According to Klimo (1998) mediumistic channeling is more than a new word for an old phenomenon, its massive resurgence in the second half of the last century may also point to a new development in consciousness. In this essay the conceptual dimensions of channeling are discussed. There is no consensus on what constitutes this phenomenon. The conceptual discussion extends to theories on the provenance of channeling. Basically three sources for channeling are distinguished: the channeled material is self-generated by the channel, it comes from a source outside the channel or it comes from a transcendent reality to which the channel has direct access. A broad survey of theories that have been proposed in the last hundred years, shows that in particular new insights in quantum physics have moved these theories in the direction of the latter source. It is concluded that further knowledge of channeling can only be gained by using a flexible ontology and research methodologies that stretch the objective approach.
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