Channeling was once popular, especially during the New Age era, and various interpretations were given to it.

Originally, it simply meant "connecting with a higher level of consciousness."

However, some people started using the same word to mean something similar to "telepathy," and as a result, channeling became interpreted as "being controlled by someone's consciousness" or "becoming a puppet of someone's will," which gave it a negative connotation.

As a result, about 30 years ago, there was a period of distancing from channeling. During that time, even though people were doing the same things, some started using the word "reading" instead of "channeling." However, recently, I haven't heard that word much anymore.

Recently, people are saying things like "connecting with one's higher self" or "listening to a higher level," and each person seems to be expressing the same thing in their own way, using the expressions they interpret. As a result, the word "channeling" is no longer used uniformly, but the situation has become somewhat unclear.

The word "channeling" originally had several meanings.

- Connecting with one's own higher level of consciousness.
- Meaning of telepathy.
- Connecting with and receiving messages from a higher-level guardian spirit, or having a dialogue with it (this meaning is often used).
- Telepathy with extraterrestrials (some groups use this meaning as well).
- Telepathy between humans (this meaning was sometimes used in the past, but it is rarely heard nowadays).

Although there are these various interpretations, if one connects with their own higher level of consciousness, they can also communicate with other consciousnesses through that higher level. This state of being connected to one's higher self is also what is meant by the "Trinity" in Christianity.

1. Connecting with one's own higher level of consciousness (one meaning of channeling).
2. Communicating with other consciousnesses from one's own higher level (this is also a meaning of channeling).

The entity one communicates with can be a higher-level consciousness (such as a guardian spirit), a disembodied extraterrestrial, or even the higher consciousness of another human being.

Therefore, it is similar to telepathy.

In the case of telepathy, there are other methods, such as sending out auras to merge, or using lower-level minds as the main focus (which can sometimes cause problems and are undesirable). So, calling channeling techniques "telepathy" is a misnomer, but there is a certain aspect that is the same.

From this perspective, it becomes clear that channeling is not inherently bad. There was no time when channeling was demonized in the New Age era, and ultimately, the connection is with one's higher self, so consciousness and will are one's own, and free will certainly exists. If you are convinced after a dialogue, then you should do it, and if you are not convinced, then you should not do it.

There are a certain number of people who interpret messages from higher consciousness through spiritual practices or channeling as messages from God and perceive them mystically, saying, "Because God told me to, I will do this," and blindly follow them. However, invisible beings are the same as us, except that they do not have a physical body. Just as we would not blindly accept something told to us by someone, we do not need to blindly accept anything said to us by invisible beings.