The Blind Leading the Blind

Part 1 of 4

Most "New Age" type teachers are doing a beautiful job and are a great blessing to their students. But a few are unintentionally harmful. The following four part article explains how a few of the sincere, well-meaning teachers in the "New Age" community, as well as many of the "channelers", are actually "the blind leading the blind." These teachers and channelers are honest and have good intentions, but they simply don't realize how they are being cleverly deceived by lower astral deceptions. The various kinds of deceptions encountered are carefully explained so that you can have better discernment sorting out the reliable New Age teachings and activities, from the fraudulent ones. This article also touches upon the role of lower astral forces in causing some illnesses, including aspects of some mental illnesses, as well as their role in distorting religions.

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The Blind Leading the Blind

Pearly was well aware that we will soon be coming into a Golden Age of peace, truth, and love on this planet. But she also stressed the imperative need to sort out genuine “New Age” spiritual practices from “pseudo-new age” activities. This is because many of the so-called “new age” books, magazines, products, workshops, seminars, and instructors are basing their teachings on unreliable information coming from the psychic-astral realm. Thus, they are nothing more than the “blind leading the blind.” These activities range from silly, ridiculous shams which are simply a waste of our valuable time and money, to cunningly appealing hoaxes which are treacherous in the extreme. This is not to say that the people selling or promoting these false teachings are insincere. Most of them feel that they are doing the right thing. They just do not realize that they are being used by forces that are less than honorable. Neither are they aware that the astral realm is deliberately “inspiring” these deceptive practices in order to confuse and distract us from the genuine and extremely valuable legitimate spiritual practices which are essential to bring us into the Permanent Golden Age.

Thus, Pearl urged all of us to develop wise discernment so that we could climb the upward path of self-mastery steadily and safely. One of the best ways of illustrating this need, is by examining some deceptions that are based on deliberate, carefully conceived psychic hoaxes. But before we do this, it might be useful to relate how some “new agers” can be fooled by simply misinterpreting something that is really quite ordinary. In the following case, it was not a matter of being fooled by deceitful illusions perpetrated by discarnate entities. Instead, it resulted simply from jumping to erroneous conclusions by assuming that something was miraculous when it was not.

The Television Angel

One afternoon Pearl and I had our living room filled with earnest seekers interested in the teachings of the Ascended Host. As we were sharing the “Higher Laws,” the telephone rang and someone informed me that an “angel” had just taken control of somebody’s television set in Mount Shasta. In the next few days we heard additional enthusiastic stories concerning this “incredible, miraculous angel” that could be seen on this television twenty-four hours a day regardless of which channel was selected. And evidently the house that contained this TV was now becoming a kind of “sacred site” with large numbers of people meditating in front of the “angel.” Something did not feel quite right about it, so in order to find out what was really going on, Pearl and I went down to Mount Shasta to see for ourselves.

As we entered the little cottage, it was filled mostly with young people in their twenties and thirties, who were meditating in a devoted way with the “television angel.” Despite the obvious sincerity of the people, Pearl and I were not very impressed with the “angel.” It turned out to be nothing more than a changing, moving geometric pattern which, if you kind of squinted, vaguely looked like a distorted modern art depiction of an angel. While we were gazing at it, someone kindly told me that if I lovingly touched the television screen with “faith,” I would feel the “cosmic power” being “transmitted” from the angel. I silently and discreetly made the call to my I AM Presence to show me the truth of all this. Then stepping up to the TV, I placed my outstretched palm upon the screen. The “cosmic power” was nothing more than the mild, static electricity which anyone can feel from touching the screen of some older televisions that still have CRT screens. I had learned long before this, that it is usually not a good idea to share our insights with people unless they request it. So since no one asked us anything, Pearl and I quietly left the house while silently making the call that these gentle people be filled with greater discernment and illumination. When someone outside the house asked us what we thought about the angel, we told them that we were not very impressed with it.

A week later, a local television repair person who had heard about this particular TV, proved that it resulted from nothing more divine than a blown electric circuit in the power unit of this kind of TV. In fact, anyone could go to his repair shop and see the “angel” they now had on one of their similar models. I was surprised to find that even after this discovery, many of the “faithful” continued to believe in the “angel.” After this, the TV repair person advertised a tongue-in-cheek “special” in which for $300 they would blow the appropriate electric circuit on anyone’s TV so that they could have their very own angel. Even though this “angel” was a tremendous improvement over what is normally seen on television, it still indicates that developing greater wisdom would definitely be a blessing for these pure-hearted, but over-enthusiastic sisters and brothers.

And unfortunately, if people can fall for something as straightforward as this, imagine how easily they can be fooled by the cunning, subtle, and sophisticated counterfeit divine experiences carefully designed by the world’s experts in deception – the discarnate human beings who are temporarily stuck the psychic realm! Yet this is exactly what is happening today in the New Age community. Much of what passes as bona fide “new age” activities are nothing more than similar shallow, meaningless, pseudo-spiritual nonsense. Sometimes the foolishness of these phony “sacred” experiences would be almost comical if it were not for the sincere human beings involved who often end up living such distorted lives. This is one of the principle reasons why Pearl cautioned us that many of the well-meaning, self-appointed “experts” in the “new age community” are nothing more than the proverbial “blind guides.”

“Not My Channel”

(My spiritual teacher, Pearl, and her husband Jerry, invited me to become a part of their family as a sort of adopted spiritual son. - Bill, author of this website.) It was not uncommon for someone to come to our house who was being fooled by the pseudo-divine experiences generated by the sinister force. And of course we did our best to illumine them as to the deceit that was being perpetrated on them. Yet, rarely did people really understand the wide range of dangers involved in this kind of activity. The following is one small example of the early and seemingly “innocent” stages of one of these “psychic hoaxes.”

One evening Pearl and I were at home when we received a phone call from two women who had just driven into town and wanted to see us. Even though it was a couple hours after our normal five o’clock visiting time, we invited them over. About ten minutes later they arrived and, opening the door, I introduced Pearl and myself. Imagine our surprise when one of them said, “Oh, we already know you. We’ve been channeling both of you!” We could not believe that they would actually be so foolish as to think that they had been “channeling” us. Later I joked that “we weren’t even dead yet.”

So we invited them inside and after sitting down I sincerely explained how they had actually not been “contacting” us at all, but instead they were being fooled by astral beings who were pretending to be us. And that it was these subtle, fascinating and convincing psychic forces, including audible voices which had caused them to think they were “contacting” us. I also explained how the malevolent beings in the astral-psychic realm can instantly change their appearances so that they look, feel, sound, act, and even smell, exactly the way we would expect Jesus, Mary, our dead Uncle Joe, or anyone else, to appear. I also shared with them how they probably needed to become more aware of other deceptions that had been very likely practiced upon them by these same dark forces. But as was typically the case, these two individuals persisted in believing that they were actually “channeling” us and ultimately left the house about an hour later still feeling certain of it. For me this particular case was the proverbial “straw that broke the camel’s back.” Somehow we had to do a better job of helping people being deceived in this way.

So I discussed the situation with Pearl and decided to develop an explanation so simple and clear that even a child could understand it. Thus, using the Arisen Master’s and Sai Baba’s teachings; some extraordinary insights from Pearl; as well as the things we had learned as a result of helping various people; I developed the fictional story about “John” which was given in The “Light Side” of the Dark Side chapter. This was done in order to illustrate the high level of sophistication the psychic-astral realm is capable of in perpetrating their deceptions. It may be helpful to understand that it is these same kinds of tricks that have lured people into the treacherous activity of “seances.” The great woman saint of 20th century India, Anandamayi Ma, once gave some helpful advice to a woman who was grief-stricken over the death of her daughter, and who wanted to “contact” her by means of a seance. Anandamayi Ma told her:

To attempt to summon the spirit of the departed is not good. Very often some other being responds and the ordinary individual is not in a position to distinguish between a genuine manifestation and a fake. Therefore, it is harmful . . . Do not let your mind be occupied with any such matter.

Unfortunately, at the present time, few people in the “New Age Community” are aware of how clever these fakes can be. These astral entities sometimes even pretend to be GOD, and it is amazing how many people will fall for it.

Money

Pearl also taught us that the more that money is involved in “New Age” activities the more cautious we should be. It may be helpful to remind the reader that Pearl never charged for sharing her spiritual teachings and insights with people. All was given as a “glad free gift of love.” (She did charge for her Step By Step Books so that she could pay to get them reprinted.) That does not mean that it might not be appropriate to charge for some things. For example, perhaps a class on Hatha Yoga, Tai Chi, or vegetarian cooking. But generally we need to be careful when it comes to having to pay for spiritual assistance. An interesting thing happened in this regard while Godfre and Lotus were creating the Saint Germain Foundation so that they could share the Arisen Master Teachings in large classes held in the major cities of the United States. While Saint Germain informed them that it was perfectly all right to sell their books of Ascended Master instruction, he also told them that they were never to charge for any of the large public classes they held. And this was the case even though money was required in order to rent the large halls that the classes were held in. As has been shared earlier, the needed funds would come from donations placed in a “Love Gift” box in the rear of the auditorium, as well as the sale of their books.

A similar thing occurred when Dr. John Hislop was creating the Sathya Sai Baba Organization of the United States. When he asked Sai Baba what the rules should be, the very first thing Baba replied was: “The organization is to have as little to do with money as possible.” Again, even though it was all right for Sai Baba books to be sold to devotees at a nominal fee, no collections were to be taken at their weekly meetings. If a specific Sai Baba Center needed money to render some form of selfless service in their community, then those who were interested in helping out could contribute whatever they liked in an anonymous way. In short, no one is allowed to solicit donations in Sai’s name for any reason. If people feel moved in their hearts to donate money for worthy projects in India, they can send their unsolicited funds to the nonprofit Sathya Sai Baba Society of America, and it would be forwarded to the Sri Sathya Sai Baba Trust of India. This policy is not surprising when we consider that all great saints, sages, and spiritual teachers have always taught free of charge. It would be absolutely unthinkable to imagine Jesus, Quan Yin, the Buddha, Saint Francis, Saint Clare, Anandamayi Ma, or Saint Germain charging for their spiritual assistance as they taught, healed, and walked among humanity. Yet it is amazing how many people are claiming to “channel” these very same beings providing that you give them a sizable amount of money to do it! And sometimes, buying your very own “personal message from Jesus” or one of the other Great Ones can be a very expensive proposition – usually in more ways than one.

Pearly and I, on several different occasions, heard about people who had mortgaged their home or used their entire life savings, just so that they could attend a series of expensive, “intensive workshops” being given by a famous “channeler.” When some of the channeled messages turned out to be false and the predicted divine assistance these duped individuals were to miraculously receive did not materialize, they were naturally unable to pay their mortgage payments. And so, as their lending institution foreclosed on them, they lost everything including their homes.

The following true story is an example of the role money often plays in “channeling.” Several months after Pearl had Ascended, three young women in their late twenties, came to my house to learn more about Pearl and her teachings. I was sharing these teachings free of charge as I always did, when one of the women mentioned that she was conducting “Ascension” workshops internationally, as well as “channeling” Saint Germain. Being curious as to the current state of affairs in the particular “new age” groups that she was involved with, I wondered how much money people were losing to this woman.

“Do you charge for your channelings?” I inquired.

“Oh yes, of course!” she confidently replied.

“How much?” I asked.

“Saint Germain told me to charge $200 per hour,” she responded.

“He did?” I asked.

“Yes, Saint Germain made it quite clear to me that this was to be the price. He came to me in a vision and unrolled a scroll in front of me. At the bottom were the words, ‘Channeling your dead uncle, $15 an hour.’ The next line above that one, stated ‘Channeling a little-known sage, $30 an hour.’ There were many lines and each line above the other had prices which increased with the spiritual importance of the person being channeled. At the very top of the list were the words ‘Channeling Jesus and Saint Germain, $200 an hour.’ Then Saint Germain rolled up the scroll, looked deep into my eyes and said, ‘Don’t you think we’re worth it?’”

It was difficult for me to understand how she could fall for such an obvious psychic trick. Especially when it led to such blatant self-serving results. After all it was she who was getting the money, not them. And they of course would never have charged anyone when they were in embodiment, and they certainly would not charge anyone now. In fact, it was amazing to me that she could even entertain the thought that Saint Germain and Jesus, who spent their entire ministries selflessly serving humanity free of charge, would suddenly decide to give their words to those who claim to channel them as long as you could afford the fee. But naturally when someone is making such a lucrative living out of something like this, they are pretty attached to the idea that what they are doing is a valid spiritual service. Thus, even though I tried to share with her that she was being deceived by a discarnate human being who was simply pretending to be Saint Germain, it did not do any good. She and her friends ultimately left the house feeling that I was quite naive.

In general, Pearl warned us to be very careful of the whole “channeling” epidemic that is now taking place. This ranges from the expensive, famous channelers, right on down to the low-cost, friendly, neighborhood ones, or even those doing it for free. They are mostly good, sincere people. They just do not realize that they are being fooled by astral entities.

For more enlightening insights on this topic, go to Part 2.

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