WHY THE DEAD DON'T CONTACT US MORE OFTEN:

I am starting this thread in response to Matthew's question on Ehem's Da Vinci thread.  A few years ago I read a study on alleged communicatation from the recently deceased, e.g.  through waking visions or a strong sense of presence reinforced by paranormal physical phenonema such as moving objects, a sense of loving touch, or a characteristic fragrance.  The study found that 50% of Americans and 48% of the British can report such postmortem phenomena, generally within the first year since the loved one's passing.  Later contacts are also reported but are relatively uncommon.  

The question of why is one of the most important questions to be asked with respect to postmortem survival.  To most of us it seems inconceivable that we would never take advantage of the chance to contact our loved ones after death to reassure them of our wellbeing and of their glorious postmortem future.   Most famously, Houdini pledged to verify his survival to his wife, by revealing the content of a message sealed in an envelope. No one can explain why he never kept this promise.  I believe in postmortem survival, but acknowledge that this deafening silence is one of the best arguments against such survival.  Many desperate rationalizations have been offered to deflect the force of this objection.

Yet where Houdini failed to keep his promise, two distinguished professors may well have succeeded.  William James (Harvard) and James Hyslop (Columbia) promised each other that whoever died first would contact the survivor and confirm the reality of the afterlife. William died first, but nothing happened; so Hyslop forgot about their pledge.  Then a year later, Hyslop was contacted by a couple in Ireland.  They had been playing with a Ouija board and were continually receiving an insistent message from a William James, who kept on saying, "Track down my friend, James Hyslop, and give him this message, `Remember the red pyjamas.'"   For quite some time the Irish couple did nothing.  They had never heard of WJ or JH and the message seemed silly to them.  But then curiosity prompted them to try and track Hyslop down.  When they gave him the message, he was initially dismissive.  But then he remembered a conference he and WJ had attended in Paris during the winter.  Their luggage had not arrived and both men had to shop for winter essentials.   Hyslop was forced to buy some gaudy red pyjames and WJ had relentlessly teased him about his taste.  WJ apparently sent this message because its vivid and concrete nature made it less susceptible to interpretive distortion.    

Two common rationalizations for contact failure are worth discussing here.  (1) It is often reported that spirits contacted during astral exploration go through a stage when their memory of earthly life becomes very dim (e.g. Robert Bruce).  When and to whom this happens and for how long are mysteries without resolution from a consensus among astral adepts.   In any case, one would expect most of these forgetful souls to contact their loved ones at the first opportunity before their memories fade or after they are restored.    

(2) It is also claimed that deceased souls soon ascend to planes where contact with earthly loved ones is no longer possible or much more difficult.  This claim often seems negated by mediums who claim to contact loved ones at will, regardless of how long they have been dead.  In my view, most mediums'  claims of contact are bogus.  That said, the claim that postmortem contact gets increasingly more difficult finds its most poignant illustration in the EVP research of engineer George Meek.  

Consider these quotes about his research  in David Fontana's excellent book, "Is There an Afterlife?   A Comprehensive Overview of the Evidence:"

"In 1973 Meek began working with...medium William O'Neil who apparently was then contacted by a deceased scientist Dr. George Mueller.  Mueller gave O'Neil a number of personal and seemingly obscure details about his life on earth, many of which were subsequently found by Meek and his colleagues to be correct.  Meek claims that none of these details were known by himself, by O'Neil, or by their colleagues, and he concludes that the Mueller case provided `one of the best documented cases of survival for more than 100 years.'  A summary of some of these details is given below, together with their verification:"

I will list just some key details and omit the tedious discussion of their verification:  Mueller's social security number; his daughter's address; 3 of his degrees and the universities where he obtained them; his membship in the Haresfoot Club in Wisconsin; his meritorious civilian award; his top security clearance from the US Army.  

"The instructions on how to build the [EVP] machine [Spiricom] came over a period of time, firstly through the mediumship of O'Neil and subsequently apparently through Spiricom itself (at which point all communications were audio-taped by Meek.)  From where did these instructions originate if not from Mueller (p. 362)?"

"The [independent] report on Mueller's voice prints [from the University of Tokyo] suggested that the voice might possibly have been computer-generated, but pointed out that computer-generaton of this kind would require a million dollar computer set-up (Remember we are talking about the equipment costs obtaining in 1982.) and many hours of complex rehearsal and adjustments far beyond Meek's financial resources and O'Neil's competence (p, 363)."

"...As 1981 wore on, it became clear from Mueller's communications that `he was beginning to shed his dense earthly vibrations and was starting his progression upwards' through the various levels of consciousness said to exist in the next world.  It became increasingly difficult for him to communicate through Spiricom, and he began to give instructions on how to build a more advanced model that would enable him to remain in contact. However, before these instructions were complete, Spiricom fell silent (p. 364)."

(3) What seems so difficult for most ordinary people and astral adepts was apparently easy for Emanuel Swedenborg. During his astral visits he successfully tracks down most of his dead friends and relatives.  He is able to contact the dead loved ones of others on demand and bring back spectacular verifications of his claims.  Many of you have read my documentation of some of these contacts in my earlier Swedenborg  thread.  As for famous deceased people, ES claims extended contacts with the philosopher Aristotle and the famous theologians John Calvin and Martin Luther.

Don

Don,
You said, regarding Houdini:  "No one can explain why he never kept this promise.  I believe in postmortem survival, but acknowledge that this deafening silence is one of the best arguments against such survival. "

Don, do you keep all your promises? Not everyone does.

Also, your deafening silence is not my deafening silence.

But I respect your argument,
blink

Hey Don,

I like this and want to go over it again. The bit about the professors for me it proof surely?

One thing I want to add though which can complicate things furthur is life lessons, if spirit contact will disrubt a persons life lesson by sending them down another path then its probly not advised or allowed.

Ryan

Blink, all of us have broken trivial promises.   But most decent people keep promises that spare our loved ones great emotional or physical distress.  Houdini's widow was very distraught that no medium could produce convincing contact with her husband.  So to me, the silence is deafening, a real challenge to the survival hypothesis despite ES's verifications and William James's apparently successful postmortem contact with Hyslop.

There are at least 4 possible explanations for Houdini's broken promise: (1) Houdini never survived death.  (2) He survived but was trapped in a lower (perhaps hellish) plane where such transcommunication was inconceivable.   (3) He lost his memory of his promise to the wife he loved.  
(4) He was dissuaded from trying to contact her by spiritual considerations such as Ryan suggested.  Perhaps he was informed of the danger of opening his wife to the dangers of contacts with impersonating evil spirits.  

Those of us who believe in an afterlife and seek to verify its existence by direct experience do well to recognize why this quest is important.  There really is good reason for skepticism.  

Don

Don, you said,
"Those of us who believe in an afterlife and seek to verify its existence by direct experience do well to recognize why this quest is important.  There really is good reason for skepticism." 

So, I understand that you have spent time in the "direct experience" route yourself in the past? And you no longer look to experience such things personally?  

Do you believe based on your personal faith, readings and experiences, yet still wish to provide more evidence?

I have begun to lose interest in the "proof" and to have more joy in this experience, and so glad to have you back.  Perhaps I seek life itself and not life after death....

discoveries, discoveries

please excuse, blink

Two thoughts I've had on Houdini's apparent failure to communicate...people often say it's harder when we try too hard, especially if we're looking for a specific sign.  Say, just for the sake of argument, that we want to hear some specific old pop song..."The Hokey Pokey", for instance.  It's the only thing we'll accept as a positive sign.  Now, if our loved ones can manipulate our attentive moments, and maybe what the DJ decides to throw on at a specific time (just for example), that doesn't mean that they can make someone play some song that isn't even on the play list.  You got to work with them a little.  If only a specific phrase in English will do, and for some reason it's not possible to impress that specific phrase on someone, if we won't accept a close approximation (we're waiting for "Four score and twenty years ago" and the closest anyone can get is "A couple of decades back", because it isn't coming through exactly as specific words) some would reject it totally.

Specific to Houdini's wife, from what I've read, she was wound a little tight...it's within the realm of possible that he (or an advisor on the other side) may have recognized that an actual communication might inspire her to suicide in order to join him (I speak from the standpoint of a widow who, if I knew absolutely that it wouldn't land me in some level far away from John, has had moments where dropping dead tomorrow wouldn't bother me at all).
Perhaps, as hard a life as it seemed she had after Houdini's death, it may have been that the continued quest was what kept her going at all.

And a third thought that just popped up...someone, I forget if it was here, made the statement that we aren't supposed to know absolutely positively, that we're supposed to have to rely on faith a bit, or we wouldn't work for soul growth  because we chose to, but because we had to.  Someone as famous as Houdini, had he come through loud and clear, would have taken the "faith" aspect out of it for a lot of people.  I don't know if I buy that theory, but if it is true, then he definitely would have had to lay low or screw up a lot of people's opportunity to demonstrate faith.

Or, having spent the day at a funeral, it could be that my brain has turned to mush and none of this makes sense at all...but at least I'm no longer standing on a very windy hillside in an icy wind.  I've got another friend in ICU tonight after a car wreck.  Neither is someone I'm extremely close to, but still...

The question is; if most communications occur within the first earth year after death, why isit?   Is it because our loved ones have graduated to a higher plane?   If they have, our they still aware of us, if not able to communicate?

As for Spiricom and EVP, I have mixed feelings about this.  The spiricom website is full of new age jargon, philosophy, and little of the physics.  

I see Monroe's hemisync, and meditation as better ways to explore and communicate, because, really we want to focus our consciousness don't we?  Dow we really care to create a radio device from C1?  Many concepts are hard to translate, and some lower level personalities may try to confuse people who use EVP devices.  

Still, I'd like to know, what others feel about this one year theory of afterlife contact.


Matthew

Matthew,

I am improving my discipline in experimenting with my Gateway CDs.  My exploration is hampered by my schizoid attitude to Robert Monroe.   On the one hand, I have no doubt that RAM was sometimes able to have OBEs and I am impressed with the potential of the Hemi-Sync approach.   On the other hand, many of his OBE claims have by his own admission been discredited and this calls into question his loftier esoteric claims of contact with higher beings and aliens.    Also, many of his OBE claims would elicit disdainful guffaws from a dispassionate observer: e.g. his claim that aliens come here to collect jokes and his cartoon-like past life memories that I have exposed in earlier posts.  His last two books are the most gullible and poorly written books on this subject I've ever read.  {I liked his first book which is less steeped in New Age orthodoxy.)    Unlike you, I'm much more impressed by EVP research than by modern adepts like RAM and Robert Bruce.   I'm also put off by the New Age jargon of the Spiricom website and by doctrinaire wannabe psychics in general.   But the Gateway tapes give me a chance to explore and at least create istates of consciousness that are fascinating, if not evidence of other worlds.   For example, I enjoy the illusion of "floating" even though I know that my floatation trips are not real--yet.   I may eventually supplement or replace these CDS with how-to OBE books, of which Robert Mercer & Robert Bruce ("Mastering Astral Projection") seems the best.  But I find it boring to do psychic exercises out of a book.    

For now, Blink, I remain convinced of an afterlife for a combination of reasons, most notably the evidence for Christ's resurrection, modern NDEs, and personal spiritual experiences which include the following: miraculous answers to prayer, spectacular synchronicities indicative of guidance, many accurate death promonitions, apparent angelic encounters,  exorcisms accompanied by evidential parnormal phenomena, and devastating experiences of God's unexpected loving presence.

Don

Dead people do contact us.one man I knew who died of cancar,made contact with me 3 days after he died.Another made contact with me in broad daylight after being dead 60 years.They do contact us,and we can contact them.Love George

There is a fundamental reason why it is so hard to explain the failure of many deceased people to contact their loved ones, especially after the first year of their passing.  We know so little about the "structure" of the astral territories and the actual stages of afterlife "progress".   NDEs and astral adepts like Swedenborg barely scratch the surface of this process.    There are so many basic disagreements on these questions among mediums and the various forms of astral exploration.   These contradictions cannot easily be explained in terms of the variety of belief systems and agendas that we bring to our experiences.  In fact, these contradictions compel many reasonable people to be skeptical about survival.   New and better "mapping" methods must be developed to identify afterlife stages and levels (a) where earthly memories dim or vanish, (b) where they return, and (c) where contact with earthly loved ones is possible or impossible, easy or difficult. In my view, real progress on this score can only be achieved through the development of more and better OBE conferences attended by leading adepts.   Robert Bruce tells me there are some conferences, but that they tend to duck the really important issues in an effort to avoid controversy.  So he stays away.  But controversy is the engine of real progress in any respectable field of knowledge.

For example, many astral explorers are too quick to conclude that they have visited Focus 27.  Just because someone visits a Hall of Knowledge, a Healing Center or an Orientation Center does not mean that one has visited Focus 27.   Why wouldn't many of the BSTs also have such centers?    Focus 27 is nothing more than a construct to support attempted exploration of a "higher" realm of maximum freedom beyond BSTs.   But each explorer brings her own baggage and preconceptions to their quest to visit this level As a result, Focus 27 often seems to be just another BST.    At the same time, I do think some explorers like Robert Bruce have actually visited the level recognized as Paradise in Judaeo-Christian tradition.  Paradise is the preferred destination of the newly dead.   So I'm not calling for an abolition of the Focus 27 category, just a refinement of the criteria that establish it as the true destination of a given astral exploration.  What sort of criteria?  Perhaps the claim of some that this level is brighter than our sun, though the light does not hurt the visitor's astral eyes.  I've read many claims to have visited Focus 27 that don't seem to include this extraordinary brightness.   Are they confusing a BST with Focus 27?  More rigorous exploration is needed to answer such questions and this means a willingness to pose the tough questions to apparent astral guides.      

One possibility is that a spirit might be able to make it down here
trying to make contact, but not have the skills, ability or power
to make themselves known. They might not be able to create a
physical event, or affect the thinking of the person they wish to
contact, or that person might not be at a vibration level that they
could connect to.

My mother appeared in my dreams, but not in a way to convey the
message that she was visiting us. Rather, I interpreted the dream
in a wrong way for such a message to be understood.

I recall NDE stories in which the person who was temporarily out of the
body visited friends but was unable to make themselves known or get
any attention. But they could see what their friends were doing.

Hi, Berserk,

You say in your posting ".....To most of us it seems inconceivable that we would never take advantage of the chance to contact our loved ones after death to reassure them of our wellbeing and of their glorious postmortem future.... "

Surely, didn`t you mean this the other way round, namely that THEY contact us after death to reassure US of THEIR wellbeing and glorious postmortem future?
Albeit some may not immediately realise that they have died, they can see and contact us and are aware of what is happening (grieving) to us, whereas for the vast majority it is difficult for us to contact them in the early stages following their passing.

I wasn`t particularly spiritual before the loss of my wife but so many things happened, commencing exactly one week (to the minute) after her funeral, that eventually I became totally convinced of the existence of the Afterlife and have become a very spiritual person.
I have also received messages through a local respected medium about things ONLY my wife could have told her. I needed no more convincing that our spirit/soul lives on after we depart our temporary vehicle (body).

As to your point about the degree of contact diminishing after about a year, well, I have to agree. Most contact with her is now through dreams and the "pretend" conversation technique as outlined in one of Bruce`s books.

roger :)

This is a great thread.  I've really enjoyed the exchange.  Personally, I think if we ever got absolute proof of afterlife, it would end our existence on earth forever.  The trip would not be nearly as worthwhile and it would all seem very pretend here.  That wouldn't do.  

If a higher intelligence started this whole game like releasing a spinning top, and it's difficult for me to believe otherwise, why wouldn't the higher intelligence be able to set a few ground rules?  Like, don't bug the living in a way that messes with their path.  Messing with the path of the living, effectively would mess with the progress of collective conscious.   In turn, that would end the value of taking physical form.

One thing I've noticed in my communciations with afterlife - the presence of another unknown entity.  I've come to believe this is a spirit guide of mine, who seems to sort-of monitor and regulate the experience.  It's like this guide knows what I need, when I need it, and gives me just enough to satisfy the need without completely distracting me from life.  I also believe this guide might actually be part of me that exists on another plane, like a spirit-me-counterpart.  Whatever it is, it knows me extremely well, doesn't seem to get overly exicted about things and seems to know a lot, so I tend to trust what it shows me or refuses to show me.  Weird deal.

Why Houdini failed?  I agree with cricket who said it was because his wife probably would have wacked herself if she found out he survived death.  This epitomizes the basic reason we can never find out for sure.  It would absolutely destroy our human experience.  

But really, it's simpler than that.  Houdini was an illusionist.  What self-respecting magician reveals the secret of the illusion?

I disagree. We need absolute proof. Without proof it means the most probable explanation is that there is no afterlife.

If there is no afterlife it means that life has no use.

We would be matter that became conscious and slowly watched itself disappear for eternity.

Since the survival of mankind would have no logical and rational goal except for survival itself, it means life would be pointless.
Since our survival would be pointless it means we would not need to reproduce.
Thus the best possible course of action for everyone would be to have fun, to think only about yourself and to not have children since they take time and money to raise.
If you don't like life you could just kill yourself and it wouldn't bother since you would not remember life anyway.

BUT if we have proof of the afterlife, then it means we could find a goal to our life and plan for the future of mankind.

So I think reasearching the afterlife is the most important thing to do in order to know if we must fight to survive or just let it all go and stop the madness.

Raphael,

You said, "Since the survival of mankind has no logical and rational goal except for survival itself, it means life is pointless."

Without proof of the afterlife this is your view of the world?

This to me is absolutely false.  Either way, with or without an afterlife, the immense and breathtaking possibilities inherent in our existence merit further exploration.  

Whether we see clearly enough together as a species to create a future in which we can understand this fully is in question, as it has always been.

The future has not been decided, at least not today.  Or has it?

love, blink

But in an infinite amount of time, the survival of our species = 100% chances of being extinct.

So you can't fight for long time survival as a goal in itself.

As for the beauty of life, yeah I like the scenery but without an afterlife it means I'm experiencing it for no reason. So without an afterlife I wont remember my beautiful experiences.

So living life or not living life would both = 0.

These statements may be true, Raphael, but we just don't know all the facts about our universe or the nature of time itself.  

Perhaps you and I will not live to see the answers to all of our questions, but it is our responsibility as individuals to give purpose and meaning to our own lives, in my view, if not for ourselves, then for those who follow us.

There are times when I myself wonder if my life is meaningless. However, when thinking clearly I know that to be a part of the lives of others on this planet, even if my own light extinguishes forever, is a wonder which I may not comprehend.

blink

Blink that was beautiful

I understand your point blink.

But if there is no afterlife, helping others to understand more how our universe works would be pointless. One day, all that knowledge would be lost and your efforts would thus have been in vain.

The only reason to survive is to find the mystery about the afterlife. From that we will then be able to find other goals.

But if we find out there is really no afterlife, all other endeavour will be for nothing.

wrote on Nov 18^th, 2005 at 12:19pm:

I understand your point blink. But if there is no afterlife, helping others to understand more how our universe works would be pointless. One day, all that knowledge would be lost and your efforts would thus have been in vain. The only reason to survive is to find the mystery about the afterlife. From that we will then be able to find other goals. But if we find out there is really no afterlife, all other endeavour will be for nothing.

If you really believe the "only reason to survive is to find the mystery about the afterlife" then finding it would end that mystery and the reason to survive.  

I think you just made my point.

Taking it from there, "from that we will then be able to find other goals."  Yes, since the only mystery left had been solved, the only goal after that would be death, wouldn't it?

Not at all.

If we found out about the after life, it means physical life would have a use.

So then we could create guidelines and work toward that goal (sharing love, experiencing all there is, working on problems our soul has to fix etc).

So you see, finding the answer would not negate our reason to survive, but instead GIVE us a reason to survive.

And then would come ANOTHER mystery just for you, WHY ?

So there would always be a little bit of mystery but at least we would know there is a road.

wrote on Nov 18^th, 2005 at 1:01pm:

Not at all. If we found out about the after life, it means physical life would have a use. So then we could create guidelines and work toward that goal (sharing love, experiencing all there is, working on problems our soul has to fix etc). So you see, finding the answer would not negate our reason to survive, but instead GIVE us a reason to survive. And then would come ANOTHER mystery just for you, WHY ? So there would always be a little bit of mystery but at least we would know there is a road.

Okay, I can accept that.  There remains an observation I must make about mysteries and roads that fits with the "just for you" part of that of that statement.  

Some of us need more road and road signs than others.  I live in the woods (literally, not figuratively), and prefer a trace of a trail.  That means, I don't need or ask for absolute proof - and that's an irrefutable fact.  

Perhaps that means I'm so immersed in my physical world that I have enough mystery in my life?  Perhaps it's my purpose to be so immersed.  If it weren't, why would I keep coming back for more?

Bud_S mentioned a guide or other entity hanging around when communicating with those in the afterlife...that reminded me of what my daughter said about the first time she saw her Dad in a dream that seemed like a visit (rather than just a dream).  She said he was with a young woman who seemed pretty much to be there to make sure he didn't tell her anything he shouldn't.  He told her he could come around (we think he meant in dreams, though possibly beyond that) when ever he wanted...there weren't any rules that he could only visit for the first year, or until he moved on, or whatever.  That's about all he told her, other than he was with us and loved us.  My daughter was somewhat amused by the "chaperone", she thought it wasn't odd that someone over there thought John needed an eye kept on him...;>)

Raphael said:
"If we found out about the after life, it means physical life would have a use."

This is an interesting statement to me.  Does a mountain have a use?  Do the stars have a use? Do we climb with no purpose?  There are so many ways to look at things....

It is good to have purpose, but it is also good to meander with no purpose in mind.

To meander with no purpose in mind MAY be humanity's destiny, and is that necessarily tragedy?  One outcome of our "purposeless" meanderings is our presence here on this forum.  Without it the chances are that none of us would have met.

To know is a worthy goal.  But to have passion, which you do, is what makes life truly worth living, in my opinion.  Useful or not :)

love, blink

I see your point.

Good comeback with the mountains.

But if our existance has no purpose then we should not plan our life based on survival but instead on fun and experiences.

Knowing if personnal sacrifices for humanity's survival are useful or not is of great importance for me.

---
As for the comparison with mountains it poses great problems.

But we could resume all of these problems with "is the existance of the universe truly a necessity?"

Why must existance exist ?

I've been away for a day, but I'm delighted that my thread has sparked such a blizzard of reflection on basic questions of meaning.  Roger P., I first want to add the mundane point that in post 11 you correctly reworded my ambiguously worded point.  I made an assumption and asked what I regard as the most important question.  The assumption is this: our deceased loved ones would generally be desperate to reassure us of THEIR  wellbeing on the other side and of OUR glorious destiny.  Far from interfering with our quest, such paranormal encouragement would add a great incentive to pursue the awesome potential of spiritual development and insight.  I think Houdini's wife would have been thrilled and deeply inspired by contact from her deceased husband.  Instead, she was depressed by his failure to keep his promise.  Why did Willliam James keep his promise, but not Houdini?  If we could answer that question with certitude we'd achieve a true spriritual breakthrough.

It is important to recognize that astral exploration lacks widespread social approval and is therefore still more a cult than a science.  Methods of exploration like Hemi-Sync must be refined to facilitate greater OBE success and adepts, theologians, and philosophers must consult each other to devise better questions to pose to astral guides, questions that truly advance our knowledge of the afterlife and improve our capacity to explore it safely.  One of the best arguments against the afterlife is the infrequency with which astral guides offer ground-breaking insights that transcend the banal, the predictable, and the unverifiable.  None of the excuses I've heard for this failure are convincing.  But rather than act like martyrs, we must take the bull by the horns and elevate astral exploration as close as possible to the progressive capabilities of sciences like modern medicine.  This of course means a willingness to devise creative double-blind studies, to insist on independent replication of claims, and to finally acknowledge the importance of more and better academic conferences and debates on the key issues of astral exploration and survival.

We must also purge our minds of dogmatic assumptions that impede bracing but productive dialogue.   Let me give two examples.  (1) Bruce Moen apparently considers it a waste of time to debate other people's astral claims.  Bruce seems to assume that such debate never persuades anyone.  Of course, many people are close-minded.  But my experience has taught me just the opposite of Bruce's attitude.  It all depends on how one debates and the quality of the relationship between the interlocuters.  

(2) New Agers and Christians alike often unwittingly hamper each other's progress by assuming that it is in bad taste, even heretical, to ask disturbing or threatening questions.  For example, Christian clerics (but not lay people!) often get indignant when I ask questions like this in discussion groups: (a) How could loving Christians ever be content in Heaven, knowing that relatives, friends, and acquaintances were languishing in lower (perhaps hellish) planes?  Does PUL itself not require a quest to help everyone progress spiritually in the afterlife?   (b) How could a loving God ever permanently give up on anyone after one brief error-filled lifespan?

The problem is that most people are so protective of their current belief system.   So I never press anyone to worry about what they believe when I make the biblical case for soul retrievals and the truth that God's love never permanently abandons anyone after death.  I merely ask them to play with ideas by considering texts they've overlooked and reconsidering texts they may have misinterpreted.   I find that most people take great delight in playing  with exciting new ideas as long as they feel no external pressure to prematurely alter their belief system.  

What is really needed here are posts with titles like this: "Rules that Govern the Ideal Spiritual Quest."   I am currently asking myself what valuable rules are most often bypassed to the detriment of the honest seeker.   I may create such a post in the hope of prompting members to ask themselves what set of rules they might embrace.

Don    

Raphael said:
"But if our existance has no purpose then we should not plan our life based on survival but instead on fun and experiences.

Knowing if personnal sacrifices for humanity's survival are useful or not is of great importance for me."

That is always the conflict for us, isn't it? Finding direction, making choices.  I think it is a given that personal sacrifice is necessary for many lasting gains in life for us as individuals and for societies.  But fun and experiences are also important.  I don't think there will ever be a black and white division on this.  

We already know that we were not the only branch on the tree toward our species, and that several did not continue. Might they have sacrificed, and toward what end? They are gone from our sight, but is it a tragedy? Only if you see it that way.

Even if we discover an afterlife there are likely to be people who will prefer fun and games, whatever the consequences.  The problem is, no one can control another person's mind. At least not yet. Although many people say we are ONE, I would hesitate to say that I would give away my individuality at this very moment for the chance to be ONE in infinity.  

However you slice it, today is a gift worth having.

love, blink

Blink wrote:

" I disagree. We need absolute proof. Without proof it means the most probable explanation is that there is no afterlife. "

Why does proof have to be absolute? Think about this for a moment. Do we, individually, have absolute proof that humans have landed and walked on the moon? I know I don't. I wasn't there to see it and I possess none of the physical evidence. I haven't even seen those moon rocks, let alone had and tested them. Yet is it not reasonable to believe that this did occur and is not a Hollywierd production? We know that if we challenged the landings, proof would be forthcoming,. Otherwise we believe they occured largely because of our faith in the US Government, NASA, the scientists involved, the news media, et al.  Yet this faith is hardly absolute proof to us as individuals.

I don't think absulute proof is a reasonable critieria. Some things are reasonable to believe without an absolute standard of proof.

I suggest two other criteria:

Personal experience. If I see someone stab someone to death, I don't need proof of the murderer's action. I am an eyewitness. I am the proof from my own POV at a minimum. I don't have to believe because I actually saw it for myself. I don't believe; I know.

A preponderance of the evidence.  Ten witnesses saying essentially the same thing about the murder would be difficult to dismiss. It would be unreasonable to not believe them, although that is still belief and not knowledge because they saw it and I didn't.  I am still taking their word for it. But, again, it would be unreasonable not to believe them. Colloberate with physical evidence showing the same thing and you have proof beyond any doubt that is reasonable.  The line between believing and knowing here is so blurred that it is reasonable to say we know and not just believe.

We can't go through life expecting absolute proof for anything, really, because there is always room for at least a tiny bit of doubt, however unreasonable.

I think there is a preponderance of the evidence that there is an Afterlife and that this evidence is universal in both space (crossing physical and cultural/religious boundaries) and time (throughout history).  An Afterlife explorer has the additional personal experience that, with verification, proves beyond any reasonable doubt that there is such a "place."  

I am tired, so if my points are flawed, please feel free to point them out.

Bob

Actually, Bob, I didn't write that.  Raphael did.  

And I agree with you about absolute proof.  What is the standard? I cannot find one which works 100% of the time for me.

So carry on:)

blink

Sorry, Blink.

Bob

You said:

There are at least 4 possible explanations for Houdini's broken promise: (1) Houdini never survived death.  (2) He survived but was trapped in a lower (perhaps hellish) plane where such transcommunication was inconceivable.   (3) He lost his memory of his promise to the wife he loved.  
(4) He was dissuaded from trying to contact her by spiritual considerations such as Ryan suggested.  Perhaps he was informed of the danger of opening his wife to the dangers of contacts with impersonating evil spirits.
**************************
What about (5)
Houdini's identity as "Houdini" did not survive. He reincarnated soon after his death. (Perhaps he exists now as a great magician in C1 of a parallel universe? Just one of many possibilities...)

B-man

If there is no afterlife (or specifically, no second chances in C1, i.e. NO reincarnation, "you only go 'round once" as the old saying puts it) then Raphael is correct about not having children, I say.
There's no guarantees the kid would have a life worth living, and a REAL danger he could be born, say, a Mongoloid idiot, or grievously disabled in some other way... and his whole "big shot at life" would be... WASTED. (Thanks to you!!!)
Only if he was LUCKY, would the kid avoid having his life destroyed before it even had begun (as happened to a childhood friend of mine, who was playing in a leaf pile, didn't see the leaf truck coming, and ended up with his face destroyed and both his eyes gone. Last I heard of him a few years back, he'd attempted suicide several times... NOT a happy camper.)
And without reincarnation, there'd be NO payback for a "bungled shot" in this great old world of ours.
Thusly, if we "only go 'round once" (and this is a strong possibility if not PROBABILITY) then it is irresponsible to bring children into the world. (BTW, this philosophy explains in a BIG way why I never married, and likely never will... what's the point of marriage, if you don't mean to have kids? Why bother with the legal-beagle stuff (and considering that 3 out of 4 marriages end in divorce, often with major financial debts and heartbreak - usually for the guy - I'd be taking a sucker's gamble on my happiness anyway if I were to get hitched) if it ain't necessary for having fun, which is ALL that really matters if this one shot is all we get..?)

B-man

Brendan,  anything that earthly reincarnation could accomplish might be accomplished in other worlds in parallel universes or heavenly planes.   For example, the Bible and the early church teach evolutionary soul progression with a multiplicity of heavenly planes to challenge the newly dead to make progress towards union with God.   Perhaps, you recall my lengthy thread on this subject entitled "A Fresh Look at Heaven."   During his NDE, atheist Howard Storm is specifically informed by Jesus that other worlds generally provide more suitable challenges for our newly dead.  

The early church father, Origen, taught that there are countless worlds in which the deceased acquire bodies appropriate to the environment for fresh opportunities for spiritual growth.   Though controversial on some issues, Origen was no Gnostic, but rather a teacher in Christianity's first theological school, Alexandria, a school that produced the first Christian systematic theologians.  

I  guess digressions must be expected, but I do hope this thread will mostly focus on its original topic.

Don

Hi,
I've only just come into this thread, having been away from this board for a bit...but my own two cents.

First of all, I believe I have been spontaneously contacted by several of my relatives who have passed; primarily by my paternal grandfather who passed the year I was born.  It doesn't happen often, however...and I want to elaborate on a few reasons why I believe that is so.

The first thing to remember is that communication is a process that involves two seperate people...both a transmitter and a receiver.  The reason why I make special mention of this otherwise obvious fact is because when it comes to the dead trying to contact us, they can only do so via a purely mental process.  This means that they have to try and compete with whatever else exists inside our own minds.  (Skepticism regarding the process possibly being in itself the largest barrier.)  If you are convinced that contact is impossible, that can set up a mental brick wall which anyone trying to contact you will generally find almost impossible to break through.  It is also possible I think for people to simply be excessively "corporeally minded," for them to be able to translate attempts at contact into something they can understand mentally, if that makes sense.  As I think Bruce would definitely tell us, while afterlife investigation is possible for anyone, it definitely requires some shifts in thinking.  People who haven't made said shifts in thinking could be required to use a mental frame of reference which they simply do not have in the case of someone trying to communicate with them.

Another issue is that my relatives generally use dreams as their primary means of contact with me, and it's important to realise that simply because you have a dream, it by no means necessarily follows that you will definitely remember it.  In fact, I generally have more difficulty remembering contact dreams than I do normal ones, as there seems to be a different kind/level of consciousness involved...either that, or seperation from my body produces difficulty with recall.

The third thing is that I believe in certain circumstances the dead can be forbidden to make contact with the living, at least for short periods of time.  As an example, an uncle of mine committed suicide in 1990.  He was obviously still very angry after he passed, as my aunt had almost constant poltergeist activity until the funeral, and was also unable to go to the bathroom on her own due to the strength of the sensation of him watching her when she did.  Immediately after the funeral however, his contact with myself and other relatives has been extremely sporadic, and I gained the impression when trying to focus on it a few times that he had been expressly forbidden or restrained somehow from contacting people for a period of time after the funeral, due to the level of anger he still had.

The fourth thing is that as Bruce would probably tell people, those who have passed have their own lives and their own activities.  If they do not contact us regularly, it can very well be for the same reason that we often only see living relatives once or twice a year...people are very busy with their own affairs.  In the last contact dream I had with my grandfather, he told me that he wanted to speak to me earlier, but had been unable to get to me due to having been busy.

Contact does happen, and in all honesty, it isn't really any more of a big deal than making a telephone call to a living person.  The only reason why it can seem more like a big deal is because it can be slippery, in terms of the number of variables involved...but it can and does happen.

Quote:

their quest to visit this level As a result, Focus 27 often seems to be just another BST.

I can't make claims for other people here, but for me, the BSTs and what I at least think is F27 are relatively easy to distinguish between, although the differences can be subtle and you do have to look closely.

The single biggest difference in my own mind is that the BSTs were/are usually designed with the express purpose of resembling a physical, Earthly environment as closely as possible, (even the Hollow Heavens) and are inhabited by spirits still thinking primarily in linear/corporeal terms.  There are some differences of course, but such are normally relatively minor.  As such, materials/objects will tend to have an identical or almost identical appearance of mass and solidity to physical materials/objects.  Attributes of physics tend to be identical, as well...gravity in such places is only overridden by a conscious act of will/recognition of where you in fact are.  This is because in order to defy gravity within a BST, as one example, it involves directly challenging the inhabitants' perceptions of what the given BST is like.  So if the inhabitants of the BST you're in firmly have the idea that in their realm, flight is impossible, you're possibly going to find flying there a bit more difficult than you normally would, because it involves actually challenging that perception.  Being an astral environment of course means that the fabric of the place itself is constructed of nothing more than the perceptions of whichever individuals are present.

F27 in my mind (or the reception area anyway...I don't claim to have been further within F27 than that, and arguably consider it audacious/arrogant to claim that I've even been that far) on the other hand is designed to resemble a physical environment to a sufficient degree that it is unlikely to cause panic in a new person initially arriving, while at the same time letting a person know that they're fairly definitely *not* actually in a corporeal environment.  In my own perception of the Park, the lighting in particular *is* different to either the BSTs or C1.  I wouldn't say that there is a huge glare...I'd more describe it as a moderate corona or wispy sort of haze/fog covering everything, but with a light source present within said fog.

Another difference between the Park and BSTs in my experience is that it can be physically/geometrically dynamic.  By that what I mean is that its' shape/layout can change, depending on how many people are in it at once, what a given group/individual needs to see for their own sake, and various other factors.  Most, if not all of the BSTs I've been to contained spirits who either
a) genuinely had forgotten they were dead,
b) wanted to forget, or
c) knew they were dead but still wanted to think/perceive in entirely corporeal terms anyway.  

Most of the hollow heavens I've read about/seen contained people in the third category; that is, individuals who knew they were dead but still expected heaven to be identical to something physical, simply because they weren't developmentally at a point where they could conceive otherwise.  While the BSTs allow people to continue having this perception exclusively for as long as that is what they want, to me while it respects free choice, F27 is also at least partially about growth/getting accustomed to something new.  I think that is at least part of the reason why F27 is visually/sensually distinguishable from the BSTs/C1.

I don't know if this is true of everyone, but I actually tend to think of (what I have seen of/think of as) F27 as being a much cleaner equivalent of the Mos Eisley spaceport on Tatooine, from the Star Wars films.  To me it serves roughly the same purpose.  I'd also point out that I don't see the Park/Reception Centre as an end point at all, but I do see it as an end point for human beings, in terms of where we can go *while we're alive.*  I had a dream a while back where I was building a house with other members of my family, and (due not only to the quality of the light but also several other non-linear aspects, which I think cause my difficulty in recalling such dreams, because of how different I am mentally There to how I am when awake) I've tended to believe that it took place in F27.

To me F27 is the point at which the part of astral space which is dedicated specifically to humanity converges with those areas that are the domain of various other kinds of beings; hence the spaceport or space station analogy.  I also realise that this is a linear representation of it, but I can't really come up with a better one in C1 thinking.  It's worth noting of course that the only reason why I need to try and represent it in a textual/linear manner anyway is *because* we're in C1...If we weren't, we could either simply go there, or I could send you a visual/sensorial stream of exactly what I meant, rather than having to refer to the incredibly clumsy/limiting method of communication that is verbal/textual language.

Petrus.

Thank you for your two thoughful and informative replies.   You don't explain why you feel the spirits of your relatives actually communicated with you in your dreams.   Many of us dream about our families while they are still alive.   When they pass away, a vacuum is created and we long to communicate with them one more time to reassure ourselves of their welllbeing.   Many dreams are  fueled by wishful thinking.  So it would be shocking if we had no dreams about contact with recently deceased loved ones, even if the dreams were all illusory.    

As I have described in detail on this site, I once
had an incredibly lucid and emotional retrieval dream involving an ex-girlriend who committed suicide.   For months I was desperate to believe that my contact with her was real.   But ultimately, reason prevailed over wishful thinking and I realized that my dream was just a cathartic illusion.  Why are your dream contacts  any different?   Did you receive verification evidence?

Don

In terms of what happened with my grandfather recently, it probably was just a dream.  The only real reason why I thought it might have been otherwise were because of some of the dream's characteristics...but it's true that that in itself is not validation.
These responses have been a positive reminder for me to avoid being excessively impressionable...and also to try and maintain humility, which I will admit I do have problems with at times.

Petrus,

I would go futher and say that these responses, including yours, have been as discerning and critically reflective as any I've encountered in recent years.  Astral experiences are so often delusory.  What we need even more than such experiences is a well-honed gift of discernment.  On a site that sometimes displays breath-taking gullibility, it is refreshing and encouraging to encounter posters capable of setting aside ego and wishful thinking and being intelligently self-critical.  What this means for me is that the future paranormal experiences of these posters will be of particular interest to me as possible sources of real knowledge.

Thanks,
Don  

 
      In 1926 Houdini died,   at this time a famous medium was on the horizon by the name of Arthur Ford.  Let it be said, that Arthur Ford did not care for Houdini, he found him bigoted, flamboyant and unfair with his feelings towards mediums, so it took Arthur Ford by great surprise while in trance to be connecting and delivering a message from Houdini's mother, she told him that the word between her and son was the word " forgive".  Because of Fords dislike of Houdini he decided to do nothing about the message, but others in the group decided to contact Beatrice Houdini, wife of Houdini and relay this to her, Beatrice published this correct message "forgive" in the newspapers across the country  and asked publicly if Houdini would have a session with her, the messages that followed during those session weeks turned  out to be one of the greatest communications in the annals of psychical research, an editor of the Scientific American was present throughout all of the sittings, he brought with him a shorthand expert who took down every word spoken from Houdini to Ford, when the entire communications were finished it was attested by Mrs Houdini to be in actual facts, and the long awaited precisely worded communication from husband to wife delivered in code  was to the tee correct. This made big headlines back then and in the newspapers for weeks. linn

 To further a bit about what Linn was saying regarding Houdini and mediums:

 Houdini actively investigated Cayce, and Cayce was the only medium like phenomena (he wasn't a "medium" in the traditional sense of the word) of which he investigated, and didn't publically denounce.  Houdini had exposed more than a few fraudulant mediums in his day.

 Even stranger, towards the end of his life, Houdini a very skeptical Jew, decided to totally change one of his movie scripts and wrote a movie about reincarnation and the movie began with a line from the New Testament.

 People who have investigated Houdini's dealings with Cayce, believe that Cayce and his genuiness (and accuracy) had a large influence on Houdini, and unlike Ford, Cayce never turned down anyone because of personality likes and dislikes.  This right here says something of Cayces motivation vs. Fords, and "motivation" has much do with the accuracy or lack of, in such psychic endeavors.

Linn,

I would just love to believe that your account of what happened is valid.  But I am reluctantly convinced by the consensus that Ford "actually found the `secret' code on page 105 of a book that was published the year before (1927).  .. The code was not specially prepared by Houdini and Bess.  IT WAS VERY OLD AND HAD BEEN USED IN THEIR MIND-READING ACT FOR YEARS."  

Initially, both Arthur Ford and Bess understandably denied complicity in fraud.   But in the final Houdini seance, broadcast worldwide, Houdini's wife Bess finally and unequivocally implies that Ford's disclosure of the "secret" code really was a fraud.  
"
"Coverage for the final Houdini seance was provided by radio and it was broadcast all over the world."  At the conclusion of  the broadcast,
"The mournful voice of Bess Houdini then echoed through radio receivers around the world.  `Yes, Houdini did not come through,' she replied.  `MY LAST HOPE IS GONE.  I DO NOT BELIEVE THAT HOUDINI CAN COME BACK TO ME--OR ANYONE.'"
In my mind, this is a tacit admission of guilt preserved on radio for all the hear.   Sigh!   Well, at least we still have William James's Ouija board verification for his friend James Hyslop.  

Don

P.S. I quote from http://www.prairieghosts.com/ houdini.html

Quote:

There's no guarantees the kid would have a life worth living, and a REAL danger he could be born, say, a Mongoloid idiot, or grievously disabled in some other way... and his whole "big shot at life" would be... WASTED. (Thanks to you!!!)

And just what is a life worth living?
We choose our lives before we come into the earth plane. I don't know how many times I've said this.  No life is wasted. Those who choose the harder lives advance faster than those who choose a life of luxury and indulgences. We are all ONE. Stop and think about what this means. We are ONE with all the disabled. You are him/her and he/she is you.  Why can't people SEE what's right in front of them or rather inside of them.

In Spirit of ONE,
Mairlyn

Hi everyone,
As a followup, I have a possible validation for the dream contact with my grandfather that I mentioned earlier in this thread.

In the dream, my grandfather was driving a convertible.  I asked my father just this evening whether or not my grandfather had owned a convertible, and he said not in his lifetime...but that he thought my grandfather had possibly owned an old Ford convertible before he was born.  He said it would be something to ask my grandmother when I see her next.

If it turns out he did have one, then that could be a validation from the point of view that I didn't actually know he'd had one prior to the dream.  My uncle owned a car that my grandfather had had previously, but it was closed/hardtop and so if it had been my imagination, I would have seen him driving that car if any.

I agree the convertible is a validation Petrus, as have seen this verified more than once..that in the afterlife we may be creating of it, by the very material items to which we had an attachment, or love for.

for instance, my father passed before mother did and she is very pychic woman; has had all type of contact with the astral world and spirits.
my father drove up to her in a jalopy and asked her to step out of her physical body and go for a spin...the last time I had seen him, he was driving a 46 chevy in this life when I was 14, I dented it's fender for him. he acted like it got there by mistake and we both scratched our heads. I thank him for that. had no idea he liked model T's. with the top down of course. this is what he was driving my mother in out there. she had the time of her life.
mother informed me yes, he was into these old cars quite a bit. of course this is verification only to the family to which it belongs, and only within the hearts of the people it was given to.
but I share this, because I want to share, they loved each other so much and still do! btw, he used to punch her face in all the time! now they are just having fun out there. it's real, we have bodies out there, we do interact and it's fun! love, alysia

The astral insights of Emanuel Swedenborg and Robert Bruce, combined with the consensus of classical spiritualism, repudiate the facile ease with which many mediums put sitters in contact with their dead loved ones.  

On the one hand, Emanuel Swedennborg seems capable of contacting the recently dead at will and bringing back verififiable information.  On the other hand,  as ES's biographer, Ernst Benz puts it:
 
"The inhabitant of the world of spirits, with whom Swedenborg is talking, has lost all knowledge of the natural world and its earthly mode of being.  He had become a pure idealist because he has neither contact with the natural world nor any means of comparison with it [Benz, 328]."

The world of spirits in ES's astral geography is roughly equivalent to Focus 25-26 in the Monroe-Moen scheme.  To a more limited extent, Robert Bruce confirms ES's insights on memory problems of the dead.  The problem is that RB seems to be alluding to memory problems in Focus 27:

"...Many of the people/spirits I have met there [in the Healing Center] seem to be quite real.  All are visiting or waiting for a patient in the hospital . . . Spirits I have spoken to in this situation do not seem to be aware of the length of time that has elapsed since they passed over, or of many details concerning the afterlife since that time. . . Often they will speak of a warm brightly lit, interesting place where they have many friends and loved ones, but with little more detail than this. The most common response I get from asking spirits what it's like where they come from is: `It's really lovely there and everyone is so nice.  I don't understand this. I'm very sorry.  I know it well and can picture it in my head, but I just can't describe it to you. . .
MEMORIES OF THEIR EARTHLY LIFE ALSO SEEM VAGUE, MUCH LIKE A HALF-FORGOTTEN DREAM IS REMEMBERED BY A LIVING PERSON (RB)."

The problem here is that classical mediumship envisages the progressive sequence "the illusion of summerland (roughly equivalent to Focus 25-26), followed by "the Judgment" (extensive past life review), followed by gradual ascent through three heavens.  After the past life review one would presume that earthly memories would be restored for promotion to the Heavens.  If so, we must ask if Focus 27 designates a level below the Heavens.  

Insights from the best comparative analysis of classical spiritualism (Paul Beard, "Living On") might help resolve this contradiction:

"Telepathic rapport is common in the early days after death, and can initiate itself either from those on earth or from the one on the other side of death; the links of feeling and thought remain, and for a brief while seem particularly easy to activate. .. Later it will require a closer tie or affinity or the sharing of a common task, and may lessen or cease through the competing pull of other tasks in the world beyond death (Beard, p. 63)."

This insight might help explain why contacts from deceased loved ones become much more rare after the first year.  It might also explain the ultimate failure of Edward Meeks EVP device, Spiricom, which initially recorded the voice of deceased engineer George Mueller, complete with impressive verifications, but which eventually fell silent because, as Mueller himself warned, he was about to progress out of range for new communications.

Classical mediumship also hints at why even loved ones in Heaven might have difficulty in descending to our vibratory frequency to communicate with us.
Beard's explanation of the retrieval problems faced by spirit guides may apply to communication with us from the heavens as well:

"To enter these areas [the lower astral] fills rescuers with a deep sense of distress; these helpers...can themselves become affected and drawn into some of the purblind emotions thay seek to lift from others, and if they remain too long in this area, they...can, to some extent, be temporarily overcome by them.  For the price to be paid in order to reach these minds is to lower their own consciousness and concepts to a level acceptable to...those they hope to rescue.  Evil is powerful in its own level, and clearly a rescuer needs sterner qualities that those of the self-congratulatory do-gooder (Beard 89)."  

This resonates with the complaint of an OBE adept on this site a couple of years ago.  He complained that his visits to the lower astral overwhelmed him with evil impulses that were hard to resist--so much so that was reluctant to continue his astral explorations.  Independent corroboration of Beard!

RB's OBE isights might explain why more evolved loves are reluctant to communicate with us:

"Angels and advanced spirit beings, unlike most astral inhabitants, do not appear limited to any particular plane or dimension level.  They have the ability, I believe, to manifest in any level, even in the real time zone and the physical dimension itself. . . The biggest difference between negative and positive spiritual forces, including all lesser spiritual beings, is that the positive forces seem less willing to interfere directly with humankind.  Positive spirits almost seem to have some kind of non-interference policy in force.  They will sometimes intervene, but this is rare."

These issues are fascinating but very difficult to sort out.

Don



"

<<This resonates with the complaint of an OBE adept on this site a couple of years ago.  He complained that his visits to the lower astral overwhelmed him with evil impulses that were hard to resist--so much so that was reluctant to continue his astral explorations.  Independent corroboration of Beard!>>

Don-

I recall that ES also warned against trying to visit the afterlife, since there was much deception at certain levels.  But I don't remember if ES said it was necessary to first travel thru that lower level in order to visit higher levels.

This makes me dubious about mediums who claim they can easily contact deceased spirits in the afterlife.  I'm beginning to believe that either (1) there's still a lot of trickery involved such as the cold calling technique, or (2) mediums get their info via ESP from the loved ones still alive or (3) the medium is contacting a spirit, but it is an impersonation.  Neither the medium nor the loved one realizes the deception that is going on.

But here's a larger question...if we assume that there's a lot of deception in the afterlife,  what would be the reason(s) why any of us would want to try to make contact?  And if we did make contact,  how would we know whether it's the person we think it is?

Rondele,

I think your questions imply an excellent grasp of the issues.  Let me briefly respond to some of your points.   Consider the case of two of the most gifted mediums of the 20th century: Leonore Piper and Blanche Cooper.  Both had the ability to transmit stunning verifiable information about the drop-in communcators who claimed to speak through them.   Piper's performance was made possible by a French spirit control named Jean Scliville Phinuit.   Phinuit eventually provided enough details about his past earthly life as a doctor that his claims could be decisively tested.  It was proven that he was not who he claimed to be.  Blanche Cooper channeled Gordon Davis, a drop-in communicator who "proved" his identity by his characteristic jargon and by recounting amazingly accurate details well known to the sitter, Sam Soal.
Yet Soal later discovered that Davis was alive all the while and knew nothiing about the seance.  Significantly, Soal had been wrongly told that Davis was dead!  Cooper apparently tuned into this misperception in her recreation of Davis's persona.

I have posted these type of refutations of channeling before, but no one on this site seems willing or able to take this seriously.   Am I asking them to reject all channeling?  No, in fact, in rare instances, I suspect that channeling can provide genuine contact with the dead.   Of course, many posters here deem me a trouble-maker for posting such  refutations and imagine that I take sadistic delight in tweaking their belief system.   That reacton is all-too-human, but  they are mistaken.   In my past role as Theology professor and minister, many people have looked to me for spiritual guidance.  I hate playing God and often feel as if I'm not really up to the task.  I simply want with all my heart to know which paths to afterlife exploration are the most evidential, which are generally unreliable, and which are of unknown value, but may have potential.

Your concern that astral projection is too vulnerable to deceptive spirits to be advisable is very legitimate.   In my case, I feel like a soldier who must walk the streets of Ramadi to ensure that it is safe for those I presume to advise.   I know there is a risk, but I feel obligated to take that risk given the potential for a life-changing payoff for those I want to encourage.  Still, I realize that my skepticism hampers my progress.

I do believe in the gift of discernment.  But I also think that few people have this gift.  It must be honed in the school of hard knocks.  It can only be developed by those who are willing to press rhrough their own wishful thinking and deeply examine the merits of all potentially viable methods and truth claims.   One must regularly play Devil's Advocate with oneself.  In other words, one must often assume for the sake of argument that one is fundamentally deluded and then ask how one could possibly verify that insight.   This ruthless self-examination can be painful.  I complain about the ghetto mentality of many on this site.   But I don't blame them for this.  I could level the same criticism at many church people.   For the development of reliable spiritual discernment, it is crucial that we immerse ourselves in the case for alternative belief systems that most threaten us.  Otherwise, we risk getting "stuck" in a cultic mentality.  

Don

Don,
    You said:
"In other words, one must often assume for that sake of argument that one is fundamentally deluded and then ask how one could possibly verify that insight."

I think you have a valid point here Don.  

However, my own personal approach would be to assume that I may be deluded but to go ahead and experience "delusion" after "delusion."  

It's kind of like getting lost in a hall of mirrors and eventually you find the way out.  After all, as long as I'm not hurting anyone or bumping into the mirrors and breaking them, it's all in good fun anyway....

And, you know, if some of those folks don't like being retrieved then how long can it take for them to wish themselves back into the hollow hell that they came from?  Probably not long at all, so I'm not going to worry about that.

I am all for exploration for its own sake.  If the dead can find me or I can find them, all the better.

No worries for me...

blink

Blink,

i agree with your point about being willng to experience  "delusion after delusion."   Awareness of the counterfeit can refine one's discernment about real astral exploration.  For example, I don't mind that Robert Monroe includes experiences in his books which seem absurd to me.  What I object to is his failure to even address the credibility problems.  In fact, I wish that astral adepts would tell us more about their instructive failures in astral projection. This might help me understand why my own apparent OBEs were in fact bogus and how I might learn from this to experience the real thing.  

Let me give you an analogy.  If I selectively shared my experiences of miracles and answered prayer, I could make myself sound like Jesus.   But this would mask the fact that I'm often discouraged in my faith.  Sometimes, when I pray for people on the brink of death, they are healed of their condition, only to die of  something else a year later.  I can rationalize this by saying their time was simply up and God answered my prayer by giving them a year of grace to complete their relationships with their loved ones.  But I don't know if this is correct.   Some of my paranormal experiences make great sense as divine guidance, but others are highly ambiguous or confusing.   If I keep my disturbing experiences from those I wish to inspire, I run the risk of plunging them into the despair of similarly ambiguous experiences.  They might ask themselves, "Why can't I be like Don?  He never seems to have these problems."  If I at least share the vexing with the inspiring, those I influence might take comfort that the spiritual quest can be mined with all sorts of potholes.  This insight might help them bow before the many mysteries and press on undaunted.  Besides, in a worst case scenario, even if astral exploration or contact was totally bogus, it would still be worth exploring as an unknown state of consciouness.

Don

Don,

I've often wondered, when people talk of their guides, how they know that they are listening to the right spirits.   The dictum is that we are all provided a certain number of them, and to "ask and ye shall receive," to get advice, help....


If the lower astral planes are as Bruce describes, it would not be unthinkable that a spirit recently deceased could make contact as a "guide."  He/she may have no more knowledge of right or wrong than you or I do, and might have his/her own agenda.  

When I raised this point before, the answer on the board I got was "trust your intuition; you will know if the guidance is correct."  To some extent this makes sense.  However, I wonder how many out there with guidance have true wise guidance?  Any contact at all seems so special, one is likely to listen to wha the guidance says...

Matthew

I absolutely agree with your reply, Don.

However, I try not to use the word "failure" when I think about exploration.  Exploration can be a long journey.  We may retrace our steps and choose new paths, and each small step may take us toward a new "extrasensory" perception and hone our skills in ways we don't even understand during our initial experiences.  I want to remain open to that kind of learning for my entire life.  

It is easy for me to "shut down" if I imagine failure.  Therefore, I cannot make it that important to myself.  It is best if I just consider myself lucky to be on the voyage, and take from it whatever it offers.

After all, they say that the best travelers are not so much concerned with the destination -- they just enjoy the journey.  This is so very true, even if we don't enjoy every second.  That's kind of unrealistic anyway.  

Through this kind of exploration I am beginning to be able to just throw some things in a bag and get in the car and go, rather than plan and detail every moment of a "journey," in the astral or otherwise.  This letting go is a good skill to have, and has repercussions in everyday life.

And of course, giving and receiving feedback here on the forum is always a complimentary method of study.

blink

Don,

I would point out that the gift of Discerment is a gift of the Holy Spirit, and he gives it to whom He wishes. 1 Corinthians Chap 12, esp vs 10. It says nothing about it being having to be honed or the school of hard knocks, or how widespread that gift is.  That's from the Christian perspective from which you (and I) borrow heavily.

Bob

Bob,
    You said,
"I would point out that the gift of Discerment is a gift of the Holy Spirit, and he gives it to whom He wishes. 1 Corinthians Chap 12, esp vs 10. It says nothing about it being having to be honed or the school of hard knocks, or how widespread that gift is.  That's from the Christian perspective from which you (and I) borrow heavily."

Speaking for myself, I can only assume that discernment is a gift available to all of us unless proven otherwise, and I would also assume that to attain reliable, consistent results anyone would be best served to practice it just like any other skill or "art."  

When walking along the street one person will see only a street and another will see all manner of interesting things.  We can train the eye to look and the ear to hear.  I think we can train our "inner" eye to look and our "inner" ear to hear, and that is what this site is all about, at least when we focus on that.  

blink

I agree Blink about the training part. we each see things according to the direction we are looking in, to focus in on. the reasons it is difficult for non/physical beings to establish contact with those in physical areas is that the physical person must place their focus in that area first, to concieve of the possibilities for that contact. and that of course is a matter of belief systems to change.
discernment of spirits I believe depends on the belief systems accepted also, as family will attract family spirits, or like attracts like. here on the earth plane pychologists will discuss dove-tailing relationship factors..one will attract to one's self the perfect person to work out their belief patterns they hold. holding and releasing belief patterns is what we seem to do here the best to grow.
I believe it's the same on the other side, where we gravitate to BST's of the like minded, gradually evolving to a place where all belief systems can be held simultaneously, so to say, life can be like a rainbow and an overview can show us the entire scope of all the colors, where here in the physical plane we may be observing only yellow, or red, etc. love, alysia

Well said, blink. You just gave a good description of the gift of wisdom, which, from Paul's  perspective, means "divine revelation gained from hard experience, and hence, by trial and error.  Paul never intended his list of spiritual gifts to be understood in a mutually exclusive way.  He tells us to "eagerly strive" for spiritual gifts, but doesn't tell us how.   Modern technologies like Hemi-Sync might be a legitimate application of his advice.

But let me share a test case for discernment and see how my readers react.  I strongly believe in retrievals from a biblical perspective.  But I'm skeptical of most of the examples posted on this site.   Let me share my process of discernment on this issue.  First, I performed a retrieval of an ex-girlfriend who committed suicide.  It was a vivid and powerful emotional experience.  But when I learned how to have lucid dreams, these were clearly fictional and yet just as real as my retrieval dream.  

With that in mind, I read the reports on this site and elsewhere.  I asked myself what a prudent discarnate person might do to make retrievals successful and to encourage astral projectors to perform them.  Of course, I must assume that this helper is as rational now as he was while alive on earth.   I then formulate a procedure that goes something like this:

The helper briefs the apprentice retriever on the target for retrieval.  The retriever is briefed on the type of hollow heaven or hell that currently holds the target.  Then the helper discusses the process by which the target's energetics have been changed to the point that he is ready to relocate to Focus 27 or elsewhere.   With that in mind, the retriever is better equipped to craft or follow a strategy.  At some point during the retrieval, the retriever is briefed on who the target is--i. e. when and where he died, his name and address, etc.  With that information the retriever is motivated to perform more retrievals and to promote this act of mercy among skeptical incarnate people.   After the retrieval, the retriever is shown or informed about the new situation in which the target will find himself.  

Of course, nothing like this ever seems to happen.  The question is why not.   Most of us are not as bright or lucid in our dreams as we are during waking consciousness.   The other characters in our dreams are similarly rather one-dimensional. If I try to deliver a speech to an audience in my dreams, it is much harder to keep it coherent and rational for an extended period of time.   I suspect that many retrievers would have asked the questions conducive to verification if they had been more lucid during the retrieval.  Their failure to do so suggests that, even when they performed a waking retrieval. their state of consciousness was not much more advanced than their normal dream state.  By contrast, when Swedenborg visited the astral planes, he often set the agenda for much of what happened.

Of course, I'm not saying that the course of a retrieval should precisely follow my agenda.  But my reading of online retrievals creates the impression that the guides could care less whether their pupils can verify their retrievals for themselves or for a skeptical public.  If for some reason, it were important not to provide such  verification, then I'd expect the guides to explain why this is so.  

At this point, Swedenborg seems crucial to me.   He could regularly bring back detailed verifications from the newly dead he contacted.   If he could do it, why not modern retrievers?  Two explanations seem most likely: either his astral visits were  genuine and modern visits usually are not OR explorers enter the astral realm with different levels of consciousness that ordinarily are not deep enough to allow the extended conversations that ES was able to conduct with spirits.  My own retrieval of Janet now seems bogus, but I could change my mind if future retrieval attempts were accompanied by modest verifications.   I'm very skeptical but remain open.

Don

It occurs to me that there are a number of things that have to coincide for verifiable contact of whatever sort.  There's the contact itself, of course.  Then that the person doing it actually believes it, dares to communicate it (if they have any interest in doing so, even), and that it be "verifiable" in some way beyond what works just for them.  

For instance, there are several things that John could come back and pass on to someone else, that if they relayed them to me, it would be absolute verifiable, for me, truth...we were fairly private people, and there are many many things that only he and I knew, or could know.  So those things would be proof...but (understandably) not acceptable as such to anyone else...I could be in collusion with the reporter, for all they know.
But it would be absolute iron-clad proof for me, and ultimately, that's my main concern.

I meet people all the time who have had contact with that sort of proof, who are absolutely convinced that they have had contact, but don't tell anyone because they're afraid, especially in this very fundie Christian area, that they'll be disbelieved at best and shunned at (likely) worst.  I talk about my contacts a lot, everyone thinks I'm weird anyway, and that brings out their stories, but they'd never have been told, otherwise.  

These people have been raised to believe that this stuff doesn't happen, or if it does it's evil, they don't want to think about it, let alone go online to search out others who have had similiar experiences, or heaven forbid broadcast the fact.  They'll tell me about it likes it's some guilty secret, and then often they won't talk about it again...they wanted to know they're not crazy, but once they get past that they start thinking maybe they or their departed loved one are evil or possessed (that's what they've been taught), so they don't want to think about it any more.

If Emanuel Swedenborg [ES] can easily and routinely contact the recently deceased, then they should be able to routinely contact us.  In fact, this rarely happens. How can this be explained without unsubstantiated and implausible speculations?  Let me sum up 4 of the key possibilities raised in this thread and the questions I have about these issues.  I would appreciate any new reflections you have on (1)-(4).

(1) Very few deceased loved ones are spiritually evolved enough to navigate back and forth to us and to communicate in an unmistakable and verifiable way.
To this I reply, aren't there astral schools to train new arrivals in the art of after-death contact?  The evidence suggests that the longer the period since death, the harder contact is.  But why don't more spirits contact us in the first months after death?  And what evidence is there that deceased spirits who do contact us are unusally gifted spiritually?

(2) Their memory of us has been erased for their own good.  But even ES insists that the Lord restores their earth memories to help them further reflect on the life lessons.   

(3) Their priorities change in the afterlife.  They now realize that it is not in the best interest of their loved ones to receive contact from beyond the grave.  To this I ask, why not?  I have seen how comforting and life-changing such contacts can be. 

(4) Our loved ones don't contact us becuase they realize how vulnerable we are to spirit impersonators and they don't want to set us up for dangerous deception as we seek further contacts with loved ones.  To this I ask, couldn't they teach us how to protect ourselves and how to detect their genuine presence? 

Don   

Don,

If fundamentally we are consciousness and this world is virtual where all is taking place within the mind of consciousness, then the question arises if we were ever born in the first place?  If ELS is basically a virtual consciousness learning lab that evolved from within the larger consciousness system how would that perspective change the questions you pose? I guess what I'm wondering is if we need to approach the answers to your questions from a different perspective?

Kathy

How do we know that our loved ones don't try and contact us, but for some reason or another we don't perceive them (e.g. blocked by grief emotion ) ?

What you are pointing out is absolutely true, heisenberg!

People often come to this site with stories of how much they want to be in touch with a recently departed loved one, and when we start talking, we find they are getting all kinds of messages, but are too blocked by grief or disbelief to notice. 
Also alot of folks are running through life pell mell and haven't got time, they think, to slow down and listen and notice the subtler aspects.

The difference between living on Eaarth and those passed on is often called a veil.  Just a veil.

Bets 

I think some of it is how much that sort of communication has been normal for both parties when both were in the physical.  Ghosts and spirits and such were just par for the course with John and I - he communicated a lot, and still does occasinally.  Neither of my folks were as easy with that sort of thing, and I haven't heard much of anything from either of them.

That may apply to some people.  But to my knowledge, no study indicates that the prospects for postmortem communication are greatly affected by paranormal capaciites prior to the death.  Nor does  it seem plausible to blame the lack of communication on the close-mindedness, stress, or lack of attunement of living loved ones.  If anything, I most often find an openness to the point of naivite and total vulernability to contact experiences generated by wishful thinking.  No, I think the most common reasons are traceble to the memory problems and psychic capabilties of the newly deceased. Robert Bruce even found that deceased parents "descending" to visit their recently deceased children in a "spirit hospital" were incapable of describing their home plane in any specific or meaningful way.  This is a puzzle, but an extremely important one for afterlife evidence.

Don

The "New Age" answer as to why dead loved ones don't contact us that often is that life in the physical plane is a deliberate constriction of awareness and separation of consciousness by birth into discreet physical bodies.  I like Bruce's description of normal astral consciousness as being able to communicate by thought and read the thoughts and emotions of others, but that on earth, in order to function we restrict our contact to what we call the five senses, because otherwise the interaction of our own thoughts with the "M band" radiation would be like listening to billions of radios at the same time - a very stressful state that would not let us function day to day. 

In this model of consciousness then, those living on earth would, in general not see or hear the thoughts of the deceased due to this voluntary constriction of awareness associated with being in an earthly body.  The converse would not be true, however.  That is, the deceased would be free of this restriction of consciousness that occurs with putting oneself inside a physical body, and thus likely be able to hear and understand our attempts to communicate with them.  This would, to my mind be very frustrating for those in the afterlife planes.  I have heard it likened on their end to being able to see and hear what is going on through a one way mirror in a room where your side was not seen and had one way sound proofing as well. 

Meditation and hemisync may transcend some of these restrictions of the physical plane to communication by loosening our inherent ties to our physical body or by applying intent/spirit to transcend our incarnate restrictions, if even temporarily.

It is also clear, as Don has pointed out in this thread that there are many other potential explanations that afterlife contact is not as frequent or convincing as it could be.  Clearly, at some point, we move on, and hold our love for family and friends, but take on new tasks and move to other levels in heaven.  There may also be instances in which, pursuit of ones' passions in hells or heavens allows a deceased person to temporarily lose earthly memory, as Don points out. 

Matthew   

Matthew,

I begin with this premise: if our loved ones care about us as much after death as they did in life, then reassuring us and communicating with us would be a top priority for them.  To the degree that the M-band poses a barrier for such communication, they would thoroughly research the problem and there would be astral schools to teach solutions.  As you know, in several cases our beloved dead do seem to solve this problem, so that many incarnate people experience marvelous ADCs.  Many discarnate souls would band together to pool their wisdom and teach others to break through the M-band barrier as well.  So why haven't they done so?  I don't buy the explanation that many of us just make poor receivers for such contact.  So many people miss their loved ones so badly that they are gullibly open to interpreting dreams of the deceased as true contact.  Besides, why wouldn't our loved ones just communicate to us through more receptive friends or relatives and ask them to relay their message to us?  Of course, this does happen, but is not common.

Only 4 possibilities strike me as plausible.
(1) They have not survived death, but their personalities are preserved in the collective unconscious and our conscious and unconscious longings can occasionally create the illusion of soul-to-soul contact.  This distasteful possibility looms large in the absence of a better explanation.

(2) The death experience totally transforms our minds so that we lack the same empathy and passions that we had in life.   It rarely occurs to the dead that it would be the ultimate kindness to reassure their incarnate loved ones that they too will survive death and enjoy glorious family reunions.  I can imagine few higher priorities after my death than to track down all my loved ones and to retrieve any of them who are held back by toxic belief systems or underdeveloped spiritualities.  The possibility that my mind will be so altered that such reassurance would not seem important is tantamount to saying that I never survived death as the person I always thought I was, with the same unselfish priorities and desires to enhance the wellbeing of all I encounter.  In any case, the alternative that we don't survive death strikes me as more plausible than option (2).       

(3) The restoration of earth memory is reserved for past life reviews that are occasionally allowed to aid our progress (so apparently ES).  These past life reviews are private affairs and our earth memories are once again dormant after the reviews are complete.  This system allows no training in astral schools for contacting our loved ones. If this explanation is valid, then occasional ADCs are most likely illusory creations from the Collective Unconscious rather than genuine contact with individual surviving souls.  So are the members of the greeting party that meets NDErs merely thought forms without ensoulment?  Why don't they ever offer the NDEr profound new insights into the afterlife that would transform their restoration to earth life?  The greeting party generally seems content to insist, "It's not you time yet; you need to discover and complete your purpose."  The uniformity of this vague and cliched response strikes me as suspicious. 
And it seems unlikely that their memory would be restored only for the duration of the greeting party's role.

For many reasons detailed in former threads, I discount the authenticity of most channeling.  But what if much channeling were genuine?  Deceased loved ones seem to communicate with us through mediums with chatty ease.  So a dormant memory would pose no problem if channeling is valid.

(4) The astral planes closest to earth are inhabited by selfish and evil souls who delight in spirit impersonation and in hampering efforts at postmortem contact with our loved ones.  This barrier is almost always too great for higher souls to overcome and contact us.  This barrier also creates the danger that we will seeker further contact and thus be deceived after receiving an initially genuine contact.  If so, are deceased loved ones who communicate clearly and encouragingly exercising rcckless disregard by putting us at risk? 



Don    

My own personal opinion is that the discarnate, beyond inititial contact to express love and show they're ok, recognizes that prolonged afterlife contact may distract us from giving this physical life our all.

D

Don-

I would add just a few other possibilities.

1.  There is no afterlife.  When we die, we die.  End of story. After all, nothing scares the ego more than to contemplate its own extinction.  So it stands to reason that it will conjure up all sorts of rationales to support the hope/belief in its perpetuation.

The ego, not content with its own survival, even goes so far as to believe that its favorite pets will also survive death, and will be waiting for them in the afterlife for a happy reunion.  I suppose if someone had a beloved trained seal, it would also be there in the wings, waiting for us to toss it a fish or two.

2.  There is an afterlife, but we aren't part of it.  In other words, our own physical dimension is just one of thousands/billions of other dimensions which support all sorts of life forms.  There could be a dimension that parallels earth that teems with life forms, and who knows, maybe as a form of entertainment, they tease us with apparitions designed to fool us into thinking we survive death.

3.  Or maybe there's a dimension populated  by what we think of as angels.  These angels are highly evolved spiritual beings, and they do intervene to help us, but that's because by so doing they are enriched spiritually.  Maybe we are training wheels for them.

4.  Maybe we exist both in the "afterlife" and in this life simultaneously.  We are comprised of energy, but maybe this energy is split between this life and the next.  So for example, when a loved one dies, part of us is already in the afterlife along with the part of the loved one who remained, so there's really no need for an earthly reunion.  We just aren't aware of it.   

Of course, none of this explains a Leonard-type scenario.  Unless Jeff was an impersonator......a counterfeit who thought it would be amusing. 

Maybe RAM's W.C. Fields alien finally found a way to bring humor back to his planet!

R

With all due respect, the fact that our loved ones may desperately want to communicate with us after they have passed will not necessarily give them the wherewithal to overcome the obstacle of our constricted awareness into the dense physical plane.  Don, you mention that there are instances of communication, but they are few and far between.  Certainly that may be the case, but the reason is not all that clear.

Their may be some inherent wall that prevents incarnate beings from perceiving the discarnate.  There may be various reasons why and how this wall can be breached.  Divine grace may be one way; meditation or hemisync another. 

Clearly our priorities change when out of body, but not our love.  Our love can still be directed at those on earth even if we can't communicate readily with them.  There is....an order to things, and the physical plane is, in some ways quite foreign to the discarnate (concepts of linnear time, etc.) - so much so that Swedenborg found himself trying to explain his earthly perceptions to spirits who no longer recognized time and space as it is on the earth plane because there was no spiritual equivalent where they were in the spirit plane. 

The idea that there is no afterlife at all, while it must be considered should be relatively easy to disprove.  As I've said many times, if you postulate a negative (i.e. there is no afterlife), then you only need to find one irrefutable case of a confirmed contact with a deceased person to nullify that theory.  Sort of like saying "all doves are white" and then being the first to find a speckled or colored dove.  There goes that theory.


Matthew

Apologies if this has come up before ( but looking through the thread I hav'nt seen it ) it seems strange not to mention Bill and Judy Guggenheim's work  (of 'Hello From Heaven' fame). They have a website devoted to ADCs at http://www.after-death.com/.

Quote:

I think the most common reasons are traceable to the memory problems and psychic capabilities of the newly deceased.

Don,

This may be the case sometimes, but even this doesn't make much sense to me. The consciousness system as far as I can tell is benevolent in that it provides each individual with exactly what is needed for personal spiritual growth. For some it may indeed be beneficial for an ADC to take place, but not necessarily for everyone. I do think many more ADCs take place than what is publicly discussed however.

As Matthew mentions, if ELS is a deliberate constriction of awareness, then it seems frequent (as in happens to everyone all the time) ADCs would be counterproductive. That reason alone seems acceptable to me because spiritual growth is more important than feeding an ego need for comfort. Improving the quality of consciousness is accomplished by walking fearlessly with love into whatever comes our way. If an ADC is deemed productive to that end it could take place, otherwise awareness would remain constrained.

Kathy

[Kathy:] "For some it may indeed be beneficial for an ADC to take place, but not necessarily for everyone."
...Spiritual growth is more important than feeding an ego need for comfort."
___________________________________

True, and in my view, many Christians and posters here strike me as more comfort seekers than truth seekers.  Truths hard won in the school of hard knocks are far more transformative than truths embraced to conform to a Ghetto mentality and its attendant approvals.  One of the most neglected yet intriguing aspects of Jseus' pedagogy are 4 aspects of the Messianic secret in Mark's Gospel.  (1) Jesus never explains His parables to outsiders; rather, He wants them to meditate on parables so they can spiritually discern the truths without being spoonfed.  (2) Jesus never openly proclaims Himself the Messiah; rather, He waits for His followers to discern His identity at their own pace (Mark 8:27-30).  (3) When Jesus performs exorcisms, the demons eagerly blow His cover and proclaim His exalted identity and Jesus shuts them up to minimize such disclosures--the reversal of what one might expect.  (4) In Mark, when Jesus performs miracles, He discourages disclosure of these miracles whenever no outsider is present.  This pattern is masked by His failure to do so when a large crowd is present and it would be impossible to prevent publicity.  Jesus is skeptical of the power of miracle stories to convert people when shared 2nd-hand.

On the other hand, I have observed how blown away  seekers are when they discover recent miracles in my congregation.  I usually celebrate these, but wonder at times if I am doing so in the wrong way.  Perhaps it would be better for these people to be blown away by our loving community and to discern God's presence in this love.  I wonder about the relevance of Jesus' secrecy to my wish for more regular ADCs.

[Kathy:] "If an ADC is deemed productive to that end it could take place, otherwise awareness would remain constrained."
_________________________________

That has been my working premise, but I feel the need to test this.  I wish that Christ or the Being of Light would confirm this during NDE and OBE encounters.  I wish that Swedenborg had directly asked postmortem spirits why they don't more often manifest to the living.  Instead, he and Robert Bruce stop at reporting postmortem memory problems.  And I suspect there is another factor that I have overlooked in the speculation I've offered so far in this thread. 

Many Christians mistakenly believe that they are suddenly virtually omniscient and morally perfect in their newly acquired spirit body.  In fact, they are basically the same person with the same level of development that they were prior to death.  So again, my basic question is this: why don't the newly dead provide the frequency and quality of ADCs that I would try to provide if I were capable of doing so immediately after my passing?

Don

Don-

I"m sure you would want to do everything you could to appear to someone after you die in order to reassure them that life goes on.

As to why such occurrences are so rare, it's entirely possible that the reason is much the same as why credible UFO sightings are also relatively rare (especially these days when almost everyone has a camera phone!).

Or to put it another way, if UFOs and aliens were real, there would be no reason why they would appear only to a handful of people.  And if we agree that they actually have appeared, we then must acknowledge that they intended to be seen.

And therefore the next question is, if they intended to be seen, there's no logical reason why they wouldn't want more people to see them on a more frequent basis.

So let's take your Leonard story.  If Jeff was able to appear to Leonard after his death, and actually carry on a conversation (including driving a truck while they talked!), there also is no logical reason why others could not do the same thing.

After all, there was nothing especially profound that Jeff had to communicate to Leonard.  No earthshaking revelation.  All in all a pretty mundane conversation other than the obvious fact that one of the men was dead..... ;)

So I'm left with only one logical conclusion: Neither UFO/alien sightings nor ADCs are objectively real.

We humans are capable of tremendous self deception, including highly credible people like airline pilots, military observers, and ordinary folks like Leonard.

R

Don,

I have wondered about Jesus' secrecy and have thought of it as a teaching of sacrosanctity. I see nothing wrong in celebrating miracles, especially those in which the joy of love and gratitude are shared within the communion of those involved as well as those in celebration. In my own experience of ADC and in the experience of individuals who have shared their ADC stories with me there is a "blown away" factor, but underneath is an awe that is most holy and sacred to the individual experiencer. Something indefinable, ineffable, yet has an awakening impact on their spiritual growth and, if shared, perhaps within the community as well.

If ADC were commonplace, I wonder what would happen to the sacrosanctity? At least with me, it is the mystical union and the deep intimacy experienced within that union that draws me toward learning, understanding and spiritual growth, as well as a resulting component that I can only describe as an intimate blending of physical and non-physical reality that has manifested in my daily life. The latter, I believe comes quite naturally as spiritual growth occurs, yet most of the specifics are not completely understood or easily explained. In other words, there remains a mystery, a secrecy about them.

Kathy

Actually, I have had a very positive experience with a spiritual medium contacting a dead loved one that died many years ago. Without me giving any information I was told the sex, cause of death, and special things that no one could know but me and the deceased. This was years later, like I said. There is no way it was a cold reading either, it was too dead on and I was not giving away any information, only confirming all the correct answers I was constantly bombarded with. It was an amazing experience and had me crying.

Of course, now, I still doubt the afterlife anyways.  :o

Starcraft,

Welcome to the site.  Like you, I doubt whether such paranormal channeling really means contact with the deceased survivors.  I'd appreciate your response to my thread, "Verified Channeling: ESP or Genuine Contact?"  But suppose that your channeling did produce genuine contact.  Would that easy success not create the expectation of far more regular ADCs?
If channeling is like a telephone hook-up to other worlds, then why wouldn't the dead ROUTINELY contact us convincingly in other ways (e. g. waking visions, audible voices)?

Don

Maybe this planet is a place they really can't bear to think about. Maybe it's like deliberately getting a migraine headache, of the worst kind. Would you voluntarily get a migraine headache that feels like eternity to contact a loved one, if you knew once your loved one got there, it would all be 'okay' again for them? What if our life here is like a hike up a mountain, for the beautiful view? Would you really want someone to point out every step to you along the way? Wouldn't that get annoying? Where is the challenge? Where is the chase? Where is the victory? Maybe there are reasons we just don't know, why we are here, and we never will know, until we get home.

Don said:

'If channeling is like a telephone hook-up to other worlds, then why wouldn't the dead ROUTINELY contact us convincingly in other ways (e. g. waking visions, audible voices)?'.

How would we be able to function in our physical world if the deceased routinely contacted us ? Can you imagine the cacophony of relative's voices impinging on our ability to make everyday decisions ? If, as I believe, our physical earth time is important I thinks its important that we are able to give it our fullest attention without worrying what Grandma feels about our choice of curtain colour !

D

True, but ADC contact could in principle be made easily and routinely during the threshold moments when we go to bed or are in the process of awakening.  So why doesn'this happen more often and more spectacularly?  That is the intended question behind my speculation in this thread.

Don

h 69-

In light of the problems you mention, we'd have to wonder why Bruce is spending so much time and energy developing his afterlife communication device (ADC).

Remember, Bruce describes this device as a telephone system to the afterlife.  And he has a team of folks, both living and deceased, working with him on the project.

Per Bruce, the device will allow any of us to dial-up a deceased friend or loved one just as easily as we now call a neighbor across the street.

If the problems are as great as you describe, wouldn't you think that those folks in the afterlife would be well aware of them and would advise Bruce not to continue with his efforts?

Ed Carter, a deceased engineer friend of Bruce's, is one of the key developers of this device.  I doubt Ed would be doing this unless he were convinced it would be of benefit.

R

Good points. I am writing from my perspective so others such as Bruce may be able to handle and may have intent for said contact. Also I imagine it would make a big differemce if this contact could be turned on/off at will like Bruce's proposed device to prevent overload problems.

h 69-

Speaking of overload, can you imagine the millions of "calls" folks like Abraham Lincoln or Bill Shakespeare would receive?

(of course, if reincarnation is real, they probably wouldn't be around to answer the phone anyway.....)   :)

R

.... lets hope they're good at multi-tasking !

:)

Either that or let's hope that there's a call forwarding device that finds them in their new bodies.

But then, if we really are multi-dimensional spirits, the device would have to be able to call not only Abraham Lincoln but all of his other identities as well.

(I think it's time for a drink).

R

Don.what about going back in time.One night before going to sleep,I asked if I could go back to when I was a kid.It did not happen that night.But 2 or 3 months later while sleeping,I heard a voice say,George,come with me.I said where are we going.The voice said you wanted to go back to when you were a kid.I said yes I did.Then the next thing I knew,I was laying on a bank looking down at the miners waiting for the tram cars to take themdown into the mine.I did know a lot of them.I saw my father who at the time was very young.we had an iron ore mine.in my town that closed in 1965.There was another kid there with me who I knew.I was about 8 or 9 years old at the time.This was very vivit.George

I think they do contact us. Mostly at our request. Not like they are giving us a phone call or something like that mind you. Communication from those "over there" is mostly NVC, which for some can be difficult to understand or interpret. Rarely are you going to end up in a conversation like" hey, hows your day going?" or can " tell me what its like to be dead", sort of a thing. But communication we still do engage in. You might see them in a hospital setting soon after the die. I have seen this in two instances. No, I wasn't dreaming. I was in a meditative state mind you. I would think that communication instantly after you die is also rarely going to happen unless your pretty well together. First, most likly its going to be a bit of a shock realising that you didn't die after-all. Your going to possibly understand more of the reasoning behind your life. You will want to communicate with those you love and who are still here engaged in the phyical. Some wont be able to communicate with those left behind. Their beliefs wont allow for it. They might think that when your dead ,your dead. So it wont happen or will be difficult or delayed. But communication with some who have died happens all the time. Remember what communication is. I see it as "the movement or exchange of information or ideas, between two or more objects, over a distance." Understanding it not a part of the equation or nessassary for communication to take place. Nor are words.
(If you believe that there is no communication when you pass on, then you would have to presume that getting messages from Jesus would not be possible. He did die.)    

My brother John died a year ago and I have had alot of contact with him...auditory,touch and one e-mail. The e-mail was interesting. A little help started with me but he finished it. He died Feb. 2009, his e-mail was shut down in March 2009. I was playing around with his ITOUCH(April 2009) and sent from his ITOUCH an email to my email(just for fun) to see if his email was really shut down. I sent "Hi Anna I love you don't worry I will contact you again"...I quickly went home to check my  computer for like a week and of course nothing. I continued to check throughout the weeks and nothing.
On May 30th,2009, our family went out on a boat to spread his ashes in front of where he lived. He loved the sea. The next morning in bold on the first line and bigger than any other e-mail was the e-mail ""Anna I love you don't worry I will contact you again"  The odd thing about that is that for two days I did not get one more e-mail...that particular e-mail is a set up entertainment account where I get 50 e-mails a day...not one e-mail came in for two days, which has never happened.My medium friend told me that this is happening more in the afterlife...electronic communication...e-mails and that kind of thing so Bruces idea is going to be a hit.
Just thought I would pass that along
Anna banana

Oh and one other thing no time was sent on the e-mail but the date of the previous date when I sent it in March was there but no time.....there is always a time with an email

I meant to say when I sent it in April....I hope I havent confused everyone :-[

george stone wrote on Mar 18^th, 2010 at 4:50pm:

Don.what about going back in time.One night before going to sleep,I asked if I could go back to when I was a kid.It did not happen that night.But 2 or 3 months later while sleeping,I heard a voice say,George,come with me.I said where are we going.The voice said you wanted to go back to when you were a kid.I said yes I did.Then the next thing I knew,I was laying on a bank looking down at the miners waiting for the tram cars to take themdown into the mine.I did know a lot of them.I saw my father who at the time was very young.we had an iron ore mine.in my town that closed in 1965.There was another kid there with me who I knew.I was about 8 or 9 years old at the time.This was very vivit.George

Hi dear George

What an amazing experience to swim against the flow of the arrow of time and revise your youth again  :)

People should take you more seriously because you are so open to the spiritual side of life

Blessings and Light

Alan

Much of the speculation on this thread assumes contact limitations for either the living or the deceased.  If life on Earth progresses through evolution directed at some level by God through random selection, why not assume that evolution also occurs in the spiritual realm?  Limitations we perceive in ADC potential might point to the direction of postmortem evolution.  Indeed, part of the answer to the question, "Why did God create our universe?" might be this: God is love; love is by nature relational, and, as such, God creates to relate to the "loving Other."  But true love requires freely expressed potential.  So God may eternally create universes to explore infinite varieties of freely offered love by every imaginable form of life with intelligence comparable to or superior to our own.  Perhaps, part of the definition of "God" should include 'loving evolutionary process."

Don

Don, you are sounding a lot like a Tom Campbell follower.

Pat,

Yikes!  Does that make me a New Age groupie?  Maybe I should read Tom Campbell.

Don

Berserk2 wrote on Mar 25^th, 2010 at 9:28pm:

Pat, Yikes!  Does that make me a New Age groupie?  Maybe I should read Tom Campbell. Don

Well Don the bible does not permit we of the mortal realm to contact the living. If they could they would have to take on the burden of mortal life that they have just been freed from

Blessings and light

Alan

My daughter passed 8 years ago. She would contact me 3 times a week...later 1 time a week... later 1-2 times a month... then every 2 months.. now it's about every 6 months... so it seems that as they get farther away.. the less they visit. :'(

Our passed loved ones want to be there for us, but at the same time they know we have to move on and live our lives. The medium I spoke with told me exactly that coming from my dead loved one, they said "live your life."

They want us to move on and LIVE... EXPERIENCE... ENJOY.
(Not be hampered by constant memories of the past and of what happened.)

Alan, actually if you ask most Jehova's Witnesses, Catholics, and possibly many sects of Christians, they will quote parts of the bible that tell you that if you try to contact the dead you are a ... er... witch....(not that word but word to that effect) and are evil.

I have actually seen these quoted scriptures in the bible so I know they exist. The bible is pretty cut and dry on this one. No contact with the dead, no being gay, no sodomy etc.

Then again... the one guy in the bible took his sheep and put them near a striped fence and the sheep became striped like the fence. <----- ACTUAL SCRIPTURE IN THE BIBLE!!!!!

So yeah.... I have no respect for the Bible. (I personally feel was a book created 100% by man as a means of religious control.)


GEN 30:25-43

JACOB'S 'SCHEME' TO MULTIPLY SPOTTED SHEEP - DOES IT CONTRADICT TRUE SCIENCE?

(v. 37) Jacob, however, took fresh-cut branches from poplar, almond and plane trees and made white stripes on them by peeling the bark and exposing the white inner wood of the branches.

(v. 38) Then he placed the peeled branches in all the watering troughs, so that they would be directly in front of the flocks when they came to drink. When the flocks were in heat and came to drink,

(v. 39) they mated in front of the branches. And they bore young that were streaked or speckled or spotted.

wrote on Mar 27^th, 2010 at 2:43am:

Alan, actually if you ask most Jehova's Witnesses, Catholics, and possibly many sects of Christians, they will quote parts of the bible that tell you that if you try to contact the dead you are a ... er... witch....(not that word but word to that effect) and are evil. I have actually seen these quoted scriptures in the bible so I know they exist. The bible is pretty cut and dry on this one. No contact with the dead, no being gay, no sodomy etc. Then again... the one guy in the bible took his sheep and put them near a striped fence and the sheep became striped like the fence. <----- ACTUAL SCRIPTURE IN THE BIBLE!!!!! So yeah.... I have no respect for the Bible. (I personally feel was a book created 100% by man as a means of religious control.) GEN 30:25-43 JACOB'S 'SCHEME' TO MULTIPLY SPOTTED SHEEP - DOES IT CONTRADICT TRUE SCIENCE? (v. 37) Jacob, however, took fresh-cut branches from poplar, almond and plane trees and made white stripes on them by peeling the bark and exposing the white inner wood of the branches. (v. 38) Then he placed the peeled branches in all the watering troughs, so that they would be directly in front of the flocks when they came to drink. When the flocks were in heat and came to drink, (v. 39) they mated in front of the branches. And they bore young that were streaked or speckled or spotted.

You should more consider the Bible out of date. It does have several things which I think you could grasp and apply to your life, but you must consider that 1) Much of the Bible was adapted for the minds of that time and was easier for them to access than us and 2) Many things that seem strange and to not make sense actually contain deeper meanings through metaphor.

You don't need the Bible to experience the love of god, but it does have some good teachings and fundamental truths.

wrote on Mar 27^th, 2010 at 2:43am:

Alan, actually if you ask most Jehova's Witnesses, Catholics, and possibly many sects of Christians, they will quote parts of the bible that tell you that if you try to contact the dead you are a ... er... witch....(not that word but word to that effect) and are evil. I have actually seen these quoted scriptures in the bible so I know they exist. The bible is pretty cut and dry on this one. No contact with the dead, no being gay, no sodomy etc. Then again... the one guy in the bible took his sheep and put them near a striped fence and the sheep became striped like the fence. <----- ACTUAL SCRIPTURE IN THE BIBLE!!!!! So yeah.... I have no respect for the Bible. (I personally feel was a book created 100% by man as a means of religious control.) GEN 30:25-43 JACOB'S 'SCHEME' TO MULTIPLY SPOTTED SHEEP - DOES IT CONTRADICT TRUE SCIENCE? (v. 37) Jacob, however, took fresh-cut branches from poplar, almond and plane trees and made white stripes on them by peeling the bark and exposing the white inner wood of the branches. (v. 38) Then he placed the peeled branches in all the watering troughs, so that they would be directly in front of the flocks when they came to drink. When the flocks were in heat and came to drink, (v. 39) they mated in front of the branches. And they bore young that were streaked or speckled or spotted.

I know all of this why post it to me?

Alan ---- I am very sorry I thought you said the opposite in your post, I misread it. I shouldn't be on this board late at night....!!!!

StoneCold ---- I agree, the bible has some good points which are written terribly and very outdated. I highly recommend many more recent books which are much better. (I could easily write a better book than the bible and make it way easier to read.) In FACT many translations of the bible are just that... - the original text is changed to much and made into completely different words that people understand and in many cases if you read an original translation you can easily see the newer dumbified translation is completely and utterly different than the original. The translation about love is kind love is etc. is one of them. The original translation of the bible is completely different (and frankly, SUCKS compared to the newer one.)

wrote on Mar 27^th, 2010 at 9:34am:

Alan ---- I am very sorry I thought you said the opposite in your post, I misread it. I shouldn't be on this board late at night....!!!! StoneCold ---- I agree, the bible has some good points which are written terribly and very outdated. I highly recommend many more recent books which are much better. (I could easily write a better book than the bible and make it way easier to read.) In FACT many translations of the bible are just that... - the original text is changed to much and made into completely different words that people understand and in many cases if you read an original translation you can easily see the newer dumbified translation is completely and utterly different than the original. The translation about love is kind love is etc. is one of them. The original translation of the bible is completely different (and frankly, SUCKS compared to the newer one.)

If you agree that you can write a more inspirational book than the Bible, then why don't you? This could give your life great purpose and will also create purpose for many others. One of the most important things we must consider in our lives is to strive and assist the world and our fellow man and woman while we are here.

Because it wouldn't make any difference. I could go down to the hand me down book store and buy hundreds of books that are way better than the bible but it doesn't add up to a hill of beans to anyone cause the bible is... well... the bible. The bible is the win against any other book because of it's stupid power it has over people that think it is the "one."

wrote on Mar 27^th, 2010 at 5:22pm:

Because it wouldn't make any difference. I could go down to the hand me down book store and buy hundreds of books that are way better than the bible but it doesn't add up to a hill of beans to anyone cause the bible is... well... the bible. The bible is the win against any other book because of it's stupid power it has over people that think it is the "one."

But is there not a significance to it if it gives these people a sense of understanding, comfort, and connection to god? That's all it means. It doesn't matter WHAT form it takes, only that it finds that connection with someone. Every person experiences life in their own reality. We are connected, but we are not the same. People which get something from the Bible are experiencing as they need to experience. Like me, you need to find something which connects with you beyond what you have already been introduced to. Once you have found that, you will understand why the Bible exists and why it must exist.

The more you keep searching the more you will find. And perhaps writing that book will seem more and more like a good idea.

Alan: "Well Don the bible does not permit we of the mortal realm to contact the living."

Alan, this statement makes no sense.  I assume your real claim is this: the Bible excludes the possibility that discarnate humans can contact incarnate humans.  That claim is false.  Moses and Elijah return from the heavenly realms to be with Jesus and 3 disciples on the mount of Transfiguration.  The Catholic Old Testament reports a vision in which the long dead prophet Jeremiah and the recently dead high priest Onias appear in a vision to assure the Jewish freedom fighters that God will help them liberate themselves from the occupying Syrian Greek armies (see 1-2 Maccabees),

The Bible acknowledges the legitimacy of ADCs and OBEs, but denies the legitimacy of mediumship.  Notice how recent posts of biblically illiterate New Agers rudely trash Christians and their Bible—anything to avoid the hard work of addressing my devastating critique of channeling on my other thread.   

By the way, there is no striped “fence” in Genesis 30 and Jacob’s ignorance of inbreeding as the way striped shoep are bred is not a word from God.  In any case, I don't believe in biblical inerrancy.

Berserk2 wrote on Mar 27^th, 2010 at 8:30pm:

Alan: "Well Don the bible does not permit we of the mortal realm to contact the living." Alan, this statement makes no sense.  I assume your real claim is this: the Bible excludes the possibility that discarnate humans can contact incarnate humans.  That claim is false.  Moses and Elijah return from the heavenly realms to be with Jesus and 3 disciples on the mount of Transfiguration.  The Catholic Old Testament reports a vision in which the long dead prophet Jeremiah and the recently dead high priest Onias appear in a vision to assure the Jewish freedom fighters that God will help them liberate themselves from the occupying Syrian Greek armies (see 1-2 Maccabees), The Bible acknowledges the legitimacy of ADCs and OBEs, but denies the legitimacy of mediumship.  Notice how recent posts of biblically illiterate New Agers rudely trash Christians and their Bible—anything to avoid the hard work of addressing my devastating critique of channeling on my other thread.    By the way, there is no striped “fence” in Genesis 30 and Jacob’s ignorance of inbreeding as the way striped shoep are bred is not a word from God.  In any case, I don't believe in biblical inerrancy.

I realize I wasn't 100% accurate there but the point is still the same that nothing which he did would actually have an effect on sheep and the outcome of them.

P.S. I personally hate the bible utterly and completely. So many people have died and have been persecuted and killed in the name of God that I doubt anyone here on this board - including me - would be able to fathom the amount of lives lost and shattered in the name of God and religion.

As a final note I am going to from now on stay away from any bible related posts and keep myself out of it and not bring it up at all.... just to be nice to everyone on the board. Because I have nothing nice to say about it.

No hard feelings.  :P

Whether it is astral exploration, supernatural spiirtual gifts, or Christianity, the most worthwhile areas for a spiritual quest have their ghastly counterfeits.  So don't just Christians by their worst examplars.  To do so, is to embrace the mentality that inspires racism.  Remember, Jesus taught us to love everyone, even our enemies, unconditionally as ourselves.

Removed by Alan for Don

Alan,

The first 11 chapters of Genesis are myth.  Almost all my UMC minister friends believe that and only draw spiritual inferences from these texts.  But overall, biblical creationism is quite compatible with modern evolutionary theory.  Your attacks on the OT are shameless assaults on Christian convictions that have nothing to do with the purpose of this thread and, for that matter, this site.  They offend me.  You establish the rules by which I treat you. So, at last the truth!  I discount all your astral experiences on the grounds that they are largely the product of a suicidal disfunctional Alan who has been treated for a bipolar disorder.  I do the same for other bipolar posters on this site.  Now can we avoid irrelevant attacks?  Or will you insist on continuing to offend people's cherished religious convictions?

Don

Well, I do have to agree with Don that there are some on the site that show themselves as being bipolar or perhaps even slightly out of balance mentally. That said, personal attacks aren't needed. Its about time that everyone realised that the Bible is just a bunch of stories. Mostly not worth the paper they are written on. If a person as devoted to this rag mag as Don can express his belief that the first 11 chapters are myth, then he must be able to except that much of the rest fits in the same classification. This is not a Bible thumping site Don. Its about the afterlife. You can keep your repetitive cherished religious convictions, but they are no more valued information than Alans input. Off Subject is the place where both of you twos comments should be placed in my opinion. I don't think anyone has come here looking to be converted to Christianity. They are here looking for answers, or expressing ideas regarding the afterlife.
(Does a bi Eskimo who has spent time at both the north pole and the south pole become bipolar?)   

If it weren't for the bipolars you would still be in the dark ages. Well, some are still it would seem.

In the light of letting the truth out, feel free to discount my posts because:

* Years ago I had a week long, gradually fading drug psychosis. Still might be some crazy left. Anyways, the kettle with the ikea furniture is almost done. Didn't like 'em so had to boil 'em. Makes sense. But damn, it's good workmanship, both the furniture and getting it into a kettle.

* I've been suicidal. Cut the vein area both the wrong and the right way. Walked into the winter sea. The body has dangled like a loose tooth waiting to be released. Failed, obviously. What a failure - couldn't even kill "myself".

* I've listened to tons of black metal/satanic metal. It lessened my fear of the dark. But if you're christian, that might be worth to take into consideration. Being inspired by an idea Nanner put forth to me; it might be wise to just skip reading my posts.

* I am bipolar - well, it also means having two poles - I've got both light and dark in me and it's not balanced the way I'd like.

Right, and so let's demonstrate that we are at least house-broken in our manners and avoid ridiculing people's personal beliefs when those beliefs are irrelevant to the thread and the purpose of this site.  If this happens, I will in turn keep silent about my conviction that only the experiences of astral explorers free of psychopathology merit closer scrutiny as potential teaching tools about the afterlife.

Don

Removed by Alan

Now you can discuss the topic without my input

Removed by alan

wrote on Mar 29^th, 2010 at 6:43am:

This thread should be moved to the off topic area. I find nothing to learn about the afterlife here. In fact, these definitions quoted by Alan to 'improve' the thread are also offensive to anyone who has a brain in their head to think reasonably about the true needs of human beings in this world.

Do not turn to mediums or spiritists; do not seek them out to be defiled by them. I am the LORD your God.
Leviticus 19:31 (NAV)

But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented. And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that [would come] from thence.
Luke 16:25-26  (KJV)

Don, I went back to review your first post on this thread. This is truly an amazing story of afterlife contact. I think it happens more often than not. Its just that we dont recognise the communication. The insistence on having "proof" may well be the problem. I would think that if you ask those who believe they have receaved communication from a loved one who has passed, they need no more proof than the communication receaved. I guess where my confusion lies is " why is this proof needed by some and not others". Bruce being an example of one who felt he needed proof, according to his books. Yet for me, who strongly believes that I have receaved communication from passed relatives, others who have died, others not existing curently within the phyical, have no need of this so called "proof". I am not some sort of a nut case Don. I doubt I need a head Dr.  I am as normal as your next door neighbor. I know my experiences to be true. I would all but bet that the persons mentioned in your first post, who receaved this communication from others who they had never met, are/were just as confident that contact was made. Proof and Faith can seem so similar. 

Quote:

Much of the speculation on this thread assumes contact limitations for either the living or the deceased.  If life on Earth progresses through evolution directed at some level by God through random selection, why not assume that evolution also occurs in the spiritual realm?  Limitations we perceive in ADC potential might point to the direction of postmortem evolution.

Don,

Perhaps the person we are in the physical world, after a period of postmortem adjustment in non-physical reality, no longer exists as the same person that they were.  The "database" of consciousness of this person and all of the probabilities either actualized or not actualized would still exist, however, the person we knew in ELS would no longer exist because of the postmortem transformation.

In non-physical reality we don't have a body and we are no longer subject to the laws of physics that govern the ELS so it would seem that alone would constitute a dramatic change in perspective.  If there is preexistence of the soul and we (our physical reality consciousness) is an extension of the soul, then perhaps we are only a tiny piece of consciousness that became aware of ELS and upon permanently (not as in a NDE) leaving ELS our awareness / memory of the earth life we lived falls away for one reason or another including that of evolution of consciousness. 

I might add... this doesn't necessarily mean that we lose our identity, but that our identity is transformed because in ELS we only, or at least mostly identify with the physical world that no longer exists for us.

Kathy

I'm with you Kathy. Take away the need for "survival" and everything changes.
Contacting those still within the phyical is not nessassary as you will be with them again at some point should you want to. Contact with other living within phyical only would keep you unnecessarily connected with with it and at lower focus levels. Contact would be far more desired from here, and not nessassary once your there. Reason..once your there, you know where you are. You need no further proof.

Whatever. I'm done with words. Silence is much much better.


Alan McDougall wrote on Mar 29^th, 2010 at 9:29am:

wrote on Mar 29th, 2010 at 6:43am: This thread should be moved to the off topic area. I find nothing to learn about the afterlife here. In fact, these definitions quoted by Alan to 'improve' the thread are also offensive to anyone who has a brain in their head to think reasonably about the true needs of human beings in this world. Do not turn to mediums or spiritists; do not seek them out to be defiled by them. I am the LORD your God. Leviticus 19:31 (NAV) But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented. And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that [would come] from thence. Luke 16:25-26  (KJV)

I've recalled this old thread because the discussion is relevant to Matthew's new thread on dormant memory.  Here is the paradox I'm trying to understand.  On the one hand, ES contacts and converses with those long and recently dead.  On the other hand, he insists that earth  memory goes dormant to allow uncluttered progress on the other side. Dormant memory, says ES, is sometimes restored at the Lord's discretion.  Obviously this dormant phase would explain a loved one's failure to contact earthly loved ones.  So how can we reconcile ADCs and ES's conversations with the long and recently deceased with his experience of deceased memories being generally dormant?  And how does all this relate to the change of heart  by which people who think they would contact their loved ones after death to reassure them never actually do so in a clear and compelling way?  People I know have been thrilled by accounts of ADCs from people they knew, but are then embittered and depressed because their own deceased loved ones fail to come through as expected.  This thread explores various answers to this question, but for me, none really make complete sense. 

Don

Here's a good link.  :)

http://afterlife-knowledge.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?num=1391774978/0#4

Don,

I wonder if it may be possible that ES's experience of dormant memories was an encounter with stored memory / akashic records that in his interpretation equaled "deceased memories" or the memories of the deceased?  That the memory is sometimes restored could mean guided access to it.  That would put a new light on what he said.

It's been so long since I've read any ES books.  Do you have a reference for this?  I'm curious about the rest of the context where he states this.

Kathy

When I communicate with spirits I get the feeling that an actual conscious being is communicating with me rather than stored memories.

Going by Mediums that seem genuine to me, they also receive information from conscious beings, rather than from some record. By some of the things they say, it seems as if they are interacting with spirits.

It is possible to tell the difference.



Lights of Love wrote on Feb 7^th, 2014 at 8:00pm:

Don, I wonder if it may be possible that ES's experience of dormant memories was an encounter with stored memory / akashic records that in his interpretation equaled "deceased memories" or the memories of the deceased?  That the memory is sometimes restored could mean guided access to it.  That would put a new light on what he said. It's been so long since I've read any ES books.  Do you have a reference for this?  I'm curious about the rest of the context where he states this. Kathy

What good would it serve a dragonfly to remember when it was a bug in the mud at the bottom of a pond?

recoverer wrote on Feb 7^th, 2014 at 9:00pm:

When I communicate with spirits I get the feeling that an actual conscious being is communicating with me rather than stored memories. Going by Mediums that seem genuine to me, they also receive information from conscious beings, rather than from some record. By some of the things they say, it seems as if they are interacting with spirits. It is possible to tell the difference.

Albert,

Yes I can tell the difference as well, but I think you're missing my point.

What are memories if they're not dormant?  We know they are stored within Consciousness because every detail of a person's life is shown in the life review for example.  As I read Don's post it occurred to me that memory is latent or inactive when "in storage" and I wondered about ES's interpretation of what he encountered and attempted to describe. 

We don't need a go-between or someone to hand feed us information.  We can and do access it directly. I think ES was in contact with other beings, but I also think some of his information came directly from stored information in the Consciousness system as well.  Could he have interpreted that experience as us having dormant memories?  As well as "the Lord" restoring them when neccessary?  As in a life review for example.

K

Kathy:

I believe that information from spirit beings and stored information can be obtained.  But as we say- one can tell if one is receiving it from a spirit being-perhaps ADC is in some cases validated in such a way.

To me, it is ridiculous to claim that the newly dead realize earth life was illusory and "not real" and therefore see no need to communicate to loved ones.  Nor does it make sense to claim that most of the Self is stationed in the etheric and therefore reassurance to deceased loved ones is unnecessary.  The 5 cases below illustrate that deceased loved ones view earth life as very real, continue to be in touch with the emotions of loved ones,  deeply feel the need to comfort them through ADCs, and have awesome resources and abilities to make such healing contacts.  I realize that different destinations await different souls in the afterlife and different loved ones vary in their attunement compatibility and skills.  But when I observe who is actually denied such healing contact, I don't consider such rationalizations persuasive.  Many grieving people have researched and heard about such contacts and are deeply hurt that their loved one has not made the effort to share an ADC.  To me, this failure poses a serious moral issue for the whole concept of PUL as a key governing principle in the afterlife; and I resist the temptation to offer dangerously doctrinaire and simple-minded answers to baffling complex questions.  Even the dormant memory issue does not totally address this problem, because the Lord at times reactivates memory, making contact a possibility. 

I created the postmortem evolutionary thread, in part, because I wonder if the afterlife systems just have not adquately evolved yet to make such contacts routine.  I wonder if souls give up after preliminary futile efforts to make contact, and are not informed about a training regimen to develop ADC skills.  For me, this problem is even a barrier to believing in an afterlife, a barrier I strive to overcome with faith.  Please read the 5 brief summations below and see what you feel  they reveal about the possibility of postmortem ADCs. 

I don't want to retell long NDE and ADC experiences I have shared over the years.  So I'll take the details of these 5 accounts for granted in what I say and draw some inferences.

(1) Leonard's son Jeff came back from the dead and took his Dad for a ride in his old pickup.  Why?  (a) to reassure Leonard that his family was together and OK; (b) to help Loenard tie up loose ends in settling his estate.  Jeff made it clear that he needed divine permission to manifest in this way.  When Leonard's grief did not abate, Jeff's wife Karen visited him the next day and urged him to return to his house and "comfort Mom." 

(2) In 2 separate NDEs Phyllis was taken to "a mall that wasn't really a mall" (a mall of white light) and confronted by her mother at a table.  The confrontation focused on Phyllis's unwillingness to get in touch with her feelings and grieve her mother's loss.  The Mom claimed that Phyllis's detachment from her emotions was preventing her progress "on the other side."  I doubt that Phyllis ever heeded her Mom's plea!  It is often claimed that exceesive grief can also impede progress on the other side.  ADCs seem ideally suited to address this problem.

(3) Tami's death at age 19 at WSU devasted her Mom.  Realizing this, Tami often appeared full-bodied in waking visions and dreams to her Mom to converse with her amd comfort her.  When this was no longer possible due to her postmortem progression, Tami somehow inprinted her name "Tami" with a smily face on a dollar received in changed by her uncle in a minimart, so that the family could rejoice in her progress and transition. The daughter's acute sensitivity to her Mom's grief strikes me as a phenomenon that must be widespread in the astral realms, but normally not motivation for a compelling healing visit.  Dreams of the departed often lack the power comfort because they can be dismissed as the product of wishful thinking.   

(4) A gal (name forgotten) from my church told me she was awakened to see her dead sister glowing in the dark. The conversation involved comfort and shared information about how the dead sister was doing.  Why aren't such healing visits routine?   

(4) Sebby died of a terminal condition at age 16.  I told his adoptive parents that they would receive a compelling sign that Sebby was OK mediated through someone else.  Just outside the funeral home, a relative spotted Sebby's name printed in a cloud formation in his characteristic printing.  This manifestation greatly assisted Lloyd and Marry Ann's grief process. I think Sebby had divine assistance to create this sign in the sky.

(5) The late Willam James kept his promise to his friend James Hyslop to confirm his survival.  But it took a whole year and had to be conveyed through a couple in Ireland playing with a Ouija board and through  the meaningful concrete message "Remember the red pyjamas." I infer from this that William James tried several more obvious forms of ADC without success before he found something that worked.

Don

ADCs run the gamut.  Some are downright funny!

A friend of a woman whose husband died called in to a radio show that had, as a topic for that day, evidence of life after death.

She had recently gone to the woman's house where a small gathering of friends were comforting the widow.

As I recall there were about 8 or 9 people there.  At some point a vase sitting on top of the tv actually levitated and moved to the center of the room where it suddenly fell, crashing into pieces on the floor.

The guests were awestruck.  Some actually reported they could make out a pair of ethereal hands carrying the vase although others did not see the hands.

As the others were recovering from the shock, the widow broke out into laughter and tears.

It seems her husband had hated that particular vase, and had often threatened his wife that if it were up to him he would get rid of it.

She took great relief in what otherwise could have been a scary event.  It gave her immense comfort that her husband was not only still alive but chose that particular act to prove it. 

As I've mentioned to Don about his Leonard story, what I don't understand is how a spirit was able to move a physical object since I've often heard that their hands would simply pass right through such objects.

Apparently, like so many other things, there are exceptions to what we think of as being the norm.

R

Rondele,

When our expectations of what is possible are shattered by breath-taking exceptions, I think: What can we learn that might make the exceptions the rule?  Are the glorious exceptions a sign that interaction with the afterlife is evolving on both sides as hidden lessons are absorbed? 

For example, I always thought Alzheimer's Disease was incurable.  Oh, my prayer was once answered for a distraught Russ who was desperate to reconcile with his mother in the final stages of this disease.  She was in a vegetative state, but prayer gave her total lucidity and restored rationality for 45 minutes.  Mother and son were able to explain their points of view.  Tears flowed and love was beautifully and healingly reaffirmed.  But after 45 minutes, it was as if someone clicked a switch and she was an unconscious mannequin again, dying 20 minutes later of the disease. This glorious remission was not a cure.

But then I read an excited article by a United Methodist pastor whose father was cured of advanced Alzheimer's after the son went to the Western Wall of the Jerusalem Temple and prayed for him.  His Dad didn't know who he was, could not recognize family members, and could not find his house if we went for a stroll.  Yet prayer cured him and his son delights in his Dad's banjo playing once again.  So I am at times awed by possibilities I formerly denied and often wonder how devastatingly our unconscious beliefs rob us of indescribably joyful miracles.

Don

I tend to see the glass as half full rather than half empty.  My meaning is to say that rather than speak a common refrain of "there is no afterlife since most people don't get tangible verifications of their loved ones", I say: if you have even one well documented spectacular verification, you have already defeated the premise that the afterlife does not exist.  Period.  Now Don has mentioned a half dozen verifications that meant something to the still-living bereaved loved ones.  And Roger too.  And yet, there is a lack of satisfaction at how the system works.

Part of the problem is the implied superiority while we are living in the physical world of being alive in the "real" world.  The awfulness of disease and suffering - it seems, on a first glance, that if life/God were fair, it shouldn't happen.  Healing should occur, right?  Well what if our starting premises were wrong?  What if a healing and persistence in a human body is not the best thing for the person?  How are we to know this, since most of us don't know what it is like right now to be free of the physical world, earthly body and outer ego we all carry around?

There is so much that is unknown about the way our consciousness connects to others in the afterlife and how it might break the barriers into the density of the physical world, that it is difficult to even speculate about it, so why take a negative view, if one is familiar with even a scattering of verifications?

For me the problems arise due to certain faulty premises about the need to have this contact.

1.  that it is "unfair" or "cruel" if the living person wants the contact but does not get any direct contact, when another person does.

2. that the physical world is the place to be, and must be better for any individual, so if they are sick or ill, it is better that they be healed than to shed their body into the afterlife. 

3.  that our loved ones must be "uncaring" or helpless if we don't receive the comfort of afterlife contact. 

4.  That the going on of earthly events related to our individual egos has equal importance to our spiritual growth or objectives. 

I disagree with most of the above premises, but they are hidden underneath the discussion about the lack of afterlife contact and the implications.  Some invoke "memory loss" because of a few contacts with those on the other side, and it could explain how otherwise caring souls don't appear to make contact with us.  I have refuted the memory loss hypothesis on the other thread, and I believe there is ample evidence that it is not inevitable, and that memory can be and is accessed when people think of each other or are in need.

But what if contact after death is a "spiritual caress," where we feel, in the middle of grief that we are warm and safe and will be ok?   Why does time heal all wounds?  Is it all from ourselves, or does or emotional healing get help from the other side?

Clearly the paucity of stunning physical world contacts bothers some, but as we all recall from early grade school, it takes only one well documented refutation to sink a negative hypothesis.  Perhaps the answer to the question of this thread is (as Don mentioned before) faith.  Faith in the love we share with our deceased friends and relatives.  Faith in ourselves and in the process of life. 


M

Quote:

Quote Don: To me, it is ridiculous to claim that the newly dead realize earth life was illusory and "not real" and therefore see no need to communicate to loved ones. Nor does it make sense to claim that most of the Self is stationd in the etheric and therefore reassurance to deceased loved ones is unnecessary.

Yes, sometimes things do seem ridiculous or right out of a sci-fi movie, but I don't think anyone that I know of made the claim that the "newly dead" sees no need to communicate with loved ones, however, once the deceased has acclimated to a "higher" level of spiritual being, it is my understanding that:

1.  They no longer exist as the same "human personality" they were when they existed in the ELS.  They have been transformed into the spiritual being they were before they incarnated.

2.  They do recognize that while ELS appears in every way to be "real", it is not fundamentally real because it is a virtual world of consciousness with governing laws, created by Consciousness where physical interaction can take place between individualized beings for evolutionary purposes.  We also play a part in creating the collective consciousness within this realm because we've been given free rein within these limits.  How we continue to evolve is up to us, first individually, then as a whole.  I suspect we also have a part in the evolution of other realms such as the one we find ourselves in upon death of the physical body.  If more ADC is something deemed beneficial and we as a whole collective choose to manifest or evolve this, it may be possible. 

3.  Not only is most of the Self positioned in the non-physical, so are we as humans.  There is no true separation.  That we are separate is the illusion.  All that is taking place, is taking place within the confines of God Consciousness.  Acts 17:28.  Some describe it as the ALL existing as God's dream.  Nanci Danison devotes several pages to her description.  She uses the metaphor of sunbeams, and calls them "Sourcebeams" meaning that we all are "extensions" of Source at differing vibrations or levels of consciousness/being.  Scientists are saying the same thing using a more scientific approach and terminology.  There's more than just similarities here as people, including myself want to know how things work... To me, it is a continual search for the truth of how things work.  How is it possible that we are here... that we exist as a deeper level of being... and so on.  For me, a lot of the illusion has already dissolved.  When that happens, we move on to search for answers to our other pressing questions.

If what's been communicated to me and obviously to others per their various descriptions of the same thing has some truth, then I'm more than willing to invest some of my time to gain a better understanding... to find the truth.

Concerning ADC's I'm one that believes they actually do occur more often than the statistics indicate because I think many people are unwilling to talk about their experiences for various reasons... feeling foolish or that they won't be believed by others, and so on, especially if the ADC is particularly sensational.  Here's a few that come to mind at the moment:

Roger's mother (not our Roger) passed away on Christmas Eve.  A few days later a very sad and distressed Roger sat alone at his kitchen table before getting ready to leave for her funeral.  His mother appeared to him sitting next to him.  Her bodily features were clearly recognizable, yet she appeared as this brilliant, sparkling light as she communicated her love and comfort to him.

A similar appearance was made by Kate's grandmother.  A 17 year old Kate lay in bed starring at a closet door while thinking of, and missing her grandmother when suddenly the door disappeared from her view and her grandmother appeared "larger than life" (her words) and in brilliant colored light, but recognizable to her as the person she remembered.  Grandmother also communicated her love to her granddaughter.

Two 11 year old girls were walking home and decided to take a short cut through a cemetery and became lost among all of the curving roadways.  As darkness approached they'd finally found the gate, but it was locked.  As they wandered, looking for a way out they became more and more frightened, when suddenly a woman appeared and showed them the way to a tree they could climb to get over the fence and jump down on the other side, then the woman disappeared.  The girls knew she was a ghost because she floated along with them, rather than walked, however, she'd appeared as though she were a physical person.

My father appeared to me during a time of stress several years after his death.  At the time I wasn't thinking of him, but was upset for reasons I won't go into when he came to me.  He appeared not as a brilliant light, but as the same person he was when alive.  Even though he looked just as he had physically and communicated with me, I cannot be absolutely certain it truly was him.  This is because I know spiritual beings do impersonate someone if they think it will be beneficial to someone's spiritual growth.  But for all appearances he was real, at least to me at that moment in time.

My mother also appeared to me in a comical way not only right at the time of her death, but also a week or so afterwards.  I've already posted these so won't go into detail again.

I could go on with many more, but for the sake of brevity I'll stop here.

Matthew, you bring up some excellent points!  Thanks!

Kathy

Kathy-

A good friend of ours in the Buffalo area told a story (after I mentioned my own encounter with a spiritual being who intervened to save my life as a child) about an experience he had many years ago.

He was stranded one winter night in a blinding snowstorm.  His car got stuck on a back road and he left it, thinking he knew how to get to the main road.

He became disoriented and was convinced he was hopelessly lost.  His mind at the time was heavy with a divorce pending and his small children soon to have their family broken up.  He began sobbing, not knowing what to do or how to proceed.  He asked God for help.

The next thing he knew, a man approached him seemingly out of nowhere.  He told him to follow, and they finally came to the main highway he had been seeking.

He turned to thank the man, but he was gone.  And when he looked behind him in the direction they had come, there was only one pair of footsteps in the snow.  Also the man had comforted him, telling him that his family would be ok, that his troubles would not last.

As it turned out at some point afterwards, his wife (who had been involved with someone else and was planning on leaving) realized the pain she would be causing to both him and their children and ended her affair.

To this day (30 some years later) they are still married with grandchildren.  He told us the story one day at our cottage although at the time we had no idea about their marital problems.  It was pretty emotional for him and for that matter for all of us.  I doubt he would have told that story had I not told them about my own experience.

Stories like this are numerous.  As you say, lots of people keep them to their selves probably from fears of ridicule.

What does bother me are cases of grief-stricken parents who lose their children to illness or accidents.  One mother in our area was backing out of her garage and didn't see her small child sitting on the driveway.  She ran over him and he died instantly.

Her grief was intense.  As was her guilt.  It's one thing when our elderly parents die, but when we are the cause albeit accidentally of the death of our child it's a whole different ballgame.  I will never know if she got an ADC or not, but that's someone who needs it more than we can comprehend and I would sure like an explanation if a comforting ADC was not forthcoming.

R

Not sure if this counts as an ADC but it I could'nt explain it. About 10 years ago I was reading Joel Rothschild's 'Signals' about how Joel had received ADCs from his friend who had died of AIDS. About half way through the book my mobile phone made a 'message received' noise and a single love heart appeared on the screen with no sender number. I did'nt take much notice of it until I reached the end of the book where the author related how single love hearts had kept appearing during the production of the book (there was a single heart on the last page of the book which had appeared in the printing) and others connected with the book had reported them. It never happened to me again.It seems that many little events like this may happen but we take little notice of them getting on with everyday life instead.

Regarding the inconsistency of ADCs I would widen that to include everything which comes under the 'paranormal' umbrella; the fact that generally phenomena can't be called to obedient order has led skeptics to conclude that they don't exist. But as this thread has shown when they come verifications can be spectacular.Tom Campbell has suggested we live within a subset reality, part of a larger meta-reality so we cannot really see the 'bigger picture'. Equally validly religious people may put it down to God's grace, essentially unknowable by humans in physical reality.

I think this link neatly sums up our challenges as 'Flatlanders' :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWyTxCsIXE4

Yes I'd say that experience falls under the ADC umbrella. 

I'm not so sure, however, about Don's theory of spiritual evolution.  For one thing, evolution requires by definition a time sequence.  Yet supposedly time as we know it does not exist in the afterlife. 

On the other hand that can't mean existence in the afterlife is stagnant.  Maybe we are on earth where time is sequential precisely because linear time is necessary in order to evolve and grow. 

Since existence is said to be simultaneous, maybe we grow here in order to grow there?  Earth has its own unique challenges and opportunities that possibly aren't available in the afterlife.....just speculating here.

Bottom line for me is that if there is an afterlife, it must be pretty spectacular.  And if there isn't, then we are left with trying to explain all the phenomena that happen here that certainly point to a realm of existence beyond our short time on earth.

R

Hi Roger,

Yes, things like this do happen far too often.  Not too long ago a mother backed over her two year here as well.  And just a few weeks ago a mother forgot to drop off her child at daycare, drove to work and left the child in the car seat.  The child froze to death.  What I don't understand is how a parent can't know where their child is?  As a parent, isn't it your responsibility to know?  Or at least check to make sure they're safely in the house or in a safe area?  Of course it is, at least according to the law, but we are human and we do make mistakes.  That's part of the reality we live in and we know the type of world this is, with all of its possibility for suffering, before we incarnate.  I don't think we necessarily know all the particulars, but we do know that this can be an environment that produces great suffering at times.  Still we choose to come here.

I know the suffering of the mother who forgot her child in the car was immense and to top it off she was arrested for child neglect and abuse and will likely spend several years in prison.  I didn't know her well, only from when she was a child as one of my daughter's friends that spent time at my house, but my daughter had remained friends with her over the years.  According to my daughter, she was ordinarily a good, conscientious mother.   She has two older children and is devastated that her mind could have been so completely preoccupied with other things to forget something so vital as taking her child to daycare, but thinking that she had.

My brother died when he was 19 from an asthma attack.  My mom suffered tremendously because of her loss.  So did I.  He and I were very close.  My oldest had been born 5 days before and the last time I saw him was when he'd visited me in the hospital.  He just sat there grinning from ear to ear, completely enthralled with his new little niece.  No one that I know of in our family ever had an ADC from him.  I've wondered why that was, especially since I did have ADC from both my parents.  At least for me, the question arises, was this because several years later I was more "in tune" spiritually?  Not mentioned earlier in this thread, I'd also experienced a voice calling my dad just before he passed as well as felt his and my mother's presence during my mom's graveside service.  The presence of both my parent's was not only felt by me, but several others who were in awe and commented about it.

I suppose there could be any number of reasons why someone doesn't receive an ADC, but one that isn't often thought of is that perhaps we suffer for a reason, or perhaps suffering is somehow beneficial to our overall spiritual growth, even if unimaginable to us, especially if we are the ones suffering.  We've all heard of parent's that lost a child because not only because of illness, or unintentional carelessness, but also from horrendous things such as murder, and the parent's grow out of their grief to turn that around, and because of their suffering, they become advocates for the betterment of society.  So, I wonder, is there great purpose that is unknown to us at our level of consciousness?

Kathy

PS  Just saw your last post and  well stated. You make excellent points!  Yes, time does exist in the afterlife, differently than what we experience in ELS.  I believe Don has said this as well.  Time is fundamental to the evolution of consciousness and if it did not exist "there" it would not exist "here."  My understanding is that time first began when Consciousness became aware of a difference between one state and another state.  Evolution would not be possible if time did not exist in some form.

  What is time? 

I think Kathy hinted at the deeper meaning of same.  Perhaps it's a perception of change from one state to another?   

  Perhaps that's why it's somewhat relative to the particular dimension we are focusing in, since different "dimensions" or consciousness states means a relative degree of separation from or attunement too that Consciousness state of the original, that of full conscious awareness of Onenesss?

   Perhaps that's why when we have experiences in those states closer to that, time starts to become rather inclusive, connected, and holistic?  With less perceptual distinction between past, present, and future? 

Perhaps that's why in this dimension, the physical Earth, time is perceived to be so distinct, separated, and linear, because this is a dimension or consciousness state that is far from the above?

Perhaps this dimension has come to represent and externalize the inner stuckness which first happened in pure consciousness?  Perhaps we are in the process of Retrieving the physical in a sense, or rather those stuck and imbalanced aspects of the larger self?   

  Where did this have it's origins?  Perhaps in the original creative experimentation by the Source wherein when it first moved within itself and formed individuals within same, some unforeseen chaos happened. 

   Some individuals somehow came to be repelled by their origins and their connections to others within the Whole.  Some of these parts wanted nothing to do with the Whole and with Oneness. 

  The question is, was this what we would call freewill choice, or some kind of accident of creation?   Or an odd admixture of both?    Not so simple as just bad, accidental batches, but neither so simple as pure conscious choice on their parts for there was some inherent imbalance which inclined them...?

   

   

Here is some food for thought on this subject:
A conversation following the Death of John Field
From "The reluctant Messiah" by Sidney Field
Jiddu Krishnamurti

This is a very long quote copied from pp. 117, 118 and pp. 135-157 from the book "The reluctant Messiah" by Sidney Field, Paragon House, New York 1989, Edited by Peter Hay, ISBN 1-55778-180-X, Copyright 1989 by Sidney Field.

Sidney Field was a close friend to Krishnamurti and the book is about all the encounters he had with K. At page 117, Sidney wrote:

My brother, John, died early in January, 1972. His death was totally unexpected and a great shock to me. John had been a photographer, a lover of adventure, women and wine, a mean of great Latin charm. He had known Krishnaji as long as I had, and had many times delighted him with his stories and personal adventures. Krishnaji had just arrived from Europe and was staying in Malibu at the home of Mrs. Zimbalist. I called him to give him the sad news, saying I wanted to see him, and he asked me to come the following day for lunch.

He greeted me most affectionately. At the dining table I came right to the point: "Has John survived his bodily death in a subtler form? Yes or no?" There was a moment's silence. "My gut feeling," I went on, "is that he is here beside me, right now."

"Of course he is, right here beside you," said Krishnaji. "He's very close to you, and will continue being close for some time." Two hours later we were still deep into the subject of death and the hereafter. He referred to that part of the personality that survives bodily death as an echo, instead of an astral body, as the Theosophists call it, the echo of the person who lived on earth, the duration of its life on the other side depending on the strength of the individual's earthly personality. "Dr. Besant's echo, for instance," he said, "will go on for a long time, for she had a very strong personality."

"Your viewpoint here is very similar to that of the Theosophists," I said.

"With one important difference," he replied. "There is no permanent substance that survives the death of the body. Whether the ego lasts one year, ten thousand, or a million years, it must finally come to an end."

Krishnaji's remarks during this conversation were among the most revealing and enlightening I had ever heard him make on the subject of death and survival beyond it. At the end of our talk Mrs. Zimbalist remarked that it was a great pity we had not recorded it, for, prodded by insistent questioning and probing on my part, and aided by a sympathetic Mrs. Zimbalist, Krishnaji had explored what to us was a new dimension on this fascinating subject.

Krishnaji has an extraordinary capacity for recall, when he wants to use that gift, and a few days later, he Alain Naude and Mrs. Zimbalist recreated the entire conversation, this time recording it, with Naude asking Krishnaji essentially the same questions I had asked. It was staged in a much quieter atmosphere, naturally, and Naude's questions were cool and intellectual. They did not have the same urgency and strong feeling of my approach, for I was hurting at the time. Nevertheless, I was fascinated when I heard the recording. Krishnaji gave me permission to publish it in connection with this memoir, and it appears in the Appendix.
Appendix
A conversation following the Death of John Field
Participants : J. Krishnamurti , Alain Naude , Mary Zimbalist
recorded on january 14, 1972
Krishnamurti : We said the other day Sidney Field came to see me. His brother John died recently. You knew him. He was very concerned whether his brother was living in a different level of consciousness; wether there was John as an entity born [in the] next life. And did I believe in reincarnation and what did it mean. And so he had a lot of questions. He was having a difficult time with himself because of his brother, whom he loved and whom we have known for years. So out of that conversation two things came up. First, is there a permanent ego? If there is such a thing as a permanent something, then what is its relationship from the present to the future? The future being next life or ten years later. But if you admit or accept or believe or assert that there is a permanent ego, then reincarnation...

Alain Naude: ... is inevitable.

K: Not inevitable. I wouldn't say inevitable. It is plausible, because the permanent ego, to me, if it is permanent, can be changed in ten years' time. It can incarnate differently in ten years time.

A: We read this all the time in the Indian scriptures. We read about children who remember the past life, about a girl who said, "What am I doing here? My home is in some other village. I'm married to so and so. I have three children." And in many cases I believe that this has been verified.

K: I don't know. So there is that. If there is no permanent entity, then what is reincarnation? Both involve time, both involve a movement in space. Space being environment, relationship, pressure, all that existing within that space, time.

A: Within time and temporal circomstances ...

K: ... That is, culture etcetera ...

A: ... Within some sort of social set-up.
K: So is there a permanent me? Obviously not. But Sidney said, "Then what is it that I feel, that John is with me? When I enter the room, I know he is there. I'm not fooling myself, I'm not imagining; I feel him there as I feel my sister who was in that room yesterday. It's as clear, as definite as that."

A: And also sir, when you say "obviously not" , would you explain that ?

K: But wait. So he says, "My brother is there." I said of course he is there, because first of all you have your association and memories of John and that is projected, and that projection is your remembrance.

A: So that the John who was contained within you is that.

K: And when John lived he was associated with you. His presence is with you. When he was living, you might not have seen him all day, but his presence was in that room.

A: His presence was there, and perhaps this is what people mean when they speak of an aura.

K: No, aura is different. Let's not push that in yet.

Mary Zimbalist: May I interrupt - when you say he was in that room, whether alive or dead, was there something external to his brother and sister that was there, or was it in their consciousness?

K: It is both in their consciousness and outside consciousness. I can project my brother and say he was with me last night, feeling he was with me, that may emanate from me; or John, who died ten days ago - his atmosphere, his thoughts, his way of behaving still remaining there, even though physically he might have gone.
A: The psychic momentum.

K: The physical heat.

Z: Are you saying there is a sort of energy, for want of a better word, which human beings give off?

K: There was a photograph of a parking lot taken where there had been many cars, and the photo showed, although there were no cars there, the form of the cars that had been there.

A: Yes. I saw that.

K: That is, the heat that the car had left came on the negative.

A: And also one day when we were living in Gstaad, the first time I was your guest at Gstaad, we were living as Les Capris - you left for America before any of us left, and I went into that flat - you were still alive and on your way to America and your presence was there, extremely strong.

K: That's it.

A: Your presence was so strong, one felt one could touch you. This was not simply because I was thinking about you before I entered the flat.

K: So there are three possibilities. I project out of my remembrance and consciousness, or pick up the risidual energy of John.

A: Like a smell that would linger.

K: John's thought or John's existence is still there.
A: That's the third possibility.

Z: What do you mean by that, John' existenc?

A: That John is really there as before he died? The third possibility.

K: I live in a room for a number of years. The presence of that room contained my energy, my thoughts, my feelings.

A: It contains its own energy, and when we go into a new house it sometimes takes time before you are rid of the person who was there before you, even though you may not have known him.

K: So those are the three possibilities. And the other is John's thought, because John clings to life. John's desires are there in the air, not in the room.

A: Immaterially.

K: Yes, they are there just like a thought.

A: And does that mean that John is conscious and there is a being who is self-conscious calling himself John, thinking those thoughts?

K: I doubt it.

A: I think that is what the people who believe in reincarnation would postulate.

K: See what happens, Sir. This makes four possibilities and the idea that John whose physical body is gone, exists in thought.
A: In his own thought or someone else's?

K: In his own thought.

A: Exists as a thinking entity.

K: As a thinking entity exists.

A: As a conscious being.

K: That is - listen to this, it's rather interesting - John continues because he is the world of vulgarity, of greed, of envy, of drinking, and of competition. That is the common pattern of man. It continues and John may be identified with that, or is that.

A: John is the desires, the thoughts, the beliefs, the associations.

K: Of the world.

A: Which are incarnate and which are material.

K: Which is the world - which is everybody.

A: This is a big thing you are saying. It would be nice if you could explain it a bit better. When you say John persists, John continues because there is a continuation of the vulgar in him - the vulgar being worldly, material association.

K: That is right: fear, wanting power, position.

A: Desire to be as an entity.
K: So that, because that is a common thing of the world and the world does incarnate.

A: You say the world does incarnate.

K: Take the mass of the people. They are caught in this stream and that stream goes on. I may have a son who is part of that stream and in that stream there is John also, as a human being who is caught in it. And my son may remember some of John's attitudes.

A: Ah but you are saying something different.

K: Yes.

A: You are saying that John is contained in all the memories that different people have of him. In that respect we can see that he does exist. Because I remember a friend of mine died not long ago, and it was very clear to me when I thought about it that in fact he was very much alive in the memories of all the people who had loved him.

K: That's just it.

A: Therefore, he was not absent from the world, he was still in the stream of events which we call the world, which is the lives of different people who had associated with him. In that sense we see that he can perhaps live forever.

K: Unless he breaks away from it - breaks away from the stream. A man who is not vulgar - let's use that word, vulgar, representing all this ... greed, envy, power, position, hatred, desires, all that - let's call that vulgar. Unless I am free from the vulgar, I will continue representing the whole of vulgarity, the whole vulgarity of man.

A: Yes, I will be that vulgarity by pursuing it, and in fact incarnating in it, giving it life.

K: Therefore I incarnate in that vulgarity. That is, first I can project John, my brother.
A: In my thought and imagination or remember him. The second point, I can pick up his kinetic energy, which is still around.

K: His smell, his taste, his saying the words.

A:The pipe which is unsmoked on the desk, the half-finished letter.

K: All that.

A: Flowers he picked in the garden.

K: Third, the thought remains in the room.

A: Thought remains in the room?

K: Feelings ...

A: One might say, the psychic equivalent of his kinetic energy.

K: Yes.

A: His thought remains almost as a material smell. As a physical smell.

K: That's right.

A: The energy of thought remains like an old coat that you hang up.

K: Thought, will, if he has a very strong will; active desires and thought, they also remain.
A: But that's not different from the third point. The third point is that thought remains, which is will, which is desire.

K: The fourth point is the stream of vulgarity.

A: That's not very clear.

K: Look, sir, I live an ordinary life, like millions and millions of people.

A: Yes, pursuing goals, hopes and fears.

K: I live the usual life. A little more refined, a little bit higher or lower, along the same current, I follow that current. I am that current. Me, who is that current, is bound to continue in that stream, which is the stream of me. I'm not different from millions of other people.

A: Therefore are you saying, sir, even, dead I continue because the things which were me are continuing.

K: In the human being.

A: Therefore, I survive. I was not different from the things which filled and preoccupied my life.

K: That's right.

A: Since these things which filled and occupied my life survive, in a manner of speaking I survive since they do.

K: That's right. That's four points.

A: The question is about the fifth. Is there a conscious thinking entity who knows that he is conscious when everybody has said, "There goes poor old John," even put him in the ground. Is there a conscious entity who immaterially says, "Good gracious, they've put that body in the ground but I have consciousness of being alive."
K: Yes.

A: That is the question which I think is difficult to answer.

K: Sidney was asking that question.

A: Because we see that everybody does exist in these other ways after death.

K: Now, you are asking the question, Does John, whose body is burned - cremated - does that entity continue to live?

A: Does that entity continue to have its consciousness of its own existence?

K: I question whether there is a seperate John.

A: You said at the beginning, is there such a thing as a permanent ego? You said obviously not.

K: When you say that John, my brother, is dead and ask wether he is living, living in a seperate consciousness, I question whether he was ever seperate from the stream.

A: Yes.

K: You follow what I am saying, sir?

A: Was there a John alive?

K: When John was alive, was he different from the stream?

A: The stream filled his consciousness of himself. His consciousness of himself was the stream knowing himself.
K: No, sir, just go slowly. It's rather complicated. The stream of humanity is anger, hate, jealosy, seeking power, position, cheating, corrupt, polluted. That is the stream. Of that stream is my brother John. When he existed physically, he has a physical body, but psychologically he was of this. Therefore was he ever different from this? From the stream? Or only physically different and therefore thinking he was different. You follow my point?

A: There was an entity who was self-conscious ...

K: ... As John.

A: He was self-conscious, and the stream was in relationship to himself.

K: Yes.

A: My wife, my child, my love.

K: But was John inwardly different from the stream? That's my point. Therefore what is dead is the body. And the continuation of John is part of that stream. I, as his brother, would like to think of him as separate because he lived with me as a seperate being physically. Inwardly he was of the stream. Therefore, was there a John who was different from the stream? And, if he was different, then what happens? I don't know if you follow.

A: There is a stream from outside and there is a stream from inside. Vulgarity seen in the street is from the man who feels himself to be acting in the moment of that vulgarity. I insult somebody. This is vulgarity. You see that vulgarity from the outside and say there is a vulgar act. I who am insulting somebody see the act in a different way. I feel self-conscious life at the moment when I insult. In fact I insult because there is a conscious thinking about me. I am protecting myself, so I insult.

K: My point is, this is what is happening with one hundred million people. Millions of people. As long as I swim in that stream, am I different? Is the real John from the stream?
A: Was there ever a John?

K: That's all my point.

A: There was conscious determination which felt itself to be John.

K: Yes, but I can imagine. I can invent because I am different.

A: There was imagination, thought, calling itself John.

K: Yes, sir.

A: Now, does that thought still call itself John?

K: But I belong to that stream.

A: You always belong to the stream.

K: There is no separate entity as John who was my brother, who is now dead.

A: Are you saying that there is no individual?

K: No, this is what we call permanent. The permanent ego is this.

A: What we think is individual.

K: Individual, the collective, the self.

A: Yes, the creation of thought which calls itself self.
K: It is of this stream.

A: That's right.

K: Therefore, was there ever a John? There is only a John when he is out of the stream.

A: That's right.

K: So first we are trying to find out if there is a permanent ego which incarnates.

A: The nature of the ego is imperminent.

K: Reincarnation is in the whole of Asia, and the modern people who believe in it say there is a permanent ego. You take many lives so that it can become dissolved and be absorbed in Brahma and all that. Now, is there from the beginning a permanent entity, an entity that lasts centuries and centuries? There is no such entity, obviously. I like to think I'm permanent. My permanence is identified with my furniture, my wife, my husband, surcumstances. These are words and images of thought. I don't actually possess that chair. I call it mine.

A: Exactly. You think it's a chair and you own it.

K: I like to think I own it.

A: But it's just an idea.

K: So, watch it. So there is no permanent self. If there was a permanent self, it would be this stream. Now, realizing that I am like the rest of the world, that there is no seperate K, or John, as my brother, then I can incarnate if I step out of it. Incarnate in the sense that the change can take place away from the stream. In the stream there is no change.
A: If there is permanence, it is outside the stream.

K: No, sir, permanency, semipermanency, is the stream.

A: And therefore it is not permanent. If it is permanent, it is not the stream. Therefore, if there is an entity, then it must be out of the stream. Therefore, that which is true, that which is permanent, is not a something.

K: It is not in the stream.

A: That's right.

K: When Naude dies, as long as he belongs to the stream, that stream and its flow is semipermanent.

A: Yes, It goes on. It's a historical thing.

K: But if Naude says, I will incarnate, not in the next life, now, tomorrow, which means I will step out of the stream, he is no longer belonging to the stream; therefore there is nothing permanent.

A: There is nothing to reincarnate. Therefore, that which reincarnates, if reincarnation is possible, is not permanent anyway.

K: No, it's the stream.

A: It's very temporal.

K: Don't put it that way.

A: A seperate entity is not real.

K: No, as long as I belong to the stream ...
A: I don't really exist ...

K: There is no separate entity. I am the world.

A: That's right.

K: When I step out of the world, is there a me to continue?

A: Exactly, It's beautiful.

K: So, what we are trying to do is justify the existence of the stream.

A: Is that what we are trying to do?

K: Of course, when I say I must have many lives and therefore I must go through the stream.

A: What we are trying to do, then, is we are trying to establish that we are different from the stream.

K: We are not.

A: We are not different from the stream.

K: So, sir, then what happens? If there is no permanent John or K or Naude or Zimbalist, what happens? You remember, sir, I think I read it in the Tibetan tradition or some other tradition, that when a person dies, is dying, the priest or the monk comes in and sends all the family away, locks the door and says to the dying man, "Look you're dying - let go - let all of your antagonisms, all your worldliness, all your ambition, let go, because you are going to meet a light in which you will be absorbed, if you let go. If not, you'll come back. Which is, come back to the stream. You will be the stream again.
A: Yes.

K: So what happens to you if you step out of the stream?

A: You step out of the stream, you cease to be, but the you which was, was only created by thought, anyway.

K: Which is the stream.

A: Vulgarity.

K: Vulgarity. What happens if you step out of the stream? The stepping out is the incarnation. Yes, sir, but that is a new thing you are coming into. There is a new dimension coming into being.

A: Yes.

K: Now, what happens? You follow? Naude has stepped out of the stream. What happens? You are not an artist. Not a businessman. You are not a polititian, not a musician, all that identification is part of the stream.

A: All the qualities.

K: All the qualities. When you discard that, what happens?

A: You have no identity.

K: Identity is here. Say, for instance, Napoleon, or any of these so-called world leaders: they killed, they butchered, they did every horror imaginable, they lived and died in the stream, they were of the stream. That is very simple and clear. There is a man who steps out of the stream.

A: Before physical death?
K: Of course; otherwise there is no point.

A: Therefore, another dimension is born.

K: What happens?

A: The ending of the dimension which is familiar to us is another dimension, but it cannot be postulated at all because all postulation is in terms fo the dimension we are in.

K: Yes, but suppose you, living now ...

A: Step out of it.

K: Step out of the stream. What happens?

A: This is death, sir.

K: No, sir.

A: This is death, but no physical death.

K: You see, you step out of it. What happens?

A: Nothing can be said about what happens.

K: Wait, sir. You see, none of us step out of the river, and we are always from the river, trying to reach the other shore.

Cont.
A: it's like people talking about deep sleep from awakeness.

K: That's it, sir. We belong to this stream, all of us. Man does belong to the stream and from the stream he wants to reach that shore, never leaving the river. Now the man says, all right, I see the fallacy of this, the absurdity of my position.

A: You can't state another dimension from the old dimension.

K: So I leave that. So the mind says, "Out!". He steps out and what takes place? Don't verbalize it.

A: The only thing one can say about it in terms of the stream is silence. Because it is the silence of the stream, and one can also say it is the death of the stream. Therefore, in terms of the stream it is sometimes called oblivion.

K: You know what it means to step out of the stream: no character.

A: No memory.

K: No, sir, see: no character, because the moment you have character it's of the stream. The moment you say you are virtuous, you are of the stream - or not virtuous. To step out of the stream is to step out of this whole structure. So, creation as we know it is in the stream. Mozart, Beethoven, you follow, the painters, they are all here.

A: I think perhaps, sir, sometimes that which is in the stream is vivified, as it were from something which is beyond.

K: No, no, can't be. Don't say these things because I can create in the stream. I can paint marvelous pictures. why not? I can compose the most extraordinary symphonies, all the techniques ...
A: Why are they extraordinary?

K: Because the world needs it. There is the need, the demand, and the supply. I'm saying to myself what happens to the man who really steps out. Here in the river, in the stream, energy is conflict, in contradiction, in strife, in vulgarity. But that's going on all the time ...

A: Me and You.

K: Yes, that's going on all the time. When he steps out of it, there is no conflict, there is no division as my country, your country.

A: No division.

K: No division. So what is the quality of that man, that mind that has no sense of division? It is pure energy, isn't it? So our concern is this stream and stepping out of it.

A: That is meditation, that is real meditation, because the stream is not life. The stream is totally mechanical.

K: I must die to the stream.

A: All the time.

K: All the time. And therefore I must deny - not deny, I must not get entangled with - John who is in the stream.

A: One must repudiate the things of the stream.
K: That means I must repudiate my brother.

A: I must repudiate having a brother. You see what that means?

K: I see my brother belonging to this, and as I move away from the stream my mind is open. I think that is compassion.

A: When the stream is seen from that which is not of the stream.

K: When the man of the stream steps out and looks, then he has compassion.

A: And love.

K: So, you see, sir, reincarnation, that is, incarnating over and over again, is the stream. This is not a very comforting thing. I come to you and tell you my brother died yesterday, and you tell me this. I call you a terribly cruel man. But you are weeping for yourself, you are weeping for me, for the stream. That's why people don't want to know. I want to know where my brother is, not whether he is.

  And i would say, always consider the source.  A person who tries to have sex with his friend's wife, behind his back, may occasionally make good points, have some wisdom to share, etc, but neither are they any kind of ultra authority or great teacher whose perception is undistorted. 

  The great teacher is the one who comes to consistently live and express purity and a universal Love unsullied by the body's limited reactions, wants, and desires. 

  There is a Consciousness Law and understanding of same that has been around since we have been and spoken of in many different cultures and belief systems in many ways. 

  This is the teaching of "Like attracts and begets Like", and it is more fundamental to reality than the air you breath or anything in the outer world. 

  And there are no short cuts or getting around same.  So, always consider and discern the source beyond the outer words, interesting life, etc.  Some may be accurate and more true, some and often much is not when it comes to "teachers" in the flesh. 

wrote on Feb 15^th, 2014 at 3:05am:

And i would say, always consider the source.  A person who tries to have sex with his friend's wife, behind his back, may occasionally make good points, have some wisdom to share, etc, but neither are they any kind of ultra authority or great teacher whose perception is undistorted.    The great teacher is the one who comes to consistently live and express purity and a universal Love unsullied by the body's limited reactions, wants, and desires.    There is a Consciousness Law and understanding of same that has been around since we have been and spoken of in many different cultures and belief systems in many ways.    This is the teaching of "Like attracts and begets Like", and it is more fundamental to reality than the air you breath or anything in the outer world.    And there are no short cuts or getting around same.  So, always consider and discern the source beyond the outer words, interesting life, etc.  Some may be accurate and more true, some and often much is not when it comes to "teachers" in the flesh.

Yes, good points. I had read this and posted to see what others thought about it. I have lost a few loved ones in my life, and have had nothing to make me believe they have survived bodily death as a certainty. Apart from dreams and some signs which i have thought came from them because of the immediate connection of the signs to them, and of course the dreams which felt like visits with them upon awakening.
But i have at times thought these things could be projections from my own mind, because after all we want to know where our deceased loved ones are, and if they are still there on some level, as our brain tries to make sense of it all.
But i figure it doesn't really matter all that much, because i think as long as we are in the physical existence and they are not, i don't feel we can ever possibly know for certain.
We will all find out when our own time comes around, so in the meantime, just live our life the best we can, and do whatever good we can to help others along this journey, and the rest will take care of itself anyway in due course.