Contactee channelling

1. Introduction

Version followed: contactee channelling as documented in Christopher Helland's World Religions and Spirituality Project (WRSP) profile of the Ashtar Command (2016), the publisher's description of Barbara Marciniak's Pleiadian book Bringers of the Dawn, Religion News Service reporting on present-day online starseed and "Galactic Federation of Light" channelling (2026), and the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS) research on trance channellers. This is not a therapy: it is a spiritual practice clients bring to therapy. The inventory below is the psychotherapist's work with clients who channel, or who follow channelled messages.

What it is. Contactee channelling is the reception of messages said to come from extraterrestrial or "higher-dimensional" beings, delivered through a human "channel" and published as talks, books, newsletters and, today, videos and live streams. Main strands:

Ashtar Command. George Van Tassel, at Giant Rock, California, said that on 18 July 1952 he began receiving telepathic messages from "Ashtar", described as commandant of intergalactic forces. He held weekly Friday-night sessions and ran annual Giant Rock conventions (1953–1977) that drew crowds of up to about 11,000. Robert Short promoted Ashtar messages separately from 1952. From 1977 the channeller known as Tuella (Thelma B. Terrill) founded the "Ashtar Galactic Command" and published Project World Evacuation (1982). Online networks unified the teachings from the 1990s. [source: Helland, WRSP 2016]
Pleiadian messages. Barbara Marciniak, described by her publisher as "an internationally known trance channel", presents teachings from "a group of enlightened beings" who came to help humanity evolve. Key themes are a "Family of Light", an original twelve-strand DNA, moving beyond fear and consciously creating a new Earth (Inner Traditions/Simon & Schuster). [source: Simon & Schuster page] Other Pleiadian channellers exist [uncertain: not verified].
Arcturian messages. Arcturians appear in current starseed lore as wise, large-headed beings. [source: RNS] Named book-length Arcturian channellings (e.g. a 1990 title We, the Arcturians) [uncertain: not verified].
Galactic Federation of Light. Reported as an alliance of peaceful aliens channelled by online influencers. Viewers send questions to a Federation member with a particular specialty, and the channeller delivers guidance and predictions. Content is often illustrated with AI-generated images and sometimes accompanied by "light language" (vocal sounds with hand gestures). [source: RNS] Earlier Federation channellers and their dated "first contact" predictions [uncertain: not verified].

Concepts, as the currents hold them. Ashtar is described by the 1990s guidelines as an "Ascended, Immortal and 'Christed Master'" (an exalted spiritual being, not only a ship commander). "Lightworkers" are people with a mission to hold and spread spiritual light. "Starseeds" are souls believed to have chosen to incarnate as humans from other star systems to awaken others from "the Matrix". "Ascension" is a shift into a higher dimension, sometimes called a "Great Awakening". [source: Helland, WRSP; RNS]

How channellers describe the process. Van Tassel called his method telepathy and "resonance", presented it as scientific, and rejected the idea of spirit possession: "You CANNOT 'channel' space intelligence." Short described giving up one's body to another intelligence, and also used automatic writing and radio or TV reception. Later channellers used mediumship and passive reception. [source: Helland, WRSP] IONS researchers define full-trance channelling as a willing entry into a dissociated state to bring forth an intelligent "entity", with variable awareness of what is said. [source: Wahbeh, Carpenter & Radin 2018, abstract on noetic.org] Channelling-development courses and manuals exist [uncertain: not verified]; this guide gives no induction steps, and the therapist does not teach channelling.

Apocalyptic dates. The Ashtar strand repeatedly announced catastrophe and mass evacuation by spacecraft: hydrogen-bomb warnings (1952), Tuella's evacuation forecasts, and a predicted destruction of Earth in 1994. When these did not happen, messages were reinterpreted as spiritual ascension, or blamed on "negative space beings". [source: Helland, WRSP] For a group that acted fatally on a departure belief, see 143 (Heaven's Gate). For date-centred ascension movements, see 144 (Harmonic Convergence and the 2012 shift).

Evidence status (one line). That messages come from extraterrestrials is a faith claim. IONS reports one small exploratory study with a modest random-number-generator difference during channelling, which its authors present as a lead for further study, not established evidence. [source: Wahbeh et al. 2018 abstract]

How change happens in therapy. The client's distress, functioning and choices change through exploring the messages' meaning in the client's own terms, separating benign spiritual experience from treatable conditions, and restoring the client's own authority over decisions, money and relationships. [synthesis]

2. Framework

No source gives a session count or format for therapy with channellers. The phases below are [synthesis], built on the DSM-5 Cultural Formulation Interview (CFI) and Lukoff's diagnostic criteria. Move through them flexibly; risk overrides order.

Engagement and mapping (early sessions). Goal: a working alliance in which the client feels safe describing contact experiences. Map the client's role (receiver, consumer, teacher), sources followed, time and money spent, and any dates being awaited. Move on when the client can describe the practice openly and has named their own concern.
Cultural formulation and differential assessment. Goal: understand the practice in the client's cultural and spiritual context (CFI core and Modules 1, 5 and 7). Distinguish non-pathological channelling from dissociative disorder, psychosis, mania, OCD, trauma or grief. Move on when risk is assessed and a shared working account exists. Move straight to referral (Phase 4) if psychosis, mania or acute risk appears.
Focused work. Goal: work on what the client brought (fear of predicted events, family conflict, dependence on a channeller, spending, conspiracy distress, after-effects of intense practice, a failed date). Use the inventory in section 4. Move on when the client's functioning and choices are their own and the agreed goals are met.
Referral, coordination and ending. Goal: link to psychiatry, medical care, crisis services or a community the client trusts; plan for future dates and relapse cues.

3. Guiding principles

Neither affirm nor dismiss the contact. Meaning: describe the beings, Ashtar or the Federation in the client's words; do not argue ontology. [source: Lukoff lesson: clinicians unfamiliar with a tradition may misjudge its practices]
Channelling alone is not a diagnosis. Meaning: in IONS samples channellers score higher than controls on dissociation and psychosis screens but usually below clinical thresholds, and are often high-functioning. Assess distress, control and impairment, not the belief. [source: IONS, Wahbeh 2021; Wahbeh & Radin 2018 as listed by IONS]
Distress, control and function decide. Meaning: the DSM dissociative trance criteria turn on involuntariness, distress or impairment and whether the practice is culturally accepted. [source: IONS, DTD vs trance channelling]
Use culture as context. Meaning: run the CFI Module 5 (spirituality, religion and moral traditions) to see how the practice helps and stresses the client. [source: APA CFI Supplementary Modules]
Risk first, without overreach. Meaning: assess suicide and harm risk when dates, "departure" or ascension talk appear; restrictive measures only when danger is imminent. [source: Lukoff lesson]
The client keeps authority over decisions. Meaning: notice when health, money, relationships or medicines are being decided by messages, and help the client decide for themselves. [synthesis]
Curious, non-shaming stance towards conspiracy content. Meaning: the content is often mixed with messages of love; explore needs it meets (agency, meaning, belonging) before content. [source: RNS, researchers Hannah and Cook]
The therapist is never the channel. Meaning: no readings, channelling, light-language sessions or interpretations of messages "from" beings in therapy; keep any personal spiritual practice outside the role. [synthesis]
Stay within competence. Meaning: seek consultation or training in spiritual and religious competencies when unfamiliar with the current. [synthesis; spiritual competency framework of Vieten et al. 2013 [uncertain: not verified]]
Name the problem without pathologising. Meaning: where the focus is a spiritual or religious problem rather than a disorder, ICD-10-CM Z65.8 lists "Religious or spiritual problem" as an inclusion term. [source: Unbound Medicine ICD-10-CM] DSM-5-TR wording of this category [uncertain: not verified].

4. Intervention inventory

All interventions are the psychotherapist's own work. Channellers' texts give no clinical procedures. Steps are [synthesis] unless a source is tagged.

4.1 Opening, consent and a non-judgemental frame

Purpose: make it safe to describe contact experiences that clients often hide for fear of being called "crazy" (IONS notes this stigma). [source: IONS, Wahbeh 2021] Use at first mention.
Steps: (1) Ask permission to explore the practice. (2) State that you will neither confirm nor dispute the beings' reality, and that your job is the client's wellbeing. (3) Adopt the client's terms (Ashtar, the Pleiadians, "the Federation", lightworker, starseed). (4) Agree what the client wants from therapy, which may have nothing to do with the channelling.
Example language (illustrative): "Many people have experiences like this and keep them private. I'm not here to judge whether the messages are real. I'm interested in what they mean for you and how they affect your life. Is that all right?"
Watch for: guardedness, testing whether you will mock or "diagnose"; a client recruiting you as a believer. Working: the client describes the experiences in detail and names their own concerns.

4.2 Mapping the practice, role and network

Purpose: know what the client actually does and consumes. Use early.
Steps: (1) Role: does the client receive messages, attend sessions or streams, buy courses or readings, or teach? (2) Sources: which channellers, books, channels, groups; the Ashtar, Pleiadian, Arcturian or Federation strand. (3) Form: telepathic "knowing", conscious channelling, full trance with reduced awareness, automatic writing, light language. (4) Frequency, time of day, sleep impact. (5) Money spent and on what. (6) Dates or events awaited (evacuation, landings, "first contact", ascension). (7) Who in the client's life knows, and how they react.
Example language (illustrative): "Walk me through the last time a message came. Where were you, what did you notice first, and how did you come back to ordinary awareness?"
Watch for: time and spending escalating, a single channeller becoming the main authority, a date approaching. Working: a clear, shared picture you can return to.

4.3 Cultural Formulation Interview, with Modules 1, 5 and 7

Purpose: place the practice in the client's cultural and spiritual world. Use in Phase 2. [source: APA CFI Supplementary Modules]
Steps: (1) Run the core CFI in your own words. (2) Module 5 (Spirituality, Religion and Moral Traditions): spiritual identity and community ties; role of the practice in daily and family life and major decisions; practices at home and outside; how it helps the client cope (leaders, texts, media, communal practice); stresses it brings (distress, discrimination, conflict). (3) Module 1 (Explanatory Model): the client's own account of the problem and its cause, which may be spiritual ("negative beings", "low vibration"). (4) Module 7 (Coping and Help-Seeking): spiritual help, media, remedies, community and other healers already used. The APA allows clinicians to reproduce the CFI for use with their patients. [source: APA CFI Supplementary Modules]
Example language (illustrative): "How does your connection with the Pleiadians help you get through hard times? Are there ways it has made things harder?"
Watch for: the practice as a source of belonging and meaning (protect it) versus a source of conflict or isolation. Working: you can state the client's explanatory model back in their words and they agree.

4.4 Exploring the meaning of the messages

Purpose: use the messages as material about the client's hopes, fears and values. Use once trust exists.
Steps: (1) Ask the client to bring a message that mattered (describe, not read out at length). (2) Explore what it asks of them and how it feels: being part of a "Family of Light", having a mission, being chosen, being warned. (3) Link themes to the client's life (loneliness, need for purpose, fear of catastrophe). (4) Ask what the client would want for themselves, independent of the message.
Example language (illustrative): "When the message says you are here to awaken others, what does that stir in you? Where else in your life have you felt that responsibility?"
Watch for: the therapist interpreting messages as if from the beings (do not); grandiosity rising. Working: the client speaks of values and choices as their own.

4.5 Assessing the channelling state: dissociation

Purpose: distinguish non-pathological trance from a dissociative disorder. Use when the client channels or reports trance. [source: IONS, DTD vs trance channelling]
Steps: (1) Voluntariness and control: can the client start, stop and limit sessions? IONS contrasts channelling (controlled switching and duration) with dissociative trance disorder (uncontrolled). (2) Awareness and amnesia: variable awareness is reported in channelling; marked amnesia, lost time outside sessions or unknown identities acting are concerns. (3) Distress and impairment: work, relationships, sleep, self-care. (4) Cultural acceptance: is the practice accepted in the client's community? (5) If concerns remain, use a validated dissociation screening instrument and refer for specialist assessment [synthesis]. (6) Ask about depersonalisation and derealisation between sessions.
Example language (illustrative): "When a session ends, do you feel fully back in yourself? Have you ever found that an entity, or a different part of you, came through when you didn't choose it?"
Watch for: involuntary onset, entities that frighten or command, lost time, self-harm in altered states. Working: the client can describe clear boundaries around the practice. Evidence context: channellers in IONS samples score higher than non-channellers on dissociation, usually below pathological thresholds. [source: IONS, Wahbeh 2021]

4.6 Psychosis and mania differential

Purpose: identify psychosis or mania without treating the belief as a symptom. Use at intake and when content, sleep or behaviour change. [source: Lukoff lesson]
Steps: (1) Note features Lukoff links to mystical experience: ecstatic mood, a sense of new knowledge, perceptual change, mythic themes, and no conceptual disorganisation. (2) Check prognostic signs of a positive outcome: good prior functioning, acute onset within three months or less, a stressful precipitant, and a positive, exploratory attitude. (3) Apply Greenberg and Witztum's guidelines as Lukoff summarises them: psychotic experiences tend to be more personal, go beyond the group's norms, terrify rather than excite, dominate thinking, and come with declining social skills and hygiene. (4) Ask about reduced need for sleep, pressured speech, spending sprees and grandiose mission (mania). (5) Check substances and medical causes. (6) Assess suicide and harm risk. [source: Lukoff lesson] (7) Compare the client's beliefs with those of the published current: a message that the client personally must act, or that only they are receiving, differs from shared community lore. [synthesis]
Example language (illustrative): "How do other people who follow the Ashtar messages see what you're receiving? Is anything you're hearing different from what they would recognise?"
Watch for: thought disorder, command content, sleep loss, beliefs about TV, radio or devices sending personal messages beyond what the current teaches, rapid escalation. Working: a clear decision to continue in therapy or refer urgently. Lukoff stresses these criteria are hypotheses to apply with cultural sensitivity.

4.7 OCD, scrupulosity and anxiety differential

Purpose: spot compulsive checking of messages, fear of "negative beings" or "low vibration", and reassurance-seeking from channellers. [synthesis]
Steps: (1) Ask whether the client repeatedly checks channels or feeds for reassurance, or performs protective acts to neutralise intrusive fears. (2) Rate distress and time consumed. (3) If OCD features predominate, offer or refer for exposure and response prevention from a trained clinician [synthesis; uncertain: not verified]. (4) Agree with the client which practices are valued spiritual practice and which are compulsions.
Example language (illustrative): "If you couldn't check the latest message tonight, what do you fear would happen?"
Watch for: checking that grows when anxiety grows; relief that lasts minutes. Working: the client can tolerate uncertainty without checking.

4.8 Grief differential

Purpose: recognise when channelling or contact seeking follows a loss, or when a channeller relays messages from a dead person. [synthesis]
Steps: (1) Ask about recent losses and when the practice began. (2) Explore what contact gives the client. (3) Support grief work in the client's terms. (4) Watch for paid contact with the deceased becoming repeated and costly. Recovered or "past-life" memories arising through channelled sessions: suggestion and false memory, see Domain VI 110.
Example language (illustrative): "You started listening to these messages a few months after your father died. What has that connection given you?"
Watch for: avoidance of grief, rising spending. Working: the client can talk about the loss directly.

4.9 Working with apocalyptic dates and failed predictions

Purpose: reduce fear and harmful preparation before a predicted event (evacuation, landing, "first contact", destruction, ascension), and support the client after it passes. The Ashtar strand has a documented history of dated predictions that did not occur and were later reinterpreted. [source: Helland, WRSP] Use whenever a date is named.
Steps: (1) Ask what the client expects, when, and what they plan to do before it (quit work, give away money or possessions, cut off family, stop medical care, travel). (2) Assess risk directly, including any idea of leaving the body or "departing" (see 4.13). (3) Agree a plan that keeps commitments reversible until after the date ("keep your job and savings until we meet the week after"). (4) Book a session soon after the date. (5) Afterwards, explore the client's experience without triumph: disappointment, shame, relief, or a new reinterpretation (a spiritual ascension in place of a physical one, as historically happened). (6) Notice whether the reinterpretation reduces or increases distress and dependence.
Example language (illustrative): "Whatever happens on that day, what would you want to still have the week after? Could we protect those things now?" After the date: "How has it been for you since the date passed?"
Watch for: irreversible acts, isolation, increased commitment after disconfirmation, despair. Working: the client's life is intact after the date and they can reflect on it. See 144 for date-centred ascension movements.

4.10 Conspiracy entanglement

Purpose: respond to conspiracy content that often appears inside starseed and Federation channelling (a satanic or reptilian cabal, a "shadow government", "deep state"). Researchers quoted by RNS note that believing in UFOs or starseeds does not make someone a QAnon follower but may make similar theories easier to accept, that good-versus-evil stories can feel more satisfying than economic explanations and give a sense of agency, and that a felt duty to fight corrupt elites can have dangerous consequences in extreme cases. [source: RNS] Use when the client raises such content or it affects relationships or safety.
Steps: (1) Do not debate facts first. Ask what the content explains for the client and what it gives them (agency, belonging, a story about suffering). (2) Explore effects on sleep, fear, relationships and work. (3) Ask whether the content calls for action, and assess risk of harm to self or others. (4) Help the client widen their sources and contacts at their own pace. (5) Where there is a credible threat of violence, follow your legal and professional duties.
Example language (illustrative): "When you hear about the cabal in the messages, what happens in your body? What do you feel called to do about it?"
Watch for: escalating calls to act, dehumanising language, withdrawal from everyone outside the online community. Working: the client holds the content with more distance and spends more time in offline relationships.

4.11 Dependence on a channeller and financial review

Purpose: identify parasocial dependence on a channeller and money spent on readings, Q&A sessions, courses, retreats or products. Present-day Federation channelling invites viewers to send questions for guidance and predictions. [source: RNS] Use when the client defers decisions to messages or spending rises.
Steps: (1) List decisions over the last months and who made them (the client, a message, a channeller). (2) Total spending with the client, without judgement. (3) Ask how the channeller responds to doubt, questions or leaving. (4) Identify decisions the client wants back. (5) Agree a small, concrete step (a spending ceiling, a decision made before checking messages). (6) Health decisions stay with the client's own clinicians; never advise the client to start, stop or change a medicine.
Example language (illustrative): "If you made this decision first and then listened to the message, what would you choose?"
Watch for: debt, pressure to buy, a channeller discouraging medical care or family contact, shame about spending. Working: the client makes decisions first and uses messages, if at all, as one input.

4.12 Adverse effects of intensive practice: monitoring and stabilising

Purpose: respond to fear, insomnia, perceptual sensitivity, depersonalisation or derealisation after intensive channelling, meditation or group "activations". Many channelling sessions use meditation and visualisation; the 1990s Ashtar "Lift-off" experience used guided meditation, visualisation and a repeated mantra to reach spaceships. [source: Helland, WRSP] Lindahl et al. (2017) documented 59 kinds of meditation-related challenges in seven domains (including fear, panic, insomnia, light and sound hypersensitivity, involuntary movements), lasting from days to more than a decade, influenced partly by practice intensity, history and the teacher relationship. [source: Brown University release on Lindahl et al. 2017] Use when such effects appear.
Steps: (1) Normalise: such effects are documented and not the client's fault. [source: Brown release] (2) Ask the client to reduce intensity and frequency of practice for now, with their consent. (3) Prioritise sleep, routine, food, company and daylight. (4) Use simple grounding through the senses (naming what is seen and heard, feeling feet on the floor) [synthesis]; avoid any intensive breathwork. (5) If effects persist, worsen or include psychotic or manic features, refer (4.15). Meditation-specific support resources exist (Britton's Cheetah House; Treleaven 2018, trauma-sensitive mindfulness) [uncertain: not verified].
Example language (illustrative): "What you're describing is something other practitioners have reported too. For the next couple of weeks, could we try lighter practice and see what settles?"
Watch for: the group or channeller framing the effects as "ascension symptoms" to push through. Working: sleep returns, fear lessens, the client feels back in the world.

4.13 Risk assessment and safety planning

Purpose: respond safely to suicidal thinking, ideas of leaving the body to "ascend" or join ships, or harm to others. Use whenever such themes, a date, or despair appear.
Steps: (1) Ask directly about suicidal thoughts, intent, plans and preparation, using your service's standard risk assessment. (2) Ask whether messages or a group encourage leaving, departure or harm. (3) Build a safety plan: warning signs, coping steps, people and services to contact, and making means less accessible (storage or removal). (4) Involve crisis services when risk is high. (5) Follow safe messaging: no method details; do not frame death as transition or reward. [synthesis] (6) Lukoff advises reserving restrictive measures for imminent danger. [source: Lukoff lesson] See 143 (Heaven's Gate) for how group departure beliefs escalated.
Example language (illustrative): "Sometimes when people talk about ascending or leaving, they're also thinking about ending their life. Has that been on your mind?"
Watch for: giving away possessions, goodbyes, a leader's urgency, isolation. Working: a written plan the client owns and uses.

4.14 Family members' concerns

Purpose: support relatives worried about a family member's involvement. Use when relatives seek help or join sessions with consent.
Steps: (1) Hear their fears and what they have tried. (2) Encourage contact that is curious, not combative; arguing about the beings' reality usually entrenches positions [synthesis]. (3) Help them identify concrete risks (money, health, safety, children) and appropriate responses. (4) Point them to their own support.
Example language (illustrative): "What matters most to you is staying close to your sister. What helps her feel you're on her side, even when you don't share the beliefs?"
Watch for: ultimatums, ridicule, attempts at coercive removal. Working: contact maintained, risks addressed.

4.15 Referral, coordination and documentation

Purpose: link to the right help. Use when psychosis, mania, severe dissociation, OCD, high risk, medical neglect or child safeguarding concerns appear.
Steps: (1) Urgent psychiatric assessment for psychosis, mania or high risk. (2) Specialist referral for dissociative disorders or OCD. (3) Medical review where health decisions are being guided by messages. (4) With the client's wish and consent, involve a trusted community member, spiritual counsellor or leader. (5) Where the focus is a spiritual problem rather than a disorder, ICD-10-CM Z65.8 includes "Religious or spiritual problem". [source: Unbound Medicine] (6) Children: where a child is labelled a "starseed" in place of assessment, isolated, or kept from medical care, refer for developmental or medical assessment and follow safeguarding procedures; seek the child's assent. [synthesis]
Example language (illustrative): "I'd like you to see a psychiatrist who will respect your spiritual life. They can help with the sleep and the fear while we keep working together."
Watch for: referral felt as rejection or as dismissal of the beliefs. Working: the client attends and stays engaged with you.

4.16 Holding role boundaries

Purpose: keep therapy separate from spiritual service. Use throughout.
Steps: (1) Do not channel, give readings, use light language, or interpret messages as if you had access to the beings. (2) If you have your own spiritual practice, keep it outside therapy and avoid dual roles (e.g. attending the client's channelling events, buying from them, recommending channellers). (3) Self-disclose about your own beliefs only if it clearly serves the client, briefly. (4) If the client asks you to channel or validate a message, return to the client's meaning. [synthesis; the profession's ethics code: https://www.apa.org/ethics/code]
Example language (illustrative): "I'm not able to tell you what the Arcturians want. I can help you work out what you want, and how this message fits with that."
Watch for: pressure to join or endorse; your own curiosity or scepticism steering the session. Working: the client uses therapy for their own goals.

5. Handling problems

Sources address few of these directly. Guidance is [synthesis] unless tagged.

The client wants you to confirm the messages are real. Say plainly that you cannot judge that, and that you take the experience seriously. Return to what the confirmation would mean to them (safety, being believed). (illustrative) "It sounds important that someone believes you. Tell me what it's been like when people haven't."
The client wants you to say they are wrong, or a relative does. Do not argue ontology. Focus on distress, function, money and safety. Lukoff warns that clinicians unfamiliar with a tradition may misjudge its practices. [source: Lukoff lesson]
The messages tell the client to stop therapy, medication or medical care. Explore the conflict without taking sides against the beings; never advise on medicines; encourage the client to discuss any change with their prescriber; assess risk and involve the client's doctor with consent.
The client fears "negative beings", attack or interference. Check for OCD, trauma intrusions and psychosis (4.6, 4.7); otherwise work with fear directly, reduce intensive practice and consider what protective meanings the client's own tradition offers, without performing any protection ritual yourself.
Overwhelm after an intense session, stream or group event. Stabilise first (4.12): grounding, sleep, company; pause practice by agreement; refer if psychotic or manic features appear.
A predicted date passes (or fails). Expect shame, grief, anger, or rapid reinterpretation; historically, failures were recast as spiritual ascension or blamed on hostile beings. [source: Helland, WRSP] Avoid "I told you so"; explore the experience; watch for renewed commitment with a new date, and for despair.
Escalating conspiracy content. Keep the relationship; ask about calls to action; assess harm risk; follow duties where a credible threat exists. [source: RNS researchers on risk in extreme cases; duties synthesis]
Non-attendance or dropping out near a date or event. Contact the client; offer a brief check-in; if risk was identified, follow your safety plan and service policy.
The client is themselves a paid channeller. Explore pressures (income, audience expectations, fatigue, the experience becoming involuntary); assess dissociation (4.5); respect their work; help them set limits.
Rupture when you raise psychosis or refer. Name the rupture, validate the fear of being dismissed, explain that referral is about sleep, fear or safety, not the beliefs; keep seeing the client if possible.
The client reports "recovered" past-life or abduction memories through channelled sessions. Avoid suggestion and leading questions; do not confirm or elaborate memories; see Domain VI 110 on suggestion and false memory.
Children in the household. If children are given starseed or similar labels in place of assessment, kept from school or medical care, or exposed to frightening apocalyptic content, assess impact, refer for assessment, and follow safeguarding procedures.
Your own reactions (fascination, scorn, fear). Use supervision; consult someone familiar with new religious movements.
Group pressure, isolation or a leader's urgency. Signs that call for closer attention: rising demands for money or time, discouragement of outside contact or medical care, escalating dates, and a leader's crisis. See 143 for a documented escalation that ended in deaths.

Sources

Publications cited from the pages above:

Wahbeh, H., Carpenter, L., & Radin, D. (2018). A mixed methods phenomenological and exploratory study of channeling. Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, 82(3), 129–148.
Wahbeh, H., & Radin, D. (2018). People reporting experiences of mediumship have higher dissociation symptom scores than non-mediums, but below thresholds for pathological dissociation. F1000Research, 6, 1416. (as listed by IONS)
Lindahl et al. 2017, PLOS ONE: Lindahl, J., Britton, W., Fisher, N., Cooper, D., & Rosen, R., "The varieties of contemplative experience" (as described by Brown University).
Tuella (1982). Project World Evacuation (as listed by WRSP).

Also cited [uncertain: not verified]: Treleaven 2018; Vieten et al. 2013; the 1990 Arcturian title We, the Arcturians.

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