THE DEVELOPMENT OF A CHANNELER or I DIDN'T ASK FOR THIS

by George Hanover

I got into channeling 22 years ago before it became a buzzword. I didn't start out to be a channeler, it sort of happened over a period of years. I'm not exclusive or rare as others have the talent as well. However, not everyone that claims to be a channeler really can do it. I don't claim to be anything. I want to tell you how it developed and you can draw your own conclusions.

I became interested in psychic phenomena when I was 20 years old. It was summer and I had a student job provided by the state. It was a make work program that paid minimum wage. Since it was made up as a help to struggling students, there was much free time. I decided to spend my time reading after I had completed my assignments for the day. My theme was psychic phenomena.

The book that most fascinated me was THE SETH MATERIAL by Jane Roberts. Even though I feel that Ms. Roberts got off the path towards the end of her life, I was always impressed with the early works. I read that book and other related psychic phenomena books from the public library that summer.

In July of that year, my father had the first of a series of heart attacks. While I was visiting him in the hospital, I mentioned the topic of psychic phenomena that I had been reading as a point of discussion and he told me about his grandmother, my great grandmother, a topic that had never been discussed with me.

It appears that his grandmother, a person who had died years before I was born, was a physical medium. She could make objects move and strange things always went on at her house. For example, rocks would fly up out of the yard and hit the house and all the locks would become unlocked routinely by themselves.

When he was 10, my father got the only personal performance from his grandmother that he ever saw. He had heard all the talk in the family about her "strangeness" and he wanted to see it. He pestered her for a long time and she finally agreed to show him if he would never mention it again. He and several of his playmates were present. There was a solid oak table in the dining room that weighed about 300 pounds. She had them stand by the table and they all held hands with her. As she raised her hands up, the table rose off the floor. She told them it would bounce once for yes and twice for no and they could ask the spirits questions. Of course, a child can't think of much to ask and my father regretted that he had not asked anything significant. The table did bob up and down in answer to the few questions that he asked. The other children were too frightened to speak. Then his grandmother said she was finished, lowered her hands and the table resumed its place on the floor. My father said that her complexion had turned pale as if she had exerted a great deal of effort.

Such a wild experience and I was hearing about it for the first time at the age of 20. My grandfather, it was his mother, NEVER mentioned anything about her. I surmised that the only reason I heard about it was that my father was ill and I was reading about the topic.

My father did have a more serious heart attack a few days later but managed to partially recover after weeks in intensive care. It was that summer that I learned an unusual thing about myself, I discovered I could tell when someone was going to die!

I didn't know I had the ability to perceive that people were about to die but discovered it by accident. At the place where I worked, the supervisor in charge of the department was very nice. Mr. X was actually the nicest guy to me of all the people at that job. He was an older fellow and had some children my age that were attending the same university as me. Thus, he was always initiating friendly conversations about my college studies and future plans.

As the summer progressed, I suddenly found myself being uncomfortable around Mr. X. There was no reason for it. He was actually the only person at that entire job that was nice to me and he was a great guy. However, it reached the point where I found myself avoiding him. This was illogical to me but I couldn't help myself. However, I didn't have to avoid him for too many days.

One afternoon, another employee stopped in and was making polite conversation. In the course of the conversation he said, "Well, Mr. X is no longer with us." I was surprised and asked if he'd quit. I was told no, that the previous night, Mr. X had died of a heart attack at his home.

I was taken aback but the implications of this became immediately apparent. The reason this very nice guy was making me uncomfortable related to my perception of his impending death. I pondered this situation and decided that it was a handy ability to have. At least, you wouldn't be caught by surprise when a relative died. Thus, I was not concerned about the heart problems that my father developed about the same time because I KNEW he was not going to die immediately. And, it was true. He survived that series of heart attacks and lived for another 19 years.

This ability has remained with me since the time I discovered I could do it. As with most things in my life, I didn't view it as anything special.

The summer ended, my father got out of the hospital and I went back to college. However, something was very different. My entire curriculum choice became a hopeless nightmare. I discovered that my career choice was derailed. I became depressed. That was a rough school term for me and I was glad when it was over. However, you have to pre-register for the next term and I had signed up for courses that had once been my goal and decided that I would use the Christmas break to figure things out.

Unfortunately, my mind was a blank and strangely enough, I couldn't see an alternative. I knew I had to make a change but I didn't know what it needed to be. But several days before it was time to go back to school, an unusual thing happened.

I woke up feeling out of sorts. I had a fever but there were no other symptoms. I didn't think too much of it and took some aspirin. However, it didn't do any good and by that afternoon my fever had escalated. By the next day, it was around 105 degrees. I never felt so rotten in my life. My head was pounding with my heart beat. The aspirin did very little to reduce the fever. By the late afternoon, the fever continued in the 105 to 107 degree range. The local doctor was called and he prescribed some medication that was picked up from the hospital that evening. When I got it, I simply popped the large pill in my mouth and swallowed it. I couldn't taste anything. A few hours later, the fever began to go down but it wasn't until the next day that I could taste the medicine I had been taking; penicillin. It tasted awful.

In that two days, I had lost about 20 pounds and was a physical wreck. Returning to school was out of the question as I could barely walk, much less drive 300 miles back to the university. So by some strange force, as I say I never had ANY symptoms other than a seriously high fever, I was prevented from returning to college. This forced vacation led to an aspect of myself I had never known.

I knew that I had to change my curriculum. I pondered the courses I had taken sorting them out to find what I liked best. It seemed that Psychology was my best subject. However, I discovered I had a mental block. In blunt terms, I was literally afraid that, if I got into the field of Psychology, I would find out things about myself that I did not want to know.

Although it sounds ridiculous, this issue created a great deal of conflict for me. I had never contemplated that there were things about myself that I didn't know or didn't want to know. I anguished for weeks on the matter but kept being drawn back to Psychology as the subject I liked best and at which I excelled. I finally came to the conclusion that if there were things about myself that I didn't know, they were affecting me anyway so it would be best to know whatever it was. In truth, I did discover more about myself than I ever imagined but it took a few years.

With the conflict settled, I continued reading Jane Robert's books and other psychic related books. During school, I never had time for outside reading and was only able to do so during breaks.

With the resumption of the next school term, I was in the field of Psychology. I didn't discover any startling revelations about myself so I thought my concerns had been unfounded. Little did I know at the time that every aspect of what I learned would push me in a direction that would open doors that had been closed all my life.

I completed my Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology and started looking for a job. They didn't exist. I even looked at substandard work in the field but nothing was available, not even for someone who had graduated with honors.

In looking back, it is obvious that an outside force was disrupting my job aspirations. This is demonstrated by the fact that I had a successful job interview at a mental health center in a distant city. The director, the boss, was very impressed with me and tried to get me a position. He even called me several times at my residence trying to work out details for several different positions because he wanted me on his staff. However, it never happened. Not even with the director wanting me on the staff. In a mental health center, the director is usually the final authority on who gets hired. Thus, I can only assume that an outside force was influencing the situation and disrupting the normal flow of events. This was not the first external manipulation. It is clear to me that my strange illness was too although I wasn't aware of it at the time.

So, after several months, I found myself at the local university and in Graduate School. Outside forces were shaping my destiny and I didn't realize it. THE DOOR WAS ABOUT TO OPEN.

IT DOES GET MUCH MORE INTERESTING!!!!!!!

I thought I was going to Graduate School to get additional skills for a job. However, that apparently was not the primary purpose.

Graduate School is a completely different world than college. You have to "fit in" with the conventions of the department. Well, I've never been one for "fitting in" and I quickly found myself placed with a small group of others who tended to be fiercely independent and open minded. It was one of these people who gave me the tools to OPEN THE DOOR.

It was in the form of two life altering books. The first, "Self-Hypnotism: It's Use in Daily Living" by Leslie Lecron, was given to me by this individual. In addition I was told that I needed to read "Journeys Out of the Body" by Robert Monroe and that I could find it at the University Library.

Lecron's book was a key and Monroe's book offered an explanation for self-understanding. That in turn made the tools offered by Lecron more effective.

"Journeys Out of the Body" explained to me experiences that I'd had since childhood. But more importantly, it prepared me for experiences I was yet to have.

"Self-Hypnotism: It's Use in Daily Living" introduced me to hypnosis, subconscious communication and automatic writing. Actually, not just an introduction but HOW TO.

I started practicing self-hypnosis right away. I also developed the pendulum movements for subconscious communication. With the simple pendulum, I discovered that my subconscious was willing to tell me all about myself, even the nontraditional topics such as reincarnation.

I practiced self-hypnosis, going to deeper and deeper levels, several times a week. I would concentrate on becoming totally relaxed and repeat the deepening formula mentally over and over. It always fascinated me that even though the process could take up to two hours, it only seemed like 15 minutes.

I didn't realize that I had taken the first steps to becoming a Channeler. At the time I was just trying to get more into my subconscious.

Over time, I became quite efficient at going really deep. One night, I had gone extremely deep and was ready to reverse the process. I did the usual count up to return to the normal levels. And, I thought I'd returned to the normal levels. I got up but felt sort of strange. There was a pulling sensation at the back of my head where the bone bump sticks out. I walked downstairs, my head tilted slightly back and into the den observing the people that were there. Everything seemed to have sort of a misty haze over it. At this point, I realized that I was ASTRALLY PROJECTED! I studied the scene to remember how things looked and walked back upstairs, laid back down and counted up again. This time, ALL of me got up.

I quickly went back downstairs and everything was just as I had seen it moments before without the haze. I was impressed by the experience. I hadn't tried to produce it although I knew what it was from reading Monroe's book. It simply happened and wasn't to be the last conscious ASTRAL PROJECTION.

I feel that the ability to ASTRALLY PROJECT is a necessary quality for a clear Channeler.

The LAST thing that Leslie Lecron ever intended was for his book to be associated with psychic phenomena. Yet, in his book, I discovered all the tools necessary to open the door to psychic development.

I had been fascinated by the concept of reincarnation since I first read of it in 1972. Subconscious communication via the pendulum quickly opened that door. I found out that my subconscious was literally eager to "talk" about previous existences.

The practice of deep hypnosis started to build a bridge to the distant past and although I wasn't aware of it at the time, to start the process of developing abilities that I didn't realize I had.

The pendulum was great. It was easy to use and I developed a method to reduce conscious interference, or distortion, of the answers. I also developed the ideo motor finger responses where your subconscious raises a different fingers for yes and no. However, Lecron mentioned a more involved method of subconscious communication that he said was very difficult to develop: automatic writing. I was intrigued. The thought of my hand writing by itself, or under subconscious control, was exciting. So, I decided to develop it.

I quickly found out that Lecron had not exaggerated the difficulty of developing automatic writing. I followed his directions carefully. Set aside the same time every evening (mine was 7:30 pm) and practice for 20 minutes. Hold the pen and let your hand and arm relax. I did this night after night for days with absolutely no movement.

Two weeks passed with no results. I was determined as I have a stubborn streak. I did notice an occasional electric tingle in my arm. I also discovered that I was really tired after 20 minutes. Now how can you get tired when you are sitting down relaxing?

After a few more days, I got a little movement. One night, in very tiny script, my name was written. Then nothing again for days. I had been encouraged when my name had written by itself though and I persisted.

One night, something different happened. It had been at least a month of nightly practice. I had started the practice and felt the tingling sensation. Then all at once, the pen began to move, drawing vigorous, overlapping circles. It filled up the paper with overlapping circles of all diameters. I stopped and replaced the paper. Again, the circles until the overlapping lines were densely packed. Another sheet with the same results. I believe I filled up four pages that night until the 20 minutes was completed. I was real tired after the 20 minutes but I was excited. I didn't get writing but I did get "something."

The writing did not begin immediately but had started 10 or so minutes into the practice session. When the pen began to move, it was a strong movement and I wasn't doing it. I didn't understand the circles. Based on my interpretation of Lecron's book, I assumed that perhaps the subconscious needed to learn to write like I had consciously learned. You see, I thought this was my subconscious writing. However, the development took off in an unexpected direction.

For several practice sessions after I first got the movement, the writing consisted of the energetic circles. Then it stopped. Instead, the pen laboriously began to move but rather than writing words, it was drawing symbols that it repeated over and over. Over several more practice sessions, it got proficient at drawing the symbols and was producing them faster. Strangely enough, they were strung together like some sort of sentence.

I assumed that the subconscious had to learn to write English as it was use to symbology. However, I did notice a few unusual things. For one, my arm would get that electric sensation when I sat down to do automatic writing. Another was that I would get tired after a while and my middle back would begin to ache. Posture had nothing to do with it and how can you get tired writing. The fatigue was as if I was doing something strenuous.

Although disappointed that I was not getting words, the symbol strings were getting easier to produce so I was encouraged. I was also intrigued by the fact that they resembled sentences. Some symbols were repeated often while others were not.

Then one evening, a few words started appearing mixed in with the symbols. The symbol writing had progressed to the point where they just quickly formed but with the words, it was back to the laboriously slow movement. It was sort of humorous because it would quickly draw out a few symbols and then slow to a crawl while it slowly formed the letters of words. The words were not initially meaningful. But then words such as hello and hi began to appear.

This was interesting. Why was my subconscious telling me hello?

Just like the symbols, the words became easier and then phrases began to appear. Just simple phrases. But I did notice one thing, as the actual writing of words improved, I started feeling like there was someone standing behind me. The feeling got stronger over time to the point where I fully expected to turn around and see someone or something. However, I didn't but it was a source of concern for me because at the time, I didn't know if I could handle it.

By this time, months had passed. I had rarely missed a practice session because I was curious and wanted to see what would happen next. As the writing improved, it speeded up considerably. The handwriting was not mine.

I also notice another unusual development. Initially, the words would just slowly write themselves out. But over time, the words would form in my mind shortly before they began to write and eventually, entire sentences would form in my mind before they even started.

I assumed that I was doing this although I certainly wasn't operating my hand and pen. This got even stronger. I was getting the sentences, yes more than one, way ahead of the actual writing. So, I decided to try and experiment. The sentence or sentences would plant themselves in my mind and the hand would begin to write. I would let it progress through most of the sentence and then mentally change the sentence that would basically keep repeating itself until the hand had finished writing.

The result? Well, the hand would write up to the point where I had changed the sentence. Then it would stop along with the tingling sensation. Then, a sentence to the effect of, "DON'T DO THAT!" would form in my mind. The tingling sensation would return and the hand would proceed to write the original, not the altered, sentence.

I tried this a number of times with the same result. The hand refused to write what I mentally altered but would gladly write the sentences that were now pre-forming intact in my mind. Before, they had formed a word at a time. Now, it was entire sentences at once. It's hard to describe this sensation.

When I was practicing automatic writing, I had the distinct impression of someone standing behind me. Of course, I would turn around to see nothing. However, over time, the impression got stronger. It also became obvious that this was NOT my subconscious writing.

There were a number of clues to suggest this. As I mentioned, initially, there were symbols, drawn the same way and strung together like sentences. Then symbols and words. Finally, names began to appear. Yes, names. Not ones I recognized: Oldegon, Alad and DK for example.

Each name would have a different writing style and the "feel" would be different. There were a few other names that showed up rarely but those were the main ones.

After it became fairly clear that these beings were indeed real and outside myself, I began to have the irrational concern that I was going to see a ghost. In retrospect, I feel it was a symbolic concern in that I was going to "see" the things that had been hidden from me all my life.

None the less, the automatic writing was fascinating to me. The writers were telling me things in answer to my questions. They commented about Atlantis, energy and extra-terrestrials. Yes, they identified themselves as extra-terrestrials. Well, I just went with it taking it with the proverbial grain of salt. They would even occasionally write down when "appointments" with extra-terrestrials would take place. Of course, the day would come and go with no conscious recall. This was 1977 after all and I didn't know about Missing Time. I just assumed that distortion was getting into the writing. It wasn't but that's another story.

At this point, I need to mention a little background information about myself. I have always had a "problem" with sleeping. Actually, it's been more of a bother to others than me because I don't remember it most of the time but I talk in my sleep and I Sleep WALK. I've done this at least since the age of 5. It was a real source of concern to my parents because I would apparently leave the house! I just learned to accept the fact that when I go to sleep and wake up the next day, I can't really be sure I didn't go somewhere in the meantime. Seems like most people are disturbed when this happens to them but it has never bothered me except to be concerned that I might bother someone else with it.

Anyway, as part of this phenomena, since childhood, I have awakened and seen things. I mean physically see strange things. As I watch, they tend to fade away but I am awake. However, I never saw anything that disturbed me until 1977. I awoke one night and floating in the air was a full size form. It was not clearly defined; it was misty gray. I was looking straight at it when I opened my eyes. The form was about four feet off the ground and five feet from the end of the bed. It was looking down on me.

I can honestly say that this scared the pitootee out of me. I literally gasped and my heart started pounding as I watched this form. I could tell, even in my agitated, state that it was aware of the effect it was having on me. It seemed to send me some sort of message such as don't worry and then faded away as I watched.

When it was gone, I jumped up and headed for the light. I slept with the light on the rest of the night. Sort of silly for a 25 year old. But, that encounter was necessary to get me over the fear of what was to develop next.

During this time a friend of mine and I had been working to develop conscious astral projection. In addition, when we got the chance, we were working with the Ouija board. For me, the Ouija board was producing the same effect as the automatic writing; the sentences would form in my mind before the pointer spelled them out. When we used the board, we always had success as the pointer would come alive.

By now, my friend and I agreed that we were dealing with something really amazing. We were working on several areas with all the enthusiasm of youth: spirit communication, astral projection and reincarnation. Both of us had limited results with conscious astral projection, one of which I mentioned previously.

We also discovered that we were getting reincarnation or past life information from subconscious communication that was essentially, but independently, identical. At this time, my friend lived in another state and we didn't get to see each other often. But we would share notes on the phone as computers and e-mail were unheard of at the time for personal use.

We read what we could find on astral projection trying to arrive at a more reliable method. In addition to Robert Monroe's Journeys Out of the Body, there were a few older books by Sylvan Muldoon and Hereward Carrington. We discovered that it was not simple to do but we were getting results. We even had the foolish notion that we could write down these experiences and it would be useful to people. Ah, the naiveté of youth.

Anyway, I noticed that working the Ouija board caused the same phenomena with me as the automatic writing: fatigue after a while and a pain in the middle back between the shoulders. There was something else however. It seemed that less powerful spirits could communicate easier via the Ouija board than with automatic writing.

My friend and I looked forward to our weekly telephone conversation to share our experiences because so much was happening. When something really wild happened, we would let the other know via telephone.

I had the chance to go visit my friend for a few days in his home state and had a very powerful experience. Reflecting back on it, I can see that it was another developmental step to mediumship.

My friend and I, since we so rarely saw each other, had worked the Ouija board until I was pooped. We had made contact with two entities that identified themselves as being associated with us and were there to help us with our spiritual development. Mine identified herself as Kerry. She really couldn't write through automatic writing but she could communicate with the Ouija board.

We were disappointed we could only communicate for an hour or so that evening. Thus, we spent the rest of the evening chatting until very late. For some reason, I was very tired and accidentally drifted off to "sleep" while my friend and I were suppose to be chatting.

However, what happened was this. It was like I felt myself pulled into the center of my head in a concentrated form. When this happened, I saw a scene that looked like stars in the night sky. Then I was partially detached from my body looking at my friend who was in mid-sentence. Without losing consciousness, I snapped back and told him what happened. The experience was short but just a warm-up for what was to happen after I went to sleep that night.

Out of Body Experiences. That is what me and my friend had been working on among other areas of spiritual endeavors. By the time of this visit, we had both had some success with conscious OOBEs.

The only technique we had found that worked was to program the subconscious before going to sleep "To Become Conscious" while asleep. Note the phase because it is very important. You DO NOT want to wake up during an Out of Body Experience because that ends the experience. You just want to become conscious.

Anyway, as had been my practice for several months, I did my routine programming to become conscious while asleep and then went to sleep. Well, at some point, my consciousness turned on.

The first thing I noticed was that I was stuck partially in my body and could not move. However, the weird thing about an OOBE is that you can SEE everything at once. I realized that Kerry, the spirit that worked the OUIJA board for me was standing at my head. So I mentally asked her to help me out. I next felt the sensation of hands on my shoulders in a lifting motion and I was floating up.

I was still laying on my back but floating about two feet above my body. Apparently, during an OOBE, thoughts are communication because I immediately thought that it would be neat to see what my body looked like. No sooner than I had this thought than Kerry flashed back, "Don't!! It will pull you back in!" However, being the somewhat stubborn sort, I ignored this advice and rolled my astral body over so that I was facing my body. I only saw it for an instant however because it pulled me back in like a vacuum cleaner. Interestingly enough though, I still did not lose consciousness.

So, I again mentally asked Kerry to help me out. This time I got back, "Oh, all right."

Of course, I decided that if I got out this time, I wasn't going to look at my body because I didn't want to get pulled back in again. Having a conscious astral projection is very difficult to trigger and this OOBE had already lasted longer than any up to this point. I wanted to try to actually do something if I could.

Again, I felt lifted up by the shoulders until I was once again floating above my body.

Now, I was mentally taking notes. The first thing I noticed was that I was a lot heavier than I thought I would be. I also noticed that my astral self was breathing and I got lighter with the inhalation.

I was on a roll this night. However, I worked to keep my emotions neutral because I had read that emotionalism got the body agitated and pulled you back in.

So, since my friend and I had worked so hard to achieve Out of Body Experiences, I decided to go visit him while I was astral.

I quickly learned something that night;. things are not always as you expect. My friend was asleep upstairs and I assumed that I would float up through the ceiling into his room.

However, no sooner than I instituted the thought of visiting my friend, I found myself moving at a 45 degree angle through the outside wall!

Although it was night, everything outside was gray; like twilight. It had been like this inside too but I hadn't noticed it as much. I was flying through the air like superman because that was the only thing I could think to do. And, I was moving UP, UP, UP.

I have no idea where UP was. It wasn't in the air as such but it was UP.

I arrived at what looked like a typical school building, sort of like the high school my friend and I had attended. There were the typical double doors leading to a hall. I had to manually open the door to enter as opposed to floating through them. I didn't get too far inside before I felt my consciousness beginning to fade.

Darn, I thought. I'm losing it.

However, my consciousness turned back on as I was exiting the school building. I had the sensation that time had passed and I did indeed meet with my friend although I couldn't remember a thing about it.

This I didn't understand but I was fascinated that my consciousness had turned back on and I was still OUT!

Now I found myself going DOWN. Yes, I was literally descending and soon I saw CLOUDS. When I broke through the cloud cover, I found myself in a little town, not far from where I lived, where my parents lived. I came in for a feet down soft landing.

I found myself standing under a street light facing a main road that passed in front of my parents property. Everything still had that gray, twilight look to it; sort of like a black and white movie. However, I did notice something unusual. Around the power lines that ran along the road, I could see the electromagnetic field. It extended out from them at least a foot in diameter and was a distinctly different color from the surrounding gray. It was tubular like the shape of the wires.

Then I noticed something funny. There were two children, perhaps 10 or so floating around. Actually they were playing. I instinctively knew they were asleep. What they were doing was flying into this electromagnetic field around the power line which repelled them causing them to bounce off. When they bounced off, they laughed like two kids having a great time.

So here I was, literally standing under this street light watching two kids, obviously asleep, playing with the power line.

This Out of Body Experience had really seemed to last a long time. So I decided to go visit my cousin. I found myself taking off again. I did discover that I had to inhale a few times to get lighter first and I started heading in the direction of the town where I was living where my cousin also lived. However, I got up in the air, was heading in the proper direction and, the consciousness began to fade again. Then, it was gone. I assumed that I had not succeeded in my last task.

However, two days later when I returned to town, I saw my cousin who immediately asked what in the world I had been doing two days earlier. They said that they woke up and saw me floating in their bedroom and it scared the pitootee out of them. They told me that they thought I had died and was a ghost trying to communicate with them.

Well, I apologized but was impressed. Not only did I have the longest conscious Out of Body Experience I had ever had to that point, I actually had a witness to back up that it really happened. Even though I don't remember the last part of it, I was going to see my cousin when my consciousness faded.

Afterwards, I drove to to my parents town and physically stood in the exact spot under the street lamp. What I saw, minus the flying kids and halo around the power lines, was exactly what I had seen in my out of body experience.

I don't know why the two goals of actually interacting with people was blocked from the experience.

It was now 1977. I had a number of interesting experiences including Out of Body Experiences and Reincarnation recall. Automatic writing was, well Automatic. In fact, I discovered it was handy to use when I was doing my professional Counseling. The client just assumed I was taking notes, not consulting with the spirit world for a read out on them.

However, the one thing that disappointed me was that I couldn't see anything. Other people talked about seeing auras but I couldn't no matter how hard I tried. I tried every technique I read but none of them worked. Even my friend could see them.

I could not get my eyes to "see" auras. Then, one day it occurred to me, why not let my subconscious "see" for me. I would look at a scene and at the same time have a mental image of the scene. Then, I asked my subconscious to supply to the mental scene, what I was not seeing with my eyes. WOW !!!!!!!! It worked!!!!!!! All sorts of things appeared in the mental image that I could not see physically. However, being rather concrete, which is probably why I couldn't "see" in the first place, I wasn't sure if it was just my imagination. So I worked with it to test if it was real.

Initially, there was not much that could be verified. But, I discovered another interesting aspect. I found that if I focused on a person, I could actually see "mental movies". The scenes were like on tape and would replay themselves as long as I paid attention to it. I could shift scenes with them as well.

The first chance I had to check the validity of this was at a meeting of people who were interested in psychic phenomena. I had seen a notice at one of the metaphysical bookstores and had decided to go. Although I am not a social person, I was thirsting for knowledge and to hear about others' experiences.

There was this fellow there that caught my attention. It wasn't the person so much as the mental movie that started playing when I focused on him. It was the same thing over and over. I saw this person, although they looked slightly different, particularly since they were dressed from the 1800's, riding a black horse. The horse was walking along but something happened to frighten it. It started bucking and the rider lost control. He was thrown to the ground but hit in such a way that it obviously broke his neck. I could tell that he was dead.

I saw this scene repeat itself every time I focused on this guy. This was somewhat new to me and it occurred how I could validate what I was seeing. I simply asked the guy two questions:

1. Have you been having problems with your neck? Answer. Yes, I have had to go to a chiropractor because it has been so painful.

2. Do you like horses? Answer. I don't like horses; I can't stand them.

When he asked me why I had asked those questions, I told him about the scene that was replaying itself around him. He was underwhelmed but that didn't matter to me. What excited me was that I had discovered that my subconscious could supply me with what my eyes couldn't see. And, more important, people projected information about things that were currently happening to them, no matter which life to which it was related.

I decided that I needed to work to refine this "Seeing".

My night time activity had increased significantly. I was apparently being shown various levels of reality. On three separate occasions, I woke up after having been conscious in an Out of Body Experience but left totally confused by what I had seen. The confusion was so intense, I was actually disoriented to my physical surroundings. The only thing that was certain is that I was UP somewhere and I had to descend to return to my body.

This confusion was frustrating for me. I wanted to know what was there. So I started programming my subconscious for greater conscious awareness during the OOBEs.

The first result I had was within a few days; I re-entered my body so forcefully, that the bed actually bounced. Also, my mind was a blank as to what happened. My psychological training indicated that I was blocking on something so I worked to find out what I was blocking.

It took about two days to remember but what had caused me to so forcefully jump back into my body was actually seeing a spirit or entity. This was quite the entity dressed in a shiny black robe with yellow and red trim around the bottom, around the neck and at the end of both long sleeves. He had jet black hair and beard.

I had seen some child astral projections previously without having this reaction so my conclusion was that this was really a spirit and a very powerful one. It was obvious that it was related to my programming to have greater Out of Body awareness of these higher levels.

I wasn't deterred by this incident. I had long ago determined if something was going to get me, it would have already done so. I wanted to know what was at these UPPER levels that I was visiting.

One night, I had limited success. I became conscious after I had already traveled to these levels. At the moment of consciousness, I KNEW everything. I also knew that I had to quickly get back to my body to write it down.

I literally dove for my body. However, as I started going down, the knowledge began to fade. I was moving very fast and it was fading very fast. I hit my body so hard, the bed bounced and I never lost consciousness. I jumped up, disoriented but able to move, and ran to the paper and pen. All I wrote down was, "21 birds flying." That was it; that was all I remembered of what had been a magnificent revelation. The knowledge literally disappeared from my mind as I descended to my body. This was in 1977. A few years later, I did discover the significance of 21 but at the time, it didn't mean a thing to me. I was disappointed that I had "lost" some valuable insight.

I continued to program my subconscious for greater conscious awareness during Out of Body Experiences and had a result that I had to read about later to learn what it was.

During one sleep state, I became conscious. I was still attached to my body although I was mostly out. There was a large pool of reddish orange energy collected at the base of my spine. It was as if I was in two places at once. I was looking down on the experience and part of the experience at the same time.

This reddish orange energy reminded me of volcanic lava flow and it BURNED! It started moving up my spine, burning like crazy. It was moving slowly like a thick liquid. As it moved higher, it was burning more and hurting.

I was thinking to myself, "What is going on?" "I'm not ready for this!" It had gotten up as far as my solar plexus area when I determined I wasn't ready for whatever this was. With that thought, one I seriously regret by the way, it stopped abruptly and reversed flow until it had recollected at the base of my spine and dissipated.

I was still conscious and still Out of Body but attached. I looked up and saw a friend astrally floating in the room. After I acknowledged their presence, they faded away. I opened my eyes without losing consciousness.

I found out later that it was the Kundalini experience, one that some people work for many years to achieve and most never do. Gopi Krishna's book on the Kundalini explained it well. My regret is that I didn't allow the process to complete. But then, maybe that was as far as it was going to go at the time. I can't really say for sure. What I can say is that if you ever start to experience it, go for it.

The year 1977 was a psychically active and exciting one for me. My long time friend and I were exploring astral projection with great success and reincarnation. I also got a job for a while with Mental Health. On my own time, I was teaching self-hypnosis classes in another city.

The first self-hypnosis class was devoted to subconscious communication with the pendulum. I had found this to be a very powerful tool. The people who took the classes were from my different beliefs, mostly traditional. A demonstration for shock value that I always used after the subconscious communication pendulum motions had been programmed in was to have everyone repeat the question, "Have I lived before?"

The answer was ALWAYS yes in the several months of classes that I taught. Distressing to some, exciting to others. But it always demonstrated the point that the subconscious will talk about things even if the consciousness doesn't believe. It was a good way to get people more focused on the power of the subconscious.

During this time period, I also conducted some private hypnosis sessions on a limited basis; I used automatic writing to get information about the clients to help them. The sessions were always fascinating but on several occasions with a couple of different clients, they had the need to relay a message from the spirit world about a mission that I was suppose to be on. I didn't think too much about it. It was too general and not very impressive. At the time, I just categorized it with the basic beliefs of the particular clients.

However, before the year was over there were a couple of other significant events that took place.

One was a powerful astral projection experience. As I've mentioned, my friend and I had been actively working to have conscious astral projection experiences and had significant success. There were also partial successes where the consciousness was somewhat active when the process began but then faded out. I had become quite use to these partials; the sensations, even after all these years are exciting.

When the process would begin, I would be asleep but awake. My feet would begin to move; however, it was not my physical feet. When I became aware of this process, I would work to control my excitement as emotion disrupts astral projection. I would next start mentally directing my astral feet and legs up in the air working to break the resistance that was in the solar plexus area. Most of the time, I would either lose consciousness or the astral would reconnect to the physical. However, one night in 1977, the process again worked and it was a very powerful experience.

The astral detachment had started and my consciousness turned on. "Oh boy!" I thought to myself. I began vigorously throwing my astral legs up in the air. Breaking the resistance was very hard but I was determined to get out. For some reason, the consciousness was very strong and clear.

I was astrally kicking. Pulling my astral legs with my knees towards my chest and then explosively extending them out. And....out I was.

I was floating a couple of feet above my body. I could see everything; 360 degree perception. In addition, I could see the walls and through the walls and ceiling at the same time. I resisted the urge to look at my body because I was too close and didn't want to get pulled back in.

I was out but another part of me was driving so to speak. My normal consciousness was just along for the ride.

I started upward literally. I went through the ceiling and through the roof. I could feel myself passing through the materials and see everything. I was thankful that I was in the top upstairs apartment as I would have been moving through someone else's bedroom otherwise.

The outside had that gray, twilight color to it. As I moved up, I could see the surrounding area. This was not unusual as I had experienced being outside astrally before. However, I started moving straight up at a very fast pace.

This was strange because in the past when I went straight up, I seem to enter another dimension. This time, I was in SPACE! I was traveling very fast and could see the stars and the planets of the solar system beyond Earth. My conscious self was wondering what was going on.

This travel continued for an undetermined amount of time. THEN I changed dimensions. It didn't happen close to the Earth like past experiences, it happened way beyond Saturn.

As the dimension changed, I found myself approaching a large, elegant building. The building reminded me of an old, elegant library. I was then at the large, ornately carved wooden door activating some sort of knocking device.

Shortly, a woman in a robe answered the door. My conscious self is just along for the ride because some other part of me is driving. The woman greets me with, "We know who you are and we've been expecting you." There was other dialog from her that I don't remember.

I follow her into a large room with a podium. sitting on the floor on pillows with their legs in the lotus position, are a bunch of children. I'm led to the podium and the children are all watching me.

My conscious self is thinking that I don't have a clue as to what I'm suppose to do. But then, my consciousness switches off. When it comes back on, I am still at the podium but now all the children are old people in white robes. Apparently, whatever I had arrived to do was completed.

The woman escorted me to the door and the trip there repeated itself in reverse.

During the entire flight back, I kept thinking to myself that I had to remember this experience. I didn't know what it meant but I had to remember it.

When I entered the normal dimension in space, I was really moving; much faster than the out trip as I was in a hurry to get back to my body. I was heading straight for it.

As I approached, I didn't slow down. I dived through the roof and into my body. The force made my body bounce on the bed. But it worked. I NEVER lost consciousness on the return. I jumped in my body and opened my eyes continuing to see what I astrally saw. And I remembered the entire experience.

I didn't understand what the experience meant; I still don't. But I did remember it.

Please visit George Hanover's website, Path To The Source