TOPICS: Use your intuition – in Piscean age challenge was not to blindly follow leaders – Aquarian age an age of freedom – freedom is impossible without Christ discernment – law that spiritual truths could not be given publicly – now a new dispensation for public revelation – early Christianity very diversified – a general outpouring of the Holy Spirit – Spirit reinforces whatever is in your being – what happens in spiritual movements – the high and the low potential – when a group catches the Holy Spirit they are given a grace period – yet masters only multiply what people internalize – a higher level of discernment – challenge of Christ – defending a position or being willing to self-transcend – avoid skepticism – masters don’t demand perfection, only willingness to grow – don’t be loyal to outer organization, be loyal to the masters – how to evaluate a teaching – Alpha and Omega of progressive revelation – no limit for progressive revelation –
Question: I have attended several sessions of a group that claims to be channeling the ascended masters, and I have felt a lot of pure and high energies. I can’t believe the messengers are just making it all up. In my experience, I feel the energy, but I often reflect on the lack of any real substance in the communication or teaching. This has made me wonder if the source really is an ascended master or just some entity from the psychic plane. So am I to believe that they are “channeling” psychic impostors of the masters? This whole situation is a bit mind-blowing! I’m sure there are many others who would be interested to learn more of what you’d have to share about the matter.
Answer from ascended master Jesus through Kim Michaels:
I want all spiritual seekers to do what you are describing, namely become aware of their own intuition. It is not my intent to make this website a clearinghouse where people can ask questions about every spiritual movement or teaching out there. I am not interested in having you follow me through this website but having you find me in your own heart. Thus, my intent for this external Word is to give people enough hints that they can develop their own intuition and discernment, eventually finding the internal Word.
One of the main challenges of the Piscean age was for people to overcome the tendency to blindly follow the blind leaders. The Aquarian age is meant to be an age of freedom, but you cannot be free if you do not have Christ discernment to see what is real and what is unreal. Freedom does not mean doing whatever your ego wants but rising above the ego. In order to be spiritually free, you must be able to rise above black-and-white thinking without becoming trapped in gray thinking. Let me give further thoughts that can help people sharpen their discernment.
For thousands of years it has been a divine mandate, or law, that certain spiritual truths – often called mystical, occult or esoteric knowledge – could not be revealed publicly. During my mission in Israel, I was under this law, which can be seen from the following quote:
33 And with many such parables spake he the word unto them, as they were able to hear it.
34 But without a parable spake he not unto them: and when they were alone, he expounded all things to his disciples. (Mark, Chapter 4)
The official Christian churches have always been based on the knowledge I was able to reveal publicly, primarily in my parables. Yet throughout the last 2,000 years (and before) the ascended masters have worked with various individuals and organizations, sometimes called secret societies, that revealed more esoteric knowledge to people who had been willing to undergo special initiations.
This was only an interim stage, for it was always our intent that all spiritual knowledge should be given freely to all people. This, however, could not – for a variety of complex reasons – come to pass until we came closer to the Aquarian age. In the Age of Freedom, it is obvious that nothing can be kept secret. All that is hidden must be made plain.
For the past 2,000 years much esoteric knowledge was not publicly available. Much of what I explain on this website was “forbidden” knowledge until the divine mandate was changed in the 19th century. The advanced cosmology in Maitreya’s book simply could not have been given under the old dispensation.
As I explain in my ego discourses, there is nothing that the human ego cannot pervert, so the system of creating secret societies to disseminate esoteric knowledge was by no means ego-proof. Secrecy gives opportunity for abuse and manipulation, for the leaders of a secret society can get away with almost anything by appealing to the need to keep things secret. Likewise, the entire psychology of being in a secret society – having knowledge the general population doesn’t have – encourages spiritual pride. So those who already have a tendency toward pride will have it reinforced.
Many spiritually aware people know that after the divine mandate was changed – which allowed the ascended masters to publicly disseminate esoteric knowledge – we sponsored certain organizations and messengers. However, let me give you a more nuanced understanding of what actually took place.
In order to give you this understanding, I want to correct a common misunderstanding about the early Christian movement, a misunderstanding created by the rewriting of history performed by the early Catholic church. Consider the following quotes from Acts, Chapter 2:
1 And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.
2 And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting.
3 And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them.
4 And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.
16 But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel;
17 And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams:
18 And on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my Spirit; and they shall prophesy:
The orthodox churches of today tend to portray early Christianity as a very homogenous movement, centered around the official church. The reality was entirely different, namely that the early Christian movement was an extremely diversified movement. In fact, so diversified that it could hardly be called a movement by today’s standards. Why was this so? As I said to Nicodemus:
The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit. (John 3:8)
The Holy Spirit is not something that is tightly controlled by some divine overseer. The Holy Spirit is like a rush of wind over a lake, and anyone who has a sail raised can catch it—at least for a season. In other words, the quote from Acts illustrates a general outpouring that anyone with some spiritual attunement can be part of. As quoted above, “I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh.”
After I ascended, a portion of my Spirit was indeed poured out over this planet, and many people – all over the world – caught part of it. For example, many among my direct followers did catch it, but also many who had never met me, including many whom the Church later labeled as gnostics or heretics. This outpouring is allowed because the Holy Spirit is an opportunity for growth. How does the Holy Spirit give people the opportunity to grow? Partly by reinforcing whatever it touches!
Take note of that remark. When you catch the Holy Spirit, allowing it to flow through your being, it reinforces anything in your being, both what is of Christ and what is of anti-christ. Thus, by reinforcing everything, the Spirit makes more visible what is in your being, giving you an opportunity to let go of what is not of Christ and multiply what is of Christ.
This is an essential realization because it is the very factor that determines what actually happens to a movement. If a movement begins to form, that movement may become a conduit for a greater and more concentrated/directed flow of the Holy Spirit. Yet this flow will increase ONLY if BOTH the leader(s) and the members use the Spirit’s gifts to transcend themselves. My point being that a movement can start out as having a genuine flow of the Holy Spirit, but if the people do not multiply the talents they have been given, the flow of the Spirit will stop, be redirected or stall at a certain level.
What I am leading up to here is that in the late 1800s, we initiated a general outpouring of the Holy Spirit that was designed to break up the old, Piscean mindset – of blindly following the blind leaders – and clearing the way for a new Aquarian mindset, where each person can have his or her personal inner connection to the spiritual realm. This outpouring is still ongoing, and any messenger or movement working with the ascended masters is part of the general flow.
In the 1800s, there were indeed a number of individuals who caught this outpouring and started various movements. Some were part of the Spiritualist movement and others developed into organizations that still exist today. My point being that there was not only one movement that had some degree of the Holy Spirit. Some movements had a more direct sponsorship by one or several masters than others, meaning that an organization can be sponsored by some ascended masters and not by others.
As I said, there has been a continuous outpouring of the Holy Spirit since the 1800s. Certainly, some organizations have had a more concentrated/directed release and some have had various degrees of direct sponsorship from the ascended masters. Thus, there always has been and always will be more than one person who is an open door for the flow of the Holy Spirit.
I am aware that some organizations have felt they had a claim to exclusivity, and they base this on what was said in dictations by us. Yet the underlying mechanism is that in order to enter the consciousness of Aquarius, people have to leave behind – fully and finally – the entire consciousness that any human being or organization can have a monopoly on God, the ascended masters, the Holy Spirit or the Living Word. Thus, we have sometimes inflated what people wanted to believe as a test—for the messenger and the students.
What can be difficult for some students to understand is that we of the ascended masters have as our overall goal the spiritual awakening of humankind. We are constantly seeking for ways to accomplish this, and contrary to what many people think – because they have not overcome the Piscean curse of exclusivity – we are NOT seeking to do this through a particular organization or person. In the Aquarian age there will not be one savior or messenger but many—in fact each person must be under his own I AM Presence.
When we inspire an organization, we have a high potential and a low potential. As an organization progresses, it will become clear whether the high potential can be reached, and if not, we cannot maintain the prior level of sponsorship. I am not saying that we make light of the sacrifices people have made within a particular organization. I am simply saying that God is no respecter of persons or the organizations to which people sometimes become loyal—rather than being loyal to our overall goal.
When we start an organization, it is not guaranteed whether the high or the low potential (or some middle ground) will be manifest. For this will depend on one thing, namely to what degree the leaders and the members of an organization are willing to transcend themselves. Will people allow the Holy Spirit that flows through the organization to expose the elements of anti-christ in their beings and will they choose to leave them behind? Will people multiply the elements of Christ in their beings and dare to express their Christhood—even if it is not encouraged or welcome in the organizational culture?
So what happens if we sponsor an organization and it becomes clear that the highest potential cannot be fulfilled? Well, even if we sponsor an organization, there is still the backdrop of the general outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and at any time people can catch this wind in their sails. So it is entirely possible that some people internalize the teachings given through one organization to such a degree, that they can now catch the flow of the spirit through themselves. And if they are not allowed to express this in the existing organization, they must then move on and start a new initiative.
However, let me make one thing clear. In the Piscean dispensation we could give a general sponsorship of an entire organization, which meant that any member in good standing would be affected by this sponsorship. For example, we might agree to take on ourselves – for a time – a portion of the karma of each member. This was an experiment, and under the Aquarian dispensation we will ONLY sponsor individuals. If people come together in an organized fashion, we will multiply the group’s efforts, but not in the way that anyone who enters receives a certain sponsorship. From now on, at least for the foreseeable future, no one will be given sponsorship beyond what they merit based on their willingness to multiply their talents. In the Aquarian age, everyone is meant to sit under his own vine and fig tree, not under the umbrella of a spiritual master.
So when a group of people come together in a positive way and are open to the Spirit, there will be an outpouring of the Holy Spirit, as happens in many Christian churches every Sunday. There are some Evangelical and Pentecostal ministers who have a certain outpouring of the Spirit, even though they seek to force the wind to flow through their fundamentalist belief system. This is allowed for a season in order to give both the minister and the congregation an opportunity to grow. Yet eventually the Spirit magnifies the unresolved psychology of the minister until it surfaces, as was the case with Ted Haggard and others.
It must also be noted that when a person or organization catches a general outpouring of the Spirit, there is always an interim period where people are given an opportunity to internalize the Spirit, purify their beings and rise above old momentums. This is typically a three-year grace period, and in this period a messenger can seem to have more light than the average person. Yet what happens after the first three years depends on the degree of internalization and the willingness to rise above the old mindset—for both leaders and members.
My point being that this grace period can often be mistaken by both leaders and members as a genuine sponsorship by the ascended masters. In reality, it is a trial period, and if there is not sufficient self-transcendence, the organization will not receive a further multiplication of its efforts. One sign of the lack of such multiplication will be precisely, as mentioned in the question, that an organization has light but there is little new revelation or substance in what is being brought forth. If there is not the willingness to self-transcend, how can we bring forth new revelation through a messenger or organization?
We now come to the subtle – but essential – point that mature spiritual seekers need to contemplate. There are indeed many people – even some channelers – who have a genuine outpouring of the Holy Spirit and can thus bring forth a flow of the Spirit that does come from the ascended masters. This is why many spiritually aware people can feel that a certain person or organization has a positive vibration or a genuine outpouring of the Spirit (obviously there are also false spirits who can show signs and wonders but do not have the vibration of the Holy Spirit). There is nothing wrong with sensing this, and it is indeed a good step toward Christ discernment to be able to sense the Spirit.
Yet there is a higher level of discernment that can be reached only after some time and a certain amount of – sometimes difficult – experiences. To get the full understanding of this, you truly need to read Lord Maitreya’s book, but I will give a brief summary. In the end of the book, Maitreya describes the four challenges of Christ. As I explain, Peter passed the first challenge, which is to recognize Christ—or recognize the Spirit. It is good to be able to recognize that some people have a flow of a higher vibration than the average preacher, who simply regurgitates from the pulpit what he was taught at seminary.
Yet the second challenge of Christ is whether you will follow the Living Christ and transcend yourself or whether you will seek to force the Christ and his teaching into your mental box. Will you grow or will you stay where you are comfortable? Will you let the old self die in order to be reborn into a higher sense of identity? Will you follow Christ beyond your mental box or will you seek to force the Living Christ to fit into your box, whereby you are left behind by Christ?
As we explain, everything is created from the interplay of the two basic forces, the expanding and the contracting force, the Father and Mother, the Alpha and Omega. The Alpha aspect of discernment is to recognize the flow of the Spirit, and the Omega aspect is to be able to discern the contents and form of that flow. To use the words from the question above, “I feel the energy, but I often reflect on the lack of any real substance in the communication or teaching.”
The first question is whether a person, messenger or organization has a genuine flow of the Spirit. The second question is whether that flow is being used for self-transcendence or whether it is being used to cement a certain position in which people are comfortable? As I said, it is possible that people can have a flow of the Spirit, but they are not transcending themselves. Therefore, they are imposing a certain belief system upon the flow of the Spirit and the Spirit will to some degree allow this. As I said, some fundamentalist preachers do have a flow of the Spirit even though they impose their literal beliefs upon it. Likewise, a person can impose a preconceived belief system to the extent of believing he or she is taking dictations from Jesus Christ while I am not there.
Take note that I am not hereby saying such dictations are necessarily from a false spirit or impostor. I am simply saying that mature spiritual seekers need to start contemplating just how easy it is for people’s minds to impose mental images upon the Spirit. The Omega side of discernment requires one to rise above the tendency to impose mental images upon the Spirit. The flow of the Spirit is like the white light that streams from the light bulb in a movie projector. Yet the images on the movie screen are shaped by the images that are on the film strip that the light passes through—meaning the mind of the messenger and even the collective mind of the congregation.
This ability to project mental images upon the pure light of the Spirit is the main cause of many of the religious conflicts seen throughout history, where two movements are sure they have the only true revelation from God. Of course, it is also this very ability that gives people the potential to serve as co-creators with God, bringing God’s kingdom into manifestation on earth. It all depends on the purity of the film strip in your mind, which depends on your willingness to let the Christ expose any impurities and then let them go. So the real question is whether a messenger is willing to always self-transcend or whether he or she will seek to defend a certain earthly position.
When a messenger starts out, it is allowed that the person imposes his or her mental images upon the light. Yet if the messenger – as most messengers do – reaches a point from where he or she is not willing to go higher, then the delivery of the word will be stifled at that level. There can still be a flow of the Spirit, but the contents will not progress beyond a certain level, which means it will begin to seem like there is nothing new—which there isn’t.
One might conclude from this that no one is an entirely pure messenger, which is true. Yet this does not mean that all messengers are worthless, and it is important to avoid becoming a skeptic who denies all communication from Above. You need to recognize that communication is possible without becoming attached to ANY particular expression, and you do that by always seeking to raise your ability to experience the Spirit of Truth directly. Even if an organization has an imperfect expression of the Spirit, it does show that there is something beyond the “normal” state of consciousness, beyond the material realm. And if you keep following the flow toward its source, you WILL eventually encounter the source itself. In the Aquarian age, the essential step for humankind is to recognize that it is possible to receive communication from the spiritual realm and that everyone has that potential—if they are willing to engage in the process of perpetual self-transcendence.
When we of the ascended masters evaluate an organization, we look beyond outer details—including erroneous claims made by the organization. We do not demand that leaders or members should be perfect, we look at the net gain produced by an organization. For example, does the organization help people transcend themselves—even if not to the maximum potential? Does the organization release more positive than negative energy into the planetary energy field? Take note again that an organization being a net gain does not mean it has any direct sponsorship. I am talking about the leaders and members being able to catch the general outpouring of the Spirit and multiplying it to some degree.
For a time, a spiritual seeker might benefit from being involved with such an organization. But if YOU are transcending yourself, there will come a point where you seriously need to consider whether you will continue in that environment—and you especially need to be aware of misguided loyalty to anything in this world. As we always say, when the student is ready, the teacher appears. The problem is that until you are willing to leave your nets – where you are comfortable – the Living Christ cannot appear and call you to become a fisher of men. So as long as you hold on to an organization because you feel the Spirit but not the substance, you will not be able to see the next teacher who can give you the higher substance.
How should you evaluate the contents of a teaching? Here are a few pointers as food for thought:
- Does the teaching bring forth something that is genuinely new. A particular organization is designed to bring forth a certain teaching for a certain level of consciousness. An organization is meant to bring forth teachings within a certain framework (not the ultimate teaching for the Aquarian age, as there is no such teaching). Another messenger may pick up that torch and bring forth a more detailed teaching within the same framework, but it has to be beyond what was already given. Otherwise, it will not be released from the ascended masters but will be the messenger imposing his or her belief system upon the flow of the Spirit.
- At some point a new messenger must go beyond the old teaching and bring forth more than was given in the old. Otherwise, the movement will stall and rise no higher.
- Does the teaching challenge you to come up higher or does it make you comfortable where you are? As I said, people can catch the Spirit, and some messengers have even had a more direct sponsorship for a time, but if they do not multiply their talents and self-transcend, the sponsorship will be withdrawn and the Spirit will now stay within certain boundaries, defined by what people are unwilling to surrender. The flow of the Spirit might continue, but the teachings are no longer coming from the ascended masters. They might come from a person’s higher self, from the collective consciousness of the members or from beings in the mental or emotional realm. Some of these beings might indeed be impersonating ascended masters. One might even say that the Holy Spirit is ALWAYS a transcending Spirit, so if a person or organization is not self-transcending, it is no longer the Holy Spirit but a lesser spirit. Some messengers can lose the Holy Spirit but because they are not willing to give up their outer position, they become open to a lower Spirit and some of the followers cannot tell the difference.
- Does the teaching make sense? Is it consistent? Is it useful or does it simply regurgitate words. Is it all fluff – perhaps with flowering words – but has no substance? A complete teaching will have both the vibration of the Spirit and genuine content—it will have the fullness of Alpha and Omega.
- Is the teaching practical. Does it help you transform your daily life and solve some of the problems you face in the modern world, which is in many respects more complex than any previous time?
- Are the leaders walking their talk in terms of embodying the teachings? This does not mean people have to be perfect. But it does mean they have to be wiling to continually transcend themselves, which includes admitting one’s imperfections and surrendering them (doing whatever psychological healing work is necessary to accomplish this).
There is an Alpha and an Omega side to progressive revelation. The Alpha is that new, more advanced teachings are released, teachings that could not be released earlier, either because of divine mandate or because humankind’s consciousness was not ready for them. In other words, we give revelation today that builds upon but goes beyond what was released in the past. The Omega aspect is that we make our teachings more easily accessible and understandable for a broader audience. This means teachings are explained in a more direct and straightforward way, often using a more normal form of language.
As an example of the progression in the delivery of the word, you will see that the language and the concepts released in the past were very difficult to understand, often because they were deliberately expressed in an ambiguous way with complex language. This can be a restriction imposed by the messenger, either because of his/her ability/inability to use words or the messenger’s clarity of mind (or lack of it). It takes a very clear and neutral mind to express complex concepts in a way that is easy to understand, whereas as clouded mind can express concepts only in a clouded language.
Today, humankind has risen beyond the level of awareness they had a century ago, so we can now speak in a way that is far more direct and unambiguous—although we still leave certain things unsaid in order to give room for people’s individual discernment. There are some who prefer the old ways and think that the harder a teaching is to understand, the more sophisticated it must be. However, remember what I said earlier about secret societies giving rise to pride over having a teaching that the general population does not have.
There are also some people who wonder how much more revelation we have to bring forth, sometimes believing in the claim that a certain organization has brought forth some ultimate teaching. Yet I can assure you that the amount of progressive revelation that we can bring forth is unlimited. Progressive revelation is progressive precisely because it never stops. We have many more things to say and we have many new ways of describing timeless truths in order to make them easier to grasp for people in this particular time.
In reality, the most sophisticated spiritual teaching is the one that can be grasped and internalized by the greatest number of people. We are beyond the age of elitism, so we are looking for messengers who can express truth in a clear, unambiguous and straightforward manner. And we are looking for students who can appreciate this and become part of spreading the word to as many people as possible—changing the entire tone of the religious debate, as Maitreya calls for in his book.
We of the ascended masters were never in the consciousness of elitism—although many of our students have been and continue to be. It is time to leave those nets behind and become fishers of men in the Aquarian waters—in which the secret of life is given to all who have ears to hear.
Copyright © 2007 by Kim Michaels