css menu by Css3Menu.com
Afterlife-Knowledge.com Workshop Newsletter
By Bruce Moen
To Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the Afterlife Knowledge Workshop Newsletter
In this issue:
Bruce's 5th Book, the Afterlife Knowledge Guidebook, and accompanying CD sets are now available.Read the Afterlife Knowledge Guidebook in this & future Newsletters.
An Interesting Verification experiences in the 5-day workshop in Poland.
Contents:
Hampton Roads Applied Learning SeriesScheduled Workshops
Scheduled 2-Day Exploring the Afterlife WorkshopsSusan's workshop in Louisville, CO, January 29-30 Contact Susan at Sude@indra.com to get details and make your reservation. (This workshop location is near Boulder, Colorado)
Krisa's workshop in Pheonix, AZ, February 26-27, 2005 Contact Krisa at Krisai@aol.com to get details and make your reservation.
Hampton Roads Publishing Co. workshop in Charlottesville, VA March 10-11, 2005 Contact Carolyn at Caolyn@hrpub.com to get details and make your reservation.
Hampton Roads Publishing Co. workshop in Charlottesville, VA July 18-19, 2005 Contact Carolyn at Carolyn@hrpub.com to get details and make your reservation.
Scheduled 2-Day Partnered Exploring Workshops
Hampton Roads Publishing Co. workshop in Charlottesville, VA May 16-17, 2005 Contact Carolyn at Carolyn@hrpub.com to get details and make your reservation.
Hampton Roads Publishing Co. workshop in Charlottesville, VA September 8-9, 20055 Contact Carolyn at Carolyn@hrpub.com to get details and make your reservation.
Scheduled 5-Day Combined Workshops
This workshop combines both the Exploring the Afterlife and Partnered Exploration into a single workshop.
Klaus's workshop in Wiesbaden, Germany, April 6-10, 2005 Contact Klaus at cnlpa@cnlpa.de to get details and make your reservation.
Asia's workshop in Wroclaw, Poland April 13-17, 2005 Contact Asia at altaya@go2.pl to get details and make your reservation.
Wojtek's workshop in Krakow, Poland April 20-24, 2005 Contact Wojtek at portal_seven@vp.pl to get details and make your reservation.
Frank's workshop in Frankfort, Germany, April 27-May 1, 2005 Contact Frank at frank.goermar@changeworks.de to get details and make your reservation.
Personal Appearances
None presently scheduledHampton Roads Applied Learning Series
Hampton Roads Publishing Company, publisher of my books, is now sponsoring lectures and workshops by many of its authors. These are held in Charlottesville, Virginia and you may check the schedule for all events at Hampton Roads website. To check out all the events in Hampton Roads Applied Learning Series visit the Events CalendarExpress Interest in hosting or attending a workshop
If you think you might ever be interested in hosting or attending a future workshop please take a few moments right now to go to the new form fill it out, and submit it for entry into the database. It will only take a minute and by submitting the form you'll be kept informed of potential workshops near where you live.This Newsletter's installment of the Afterlife Knowledge Guidebook
Each Issue of this Newsletter will include material from the Afterlife Knowledge Guidebook, A Manual for the Art of Retrieval & Afterlife Exploration. In this issue you can read the first chapter.To see the book's Table of Contents Click Here and scroll down below the picture of the book cover.
CHAPTER 1
A CONCEPT OF CONSCIOUSNESS
A university professor friend of mine says that when academics meet to discuss the possibility of survival of consciousness beyond death they make little progress because they get stuck at the very beginning of their discussion trying to define what consciousness is. As an engineer I'm interested in the practical side of things more than in absolute precision. If a simplified concept of the intellectually complex makes progress possible, while it may not be absolutely precise, it can be used as a tool for the completion of a task. I'm reminded of an old story about a mathematician and an engineer that illustrates the difference between precision and practical application.
It seems an engineer and a mathematician were brought into a room by a psychology graduate student to test a behavioral theory. They were both asked to stand with their backs against a wall, facing two of the most attractive, sexy creatures either had ever seen, standing at the opposite wall some forty feet away. The psych student explained the rules of the test.
"This will be a timed event," the graduate student began. "Your task is to walk halfway to that gorgeous creature and then stop. You may then walk half the remaining distance and stop, repeating this process as many times as you like. The first one who reaches one of those gorgeous creatures wins!"
The graduate student had not hit the button on his stopwatch before the mathematician started making his way toward the door to leave the room.
"Wait! Wait!" the tester shouted, "why are you leaving the room before the test even gets started?"
"It doesn't matter how many times I walk half the remaining distance," the mathematician replied, "I will never reach that gorgeous creature. Your test is pointless and I refuse to participate!"
The graduate student then realized the engineer had already completed several cycles of walking half the distance and stopping, and was smiling broadly. Approaching the still moving engineer the graduate student performed an interview on the run.
"You do realize, don't you," the graduate student said, "that you will never actually reach your goal?"
"At some point in this process I'll be within a quarter of an inch of that beguiling creature," replied the engineer, still walking, "and as far as I'm concerned from that point on in this process I'm close enough."
If you're a Believer in the religion of science you accept that whatever consciousness is, its origin lies within the physical brain. For such scientists consciousness cannot exist without a physical brain. When the brain dies there is no longer a place for consciousness to exist so for scientists, when your brain dies you will cease to exist. Religions claim that whatever your consciousness is, it continues to exist after death in a state dictated by the rules and beliefs of their various dogmas. Most religions predict that you will continue to exist after death in their version of eternal Heaven, or eternal Hell.
Neither science nor religion presents much hard evidence to support the belief in their concepts of consciousness. Science would claim that since consciousness cannot exist without a living brain, gathering evidence of the survival of consciousness after death is impossible, so why try. Many religions claim that attempting to explore the Spirit World (often their term for nonphysical reality) to find the truth should never be attempted. They claim demons and devils are waiting there to steal your very soul, and so no one should ever take the risk of gathering their own evidence. They are so concerned for your soul that not so long ago they routinely burned people at the stake, or worse, for having anything to do with the Spirit World. In my view, neither science nor religion has much to offer regarding a useful concept of consciousness.
To simplify your exploration beyond physical reality and of the Afterlife in particular I'd like to share a concept of consciousness I find practical. I'd begin to explain this concept by saying that our physical universe is said to be very large. The last estimate of its size I've heard from astronomers is that the furthest reaches of our physical universe are at least 15 billion light years from the Earth. As a physics buff I know that is the distance light would travel, going about 186,000 miles per second, for 15 billion years. By this estimate, measured from the Earth, the furthest edge of the Universe is about 15,000,000,000 (years) X 365 (days/year) X 24 (hours/day) X 60 (minutes/hour) X 60 (seconds/hour) X 186,000 (miles/second). If I've done the math right the known edge of our physical universe is about 8,790,000,000,000,000,000,000 miles from the Earth. Suffice it to say that while incomprehensible such a number implies a very large physical universe.
The concept of consciousness I'm proposing suggests that everything that exists within our physical universe is a form or manifestation of whatever consciousness is. Whatever consciousness is, it must be at least as large as our physical universe just to contain it all. And by this concept, every object within our physical universe can be thought of as a small area of consciousness within one larger Consciousness. The Earth, the Moon, the Planets, the Sun, the Stars, and galaxies can be thought as small areas of consciousness within one larger Consciousness. Likewise, a rock, a tree, a squirrel, a lake, a human being or a mountain within our universe can be conceptualized as small areas of consciousness within Consciousness.
My own explorations beyond physical reality suggest that ours is not the only universe that exists, though it may be more accurate to define these other universes as nonphysical dimensions. To their inhabitants these dimensions are just as real as our universe is to us. The concept of consciousness I'm suggesting would say that all of these other dimensions and everything in them are also small areas of consciousness contained within the same, single, larger Consciousness that contains our physical universe. My concept of whatever Consciousness is is now much bigger than our physical universe, and each of these nonphysical dimensions and all objects and occupants can be thought of as areas of consciousness within a single, larger Consciousness. I find this concept useful because I don't have to precisely define what consciousness is. Instead, I am free to explore whatever consciousness might be and let any discoveries build a clearer understanding of what it actually is. Besides, it allows me to talk about how it is that we can explore beyond physical reality.
If we wanted to know about an area of consciousness within our physical universe, say the Moon, how would we explore the Moon. We could observe it through a telescope. We could send a rocket with cameras and sensors to orbit the Moon and make observations. We could land humans on the Moon to walk on it, gather samples of it, observe it and experience it. Each of these methods of exploring the Moon can be thought of as shifting our focus of attention to the area of consciousness called the Moon. Once our focus of attention is shifted to the Moon we can gather information about it by observing our surroundings within this area of consciousness called the Moon. The way in which this Afterlife Knowledge Guidebook teaches exploration beyond physical reality is done, conceptually, in the very same way.
All that we need do to explore nonphysical realities is to first learn how to shift our focus of attention from one area of consciousness to a different area of consciousness within one all encompassing Consciousness, like from the Earth to the Moon. Then we just need to understand how to observe our surroundings from within that nonphysical area of Consciousness. That might sound too simplistic to some readers, but that's what an engineer's concept is for. It's a simplified way of thinking about something that can be used to make progress toward a goal.
Throughout this Afterlife Knowledge Guidebook we'll be using this concept of shifting one's focus of attention to areas of consciousness as a means of exploring beyond physical reality. In fact I use Focused Attention as the label for the method of exploration I'm teaching. You can use what you learn in this book to explore those areas of consciousness called our Afterlife. You can also use what you learn here to explore areas of consciousness beyond our human afterlife - way beyond.
Installment in the Next Issue of the Newsletter
Chapter 2: Trust
Workshop Hosting Guidelines
If you think you might like to host a workshop, but aren't sure how to go about it, check out the updated hosting guidelines page I've updated the page taking into account the latest experiences of workshop hosts. If you have questions that aren't answered by the information on that page please email them to me at bamoen@afterlife-knowledge.com Hosts attend the workshop free in exchange for handling some of the logistics of putting it on. And, I usually stay in the home of the host to reduce costs and give us a chance to visit and chat.Workshop Price Reduction
To make workshops more affordable I've rolled the price back. The price for attending workshops is now 250 $US for those who pay their 50 $US deposit at least two weeks before the workshop date 275 $US for later deposits. Both workshop deposits and fees can now be paid for using a secure credit card payment system via PayPal.com at the credit card purchasing page on the website.Workshops LIVE Audio Cassette Tapes
I'm so pleased to see that so many folks who have never attended the workshop are successfully using these audiotape sets and posting their retrieval and exploration experiences on the Conversation Board at the website. One of these posts told the story of retrieval of a fireman from the World Trade Center Towers area. This retrieval brought the explorer verification that his experience was real, and comfort to the fireman's friends and family.
Verification
in Partnered Exploration Exercise In November of this year two 5-day workshops were held in Poland. After the workshop in Warsaw, hosted by Agnieszka Jurko, one of the participants published an article about his experiences. He talks about the verification results in one of the Partnered Exploration exercises.In this exercise each group of partners visits with a different deceased person who is unknown to the group. Each group draws an envelop at random from a basket. The envelop is provided by another participant who remains unknown to the group until after their debriefing of the exercise. The name of the deceased person is written on the outside of the envelop, and a photograph of the deceased person remains sealed in the envelop until it is opened during the group's debriefing.
As you'll read in the article, verification of the information gathered from the deceased person was successful for all of the nearly 60 participants in the workshop.
Here is the link to the article: http://www.marczewski.pl/moen2.php
Improvements to Shopping at the Website
A new shopping cart system is installed on the website's Credit Card purchasing page. It is part of the Paypal system now used for all online purchases at the website. This system provides a more integrated, easy to use shopping experience. You do not need to open or have a Paypal account to make purchases with a credit card. If you already have a Paypal account you will be able to use your already registered bank or credit card account to make you purchases.Credit Card payments:
Those of you who have visited the website know that you can now use credit cards to make purchases at the website. A web company called Paypal will process your credit card purchases of books, tapes and workshop payments at their secure website. You can order autographed copies of any of my five books and I'll sign and ship them to you.
That's the December 2004 Workshop Newsletter. I hope to hear from those of you interested in hosting a workshop and look forward to meeting some of you in person at a workshop soon.
Love,
Bruce
Copyright© 1996-2004, by Bruce A. Moen, All Rights Reserved