Going Through Channels

We haven’t heard much about UFOs lately. Maybe that’s because the people who used to see them or go on board for chats and journeys with their extraterrestrial crews have now moved on to something called channeling.

A channel is an updated version of a medium, and a medium of course is someone who rattles tables and talks to the spirits of the dead on behalf of anyone who can pay the appropriate fee for such long-distance calls. Don’t knock it. As we understand it, channels stay away from grubby stuff like asking your late Uncle Louie where the hell he hid the coffee can full of $20 gold pieces. Channels seem to be more concerned with your psychic well-being. If your self-esteem needs a goose, go see a channel.

Don’t go if you’re trying to reach someone person-to-person, though. Channels have their own special contacts on the payroll, and they field all the questions. One can give you Merlin, direct from King Arthur’s court. Another uses dolphins to provide advice and counsel. There’s a channel who claims to have good connections with a former inhabitant of the legendary Atlantis. A competitor of his down the street can’t do any better than talking to a spirit in Atlanta, so he charges much lower rates. You get what you pay for.

Channeling doesn’t work for everyone. As the song says, you gotta believe. But if you’re in the right frame of mind the payoff--which, naturally, follows the payout--can be, well, incredible. Besides, what’s money when it comes to finding out through an unimpeachable source that you are the living reincarnation of Anne of Cleves, or Heinrich von Treitschke, or Antiochus IV? You say that you never heard of Anne or Heinrich or Antiochus? Never mind. When it comes to lifting your self-esteem a loving, caring channel leaves no rock unturned, no watery depths unplumbed. Would you rather have once been Buffalo Bill, or Sarah Bernhardt? If you’re not satisfied one place, try another. Channel-switching is an old custom.

So is gullibility. As long as there are people who want to have faith in spirits, reincarnation and the power of trances, there will be other people who will happily and profitably cater to their needs. We ourselves, committed to logic and rationality, are determined to have nothing to do with channeling. As our astrologer was saying just the other day, that stuff just can’t be believed.