I arrived early at Hernando's on Melrose hoping to get a good table.
Hernando's is one of those trendy sidewalk restaurants, with Mexican national colors in the awning, wrought iron tables and chairs, and separated from the sidewalk by only a thin iron railing. The place was filling with trendy Hollywood-type people wearing either business suits or designer jeans. Most of the women wore little makeup and had long slightly curled or straight hair.
Elise soon joined me, also wearing jeans, but not the kind in the Melrose shops. Somehow, she looked like an academic, or at least that was what she projected.
I rose and greeted her with a handshake that seemed appropriate. This was not a date. She was keeping a feeling of distance, probably treating me as if I were Tina's territory. We exchanged some small talk, ordered iced tea, and tostadas for which Hernando's is famous.
"Tell me about your project that involves something about channeling," she said drinking her tea.
"It is really not about channeling per se; it is about remote sensing. It involves a civil case. I would like to know about channeling to see whether it is related. What was your bottom line in your dissertation?" I inquired.
"Let me start at the beginning. About four years ago, a friend invited me to go to a channeling, not a big event such as we attended last night, bur a living room full of people in The Valley. I was expecting to see a bunch of weirdoes, but was surprised to see normal looking people from all backgrounds.
"When the channel arrived, I was surprised because he was so normal looking, with a slight build, probably of Mediterranean descent, wire-rimmed circular glasses, and wearing a black T-shirt with a Nike logo. He introduced himself with a mild voice. He took a lot longer to go into trance than does Herondus. Before he began to channel, he went through a few head movements as though he had to shake his head to form the channeling connection. Then, his entity, or the spirit, or whatever he was channeling, came through in a loud, gruff, choppy voice, talking a mile-a-minute. He said he brought us greetings from another civilization on a planet in the direction of, but not near, the Pleiades. He went on to say that their civilization was more evolved than ours and they wanted to communicate certain ideas to help us in our evolution.
"What I heard was very similar to ideas of eastern spiritual philosophies, with some interesting twists. Do you want to hear about those?"
"Maybe later. Right now, I am more interested in the phenomenon or mechanism rather than the message."
"I attended about sixty changelings in Southern California and then studied the channeled messages of forty of those channels. The entities that were channeled were quite varied, some were historical figures, some Greek gods, some were said to be Egyptian gods, and others were biblical figures.
"I won't try to give you all that data, I'll send you a copy of my dissertation.
"I concluded, after much study, that some of the channels were channeling their own subconscious, general knowledge, and belief system: the message was 100% theirs. Others were channeling the message of some external spiritual entity and then overlaying it with their own stuff: the message might be 10% or 90% theirs depending on the channel."
"Where does Herondus fit in that spectrum?" I asked.
"I think he is about 90% entity most of the time. I believe the form of the message is as Herondus was describing last night, pre-symbolic: it comes to him as abstract ideas and pictures. The channel's brain and brain–ware, as Herondus described it last night, converts the message to language. That translation process is where the channels education and belief system can filter the input.
"Another thing I found was that a person with a great intellect will channel a message of high intellectual content and a dull person will channel a dull message.
"How did you get interested in channeling? Tina has mentioned that you were not really too interested in psychic phenomena."
I replied, "I wasn't, until I started to have some unusual experiences myself. I am embarrassed to say that I have been having conversations with an entity or entities who call themselves Mason. Their voice appears to come from a spot of light that can be in broken glass bottle or under a rock,"
"I'd call that channeling!" she said with a wide grin. "Except, you are doing the channeling. You might make it seem to come from the spot of light to agree with your belief system. People who hear voices directing them are often diagnosed as schizophrenics. You are surely not one of them. The spot of light appearing to talk is probably a dream kind of thing."
I felt relieved as I said, "Yes, it does happen sometimes when I am dozing off. Are there any hazards in doing this form of channeling?"
"Yes, but only for those like Darren Wileman who trance channels Herondus. He is great, but sometimes other trance channels go kind of bonkers after a while, and start saying bizarre stuff or get their own ego involved in the message.
"Since you are doing this semiconsciously you can evaluate what is coming through. If it starts to get really strange, tell the entity to stop coming through, or simply stop when it happens. It all is under your control. Does the message seem reasonable to you?"
I thought a minute and then said, "Yes, I received instructions on some scientific things about space-time that I should learn about. Then, a few days later, I get a legal case involving those subjects and am forced to learn about it. It is really strange."
She lit up with a big smile and said, "That may not be as strange as you think. I have heard of people channeling messages from the future. Maybe your 'Mason' is your future self, a guide from outside space-time or someone else from the future. I'd bet you’ll figure this out someday."
The waitress brought our tostadas.
As I was adjusting my plate I added, "I hope I will. I am a little overwhelmed about this now."
"I am sure you will," she replied as she started to eat.
We engaged in small talk while we ate. As we were finishing, Elise said, "Tina is one of my dearest friends. How long have you been seeing her?"
"We were introduced by a mutual friend about two months ago. We haven't been together all that time because my travel for work has created some gaps in us seeing each other."
"You should be very careful with her: she is very vulnerable," she cautioned.
"Vulnerable? I don't understand. Is she weak? Do people take advantage of her?"
"We probably should have stayed to hear Herondus for the whole weekend. That was one of the things he is talking about. Men, particularly, need to understand the idea; it comes naturally to most women.
"I should have said emotionally vulnerable. Being emotionally vulnerable, for women at least, means being willing, or able, to put themselves out there emotionally and go into the depths of feeling, It is like playing Texas Hold'em poker and being able to go all-in. They are willing to bet all the chips, except they are emotional chips."
She saw the confused expression on my face and said, "Next time Herondus does a workshop we will have to go."