"Channeled" Religious Writings

[tome_keeper]

Since doing religious research and collecting various texts spanning many spiritual schools of thought, I've come across something called "channeled" writings. The first I read was Neale Donald Walsch's "Conversations With God". Some of the ideas presented did spark some thoughts and encouraged me to think about certain things differently, but most of it was, to me, more...odd than anything. The thing that nagged at my mind the most was the very idea of the "conversations" being channeled.

This book seemed to lose more credibility with me when I read another "channeled" book that was, if it can be believed, even more incredible. It is called "The Magdalen Manuscript", and is supposedly the lost gospel of Mary Magdalene, as channeled to the author (receiver?) Tom Kenyon. Again, while interesting, I found it almost shocking in both claims of being received from Christ's wife, and it's content. I almost can't put into words the various questions and challenges I have with these books. What are your thoughts on these books, if you're familiar with them, and the notion that such texts can be channeled from Mary Magdalene or God Himself to seemingly ordinary people?

[Demian]

I've heard of both these texts but are not familiar with their content. I think the idea of divine inspiration isn't far from the idea of channeling. Goethe claimed that most of his works came from the 'other world' (ie were channeled) but he still received the royalties. Medeval theologians belived that all human thought had only 2 possible sources: God or Satan. If this is the case than no one can claim to truly have an original thought.