How do I receive dictations from ascended masters?

By Kim Michaels

I have often been asked questions about how I take a dictation, what it feels like and how I experience the different masters. I will talk about these issues in this and the following article.

Not trance channeling

The first thing I want to address is that what I do is not what is commonly called trance channeling. In other words, I do not go into a trance where a master takes over my mind and I am not aware of what is being said. I once read about a well-known channeler who says she is taken out of her body into a higher dimension while channeling, and she allows the channeling entity to take over her body and mind for a time. This entity even uses her body to drink wine, which it supposedly still likes.

I mentioned in an earlier article that even as a child I was aware that my mind is the biggest asset I have and that I needed to keep it as pure as possible. At the same time, I have always been very sensitive to energy and can, as I also described, easily feel when someone or something is seeking to influence my mind through what I call a psychic projection. I have also described that I have always been aware that it is my responsibility to make my own decisions in life.

I would never dream of putting myself or allowing someone else to put me in a trance. I have always known intuitively that I can never allow anyone or anything to take over my mind. This was something I knew from childhood, and it was confirmed by the Summit where it was said that the ascended masters have complete respect for free will and thus would never take over the mind of a messenger. I totally agree with that based on my own inner knowing and experience.

For me, taking a message has never been a goal in itself. I have no desire to impress anyone else so I am not willing to have an entity take over my mind in order to bring forth some kind of unusual message. For me, discernment has always been essential, and I have shunned anything that I sensed was seeking to interfere with my mind. When I receive a dictation, I am fully conscious and I am aware of everything that is being said. I could stop the dictation at any time.

Where a dictation comes from

There are four levels of the material universe, and the ascended masters only work in the higher levels of the identity or etheric realm. In order to receive a dictation from a master, I have to be able to raise my consciousness to that level. How do I do that?

First of all, I have to have a certain purity in my four lower bodies. If I had a lot of emotional turmoil, it would be difficult to go through the noise in the feeling body. If I was very intellectual and had a tendency for my thoughts to go around in circles, it would be difficult to go beyond the mental body. If I was strongly attached to a certain earthly identity, I would find it difficult to go beyond the lower levels of the identity realm. For me, there is no doubt that spending all those years giving thousands of hours of decrees was an essential part of my preparation. It definitely transformed a lot of the energy in my four lower bodies so I could tune in to the higher levels.

One way to describe the process is that my conscious mind is like a dial on a radio receiver. We can turn the dial and tune in to different radio stations. It is a matter of being able to turn the dial past the emotional and mental stations until I find the ascended master station. Yet what if the dial cannot turn freely? What if I had certain energy accumulations or strong personal attachments that prevented the dial from turning far enough to reach the ascended master radio station? In that case I might either get static or I might tune in to a lower station.

As I have described in other articles, if my intention was not pure (for example, I had a grudge against someone and wanted the ascended masters to affirm it) or if I wanted the masters to affirm my personal perception of life, how would I turn the dial of the mind far enough?

The state of mind necessary for receiving a dictation

In my experience, receiving a dictation is a delicate balance. I am not in a trance, but I am not in my normal, waking consciousness either. In certain types of esoteric literature, we can find the concept of witnessing or silent witnessing. For example, the entire purpose of Zen Buddhism is to get us out of our normal state of mind into what is sometimes called “beginner’s mind.” This is a state of mind in which we are not analyzing and judging as we normally do. Instead, we are intensely present and aware, but we are simply witnessing what is happening without judging or analyzing it. When the Buddha was asked whether he was a God or a man, he said: “I am awake.” PadmaSambhava, the eight-century mystic who brought Buddhism to Tibet called it “naked awareness,” and his treatise on it is on the Internet.

There is a similar concept in the gnostic teachings about breaking down the subject-object barrier. Instead of seeing ourselves as a subject observing an object from a distance, we raise our consciousness and experience oneness with the object: gnosis. Mystics from various schools have describe how they experienced this higher state of consciousness, in which they were simply witnessing what was happening without feeling involved in it.

The process can be described in different ways, but the core of it is that I go beyond my normal state of mind and go into a frame of mind in which I am neutral. I am open to something from outside my normal state of mind, and because I am completely neutral – have no attachments or preconceived ideas of what should or should not be said – I can avoid being pulled in by psychic entities and reach all the way to the ascended masters.

I had personally experienced that state of mind many times before I started as a messenger. At first, this happened spontaneously during my childhood and teenage years. After I learned meditation, I would often experience it during meditation. After I found ascended master teachings, I would experience it during decrees or while listening to a dictation in the Summit. I was very familiar with how it felt like to be in a neutral state of mind, where I am beyond my normal thoughts, perceptions and attachments. I had also read about this frame of mind, understood it intellectually and understood that it is the ultimate goal of self-mastery and spiritual growth.

I understood that the key to Christ consciousness is to go beyond the judging mind that can only operate with two dualistic polarities. I understood that the key to Buddhahood is to let go of all of my attachments. Why do I think this is so important? Because the value of the ascended masters for us is that the masters are completely beyond the state of mind that keeps us trapped in the unascended state. I understood from the teachings of the Summit that we will never ascend until we leave behind that state of consciousness. I understood that the key to doing so is to attain a frame of reference, showing me that there is a state of consciousness beyond the human level.

This frame of reference can only come from the ascended masters who have transcended the human state of consciousness. I directly experienced that the ascended masters are in this neutral, non-judgmental state of mind. I believe that if we cannot go into this neutral state of mind, we cannot tune in to the ascended masters. Instead, we will very easily tune in to some entity in the psychic realm who might pose as an ascended master and validate our perceptions or attachments.

Mystics have described this state of mind in various ways. In the language currently used by the masters, the core of my lower being is the Conscious You. This part of my being was created in the neutral state of mind, which the masters call pure awareness. Normally, the Conscious You experiences life through the perception filter of the outer self. Yet we can never lose the ability to project ourselves out of the lower self and experience pure awareness. I didn’t have the concept of the Conscious You when I started as a messenger, but it accurately describes what I have experienced all of my life.

Overcoming separation

In the Summit the image given in the popular culture was that the ascended masters are far above us. This was a clearly Piscean image in the sense that it ties in with the image that God is residing above us in a heavenly realm. In the Summit it was seen that taking a dictation was extremely difficult, which is why the messenger had to be so special and have all this training and mantles in order to take dictations (meaning no one but her could do so). 

That is also why it was said that we needed to have a large group of people decree for several hours in order to set a forcefield for a dictation to come through.

At first I accepted this view, but over time, I began to see that it wasn’t the highest understanding. During the early 1990’s I read a lot of books about popular science, including quantum physics. I came to understand that the old model of the world was completely outdated and based on our senses. One example of it is the old medieval view where it was believed that if we could travel up from the earth, we would break through a membrane and physically enter heaven.

I started realizing that the ascended masters are not separated from us by any barrier or distance. Everything is energy, meaning everything is vibration. There is no distance or barrier between me and the ascended masters. The masters are right where with me; they are around me right now. I don’t see them because they are in a realm of higher vibrations, but there is no barrier separating my mind from that realm. If I go into the state of witnessing or neutral awareness, I can experience the Presence of the masters. It is not a matter of crossing a gap or building a bridge of energy to a distant realm. It is a matter of my mind shifting into a different state of consciousness.

As a result of these realizations, I started breaking down the sense of the masters being so far away. I started realizing and accepting that the masters are always with me, and I started experiencing their Presence. Yet as I have also described, I experienced them as impersonal in the sense that they did not tell me what to do. They simply gave me a frame of reference for making my own decisions.

Why is this important? I am not here trying to say the Summit or the messenger were wrong. My understanding is that the Summit was meant to help people overcome the initiations of Pisces. One of those was the idea that only one person – Jesus – could be the Christ because he was so special. In the Aquarian age millions of people are meant to be the open doors for the ascended masters in some way. How can we do this, if we uphold the image that the masters are so far above us that only very special people can reach them? Even in the Summit it was said that there would soon come an age where the masters would “walk and talk” with us. Yet how can that happen unless many people are able to attune their consciousness to the masters?

My messengership has, from the very beginning, not been based on the image that the masters are far from me and that it is difficult to reach them. My messengership has been based on seeking to go into a neutral state of mind, which then allows me to feel oneness, gnosis, with the masters. I do not see the masters as being far above the earth, with me standing in the middle, receiving a dictation from far away that I then repeat. I experience that I go into a state of oneness with the master who is giving a dictation. The master is not speaking words that I see or hear. The master is sending a stream of consciousness into my mind, and my mind then translates this spherical, non-linear stream into the linear words that can be spoken.

If I am special in any way, it is because I have come to understand the value of going into a neutral state of mind, and I have developed the ability to do this at will. In fact, I am always in a certain state of listening where my mind is somewhat attuned to the masters. Obviously, there are many times when I am busy with some kind of activity, and thus I would not be open to taking a dictation at that moment. Yet I am still aware of the masters and can feel if they give me the impulse that they want to bring forth something. You might call this “listening grace.”

Obviously, my point for writing these articles is that I believe most people can develop this ability by applying the teachings and tools given to us by the ascended masters. Even if it is not in your divine plan to be a messenger, being able to go into neutral awareness will indeed help you tune in to and fulfill what is part of your divine plan.

Just to reach back to what I said about the Summit, I believe that in the Piscean age it was more difficult for people to reach pure awareness. I have also experienced that when I am taking a dictation in front of a group of people, their consciousness – being directed at me – can definitely make it more difficult to take a dictation. Decreeing is the obvious way to neutralize this influence by raising the energies. I have personally taken dictations in front of groups of over 100 people. Yet in the Summit Elizabeth Clare Prophet would take dictations in front of groups of up to 4,000 people. So I fully understand she had us decree for several hours in order to raise the energies.

Nevertheless, I still don’t think this was necessary for the masters to reach down to us. It was necessary for us to be propelled out of our normal state of awareness. I many times experienced that after hours of decreeing, I was in a more receptive frame of mind. The only real question is what it takes for us to reach the neutral state of mind?

I have over the years been trained by the masters to go into a receptive frame of mind at almost any time and in almost any circumstance. In the beginning I thought I had to be in a quiet room, and it was a great challenge to take my first dictation in a public space (such as outside the Reichstag in Berlin) with traffic around me and people walking right by. Definitely, it was a special experience when I took a couple of dictations in Tiananmen Square in Beijing with 10,000 Chinese talking at the top of their voices. Energetically speaking, is was the most intense environment I have ever experienced, but again, in a neutral frame of mind, it really doesn’t matter. Naturally, I think we all have the ability to reach pure awareness.

How a dictation comes through

When a master gives a dictation, the master is sending to me what I can only describe as a “stream of consciousness.” I say stream because I experience it as a constant flow. There is no static message that has a fixed form. It is a living, flowing stream, and it does not come in the form of words. It is ongoing, and if I do not stay with it, the stream will simply move on and I can lose part of the message.

The translation into words happens in my mind, and this is an important point. In the Summit many people thought that when the messenger took a dictation, the master could say anything it wanted. They saw a dictation the way many Christians see the Bible, as if it was literally spoken by God. I don’t think that is ever the case, unless a person is trance channeling. Only when the mind is completely taken over by the channeling entity, can that entity say anything it wants.

I have seen some very complicated channeled messages on the Internet, and they talk about topics that the channeler knew nothing about. Yet in my experience they do not carry the vibration of ascended masters. I don’t care how complex a message might be, I simply don’t want anything from below the level of the masters. I have no doubt that entities in the mental realm can think up messages that are very complex, but what is the value of something that is simply made up by unascended minds?

Elizabeth Clare Prophet explained that a master could not give a dictation through her about a topic she knew nothing about. That has also been my experience, and I see it as a function of the fact that the dictation is translated into words in my mind. We normally think of vocabulary as the number of words we know. Yet beyond the words, there is a conceptual “vocabulary.” For example, I know little about medical science and anatomy, and I know the masters cannot give dictations about these topics in as great a depth as they are capable of doing.

I don’t see that as a limitation. Part of it is that I am a rather practical person. I can see that it would be impossible for me to educate myself to an expert level about all topics known to man. Another part is that I have never desired to be a “perfect” messenger or the only messenger. I clearly see that the masters want multiple messengers, precisely because they want to have people who have expertise in a certain earthy field and still have the ability to receive messages or ideas from the masters.

Does the messenger make up the message?

Elizabeth Clare Prophet had several people who were very critical of her messengership. Even a couple of her own children have tried to discredit her, and one thing they have brought up is that in several cases, her staff had researched a topic and some of that research was later brought forth in a dictation. They say this proves that the masters don’t exist as objective entities, but that it was all made up in the messenger’s mind.

Based on my own experience, I see no problem here. If the masters wanted to give a dictation about a topic that the messenger knew little about, she simply would not have the conceptual vocabulary that would allow her mind to translate the master’s stream of consciousness into words. The only solution is that she would have to expand her knowledge of the topic, until she knew enough to put words on what the masters wanted to bring forth. I have in some cases had to do that to receive an answer to a specific question on the Ascended Master Answers website.

For example, several years ago someone sent a question about the Twelve Step Program. I knew very little about this, but after doing some research, I suddenly felt that I knew enough to receive what Jesus wanted to say, and I took the answer. This doesn’t mean that I consider this the ultimate or infallible answer. It is quite possible that someone with personal experience could take a more profound answer. Of course, it is also possible that because I knew nothing about it and had no personal attachments, I could receive a very neutral answer. At any rate, there comes a point where I accept that what was said was the best that the masters could say through me at that time.

No final revelation

Everything on earth is an ongoing process. As humankind’s consciousness is raised, new ideas and philosophies can be brought forth. My vision is that the ascended masters have almost unlimited ideas that they could bring forth, but that they are always adapting what they bring forth to the current level of consciousness. 

The masters are not seeking to bring forth some ultimate revelation. They are seeking to bring forth a revelation that will take us from where we are now to the next step up. Of course, different groups of people are at different levels of consciousness, so some will receive a higher revelation than others. Yet no one has ever received the ultimate or final revelation. Overcoming the desire for the ultimate is precisely one of the main tests of Pisces.

The ascended masters have sponsored several messengers and organizations since the late 1800s. I have studied the teachings of most of them, and all of them rejected the messengers that came after them. This is almost comical to me because Christians are rejecting ascended master teachings based on the idea that the Bible was God’s final and ultimate revelation to humankind. The only way we can claim validity for ascended master teachings is by accepting that divine revelation is progressive. So how can we claim that “our” organization has progressive revelation, but there will be no more progressive revelation after us?

How can we allow ourselves to claim that progressive revelation has now stopped? It is as if we now think we can dictate what the masters will and will not do. To me this can only come from spiritual pride. If we believe that we have the highest teaching on the planet – and therefore we must be the most advanced students on the planet – we obviously don’t want someone to undermine our feeling of superiority by taking a higher revelation. So we want progressive revelation to stop. What an ego game.

I am bringing this up because I think that as a messenger it is very important to see myself as simply one part in an ongoing process of revelation. I am not called upon to be a perfect or ultimate messenger who can bring forth the most special and sophisticated revelation ever. Accepting this can help me avoid the fear that I won’t be good enough or the pride that makes me think I never need to go higher. It can also take away the weight of responsibility, the effect of which is to make it difficult for me to go into a neutral frame of mind and be content to bring forth what the masters can bring forth through me at this time.

This helps me accept that what is coming forth through me right now might be exactly what the masters want to bring forth for a specific group of people in a specific situation. Let me expound on that point.

How much does the messenger’s consciousness affect the message?

An important consideration for both messengers and students of the masters is how much the messenger’s consciousness will affect the message coming forth. I have said that a dictation comes as a stream of consciousness and is translated into words in the messenger’s mind. If I am able to go into a neutral frame of mind, I will not consciously or willingly affect the message. Yet since the stream passes through the subconscious layers of my mind, there can and will be some effect on the message.

In other articles, I have gone to great length to describe what it takes, according to my experience, to tune in to the ascended masters and to be as much of an open door as possible. My vision is that it is possible to clear the four lower bodies and overcome personal attachments and perception filter so such a degree, that I can take a very pure message from the masters. Yet even at that point, the message will still be somewhat affected by the way I use words and the way I look at life.

For example, I grew up in the western world, and my outlook on life is naturally affected by this. As a child, I was deeply affected by learning about the second world war and the Holocaust. Thus, the masters will sometimes talk about this in dictations. Yet for a messenger who had grown up in a part of the world where this was not as big of an issue, the masters might not say anything about this.

Likewise, the masters have said very little through me about Africa. I have several times been asked why this is the case. Obviously, the ascended masters have much to say about Africa, but apparently they do not want to say it through me. This might be because I am an outsider and thus not familiar with the prevailing world view in Africa. On the other hand, I have not been encouraged by the masters to educate myself about Africa, so I can only assume they have other reasons for not using me. Pallas Athena said through me that they had trained messengers for the Islamic world, where I of course can only be an outsider. I have no doubt the masters would like to have viable messengers from many different backgrounds and that they already have some that I don’t know about.

As always, there is a balance to be found. On the one hand, the messages I get can be limited by my general world view, so there are things the masters can’t talk about because I don’t know enough about it. On the other hand, if I know too much – if I am an insider – I may have certain strong attitudes that color the messages without me even seeing it. A messenger who is neutral might be able to bring forth teachings that an insider could not bring forth, because the insider could not see beyond the world view of a certain group.

Let me give examples. The Summit was very much an American organization, and the dictations often focused on the importance of the United States. Many dictations were critical of specific U.S. policies, but could an American messenger have taken dictations that questioned the basic American world view—which the messenger might never have seen as just a world view but might have taken for the only way to look at things? The same, of course, applies to all messengers.

I once took a dictation from Lady Master Venus in Estonia,  and it naturally talked about the dominant event in Estonian history, namely the 45-year occupation by Soviet Russia. This caused some students in Russia to take offense and accuse me of coloring the message with a negative attitude towards Russia. Yet I didn’t grow up in Estonia, so I am not an insider. I did grow up knowing that the Soviet Union had an aggressive intent of taking over the rest of the world. And yes, I do consider that a well-established fact, partly because I know that most of the former Soviet Republics felt they had been forcefully occupied by Soviet Russia. It was somewhat of a shock to me to realize that many Russians apparently have not learned how the outside world looked upon the Soviet Union. So did this my world view make me biased, or did it make me so neutral that I could take a message that a Russian messenger might not be willing to take? 

Beyond the world view from the environment in which one grew up, one might color messages with a certain attitude. For example, the dictations in the Summit would sometimes have a more ominous tone than anything ever brought forth through me. The Summit culture was somewhat fear-based. Again, I am not saying this was wrong, because I think this was designed to help people pass the last Piscean initiations.

In the 1990’s I started realizing that I needed to overcome a fear-based approach to God, the masters and life. I worked very hard to overcome fear, helped along by my experience of the pink love of El Morya and my experience of God. I think that was very necessary for me in order to take messages for the Age of Aquarius. I think our challenge in this age is to transcend the fear-based approach to God, the masters and life. My approach to being a messenger is entirely love-based. I don’t fear God, I don’t fear the masters and I don’t fear any human being. I don’t fear making a mistake and then instantly falling into a flaming abyss. For me, that is important because it helps me go into a neutral frame of mind, which I don’t see how I can do if I still have fear in my being.

Because of my love-based approach I have reached a simple conclusion. Taking into consideration everything I have said above, I trust that when I have prepared myself as well as I can and go into a neutral frame of mind, then I am bringing forth exactly what the ascended masters want to bring forth through me at that particular time. If I keep seeking to transcend myself, I will always be doing this, watching how my messengership spirals upwards over time.

As I have said, the masters are not seeking to bring forth an ultimate revelation right now. The fact that I have grown up in a certain part of the world and have a certain world view means that as the dictation is filtered through my consciousness, it takes on a form that ensures that  the target audience (from the same background as me) will find it easier to understand and relate to the message. Although this is a coloring of the message, there is nothing wrong with it—it is simply the mechanics of how messages are brought forth. I don’t overanalyze myself and I don’t allow other people’s biased opinions to derail my inner attunement with the masters.

Of course, even though my mind will color the message, the masters will still be able to bring forth more than my mind can do. That will be my next topic.

How the masters multiply what is in my consciousness

I know I have talked about vocabulary and that my mind can color the message in subtle ways. Yet this does not mean I am saying there isn’t more to a dictation than what could possibly come from my mind. On the contrary, the value of a dictation is that the ascended masters will multiply what is in my consciousness and give dictations that go far beyond what I could possibly have come up with in my own mind. If I didn’t experience that as a messenger, I obviously wouldn’t take any dictations.

I will sometimes have an idea in advance of what the masters want to talk about. I have sometimes sensed they wanted to talk about a specific topic and I would read up on it before taking a dictation. Yet for the majority of my dictations, I have had no idea what the masters would say. I have many times stood up in front of a group of people at a conference and had absolutely no idea what the master was going to bring forth. Many times the dictation has lasted an hour, and I simply stood there in a neutral frame of mind and was awed at the words coming out of my mouth. I have experienced how a master will start talking about one thing, then go into other things that seemingly had no relation to the first topic and then in the end of an hour-long dictation bring it all together in a coherent whole.

I mean, truly, what the masters bring forth is an amazing work of art. It may seem as if a dictation is a linear flow of works with a beginning, a middle and an ending. Yet the flow of consciousness from the masters is always spherical, and it is totally amazing to me how it can be translated into words that actually make sense. This is where I can’t really give any advice on how to do this part of being a messenger, because it is very hard to put words on what happens as the dictation is being translated into words.

What I experience is that I get an intuitive feeling that a certain master is present and wants to give a dictation. This is a recognition that the master is there, which feels like a clearly higher energy, almost like a sphere of light. I always recognize the master and intuitively get the name. I then go into a neutral frame of mind, as I have learned to do, and then I simply surrender into the flow of what is coming from the master. I sometimes have an opening remark or the master says: “Master MORE I am, and I am come to…” and then the flow simply happens. I stand there in a neutral frame of mind, witnessing how the words flow.

I do not know what the words will be, but only hear them as they are being spoken, which to me signals that my conscious mind has no influence on the words. If I tried to analyze the words and wanted the master to say something specific, I think it would completely brake the flow of the dictation and it would stop.

In fact, a dictation is for me a right-brain, intuitive process. One of the hardest things to do is to take specific facts, such as dates, because it easily propels me into the left-brain analytical mind, and then the flow of the Spirit easily stops. I have sometimes had a master give a certain fact, such as a year, and my analytical mind would then think: “Was that really the right year?” And then I immediately have to go back into the neutral state of mind in order to avoid stopping the flow.

Of course, there is absolutely no way I could consciously make up what is being said. I am a good speaker, but standing up with no prepared manuscript and being able to speak coherently for an hour is simply beyond my capacity. There is no way I could learn by heart the dozen dictations that might come forth during a conference. I have many times experienced reading a dictation and thinking: “Gosh, there is no way I could have said that.” The teaching given is simply so far beyond what I consciously know, even though I can see that I had the basic concepts that the master could then multiply.

As to how it feels to take a dictation, that will be the topic of the following article.

Copyright © 2021 Kim Michaels