Carey, Ken
Carey, Ken
(religion, spiritualism, and occult)Through the 1980s and 1990s, Chicagoan Ken Carey was one of the most popular New Age channelers, sharing the material he had received through a set of books. His story begins with his quitting a job with the post office and moving to a rural setting in the Ozark Mountains of Missouri. Through the mid-1970s he and his wife lived without most of the major modern conveniences, such as electricity and plumbing, and he shut himself off from the larger society as manifest in newspapers, magazines, radio, and television. For a time he worked with an Amish carpenter.
He made the initial contact with a presence, whom he would later name Raphael, while lying in bed with a cold, and over the winter of 1978–1979 he channeled the material for what became his first book, The Starseed Transmissions, which was published under the channeled entity’s name. Reflecting on the channeling process, Carey noted that the original communications were nonverbal. He received waves or pulsations that carried meta-conceptual information. Eventually, however, verbal material did come through, some of it originating with an entity whoidentified himself with Christ who had spoken in ancient time though Jesus.
The source of the channeled material varied from book to book, but some themes carried through the whole of the writings. He presented a very optimistic picture of transformation and progress that would often be punctuated by a period of uncomfortable change. In the 1980s his understanding of change was very much in line with the radical transformation anticipated by New Agers, but in the 1990s change was seen more as a constant part of human existence. He also believed that it was possible for humans to live in a better alignment with nature. He was against the gathering of so many people in urban complexes and saw an emphasis on rationality as blocking access to God.
In his more mature reflections on the channeling process, he has noted that he does not push his ego aside, as occurs with many trance mediums, but is a fully conscious participant in the process. He relaxes, and allows his ego to relax, thus allowing his awareness of the larger world to come to the fore.