Devoured by Flame

One of the ways in which you can open up to the Gods is by channeling as well as automatic writing. I know the gut reaction for most people is to think “only some people can do that but I can’t.” I assure you that it is easier than most people think it is and if only because it is a part of our innate nature as humans. 

The process is simple yet there are a lot of things that you need to let go of to get started.

It is important to note that not every automatic writing or channeled message in the beginning is going to make sense. It takes a bit of work not just for you to get used to hearing what the message is but for the Gods Themselves to use your brain and use language that makes the most sense to humans. 

Considering Deities do not have a tongue nor do They have language, They have to use the words that you have stored in your brain. They do not pluck Them from outside of your brain, though it is possible the further you get into channeling and possessory work, the more language you don’t normally use may come up in Their response. So if you are only getting images, words, or feelings in response to your questions, do not worry – you are not incapable and you are not doing it wrong. In fact, the feelings are going to help you in knowing when a Deity is actually speaking to you versus when your brain is making stuff up. 

Sometimes your brain will also fill in the blanks between words so that the words that you are getting make more sense. Your thoughts might supplement the ways in which the Divine are trying to communicate to you. However, a good way to determine whether or not you are doing it “right” is by feeling a sensation whenever you get a message or image when in response to whatever you are wanting to ask or say.

What it Can Feel Like 

When a session is successful, the presence of the Gods would be palpable.

This sensation can often feel like buzzing, the air may thicken, and ears may ring as if you are going from one kind of air pressure to another. The sensation can also feel like taking off in an airplane or the room might be full of static. You may get chills or warm sensations on your skin or inside. You may also get an emotional response out of nowhere. 

It is important to note that feeling big emotions is common when you are speaking to a Deity especially for the first time. Spontaneous eruption of emotion is something that happens often no matter how much you get used to it as it is important to release the energy – this often happens by crying, laughing, or feeling as though your heart is racing. All of this is normal and is common. 

How to Begin

To begin with automatic writing, you would need to either use your phone, a laptop, a pen and paper, or anything that makes the most sense to you at the time. If writing is not a good start for you, you can start by recording your results. If you are wanting to be dictating things as you hear them, it is important that you start with anything that won’t make you hesitant to react. 

For me, using a phone or typing was the easiest way to not question what I was hearing just because I type fast. For others, using a pen and paper might do it, and then for some, articulating what you’re hearing out loud can be easiest. Eventually, all of these things will become easier but in the beginning, it is important to get out of your own way and figure out the best medium to do so.

Think of questions that you may not know the answers to. Stick to asking one Deity at a time and not others. Whomever you feel most drawn to asking a question, stay with that Deity instead of asking multiple as that can get confusing and may make the message confusing. When first starting out, only ask questions that are not going to sweep you into an emotional frenzy by hearing the response. The simpler, the better, and the easier it will be for the Deity to respond. 

Some examples of questions could be “what is your favorite offering?”, “what can I offer/do more of?”, “what do you think about your shrine?”

Sit at your shrine for that particular Deity, light a candle, and make an offering to the Deity of your choosing. Raise your energy by asking the Deity for assistance, for Them to come to Their shrine, and to assist you in bringing awareness to Their voices. If you are not at your shrine, have an object that would otherwise anchor you to that Deity but make sure to have an offering, regardless. 

Get into a comfortable position, and ground yourself to the earth and into your body such that you are in a passive enough state to be receptive and respond accordingly.

When you put your pen to paper, fingers to the keyboard or hit the record button, repeat back what you hear immediately even if it sounds confusing. Just write and allow yourself to type whatever you hear. Disregard grammar, spelling, and punctuation unless you are a particularly fast writer or typist. 

Some responses to the questions may be images, feelings, memories, sensations, smells, words, etc. Regardless of the response you receive, write it down. Use quotations if you think the Deity is speaking. 

Do not try to make sense of it while it’s happening, just keep writing and see what happens after.

Keep writing until you feel as though there is nothing else to be said. If you are talking, you will likely know when there are no more words to add or feelings to say something. In the best case situation, it will all often feel like word vomit. 

When you are done, close your journal, your laptop, or stop recording and then walk away for an hour or two. After you have put some time between you and what you wrote, go back to read what was being said. If you are feeling ungrounded, go get ice water, a snack, and salt. The salt would go on your tongue to bring your awareness back to your senses. Ice water and a snack is to help ground you.

Sometimes you will feel energy around the words on the page but other times it may not feel like anything. Either way, that’s okay. If you are feeling

Regardless, congratulations! You wrote your first channeled message. Whether you were hearing a Deity or not does not matter – the most important thing you could possibly have done in that moment is get words on a page in response to a question. Even if it wasn’t a Deity, it could also just be your gut reaction which is typically the most important response, anyway. 

If you get something that seems to make sense, use a divination tool to confirm. Do not use divination before you are writing. Only use it once the experience has passed. Jot down what divination you used and what you pulled with the writing.

Troubleshooting and Tips for Best Success

Document, document, document. Have the date, the questions, the message, and everything you experience notated in a journal. I use an app called Obsidian which keeps these things filed and organized so I can cross reference them if need be. Having the ability to cross reference may end up helping you figure out an answer that you may not have understood right away. 

Communication when you are first starting out may be realized over time. Even the most seasoned medium may have trouble accessing information if the Gods do not want you to know it. Sometimes the answer will be for another time. The Gods do not function in the present moment like we do. They do not exist on the physical plane. What They see is different from what we see. Their perception of time is not ours. They may be confusing or cryptic and that is normal. Don’t expect to receive an answer that makes perfect sense all the time. Just get the answer on the page. No interpretation is necessary until after it happens.

Have a ritual around this process. Having a sense of continuity and repetition may help your brain get into the mode of being open and receptive. The more you do this, the easier it will get and you will soon have an easy way to access what you need in order to be open and receptive.

If you do not feel mentally, physically, or emotionally well, it is best to wait until you are feeling well again. It is not because the Gods won’t want to talk to you, but if you are a beginner and you have trouble discerning your own inner voice from Theirs, you will want to wait until you can see clearly without bias or distraction. Oftentimes, when you cleanse, it is best not to assume you’re banishing anything – cleansing can assist you in being able to feel less weighed down by whatever is going on. It is not going to fix it, however, so it is best that you also work with a therapist, mentor, teacher, or friend who is capable of handling your emotional situation in order to feel in a place where you can just listen.

Hospitality and Housekeeping

• Do not share your message immediately unless They say you should. Sometimes Deities share private information with Their people because They have a reason for you to hear it on your own, not everyone else. 
• Do not demand the Deity’s presence. Sometimes They aren’t showing up for a good reason. Sometimes They don’t want to talk to you. Sometimes They feel like you’ve already heard what you needed to hear and don’t want to come down or get closer to speak with you. This is okay and it depends on Who you are speaking with and what kind of relationship you have.
• Do not assume you have a casual relationship. Use manners, be courteous, and treat Them like a guest. Do not assume right away that you are in good standing with a Deity enough to treat Them like a friend or more. 
• Do not try to frame the responses around assumptions. The less assumptions you have about a Deity, the easier it will be to listen. You do not know the Deity as well as you may think you do, especially when you start this sort of work. The benefit of doing this work is to allow the Deity to tell you who They are instead of you working off of what you’ve read on the internet or in myths. 
• Have a clean space at the shrine. Do not invite a Deity to speak with you if you haven’t cleaned your offering bowl in months. Make sure you clean around the shrine as well as the shrine itself. It will make it easier for the Deity to be there. Sometimes a simple vacuum and wiping down the shrine will make all the difference. 
• It is recommended to already have a working relationship with the Deity in question before you begin to try to channel Them. If you already have rapport built around the Deity in question, you will also have an easier time accessing Their energy. It will feel easiest if you know the Deity you are talking to for a long enough time that you are able to pick up on what They feel like. Otherwise, the Deity in question might just give you a run for your money. 

Why Won’t A Deity Respond to Me? 

So you have gone to your shrine, opened up your notebook, and there are no words, feelings, or sensations that immediately come to mind. There are a plethora of reasons as to why this might be happening. 

The Deity might not be interested in talking to you. Not all Deities want to talk to humans in this way. Not all Deities will want this kind of relationship with a human. This isn’t something to take offense in, but consider it being like driving across a large region to meet with a stranger. It takes a lot of effort for a Deity to come close enough to speak with a human let alone give them an answer they want to hear. 

You may not be prepared to hear the answer. Sometimes the answer may take several attempts but sometimes the answer isn’t what you are ready to hear in that moment. This might feel aggravating, but this is one of the many ways in which the Divine have more answers to that regard than we do. 

Creating Boundaries and Giving Consent

It is important to note that sometimes Deities take advantage of the chance to speak and take it a step further. I find this happens when Deities aren’t used to having the opportunity to speak and are very excited to have a message get across to someone. When you are communicating in such proximity to Them, your energies can be more enmeshed than they normally can be. This makes boundaries a bit shaky for those that do experience this.

There may come a moment during these sessions where you no longer feel like you are moving your own hand. You may become lightheaded, shaky, or flushed. These are all symptoms of being in close proximity to the Divine and it is nothing to be afraid of though if you aren’t certain about it, it is important to tell the Deity to back off. You do not need to have these symptoms to have a successful session. You also don’t have to tell Them no if you are in a particularly close relationship already with the Deity and have experienced this before. 

Sometimes you may also forget what you are doing until it is finished. You might start writing and then lose track of time and suddenly an hour has already passed. If that is the case, this is another occasion where it is important to tell the Deity to step back if you aren’t used to it or have no experience before this. They do not need to take this much control over you in order to have a message relayed. It can be more like hearing an audio message and transcribing it – this becomes more like the Deity writing the message Themselves. 

If you are okay with it, you can also put certain parameters around what you are doing. You do not have to say yes to a Deity but if you are wanting to push it, you can ask for Them to not take away your memory of the event. You can also ask for Them to keep track of time while writing because you want to be aware of it. You can also ask Them to check in with you before doing something like this. 

It isn’t that the Deity wants to take advantage of you and They aren’t seeking to do you harm actively, but when an opportunity arises where They can speak freely, They do make a point in taking this chance and running with it. I have watched a lot of people who are naturally open to this sort of thing have this happen to them and it can feel scary and make you want to never do it again. When I started, I was under the impression that it wasn’t Loki and became extremely paranoid just because I didn’t know what it was going to feel like and no one had told me it was possible. 

It is unlikely that most people will experience the Divine doing this, but like most things where the Divine are involved, there is limited understanding of what you may encounter while doing this work. Just like it would be in a Sex Ed class, it is important to be armed with knowledge rather than having consent be given up or taken away simply because you don’t know what it looks like or how it should or can feel. 

The Next Steps

If you would like to push forth and you have discussed boundaries with your Deity and you know that you are comfortable with Them, you can go even further into channeling. The difference between what normally happens with automatic writing and channeling is that in automatic writing, you typically hear what is said and write it down after you hear it. With channeling, there is more of a knowledge that you already have of what is being said and the time between hearing it and writing it becomes blurry. Some people can also have it where they are already channeling while automatic writing without realizing it. There are some people who are naturally more open to this sort of thing and it might surprise you. However, you won’t know until you try and even if you aren’t a natural, there are ways to work on this and become more at ease with the process. 

I can say I was not a natural in the beginning. I had a lot of hang-ups and issues with what is being said not being clear enough. I also had a lot of anxiety around the answers which did not help anything. I desperately wanted to be right and even when I was right, I was scared of being right because it is a very loaded response. 

What can be helpful is getting into a place where you don’t think much about what you are doing. If you type on your phone a lot, using a notes app on your phone may be easier than using a keyboard or handwriting. You also do not always have to look at your phone screen in order to type. Be calm, cool, and relaxed. If you are anxious or concerned about what you are typing, assure yourself that no matter what the answer is going to be, it is going to be progress. The best progress you can have is actually taking the time and initiative to work on it despite all the things in your head telling you it’s impossible.

Once you have this feeling down, it will become easier and easier to communicate on your own time. It will be helpful for you to develop an anchor point, however, if you are wishing to have this become a thing while you are away from your shrine. That can be a bracelet, a stone, or any other object that you can carry around with you that a Deity can attach onto. I wrote about what an anchor is here. Some people may not need an anchor to hear Gods but it can be trickier for those who do need one. It depends on what kind of relationship you have with the Deity and how long you’ve been working together. If you aren’t sure, trial and error is an excellent way to approach this. 

In Conclusion

Automatic writing and channeling is an excellent beginning to opening up to the Divine and becoming more in tune with Their energy. The more in tune you are with Their energy, the easier it will be to gather more information from Them without biases impacting you. It is also a very simple task wherein people can feel like it is a measured result rather than not being sure. Documenting what happens makes it easier to see your progress. What once was likely gibberish can become meaningful words to full sentences which can then become entire essays should the Deity want to. 

Growing closer to the Divine takes a lot of work and an ability to be open regardless of what happens. Not expecting things will go a long way. Even when you don’t hear the answer you’re wanting to hear, knowing the truth about what you felt was right before is better than not knowing it at all. Even if you don’t hear correctly, continuing down this journey can make what you heard make more sense or be corrected later on. 

Let me know in the comments how this works for you and if I should touch on anything you are curious about. I am always curious and excited to have feedback so please don’t hesitate.