Another popular New Age practice is called channeling and it occurs when a person contacts the spirit realm with the intention of receiving visions or messages. There are a number of ways to channel messages; for example, some people use the Ouija board. After asking the netherworld questions, the participants place their hands on a pointer and allow an unknown spiritual entity to move their hands around a board that contains letters and numbers to spell out an answer.

Other forms of channeling are more streamlined. Some psychics gaze into a crystal ball in order to receive messages. Others allow the spirits to move their hands around to write messages in a technique known as automatic writing. Others use a more direct approach called spirit guide channeling. In this process a person makes contact with a spirit guide by inviting that entity into his or her life. In an attempt to help people channel messages from their own spirit guides, one New Age website describes the process as follows:

"Lie down in a comfortable position. Let your mind wander for a moment. See if you can experience what it is like to feel the energy around your body. Just imagine that you are in the middle of a flow of energy.

"While not letting go of this image notice that there is a larger energy just outside of your own flow. We want you to know that there are always flows of energy near you but there are particular ones that we want you to become aware of. These are the energies of the master guides. There are several ones near you now. We want you to speak to one. Speak in your mind or out loud. I want the highest master guide to come to me and to speak with me.

"When you are full of this energy then you will be able to speak to it. You may ask it its name. Who are you? You may ask. Wait for the answers. Sometimes you have to wait a moment or two. Then your guide will speak his or her name." ¹

When channeling messages from a spirit guide, some people feel they make contact with their own personal guide, similar to a guardian angel. Others feel they make contact with one of the Ascended Masters. According to many New Age practitioners, these highly advanced spiritual beings once lived a good life here on earth, but instead of ascending to a God-like form, the Ascended Masters now choose to remain on earth to help people.

The New Age list of Ascended Masters contains many different entities like Amerissis, the Goddess of Light, and Nada, the Chohan of the Sixth Ray. The list of Ascended Masters also contains many Catholic saints like Gabriel the Archangel, the Immaculata, Jesus the Christ, John Paul the Great, Mary the Mother of Jesus, Michael the Archangel, Mother Cabrini, Mother Teresa, and Padre Pio.²

When a New Age practitioner channels messages from one of the Ascended Masters named "Ruler of the Violet Temple" most Catholic have enough discernment to know that the person is channeling messages from a fallen angel that has been operating under the name, Ruler of the Violet Temple. But what happens when Catholics commit the same type of sin when channeling messages from the saints? For example, when Catholics sell their souls to the Immaculata, are they selling their souls to the New Age Immaculata, or are they granting those rights to God through the Blessed Mother?³

Another example of an Ascended Master with a religious-sounding name comes from the biography of the world's most famous psychic medium. According to her biography, "Elizabeth Baron is perhaps the world's most famous psychic medium, having spent almost three decades featured on radio & television shows, and in newspapers all over the world. Elizabeth is also considered The World's Most Documented Psychic Medium."⁴

According to Elizabeth's biography, the Ascended Master, Saint Catherine of Siena, started delivering messages to her in 1978. Elizabeth describes this experience by saying, "I was visited by the spirit of what appeared to be a lady in white. She came to me at 5:00 a.m. on a cold February Chicago morning just as I awoke and turned the light on by my bedside to read a little before my children got up. The 'spirit' appeared in a glorious bright light that seemed to inundate my very soul! She told me I had a mission and that she would like to work through me to help others to feel good about themselves and to help the world to be a better place."⁵

From that point forward, Elizabeth said her "life would never be the same." She spent the next thirty years as a psychic medium delivering messages from the netherworld. The question that discerning Catholics need to ask themselves is—did God send the real Saint Catherine of Siena to deliver the messages, or did a demonic entity assume the saint's name?⁶

What most Catholics fail to realize is that Satan can assign any religious-sounding name and title he wants to his vast army of fallen angels, including the names of popular Catholic saints. Maybe this is why Sacred Scripture and the Catechism of the Catholic Church instruct the faithful to direct their prayers to the Blessed Trinity.

 

Scripture Passages to Set the Captives Free

 

"There is no other way of Christian prayer than Christ. Whether our prayer is communal or personal, vocal or interior, it has access to the Father only if we pray in the name of Jesus." — Catechism of the Catholic Church: 2664

"In the New Covenant, prayer is the living relationship of the children of God with their Father who is good beyond measure, with his Son Jesus Christ and with the Holy Spirit." — Catechism of the Catholic Church: 2565

"See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the universe, and not according to Christ." — Colossians 2:8

 

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