extraordinary%20encounters

174 Michael
Carlos Santana, the most famous communicant with
Metatron, performing in Munich, Germany, May 2000
(AFP/Corbis)
tional detail of dying. Other sources assert
that it was he who led the Israelites through
the wilderness after the Exodus.
Further Reading
Arvey, Michael, 1994. “Metatron.” http://www.spiritweb.org/Spirit/metatron-arvey.html.
Davidson, Gustav, 1967. A Dictionary of Angels. New
York: Free Press.
Gates, David, and Devin Gordon, 2000. “Smooth as
Santana.” Newsweek (February 14): 66–67.
Gilmore, Robert and Laurie, eds., n.d. “The Ascension
Is Life Lived from Joy.” http://www.nitehawk.com/daydove/25metatr.html.
Hurtak, James J., 1982. The Book of Knowledge: The
Keys of Enoch. Los Gatos, CA: Academy for Future
Science.
Stone, Joshua David, 1994. The Complete Ascension
Manual. Sedona, AZ: Light Technology Publishing.
Michael
In two books, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro chronicled
the channeling experiences of a young
San Francisco–area woman given the name
Jessica Lansing. Yarbro wrote that in 1970, as
Jessica and her husband, Walter (also a pseudonym),
played with a ouija board after dinner,
they began receiving communications
from an entity who first refused to answer the
question, “Who is this?” Eventually, under
prodding, it said, “The last name a fragment
of this entity used was Michael.” “Michael”
went on to say, “We are of the mid-causal
lane. The astral plane is accessible to the physical
plane. We are not” (Yarbro, 1979).
Michael claimed to be composed of more
than a thousand fragments of “old souls.”
In later automatic writing and channeling,
Michael—who resisted being identified by a
masculine pronoun—taught that each individual
must go through seven basic soul
stages over a minimum of seven re i n c a r n a t e d
l i ves. But Michael would respond impatiently
if someone asked a question about his or her
personal life. “We are not the Ann Landers of
the cosmos,” Michael snapped. As the
Michael phenomenon grew, howe ve r, this
changed, and Michael would speak to individuals
about themselves and offer them
g u i d a n c e .
Jessica Lansing herself was uncertain
whether Michael was an independent intelligence
or some manifestation of an aspect of
her psyche. In time, others reported communications
from Michael. In 1984, two followers
founded the Michael Educational Foundation.
The foundation maintains that Michael
is a collection of one thousand fifty souls, all
of whom once lived lives on Earth. It sponsors
other Michael groups throughout the United
States. Michael F. Brown, an anthropologist
who has studied the channeling movement,
calls Michael “as close to a channeling franchise
as one can find in the United States
today” (Brown, 1997).
“According to Michael,” the foundation
states, “we agree to come into each lifetime
with a basic Role that we play to best support
the world around us. In addition to this Role,
we have numerous ‘Overleaves’ or personality
traits that we choose to play from” (“Who Is
Michael?” n.d.).