Channeling is an old practice dressed up in a new name. Every culture has its conduits to the afterlife. In late 20th-century America, it seems those conduits tend to be primarily female, middle-class, and in touch with their inner Sufi warriors. Starting in the early '80s with JZ Knight and her 9,000-year-old Sufi guide, Ramtha, channeling in its most recent, new-age persona entered the mainstream consciousness. Earlier, in the days of good old-fashioned seances, people visited mediums to get in touch with the deceased; now they go to hear variations on 12-step affirmations. In his book The Channeling Zone, Michael F. Brown, a professor of anthropology and Latin American studies at Williams College, offers an insightful look at the religious, commercial, and psychological aspects of channeling. Professor Brown bills himself as a "participant-observer" in his study, a role that permits him to explore some aspects of the subject at greater depth. His book details the phenomenon of channeling without attempting either to debunk or support it. Although Brown provides an artful analysis of a controversial practice, some readers may find it frustrating that he describes channeling's rather self-absorbed messages at length but seldom submits them to rigorous examination.


The New York Times Book Review, Philip Zaleski
Mr. Brown . . . deals splendidly with the subtexts of channeling, and describes, perhaps too gently, its intellectual vapidity, moral slipperiness and social solipsism. Curiously, though, he ignores...the most important question of all: . . . Is it a supernatural revelation or a tunneling into the nether regions of the unconscious? Skirting the issue, he settles for calling channeling a game. . . .


NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
"[An] artful analysis of a largely artless, anti-analytical phenomenon...Happily, The Channeling Zone digs beneath the fluff [of its subject]. Mr. Brown explores the ways channeling experiments with sexual identity (most channels are female, while most of the spirits they embody are male), retails religion and celebrates our post-modern fascination with multiple identities (channeling has 'elevated the protean impulse to a sacred principle'). He sees channeling, correctly, as utterly American in its individualism, commercialism and faith in progress...Mr. Brown...deals splendidly with the subtexts of channeling."


James Peacock, Kenan Professor of Anthropolgy, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
"Vividly reveals the sense behind this seemingly exotic New Age but historically grounded practice."


Kai Erikson, William R. Kenan Jr., Professor of Sociology and American Studies, Yale University
"A remarkably skilled ethnographer has made his way to a distant place within the borders of his own country, and he now returns with a wise and compelling report on New Age channelers in our time. Like so much else in this shifting cultural landscape, channeling is a new phenomenon that nonetheless has roots reaching deep into the history of American spirituality. A fascinating account."


Robert Wuthnow, Princeton University, and author of Sharing the Journey: Support Groups and America's New Quest for Community
"Michael Brown has written a brilliant book on one of the most controversial religious phenomena of our time. He shows why channeling has become attractive to millions of Americans, how it works, and what its role in the spiritual marketplace is."

FROM THE PUBLISHER