Bashar: Darryl Anka's Channeled Entity and the Teachings on Excitement and Frequency

Who Is Darryl Anka? From Visual Effects to Channeling

Darryl Anka was born on October 12, 1951 in Ottawa, Canada, and is the cousin of singer-songwriter Paul Anka. He grew up in Southern California and built a career as a visual and special effects designer in Hollywood, working on films including Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979), I, Robot (2004), Pirates of the Caribbean, Live Free or Die Hard, and Iron Man (2008).

His path toward channeling began in 1973, when he reported two close-range, broad-daylight UFO sightings in the same week near Los Angeles. Both events had witnesses present. Anka has described the sightings as triangle-shaped craft hovering silently overhead, and the experiences left him with a lasting sense that something significant had shifted in his understanding of reality.

Over the following decade, Anka explored consciousness-expanding practices and attended channeling classes. During one session, he received what he described as a telepathic communication from an entity who identified itself as Bashar, a being from a future civilisation. According to Anka, he recalled a pre-incarnational agreement to serve as a conduit for this entity, and in 1984 he conducted his first public channeling session.

Since then, Anka has presented Bashar in thousands of open and private sessions across the globe. He also wrote, produced, and directed the documentary First Contact, which explores his life as a channel and the messages Bashar shares through him. His dual career as both a Hollywood effects artist and a channeler gives him an unusual profile in the world of contemporary spiritual teachers.

Bashar and the Essassani Civilisation

According to the channeled material, Bashar is a male member of the Essassani civilisation, whose name translates as "place of living light." The Essassani home planet is described as existing approximately 500 light-years from Earth in the direction of the Orion constellation, but in a parallel dimension rather than in our observable universe.

Bashar claims the Essassani are a hybrid species, created from the blending of human DNA with that of the Grey extraterrestrials. In this cosmology, the Greys are described as a version of humanity from a parallel reality who devolved after severing their connection to emotional experience, and who then used genetic material from humans in other realities to create the Essassani as a way to reintroduce emotional capacity into their lineage.

Physically, the Essassani are described as humanoid, roughly five feet tall, with somewhat Eurasian features and enlarged, upturned eyes. Females reportedly have white hair while males are hairless. They wear fitted one-piece garments in silvery-blue or silvery-white tones.

Bashar further claims that the entire Essassani society operates on principles of unconditional love, non-judgement, and following one's excitement. There is no government in the human sense. Decisions are made collectively and spontaneously because each individual naturally acts in alignment with the whole. This description of a utopian society built on the excitement principle serves as both a teaching model and, as critics point out, a conveniently unverifiable claim.

Within Bashar's broader cosmology, civilisations exist in interconnected triads. Earth, Essassani, and the Sirius civilisation form one such triad, linked by energetic resonance and shared evolutionary purpose. Bashar positions himself as a "contact specialist" whose role is to assist Earth's transition through a period of accelerated change.

The Formula: Follow Your Highest Excitement

If there is one teaching that defines the Bashar material, it is what followers call "The Formula." It sounds disarmingly simple, but its application touches every area of life, from career decisions to relationships to spiritual practice.

The Formula consists of five interconnected steps:

Step One: Act on your highest excitement. In each moment, identify the option available to you that contains the most excitement, passion, or interest. Even if the difference between options is small, choose the one with slightly more energy behind it. Bashar teaches that excitement is not random enthusiasm. It is the physical body's translation of a signal from your higher self, indicating alignment with your true path and purpose.

Step Two: Act to the best of your ability. Whatever you choose, give it your full effort. Half-hearted action signals a lack of trust in the process and dilutes the results. Integrity here means both ethical conduct and wholeness of effort.

Step Three: Act with zero insistence on outcome. This is the step most people struggle with. Bashar teaches that insisting on a specific result actually blocks better outcomes that the higher self has arranged. The physical mind cannot see the full picture, so demanding a particular manifestation limits the range of possibilities. Trust that the outcome will be whatever serves your highest good, even if it looks nothing like what you expected.

Step Four: Remain in a positive state regardless of circumstances. When things appear to go wrong, Bashar frames this as an opportunity to identify and release limiting beliefs. The external situation is always a reflection of internal beliefs, so a negative outcome points to something ready to be examined and released.

Step Five: Constantly examine your belief systems. The Formula works only to the degree that your beliefs support it. Fear-based beliefs, inherited assumptions, and unexamined definitions all create friction. The ongoing practice is to identify beliefs that are out of alignment with who you prefer to be and replace them consciously.

Followers report that applying The Formula produces a sense of synchronicity, where opportunities, resources, and connections appear with unusual timing. Sceptics counter that this may simply reflect the well-documented psychological phenomenon of selective attention, where people notice evidence that confirms their expectations and overlook evidence that contradicts them.

The Five Laws of Creation

Bashar presents five statements as the only unchangeable truths of existence. Everything else, including physical laws, dimensional structures, and the forms of consciousness, can change. These five cannot.

These laws echo principles found across philosophical and spiritual traditions. The first law resonates with the Hindu concept of Atman (the eternal self). The third mirrors the Hermetic axiom "as above, so below" found in the teachings of Hermes Trismegistus. The fourth closely parallels the law of attraction as taught by Abraham-Hicks and, before that, the New Thought movement of the 19th century.

What Bashar adds is a specific framing of these principles through the lens of parallel realities and frequency mechanics. Rather than "attracting" something to you from elsewhere, the fourth law in Bashar's system means you are shifting your frequency to align with a parallel reality where that thing already exists.

Belief, Perception, and Reality

One of the more intellectually structured aspects of Bashar's teaching is the belief-perception-reality cycle. It works like this:

Beliefs are the foundational filter. They are definitions you hold about yourself and reality, often unconsciously. These beliefs determine what frequencies you are capable of perceiving.

Perception is shaped entirely by belief. You cannot perceive what your belief system does not allow for. Two people in identical circumstances will perceive entirely different realities based on their operative beliefs.

Reality is the reflection you experience as a result of your perception. It is not an objective, fixed thing that exists independent of the observer. Your experienced reality is always a mirror of your strongest beliefs.

The practical application is direct. If you want to change your reality, you must first change the belief that generates it. Trying to change external circumstances without addressing the underlying belief is, in Bashar's framework, like trying to change the image in a mirror by reaching for the glass instead of adjusting yourself.

This cycle runs continuously: beliefs generate thoughts, thoughts generate emotions, emotions drive behaviour, and behaviour produces results that reinforce the original belief. The loop is self-sustaining unless consciously interrupted at the belief level.

Bashar provides a specific technique for belief change. When you feel a negative emotion, you trace it back to its root belief by asking "What would I have to believe is true about myself or reality for this feeling to exist?" Once identified, you examine whether the belief is actually true or simply inherited, assumed, or outdated. You then consciously adopt a preferred belief and act in accordance with it, even if the old pattern initially persists.

Parallel Realities and Frequency

Perhaps the most distinctive aspect of Bashar's cosmology is the teaching on parallel realities. This is not a vague metaphor. Bashar presents it as the literal mechanics of how consciousness works.

According to Bashar, infinite parallel realities exist simultaneously. Each one is a complete, static "frame" of reality, like a single frame in a film. What we experience as motion, time, and change is actually the rapid shifting of consciousness from one static frame to the next, at a rate of billions per second.

This means there is no single, continuous reality that evolves over time. Instead, there are countless versions of Earth, of your life, of every possible scenario, all existing right now. You are constantly shifting between these versions based on your vibrational frequency, which is determined by your beliefs, emotions, and definitions.

When Bashar says "you are not the same person you were a moment ago," this is meant literally. The "you" in this frame of reality is a different version of you than the one in the previous frame. Continuity of self is an illusion created by the smooth progression of frames, similar to how individual film frames create the illusion of a continuous movie.

The practical implication is significant. You do not need to "create" the life you want, because every possible version of your life already exists as a parallel reality. You only need to match the frequency of the version you prefer. The Formula is the mechanism for doing this, because following your excitement naturally aligns your frequency with the parallel reality that reflects your highest potential.

This teaching has clear parallels with the many-worlds interpretation in quantum physics, proposed by Hugh Everett III in 1957. However, physicists generally caution against conflating the mathematical formalism of quantum mechanics with subjective consciousness-based reality creation. The many-worlds interpretation describes quantum superpositions at the subatomic level, not conscious choice between macroscopic life scenarios.

Key Concepts: Permission Slips, the Negative Ego, and Definitions

Permission Slips

Bashar uses the term "permission slips" to describe any tool, technique, ritual, or object that a person uses to give themselves permission to shift their state. Crystals, tarot cards, meditation techniques, sound healing instruments, and even pharmaceutical medicines can all function as permission slips.

The teaching is that the tool itself does not create the effect. The individual generates the shift from their own energy, using the tool as a symbolic bridge to access a frequency they already carry within themselves. A crystal does not heal you. Your belief that the crystal can help you heal gives you permission to activate your own healing capacity.

This is both liberating and challenging. It means every spiritual practice works, but not for the reasons most practitioners think. It also means no practice is inherently necessary. Anything that gives you permission to be more of who you truly are serves the same function.

The concept connects to the broader Thalira perspective on tools like crystals and energy healing as supportive practices that facilitate inner shifts rather than producing effects from outside the individual.

The Negative Ego

In Bashar's framework, the ego is not inherently negative. It has a legitimate function as the physical mind's sense of individual identity. Problems arise when the ego operates from fear, which Bashar calls the "negative ego."

The negative ego is the part of the psyche that believes survival depends on control, prediction, and the maintenance of familiar patterns. When threatened by change, it amplifies fear, projects worst-case scenarios, and generates resistance to growth. It mistakes its own limitations for the limitations of reality.

Bashar's approach is not to destroy or suppress the ego but to reassure it. Negative beliefs want to survive, and they accomplish this by making themselves feel real and permanent. The recommended response is to acknowledge the fear, thank the ego for trying to protect you, and then gently demonstrate through action that the feared outcome does not materialise.

Definitions Create Reality

This concept underpins much of the Bashar material. The definitions you assign to situations, relationships, and events determine your experience of them. A job loss can be defined as a catastrophe or as liberation, and the definition you choose will determine the emotional, behavioural, and circumstantial consequences that follow.

Bashar emphasises that situations are inherently neutral. They carry no built-in meaning. All meaning is assigned by the observer. This aligns with Stoic philosophy, particularly the teaching of Epictetus that "it is not things that disturb us, but our judgements about things."

The Channeling Process

Anka describes the channeling process as entering a light trance state in which he shifts his consciousness to allow Bashar's frequency to come through. Unlike some channelers who appear to lose all awareness during sessions, Anka maintains partial consciousness and describes the experience as stepping aside rather than stepping out.

During sessions, Anka's voice, posture, and speaking cadence change noticeably. Bashar's delivery is rapid, precise, and often humorous, with a distinct speaking pattern that includes short, clipped sentences and a tendency to answer audience questions before they are fully asked.

Anka has described the arrangement as a pre-incarnational agreement between himself and Bashar. In his own words, "My basic understanding of most channelings is that they are usually the product of an arrangement that is made on some conscious, unconscious, or subconscious level between the person you are and another facet of yourself."

This last point is worth noting. Anka himself frames channeling not necessarily as communication with a wholly separate entity, but potentially as contact with "another facet of yourself." This leaves room for multiple interpretations of what Bashar actually is, from an independent extraterrestrial consciousness to an expression of Anka's own higher mind or subconscious creativity.

Sessions typically follow a format in which Bashar delivers an opening monologue on a specific topic, followed by an extended question-and-answer period with the audience. The interactions are responsive and often surprisingly specific, with Bashar addressing personal details that attendees have not shared publicly.

Bashar, Seth, and Abraham: A Comparison

The Bashar material exists within a broader tradition of channeled teachings that gained prominence in the latter half of the 20th century. Two of the most significant predecessors are Seth (channeled by Jane Roberts, 1963-1984) and Abraham (channeled by Esther Hicks, from the mid-1980s onward). Understanding the relationships between these bodies of work helps situate Bashar in context.

All three share the foundational principle that consciousness creates reality, but they approach it through different lenses. Seth provided the most philosophically rigorous foundation, with detailed discussions of probable realities, inner senses, and the multidimensional nature of the psyche. His material, compiled in books like Seth Speaks and The Nature of Personal Reality, remains the most academically studied of the three.

Abraham brought the teachings into a more emotionally accessible format, introducing the emotional guidance scale as a practical tool for shifting one's vibrational state. The Law of Attraction, as popularised by Esther and Jerry Hicks, simplified many of Seth's concepts for a wider audience.

Bashar added the extraterrestrial narrative and the explicit mechanics of parallel reality shifting. His teaching is the most action-oriented of the three, with The Formula serving as a concrete daily practice. Where Seth asks you to examine your beliefs intellectually and Abraham asks you to reach for better-feeling thoughts emotionally, Bashar asks you to act on your excitement physically.

There is a book titled Seth, Abraham, Bashar! All That You See Is Yourself by Richard Gentle, which explores the commonalities between these three bodies of channeled material and presents them as complementary perspectives on the same underlying reality.

Criticisms and Honest Assessment

Any fair treatment of the Bashar material must address the serious criticisms that surround it. These fall into several categories.

No Evidence for the Essassani

The central claim that Bashar is an extraterrestrial being from a parallel-dimensional planet has no supporting evidence. No independent verification of the Essassani civilisation exists. The descriptions are vivid and internally consistent, but internal consistency alone does not constitute proof. A well-constructed fictional world can also be internally consistent.

Premium Pricing

Bashar events and recordings carry significant price tags. Live event tickets, private sessions, and even short video clips are monetised. Some critics argue that if the material truly serves humanity's evolution, it should be freely accessible. As one commentator put it, "Someone who paywalls their channeled info isn't serving the greater good." Supporters counter that Anka has dedicated his life to this work and that financial exchange is a natural part of valuing a service.

Prediction Failures

Bashar has made specific predictions that did not come to pass, including political outcomes and timeline events. When predictions fail, the framework allows them to be reframed as "shifts to a different parallel reality," which conveniently explains away any error without requiring accountability.

Unfalsifiability

This is perhaps the most serious intellectual criticism. The parallel reality framework makes it nearly impossible to disprove any claim. If something predicted does not happen, it happened in a different parallel reality. If a teaching does not produce the promised results, the individual's beliefs are not yet aligned. The structure is self-sealing, meaning no possible evidence could ever count against it.

The Performance Question

Sceptics suggest that the channeling may reflect Anka's own subconscious creativity, acting ability, or performance art rather than genuine contact with an external entity. Anka himself has partially acknowledged this possibility by framing channeling as contact with "another facet of yourself," but the marketing and presentation of events consistently reinforce the extraterrestrial narrative.

A 2012 academic paper presented at the CESNUR International Conference by Mariachiara Gasparini analysed the Bashar phenomenon as a case of modern channeling that sits between alien narrative and ancient esotericism, noting the role of internet technology in building the Bashar audience and the sociological significance of the phenomenon regardless of its metaphysical claims.

A Balanced View

The honest assessment is this: the practical teachings, particularly The Formula and the belief-perception-reality cycle, contain genuinely useful psychological principles that can improve decision-making and emotional resilience, regardless of their alleged extraterrestrial source. Many people have reported positive life changes from applying the excitement principle. At the same time, the cosmological claims require a significant leap of faith, and the financial model raises legitimate ethical questions.

Practical Application of the Excitement Principle

Setting aside the question of Bashar's identity, the excitement principle can be applied as a standalone decision-making tool. Here is how to work with it in daily life.

Morning check-in. Before your day begins, sit quietly for a few minutes and ask yourself: "Of all the things I could do today, which one carries the most energy, curiosity, or aliveness for me right now?" This is not about what you should do or what is most urgent. It is about what genuinely sparks something in you.

Micro-decisions. Throughout the day, apply the same principle to small choices. When you have three tasks in front of you, notice which one your attention is naturally drawn toward. Start there. The teaching suggests that excitement is an intelligent signal, and that following it creates a chain of synchronistic connections that are more efficient than linear planning.

Outcome release. This is the hardest part for most people. When you act on something that excites you, notice the urge to control what happens next. Practice releasing that urge. The distinction is between having preferences (which is natural) and insisting on outcomes (which creates tension and blocks flow).

Belief investigation. When you feel stuck, resistant, or afraid, use those emotions as signals. Ask: "What would I have to believe is true for me to feel this way?" Write down whatever comes up without censoring it. Often the belief, once seen clearly, loses its grip. This mirrors techniques from cognitive behavioural therapy, where identifying and examining automatic thoughts is a core practice.

Permission slip awareness. Notice which tools, practices, or rituals help you access positive states. Rather than becoming dependent on any single tool, recognise that you are the source of the shift. The tool simply gave you permission. This awareness makes your practice more flexible and less fragile.

For those exploring Hermetic philosophy or studying the principles taught in the Hermetic Synthesis course, many of Bashar's concepts will feel familiar. The principle of correspondence ("as above, so below"), the principle of vibration, and the principle of mentalism all find echoes in the Bashar material, though expressed through a modern, extraterrestrial lens rather than the alchemical language of the Hermetic tradition.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Bashar and who channels him?

Bashar is a channeled entity who claims to be an extraterrestrial being from the planet Essassani, approximately 500 light-years from Earth. He has been channeled by Darryl Anka, a Hollywood visual effects artist and cousin of singer Paul Anka, since 1984. Bashar describes himself as a member of a hybrid civilisation created from human and Grey alien genetics.

What is Bashar's core teaching about excitement?

Bashar's central teaching, known as "The Formula," instructs people to follow their highest excitement in each moment, act on it to the best of their ability with integrity, and release all insistence on a specific outcome. According to Bashar, excitement is the physical body's translation of a signal from the higher self indicating alignment with one's true purpose.

What are Bashar's Five Laws of Creation?

The Five Laws are: (1) You exist, and you always have and always will. (2) Everything is here and now. (3) The One is the All and the All are the One. (4) What you put out is what you get back. (5) Everything changes except for the first four laws. Bashar presents these as the only unchangeable facts of existence.

What is the Essassani civilisation according to Bashar?

According to Bashar, the Essassani are a hybrid civilisation that exists on a planet roughly 500 light-years away in a parallel reality near the Orion constellation. They are described as a blend of human and Grey alien DNA, averaging about five feet tall with somewhat Eurasian features. Bashar claims they represent a potential future expression of human evolution.

What are permission slips in Bashar's teachings?

Permission slips are any tools, techniques, rituals, or objects that a person uses to give themselves permission to shift their state of being. Bashar teaches that crystals, meditation practices, tarot cards, and similar tools do not create effects on their own. The individual generates the effect from their own energy, using the tool as a symbolic bridge to access a frequency they already carry within.

How does Bashar's channeling process work?

Darryl Anka enters a light trance state during sessions, describing the process as a pre-incarnational agreement between himself and Bashar. He shifts his consciousness to allow Bashar's frequency to come through while remaining partially aware. The process began after Anka's 1973 UFO sightings near Los Angeles, followed by years of study before his first channeling session in 1984.

How does Bashar compare to Seth channeled by Jane Roberts?

Both Seth and Bashar teach that individuals create their own reality through beliefs, thoughts, and emotional states. Seth approached reality creation through psychological and metaphysical frameworks without an extraterrestrial narrative. Bashar adds the alien contact element and describes reality as explicitly holographic. Seth's material tends to be more philosophically dense, while Bashar's delivery is more conversational and directive.

What is the belief-perception-reality formula?

Bashar teaches that beliefs act as a filter through which perception is shaped, and perception then determines the reality you experience. The sequence runs: beliefs generate thoughts, thoughts generate emotions, emotions generate behaviour, and behaviour generates results that reinforce the original belief. To change your experienced reality, you must first identify and replace the core belief that sustains the unwanted pattern.

What do critics say about Bashar and Darryl Anka?

Critics raise several concerns: the Essassani civilisation claim has no verifiable evidence, session tickets and recordings carry premium pricing, specific predictions have failed to materialise, and the teachings rely on unfalsifiable frameworks. Sceptics also suggest the channeling may reflect Anka's own subconscious creativity rather than an external entity.

What does Bashar teach about parallel realities?

Bashar teaches that infinite parallel realities exist simultaneously, and consciousness shifts through billions of them every second. What we perceive as time and change is actually the movement of awareness from one static parallel reality frame to the next. By changing your vibrational frequency through beliefs and emotional states, you shift into a parallel reality version of Earth that reflects that new frequency.