Psychic Ability 101: Stop Absorbing Others’ Pain & Discover Your Specific Intuitive Gift | Dr. Helané Wahbeh

September 15, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

Dr. Helané Wahbeh, director of research at the Institute of Noetic Sciences, grew up in a Palestinian American family where her grandmother and uncle would enter trance states and speak in voices not their own. She was ten years old the first time she saw it happen, sitting in her grandparents' living room with thirty or forty people. Her great uncle was an Orthodox priest who specialized in exorcisms. Her grandfather spent his life trying to prove that spirits exist and can support us. For Wahbeh, the question was never whether channeling was real—she knew her relatives were not actresses manufacturing voices. The question was how to study it rigorously.

What Channeling Actually Is

Wahbeh uses "channeling" as a broad umbrella term for accessing information and energy from beyond conventional notions of time and space. It includes everything from ordinary gut hunches to full trance channeling, with precognition, telepathy, remote viewing, and psychokinesis in between. She distinguishes trance channeling from mental mediumship. In trance channeling, the person's body is used as a vehicle for a non-physical being to speak through them—there is no middle person translating the information. In mental mediumship, the medium receives information auditorily, visually, or as a body sensation and then interprets it for the sitter. Wahbeh herself has learned to do trance channeling

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What you'll learn

1 Psychic Ability 101: Stop Absorbing Others’ Pain & Discover Your Specific Intuitive Gift | Dr. Helané Wahbeh
2 (00:00) **Introduction: The Science of Channeling** - Dr. Helané Wahbeh is introduced as director of research at the Institute of Noetic Sciences, pioneering the science of channeling
3 (06:00) **Dr. Wahbeh's Personal Origin Story** - She describes discovering channeling at age 10 at her grandparents' spiritualist séance
4 (11:57) **Two Camps of Channeling: Fake vs. Real Experience** - The distinction between theatrical fraud and genuine meaningful experiences that are not mental illness
5 (18:02) **Channeling Personalities and "Channeler Politics"** - Discussion of whether real channelers channel one specific entity or multiple beings
6 (21:41) **Definitions: Channeling, Mediumship, Trance Channeling, Psychic** - A clear framework for understanding these terms
7 (26:05) **Can Channeling Be Taught? Nature vs. Nurture** - Addressing whether people without family lineage can develop these abilities

+ Full timestamped outline available in the app

Show Notes

What if everything you thought you knew about channeling is wrong?

Dr. Helané Wahbeh (Director of Research at the Institute of Noetic Sciences and author of The Science of Channeling) reveals the science, psychology, and real-world practice behind one of the world's most misunderstood phenomena.

In this episode of Mayim Bialik's Breakdown, she shares how she unexpectedly began trance channeling as a child after witnessing her grandparents' séance sessions, and answers the biggest questions people have about channeling today. You'll discover:

- Who are people really channeling? Spirit guides, higher self, deceased loved ones, or something else?

- Can one person channel multiple beings?

- Crucial differences between channeling, trance channeling, and mediumship

- How renowned channelers like Lee Harris & Darryl Anka actually channel, and what makes their approaches different

- Can anyone learn to channel? How to discover your natural channeling style and why your genetics may influence your intuitive strengths

- Are you neurodivergent... or are you awakening to latent psi abilities?

- Surprising difference between intuition and psychic ability

- Hidden ways you're already receiving nonlocal information without realizing it

- How channeling can dramatically improve your everyday life in ways most people never consider

- Shocking ways unseen "Noetic Signatures" may be influencing your thoughts, emotions, health, and life, and how they can quietly sabotage you if you don't recognize them

- 12 characteristics of Noetic Signatures and how to tell them apart from ordinary physical sensations

- Can your Noetic Signature change over time? Why most people actually have multiple signatures.

- Importance of energetic boundaries and practical energetic maintenance habits everyone should know

- Science behind the chakra system and what current research suggests

- Why intention is one of the most important factors when channeling and how to use it effectively

- Why ego-clearing practices like psychotherapy, hypnosis, and self-awareness are essential for receiving clearer information

- How unconscious personality patterns act as filters that can distort channeled messages

- Why balancing intellect and intuition is critical, and how to avoid outsourcing your personal power to channeled information

- Why so many people feel disconnected from their extrasensory abilities, and how our externally focused culture may be contributing

Whether you're deeply experienced with channeling or simply curious about consciousness, intuition, and the frontiers of human potential, this conversation bridges rigorous scientific research with practical spiritual exploration in a grounded and thought-provoking way.

If you've ever wondered whether channeling is real, how it works, or whether you might alr