As church suppers go, the potluck at Pebble Hill Church in Doylestown was thoroughly traditional: Folks at picnic tables ate chicken, barbecued ribs, baked beans, and peach-blueberry pie.

But this was not exactly a typical church crowd. The talk on this sultry summer night in Bucks County was about past lives, spirit guides, angels, spaceships, and the future of the universe.

"We believe universal brotherhood has to be extended to other worlds," said Lynn Volpe of New Hope, who along with her husband, Anthony, has a special interest in UFOs.

And so they joined kindred spirits at the August meeting of the New Hope Channelers' Support Group, a society for people who are convinced of the existence of - and say they often "channel" messages from - beings in other dimensions.

This night's meeting featured a visit from the angel Ascordia Shamalia. Her "channel," Amy Bortner of the Chestnut Hill section of the city, predicted that Ascordia would talk of the imminent changes on Earth as it prepares to move into dimensions unimagined by the common man.

It all makes sense to group cofounder Bill Tomaszewski. (After all, confided one of those attending - she chose to remain anonymous - in previous lives Tomaszewski had helped build Stonehenge and had come back later as the wizard Merlin.)

"We formed in 1990 to create a supportive environment for psychics and mediums and channelers in the Delaware Valley," Tomaszewski said.

"As you can see," he said, gesturing toward the casually dressed crowd of about 30, "everybody's got two arms and two legs."

Said President Tony Kenton (Leonardo da Vinci in a past life): "It's a place where people can share ideas with no ridicule, no funny remarks. We're not unnatural - just unusual."

It's a place where the Volpes can lead a "guided meditation" to a spaceship - and be taken seriously. Even reverently.

"This spring we had everyone imagine being taken up by the blue light aboard a ship, and then gave them time to see what they could see," Lynn Volpe recalled. "It was amazing how many had seen a praying mantis-type being."

Praying mantislike UFO visitors, she added, are "very highly evolved."

Robin Velez, a channeler from Glenside, Montgomery County, said she came at least once a year to the monthly meetings. She wished such a group had been around years before.

"There was nobody to talk to about this when I was young," said Velez, a holistic healer and therapist who claims to channel an angel who calls himself Isaiah.

"As a girl, I would say, 'Mom, make the people in my room go away,' " she recalled with a somber smile. "But my mother would say, 'Oh, there's nobody in here.' "

In time, Velez said, she learned to accept her gifts, and is now "very comfortable." In her full-time job as a psychic therapist, she does "a lot of inner-child work" and past-life regressions that can reveal trauma in previous incarnations.

After dinner, group members carried their folding chairs upstairs to a plain room, where Bortner, 48, the Chestnut Hill channeler, sat on one of two couches by a large stone fireplace.

She led the audience in a guided meditation, inviting them to close their eyes and imagine cords running from their feet to a "liquid iron crystal at the center of the Earth." Next, she advised, they should "feel the Earth's energy riding up your spinal cord."

As a flute tune wafted from a tape player, Bortner urged the group to visualize this energy as a white light that filled them.

The meditation lasted about 12 minutes before Bortner called everyone back to wakefulness. "Now," she announced, "I will be going into trance, and Ascordia will be coming through."

She seated herself in a folding chair at the front of the room. She faced the audience. She closed her eyes. She leaned her head back. It rolled in small circles and fell to her chest. Three minutes went by before she cleared her throat and leaned forward.

"And good evening. This is Ascordia," she declared in a voice that sounded, well, just like Bortner's own. "All of you are here to understand . . . the human condition."

And, just as Bortner had said she would do, Ascordia launched into a rapid explanation of how Earth is moving into the fourth dimension, a higher realm of being where all who choose to stay in human bodies will expand their abilities "in all different senses."

"It has been so commanded by God/Goddess/All-That-Is," Ascordia said, adding that human DNA has been coded to respond to the changes in "vibrational frequency" that will accompany Earth's - and the galaxy's - shift into the new state of being.

Earth's long entrapment in the inferior third dimension will end in 2004, Ascordia said, but luckily for humankind, some psychics, mystics, and other advanced Earth-beings have already begun to transmute.

She warned that currently prominent spiritual leaders will resent the new order and denounce it. Nonetheless, she added, "the change is irresistible.

"Be prepared," she said, "for the ride of your life."

After answering questions about the Middle East conflict and the stock market (short-term turbulence for both, she said), Ascordia announced that it was time to take her leave.

Ascordia bestowed blessings on the audience before resting her head on her chest and taking deep breaths. A minutes passed before Bortner, back as herself, blinked open her eyes and lifted her head.

The audience burst into applause.

"All right, Amy!" cried a voice.

But before the crowd could depart, Kenton, the group president, stood up and held a $5 bill over a wicker collection basket.

"We sure need it, folks," he said. Audience members laughed and nodded as they reached for their wallets.

This was, after all, church.

• Story originally published by:
The Philadelphia Inquirer / PA | David O'Reilly - Aug 27.01

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