In the faqs on this site, the Afterlife is said to be "created by humans for humans to go to after death" (inexact quote.)
What then, or rather where, did the very earliest modern humans, with minds like our own (beginning about 200,000 years ago) go to when they died?
Perhaps the Homo erectus afterlife (which would be rather animalistic by modern human standards.)  Or perhaps there was no afterlife before modern human minds emerged?
All evidence seems to indicate that hominids didn't have much of a psychic existence before modern Homo sapiens emerged - there is even some conjecture as to whether pre-humans even had language (a NECESSITY for a real inner life, or true use of the imagination!)
Any thoughts/rebuttals to share???
Resident Skeptic

suppose your life is a movie film you decided to slip into for your own purposes. In this movie time is appearing as linear; a series of events one after the other in logical order. but it's only one of many movies in which you play a starring role as center of the universe.  suppose the past is ongoing, alive and vital and could be selected to view as on the tv set of your mind.  suppose there's a caveman living his life in this other movie and he's you, but he does not suspect he has a future self starring in another movie, just a flip of the channel selector away; however you are aware of him.

as for psychic abilities, cave people have to be very alert to survive. being in a state of alertness like that might very well induce psychic information to come in. they would also communicate with sign language and mental telepathy I surmise. lol. one long grunt with an exclamation on the end would mean NO! two short grunts slightly higher pitched might mean yes.

lol. go there in your imagination. no telling what u might get! love, alysia http://images.bravenet.com/common/images/smilies/surprise.gif

I kinda see what your saying here, but I will add my take to the first response you have.

From what I read our afterlife selves, and the 'discs' which our different aspects come from are all higher beings, there seems to be no 'stupid dead people'. So assuming we are all of similar high intelligence in the afterlife I think its also safe to assume that when we are reincarnated our abilities our intelligence is decided quite largely by our real world upbringing. If I have a child, never send him to school, tell him he's stupid and will never ammount to anything chances are he'll grow up to be a politician ;)

As alysia said when it comes to the afterlife time isn't a linear thing so someone who dies today could be reincarnated as a caveman, but without the education and materials (pen paper) etc they have today they couldn't really tell us even if they had a psychic prediction for saturdays lotto numbers. What we know of caveman mostly comes from crude drawings and modern scientific guesswork. If you can figure out how to draw a pyschic experience with just a few coloured berrys and a rock wall can you be on my team for pictionary ;)

just my 2c or 2p since I'm a brit :D

R.S.,

The ability to think doesn't seem to be an attribute we gain from living as humans on earth. Rather, the soul thinks from the moment it is conceived from a greater Thought. Although, it's sense of self may take "time" to mature. In fact, the physical universe could be deduced as emanating from a first Thought, if one continues to follow that line of thinking, pardon the pun. It is interesting though the parallel between soul thinking and human thinking. I don't quite understand how a physical brain, and a non-physical soul can do such a similar task. Unless this tells us something about how the brain works.
As far as what an early hominid would see in the afterlife. Well, in our astral form, we can create anything we like and we will probably create objects and landscapes similar to what we perceived while we are on Earth. So the caveman, may've created mostly natural settings. One thing I've noticed in my astral adventures, is sometimes I come across "old" technology like radios, old-style computer terminals, and 70's style TV sets. And other times I come across 3-D TV's. I guess what I'm seeing is a reflection of different people's thoughts that come from the time period they lived in either the past or will live in the future.

-mike

My *current* understanding is that Earth was seeded (likely several times) by outside influences, and that Earth's earliest inhabitants who were fully human were such beings who didn't need a sanctuary realm for when they weren't physical. Gradually as darker forces became part of the picture, karma was incurred and our lives became denser and, in a sense, heavier. At that point, higher beings helped us create the sanctuary realms and, just as here on Earth, other realms (not as nice) got created too by the projections of humans.

I have read this and it seems right to me, but there's no way to *know* this. Perhaps it's accurate, perhaps not. But to me it's helpful and it makes sense.

Joe Meboe