Comparative-Critical Analysis of the Role of “Channeling”in Modern Spiritual Life and the Intuition in Islamic Mysticism

After the end of World War, “modern spiritualism” came to the aid of modern man, tired of materialist scientism, to give him peace and hope in his material life, and to reconnect his hands to transnatural world, by changing his “spiritual life”. Meanwhile, the “New Age” movement from the branches of spiritualism, by presenting the mechanism of “channeling” and taking advantage of the pre-Christian historical background of Europe and North America, claimed to have an esoteric discipline and connection with the transnatural world and the ability to explain it. This article is dedicated to explaining the relationship between “mystical intuition” and “channeling. In fact, the main question is: Is channeling the same as mystical intuition? Is the view that “channeling is an alternative to the intuition of mystics in the modern world” compatible with the principles of Islamic mysticism? After defining, stating the background and types of channeling, we will critically analyze it and compare it with intuition from the perspective of Islamic mysticism. Due to the differences of the notions in teleology, criteriology, and their different epistemological and ontological aspects, the idea that channeling is the same as intuition cannot be evaluated as correct.