The California Collection/TheCaliforniaCollection.cdr/his075/channel.lzh/CHANNEL.TXT

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CUL:"Don't touch that dial!" The New Age practice of channeling  by Eric Pement

   They close their eyes and lips. For a minute or two, sitting with
quiet focus, they breathe in great volumes of air, sucking up strength
for a momentous journey. Suddenly, another personality takes over and
an alien voice speaks.

   Channeling has become one of the paramount landmarks of the New Age
movement, eclipsing herbal cures, mundane astrology, and flotation
tanks. Now an integral part of the Aquarian scene, channelers seem to
have multiplied geometrically in the past fifteen years.

   Trying to monitor this wave is an incredible task. Its influence is
propagated through multiple avenues -- radio and TV interviews, private
channeling sessions, cassette distribution, videotape sales and
rentals, newsletters, magazines, mass seminars, conferences, and an
endless stream of channeled literature. (They don't call it "automatic
writing" for nothing.) Net profits on all this have been estimated at
from 100 to 400 million dollars annually. [1]

   Exactly what is it? Jon Klimo, author of a sympathetic yet thorough
survey of channeling, says it "is a phenomenon in which otherwise
ordinary people seem to let themselves be taken over by, or in other
ways receive messages from, another personality who uses them as a
conduit, medium, or channel for the communication -- hence the term
<medium> or <channel>." [2]

   One of the more popular channelers is J.Z. (Judy Zebra) Knight. She
channels Ramtha, also known as "the Ram," supposedly a 35,000-year-old
being from Atlantis who invented the practice of war. I like Martin
Gardner's summary of Ramtha's story: "Slowly he came to realize that he
himself was part of the God he hated. After 63 OBEs [out-of-body
experiences], his body vibrating faster than light, he became one with
the wind. On the side of Mount Indus, in Tibet, free of weight, he
ascended into the Seventh Heaven, where he and God became one. He is
now part of an 'unseen brotherhood' of superbeings who love us and hear
our prayers." [3] Ramtha has made Knight a millionairess several times
over; she, in turn, has had Ramtha's name copyrighted to prevent anyone
else from channeling him.

   Penny Torres and Jach Pursel are the two most popular rivals to J.Z.
Knight. Penny channels Mafu, "a highly evolved being from the seventh
dimension, last seen on earth when he incarnated as a leper in
first-century Pompeii." [4] Mafu, like Ramtha, speaks with a Slavic
accent. Meanwhile, Jach Pursel channels Lazaris, a "group being" from
beyond time and space who has (have?) never been embodied in our
dimension. Lazaris speaks with a lisp.

   The range of "entities" supposedly being channeled today is
virtually unlimited. <Spirit Speaks>, a bimonthly magazine from
California, is a <Reader's Digest> of messages from various channeled
entities. Some of its regular contributors include Dong How Li (a
Tibetan monk last incarnated 2600 years ago), Gabriel (an angel), Dr.
Peebles (a Scottish physician from the 1800s), and Zoosh ("a
non-physical being from Alpha Centauri").

   An excellent survey of the channeling scene (from a Christian
perspective) is provided in a recent book by John Ankerberg and John
Weldon. They note that the personalities being channeled "claim to be
various aspects of the human mind or the 'collective' mind of humanity
. . . They also claim to be the Holy Spirit, troubled ghosts, the
spirits of animals and plants (dolphins, trees, flowers), multiple
human personalities, the inhabitants of mythical cultures (Atlanteans,
Lemurians), and even a possible alien computer that exists in the
future. Critics, realizing that some people are claiming to channel
dolphins, others the spirits of fruits and vegetables and still others
computers from the future, have come to conclude the sanity of the
nation is at risk." [5]

   HISTORICAL AND BIBLICAL BACKGROUND

   Channeling activity, understood in its wider sense to include spirit
possession in general, can be traced back to the earliest times and
civilizations. The acceptance of animism (the belief that spirits are
present in all of nature, including plants, inert objects, and seasons)
or the practice of ancestor veneration have provided primitive cultures
with sufficient groundwork for the rise of spiritism. Certainly, spirit
mediumship, as well as attempts at spirit-control, can be seen in
shamanism (the activities of the tribal witchdoctor, magician, or
healer in controlling the forces/spirits of nature).

   Channeling can be traced back to the ancient religions of Egypt,
India, and the Near East; thus, we should pay special attention to the
Biblical injunctions on this topic.

   The commandments given to Moses after the Exodus from Egypt (about
1400 B.C.) expressly forbid communication with "spirit mediums" (Lev.
19:31) [6], or going to one who "inquires of the dead" (Deut. 18:11).
Mosaic law prescribed the death penalty both for the medium and for the
person who sought out the medium for advice (Lev. 20:6, 27). Indeed,
one of the chief reasons that King Saul, the first king of Israel, was
slain was for "going to one who had a familiar spirit, to inquire of
it" (1 Chron. 10:13). Seven hundred years after Mt. Sinai, in the days
of Isaiah, the prohibition still remained. Those who sought information
from "mediums and wizards" were to be answered brusquely: "Should not a
people seek their God instead? Should they seek to the dead on behalf
of the living?" (Isa. 8:19)

   In New Testament times, possession and control by discarnate spirits
were accepted realities. The actions of Jesus in casting out "demons"
and "unclean spirits" are mentioned repeatedly in the New Testament
(Matt. 8:28ff, 9:32ff, 12:22ff, 17:14ff, etc.). Jesus likewise
commissioned his apostles to cast out demons (Matt. 10:1) and gave this
authority to others not numbered among the Twelve (Luke 10:17). The
early church continued to conduct exorcisms (Acts 8:7, 19:12).

   An interesting incident regarding a channeler appears in the
sixteenth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. While Paul and Silas
were evangelizing in Philippi, a city of western Greece, they were
persistently followed by a slave girl "with a spirit of divination"
(Acts 16:16). The Greek text literally reads a "python spirit" [Gk.
<pneuma puthona>], a reference to an entity named The Python, which
inhabited the high priestess of the temple of Apollo at Delphi.
(Remember hearing about "the oracle of Delphi" in school? That was
her.) "The Python" or "python spirit" later became a generic term for a
discarnate entity which predicted the future. The apostle Paul finally
"turned and said to the spirit, 'I command you in the name of Jesus
Christ to come out of her.' And he came out that very hour." (Acts
16:18)

   It bears noting that this spirit of divination evidently could
provide some genuine information (verse 16). This was not a natural
ability, nor was the woman using methods of fraud or "cold reading,"
because when Paul cast out the spirit, she lost her powers and the
ability to make money for her owners (v. 19). If the woman had been
drawing upon a natural talent or using a swindle technique, she should
still have been able to earn money by deception, as previously. In any
case, this was not a power the Lord wanted in her life, and through the
authority of Jesus Christ it was cast out.

   CHANNELING IN MAJOR RELIGIONS

   For centuries, among monotheistic cultures spirit communication was
usually limited to spirits of divine origin (God, Jesus, one of the
angels, etc.). Muhammad claimed multiple encounters with the angel
Gabriel, whose messages are preserved in the Qur'an. In the Middle
Ages, Roman Catholic mystics were permitted visions and appearances of
Jesus or the Virgin Mary.

   Emmanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772), the brilliant metallurgist,
inventor and scientist of the eighteenth century, abandoned his career
for spiritism. Claiming to be in contact with angels, he wrote
prodigious treatises and commentaries based on these visions and
communications, and founded a major cultic movement influential among
European and American intellectuals. In nineteenth-century America
several cults, such as the Mormons and the Shakers, claimed communion
with angels or spirits of the dead.

   Mary Baker Eddy often attempted to distinguish Christian Science
(which she founded) from spiritualism. Yet she herself acted as a
trance channeler briefly before "discovering" Christian Science (1866).
In <The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy and the History of Christian
Science>, Georgine Milmine describes the experiences of Mary Baker
Patterson (who later became Mrs. Eddy). Mary Baker Patterson channeled
the spirit of her dead brother Albert in 1864 (or claimed to, anyway).
Milmine's book reproduces a photograph of automatic writing,
purportedly from Albert, in Mary's hand. [7] Two years later, in the
company of other spiritualists, Mrs. Patterson [Eddy] acted as a trance
medium, this time claiming to channel only the spirits of the Apostles
and of Jesus Christ. [8]

   The channeling floodgates opened in this country in the
mid-nineteenth century with the advent of spiritualism, the attempt to
communicate with spirits of the dead. Historians almost universally
trace the origin of the spiritualist movement to 1848 in Hydesville,
New York, with the Fox sisters, Margaret and Kate.

   Margaret was 14 and Kate was 11 when they first heard the sounds of
knocking, furniture being moved, and other sounds in various rooms of
their home, in late 1847. [9] At these times, their beds would vibrate
and shake without any reason. The children were terrified and Mrs.
Fox's hair turned white through this ordeal. [10]

   On the night of March 31, 1848, 12-year-old Kate challenged these
unseen powers to repeat the snaps of her fingers, which they did. Each
number of snaps would be followed by the same number of raps, and thus
the girls began to communicate with the spirits. News spread rapidly,
and the family home was visited by interested writers and curiosity
seekers. The sisters began to hold seances, communicating with the
spirits by means of a simple code. In mid-April, Kate's parents sent
her away to live with her older sister Leah in Rochester, N.Y., hoping
to quell the disruption it had caused the family. (The spirits were
usually more active in Kate's presence.) The rappings immediately
spread to Leah's house, and Leah also became a believer.

   The first message the Fox sisters received was this:

   Dear friends, you must proclaim these truths to the world. This is
the dawning of a new era, and you must not try to conceal it any
longer. When you do your duty, God will protect you and good spirits
will watch over you. [11]

   Fascination with spiritualism spread like wildfire, and within 30
years there were tens of thousands of spiritualists in the U.S.,
England, and across Europe, and national organizations were formed. In
1855 the first national spiritualist newspaper was issued in England;
in 1866 a national conference was held in Rhode Island, where
resolutions were passed that citizens should abandon all Christian
ordinances and worship and close down all Sunday schools. In 1870, Sir
William Crookes, famed British scientist who invented the Crookes tube
(forerunner of the modern picture tube), called on the nation's
scientists to investigate spiritualism. Seeking to contact his dead
daughter, Crookes was convinced of spiritualism's validity.

   Queen Victoria consulted several mediums, hoping to speak with her
late husband Prince Albert, who died in 1861. Seances were held at the
White House under Lincoln's presidency. British prime minister William
E. Gladstone, Canadian prime minister MacKenzie King, and Sir Arthur
Conan Doyle (creator of Sherlock Holmes) were all converts to
spiritualism.

   Famed magician and escape artist Harry Houdini tried to prevent
Conan Doyle from being duped by crank mediums, but Doyle remained
convinced that the spiritualists had true supernatural powers. He
believed spiritualism was "a new revelation" to mankind.

   "Christianity must be modified by this new revelation," Doyle wrote,
referring to spiritualism and psychic phenomena generally. "One can see
no justice in a vicarious sacrifice, nor in the God who could be
placated by such means. Above all, many cannot understand such
expressions as the 'redemption from sin,' 'cleansed by the blood of the
Lamb,' and so forth." [12]

   Houdini's 1924 autobiography, <Houdini: A Magician Among the
Spirits>, is a fascinating account of the origins and numerous frauds
connected with nineteenth-century spiritualism. After over thirty years
of research, he wrote, "I have accumulated one of the largest libraries
in the world on psychic phenomena, Spiritualism, magic, witchcraft,
demonology, evil spirits, etc., some of the material going as far back
as 1489, . . . but nothing I ever read concerning the so-called
Spiritualistic phenomena has impressed me as being genuine." [13]

   It was not Houdini, however, who struck the greatest blow against
spiritualism. A shattering revelation had come a generation earlier,
from Margaret and Kate Fox themselves.

   Forty years after the Fox sisters told the world of the spirit
rappings, both confessed they were frauds. On October 21, 1888,
54-year-old Margaret Fox gave a public confession at the New York
Academy of Music, before an audience of over two thousand people.
Standing in her stocking feet on a small pine table on the stage, she
produced loud, distinct raps which could be heard throughout the
building. Her sister likewise gave consent. That same year, she told a
crowd, "I am here tonight, as one of the founders of Spiritualism, to
denounce it as absolute falsehood . . . the most wicked blasphemy the
world has ever known." [14]

   One year later, they changed their minds, and both recanted their
previous confessions! They claimed the spirit manifestations had always
been genuine, and they had never tricked anyone with false knocks or
raps, retracting all they had said in 1888. The Fox sisters had become
alcoholics in the 1860s, and fellow spiritualists claimed their
confessions had been bought off. The last years of their lives were
spent in drunkenness, and their public speech now contained little more
than profanity. Both died as alcoholics, Kate in 1892 and Margaret in
1893, both cursing God as they died. [15]

   CHANNELING IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

   Spiritualism by no means disappeared with the death of the Fox
sisters. In fact, it diversified into spiritualist sects which could be
rationalistic (strongly anti-Christian), average (mildly
anti-Christian), and strongly religious, complete with sacraments and
baptism. The spiritualist movement also provided the impetus for the
study of psychic research and parapsychology.

   The early quarter of the twentieth century witnessed the epiphany of
a few shining stars in the astral firmament. Two of these were
channeled books, the other was the so-called "sleeping prophet," Edgar
Cayce (1877-1945).

   Cayce was raised in rural Kentucky. His parents were Campbellites.
He claimed to see "little people" as a child. The turning point in his
life occurred in 1901, at the age of 24. Cayce had been suffering from
a chronic case of laryngitis and voice loss after contracting a cold a
year earlier. In desperation, he turned to a hypnotist, Al Layne. After
Cayce had entered a deep trance, Layne asked him to diagnose the cause
of his hoarseness.

   "Immediately the fateful words came forth: 'Yes, we can see the
body.' The voice diagnosed the problem as insufficient circulation.
Layne gave a suggestion that the body cure itself. Cayce's neck grew
pink, then bright red. Twenty minutes later, it became normal again.
Layne told Cayce to wake up, and when he did, his voice had returned."
[16] So goes the story in the Cayce biographies.

   Cayce's life was changed permanently. News of this story spread, and
Cayce's neighbors asked him to diagnose their diseases for them. Cayce
learned how to put himself in a trance state fairly quickly, and after
he appeared to fall asleep, the voice would take over and prescribe
various unorthodox cures which always seemed to work. Eventually, the
questioners began to ask him about spiritual matters, and from then on
Cayce channeled metaphysical "truths," promoting reincarnation, monism,
astrology, gnosticism, Atlantis, mediumship, etc. Cayce's followers
were devoted to these "readings," and over 14,000 trance sessions have
been transcribed, cataloged, and indexed since his death. This material
forms a vast body of occult reference material which has been used for
decades.

   Equally potent has been <The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ>,
published in 1907, channeled through Levi Dowling, who was purportedly
empowered to read the "Akashic Records" (a scribal form of the
Universal Mind, containing all the history of the universe). Levi's
<Aquarian Gospel> has provided a mythical history of the life of Christ
picked up by many cults and New Age devotees. It describes a
reincarnated Jesus, who attained Christ consciousness after visiting
Egypt, Greece, and India, during the so-called "silent years" before
his public ministry in Palestine. [17]

   For a book supposedly transcribed from the Akashic records, <The
Aquarian Gospel> is riddled with error, beginning from its first verse.
It says "Herod Antipas was ruler of Jerusalem" when Jesus was born.
That should have been Herod the Great, not Herod Antipas. It has Jesus
visiting Lahore in Pakistan (31.1); Lahore didn't historically exist
until 600 years later. It shows Jesus visiting magicians in Persepolis
(39.1); Persepolis was destroyed by Alexander the Great in 330 B.C. and
was never rebuilt. Nonetheless, this book has been adopted by many
unwitting readers as "proof" of a secret occult past for Jesus Christ.

   <The Urantia Book> was also obtained through trance channeling. Its
unknown author served as a medium for dozens of extraterrestrial
intelligences, beginning in the early 1900s. ("Urantia" is the name
these space beings give to the planet earth.) Ironically, it was a
Seventh-day Adventist minister and physician, who had spent over a
decade debunking and refuting spiritualism, who was ultimately
responsible for the publication of the Urantia papers. Dr. William
Sadler finally found a channeler he couldn't expose as a fraud, whose
entities were utterly inexplicable.

   Beginning in 1923, Dr. Sadler invited a group of friends, informally
known as The Forum, to examine and question these intelligences, which
were rapidly becoming more numerous. The channeler began producing
automatic writing in response to their questions, and eleven years
later these papers were completed. The entities asked Dr. Sadler, by
now a true believer, that the work be published, though it wasn't until
1955 that the 2100-page volume made it into print. [18] The <Urantia
Book> has influenced thousands of people, and is fully consistent with
New Age ideology.

   THE ADVENT OF MODERN CHANNELING

   It would be hard to say just where "modern" channeling practices
should be dated from, but I'm inclined to point to the Seth material,
channeled through the late Jane Roberts (died 1984). Jane, a housewife
and would-be writer, first encountered "Seth" through a spontaneous
experience in September 1963. Jane said "a fantastic avalanche of
radical, new ideas burst into my head with tremendous force," not
unlike an LSD trip. [19]

   Jane transmitted this material for over twenty years and, like most
channeled writing, it is amazingly consistent with New Age philosophy
(reality is a construct of our minds, etc.). Jane Roberts was the first
contemporary channeler to gain widespread acceptance in the 1970s, and
since then the volume of channelers and channeled writings has fallen
on our society like a deluge.

   How does channeling fit in the larger picture? We interviewed Joel
Bjorling, author of a forthcoming bibliography on channeling. Since
he's up to his eyeballs in studying channeled writings, we asked him
how contemporary channeling differs from its nineteenth-century
predecessor. He pointed out that in terms of content (i.e., what is
taught), both have the same philosophy and share a common root. The
outward phenomenon is also similar -- in both cases, a disembodied
entity speaks through the channeler, usually in a trance state.

   One difference this author has observed is that the spiritualist
movement focused on seances (dim lights, formal invocations, etc.) and
supernatural manifestations -- table lifting, "direct voice" phenomena,
ectoplasm, materialized writing or faces, etc. By contrast, today's
channelers do everything under bright lights, usually on stage, and the
only visible event is when an alien personality takes them over. The
channelers usually don't exhibit the powers or physical phenomena, such
as levitation, that were present in spiritualism. (This may be due to
the development of infrared photography, but that's another matter.)

   The basic themes have also differed. In spiritualism, the emphasis
was on "proof of survival" after death, and the public largely sought
reassurance that their deceased loved ones were happy in the Great
Beyond. In modern channeling, the focus is on "higher intelligences"
who have come to teach us Truth, showing us how to alter reality and
achieve self-fulfillment.

   Modern channeling centers around certain themes: (1) we are all
God(s), (2) there is no death, (3) reality is a product of the mind,
(4) prosperity is our right and "we can have it all," and (5) we must
preserve the earth from nuclear or ecological catastrophe. This last
point is especially prevalent among UFO contactees, who communicate
telepathically with various "space brothers" (their term). The UFOs
generally warn that continued testing of nuclear weapons will disturb
the earth's rotation or cause some kind of interplanetary disaster. The
space brothers are also concerned about environmental pollution on our
own planet.

   Despite the differences between the two movements, both
spiritualists and channelers are agreed that the traditional Christian
concept of God is false. Consider the following statement:

   Agreement [among channelers] can be said to exist on one point only,
namely, that the historic Christian doctrine respecting the nature and
character of the Deity is an imposition, the fabric of an artificial
scholastic philosophy, and contradicted by sound reason as well as by
the unanimous testimony of the spirit world. It is certainly a
remarkable fact that on this point the higher intelligences are
strangely unanimous and emphatic in their statements, and all
spiritualists are agreed. [20]

   Though this observation seems strikingly contemporary, it was
actually written over 80 years ago, in an analysis of the spiritualist
movement. We believe the parallels are too close to be coincidental.

   CONCLUDING REMARKS

   Is all channeling Satanic? In the direct sense, no. Many channelers
are not communicating with any spirit, but are simply hucksters who
have "learned the rap" and are capitalizing on the current fascination
with discarnate intelligences. J.Z. Knight may be one such person --
former followers testify to having seen her practice Ramtha's
mannerisms, speech patterns, and accent.

   Personally, I have adopted Occam's Razor when dealing with most
supernatural claims. Named after William of Occam, this principle of
logic states that when several explanations or solutions to a problem
are possible, the simplest is to be preferred to the more complex. As
he phrased it, "Entities are not to be multiplied beyond necessity."
William was undoubtedly using "entities" as a synonym for explanations,
but in this context I find the phraseology excruciatingly apropos.

   Some channelers may not be intentional fakers, but self-deceived
instead. I have known individuals who couldn't tell the difference
between their own wayward thoughts and the voice of God. Stream-of-
consciousness musings and personal urges have been mistaken by some for
divine revelation. Self-deception of this sort can range all the way to
outright mental illness.

   I also don't discount the possibility that some trance channeling
may arise from a one's own unconscious self-will. For instance, a voice
which claims to be Sushi from Napaj, a deity of great power and pomp,
may simply spring from the inner fantasies of the unregenerate mind.
Those who believe in man's depravity should consider that man's own
evil heart may well be the source of the channelers' vulgar
pronouncements.

   Yet we cannot deny the reality of the spiritual realm. Both
Scripture and experience show that certain phenomena can only be
accounted for by demonic spirits. History records intrusions of the
demonic throughout all times and cultures, and we have no less an
authority than the Lord Jesus Christ himself who testifies to the
reality of this fact -- and to his own power to save men from the
powers of darkness.

   In the preceding discussion, though Satan need not be the immediate
source of a channeled message, he may be the remote cause behind it.
Jesus called Satan "a liar and the father of it" (John 8:44) and
Satan's parentage to occult sin is sure even though it may not be
immediate. On one level, whether channeling is "real" or "faked" is
immaterial; the person who seeks after "mediums and spiritists to
prostitute himself by following them" will be alienated from the
presence of God and subject to judgment (Lev. 20:6).

   A man may forfeit his soul for counterfeit money just as surely as
for "real" money. But the effect of each loss will be the same,
regardless of the currency used. And in like manner, ultimately it's
not the medium of exchange which matters but the consequences of the
transaction.

   REFERENCES:

   1. Katharine Lowry, "Channelers," OMNI, Oct. 1987, p. 50.

   2. Jon Klimo, CHANNELING: INVESTIGATIONS ON RECEIVING INFORMATION
FROM PARANORMAL SOURCES (Los Angeles: Jeremy P. Tarcher, Inc., 1987),
p. 1.

   3. Martin Gardner, THE NEW AGE: NOTES OF A FRINGE WATCHER (Buffalo:
Prometheus Books, 1988), p. 195.

   4. Brooks Alexander, "Theology from the Twilight Zone," CHRISTIANITY
TODAY, Sept. 18, 1987, p. 22.

   5. John Ankerberg and John Weldon, THE FACTS ON SPIRIT GUIDES
(Eugene, Ore: Harvest House Publishers, 1988), p. 16.

   6. The Hebrew word here translated "mediums" (NASV) or "them that
have familiar spirits" (KJV) is the Hebrew word <'obh>. It appears 16
times in the OT and was used to indicate both spirits and spirit
mediums.

   7. Georgine Milmine, THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND THE HISTORY
OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE (1909: rpt. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1971),
pp. 64-68.

   8. Milmine, pp. 111, 115-116.

   9. The exact year the raps began is dispute (1846-48); 1847 seems
most accepted and the birthdates of the sisters is not certain.

   10. This account of spiritualism has been taken from several
reliable sources and reference books. The reference to Mrs. Fox's hair
turning white comes from Raphael Gasson, THE CHALLENGING COUNTERFEIT
(Plainfield, NJ: Logos, 1966), p. 47.

   11. Gasson, p. 48; also cited in Klimo, p. 98; and in Nandor Fordor,
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PSYCHIC SCIENCE, London, 1934, ad loc.

   12. Arthur Conan Doyle, THE NEW REVELATION (London: Hodder and
Stoughton, 1918), pp. 70, 71.

   13. Harry Houdini, HOUDINI: A MAGICIAN AMONG THE SPIRITS (1924: rpt.
New York, Arno Press, 1972), p. xix.

   14. Gasson, p. 48.

   15. Gasson, p. 49.

   16. Gary North, UNHOLY SPIRITS: OCCULTISM AND NEW AGE HUMANISM (Fort
Worth: Dominion Press, 1986), p. 198.

   17. See Per Beskow, STRANGE TALES ABOUT JESUS (Philadelphia:
Fortress Press, 1985), for good summaries of this "gospel" and other
pseudo-scriptural forgeries.

   18. Steve Cannon, "Evaluating the Urantia Book," PFO NEWSLETTER
(quarterly newsletter of Personal Freedom Outreach, St. Louis, Mo.),
vol. 7 (Oct.-Dec. 1987): pp. 4-6.

   19. cited by Klimo, p. 30.

   20. J. Godfrey Raupert, MODERN SPIRITISM (London: Sands & Co.,
1904), pp. 210-211.

   copyright 1988 by Eric Pement Cornerstone 4707 N. Malden St.
Chicago, IL 60640