✨ If Channeling Freaks You Out, Let’s Talk About Paul
If Paul can write letters from visions, maybe not all inner voices should be dismissed.
This is the fourth post in my series, “Grace Between the Lines”—a journey through the beautifully strange overlap between Lutheran theology, mystical spirituality, and the books and ideas that have shaped me along the way. Whether you're reading as a lifelong Christian, a recovering seeker, or just someone curious about where grace might still be hiding, I’m so glad you’re here.
This post picks up where the last one left off: in a space of spiritual drift, where a blue book helped reintroduce me to Jesus. But this week, we’re going to talk about something that might sound even weirder than grace finding its way in through the self-help aisle. We’re going to talk about channeling. Yep. That kind of channeling. And how maybe, just maybe, our very own Apostle Paul was one among many who’ve experienced something like it (long before the word made it onto wellness podcasts and crystal shops).
In case you missed the previous posts in the series…
Intro - ✨ This Time, It’s Not a Comeback — It’s a Reconciliation
Post #1 - 📚 Did You Hear the One Where the Lutheran Pastor Walks Into the Metaphysics Aisle?
Post #2 - 📺 How a PBS Mystic Became My Spiritual Gateway Drug
Post #3 - 💔 When I Drifted
The “Channeling” Problem
Let’s just name the thing: in most mainline Christian circles, “channeling” sets off every heresy alarm. It conjures images of séances, crystal balls, or someone trying to summon divine insight with a pendulum and a Himalayan salt lamp.
And fair enough… There’s plenty of nonsense out there.
But when I first picked up A Course in Miracles (ACIM), I was less concerned about how it came to be and more interested in the Voice it claimed to represent. Still, I felt that lingering unease. Maybe it was my inner skeptic, maybe it was the residue of old catechism lessons. But something in me hesitated: Wait... she said Jesus told her to write this down?
Which brings us to Paul.
Because if we’re going to side-eye a modern mystical text based on divine dictation, we have to take a hard look at how we got some of our favorite epistles.
Let’s Talk About Paul (Again)
Paul is a complicated guy. Theologically brilliant. Emotionally... let’s say spirited. And deeply, undeniably mystical.
This is the man who was struck blind by a voice from heaven. Who claims to have received the gospel not from any human, but directly from the risen Christ (Galatians 1:12). Who was “caught up to the third heaven” and saw things he wasn’t even allowed to describe (2 Corinthians 12:2–4).
If Paul said he took dictation from Jesus, we’d nod thoughtfully and maybe quote him in a sermon.
If your cousin’s yoga teacher said the same, you’d probably smile politely and change the subject.
See the problem?
So What Is Channeling, Really?
I’m not saying we should treat all mystical writing as equal. But I am saying we need to be honest about our categories. Because what Paul experienced—and what many mystics throughout Christian history have experienced—looks suspiciously like what we now call “channeling.”
A strong inner Voice. A sense of urgency to write. Words that feel like they’re coming through you, not from you.
That doesn’t mean it’s all divine. But it also doesn’t mean it’s all delusion.
Mysticism has always been part of the Christian story. We’ve just learned to be suspicious of it when it shows up outside the footnotes.
Enter Helen Schucman
Helen Schucman, the scribe of ACIM, was a clinical psychologist at Columbia University. She had a Jewish background and a complicated spiritual upbringing that was shaped by a Catholic governess, a Baptist maid, and her mother’s dabbling in various Protestant churches. She was spiritually curious, especially about Christianity, but also deeply conflicted. What followed was a wildly complicated relationship with Jesus.
And yet, over the course of seven years, she wrote down what she described as a sort of inner dictation from a voice that identified itself as Christ. She didn’t believe it. She didn’t promote it. She resisted it every step of the way.
She was, in other words, a very unlikely channel.
And honestly, that’s part of what makes me take her seriously. She wasn’t trying to start a movement. She wasn’t selling miracle water. She was confused, resistant, and oddly faithful to the words she felt compelled to write.
So What Do We Do With That?
I’m not here to argue that ACIM should be canon. It shouldn’t.
But I do think it deserves a place in the broader conversation about how God has always spoken. Not just through the most well-known prophets and preachers of our tradition, but through poets, dreamers, and reluctant mystics.
As a Lutheran pastor, I stand in a tradition that (at its best) understands we are saved by grace, not theological precision. And if grace can use Paul (yes, impulsive, arrogant, visionary Paul) then maybe grace can speak through a skeptical Jewish academic in New York, too. Or through a medieval Rhineland mystic like Meister Eckhart, or his student Johannes Tauler, or any number of those wild pre-Reformation voices who spoke of union with God in ways that made the canon lawyers squirm.
Even if we don’t agree with every word, we can ask: What kind of God is being revealed here? And, in a Christian sense: Is this the kind of God I encounter in Jesus?
Because that’s the real test… Not how the message got here, but what it tells us about the heart of the One who speaks.
If the Apostle Paul could hear voices and call it gospel, maybe we can hold space for the weird and wonder-filled without immediately calling it heresy.
From Dictation to Devotion
I once heard someone say that if the gospel is true, it will sound like good news. And for me (though yes, some parts of ACIM made me raise an eyebrow) the message I encountered in its pages, whether it came from Jesus, Helen’s subconscious, or somewhere in between, sounded like really, really good news.
It said: Your identity is not in the guilt you feel. You have never left God. You are still and always held in love.
To this day, I’m not sure where that Voice came from. But I know what it did to me.
It broke the spell of fear. It reframed my image of God. It opened a path back to Christ.
And isn’t that the point?
🔜 Up Next
In the next post, we’ll look at the heart of the Course’s theology and ask the question so many have wondered:
Is A Course in Miracles heretical?
Spoiler: as a priest in the Lutheran tradition, I have thoughts…