, I do think a normal human being will at some point be able to see images through the "Mind's Eye Vision". That is, images flash around in their mind when their intuition is put to work.
However, I feel that INTUITION is very different from ACTUAL PSYCHIC ABILITY. And I notice that not everyone has psychic abilities. Just like not everyone is a gifted pianist or ballerina. So what are these psychic abilities? From what I notice in my daily experience, the most readily identified psychic abilities are: Clairvoyance, Clairsentience, Clairaudience, Psychometry and Mediumship. I also notice that these gifts tend to run in families or blood relation. For instance, most "tang ki"s also have family members who are doing the same thing or something similar.
The "Mind's Eye Vision" is NOT a psychic ability. As the person only sees ... whatever he or she sees... in the mind. For those of you who might be feeling disappointed by what you are reading, don't underestimate the power of the "Mind's Eye Vision" and normal human intuition. Think about this... do you know that a study was conducted by some airlines that showed that before a plane crashes there is a significantly higher number of passenger cancellations and transfers from that same plane compared to normal flights? How do these people know when NOT to take the flight?
Back to channellers...
Soooooo, if most channellers I am likely to meet in Singapore are only receiving the messages through the "Mind's Eye Vision"... How does anyone know where those messages come from eh?
Unfortunately, after meeting that channeller, I met other channellers who also channelled "Lord Hermes"... sheesh... for one guy, he sure does get around. What if 2 people channel him at the same time at different locations? Who does he go to? I guess I made some unflattering comments to my friend about the whole idea of channelling Hermes and somehow I got the image of being a Hermes-hater.
Anyways, I really really doubt that the historical Hermes Trismegistus that I know is actually being channelled by anyone, and I certainly don't think he is any kind of ascended master, no matter what kind of sage people today say he was in the distant past. That's right... our perceptions of him today are based on modern interpretations. The actual ancient Egyptian view of Hermes Trismegistus is that he is a god... Hermes is really a latter Greek syncretism of the ancient Egyptian god Thoth and Mercury/Hermes. And NO, there is no historical evidence that Thoth was ever an ancient Atlantian sage or priest. Now, Plato is the recognised historical source of the Atlantis legend and he never mentioned Thoth or Hermes Trismegistus in his writing. The philosopher DOES hint at ancient records that were kept in secret in Egypt for 9000 years, but that factoid does not make a link to Thoth in any way. And NO, I did not see the word Hermes or Thoth anywhere in those damnable books when I had to read them in the university.
However, it is interesting to note that historically and in certain traditional belief systems there seems to be a link between Thoth/Hermes Trismegistus and the very human Enoch (in the Bible and Torah) or Idris (in the Islamic texts). Something which I am currently exploring. Therefore I am inclined to believe that the original Thoth might really be human. In the same way I think that Osirius, Isis and Set were based on actual historical people. And I might add in the case of Osirius and Isis, some scholars make a really good case for their being based off actual historical people and events.
Before you go off saying ... "Like how can people become gods..." well think about Kwan Gong, Chinese god of warfare, he was a real historical person whom people deitified after his death. And in a more recent example a friend of mine travelling around visited a Chinese temple in Malaysia. Among the standard images of Chinese gods, he saw the statue of a man in a suit with a cane in hand. Amused by this, he asked a local who the deity was. Well, as it turned out, the man in the suit was a well-known and loved local philantropist who had passed on. But in the world of ancestor worship and traditional Chinese belief, he was turned into some kind of god.
And if you are boiling mad after reading this, please do note, I do not hate channellers and I do think that there are some out there who truly possess psychic gifts. I was fortunate enough in this lifetime to meet someone who does communicate with spirits and who convinced me that she was actually listening to answers given to her by unseen entities. However, she is currently the ONLY professional psychic I have met thus far who has convinced me of her gifts.
As for Hermes Trismegistus/Thoth... I can only say that I deeply respect what the man stands for. That is why I am determined to uncover the truth about him and his knowledge. I am not content to accept the "Lord Hermes" that is sometimes channelled as the actual historical person that has ascended. If Hermes Trismegistus / Thoth is indeed a master of science, physics, magic and mathematics, as Egyptian tradition claims, I would expect nothing less from him than the highest levels of academic excellence and enlightened wisdom. Sadly, I have never heard THAT LEVEL of knowledge and wisdom from the mouth of any mortal person alive today.
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