The Michael Teachings

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The Michael Teachings are a body of spiritual information, generally classed among "New Age" systems of thought, which proponents claim was accumulated through mediumistic channeling. They were first publicly described by novelist Chelsea Quinn Yarbro in her book "Messages from Michael" (Playboy Press, Chicago, 1979).

1 Summary
2 History
3 External links
4 Books

[edit] Summary

There are a number of core concepts in the Michael Teachings. Different students have somewhat different ideas of what is core, however the personality system (overleaves), the spiritual cosmology, validation and the notion that the spiritual level of the earth's population is slowly rising leading to eventual profound changes in the world socio-economic system are four of the most frequently mentioned.

[edit] Personality system

The core of the Michael Teachings is a multi-layered system of personality typing called the overleaves, as follows:

1. Soul Age (infant, baby, young, mature, old, transcendental, infinite)
2. Role (Artisan, Sage, Warrior, King, Server, Priest, Scholar)
3. Goal (Growth, Retardation, Acceptance, Rejection, Submission, Dominance, Stagnation)
4. Mode (caution, power, reserve, passion, perseverance, aggression, observation)
5. Attitude (stoic, spiritualist, skeptic, idealist, realist, cynic, pragmatist)
6. Chief Negative Feature (greed, arrogance, stubbornness, self-deprecation, impatience, self-destruction, martyrdom)
7. Center (intellectual, moving, emotional, Higher Moving, Higher Intellectual, Higher Emotional)
8. Body Type (lunar, venusian, martial, jovial, saturnian, solar, mercurial, uranian, neptunian, and plutonian)

The stated purpose of the system is to help the student develop compassion and understanding for himself and others, with the ultimate goal of total acceptance of self and the world as it is.

It has a distinct terminology, based on concepts such as Agape (Unconditional Love), Choice, Karma, Agreements and Monads.

The Michael Teachings provide detailed information on the function, strengths, and weaknesses of each overleaf, and on the larger processes of evolution of the soul (called "essence" in this system) from Infant Soul to Baby Soul and beyond.

[edit] Spiritual cosmology

The Michael Teachings include the concept of reincarnation and the idea that everyone will eventually finish and rejoin the Tao. Ensouled beings who choose to begin their Grand Cycle (casting from the Tao and evolving through the 7 planes of existence until rejoining the Tao) in the human species complete the physical plane phase of the Grand Cycle reincarnating only as a human being as long as the planet is capable of sustaining human life. The cycle of rebirth continues with increasing wisdom until the fragment is finished with the lessons learnt here. This is distinct from classical Christianity, which advocates one life and has the concept of eternal damnation, a concept totally foreign to the Michael Teachings. Jesus is, however, recognized in the Michael Teachings as one of a small handful of first rank spiritual teachers. Jesus was a 7th old King who had an agreement to bring the Logos, or, the Infinite Soul (The Tao, or Ultimate Source), into physical manifestation through his body. Jesus did not bring the Infinite Soul into his body until very late in his life, around thirty days before his death. The distorted record of his work is considered to be made up of these two perspectives.

Michael represents itself as a causal plane entity composed of 1050 individuals each of who lived a complete set of lifetimes on Earth. Michael is not the Archangel Michael.

[edit] Social changes

One of the core concepts of the Teaching is that people gain spiritual insight as they reincarnate, and that they go through five distinct phases (Soul Ages) which can be loosely compared to Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

There are no nations or areas that are purely at one level; all nations and areas are a mixture. However, one can say that many nations exhibit an average tendency. The United States is, for example, in the late Young phase, where individual achievement is valued, even at the expense of the smooth working of society.

The European Union, in contrast, is in the early Mature phase, where they are trying to work out more of a relationship orientation.

The planetary average shifted to Baby (Maslow's Security need) about 10,000 years ago with the invention of agriculture in the Fertile Crescent. It shifted to Young (Maslow's Achievement need) about 3500 years ago, and is in the process of shifting to Mature in the next few hundred years.

The basic concept of advance is that as the planet matures it becomes less hospitable to individuals who are starting out. Areas where they can learn raw survival lessons are eliminated, so the population is slowly aging.

[edit] Validation

A favorite saying is that on a good day, the best channel is 80% accurate. This, of course, begs the questions of what is a good day, who are the best channels and which 80%.

This does, of course, lead to some fairly heated disagreements.

The core concept here is that each student is responsible for validating the teaching in his or her own life, and if it doesn't work, go on to something else. There is no authority, there is nobody who has the One True Authentic Michael Teaching, several notable channels to the contrary.

To quote from MfM (Messages From Michael): Faith is silly. When the teacher dies, the teaching passes into literature.

[edit] History

In the early 1970s, Sarah Chambers was part of a Gurdjieff study group. She, with several others, left the group and eventually started experimenting with using a Ouija board to see if they could get channeled information. After a period with at least one guide, Michael started to come through.

The original group broke up due to a conflict between a group member and Sarah Chambers and was reformed with mostly new members. Information continued to come through from Michael and was slowly collated by the various group members.

Novelist Chelsea Quinn Yarbro joined the group sometime in this period, and published the first book of collected readings, Messages From Michael. This presented a heavily fictionalized version of Sarah Chamber's group, identifying her under the pseudonym of Jessica Lansing. Ms. Yarbro bought the copyright to the group's work from Sarah Chambers and published three more books on the subject, containing edited channeling transcripts as well as additional background material. Ms. Yarbro hosts several Michael groups, all of which have closed membership.

The original channel, Sarah Chambers, dropped out for a long time, and reentered in the late '90s before her death on December 8, 1998. The original group members still work together in a closed group environment with some pertinent work released to the public occasionally.

A second series of channels and groups grew up in Orinda County, California. Today there are several dozen Michael channels scattered around the U.S. and more than 20 published books (see below), many of which are out of print.

There are a number of groups of students around the world organized around mailing lists and chat rooms. Many channels maintain their own web sites with the information freely available.

[edit] External links

[edit] Books

Messages from Michael on the nature of the evolution of the human soul -- Chelsea Quinn Yarbro. (1979) ISBN 0-872235-26-2
More Messages from Michael -- Chelsea Quinn Yarbro. (March 1986) ISBN 0-425-08662-3
Michael for the Millennium -- Chelsea Quinn Yarbro. ISBN 0-425-15074-7
Michael's People -- Chelsea Quinn Yarbro. (July 1988) ISBN 0-425-10932-1
The Michael Handbook: A Channeled System for Self Understanding. Jose Stevens, Simon Warwick-Smith. Warwick Assocs; (March 1988) ISBN 0-941109-00-3
Earth to Tao: Michael's Guide to Healing and Spiritual Growth -- Jose Stevens. (February 1994) ISBN 1-879181-15-0
Tao to Earth: Michael's Guide to Relationships and Growth -- Jose Stevens. (February 1994) ISBN 1-879181-14-2
Transforming Your Dragons: Turning Personality Fear Patterns into Personal Power --Jose Stevens.(July 1994) ISBN 1-879181-17-7
The Personality Puzzle: Solving the Mystery of Who You Are. Jose Stevens, JP Van Hulle. Pivotal Resources; (December 1990) ASIN: 0942663063
The Power Path: The Shaman's Way to Success in Business and Life. Jose Stevens. New World Library; 1st edition (June 2002) ISBN 1-57731-217-1
The Journey of Your Soul: A Channel Explores Channeling and the Michael Teachings -- Shepherd Hoodwin.(March 1999) ISBN 1-885469-07-1
Finding Balance in an Unbalanced World: Michael on Life and Relationships & Michael on Health and Healing --D&T Sullivan. (June 2005)
Michael on Channeling, Guides, and Other Topics--D&T Sullivan. (June 2005)
Michael on Dreams and Dream Symbology--D&T Sullivan. (June 2005). IM Light Publications located at http://im-light.com.
Searching for Light: Michael's Information for a Time of Change -- Carol Heideman. (December 1994) ISBN 0-9643455-0-1
Celebrities: The Complete Michael Database -- Emily Baumbach. (January 1996) ISBN 0-9650668-1-9
Parallel Universes: Your Other Selves -- Emily Baumbach. (1992) ISBN 0-942663-08-X
The 7 Aspects of Sisterhood: Empowering Women Through Self-Discovery. Debra Gawrych. Common Boundaries Consulting & Communications; (September 2002) ISBN 0-9710646-0-1
The World According to Michael: An Old Soul's Guide to the Universe. Joya Pope. Emerald Wave; (August 1987) ASIN: 0942531000
Concordance to the Michael Teachings. Barbara Taylor. Cross-reference by subject to all the Michael Teachings books listed here (except Celebrities, Power Path and 7 Aspects of Sisterhood). Available at http://www.michaelteaching.com/mbooks.htm