Understanding Carla's challenge in the name of Christ

[Steppingfeet]

I want to find out if I understand something correctly about Carla Rueckert's channeling practice.

Hello Questioner.

In addition to Book V, two other great resources for learning all that there is to know about the history, technique, and philosophy of Carla’s channeling include:

1. Carla’s "A Channeling Handbook".

2. Transcripts from the first Channeling Intensive.

There is truly a great deal that goes into Carla’s preparatory process before channeling. Incidentally L/L Research just concluded a workshop yesterday devoted to teaching the techniques that Carla created in cooperation with Don Elkins, techniques which Carla has never stopped refining.

Carla has described that when she became willing to be a channel, she did not know ahead of time that she would become the channel for Ra.

You are right, no one in the group could have anticipated Ra.

During the course of what we would consider a long period of time, the social memory complex Ra sought out the original L/L group, not vice versa.

Though at the same time Ra was “called” to the group in response to the group’s seeking and the group’s need.

She had to come up with a way to decide which entities she would work with. Her decision was to ask herself what was the most powerful spiritual force she knew of, what was so valuable to her that it it worth living and dying for.

That’s loosely correct. Don Elkins had adopted the channeling protocol from a group of seekers in Detroit, Michigan who were channeling Confederation sources. In January of 1962, Don and his early group of channeling volunteers in Louisville, Kentucky began applying that protocol in order to contact the Confederation.

From then on the protocol was continually refined, often through simple trial and error, I believe. In the process, sometime during or shortly before 1975, Carla discovered and utilized the aspect of “challenging” those sources who wished to speak through her instrument in the preparatory process preceding each channeling. In her case, that challenge is as you described it – a challenge in the name of that principle for which she would die, that of Jesus the Christ.

The inspiration for challenging came from Carla’s beloved holy book.

The Ra contact passed her challenge, so she allowed herself to become Ra's channel of communication.

The Ra group did indeed pass her challenge, but much more than simply the challenge was needed to establish and sustain the contact, including the implementation of magical ritual.

Sometimes Don's questions went astray from Ra's desire to communicate balanced, universal truths and principles. This was more common at the earlier sessions, when Don didn't yet realize what Ra wanted to talk about. If Don's questions or opinions for Ra were too far off, the contact was temporarily lost, and a less evolved, less balanced, less positive spiritual force took over using Carla as instrument. Either junk content came through, or Ra's message was hidden under distortions.

At these times, negative, selfish, unrealistic or useless information was provided.

I would agree with the first portion of your understanding about Don’s questions going “astray” and moving into the realm of the transient. I would categorically disagree with your understanding that “junk” (negative, selfish, unrealistic, etc.) material was offered in response to transient questions.

While there is indeed material within the Law of One books that I gloss over when reading, there is not a syllable within the material which I would define using such pejorative terms…or terms descriptive of the negative polarity, egocentrism, or delusion.

I am with βαθμιαίος in feeling certain that Ra was always the one communicating each message. Ra did warn about the possibility of their contact (indeed, any contact with a positive source) becoming detuned through an emphasis upon transient questions, and encouraged the group to “Please guard your alignments carefully”, but never have I seen a shred of evidence to indicate that Ra had been displaced by a negatively oriented entity aping Ra.

Later, the people involved realized that Ra was not really fastidious about lining up these physical items, but was giving a code about whether or not Don's questions were on track.

I believe you are essentially correct. Here are two Book V snippets:

Jim McCarty: It was our decision to remove this information from Book One of THE Law of One because we felt it to be entirely unimportant and of a transient nature since knowing it adds nothing to one’s ability or desire to seek the truth and the nature of the evolutionary process, whether the information is true or not. In fact, knowing and continuing to seek this kind of information can become a major stumbling block to one’s spiritual journey because it removes one’s attention from the eternal truths which may serve anyone’s journey—at any time—and places it upon that which is only of fleeting interest and of little use spiritually. Concentrating on conspiracy theories and their participants tends to reinforce the illusion of separation and ignores the love that binds all things as One Being. If we had continued to pursue this particular line of questioning, or any other line of questioning of a transient nature, we would soon have lost the contact with those of Ra because, as Ra mentioned in the very first session, Ra communicated with us through a “narrow band” of vibration or wave length.

Through various clues that Ra gave us when Don asked about the alignments at the end of each session, we were able to determine that this “narrow band” meant that only information of the purest and most precise nature concerning the process of the evolution of mind, body, and spirit could be successfully transmitted on a sustainable basis through our instrument. To ask Ra questions of a transient nature would be like trying to run a finely-tuned engine on crude petroleum.

Carla Rueckert: The desire that had brought Ra to our group was a true desire for non-transient material, and this desire fueled our sessions. When we departed from that level of information, Ra would remind us to get back on track in a subtle way: by telling us to watch our alignments. We at first took them literally and thought they were referring to the items on the altar, to getting them lined up rightly. Later, we figured out that they were grading our questions, not our Bible and candle placement. It’s worth emphasizing that anything measurable is also transient. The human spirit, the force of creative love, the creation’s essence: these things are unfindable, noumenal, always sensed and never penetrated by our fact-finding intellects.

The next thing I wanted to ask about was about the transition between Don's death and the conscious channeling of Qu'o. Is there a portion of the L/L Research site that describes this history? I would assume that Carla used her same spiritual challenge before accepting the message of Qu'o. What I wonder is whether there was a conscious attempt to initiate channeling to fill in the gap after Ra, or did the subsequent contacts just start happening?

I may be wrong but I think that Q’uo first appeared on the scene in ’86. There is more about the post-Ra Contact year in the “About” section on this website. Here are a few pertinent paragraphs:

However, I ended the Ra contact. I was following the Ra group's suggestion that I not attempt to channel the Ra group if either Jim or Don was unavailable. This particular contact was different from all my other channeling in that it was done in trance. I have never been trained as a trance channel and the trance state was an involuntary occurrence. In my case, trance work was extremely hard on my physical body. I lost two to three pounds after every Ra session and weighed no more than 85 pounds for the three years the contact was ongoing. So I heeded the Ra group's advice and did not attempt to contact Ra directly again.

After three years of channeling the Ra group, I had become rather spoiled as a channel. I knew that I could not contact the Ra group, after Don's death, but I hungered for the highest and best contact I could carry of the Christ consciousness in a stable, conscious manner. I began to ask for the highest and best. And at that point, the Q'uo group appeared.

The Ra Contact is somewhat anomalistic in L/L Research’s channeling history for many reasons, including but not limited to: a) the instrument was completely unconscious, b) it attracted elite level negative efforts to shut it down, c) magical ritual was a necessary and critical safeguard for the contact and the group, and d), its short life span. The Ra Contact lasted from 1981 – 1984, whereas Carla has been channeling Confederation sources in a conscious fashion from 1974 – present day: before, *during*, and after the Ra contact. It is a long and extraordinary history of uninterrupted channeling.

Well, I have two thoughts on this point. The first is that we are indeed talking about a sixth density entity which is investing itself in to the physical body of a third density entity. Ra is three dimensions away from our own. I would liken this to early versions of long distance telephone calls, where you have to patch through different hubs on different continents in order to reach your destination. In short- regardless of Ra's and L/L's care in making the contact it seems to me reasonable that there is still a lot of opportunity for distortion to occur. (just my speculation of course)

Hi Lavazza. Good thoughts. In response I will begin with a premise that I’m sure you and everyone in these forums will accept: Distortion is impossible to avoid. To the extent that we have an identity which seems to be not one with all, to the extent that we are manifest at all, we are experiencing and creating distortions of the one infinite Creator.

That said, I will agree with your statement that, during the Ra Contact, there was indeed “a lot of opportunity for distortion to occur”. In the course of any day, any session, and any question during the Ra Contact, any one or all three of the group could have made choices to reduce the purity of the contact, thereby opening the door for less-than-pure or even negatively oriented material. Yes, there was opportunity.

I would disagree with the implication (if there is an implication) that distortion in a pejorative sense was inevitable despite the extremes to which both the L/L group and Ra went to ensure a positive, safe, stable, and pure contact. I believe that the group’s efforts and fastidiousness were not for naught. That material which (in my little universe) shines with an integrity and brilliance unlike any other is the direct result of effort, of not taking those many opportunities which would have detuned the contact. The group was not perfect in their efforts - slip-ups and wayward questioning occurred - but fortunately they never fell outside the very narrow margin of error intrinsic to Ra’s narrow band transmission. Until of course that fateful action which effectively terminated the Ra Contact.

In other words, ten years after its discovery the Law of One material continues blowing my third density mind precisely because of the purity of its content and undistorted quality of its message.

Thanks everyone for a great thread!