Introduction to the Council of Nine
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Introduction
THE NINE COMMUNICATIONS
Palden JenkinsIntroducing the story of the Nine and their 'directness'
Channelling is of interest to many readers, and here we shall cover the basics of the process involved with 'transceiving' the Nine. At the back of the book is an appendix, which features what the Council of Nine themselves say about channelling.
In 1952, Puharich met an Indian scholar, Dr Vinod, who began to channel some beings called ‘The Nine’. A reasonable amount of material was channelled, and then things changed, and Dr Vinod returned to India, and was not heard of again. Puharich found the communications interesting, but since he was preoccupied with ESP research rather than with cosmic forces and beings, he filed the matter, and went on to other things – including working with the psychic surgeon Arigo, in Brazil, with Aldous Huxley, Eileen Garrett and Peter Hurkos.
Twenty-two years went by before regular communication with the Nine was taken up again. Andrija was led into this by his work with the Israeli Uri Geller, whom he met in 1971 – known for his remarkable public psychokinetic feats. This story is recounted in Puharich’s book Uri, published in 1974 (by Doubleday, New York). During the course of his escapades with Uri, contact was unexpectedly re-established with the Nine, through a tape recorder, using Uri’s psychokinetic abilities. Things were intensifying.
In 1974, Puharich, now complete with Geller, joined forces with Phyllis V Schlemmer, a nutritionalist, psychic medium and teacher from Florida, and Sir John Whitmore, a former racing driver, who had contacted Puharich to request him to appear at a conference he was organising in London. The story of this, and the first years of their work together were recounted in the book Prelude to the Landing on Planet Earth, by Stuart Holroyd (W H Allen, 1977, republished as Briefing for the Landing on Planet Earth, Pan, 1979). The communications contained in the book you are now reading started in 1974, and continue today.
Since 1974, various people have joined the group, in a somewhat serendipitous way, by introduction, ‘chance’ or design. Some have left the group also, often because of pressure of other commitments. This has been voluntary work, sometimes very demanding of time, energy and personal funds. As you will see, Andrija Puharich, a polymath of a rare kind these days, has done much to establish the standard of dialogue from the human side, while John Whitmore, who has been present at most channelling sessions, has worked in a rounding-out way, questioning the Nine on behalf of many, and frequently facilitating channelling sessions and the overall development of the group. Also, Phyllis’ husband, Israel Carmel, a healer, has worked ongoingly in an energy- teadying capacity (as a ‘battery’) through many sessions, even though he has not cropped up much in the questioning. You will see various other names arise in the text too, plus some unnamed guests.
The identity of these people is not of great importance to this book, except inasmuch as different personalities draw out different kinds of interactions and pieces of information from the Nine – thus the first names of various questioners have been included in the text. The members of the group are deeply dedicated to the work of supporting and participating in this channelling process, and the reason for the apparent secrecy around this is simply that they, already busy with active lives, do not wish to divert their attention from the essential work to be done with the Nine, by becoming publicly exposed or in demand.
Additionally, the Nine frequently make the point that enlightening information and teachings of the past have frequently become lost or corrupted in the propagation and institutionalising process inevitably following the initiation of new lines of teaching, shifting the emphasis away from teachings onto teachers – and their inevitable foibles and doctrinal modifications. The Nine do not seek to start a religion or organisation, or anything behaving like one. They seek solely to share information and viewpoints, with no glitz, glamour, elitism or cultification.
There are no headquarters, organisation or name for the group, and it is not seeking to expand or gain a high public profile. Its purpose is simply to support and participate in the channelling process, with an attitude of service.
The communications take the form of question-and-answer sessions, usually lasting 20-90 minutes, convened as and when necessary. Since the members of the group come from a number of countries, this happens either at twice- or thrice-yearly get-togethers, or in more frequent smaller sessions involving specific individuals. The channel, Phyllis, counts herself down into deep trance, following a procedure she has developed over the decades of her work. As she is counting herself down, it looks as if she is falling asleep in her chair. After a while she suddenly becomes animated, raises her head and hands, and announces, in a new voice, Tom’s, that he is present, and offers greetings and blessings.
When in trance, she is personally unconscious – her body and mind are taken over by the Nine, and bodily functions are maintained by a kind of ‘engineer’ to the Nine, Altea, who is head of a universal civilisation of the same name. While speaking, Phyllis’ hands move in a series of shapes – what in the East would be called mudras – presumably reflecting energy and intent behind Tom’s communication.
The Council of Nine channels information specifically through only one medium, Phyllis, and any other people claiming to channel the Nine are claiming incorrectly: it is possible to say this because the Nine have been very explicit about it, since they wish their message not to be corrupted or confused in any way. Channelling through only one channel is a way of maintaining the integrity of the message – also it reflects the scale of preparation, training and inner-operational complexities involved in making communication (what Tom calls ‘directness’) possible. Phyllis has been channelling for more than four decades.
There is, however, other channelled material which mentions the Nine – the two I know of seem to be reliable, but if you are in doubt about the validity and reliability of any source and channel, the Nine advise that you check the motivation of those involved (whether they are genuinely in service, or whether they seek to control or otherwise influence humankind without its knowing or full assent), and bear in mind the statement ‘by their works shall you know them’.
Please apply the same logic to this material, when making your assessments of it: it is not sufficient just to accept (or reject) our word that this material is genuine. Only through awareness and autonomy of judgement will we all be able to filter wholesome from counter-productive information and influences – in any arena of life. This applies not only to channellers, but to politicians, priests, journalists and all manner of pronouncers – even parents. The Nine affirm that on planet Earth, it is, for each of us, our own responsibility to distinguish truth from illusion.
Usually, Tom either starts the dialogue with something important, or the convener of the session – usually John Whitmore or Phyllis’ husband, Israel Carmel – asks whether there is anything Tom wishes to say before questions are asked. Then the dialogue starts – this book is peppered with examples of different interactions between questioners and the Nine. Eventually, Tom announces that he must go, the conversation is rounded up, greetings are exchanged, and Phyllis goes quiet, somewhat floppy, and eventually counts herself out of trance.
This procedure is sometimes a tricky business, and on occasion there are problems – the support of members of the group is important here, both during channelling sessions, and at other times in the channel’s daily life – her capacity to yield herself up to such deep mediumship also makes her much more vulnerable than most people. This is a deeper level of channelling than practised by most others, and extreme care, awareness and collectedness are required, from both Phyllis and the group.
On a few occasions, things have become unstable or even dangerous, since there are forces which would like to obstruct or prevent the process from working, and they sometimes disturb things. On all occasions, Phyllis has to put a lot of energy into her work: entirely giving oneself over to another consciousness for a period of time is no easy task. She does not remember anything of the dialogue when she surfaces into everyday consciousness – in fact, she has generally not even read most of the transcripts of the communications, in order to keep her mind uncluttered. At the end of each session, Tom always says “tell to our Being [Phyllis] of our love for her” – and if no one tells her, she does not know!
During a session, the channel speaks in Tom’s voice, which is high-pitched, slow, and uses somewhat archaic English (which I have edited into readable English in compiling this book). Periodically, Tom makes up new words, which are very expressive. The brain of the channel (what he calls the ‘servo-mechanism’) is used by Tom, the ‘spokesbeing’ for the Nine, as a translator, dictionary and syntax-organiser, since Tom does not actually communicate directly in words – more in energy and image-impulses which are translated within Phyllis’ mind-in-trance.
The Nine tend to volunteer only certain general items of information – otherwise, it has to be dug out through questioning. The quality of Tom’s answers varies according to the character and psyche of the questioner. Hence that, in this book, I have identified regular questioners by first name, so that you can gain a sense of the different characteristics of questioners.
During channelling sessions it can occasionally be quite difficult for people present to maintain a fully objective frame of mind, because the influence of the presence of the Nine, and of the channel in trance, tend to shift the balance of the brain out of the left (rational) into the right (imaginal) hemispheres. The presence of the Nine is quite distinguishable. In my own experience, it is comparable to being in the presence of an enlightened being: for example, you get the sense that your thoughts are known, plus a sense of uplift, plus the uncanny experience of having issues elucidated and questions answered even when they have not been verbalised.
I myself was brought into the Nine group for the purpose of working on this book. I had read Prelude in the late 1970s, and it had helped me immensely. During the 1980s, I forgot about it, even though I enacted much that I had learned from it, in the projects I was involved in at the time. In 1991, I was working at a part-time job as a book editor when the publisher received a phone call, and then turned to me and asked whether I would like to compile a book of metaphysical teachings. I was not automatically predisposed to get involved. However, I found myself saying Yes. It happens like that. The greatest gifts seem to come when not expected.
It all unfolded quickly from there: I was interviewed by John and the channel Phyllis, and then directly by Tom, and I seemed to be the right person to do the work, and was welcomed into the fold. I was then given a vastness of material on computer disk and paper, and spent over a year, more than full-time, producing this book. My first step was simultaneously to edit and correct all of the transcripts – carefully ironing out linguistic oddities, ambiguities and confusions, and also indexing and arranging them by theme and order of idea-presentation. In the process I was familiarising myself with the big picture and the many details of the material.
This took six months. Then I pulled out sections of important material, edited them further, and sorted them into roughly the sequence in which they appear in this book. Then I wrote a text to interweave into them, to amplify and elucidate the ideas and perspectives pouring forth from Tom. In my editing and sorting, I sought to improve readability without altering meaning or nuance.
While I have tried to be as true to the meaning and spirit of what I understand the Council of Nine are communicating, my own writings in this book are my own. Neither the Nine nor the human Nine group specified what or how I should write, although they gave me feedback and help with the drafts that I submitted. I needed to use my intuition to ‘consult upstairs’ on numerous occasions, when in doubt – either through pausing for thought, meditating, sleeping on things, or leaving an issue to clarify for a couple of days or weeks. This work has been a great challenge, drawing on all my experience, and inducing profound changes in me while I have done it. Now it’s over to you.
NOTE: Phyllis Schlemmer, Sir John Whitmore and Andrija Puharich have all now passed away. They have gone back home.