My ADC thread got side-tracked by my temporary decision to leave.  In any case, the misunderstandings expressed there suggest that I revise the set of questions I posed.   So I will repost a couple of posts from that thread and develop this new thread with 7 new questions in mind.   I am curently testing my inisights on another site with its own OBE adepts.  So please be patient.  I really want to learn something new from this exercise.

(1) If one is forced to choose between conflicting claims from channeling, OBEs,
    astral travel, NDEs, and ADCs, what weight should be given to the mode of
    revelation?  I prefer to look for multiple confirmation from religious
    traditons and a variety of means of astral exploration.
.
(2)  Most of us would love to verify our postmortem survival to our loved ones
     in spectacular fashion and several times.   Yet such ADCs are rare.  Why?
     We need answers based on astral exploration, not on defensive conjectures
     designed to make our viewpoint unfalsifiable in pricniple.  What is the
     relationship between postmortem dormant memories and the rarity of
     spectacular ADCs?    

(3) What is the relationship between astral "geography" and the potential for
    ADCs?  Put differently, which planes are condusive to ADC contacts and
    which are not?  And how con we discern the originating plane of contact?  

(4) Related questons might be generated from the inadequacies of the Monroe
    Focus model.  Focus 23 (the level of earthbound spirits and those who don't
    realize they are dead), 24-26 (BSTs), and 27 (the realm of true freedom
    and maximal options) are useful tools for initiating the novice, but the actual
    plane the novice reaches will depend more on his state of consciousness in
    practicing with the Gateway CDs and will vary from person to person.  For
    example, i experienced the state mind alert/ body aslleep using a CD
    designed to take me to a higher Focus level.  Many posters seem to assume
    that arrival in a park, a welcoming center, a healing center, or an astral
    library indicates one's arrival in Focus 27.   Why assume that new arrivals
    are not welcomed or given a chance to heal in the supposedly "lower"
    BSTs?   Why assume that BSTs lack a park or a library to promote their
    local belief system?

(5) More importantly, Monroe's Focus structure is contradicted by other adepts
    (e. g. Robert Bruce, and ES) who claim to have discvered a different
    astral "geography."  Their reports make it clear that memory loss can be a
    function of "descent" to the Healing Center supposedly located in Focus 27.
    So confusion about astral "geography" is relevant to the question of
    memory loss and the related question of ADC potential.  This dilemma
    raises this question: how is the ADC question affected by the debate over
    astral "geography?"

(6) Why don't we question our preliminary assumptions?   For example, how do
     we know that retrieval guides recall their past earth lives?  
     How do we know that the capacities of higher non-human beings (e. g.
     Christ and the angels) can be replicated by dicarnate humans?  
     How can we rule out the Swedenborgian Hells simply on the grounds that
     we have never witnessed tnem in our own astral travels?    Until we can
     match his verifications, we'd best remain open about claims deriving from
     his more far-reaching exploratoin.
 
(7) Many cavalierly dismiss the challenges from gifted adepts as inconsistent
    with their own presumably reliable astral insights.  At what point must we
    acknowledge the need for a community of exploration from different
    ideological perspectives?  It seems that Bruce Moen does not explore the
    unique insights of Robert Bruce or vice versa.   Neither of them seem to
    explore with a desire to test the unique astral insights of Swedenborg.   This
    indifference to the need for (a) pooled resources, (b) friendly debate among
    adepts, and (c) fresh experiments to test each other's novel claims makes
    each New Age group seem cultic and insulated from potential falsification.
    With a little humility and organization, this problem is easily correctible.  Why
     is there no progress towards an all-inclusive approach to astral research?

Ny frequently polemical tone might create the impression that I am Hell-bent on defending my own perspectives.  In truth, I take delight in discovering  where I am wrong.  I crave new astral insights that might make me a more effective, helpful, and loving human being.

Don

This repost is part of my answer to question (1).  In my view, this post establishes 3 points: (a) One is not necessarily contacting the dead even if impressively verified evidence about the personality and life of the deceased is channeled by the medium.  (b) Even if the medium channels information about a spirit's future, this does not necessarily mean that the medium is in contact with the spirit in question.  (c)  So if channeled material conflicts with a coherent pattern of insights from OBEs, astral travel, NDEs, and ADCs, I'd be inclined to discount the channeled material.  That is not to say that all channeled material is either bogus or the product of deceptive spirits.

Mediums routinely put their eager sitters in touch with deceased loved ones, who seem alarmingly available.   If these contacts were geniune, one would expect these loved ones to be unavailable because of present commitments and activities much of the time.  True, some mediums will protest that they sometimes fail to contact the spirit desired by the sitter.   But generally these spirits seem far too available to be credible.  The spirits seem incapable of answering a simple question like, “So what have you been doing since I last talked to you through this medium?”  To explain away this problem some resort to the desperate expedient of claiming that our deceased loved ones now live in a timeless realm.  This solution is refuted by the astral explorations of Emanuel Swedenborg and Robert Bruce who discover that most heavenly planes are stll subject to a sense of time, though time may seem more compressed in certain realms.  Consider my answers to these 4 questions:  

(1) What if sitters request contact with fake deceased relatives and the mediums still oblige with a very impressive channeling?                

(2) What if the spirit control of mediums with impressive verifications can be proven to be a fraud?   What conclusion would that warrant about other spirit controls whose self-professed identity cannot be verified?                                                  

(3) What if a drop-in communicator could provide amazing verifications even involving precognition of the future, and yet, be later proven a fraud?            

(4) What if it can be shown that the attribution of channeled materials to discarnate friends and relatives reflects a culturally conditioned bias?  

(1) As already mentioned, Leonore Piper is one of the most impressive mediums ever.   She had the uncanny ability to channel two entities at the same time, one through automatic writing and the other through entranced speech.   Psychologist G. Stanley Hall had a trick up his sleeve when he went for a sitting with her. She was currently using the spirit of Richard Hodgson as her control.   Hodgson had formerly investigated her, but had recently died of a massive heart attack.  Hall asked Hodgson's spirit to contact Hall’s niece, “Bessie Beals,” so that he might speak with her.  Miss Beals was duly introduced and proceeded to communicate with Hall through Mrs. Piper.  Actually Bessie Beals did not exist.  She was a figment of Hall’s mind.  "Hodgson" in embarrassment tried to wriggle out of the situation, saying that he had been mistaken about the name.  He said that the person brought was a Jessie Beals, related to another sitter.  Dr. Samuel Soal...visualized incidents with an imaginary friend, John Ferguson.  He then went for a sitting with the medium, Blanche Cooper.  The incidents he visualized came forth as though communicated from beyond death!  These cases demonstrate that mediums can unwittingy gain information about the ceased by reading the sitter's mind.  They then routinely dramatize this ESP by inventing a phony personal contact.  One might expect the telephatic abilities of their spirit controls to detect this sort of ruse.   Clearly, the spirit controls were also a fake.

(2) Some spirit controls seem clearly fraudulent.  While Richard Hodgson was still alive, he thoroughly investigated one of Leonore Piper's spirit controls named Phinuit in 1892.  The Phinuit persona claimed to be the spirit of a French doctor whose full name was Jean Phinuit Scliville and who had lived in the early 1800s and had practiced medicine in London, France, and Belgium.  But he was unable to speak more than a few French phrases, displayed no more knowledge of medicine than the average layman, and had never (according to medical records) attended the medical schools at which he claimed to have studied and practiced.  Hodgson initially concluded that Phinuit was just a secondary personality of Mrs. Piper which either erroneously believed itself to be or falsely pretended to be the spirit of a deceased French doctor.   But Hodgson later changed his mind and now concluded that some of the material produced in a trance by Mrs. Piper seemed to go beyond what might be obtained by thought transference from the sitters and thus seemed to suggest real contact with the dead. In his words, “Among these (comunicators) are more than half-a-dozen intimate friends of my own, who have produced upon me the impression...that they are the personalities I knew, with characteristic intelligence and emotion, questioning me and conversing with me under difficulties.”  It seems doubtful that Hodgson would have changed his mind if he had lived to discover the Gordon Davis case, which I shall now describe.

(3) At a sitting with medium Blanche Cooper on Jan. 4 ,1922 , Dr. Samuel Soal’s deceased brother unexpectedly said, “Sam, I’ve brought someone who knows you.”  Then in a very clear, strong, and familiar voice, Gordon Davis began to speak through Cooper.  Davis was an old school acquaintance whom Soal believed to have been killed during World War I.  Davis seemed to verify this when he said, “My poor wife is my only concern now--and my kiddie.”  Soal thought he recognized Davis' tone of voice with its fastidious accent.  The communicator used forms of expression that typified the real Gordon Davis' speech  (e.g. “old chap”; “confab” instead of “meeting”).  Davis spoke of the school they had attended, Rochford, and provided details of their last conversation.  He proceeded to refer correctly to persons, places, and events from their school days.  At two ensuing sittings on Jan. 9 and 30, 1922, Davis gave a detailed description of his house, its contents, and the arrangement of its contents.  

To his great surprise, Soal learned in 1925 that Davis was still alive after all and went to visit him.  A great deal of the channeled material about the house proved to be correct.  But Davis and his "wife and kiddie” had not moved into the house until over a year after the relevant sitting!  Davis' diary showed that during Soal’s sittings he had been seeing real estate clients.  Only around the time of the sittings did Davis even inspect this house for the first time.   But Davis did not move into the house until a year later.  More importantly, the furnishings of the house had not been planned in advance!  Yet the details channeled earlier turned out to be correct: a large mirror, lots of paintings, glorious mountain and sea scenes, very big vases with funny saucers, two brass candlesticks, and a black dickie bird.  Two of the paintings were only done after the sittings!  So much of the material channeled in the later sittings about the house must be ascribed to precognitive telepathy (John Heaney, 176-177).  And this precognition surely casts doubt on the authenticity Gladys Leonard's repeated channeling of many details posted in specific columns of
tomorrow's newspaper.

Why is channeling not discredited in this way more often?  Well, ask yourself how often you are mistakenly informed that your friend has died.   Was the medium able to exploit Soal’s mistaken faith in Davis’ death as an aid in the process of reconstructing Davis’ personality and future by precognitive telepathy?  Or were the medium (Blanche Cooper) and sitter (Sam Soal) duped by an impersonating spirit?

(4) Shamans understand their mediumship to put them in contact with spirits and demons as well as with deceased people.  In earlier centuries Neoplatonists also practiced trance mediumship, but attributed it to the agency of gods or demons rather than to discarnate humans.   Likewise, witches from the 17th and 18th centuries ascribed their channeled material to demons.  Perhaps
the modern attempt to identify spirit controls with deceased personalities reflects the wishful thinking of modern cultural prejudice.  Why is Leonora Piper’s spirit control (Phinuit) lying about his true identity?  Why did Sam Soal’s alleged brother lie about bringing Gordon Davis’ spirit through?   Or were these people simply deceived?

Don

Don, to address your first post here about mediums, there is a key insight I think that sheds light on this topic.  That is, unlike meditation, an OOBE, lucid dream or outright epiphany, when a bereaved loved one sits in front of a medium, it is the medium making direct contact with the spiritual world, and relating the subsequent experience.  Then, we are dealing with a chain of indirect information.  When a person explores the afterlife directly, and receives verification, there is a knowledge in the contact and exchange.  When asked "how do you know it was genuine," many will say "I just know, I was there."

With a seance, the door is open to partial information coming through, and so, yes, it is possible that an imposter, demonic or otherwise is transmitting information.  What if some of the information is verified/correct, or precognition proves true by the medium?  These are unanswerable questions.  I believe that the human mind connects through the subconscious to the spiritual world, and at times to a vast amount of information.  This is the well documented realm of remote viewing.  Could a spirit obtain verifiable information, but not be who he/she claimed?  Of course.  Are there false mediums therefore, and false contacts?  Certainly.  It is the least reliable way of exploring the afterlife.  However, the verifications that people get, however they are obtained, hold great value for many bereaved people looking for any information.

Bruce stresses his recommendation on this website to "find out for yourself."  Self exploration.  What you, I and others are doing.  Clearly, this is the way to go.

However, you will find yourself lost in a new age conundrum soon, which is the old question of whether or not we can prove that any information is absolutely true or false, right or wrong...Many spiritual people, eventually come to the understanding that even truth may be relative to the observer (this is supported in part by modern quantum physics), and thus we get into those famous discussions with Kyo you and myself on moral relativism.

Matthew

Monroe defines Focus 23 this way: "A level inhabited by those who have recently left physical existence but who have either not been able to recognize and accept this or are unable to free themselves from the ties of the Earth Life System.  It includes those from all periods of time (UJ 249)."

Paranormal research would endorse much of this characterization.   But there are two problems: (1) Many seem to enter the lower levels in a holding or welcoming area (Sheol) before their transition to other realms, whether heavenly or below heaven.  They are neither confused about their death nor earthbound.  I will post examples of this in future posts.  (2) When one researches the insights of OBE adepts who are not locked in a Monroesque Focus straightjacket, one encounters intriguing astral claims that the lower astral realm must be subdivided into other distinct realms.  For example, consider the interesting alternative astral "geography" alleged by Claire, an OBE adept:

"Sheol is in lower planes, not the physical realm.  "Earthbound" implies those "negative energy spirits who are trapped on Earth, not below it.  I have been to Sheol/ Hells.  Those humans cannot visit Earth, but can lift their vibration to get to Heaven and then come here. ...Most spirits cannot move the physical (= psychokinesis).  Just as most humans could, but do not develop clarient esnse, so most spirits could, but do not develop abilities to `appear' (on Earth)...Materializing so that an unaware (person) can see them or hear them takes a higher vibration and more energy output.  It drains spirit."

For now, forget her distinction between planes "below Earth" and another dimension of the "physical realm."  She just may have idenitified one reason why our loved ones cannot communicate with us from their brief or longterm sojourn in the lower planes.

Compare Claire's claims with George Meek's mind-blowing research on an ADC machine that recorded the voice of George Mueller, a deceased engineer who apparently lingered in the lower planes.   Meek theorized that the right medium might be able to receive instructions on how to build an ideal machine for recording the voices of the dead.  William O'Neil served as a effective channel for Mueller.  Here is a brief list of just some of the incredible details about Mueller channeled by O'Neil: Mueller's social security number/ his degrees and the colleges where he earned them/ his daughter's address/ a club membership/ various honors/ his employment history/ his publications
and inventions/ and much more.  

All of this information was later verified.  Some of it was channeled by O'Neil and some of it was communicated via "voice' on Spiricom, the name of Meek's ADC machine.  Mueller issued instructions on how to build the machine, and then his voice on Spiricom suggested ways of upgrading this machine.  Fontana's investigation is able to rule out fraud or ESP as an alternate
interpretation.
 
In 1981 Mueller made it clear that "he was beginning to shed his dense earthly vibrations and starting his progression upwards" through his world's various levels of consciousness.   It became harder for him to communicate through Spiricom, and so,  he began to issue instructions on the machine on how to build a more advanced model that would enable him to remain in contact.  But
Spiricom fell silent before Mueller completed these instructions.   Apparently he had a limited grasp of his "ascension" process and could not control it.

It strikes me as very significant that the ascended Mueller could no longer communicate with Earth, apparently even through a medium.   This finding seems to contradict Claire's claims and demands an explanation.   Was Mueller suddenly shifted to a realm in which he lost access to hes earth memories?   I will address this subject in a future post.

But in my next few posts, I will offer further illustrations of the promise and limitations of the lower planes with respect to ADC contact.  We need greater insight into the scope of the problem and possible solutions.  

Don

Don

AN EXAMPLE OF A COMMUNICATION FROM A DECEASED LOVED ONE WHICH SEEMS POSSIBLE THROUGH AN NDE, BUT IMPOSSIBLE THROUGH AN ADC:

I've shared this story before, but am retelling it for its topical relevance and because the newbies have never read about it.  I met Phyllis at a wedding reception.  Phyllis had a PhD in medical research.   She was an attractive blond who seemed cebebral at the expense of emotional expressiveness. Her 2 NDEs confirm this impression.   She had no interest in the paranormal at the time of her first NDE which was tiiggered by a cara crash.

She found herself in an astral  "mall that wasn't really a mall."  It was a mall of white light.  Her description reminded me of Bruce Moen's description of a welcome area in Focus 27.  But this mall seems to have been located in Focus 23, the intial plane of transition.  As Phyllis moved through the mall, she saw her deceased mother seated at one of many tables in a food area.   An orchestra was playing soothing music in the bcckground.  Phyllis sat down opposite her mother, but the conversation was far from soothing.  Her mother regaled her, "You have refused to come to terms with my death, and your refusal is blocking my progress over here."  Phyllis sulked with guilt.   Her way of dealing with crisis was to detach from her emotions and escape into cerebral ventures.  She was urged to come to terms with her feelings, but never did.   She returned to her body in the hospital and slowly recovered.  

A year later, she got very sick.  She didn't share her afflection, but I sensed that it was something like breast cancer.  Her condition deteriorated to the point where she experienced a second NDE.  Once, again, she found herself in the same astral "mall."   Once again, she heard the orchestra and saw the dreaded sight of her mother sitting in that same "food area" ahead.   Reluctanlty, Phyllis sat down at her Mom's table.   Her Mom picked up where she left off: "I told you that your refusal to gtieve is blocking my progress here.  Why won't you listen to me?"   The music did nothing to ease Phyllis's sense of shame and depression.  Her Mom then said something interesting.  She pointed down to the table and said, "You must help me make this table vanish!"   The table was clearly a mental projection of the tie between mother and daughter that prevented Mom's ascent to a higher plane.   I wondered about the past relationship between mother and daughter.  

In an awkward moment, Phyllis abruptly announced, "Well, I guess I should try to get back to my body back there."  But Mom instantly insisted: "No, you're not ready to return yet!  You need to go with these two gentlemen!"  A surprised Phyllis noticed the approach of two men clad in white (medical attire?).  They escorted her to "an elevator which wasn't really an elevator."  It was an elevator of white light.   She was taken to some kind of Healing Center or astral hospital and some sort of medical procedure was performed on her which she could not understand.   Then she was returned to her body.  She was healed and no longer needed surgery or other medical measures!  

This case illustrates Claire's point about the difficulty of raising one's energy vibration to the point where ADCs (e. g. visions or auditory communication) are possible for the newly dead.  Apparently ADCs are as hard for them to perform as ESP is for us.  So the Mom had to wait until Phyllis's 2nd NDE a year later to continue to encourage her daughter to grieve.

Don

I want to retell another story that is very relevant to my topic.  Leonard was a wealthy retired construction baron.  He was a good friend, a fellow who wore his feelings on his sleeve.  As his pastor, I had often visited him and stayed for dinner.  He had shared his sorrow over the illness of his wife, brother, and cousin.  But I was curious about a perceived psychological inconsistency.  Leanard's son Jeff had been killed in a small plane crash which also killed his wife Karen and his two children.  Yet he seemed oddly undisturbed by this tragedy in contrast to his reaction to family illness.  I decided I would look for a tasteful opportunity to ask him about it.  

I went to see him, but he was out on an errand; so I mentioned in passing to his wife Helen how serene he seemed about the plane crash.  She beamed, "Oh, that's because he received a reassuring contact from Jeff soon after the tragedy."  So I thought to myself, "I guess Leonard had a typical ADC."  I thought wrong!   A couple of days later, I asked Leonard about his confirmation.  What her shared with me is the most astounding ADC I have ever heard.  An author PMed me on this site to publish my account which is now one of the stories in a book on ADCs.  

Leonard lived in the country.  After the funerals, he needed to do some errands in town.  So he hopped into Jeff's pick-up and drove down his driveway to the highway.  Then he glimpsed someone rising from the dtich by thr road.  What Leonard saw put him in a state of shock.  It was his dead son, Jeff, approaching the truck!  Jeff asked, "Dad, can I drive my old truck for old time's sake?"  Len moved over and Jeff took the wheel!  They drove north down County Road 40 towards Rochester, NY.   Jeff offered assurances that he and his family were  alive again and OK.  He shared details about his investment situation to help his Dad tie up loose financial ends.  It was a joyous reunion.   Then Jeff turned right on a side road and drove another 2 miles to a forested area.  Suddenly he stopped and said, "I'm sorry, Dad, I'm not PERMITTED to drive any further."   Father and son bid a tearful good-bye and Jeff exited the truck and walked towards the trees.  He then dematerialized.  

Leonard was too much in shock to process this improbable ADC.   His sadness and sense of loss intensified so much the next day that he felt the need to take a long walk down the trail in the woods behind his house.  Finally, overcome with grief, he sat down on a log and wept profusely.   Suddenly he heard the cracking of branches.  A woman was approaching.  When she came closer, Len recogniZed her as Jeff's deceased wife Karen.   She sternly admonished him: "Didn't we tell you that our family was together again and doing just fine?  You  get back in the house with Mom and comfort her!"   This second encounter lifted Len's burden and freed him from the intensity of his grief.

Leonard gazed at my skeptical expressoin with pain on his face.  He had kept this ADC a secret out of fear of being scorned.  I couldn't help my reaction. I felt terrible because I had badgered him to share his miracle.  I just had trouble processing so great a miracle.  I now recognize it as the most amazing confirmation of survival I have ever personally encountered.

Leonard's experience proves how spectacular ADCs can be.   But once again, we must confront the question of why ADCs of this calibre are so rare.  One factor might be that this young family was unexpectedly killed in the prime of life.  In my research, impressive ADCs often occur after such a tragedy.  But there is a more important clue: Jeff had lamented that he was not PERMITTED to drive past the 2-mile point on the side road.  It seems that the most specactular ADCs are not merely a function of gifted souls who can adjust their vibrational frequency to the level needed for dematerialization.  Special permission is needed.  On what basis is such permission granted?  Who supervises such ADCs and gives the needed permission and limits for such family reunions?  I suspect that God or a saintly agent of God supervises such spectacular healing ADCs.

Don

I’ve had one and only one mediumistic experience.  When I was in my early 20s I visited a friend, Jonathan, who had a summer cottage on the coast of Maine.  Down the road was a community of small cottages that had originally been established as a spiritualist summer camp in the late 1800s.  They still had an active meeting hall and an inn of sorts that provided housing to visiting guests and mediums.  

I must have expressed interest.  I had visions of a dark room with strange lights and gads of ectoplasm floating around. Another part of me was curious and wanted to see for myself.  

I wanted my friend to go with me but he was terrified of the idea of going to one of the meetings.  As a young teenager both his mother and grandmother had died.  Their deaths had been traumatic for him.  Something about the possibility of contacting them or not contacting them bothered him a great deal.  I wanted him to go with me but he was adamant.  I went by myself.

No dark rooms or ectoplasm.  The meeting was in a hall with chairs and a raised platform at one end of the room.  There were 20 or 25 people present.  The medium conducting the meeting that night was an unassuming middle aged gentleman.  I forget his guide’s name.  The medium stood on a platform and would indicate someone in the audience and give that person a message or indicate that there were one or several people present with his guide and offer names of the spirits.  He didn’t make contact with spirits for everyone attending but he did covered most of the folks there.  I was surprised when he came to me.  At that time I only knew one person who had died, a student in junior high school whom I didn’t know very well.  No spirits were around for me.  The medium did offer a few generalities:  he saw me as a sort of person who lives in a garret and he gave me the advice not to put all my eggs in one basket or irons in the fire.

Needless to say I wasn’t impressed with my one experience.  The eggs in a basket may have been nice advice but it had no direct relevance to anything going on in my life at the time.  However, I was living in a garret at the time.  I figured the medium had picked up a psychic impression that was accurate.  A little bit of psychic stuff but mediums and spirit contact? – forget it.    

What did impress me was what happened later that night.  I was asleep on my back and woke up or partially woke up about two in the morning.  I felt a tremendous sense of relaxation and a heightened sense of awareness.  I became aware of a voice calling: “Jonathan … Jonathan …” three or four times.  The voice was that of an older woman’s.  There was a very slight quiver to it.  Then I realized that this voice was coming from my own vocal chords.  It wasn’t me speaking or thinking or doing anything.  I was just lying in bed feeling very relaxed.  I realized that I was in some sense being a medium.  I assume it was either Jonathan’s mother or grandmother trying to make contact with him.  As I lay there I wondered how I could get up and go get Jonathan to tell him what was happening and realized if I got out of bed I would loose touch with whatever was happening.  I also thought that if I could somehow get him to come in and listen to this voice it would freak him out.  Interestingly, though it did not freak me out.

While my visit to the spiritualist meeting was a dud, what happened later that night certainly was a direct hit.  Verifiable?  No.  But I know the experience was more than just some personal subconscious manifestation.  Something happened and having a mediumistic experience is the best explanation I can come up with.  I wasn’t trying to communicate with anyone and yet there was some form of contact and effort to communicate to someone else.  I never went to another spiritualist meeting.

This doesn’t answer any of Berserk’s questions.  Yet I appreciate those questions and the thinking that’s gone into them.  When I read them I just form more questions of my own.  It’s been a number of years since I’ve even thought of this experience.  Maybe I’ll see if there’s a spiritualist church in the area.  Going to a meeting might still be a dud but just maybe I’ll have an interesting experience later that night.

As an aside, I want to thank you Berserk for your references to different books on Swedenborg.  I’m reading Van Dusen’s “The Presence of Other Worlds”.  Swedenborg is remarkable.  I want to ask, though, if his early 18th century style of writing makes him hard to read?  Also, thanks for the Leonard story.

Van Dusen wrote: “One may be experiencing bits of the self or disincarnate entities, or these two may be fundamentally the same thing.  Eventually Swedenborg sees them as the same thing.  Other lives are unconscious parts of our own life.  It is enough for the present to say experiences in these states suggest the presence of spirits interacting in our innermost feelings.”

I really don’t know if my experience can be separated from my self and whoever or whatever was using my voice.  Agreeing with Doc’s point, I feel I was connected through my subconscious to the spiritual world.  At some level I think we’re all connected.

Rob

Hi Don

It's very easy to get dead people to come and talk when doing past life work. I've had people happy to meet dead relatives etc, and dead relatives unhappy to meet their living counterparts because "It isn't your time yet - What're you doing here?" But geting verifiable data seems to be much more difficult.  

Perhaps one reason is that because we are using an essentially regenerative mechanism (imagery prompting awareness prompting imagery etc) to reach these places, there's at least 50% noise. (Regeration runs at a 3 db noise factor.) Noise is non-additive, so we never get overwhelmed, but neither are we ever going to get anything that is perfectly clear.

Perhaps if we were to set up an experiment designed for noisy environs we'd do better. I've been trying to peddle an experiment to an organization in which we obtain a form of imagery that is not possible in a 3-space, as one example. The idea would then be that there's something more. But the experiment is still hanging in a state of uncertainty, since I would like a lot of subjects so that statistics will be more sensitive.

In the same kind of way, violation of any of the "sacred laws" of materialism (such as not being able to know what is in a sealed box on your desk without looking) would be adequate. It would produce a paradox that woudl lead to further thinking. Duke experiments have followed this trend, but not with much value  For some, however, accuracy seems uncanny. John Donne (And Experiemnt With Time" did a related study on dreams, and although I mistrust his math he demonstrated that the ability to predict events seems to be available to us in dreams.

Trying to get a complicated life history and then check it is a lot more work. Further, if even one or two details (like how to spell the name of the town) are off, the entire episode is usually rejected as "pure chance".

A survey of opinions of people in this general area is a good start, but no proof.

I wonder whether it might be useful to do ESP and related tpes of experiments exclusivelty with disembodied souls through regression methods. That is, selecting subjects from dead souls who want to come and play, as opposed to working only with the living as subjects. I have done very little methodological thining in this regard, but it might stimulate others usefully.

dave

I think this could be a helpful experiment for both incarnate and disincarnate souls Dave.  The methodology does need to be thought through properly and would have to be done through a ESP Medium with a method to identify the medium is not receiving sub-conscious regression of themselves or trickster beings but a geniune disincarnate soul.

We have spoken about disincarnate souls who latch onto incarnate people and this is one of your areas of expertise Dave in unlatching these souls.  But if I can just add here are they souls? are they not spirit memories?

Nevertheless if they are souls they must be pretty traumatised to be latching onto people so they wouldn't be the ideal subject to choose because they need spiritual guidance and not experiments.  Do you agree Dave?

Then also the method of receiving the disincarnates information either written or voice?

Brinking on Ouja board here!  But I think with the right method and people it could be done.

One ADCstudy found that 50% of Americans and 48% of the British reported an ADC from a deceased loved one within the first year since the passing.  After a year, these incidents drastically diminish.  So one might suspect that ADCs are easist in Focus 23 or the biblical Sheol/ Hades. If so, the reassurance of the loved one that she is OK may be premature and deceptive, meaning only that she has survived, fully conscious.  Just consider how George Ritchie is taught by Jesus that the principle of like attracts like even operates among earthbound souls:

""`Keep your eyes on me,'  Jesus had told me as we set out on an incredible journey....The Light drew me inside a dingy bar and grill near what looked like a large naval base.  A crowd of people, many of them sailors, lined the bar 3 deep, while others jammed wooden booths along the wall...A number of the men standing at the bar seemed unable to lift their drinks to their lips.  Over  and over, I watched them clutch at their shot glasses, hands passing through the solid tumblers,...through the very arms and bodies of the drinkers around them.  And these men, every one of them, lacked the aura of light that surrounded the others...As I stared,  stupefied, the identical scene was repeated.  A man passed out.  A crack swiftly opened in his arua, one of the non-solid people vanished as he hurled himself at the opening., almost as if he had scrambled inside the other man...They had developed a dependence on alcohol that went beyond the physical....Except when they could briefly take possession of another body, they would be cut off...from the thing they could never stop craving (quoted from Ritchie's "Return from Tomorrow")."

The ability of the deceased to temporarily possess these drunks may be a hint at how some ADCs occur.  Hauntings and poltergeist phenomena seem to be facilitated by analogous auric penetration.  

Ritchie's NDE journey coontinues:

"In one house a younger man followed an older one from room to room: `"i'm sorry, Pa!' he kept saying.  `I didn't know what it would do to Mama!  I ddin't understand.'  But though I could hear him clearly, it was obvious that the man he was speaking to could not.  The old man was carrying a tray into a room where an elderly woman sat up in bed...The young man said again, `I'm sorry, Mama.'  Endlessly, over and over to ears that could not hear....Several times we paused before similar scenes.  `What are they so sorry for, Jesus?' I pleaded. `Why do they keep talking to people who can't hear them?'...[Jesus:] `They are suicides, chained to every consequewnce of their act.'"

Don

 Interesting last post Don, thanks for sharing.  Possession seems to be one of those topics that a lot of those amongst spiritual belief systems don't like to hear, talk about, nor believe in.  

 I myself, while i believe it is possible, can and does happen, i don't talk about it often because i do not want to facilitate nor foster any fear in others of this happening to them.   In any case, i believe it is a relatively rare occurance and seems to happen most to alcoholics (or those that drink a lot) and espeically during the time they are actually drunk.  

  Rosiland McKnight's guides, especially "Ah So" talks about this phenomenon and mentions that etheric OBE traveling (the one with the classic OBE feel and awareness i.e. seeming very real) is the least safe because you leave less energy defense behind to protect or shield the body.   They seem, by default, to recommend exploring more through the emotional and mental "bodies" so that the etheric field is fully intact.  They also recommend positive affirmations and asking help from positive energies before attempting stuff like this.


 Edgar Cayce's source(s) of info also talks a bit about the occasional reality of possession from "borderland" folks, and also links it most commonly in relation to alcohol consumption (especially with alcoholics).

  My father is alcoholic, and i can attest to this phenomena.  When he drinks, it becomes rather clear that he is being used by some not so nice and positive consciousnesses, yet generally when not drinking (especially after trying to clean up for awhile)  he is a relatively kind and good person.

Yes interesting life stories Don and comments by all.  AhSo its true what you say how an alcoholics personality changes while under the influence.  And nine times out of ten it is not a pleasant change to see or converse with.  Dave I am sure you come across this numerous times in your work.  Although a patient wouldn't be under the influence while in theraphy, although I might be generalising and they are, but if not then the influencing character change would be in a passive mode, under the surface.  

The Dweller on the Threshold also known as the Doppleganger (Double) or even altered Ego is interesting to research and I believe may be related to a sort of individual 'possession'.

It is said; our Astral body (our invisible body) is created by our actions, thoughts and feelings.  The Astral body is our spiritual body identity as our physical body is our physical identity.

In attainment of (spiritual) higher worlds, it is said, one meets ones Double and is viewed as a Being seperate from one but at the same time connected ie is one cannot merely walk away from it.  The myth stories relate it to the three-headed beast or dog guarding the door.  The account in Harry Potter when he approaches 'fluffy' the three-headed dog guarding the door to the philosophers stone is a very good modern account of this mythology.  The three heads : Thinking, Willing and Feeling.  

To tame the beast, that is to enlighten the Astral body to ensure it is not a beast but the opposite an angel (in it's highest form) is the tasks of dissolving negative karma and general good ethics and projecting love and help where one can each task suited to one's own path and ability to see through the darkness into the light.

So maybe the possession character in an alcoholic is oneself, ones altered ego?

LOSS OF MEMORY DURING DESCENT FROM HIGHER PLANES: ITS RELEVANCE TO THE POSSIBILITY OF ADCs AND CHANNEING FROM HIGHER PLANES

NDE patients like Betty Eadie often report substantial memory loss of their revelations and encounters in higher heavenly realms.   Thus, Betty often expresses this sort of complaint in her book "Embraced by the Light:"  

"The memory of that tour has been partially taken from me.  I remember being taken into a large room, where people were working, but I don’t remember how we got there or what the building looked like from the outside [74].”

In "Astral Dynamics." OBE adept, Robert Bruce, claims to have discovered a reason for this  troublesome memory loss:

“When present, the base level.. replaces any higher levels of consciousness and overwrites any memories gained independently by those levels of consciousness on higher planes.  ..The higher level memories still exist after the event, but they are driven into inaccessible levels of the subconsicious mind and memory.  The overall effect is that a projection continues from that moment on as if it had just started.  ...The lowest level of consciousness always replaces and overwrites any higher level of consciusness and effectively wipes out all trace of its memories at the moment of reintegration (75).”.

‘Memories from higher levels of consciousness may not even be in sync with what the physical brain is capable of recognizing and storing as viable memories. ...The only parts of high-level experiences that are storable as recallable memories are those parts the physical brain is capable of recognizng and converting inot base-level format...The above factor accounts for the...symbols, images, and feelings that are sometimes remembered after high-lveel OBEsand dreams, instead of more recognziable OBE and dream memories.  This, if true, goes a long way toward explaining the...metaphorical nature of prophetic OBEs, visions, and dreams, and why these areso difficult to understand and interpret (77).”

This theory fits well with Robert’s observations about the memory problems of discarnate spirits who "descend” to the Healing Center to be with their loved ones.  In my view the need for such a “descent” already implies the imadequacy of the implied Monroe reduction of “Heaven” to Focus 27.  On the other hand, these descending spirits must have some ongoing memory contact with their loved ones on Earth.  Otherwise, why would the former be prompted to descend for a visit?  And how elsde do they discover the new arrival of their loved ones to the Healing Center?  Robert’s OBE observations about spirits descending to the Healing Center seem most significant.  He reports:

“Many of the people/ spirits I have met there 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. MEMORIES OF THEIR EARTHLY LIFE ALSO SEEM VAGUE, MUCH LIKE HOW A HALF-FORGOTTEN DREAM IS REMEMBERED  BY A LIVING PERSON."

“Many spirits only seem to be aware of their present reality, that of being in only the hospital scenario for an indeterminate length of  time.  Some spirits, however, do have vague memories of their earthly life, and of coming from other dimensional areas; but have so far given only very sketchy details.  Often they will speak of a warm, brightly-lit, interesting place where they have many friends and loved ones, but with little more details 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.’”

Evidently, descending spirits encounter the same memory problems that earthly astral explorers do upon returning from higher astral planes.   So here is my queston for readers?  Are not these memory problems inconsistent with ADCs from higher planes and especially with the chatty ease mediums have in channeling deceased loved ones on demand from higher planes?  If not, why not?  

Don

My prior post highlights memory problems created by spirit descent from higher planes.  My current post takes this one step further and challenges the assumption that discarnate spirits have access to their full earth memory in higher planes. The  reader must ask hsmself how ADCs and channeling from these planes remains possible in light of this problem.  Certainly these troubling insights shed light on why our deceased loved ones so rarely contact us in an impressively paranormal and verifiable way.   I am not trying to discredit ADCs.  But integrity requires us to come to terms with evidence that contradicts our preferred astral explorers and their comforting insights.   We must come to terms with the incoherence of the overall evidence from astral exploration and seek a fresh synthesis.   Consider, then, how George Titchie's NDE and ES's astral insights challenge common New Age perspectives about the ease of contacting our deceased loved ones in higher planes and finding them with their earth memories intact.

Psychiatrist George Ritchie experienced the most influential and one of the most in depth NDEs ever recorded.   It is his NDE experienced as a young solider during World War II that inspired Raymond Moody to research NDEs for his influential book “Life After Life.”  Together with Howard Storm’s “My Descent into Death,”  Ritchie’s book “Return from Tomorrow” ranks as my favorite NDE book and certainly the best written.  This post picks up his story after Christ has appeared to him as a blazing Being of Light and taken him on a tour of the locales of various earthbound spirits. Christ then takes hiim to a hvgher, more peaceful educational plane.  Let me quote a few snippets from Ritchie’s enthralling description of that plane:

“We entered a studio where music of a complexity I couldn’t begin to follow was being composed and performed.  There were complicated rhythms, tones not on any scale I knew. . .Now we walked through a library the size of the whole University of Richmond.  I gazed into rooms lined floor to floor with documents on parchment, clay, leather, metal, paper.  `Here,’ the thought occurred to me, `are assembled all the important books of the universe.’...Then abruptly, at the door of one of the smaller rooms, almost an annex: `Here is the central  thought of this earth [70-71].’”

“I could not tell if they were men or women, old or young, for all were vovered from head to toe in loose-flowing hooded cloaks which made me think vaguely of monks.  But the atmosphere was not at all as I imagined a monastery.  It was more like some tremendous study center, humming with the excitement of great discovery.  Everyone we passed in the wide halls and on  the curving stair cases seemed caught up in some all-engrossing activity; not many words were exchanged among them.  And yet I sensed no unfriendliness between these beings, rather an aloofness of total concentration.”

“WHATEVER ELSE THESE PEOPLE MIGHT BE, THEY APPEARED UTTERLY AND
SUPREMELY SELF-FORGETFUL--ABSORBED IN SOME VAST PURPOSE BEYOND
THEMSELVES.  Through open doors I glimpsed enormous rooms filled with complex equipment.  In several of the rooms hooded figures bent over intricate charts and diagrams, or sat at the controls of elaborate consoles flickering with lights....I felt that some vast experiment was being pursued, perhaps dozens and dozens of such experiments [69-70] .”

Ritche's NDE description seems incompatible with the chatty ease with which mediums interrupt the lives of discarnates and seek confirmation from their memories of their earthly lives.  His description hints at the insight thst the inhabitants of this educational plane have an altered state of consciousness that cuts them off from their normal earthly memories.  His reports cohere nicely with Robert Bruce’s OBE insights into memory problems created by shifts in focus from one astral plane to another.  

The educational realm witnessed by Ritchie seems reminiscent of some descriptions of Focus 27 in the Monroe-Moen scheme of “astral geography.”  But Ritchie detects that its inhabitants are still incapable of perceiving Christ’s exalted presence and that even this peaceful realm does not yet qualify as Heaven.  Monroe implies that Focus 27 contains the Healing Center that helps new arrivals adjust to their new discarnate life.  But R. Bruce implies that the loved one’s of this Center’s patients must “descend” from higher planes with impaired memories to visit their hospitalized loved ones.   Thus, both Ritchie and R. Bruce imply that Focus 27 is not Heaven itself, but a training ground for the higher Heavens.  So the Monroe model should probably revised in term of, say, Focus 28, 29, etc. to account for such distinctions.    

The astral insights of Ritchie and R. Bruce might have profound implications for deceased souls from higher planes who might otherwise want to retrieve their loved ones who are "stuck" in lower or hellish planes. To what extent do they even remember these “trapped” loved ones, let alone their loved ones who are still alive on the earth?

Swedenborg would agree with Ritchie and Robert Bruce against the Monroe concept of Focus 27 that these educational planes and the Healing Center do not exist in the Heavens.  As in typical Swedenborgian fashion, ES explores astral memory problems in greater depth than either Ritchie or R. Bruce.   Here is a sampling os some ES quotes about the status of memory in “the World of Spirits,” a realm “below” the Heavens:

“We have two memories, an inner and an outer, or a natural one and a spiritual one. We are not aware that we have this inner memory.  How much better the inner memory is than the outer one! The contents of our outer memory are in the world’s light, while the contents of our inner memory are in heaven’s light.  It is because of our inner memory that we can think and talk intelligently and rationally.  Absolutely everything we have thought, said, done, seen, and heard is inscribed on our inner memory....Things that have become second nature to us and part of our life and therefore have been erased from our outer memory are in our inner memory (463, note b)."

After death, adult memory “stays fixed and then goes dormant; but it still serves their thinking after death as an outmost plane because their thought flows into it.  This is why the nature of this plane and the way their rational activity answers to its contents determines the nature of the individual after death (#345)."

".All that remain are the rational abilities that now serve as a basis for thinking and talking.   We actually take with us our entire natural memory, but its contents are not open to our inspection and do not enter into our thought as when we were living in this world...To the extent that our spirit has become rational by means of our insights and learning in this world, we are rational after
our departure from the body (#355).”
 
“The reason our outer memory goes dormant as far as material things are concerned is that they cannot be recreated.  Spirits and angels [= discarnate people] actually talk from the affections and consequent thoughts of their minds, so they cannot utter anything that does not square with these...I have talked with any number of people who were regarded as learned in the world because of their knowledge of such ancient languages as Hebrew and Greek and Latin, but had not developed their rational functioning by means of the things that were written in thos  languages. Some of them seemed as simple as people who did not know anything about those languages; some of them seemed dense, though there still remained a pride as though they were wiser than other people (#464).”

“I have also talked with some people who had believed in the world that wisdom depends on how much we have in our memory and who have therefore filled their memories to bursting.  They talked almost exclusively from those items, which meant that they were not talking for themselves, but for others; and they had not developed any rational functioning by means of these matters of memory.   Some of them were dense, some silly, with no grasp of truth whatever (#464).”

“Our rational faculty is like a garden or flower bed, like newly tilled land.  Our memory is the soil, information and experiential learning are the seeds, while heaven’s light and warmth make them productive...There is no germination unless heaven’s light, which is divine truth, and heaven’s warmth, which is divine love, are let in.  They are the only source of rationality (#464).”    

“One particular spirit lamented the fact that he could not remember much of what he had known during his physical life.  He was grieving over the pleasure he had lost because it had been his chief delight.  He was told, though, that he had not lost anything at all and that he knew absolutely everything.  In the world where he was now living, he was not allowed to retrieve things like that.  It should satisfy him that he could now think and talk much better and more perfectly without immersing his rational functioning in dense clouds, in material and physical concerns, the way he had before, in concerns that were useless in the kingdom he had now reached (#465).”

“Since the natural objects that reside in our memory cannot be reproduced in a spiritual world, they become dormant the way they do when we are not thinking about them.  Even so, they can be reproduced when it so pleases the Lord (#461).”  

Don

This post will discuss the first of 4 reasons why high-quality ADCs are so rare, and yet, still possible.   My first post explained why I am so skeptical about the authenticity of most channeled material.  Still, eaders might be interested in what the deceased Mrs. Willett channels through medium, Geraldine Cummins:
"
"When we converse...with a medium or automatist, we boeome, as it were, dependent on her thoughts, words, and images, and we go wrong, we stray in that tide.  It can be a River of Forgetfulness temporarily too for the struggling communicator in many cases, and it can be a mixture: part the automatist, part the communicator, or it can come in flashes and be [only] almost true (47)."

This report is drawn from Paul Beard's book, "Living On: How Consciouness Continues and Evolves after Death."  Mrs. Willett's alleged confession is consistent with Robert Bruce's OBE discovery that descent from higher planes often causes severe memory problems."

Readers might be fascinated by Paul Beard's summation of the insights of the best of Classical Channeling.  NDEs often give the patient a foretaste of the Judgment or the full Past Life Review that takes place long after death and "only after the traveler has become adjusted to his new life (100)."  Those in hellish planes are not permitted to experience a Past Life Review.  "In their obstinacy they would remain inwardly blind and unresponsive to it (102)."

The late Albert Pauchard had been the President of the Metaphysical Society of Beneva.  He channeled this description of his Past Life Review through a reputable medium: "This consciousness, which is called `Purgatory,'... comes and goes, one does not know how or when." Beard adds: "The traveler has these periods of purging and of respite, in accordance with his own pattern or temperament, turning his attention from one department of his being to another, working now on one factor in himself and now on another (104)."
"The full thrust of his life is not thrust upon him willy-nilly; it will come about when he is ready for it (97)."  

What makes the extended Past Life Review so potentially transforming?
(1) A teacher, often Jesus, accompanies his review and helps the discarnate soul process and discuss it.  

(2) The discarnate soul is shocked by the "complete record of every inner and outer event of his life on earth...He is also now obliged actually to experience within himself the thoughts and feelings, the pains and pleasures which his actions caused in the lives of other people; exactly what he caused them to feel he, in turn, feels in himself now.  This is a surprising and very disconterting event (98-99)."

"The past is irrevocable, certainly; however, itis consquences are not final, they can be overcome (97)."  During her two NDEs, Phyllis's deceased mother complains that Phyllis's refusal to mourn her passing is inhibting her postmortem progress (see reply #4 above).  Beard's insight from channeling suggests that Phyllis's Mom was being given the chance to reverse some negative consequences of her parenting through her NDE manifestation to her daughter.  Beard asks this provocative question: "Some of the persons with whom he  [the deceased] has had contact will still be on earth.  How then is it possible for theirside of interlocked epxerience to be accessible to him during the Judgment (105)?"   In my view, ADCs become permissible during the point in the Past Life Review in which reversible mistakes can be rectified and perhaps forgiven.  This rare chance for ADC contact may help explain the rairity of well-verified ADC contacts.

Don

Quote:

The discarnate soul is shocked by the "complete record of every inner and outer event of his life on earth...He is also now obliged actually to experience within himself thr thoughts and feelings, the pains and pleasures which his actions caused in the lives of other people; exactly what he caused them to feel he, in turn, feels in himself now.  This is a surprising and very disconterting event (98-99)."

Steiner discusses this;  apparently we do this inversion review from a spiritual perspective every night we go to sleep.

(2) THE NEED FOR DIVINE PERMISSION

Reply #5, describes Jeff’s spectacular verification for Leonard of his family’s postmortem survival.  The deceased Jeff drives his old truck, describes his total financial and investment situation, etc.  Why are ADCs this remarkable so rare?   Jeff’s spirit gives us a hint.  Jeff eventually laments that he must abruptly terminate his visit: “I’m sorry, Dad; I’m not PERMITTED to drive any further.”  In his discussion of memory loss in the higher planes, Swedenborg offers this reason for the occasional restoration of earth memories “They [memories] can be reproduced when it so pleases the Lord (HH #461--See reply  #13).”  In both cases, special permission is needed and that permission may explain why impressive ADCs are so rare.   Under what circunstances is such permission granted and who must give the permission?  Presumably God or a divine agent.  Perhaps, the permission is granted in the context of a Past
Life Review in which the deceased soul is forced to experience the emotional impact of his earthly actions on others.  

High-quality ADCs are very rare after the first year of the loved one’s death.  In his taped astral messages to George Meek, a deceased engineer named Mueller is forced to terminate his recordings because he must “ascend” to a realm where such contact is no longer possible (see reply #3).   Mueller is never heard from again, even through channeled contact.  

Robert Monroe’s OBE explorations convince him that his recently deceased wife will be unreachable after 6 months. To this, Bruce Moen responds:  “Bob Monroe completely rejected  the notion that his own wife Nancy, could be contacted by anyone more than six months after her death.  So what!...It turned out he was wrong, and it may be very hard for those of us in contact
with Nancy to talk to Bob about these contacts and pass along her messages to him (R37).”  The chatty ease with which channeling and Bruce’s method of Focused Imagination allow contact with deceased loved ones. seems inconsistent with the contrary evidence I have cited.    Either some astral explorers are deluded or a  new synthesis is possible.  In either case, Bruce’s apparent indifference to such apparent contradictions is unfortunate.  

Don

Quote:

a  new synthesis is possible

It isn't new, only forgotten.  

During healings at the higher levels of our being many times someone's loved one is present during the procedure.  In my experience they have not been directly involved, but watch at a distance.

I'm not sure how this fits with what Swedenborg and others have presented.  I do know that this is a fact, however.

Love,
Kathy

Kathy,

You refer to the case of discarnate loved ones who wtness "healings at the higher levels of our being." Such a healing process is precisely what Robert Bruce witnesses via OBE.  He discovers that the loved ones visiting the spirit hospitals have virtually no earth memory recall.  The presence of loved ones during NDEs need not imply that they have intact memories of the new arrivals.  Perhaps, they have been brought to the scene by divine providence as a source of comfort for the newly dead.  Or perhaps they are just imagary recreations of the loved one's image to create an air of familiarity.  We must resolve such issues with astral evidence, not with wishful thinking that craves a premature harmonization of the possiblities.  

[Matthew:] "Don, your scenario with memory loss implies an impasse or a profound loss as earthly memories are shed.  I have seen you mention the restoration of these memories by God's grace, but sort of brush it off as something ES mentions as a seemingly rare event.  I think this grace is the key event to reconcile the issues you cite from astral adepts (mostly Robert Bruce)."

No, I dont "sort of brush it off" as rare.  At this stage I am merely trying to deliniate the paramaters of the memory problem and possible solutions as a prelude to offering my own proposal.   Astral adepts and their fans generally extend their Ghetto mentality to other astral explorers, and so, do not take contrary experience-based evidence seriously.   With all the contradictory claims, one cannot simply rely on direct experience.  Either many explorers must be deluded in important ways or an unforseen synthesis is possible.   Currently, I am sketching out the options that might facilitate such a synthesis.  

Don

Actually Don, I’m referring to when I lay hands on someone.  Healing takes place on all levels of our being depending on what the person is in need of.  At the spiritual levels I can see and interact with other beings that come to assist me and/or observe.  Many times a person’s parent, grandparent or other loved one is present.  They can and do communicate with me on occasion, such as showing me an event that caused an initial trauma.  It doesn’t appear to me that their memory of the person receiving healing is limited.  That doesn’t mean that it couldn’t be limited, it simply means that someone’s entire existence is not revealed to me.  For one thing, there’s no need for that anyway.  Only what is helpful to the person receiving healing energy, or for my own understanding.  I do not always impart all of the information I receive to the person as I try to use my own discernment as to whether or not it could be helpful to him or her.  I do however; bring the memory of all events back to C1 consciousness.  I don’t lose any memory of this.  

Our loved ones are also present many times when we pass as I have heard their voices calling out to the person who is near death.  People will also talk about seeing someone that is waiting for them.  As for my own state of being, I am in a very clear and highly focused state of mind, in which I am only aware of what is happening in this state of expanded awareness.  This occurs naturally as my full attention is brought into the situation at hand and in that moment I am not aware of nor do I have focused attention on my “earthly” surroundings.  Actually Matthew described this pretty well in his post on the re-incarnation thread.  

Love, Kathy

To imply permanent memory loss does not sit well with many aspects of after death communication.  Also, it invokes a "Chumley" kind of fear, that despite our love for family and friends, most of us will lose the ability to remember our earth lives.  

My solution to the presence of loss of memory and rarity of after death communication is simple; we are either aware of this process or we are helpless to stop it.  I choose the former.  It is my strong belief that free will enables us to make decisions in the physical and in spirit (as above, so below).  We are also more complicated beings than the simple separate individual soul model can explain.  

I believe that when we focus our attention on new tasks and other divine activities, if someone interviews us, (i.e. an astrally flying Robert Bruce), we may not have total recall of our earthly memories.  Many examples of ADCs suggest that grief of a living relative may prevent a loved one from "moving on."  On to what?  To another activity that can not be linked to the living family member, I suppose.  

That being said, it seems that a part of us, through PUL remembers our relatives, and is with them when they need us for support.  To learn about PUL as we ascend to heaven, yet to forget our loved ones completely would be to create an illogical divine law.  This is why Swedenborg states that we can be brought back to our complete and detailed earthly recall after our inner selves have moved on through God's grace when it is suited.  If we are all co-creators with God, and have a spark of divinity in ourselves, and are supposed to grow in terms of PUL, can there be any doubt that permanent memory loss is not our spiritual fate?

God's grace is ever present.  Our love is there always, as is the love of heaven.  I therefore can't see how mandatory spiritual amnesia that is permanent is a viable option.  More likely, it is a selective focusing of consciousness on a new spiritual task with a temporary forgetting of one's earthly life.


Matthew

Kathy,

Thanks for sharing such healing experiences.  I started this thread in the hope it would prompt people to share relevant astral cnntacts with the deceased.  Even so, the parallel with Robert Bruce's observations about memory loss may remain valid.  The "descending" loved ones he observed knew who their newly arrived loved ones were and came to assist their transition.  Yet they still seemed to only dimly recall their earth lives.  

[Matthew:] "We are also more complicated beings than the simple separate individual soul model can explain."
_____________________________________________________________

Matthew, that insight will probably be the key to my own synthesis which I am currently formulating.  My chief quibble with your reply is this: it seems to downplay ES's radical claims.   But his claims about memory loss are unlikely to have been fueled by wishful thinking and are not concocted by the need for comfort.  The same cannot be said for the rival New Age view of chatty postmortem contact on demand.  Surely the simple fact is this:  most of us would want to have regular unequivocal and spectacular contact with our surviving loved ones after our deaths.   But this desire rarely seems to be fulfilled.   Even Houdini never kept his promise to confirm his survival to his wife Bess.   I have yet to read a satisfactory explanation of  this disconnect.    

Ironically, my brother, a physician,  is giving a speech on the afterlife in Colorado.  He just called me to help him expand his material and I will E-mail him biblical material in favor of some ongoing contact between the dead and the living.  We are playing with ideas here in the hope of making better sense of all the relevant experiential data.

Don

I am with Doc on this one.  The evidence for memory loss after death is apparent.  That is not the question.  The question is, what are the circumstances conditioning this loss of memory.  The two possible answers to this question are that (1) the memory loss is permanent, and (2) the memory loss is temporary.  

(1) If the memory loss is permanent, this would imply that we have been loosing our memory from the begining of our very existance.  If it happens after our lives on earth, then it's happened before it as well, and you can't just pick and choose what you want erased from your memory-one memory is just as valid as them all- which means that it is not only our earthly lives we forget, but everything in our memories. Who we are, our very essence, would be forgotten, erased from our minds. We would find ourselves in a state of confusion, not knowing who we are or what our purpose was.  Of course, this would have happened far before our lives on earth, unless you belief your existance began with this life(which I doubt anyone on this site believes). This theory contradicts with the evidence from NDEs where the person would be greeted by guides and helpers, and upon seeing these beings immediately remember who they were and their relationships with them from a time far before their life on earth.  Our experiences, especially those of PUL, are what cause us to spritually grow, fills our being with more PUL, brings us closer to oneness with god.  If we loose the memories of these experiences and forget they ever happen, then we also loose that PUL.  If you become someone, and you forget who that person was, then you are no longer that person.  If this theory held ground, it would basically mean we would be doomed of an everlasting cycle of gaining PUL and loosing it again.  That is not our purpose, that is not what [we,I,god] intended.  

(2) If the memory loss was only temporary, depending upon the current circumstances of the beings existance, this would make much more sense.  It is perfectly logical that engaging in a new spiritual journey would change our state of mind, our vibrations, and our track of thought from our current level to a higher one.  If you ask a man swimming the 100 in the Olympics what movie he saw the first monday of last month while he is swimming, he is going to have no idea, his state of mind is focused on a totally new thing and his train of thought is on a different level.  It does not mean that movie is totally wiped from his memory, just that he cannot recall it at the moment.  

It is obvious that memory loss is a recuring theme of ADCs.  However, this does not mean that our memories are totally wiped clean as we spiritually progress after our earthly lives.  In fact, this is quite an absurd theory.  Conditional, temporary memory loss not only perfectly explains the same data, but is much, much, much more logical.   

Spiritual progression, may require a new type of consciousness, where we are more concerned with God's love and the unity of all things than the duality we find in the physical world.  While we would not necessarily lose that part of ourselves that was here in the physical, we might have to make a greater understanding that the veneer of duality and identity on the physical was a self created delusion (Maya as my friend Dave might call it).

Thus Don relates the story of how a medium channeled a mother who said that she was being prevented from "moving on," because her daughter had never accepted or gotten over her death.   The grief and ties, "held her," back in spirit somehow.  So, for a time, If we find a "higher love" to explore, the earthly realm may not be at the forefront of our memory.

Still, in the universal field, is held every word, every sentence spoken every thing experienced in our lives, and perhaps we integrate these earthly memories not just at the life review, but on and off, when we go over our spiritual work on the other side.  

Understand the bigger picture, the higher love, the necessary loss of duality in the chaotic physical world in order to move on.  Then reexamine our earthly loves and experiences and hopefully grow in the process.  


Matthew

Well put Doc and OOBD.

I believe that the transition into the afterlife would be a much smoother experience with a gradual increase in past Earth-life memories. Also, as Doc mentioned: "Spiritual progression may require a new type of consiousness, where we are more concerned with God's love and the unity of all things than the duality we find in the physical world."

It's something that would have to be experienced with the vast spiritual myriad sensory input to be fully understood.

PUL,
Cosmic_Ambitions

Dear Fellow Seekers,

As long as we are looking for precedence to guide us, I suggest that the experiences of
the visionary English poet, William Blake, are of interest.  

After the death of his younger brother, Robert, in 1787, Blake continued to see and converse
with his brother in very robust communications.  I have not found any evidence that these
communications ceased with the passage of time. Interestingly, Blake invented a type of engraving
called relief engraving under the tutelage of his deceased brother during the first year after Robert's death.

For a time Blake and his wife were deeply interested in Swedenborg, but they later became
quite disenchanted.   Probably Blake found some of his experiences and insights in direct conflict with
those of Swedenborg.  Putting it all together, I think one real area of disagreement
could have been the issue of memory loss.

Some may think of Blake as mad, but remember--he was an abolitionist, a feminist, and a
believer in the innate rights of all mankind.  These are hardly views that would endear him
to the powers that were running things in "Fair Albion" of his era.  One of his early, "mad"
writings held that all religions are ONE.  I think nowadays more and more people are agreeing
with that thought.

Blake's deathbed scene is one that believers in the Afterlife should know about.  Those who
were present uniformly described it as "glorious."  Blake knew he was dying.  He stated that
he was going to the place he had always wanted to see.  He remained conscious--finally bursting
into song while overcome by complete, ecstatic joy.

Hi Don-

Strangely, I find the story of Leonard more disturbing than reassuring.  Let's briefly replay what happened....Leonard's son, daughter-in-law, and two small grandchildren are killed in a plane crash.  

One day, his son Jeff suddenly appears, seemingly in the flesh, and the two of them go for a short drive with Jeff at the wheel.  Jeff reassures his dad that everyone is alive and well.  Then he announces he is not permitted to stay any longer, exits the truck and disappears into the woods.

Even after this amazing experience, Leonard still grieves.  Shortly thereafter, Karen, Jeff's wife, appears to Leonard while he is out for a walk.  She admonishes him that he needs to move on.

Finally Leonard accepts what he's been told and gets on with his life.

On the face of it, this is truly an amazing experience.  We read about people having dreams about their deceased loved ones, and other types of contacts that can be interpreted as reassurances from our loved ones that they are ok.  But this is a whole other dimension.  Both Karen and Jeff not only appear, but manipulate their physical environment.  Jeff drives a pickup truck, and Karen's footsteps actually cause branches to crackle.  In other words, they seemingly become physical in nature.  They are able to do what other spirits cannot.  For example, alcoholics who hang around bars trying to imbibe liquor.  Their hands simply pass thru the bottle.  They cannot move physical objects.

What enabled Jeff and Karen to do this?  The easy answer is that Leonard's grief was so deep and distressing that they were given a special and rare gift in order to let Leonard get on with his life.  

But this just begs a larger question.  Millions of people experience grief just as deep as Leonard's.  Countless numbers of parents lose children to disease or other causes of death, sometimes cruel such as kidnapping and murder.  And these people suffer from grief for years, sometimes until they themselves die. Nothing occurs along the lines of Leonard's experience.  

So at least to me, this story doesn't bring comfort.  In fact, when you think about it, it's easy to become angry.  Assuming this story is true (and I have no reason to doubt Don whatsoever), why don't we hear of other similar accounts?  Why are parents of missing or murdered children not given the comfort that was given to Leonard?  It strikes me as totally unfair, arbitrary and capricious.  

If it can happen once, it should be entirely possible and even probable that it should happen many times.  What makes Leonard so special?  What was it about his grief that justified such a remarkable intervention?  

In fact, if it didn't really happen...if it was really a lucid dream so convincing that Leonard believed it happened in his waking life....that would actually make more sense to me.

This memory lost business just doesn't go along with what the spirits I communicate with are like. Here's an example. I'll ask a question during meditation. I'll immediately experience a short symbolic waking dream that provides a perfect response to my question. The details will be intricate and often clever. It would take me a while to come up with something similar. I don't see how a spirit who is so in control of its mind energy that it can respond so quickly in a detailed manner, is going to have a problem with memory loss. They'll stop identifying with that which doesn't apply, but forget?

Perhaps the spirits that people like Robert Bruce run into haven't reached the point where they have enough control of their mind energy so that they can retrieve memories in a controlled manner. Eventually, after they have evolved, they'll be able to retrieve them according to need.

Why in tarnation do we incarnate here in the physical if we end up forgetting everything as if it doesn't matter?

Don:

Since you mentioned Betty Eddie, in one of her books she states that the advantage we have over demonic beings, is that they can't read our minds.  If she is correct,  and again, since you mentioned her as a source, how could such a being trick us into believing that we're communicating with a deceased loved one, if they can't even read our minds.

She stated that they determine if a person is somebody who can be influenced by looking at their aura.

Quote:

Even so, the parallel with Robert Bruce's observations about memory loss may remain valid.  The "descending" loved ones he observed knew who their newly arrived loved ones were and came to assist their transition.  Yet they still seemed to only dimly recall their earth lives.

Ok, I see what you are saying here.  I would say that this sense of memory loss is because discarnate beings exist in worlds that lack the same sense of time and space as we experience in the physical.  

Everything we do here on earth is based on time.  We eat, sleep, work and play at certain times.  Our memories are based on focal points in time.  Perhaps after one is living in a realm without this strong sense of time, its not that they have lost memory, but that they no longer have the same reference points of time that we do while in the physical.  

K

There is an interesting article on amnesia and memory loss in today’s NY Times.  Here’s the link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/23/health/psychology/23amne.html

The article suggests the hippocampus plays a mediating role in structuring memory.  Perhaps there is some equivalent in the afterlife.  Without this function, memory is fragmented and “barren of personal dimension”.

Thanks for the many replies.  In general, posters just seem to downplay ES's astral insights into memory loss on the higher planes.  I don't see how you can ignore ES's superior verifications and the support his insights derive from Robert Bruce, George Ritchie, and Classical Channeling.  Memory loss on the higher planes nicely explains the rarity of ADCs after a year since the death. I would doubt my own unverified experiences first.  In any case, I will begin by replying to a comment by recoverer:

[recoverer:] "Since you mentioned Betty Eadie, in one of her books she states that the advantage we have over demonic beings, is that they can't read our minds.  If she is correct,  ...how could such a being trick us into believing that we're communicating with a deceased loved one, if they can't even read our minds.  She stated that they determine if a person is somebody who can be influenced by looking at their aura.
____________________________________________________________________

Betty's first book describes her NDE, but I don't think she makes your claim there.   I suspect that this claim represents her reflection on her NDE rather than what her guides told her, but I could be wrong.  In any case, whatever demons know about us prior to the possession process, once that process begins, they get to know us better than we know ourselves.   Malachi Martin discovers this by being present at several major exorcisms.  For example, in one case, the exorcist team was led by a respected elderly priest.  His young assistants were shocked by the first words that came out of the demoniac's mouth: "Well, if it isn't Peter the Eater!"  When these words were uttered, the old priest must have blushed.  "Peter the Eater" was a dirty nickname his former girlfiriend had given him several decades ago during his misspent youth.   By shouting this nickname, the demon took temporary cnntrol of the session because the priest's young assistants were curious about the meaning of the expression.  

And what is the most coomon cause of demonic possession?  Psychiatrist M. Scott Peck has researched this subject.  Peck concludes: "It seems clear from the literature on possesssion that the majority of cases have had involvement with the occult ("People of the Lie," p. 190)."

Don

Quote:

In general, posters just seem to downplay ES's astral insights into memory loss on the higher planes.  I don't see how you can ignore ES's superior verifications and the support his insights derive from Robert Bruce, George Ritchie, and Classical Channeling.  Memory loss on the higher planes nicely explains the rarity of ADCs after a year since the death.

I acknowledge the fact that memory loss occurs, just as probably everyone else who has posted.  What we are trying to say is that it would be very odd and almost retarded that we would loose our memory for good.  Don, do you believe that we are doomed to permanent memory loss?  If so, can you pleas address the points I made in my previos post in (1)? Did Swedenborg ever say that the memory loss was permanent?  Does Robert Bruce say that the memory loss is permanent?(I truely do not know)  Doesn't this seem to contradict life and existance as we know it?  Doesn't it feel wrong to you?  Or are all of your beliefs simply based off others "verifications?"

No, Dude, I answer your question in reply #13.  ES discovers that we have an inner and an outer memory.  The outer memory becomes dormant on higher planes and thus creates a sense of forgetfulness.  But the inner memory remains intact, obviously to be restored at a certain point for certain purposes.

“Since the natural objects that reside in our memory cannot be reproduced in a spiritual world, they become dormant the way they do when we are not thinking about them.  Even so, they can be reproduced when it so pleases the Lord (Swedenborg, HH #461).”  

So the question is: under what circumstances does God restore our memory.  Classical Channeling suggests that souls experience a more in depth past life review in widely separated phases, when we are ready.  We then get to experience the emotions of the people we impacted by our words and deeds.  I suggest that this unique period of attunement might be achieved by direct contact with the spirits of these people.  Parts of this past life review might be the setting for rare ADCs long after our loved one's passing.   But special permission for memory restoration might be granted on other grounds yet to be determined.  I am looking for a pattern of soul evolution that might help explain the rarity and yet the reality of ADCs that occur many years after our loved one's death.

Don

Roger,

This post has been primarily created for your reflection.  You are troubled by the rarity of ADCs with "physical" credentials as impressive as Leonard's contact with his son. Jeff, and daughter-in-law, Karen.  I think it is a mistake to use a preconceived theology or metaphysic as a foundation and then reject impressive evidence that fails to fit this paradigm.  Rather, one should adjust one's preconceptions to fit initially disconcerting implications of good evidence.  So I will present 12 factors that might help explain the rarity of ADCs of the highest calibre.  In my view, these 12 factors make it expedient to bow before the many mysteries until better concrete evidence is discovered.   These factors might also serve as a useful grid for your more concrete reflections.

(1) The Frequency of ADCs:
As already noted, one study found that 50% of Americans and 48% of the British report astral contact with newly dcceased loved ones within the first year of  their passing. These ADCs are very reassuring to the recipients.  It seems likely that the newly deceased care more about whether their contact comforts their bereaved loved ones than about whether its quality of its verification rivals the sheer “physicality” of Leonard’s ADC.  Such higher-level ADCs may be harder to master without the help of an advanced guide or angel.

(2) Lack of Permission:  
The newly deceased may not be capable of creating ADCs with the impressive “physicality” of Leonard’s experience on their own initiative.  They may need special permission from angels or saintly guides.  Thus, Leonard’s deceased son Jeff  regretfully informed his Dad: “I’m sorry, Dad, I’m not PERMITTED to drive any further.”  On what basis is this permission granted?  Obviously, permission to create ADCs this impressive is not routinely granted to comfort the bereaved.  Perhaps, one reason for rare exceptions is the sudden premature death of a young family before they had a chance to fulfill their destinies.  But even this is not sufficient grounds for an exception.  Permission may also require the satisfaction of conditions like (3)-(9) below, which seem particularly applicable to the lower planes and the earlier stages of postmortem orientation.    

(3) The Issue of the Bereaved’s  Psychic Attunement with the Newly Deceased
     Loved One:
During my death vigil with Carol (cancer), I discerned that she would quickly verify her smooth transition to the next life and I urged those present to anticipate an ADC.  One might assume that she would contact her two sons and her girlfriend Cathy who quit her job to take care of Carol for 4 months. Instead, she has to date only contacted her boyfriend Chet. The day after her funeral, Chet heard a loud woman’s voice in his house shout his name so loudly that the house shook and objects rattled.  No one else was around.  Why would Carol contact Chet and not her sons and loyal girlfriend?   Besides Carol, only Chet’s family had experienced the paranormal.  The others were left-brained skeptics about such phenomena.  I think Carol tried to contact her other loved ones, but failed due to a lack of psychic attunement which is different from love.   .  

(4) The Issue of the Psychic Aptitude of the Bereaved:
Quite apart from the psychic attunment between the bereaved and his deceased loved one, exceptional psychic gifts may enhance the likelihood of experiencing more spectacular ADCs like Leonard’s.  Leonard seems to have been naturally psychic and had experienced other paranormal experiences apart from his ADC.

The premonition of a spiritually gifted Methodist missionary to India, Dr. E. Stanley Jones, poignantly illustrates this issue.  Jones was seheduled to be a key-note speaker at a Christian missionary conference in Dehli.  He was patiently waiting in a long ticket line at an Indian airport, when he suddenly heard an inner voice: "Get out of line now!”  Jones initially dismissed this voice
as his own paranoia.  But as he drew near the front of the line, the inner voice returned and became more insistent and repetitive.   Finally, an embarrassed Jones left the line.  He began to worry that the conference hosts would consider his excuse childishly paranoid.  Well, the plane crashed, killing several hundred Indian passengers, mostly Hindus.   When the Indian press heard about his premonition, they besieged him with impertinent questions: e. g. “So, Dr. Jones, are you saying that God loved you more than all those Hindus?  Did God warn you just because you are a Christian, but allowed hnndreds of Hindus to die with no warning?”  Jones replied softly, “Oh no, I’m sure that God loves those Hindu victims at least as much as He loves me.  It’s just that I’m the only one who could listen to His voice.”  

What do I infer from this amazing paranormal  incident?  Jones was a devout man of prayer and meditation.  His spiritual discplines allowed him to tune in to his clairvoyance and save his life.  The Hindus booked on this fatal flight lacked his spiritual gifts.  God normally expects us to develop our own gifts just as He expects us to make scientific and medical discoveries through our own research.  God’s “hands-off” policy is motivated by respect for our free will and His desire that we create our own culture, technologies, and disciplines.  

(5) Lack of ADC Instruction in the Early Stages of Postmortem Life:
God’s “hands off” policy may explain the limited priorities of the guides who greet the newly dead.  The guides of the newly dead may be almost exclusively focussed on the adjustment process of the new arrivals rather than on the longing of bereaved loved ibes for reassuring contact.  

(6) The Issue of Limiting Beliefs about the Possibility of ADCs:
Suppose a man dies who was never really open to ADCs during his life.  His limiting beliefs may prevent him from aggressively seeking out mothods of ADC contact.

(7) The Problem of Self-Absorption:
For many, the early stages of postmortem adjustment may be so traumatic or engaging that ADC contact with the bereaved may be a low priority.  These new arrivals may get caught up in reunions with deceased friends and family members.  Perhaps new arrivals are often assured that  there is no need to contact their bereaved loved ones.  

(8) The Problem of Disorientation in Adjusting to the Afterlife:
Many people die of long debilitating illness and cross over, very disoriented.  They often need a prolonged stay in a rehabilitation center.  During their long convalesence, they may have neither the ability nor the inclination to try to contact their bereaved loved ones.

(9) The Impossibility of Contacting the Living from Certain Spirit Planes:
An OBE adept named Claire points out that ADCs are not even possible from certain lower spirit planes.

(10) Loss of Earth Memory in the Higher Spirit Planes:
Swedenborg discovers that earth memory becomes dormant in the higher astral levels.  This amnesia seems to be a key to explaining why ADCs are so rare after the first year of the loved one’s passing.  But ES concedes that earth memory is occasionally restored “when it so pleases the Lord (HH #461).”  One example of this memory restoration is the more comprehensive past life review.  This review forces each soul to experience life from the point of view of those his life impacted.   In various widely separated stages, the soul experiences the emotional reactions of others in his life.  


(11) The Danger of ADCs to Deceased Loved Ones from Higher Planes:
In my initial post, I challenged claims that channeling at its best can put us in touch with our deceased loved ones.  But assume for the sake of argument that I am mistaken.  The best of classical channeling agrees with R. Bruce’s insights about the formidable barriers to successful retrievals from hellish planes:  Advanced souls may find it very difficult to cope with the spiritual vibration of lower spiritual planes through which they must pass to reach the earth plane.  

Consider, for example, what Paul Beard reports in his enthralling  book, "Living On: How Consciousness Continues and Evolves After Death:"

“To enter these areas fills rescuers with a deep sense of distress; these helpers, sensitive men and women, can themselves become affected and drawn into some of the purblind emotions they seek to lift from others, and if they remain too long in this area they declare 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, and capable of being understood by, those they hope to rescue.  Evil is powerful at its own level, and clearly a rescuer needs sterner qualities than those of the self-congratulatory do-gooder (88-89).”

One of the most memorable posters on this AK board was a fellow who had just mastered the OBE state.  He was reluctant to continue his exploration because of terrifying experiences he had when he descended to the lower planes.   He said he was overwhelmed by the toxic atmosphere and could barely resist succumbing to its hypnotic pressure to perform evil acts consistent with the defining purpose of those particular planes.  His negative experiences independently corroborate the revelations of the mediums reported by Beard.

(12) The Indirect Danger of ADCs to the Earthly Recipient:
Advanced souls in the heavens may have other good reasons for their reluctance to try to contact earthly loved ones.  For example, they may be well aware of the cunning role of spirit impersonators from lower planes and the potential dangers they represent to surviving loved ones.  Advanced souls may not want to encourage their earthly loved ones to open their naive spirits to such deceptive spirit contamination and its dangers.

Don

Don-

Thanks for your thoughtful reply to my post.  These are just my initial reactions.

Let me clarify- I do not reject the story about Leonard.  Nothing I said was to indicate a rejection.  To repeat, the point I was making was to raise the obvious question as to why this rare, magnificent event was given to Leonard when countless millions of others are, for whatever reason, denied a similar reaffirming experience.  And I do not agree with you that Leonard's story is evidentiary in nature.  I think we have to be extremely rigorous in what we call evidence or verification.    

Having said that, let me comment on your 12 Factors.

(1).  I don't know that there's any shortage of advanced guides or angels.  If so, then perhaps that's why such cases are so rare.  But that's something we are only guessing about.

(2).  N/C

(3).  Yes, but surely of the many millions who die on a regular basis, there should be far more cases like Leonard's.  Psychic attunement cannot be that tightly woven as to exclude 99.9% of the rest of us.

(4).  Same point as (3).

(5).  This is a supposition.  Perhaps it's true but who's to say?

(6).  Same comment as (5).

(7).  Yes, but statistically there should be far more experiences of the Leonard nature.

(8).  Yes, but many people also die of sudden causes just as Jeff and Karen did.  In fact, this gets to Factor 7....one would think that those who die suddenly, such as a plane crash, would be those LEAST likely to appear in this type ADC.  Rather, they would require psychic attention from helpers or guides for adjustment to their unexpected environment.

(9).  There must be millions of folks like Jeff and Karen who DO transition to an appropriate spirit plane for ADC contact.

(10).  Again, this doesn't explain why Leonard's story is so rare and unique.  I'm not disputing ES, but the numbers just don't add up.

(11).  Let's assume that all of your other points are valid.  Even then, Karen and Jeff were allowed to appear in physical form for the express reason of giving comfort to Leonard and allowing him to get on with his life.  Let's also assume that all parties to this story were spiritually advanced and attuned.  But so are countless others.

(12).  Well, apparently someone decided that there was no such danger in allowing this type of ADC contact.  In fact, one could also argue that what Leonard saw was not really Karen and Jeff.  I imagine if ES were alive today, he might warn us not to be too hasty in making solid conclusions as to what Leonard experienced.

Is there any way we can find out about other cases like Leonard in the ADC/afterlife literature?  I have read many ADC accounts but nothing along these lines.  Materializaton of angels, yes, but not the deceased.

Don:


Regarding the below, "the occult" is quite a broad term. Going by what I heard, Martin Mallaci's book tends to indicate that people get effected when they dabble in dark things like black magic. You wrote something similar once.  You also said that people sometimes get effected when they over do speaking in toungues. Would M. Scott Peck consider something such as going out of body to be occult? Or what if a person prays to God and asks for divine guidance? Should they expect that only a demon will answer them?






Berserk wrote on Jan 24^th, 2007 at 12:24am:

And what is the most coomon cause of demonic possession?  Psychiatrist M. Scott Peck has researched this subject.  Peck concludes: "It seems clear from the literature on possesssion that the majority of cases have had involvement with the occult ("People of the Lie," p. 190)." Don

Regarding the below, being able to read a person's mind and knowing something about their past isn't the same thing as really knowing them. For example, the elderly priest probably had a pure heart.  Could something such as a demon see this purity clear enough to understand it, or would it be limited like a lower realm being who has a misunderstanding of reincarnation?

I doubt that something such as a demon could understand my devotion to God and God's way. If it could, it wouldn't be demon.  If it told me something about my past, I'd ask it to explain my love for God.

I don't mean to suggest that there isn't a such thing as negative minded spirits who try to mislead people. I believe people should be careful if they make contact with the World of spirit. They shouldn't be gullible. The same is true when it comes to what they read. For example, the numerous contradictory channelled sources of information.



[quote author=Berserk link=1168058488/30#31 date=1169612640]  In any case, I will begin by replying to a comment by recoverer:

[recoverer:] "Since you mentioned Betty Eadie, in one of her books she states that the advantage we have over demonic beings, is that they can't read our minds.  If she is correct,  ...how could such a being trick us into believing that we're communicating with a deceased loved one, if they can't even read our minds.  She stated that they determine if a person is somebody who can be influenced by looking at their aura.
____________________________________________________________________

Betty's first book describes her NDE, but I don't think she makes your claim there.   I suspect that this claim represents her reflection on her NDE rather than what her guides told her, but I could be wrong.  In any case, whatever demons know about us prior to the possession process, once that process begins, they get to know us better than we know ourselves.   Malachi Martin discovers this by being present at several major exorcisms.  For example, in one case, the exorcist team was led by a respected elderly priest.  His young assistants were shocked by the first words that came out of the demoniac's mouth: "Well, if it isn't Peter the Eater!"  When these words were uttered, the old priest must have blushed.  "Peter the Eater" was a dirty nickname his former girlfiriend had given him several decades ago during his misspent youth.   By shouting this nickname, the demon took temporary cnntrol of the session because the priest's young assistants were curious about the meaning of the expression.  

Thanks Recoverer for mentiioning M Scott Peck.  I've been trying to remember his name for the past few days and here it is.  Also, another book question (sorry I'm not on topic):  years ago I read a book called The Betty Book that dealt with afterlife knowledge.  The author (Betty I assume) wrote several books but I think these were in the early 20th century.  I wonder if it's the same Betty. Thanks - Rob

Rob:

I'd say your welcome, except that  Don was the first to mention the M Scott Peck book.



Rob Calkins wrote on Jan 25^th, 2007 at 3:00pm:

Thanks Recoverer for mentiioning M Scott Peck.  I've been trying to remember his name for the past few days and here it is.  Also, another book question (sorry I'm not on topic):  years ago I read a book called The Betty Book that dealt with afterlife knowledge.  The author (Betty I assume) wrote several books but I think these were in the early 20th century.  I wonder if it's the same Betty. Thanks - Rob

Thanks Don.

Roger, I know your comments on reply #34 were provisional  I hope my retorts will stimulate your further reflection.  

(1) The Frequency of ADCs:
One study found that 50% of Americans and 48% of the British report astral contact with newly dcceased loved ones within the first year of their passing. These ADCs are very reassuring to the recipients.  It seems likely that the newly deceased care more about whether their contact comforts their bereaved loved ones than about whether the quality of its verification rivals the sheer “physicality” of Leonard’s ADC.  Such higher-level ADCs may be harder to master without the help of an advanced guide or angel.

[Roger:] “I don’t now that there’s a shortage of advanced guides or angels.”
_____________________________________________________
The issue is not the shortage of “advanced guides,” but (a) whether the newly dead have a mandate to create the most spectacular ADCs on demand and (b) whether they are normally content to contact the bereaved in a comforting, if less spectacular, manner.  The 50% who experience such ADCs generally seem to find them a great comfort.  So why are spectacular ADCs even necessary?  Besides, how do you know how rare spectacular ADCs are?  Like many others, Leonard preferred to keep his ADC private.  I had to  badger him into sharing his experience with me.  And I've read about comparable ADCs in New Age books.  More importantly, I heard about his ADC in a time when I was involved in other spectacular ADCs, which I will describe in another post.

(2) Lack of Permission:  
The newly deceased may not be capable of creating ADCs with the impressive “physicality” of Leonard’s experience on their own initiative.  They may need special permission from angels or saintly guides.  Thus, Leonard’s deceased son Jeff  regretfully informed his Dad: “I’m sorry, Dad, I’m not PERMITTED to drive any further.”  On what basis is this permission granted?   Obviously, permission to create ADCs this impressive is not routinely granted to comfort the bereaved.  Perhaps, one reason for rare exceptions is the sudden premature death of a young family before they had a chance to fulfill their destinies.  But even this is not sufficient grounds for an exception.  Permission may also require the satisfaction of conditions like the other 10 I've outlined in reply #34.  
__________________________________________________________________
Roger, you don’t comment on (2).  But (2) is by far the most crucial point.  Points (3)-(9) merely explain why spectacular ADCs ;might be so uncommon.

Very few die with a stong belief that they can spectacularly verify their survival to the bereaved.  Limiting beliefs about ADC options seem siufficent to explain the rarity of spectacular ADCs.  Indeed, limiting beliefs determine whether and how one can experience the astral realms.  The evidence from NDEs suggests that guides welcome the dead to assist their transition, not to facilitate their contact with the bereaved.  The likelihood of spectacular ADCs would surely be dramatically reduced even more by the traumatic self-absorption or disorientation of most of the newly dead,  the need for psychic attunement with the newly decesased (e. g. Carol and Chet), the need for the bereaved to have a unique psychic aptitude.  In this respect, you don’t seem to have come to terms with the rather unique evidential case of E. Stanley Jones’s premonition.  

The premonition of this spiritually gifted Methodist missionary to India poignantly illustrates this issue.  Dr. Jones was seheduled to be a key-note speaker at a Christian missionary conference in Dehli.  He was patiently waiting in a long ticket line at an Indian airport, when he suddenly heard an inner voice: "Get out of line now!”  Jones initially dismissed this voice as his own paranoia.  But as he drew near the front of the line, the inner voice returned and became more insistent and repetitive.   Finally, an embarrassed Jones left the line.  He began to worry that the conference hosts would consider his excuse childishly paranoid.  Well, the plane crashed, killing several hundred Indian passengers, mostly Hindus.   When the Indian press heard about his premonition, they besieged him with impertinent questions: e. g. “So, Dr. Jones, are you saying that God loved you more than all those Hindus?  Did God warn you just because you are a Christian, but allowed hnndreds of Hindus to die with no warning?”  Jones replied softly, “Oh no, I’m sure that God loves those Hindu victims at least as much as He loves me.  It’s just that I’m the only one who could listen to His voice.”  

ES and other astral adepts never mention that ADC Instructions are issued in the early stages of postmortem transition.  Yet NDEs and especially ES often describe this transitional state in great detail.  So why assume that such instruction must routinely be available then react skeptically when it bocomes apparent that no such ADC instructions are available in the transitional state?

(10) Loss of Earth Memory in the Higher Spirit Planes:
Swedenborg discovers that earth memory becomes dormant in the higher astral levels.  This amnesia seems to be a key to explaining why ADCs are so rare after the first year of the loved one’s passing.  But ES concedes that earth memory is occasionally restored “when it so pleases the Lord (HH #461).”  One example of this memory restoration is the more comprehensive past life review.  This review forces each soul to experience life from the point of view of those his life impacted.   In various widely separated stages, the soul experiences the emotional reactions of others in his life.

{Roger:]  “This doesn’t explain why Leonard’s so story is so rare and unique.”
______________________________________________________________-_
I beg to differ.   You probably can’t create an ADC if you can barely recall your earth life!  And in those few occasions when you are permitted to remember (e. g. the phased empathetic past life review), there is no guarantee that this permission is extended to create a highly “physical” ADC. Indeed, the dangers of “descent” and later spirit impersonation might explain why such permission is rarely granted.   Remember, the basic issue is the logical coherence of the evidence, not just its probative value.  Remaining mysteries don't amount to a refutation of impressive evidence.

Don

When discarnate loved ones are permitted to communicate with us, how might they cope with the danger of being infected by the negative vibration of lower planes?   In our world, there seem to he two basic ways of esploring distant locales non-physically--remote viewing and OBEs (or its variation, astral projection).  OBE adept, Robert Bruce apparently discovers how astral doctors and nurses employ a form of remote viewing to staff astral hospitals without being infected by the lower vibration:  .Robert observes:
 
“The doctors and nurses that staff and run these astral hospitals do not appear to be quite real....So far I have not been able to strike up anything resembling a meaningful conversation with any of them.  They seem to be very two-dimensional in nature.”

The two-dimensional nature of these doctors and nurses contrasts with Robert’s experience of the very real relatives who "descend" from higher planes to visit newly deceased loved ones.  These relatives seem very real to Robert but have impaired memories of their earth life.

How this astral remote viewing might work is described by the famous deceased
parapsychologist, F. W. Myers, in a message channeled throuigh a distnguished medium:

“I have to concentrate my thought for what you might call a moment and I can build up a likeness of myself, send that likeness speeding...to a friend, to one that is in tune with me.  Instantly I appear before that friend, though I am more remote from him, and my likeness holds speech--in thought, remember, not words--with this friend.  Yet all the time I control it...and as soon as the interview is concluded I withdraw the life of my thought from that image of myself and it vanishes (from Paul Beard's "Living On, " 69)."

Don

Hi again Don-

I guess I didn't respond to (2) because, as you pointed out, permission was really the predicate for fulfillment of the other factors.  Sorry.

In any case, do you know of any compilation of ADCs of this nature?  If so, I'd love to know about it.  Without question, it's a rare occurrence.

The Leonard case triggered a memory of mine dating many years ago.  I was listening to the radio, and the TV actor Telly Savalas was talking about an incident where he saw and talked with someone who had been dead for several years.  Try as I could, I was not able to recall the specific circumstances so I chose not to mention it.

Lo and behold, and thanks to google, here is what I found.  It's a remarkable case, and even more so since I heard Savalas himself describe it, so it's not just a second-hand account.  FYI, I had entered Telly Savalas Ghost in the search engine.  You will find other accounts but this one is the most complete.

http://www.underworldtales.com/telly.htm

Now, we have a case where not only the deceased had been dead longer than a year, but the car in which he was driving when he was killed and which was demolished, materialized along with him.  If true, and I have to say I was impressed by the sincerity in Savalas' voice when he described it, it raises even more questions about the afterlife.  Pretty amazing, huh?

Roger

Roger,

Thanks for posting the web account of Telly Savalas's ADC.  It is the most impressive web reference ever offered on this site.  I have not seen "Kojak" for many years.  Yet, coincidentally, just before I was about to create this post, I felt an impulse to turn on my TV, and there was Telly Savalas!  Telly's and Leonard's ADC lend each other credibility because both men are chauffeured in a vehicle driven by a discarnate human.  

I will bring my active participation in this thread to an end with this post and one more.  In this post, I will quote two ADC reports with which you are familiar.  I want you to reread them and ask yourself whether their sheer "physicality" is not somewhat reminiscent of Telly's and Leonard's ADCs.

(1) After his NDE, Howard Storm became fascinated with the books of Catholic mystic, Thomas Merton.  He and his new pastor (Bill Crawford) decided to drive to Merton's trappist Abbey of Gethsemane, Kentucky to visit Merton's grave.

"The monk then directed us to the grave of Thomas Merton, who was known as Father Louis in the monastery, and he left us alone.  Bill sat on a bench while I prayed on my knees by the resting place of Father Louis.  I was crying because I felt his presence near me when suddenly a young man appeared by my side.  He was wearing a sweatshirt and blue jeans.  He handed me a book of Thomas Merton's poetry open to a poem titled `The Cemetery at Gethsemane.'  When I read the poem, I understood that Thomas Merton had felt the presence of the saints buried there."  

"I gave the book back to the young man, closed my eyes, and said a brief prayer of thanks.  When I opened my eyes the young man was gone.  I was surprised because in the enclosed area of the cemetery there was nowhere for him to go.  I looked around, but he had vanished.  Confused, I went over to Bill, who sat facing toward me thirty feet away, and asked if he had seen the young man with the book.  Bill said he had been watching me pray.  He said, `The man appeared from nowhere, handed me the book, waited while I read the poem, took the book from me, and vanished.'  I asked him if he was certain.  He assured me he was.  Later, when I was looking at photographs of Thomas Merton, I saw a picture of him when he was in his early twenties.  He looked just like the young man in the cemetery!...The spirit of Thomas Merton had visited me and consoled me at his grave (Howard Storm, "My Descent into Death," pp. 118-119)."

(2) My second example is taken from the amazing book you mailed me written by Howell Vincent, a Presbyterian minister  Howell recounts an encounter that he and 4 family members had with his deceased ex-wife, Nellie:

On at least two occasions this radiant mother had come to [her daughter] Rea in VISIBLE, TANGIBLE form and talked with her...I was privileged to be present at one of these heavenly visits by Mother Nellie.  Together with Rea I talked with Nelly, fully recognizing her face and form and voice.  I saw her place her hand on Rea's head in blessing, and I saw her give Rea a flowet, a calendula, WHICH WE PRESSED AND KEPT.  At that time three other members of our family were present, including Rea's second mother, Agnes, and they all saw Nellie and talked with her, as Rea and I did.  We were all wide awake and walked around the room with Nellie ("Lighted Passage," p. 25)."

Don

Don-

Yes, I found Rev Vincent's book probably one of the most reaffirming books about the existence of the afterlife and the reality of retrievals that I have ever read.  He had no interest in promoting himself, unlike so many others.  Also he had a deep religious faith and proved it by spending many years as a missionary.  As I recall, everything he reported was the result of his own personal experiences.  No mediums were involved.  

I love how you saw Kojak just before you wrote your post responding to my own post about Tavalas.  Probably just a case of Telly wanting to make sure we know his story was true!  When I heard him tell about it on radio many years ago, he graphically related how he had felt once he learned the man had died years before.  I have no doubt that he was telling the truth.  Especially in those days, someone who freely talked about such stuff would probably have jeopardized his career, and might have been written off as a nut.  All the more reason to believe it actually happened.

On a different note, it's apparent how many people there are on this board that appreciate your contributions and definitely want you to stay.  Your posts are well written and stimulating.  Unlike so many others who post just the same old woo-woo stuff, you give us food for genuine thought.  You also educate us.  Please don't let a few folks chase you away.  They don't speak for the rest of us by any means.  

There are precious few theologians who also have an abiding interest in exploring the nature of the afterlife.  Yes, you tend to post long, sometimes difficult material to absorb, especially in this day and age of instant gratification and short attention spans.  Who knows, maybe you'll awaken some dormant brain cells in the rest of us along the way.

Roger,

I may have shared the ensuing 3 paranormal experiences with you, but perhaps not with the perspective I will now provide them.  All 3 happened close to the time Leonard shared his remarkable ADC.  All 3 experiences were triggered by unpremeditated prophecies I delivered, much to my surprise and consternation.  In both incidents (2) and (3), it seems that deceased loved ones tipped me off about their ADCs to provide further confirmation to their loved ones.   Such tip-offs must be extremely rare, but they still have evidential value for me and the bereaved loved ones blessed by such a contact.  Incident (2) involves a seemingly “physical” materialization somewhat reminiscent of the discarnate Jeff’s ability to negotiate the wheel of his old pick-up.  

(1) I had just preached a sermon entitled “Finding God in Unexpected Places.”  My sermon was based on Jacob’s vision of wrestling with God (Genesis 32:22-31).  Jacob has just escaped exploitation by his Uncle Laban and his entourage and flocks must now face an advancing Esau, the brother whom Jacob cheated out of his birthright.  Jacob can be described as a “broken-down man” as he faces the uncertain terror of his confrontation with Esau the next day.  The wrestling vision plays off this anticipated confrontation and allows Jacob to find God in this unexpected rural locale at this time of crisis.  Well, I’ll spare you the sermon.  At the conclusion, I found myself claiming something I had not planned: “And this week some of you will find God in an unexpected place.”  I immediately felt foolish and wondered if my congregation would become more cynical if nothing happened.  But something astounding did happen!

That Sunday afternoon, the Cross family from my church decided to drive to Rochester.   When they reached one of several intersecting country highways, Pam suddenly and oddly exclaimed: “Hey, we’ve never been down that road.  Let’s check it out and see how pretty it is.”   So they turned left.  But after a few miles, their car broke down and they were now stranded.  

Around the same time, Bob was driving south from Rochester down the same highway the Cross family was initially traveling.  But when he arrived at the same intersection, the same odd thought popped into Bob’s mind: “Hey, the scenery might be pretty down that road.  I’ve never driven that way; I think I’ll detour and explore it.”  Astoundingly, Bob encountered the Cross family about 2 minutes after their car broke down!  Like Jacob, the Cross family had broken down and experienced God’s providential guidance in an unexpected place and in similar rural terrain!   All involved were richly blessed by this synchronicity because they had heard my brazen prediction earlier in the day.  Bob gave the Cross family a lift back to their home.

(2) I had just preached a sermon on Jesus’ Transfiguration on a mountain in the presence of Peter, James, and John.  Jesus become enveloped in radiance as Moses and Elijah returned from the dead to converse with Jesus about His upcoming sacrifice.  Again, I’ll spare you the sermon.  At its conclusion, I again found myself making a claim I had not intended to make: “This week some of you will have your own mountaintop experience.”  I immediately regretted this prediction and wondered why I had made it.  

But consider what happened the next week.  John returned from a brief mountain climbing adventure in Colorado.  He excitedly told me that high on a tiny ledge he had found a nice ring that fit him perfectly.   I was hardly inclined to detect in his good fortune a striking fulfilment of my prophecy---until I heard from Bob.  This was the same Bob who played a central role in the fufilment of my first prophecy.  

Bob had only lived in his home for 3 years and his mother had been dead for 30 years.  A day or so after my sermon, he was startled to find his mother’s lost ring on top of his nicely made bed!  He hadn’t seen her ring since she died long ago.  Bob excitedly telephoned his friend and shared the news.  His friend was flabbergasted because he too had just discovered his own mother’s long lost ring on top of his bedroom bureau.   Both rings dematerialized a couple of days later!  Regrettfully, I forgot to ask John if his ring had also mysteriously vanished.  So how do I interpret these synchronicities?

I had prophesied a “mountaintop” experience for some of my parishioners.   John’s discovery of a nice ring high up on a mountain ledge connected the mountain theme with that of rings.  The unexpected materialization and ensuing dematerialization of two maternal rings forged a link between the return of TWO people from the dead during Jesus’ mountaintop Transfiguration and the materialization of rings from exactly TWO long-dead mothers.  These two mothers used my sermon’s theme to tip me off as to their upcoming confirmation of their survival and continuing love for their sons.  

In prior posts, I have offered evidence for the dormancy of earth memories on higher spiritual planes.  I quoted ES’s claim that the Lord sometimes grants special permission for deceased loved ones to have their earth memories temporarily restored.  I suggested that the widely separated phases of the empathetic past life review might be a rare occasion for an ADC long after the loved one’s passing.  But I doubt that these two ring materializations are examples of ADCs during such a past life review.  It strikes me as unlikely that two different mothers would independently decide to perform this ADC for their sons (both friends).  It seems more likely that these Moms were permitted to plan the synchronized materialization of their two rings.  Somehow my inspired prophecy was part of an intricate plan to comfort two sons and thus leave their church awestruck.  

I've already quoted from the parallel materializations witnessed by Howard Storm and Howell Vincent's family  Perhaps you will appreciate brief accounts of 2 additional paranormal materizations:  (a) When I was in grad school, an acquaintance named Charlene told me that her late mother’s lost ring inexplicably appeared on an artificial finger in a dish placed by her outside door.  (b) I heard an interview with a Dr. Lirmer on “Coast to Coast.”  He witnessed a dying female patient having a converation with an angel just prior to her passing.   Suddenly, Dr. Lirmer saw a glowing light in emanating from his patient’s cupped hands.  She said the 4-leaf clover was a gift to him from the angel.  Dr. Lirmer placed the 4-leaf clover in a container and over a 2-week period watched it gradually shrink until it dematerialized like the rings in my church’s experience  

(3)  I was playing Bridge with professors from the School of Education of the university where I was teaching. One education professor, Elie, was absent.  She was in mcourning over the recent loss of her husband Joe to cancer.  When we finished playing, I suddenly found myself saying to Paul,  the Dean of the School:  “Elie” has just been contacted by Joe and she is wondering if the experience was real.  Tell her I can assure her that it was!”   Again, I immediately regretted making this claim and wondered why I did.  Curious, Paul contacted Elie and told her about my claim.   Elie replied that she and her family had just returned from a drive to northern Pennsylvania. Elie was sitting in the back seat of the car.  Some one told a joke and, for the first time, since the funeral, they all luaghed.  In that instant, Elie suddenly witnessed a waking apparition of Joe from the waist up, laughing his head off.   Joe telepathically communicated to Elie: “That’s the way I like to see you. I’m OK over here; so don’t worry about me.”  

Roger, I've read reports of ADCs comparable to Leanard's and Telly Savalas's ADCs.  Someone should devote a book exclusively to these most spectacular ADCs.  

Don

Hi All! Again,it's been a long time since I've posted on these boards, but here lies one of the first significant places of help through probably the most challenging time in my life thus far...so I like to check in when feeling up to it, and have a bit of time on my side. I notice, that as much as I love to simply read through several topics, if I'm going to post at all, it should be right after reading the original poster...then I have the added fun when I go back and read through the entire thread....I can be long winded as it is...forget it as I pick up yet more and more information....lol...

Personally, right now I'm in a transitional stage on many levels, and am finally starting to feel more responsive and the simple passage of time and a grudging willingness on my part to ask for help, has been playing out in ways I hope to someday share about, as I hopefully become stronger from the experience. One thing I found to be very helpful throughout all my life is writing down my ideas and thoughts, and reading the ideas and thoughts of other people. I literally just let myself be drawn to a subject, and decided to try and post my very humble two cents about whatever my mind can dive into at this time...;)

I want to try to at least loosely,follow the train of thoughts here(very rich and engaging,by the way), and simply put out my little views or experiences...soo,the first question was in thinking about such things like channeling,OBEs, astral travel,NDEs, and finally ADCs....and how much relevance is given to each of these. I'm one of those(I'm not sure where my lable lies,lol) that has always been attracted to these subjects,and since I love to read, found as much literature on these sudjects as I could, b/c I have had personal experiences with all of the above...and I don't say that in any way as a la-ti-da kind of way at ALL....I have been learning and my understanding about all of them,and experiences with all these things have continued on,and I constantly am interested in hearing the differing view points on the "why"s and "how"s of it all from many different places and people. I feel blessed b/c I feel no conflict within myself about one thing...that all religions, and experience or relating with something outside our immediate selves, or inside, for that matter....that it is a very personal and individual thing to each person,and there are many paths to the same creative source,and some common denominators about life. I am pretty eclectic in my beliefs....and each experience that I've had with any of the above mentioned things, has been important to me usually on many different levels, and that I think all of them have value. It's kind of the way I feel about my two sons...they are both so entirely different personalities...and they compliment each other and myself perfectly...I honestly cannot say I love one over the other, and the love would be the kind that is not comparable. I'll never tire of reading yet more and more experiences like these from others that have them...it has been a gift.

There was a valid question of why verifications of post mortem survival are so rare...or seemingly rare,esp.the more spectacular kinds...and that is something that I've wondered about myself(whereas it seems that I've been lucky to have a rather rich supply, and then others none,and maybe just none"yet",or it isn't time,or perhaps they've already mastered these things in another way,at another time....who knows?)...and have since had my own thoughts on these things....some people I believe we have more immediate karma, work,or need of closure with...etc....and then I think probably there are certain processes that some of us have to go through that could make it at least not in our own time, wether that's the deceased or "survivor". I can offer one humble example of this in my life.My grandmother died when I was like 11 turning 12.She happened to be very sensitive, dare I say psychic...but right from a very young age her and I clicked,we were very close...and my mom admittedly even envied that a bit...b/c her own relationship with her mom was often strained...my mom is downright fearful of her own sensitivities, so kind of rejected that in her mom, to really simplify this...and I was/am way more like my grandmom...I felt her when she died, I knew what time she left, even before going home and getting the news, b/c it was unexpected, and my parents were amazed that I knew, before they told me...but anyway...even though their relationship was often strained, there was real love there,and my mom and grandmother made a pact...my mother told me about this...that whoever died first, would come back, if there was life after death, and make it known to the other.....it was a kind of chuckled at thing,but known in the family. However,my mom got increasingly frustrated, b/c she said that even though she could feel love for her and maybe a vague sense of love from her,she hadn't experienced anything.....she knew that my grandmom would remember the promise...but nothing(although there has been some instances now, years later, but my mom is more open now, as well)...anyway....my godmother was my mom's best friend at the time...she only recently died herself,from cancer....but she was very close to my mom,and she really liked my grandmom,though she is a total skeptic, or was, in anything like an afterlife. Anyway...It was a couple years after(she died),and I was in my toughest teen years,running away,and spending long periods of time on the run...and my mom was understandably, distressed. So...one night,my mom said she was awakened suddenly from a sound sleep, about 2am, to the sound of "someone"calling her name, very loudly,and in her ear,so that she woke up and tried looking for who was calling her....she said she couldn't recall the sound of the voice, but that it was loud.The next day my mom's best friend and my godmom called my mother, very very shaken...she wanted to tell my mother about something that happened to her the night before, but first swore her to secrecy...finally my mom got from her that the night before, around 2am, she recieved a phone call. My godmother said she was immediately awake, and phone calls at that hour were something alarming,thinking of her five kids...etc... she swore that it wasn't a dream....(I had a phone experience myself, years later) but she continued on that when she picked up the phone,it sounded kind of like a long distance connection at first, but then started coming in clearer, and to her amazement, it was my grandmother.They had been friends in life,she knew her voice, but couldn't believe what was happening. Anyway, my grandmother reportedly told her that the reason that my mom hadn't "heard" from her was b/c of my mother herself..she said that my mom on a subconscious level decided it was too risky at this time in her belief system,to be able to hear her...she said she tried and tried but my mom could not hear,and that there was some kind of universal laws about the receiver being ready to recieve....she told her that finally, she was able to call her,so that she could give my mother the message she wanted to give at that time,which was not to worry about me(I was on the run, gone for months, homeless,hiding...etc..and at this time,I had some of the most intense spiritual experiences in my life thus far...and I felt very much taken care of,care free,unlike my present self, lol...)she wanted my mom to have faith that I had many spiritual watchers and guardians, and it was in my destiny somehow,and that I was well loved......My mom told me about it years later,and now recently, she's actually started having some ADCs herself...and she says now that she cannot really explain it, but that she believes now,that she would not have been ready at the time, even though she wanted it to happen,if my grandmom had contacted her...but that's only one tiny little instance, but the first that came to my mind.

There was some mention about the planes of astral travel,and ADCs...and I think that is interesting,I cannot wait to hear more when I read through, about the focus levels and such.I only know that I intuitively understand what is meant here,and I feel that certain dream states,astral travel,and ADC's are at least close to each other in dimension, or for lack of better terminology right now, levels of being...sometimes it has felt to me that there are almost tangible sensations in between these, and I for one...am content that I will spend the rest of this lifetime at very least exploring these.....and as I read information sometimes with certain material it feels more like an "Oh Yeah"experience, like I knew the info without having the conscious thought words to it, but it was like riding a bike, it all started flooding back materials with many instances for me...and I know I have so much to learn and explore,and am even one that suspects I'm not real "at home" in a physical body....and I feel kind of "homesick" all the time,to what I feel is a truer representation of my nature and myself...but so much can happen in a day! With so much of the rest, I picked up on what you said about best remaining open.....definately my feel...I hope I can remain teachable and open......

Sometimes silence says volumes...again,just my own take....like reluctance to enter into too much debate with others in similar fields,but with personal experiences...could it be as easy as knowing that there are so many realities,so many options,possibilities? So much is what we make it...so there might be little room,at least for me, I would hope that my experiences  would not cloud anyone elses,or to say that theirs, if unlike mine is not as valid,....again, I find wisdom in different explorations...and I think it will always be personal in a way, but I find myself so much more tolerant of other peoples experiences,and have learned so many times almost nothing is impossible.....and/or a "mistake" and hope that my reality continues to change and grow,as much as I can handle it to at a time.

I think it would be good for me to wrap up my end here...:) I have wondered too at sometimes what seem to perhaps be "imposters" coming through in a reading,seance,whatever it be called...and think that there might be many reasons or combinations of them for that....sometimes I think too, that perhaps a loved one might need helpers to help them energetically get to the point where they can express their thoughts as fluidly as some can....like a kind of "medium"on the other side, or after death...however it is put...and again,I think that the feeling of "I just knew"is probably the best thing to go with the gut feeling....of course there is the idea of picking up on the surviving people's thoughts, memories, feelings, knowledge of events...etc..and then there is the channel itself, we are all in some kind of transition,I think ...so in the end it has to be personal discretion and intuition....unfortunately sometimes it can be too easy to underestimate ourselves....or the myriad of possible interferences...I think at the end of the day,we all have to make peace with our own gut feelings and intuitions, and try and remain open to change......

Whew! What a mouthful...again,I'm grateful,and always will be to this site b/c it offers a place to put these thoughts out and exchange them with each other....I was happy to have the time today, and hope to be reading up some more....I love the minds in here,,,take care all...Tanja

Tanja-  

Your post gave me renewed reasons to keep at this ADC stuff.  I hope you post some of the experiences you've had personally, including experiences you've heard from others.

You're a gem.  It comes thru loud and clear!  Your post came along just at the right time, at least for me.

Roger

Don-

I am much more impressed with the retrievals mentioned in Rev. Vincent's book Lighted Passage than I am with anything I have read on this website.

And consider this.....Vincent did not communicate with those he retrieved.  He was able to direct them to the light, but that was all.  There were no conversations. Because their vibrations were closer to physically living people, they could perceive his presence.

I am leery of anyone claiming that they conversed with those they "retrieved."  I think that's where we are getting thrown a curve.  It's much more likely that conversations are the product of our own wish fulfillment than actual contact with the deceased.

I sometimes come close to throwing out the baby with the bath water, until I re-read Vincent's book.  That was written in the 1940s, before the internet and during a time when the whole notion of retrievals was pretty much unknown.  Not only that, the book itself was not about retrievals but about the death of his daughter.  It just so happened that WWII was raging at the time, and deaths among the military on all sides was extremely high.  And Vincent tells us toward the end of the book about his "rescue" work involving dead soldiers.  I don't know for certain, since Vincent has long since died, but I'd be willing to bet that no sort of nonverbal communication took place, otherwise he surely would have written about it.

And therein lies the difference.  I recall that Bruce's account of his retrieval work re. the earthquake victims was along the same lines as Vincent, in that he guided them to the light but did not communicate with them.  

Also, Vincent considered his retrieval work to be highly spiritual in nature.  It was not a parlor game with him.  In fact, he prayed for guidance before engaging in that activity.  I think that our motivation in attempting retrievals is key.  I wish Vincent had told us how he even knew about the whole concept of retrievals in the first place.  

Greetings,

Anyone who is open to Spirit acting in our lives needn't start carving up which retrievals are genuine and which not. They just are.
Here are some factors that affect methods of retrieving:

Not all retrievees are the same, so their condition also makes a difference in how a retriever attempts to break through to them. Retrievers would not approach a comatose soul the same as an angry forgotten adult or a lonely child.

One can offer/channel PUL at the same time as one is communicating; it's not an either/or situation.

Whether the retrievee is capable of responding to some questions or not seems immaterial to me. Some do; some don't. Perhaps I didn't ask the right questions when they did not respond, but I wouldn't want a list of authorized questions, which is what develops when someone starts judging for others on what is appropriate.

No one I've met who is actively involved in doing retrievals considers them to be games. Sure, we all find that some people's accounts speak to us, while the wordings of others don't add to our understanding, but that doesn't invalidate the latter.

A major premise of this website is that anyone can help spiritual development of others (and themselves) by participating in retrievals.

That's why I felt something needed to be said to temper the  judgements previously offered on this thread.

Bets

I agree with you Betson.  I would not attempt to claim that my experiences are anything other than what I have reported. They are what I experienced.  However, in attempting to convey "conversations" I think it is important to note that these things do not occur for me as if I am sitting in someone's living room and talking with them, literally hearing voices. It is an impression of what I am trying to communicate and an impression of what is being communicated to me, through ideas, words and feelings.

I don't know what other people's experiences feel like, so I can only describe my own. I don't approach anything like this as if it were a parlor game. If there are humorous elements, or what some might consider "wacky" elements to some of them, that is not my concern. My concern is in simply attempting to learn from new experiences.

I'm sure there are those who regularly do retrievals, methodically, and never report them. However, those of us who do are simply performing what anyone would do who is given such an opportunity. When I am in deep meditation I do not have control over what happens.  It simply happens.

I appreciate Betson's consistent interest and appreciation for everyone's efforts. This is a site dedicated to Bruce Moen and it is fitting, since he has expressed his own concern about these matters, that those of us who feel up to it, actually try to assist in these retrievals, or contacts, or what have you.

If a person is spiritually minded, only good can come of it.  In my experience, any kind of "psychic" activities, which Bruce does not claim this to be anyway, cannot be performed successfully without the correct attitude of respect for the process.

It just doesn't work, not for me, unless I am mentally in the right "place" and I doubt if it works for others either unless they are too.

The other day I pulled out a tarot book which I had not looked at for a while. I opened to a page, which happened to be the "death" or "rebirth" card description. I had been in a meditative state most of the day. I shuffled the cards.  I pulled a card.  It was that same card.

When these kinds of synchronicities occur on a regular basis, you know you are in contact with something important.

Much respect and love to you all, blink  :)

Betson and Roger,

Astral explorers often claim that afterlife progress is a function of spiritual growth which changes the energetic make-up of the confined retrievee.  The use of "tricks" to entice the retrievee out seems in tension with this claim and is precisely the sort of ploy I'd expect imagination to invent in theabsence of real knowledge.  

The claim that a magical puff of PUL can make the decisive difference implies that the retriever has mastered PUL in earthly life.   This seems pretentious in view of the lofty requirements of "purity" and "love without any conditions."  The twin qualifiers "pure" and "unconditional" imply that PUL is a way of being honed by much trial-and-error in earthly dilemmas.   Many alleged retrievals treat PUL like it is a benign gas to be exhaled.  In my view, this is itself discredits the alleged retrievals.

The astral guides' use of incarnate retrievers has never been adequately justified.  Presumably part of their motivation is to make such a mission part of our core desires that will survive death.  If so, retrievals scream for the obvious verifications that  would motivate the maximum number of people to participate.  The lack of such verificantions is an appalling red flag that discredits the whole enterprise as practiced by posters on this site.  This concern brings me to this devastating deafening silence: spirit guides so motivated would surely provide us with their names, earthly addresses, and time of death and do the same for their retirieval targets.   If the astral projections were genuine, then the projectors should be able to glean unmistakable verifications through conversations with their targets.  

Speculaton about plausble excuses for their failure to do so may occasionally have merit, but is in general refuted by Swedenborg's repeated verifications.  Swedengborg was able to recount long conversations with the deceased that included all sorts of stunning details that he would ordinarily have no way of knowing.  It will not do to protest that modern adepts have more limited but still valid perception skills.   The more reasonable inference is that their unverifiable retrievals are merely the products of  their imagination like my own apparent retrievals.  Real PUL for retrieval targets would err on the side of skepticism and not seek comfort at the cost of truth.  The fate of the target is more important than our need for reassurance.  Patiende nmd better skills are needed.

Ginny was one of the most prolific retrievers on this site.  She once alleged a verification from her dead grandfather.   The astral grandfather claimed to have been a Mason.  Ginny had no prior awareness of this, but it proved to have been true.  So is this verification? Hardly!  Ginny's astral grandfather also claimed that the Masons believe in reincarnation.  This is patently false.  Masons merely tolerate those who believe in reincarnation as well as people of non-Christian faiths.  Most Masons I know are conservative Christians who dismiss the doctrine of reincarnation.  It is not credible that Ginny's grandfather would make such a claim.  It is more reasonable to suppose that Ginny had forgotten that she was at some time informed that Grandpa was a Mason.  In my conversations wth Ginny, she seemed taken aback at this refutation of her "confirmation."   In my view, she stopped posting here years ago simply because she slwwly realized her retrievals was not real.    

Roger,  I agree with you that Howell Vincent's retrievals in the 1940s are far more convincing than the retrievals reported on this site.  After all, a discarnate Nelly was even able to materialize an etheric flower (a calendula) and hand it to vincnet's family to be kept in a family album!

Don

P.S.  One reason for this post is that I accidentally erased my last post. Sigh!

Regarding what Don (Berserk) wrote:

First of all, I don't believe it is fair to state that retrievels are nothing but imagination if one hasn't taken the time to partake in them.

Second of all, it isn't a matter of tricking stuck spirits, it is a matter of people in the physical providing them with a vibrational rate they can perceive. The ability to see light energy goes along with the ability to feel love. If a stuck spirit isn't open to experiencing love, it won't be open to seeing spirits with a higher vibrational rate that manifest God's love and light more than they do. That's what really happens during so called out of body experiences. Your vibrational rate increases and you perceive what you weren't able to perceive before.

If Don wants to consider a source other than Moen, he could consider George Ritchie's book Return from tomorrow.  George Ritchie wrote the following while speaking of a hell like realm:

'That entire unhappy plain was hovered over by beings seemingly made of light. It was there very size and blinding brightness that had prevented me at first from seeing them. Now that I had, now that I adjusted my eyes to take them in, I could see that these immense presences were bending over the little creatures (human spirits) on the plain."

If you read pages 66 through 67 of George Ritchie's book you'll find that the spirits in this realm couldn't see Jesus nor the light beings that eagerly waited to help them.  The same was true for Ritchie until his vision increased.







[quote author=Berserk link=1168058488/45#52 date=1174343193]Betson,

Astral explorers often claim that afterlife progress is a function of spiritual growth which changes the energetic make-up of the confined retrievee.  The use of "tricks" to entice the retrievee out seems in tension with this claim and is precisely the sort of ploy I'd expect imagination to invent in theabsence of real knowledge.  

[recoverer:] "First of all, I don't believe it is fair to state that retrievels are nothing but imagination if one hasn't taken the time to partake in them."
__________________________________________________
First, the subjective experience of retrievals means nothing without convincing verifications!  Secondly, your assumption about me is wrong.  I used self-hypnosis to induce an OBE on my first attempt.  I floated up out of my body near the ceiling, looked down on my body, noticed its position, and then tried to reconnect by draping my etherial body over the physical one.  When I moved my astral finger, I expected my physical finger to move as a sign of reentry.  It dod not and this scared me.  So I woke up.  

At first I was thrilled that I had at last experienced an OBE.  Later, I learned how to have lucid dreams in which I knew I was dreaming in the dream and could even argue with dream characters that they were mere figments of my imagination.  In one case, I even stabbed at a dream character's chest with my finger to see if it seemed physical--and it did seem that way!   Only later did I discern that I had merely had a lucid dream about an OBE, and not a genuine one.   Posters here seem oblivious to the danger of confusing the distinction between lucid dreams and OBEs.

I also performed two retrievals, one a very emotional retrieval of Janet, an ex-girlfriend who committed suicide.   I intially was thrilled that she was now OK.  Only later and very reluctantly did I realize that I had merely had a lucid dream about retrieving Janet.  Verifications are essential for murky distinctions in states of consciousness, given our naivite and penchant for wishful thinking.

Third, just read the alleged retrievals posted on this site.   A change in energetic make-up seems sufficient to prepare the target for retrieval.   Without that change, retrievals seem unlikely.  After all, people get confined to their planes on the basis of like attracts like.  Trickery and deception seem like ad hoc creations of the imagination to mask the bogus nature of the retrieval.  

In the case of Ritchie's NDE, it is unclear whether the light beings in Hell were angels or discarnate humans.  Nor is it cleasr what their purpose is in monitoring events in Hell.  That said, I am hopeful that Rtichie's NDE truly does signify the possilibility of being retrieved.  But the subject is far too sacred to be based on dubious inferences from ambigous NDEs.  The higher the postmortem stakes, the more important it is to have the courage to doubt. Otherwise, humans are all to prone to settle for the comforting counterfeit as a substitute for hard-headed research which might eventually allow us to contact the dead forreal with Swedenborgian calibre verifications.  

Don

Hi Don

Thanks for bringing up the subject of reincarnation.  I have written quite a bit on reincarnation and in retrospect can  see how this might be viewed as incorrect - I do apologies if it was seen this way, it certainly is not my intention.

I do believe in reincarnation and have found scriptures hinting at this mystery.  Coincidentially I have been reading the second book of Esra, the prophet, and here the Angel Uriel talks to him and tells him about the souls who are waiting in the womb until Judgement day.  This has me pondering reincarnation over the last few days quite intensively.

Your knowledge is appreciated and respected and I wouldn't mind discussing it further, if it suits you.

Have run into a really busy patch at work though so might only be able to put forward my post in a couple days but in the meantime I will collect my thoughts and writings together.

Best regards
Caryn

Don:

The point of bringing up the George Ritchie information was to establish that stuck spirits often have a difficult time seeing light beings. Hence, the need for spirits who have an energetic connection to a physical body.

The fact of how you insist on believing that verification in the manner you mention is more important than experience, shows that you have no experience with retrievels. You'll never  understand if you insist on seeing things according to your limited intellectual perspective. You can't judge what others have found by your limited out of body experiences.

My feeling is that if one of us learned something from Jesus Christ himself, you wouldn't believe it if didn't fit within the confines of your limited intellectual framework.

I would remind Recoverer that Bruce himself has repeatedly emphasized the importance of obtaining verification showing that an alleged retrieval did, in fact, occur.  Bruce made this point to those of us attending his northern VA workshop and I'm sure he did the same in others.

You seem to be saying that a retrieval experience is real as long as the retriever believes it to be so.  For what it's worth, that is definitely not what Bruce has been teaching.  In fact, I have long believed that Bruce needs to tighten his definitions of what constitutes verification, because extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.  

If we downplay the importance of verification (and by this I mean solid evidence), we will end up discrediting the entire concept of retrievals.  We will relegate it to the status of a parlor game rather than a serious, spiritually based effort that could really be an essential service to the deceased.

Rondele:

Let us just say, the more one opens one's heart and mind to that which is divine, the more ways one can receive verification. If God came and told you something would you ask for proof, or would the love in your heart let you know that he wouldn't lie to you?

If you just finished listening to a beautiful symphony, would you worry about the qualifications of violin player number 14?

God's universe works because of love. Not because of the intellect of skeptics.



rondele wrote on Mar 20^th, 2007 at 3:27pm:

I would remind Recoverer that Bruce himself has repeatedly emphasized the importance of obtaining verification showing that an alleged retrieval did, in fact, occur.  Bruce made this point to those of us attending his northern VA workshop and I'm sure he did the same in others. You seem to be saying that a retrieval experience is real as long as the retriever believes it to be so.  For what it's worth, that is definitely not what Bruce has been teaching.  In fact, I have long believed that Bruce needs to tighten his definitions of what constitutes verification, because extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.   If we downplay the importance of verification (and by this I mean solid evidence), we will end up discrediting the entire concept of retrievals.  We will relegate it to the status of a parlor game rather than a serious, spiritually based effort that could really be an essential service to the deceased.

 Sometimes a person (espeically guys on average) have too let go of the left brain part, especially if it tends to be really strong in an individual, and let the right brain part take over more even at the expense of some critical, logical, or materially based thinking.  

 This is why those who are predominantly polarized to the left brain aspect of self, rarely have psychic experiences, because its the right brain aspect of self which actually perceives nonphysically and predominant left brainers via their constant and powerful concentration on critical and logical thinking, it automatically tends to repress the right brain's activity .   Left brain perceives physical and interprets nonphysical perceptions garnered from the right brain part of self.

 This is why there are so many more women on average who are more innately and strongly psychic and intuitive than the majority of men, because there tends to be a greater and more innate balance to the right brain and feminine polarity.   Men have been taught to shut down their feeling and intuitive side, we have largely been brainwashed to reject that "irrational" and invisable side to us, though it sort of stays alive in some mainstream religions.

 While the above tends to be true, or is true on average, at the same time, you will notice that those few who have broke a lot of ground in the spiritual and psychic areas (the Swedenborgs, Cayce's, Monroe's, Yeshua's, Buddha's, etc.), tend to be men more so (not always) because of the greater activity tendencies as well as a more balance with critical and logical thinking, thus they can potentially explain things better in terms that all can understand, from a logical, rational, and reasoning viewpoint.

 It's interesting how females and males balance each other out here in the physical.  I would say on average that there is a greater percentage of faster vibrating and intune females on the earth as compared to males, but that occasionally a male comes along with a greater balance who achieves some really unusually high ground so to speak and more so has as greater or more powerful impact and affect on the collective, but overall the average male is definitely less intune and aware than as compared to women.  

 A nice and odd balance.  Anyways, got really off track here.   Suffice it to say, many men have a hard time incoperating more feminine energy and awareness within self because of the conditioning of (especially western) society towards that of the more purely left brain modes and ways of being, and since the male body represents in the Earth the greater attunement to masculine energy, which is connected to the left brain in a sense.  

Neither one is better than the other, they are meant to be perfectly balanced and merged.   It's imbalance which manifests weakness and incompleteness, and its balance which manifests strength, harmony, and completness.  

 For some, its beneficial for more right brain and less left brain, and for others its more beneficial for more left brain and less right brain.  Pretty much everybody fits into one of those two categories to varying degrees of intensity.  Some have both strongly developed but swing between extremes, and a very few have both almost completely balanced or do have it completly merged.   It does go beyond just left and right brain, masculine and feminine energies encompass more than just that symbolism and comparison.

[recoverer:] "The point of bringing up the George Ritchie information was to establish that stuck spirits often have a difficult time seeing light beings. Hence, the need for spirits who have an energetic connection to a physical body."
_______________________________________________________________

You must learn to read.   I repeat: Ritchie's NDE establishes neither that these light beings are human rather than angelic nor that the purpose of their presence is to prepare souls for retrieval.   You also overlook the possibility that these light beings can make themselves visible by projecting an image of themselves to their target (so F. W. Myers) or adjusting their vibration to make themselves visible to the inhabitants.  But assume for the sake of argument that your speculation is correct and that incarnate astral explorers can more easily contact the earthbound.  In  that case, it bocomes all the more urgent that incarnate humans find more convincing reasons to join the quest for retrievals than the gullible word of New Age navel gazers.  If spirit guides provided  the names, earthly addresses, and dates of death both of themselves and their retrieval targets, this level of verification would change world consciousness and recruit millions to do retrievals.   So why have such verification protoculs never been established?   The most plausible answer is that New Age retrievals are self-delusions fueled  by wishful thinking.   Seedenbrog  has established that detailed verifications are readily obtained through astral contacts with the dead.  

"The fact of how you insist on believing that verification in the manner you mention is more important than experience, shows that you have no experience with retrievals."
______________

Your comment just begs the question.  My retrieval of Janet is at least as impressive as any of your posted alleged retrievals.   I doubt you have experienced the vividness of my lucid dream conversations with illusory dream characters about their bogus reality.  Lucid dreams are fueled by wishful thinking and vary dramatically in the degree to which they engage the 5 senses.
Only multi-faceted verifications have the potential to identify the elusive line between astral exploration and lucid dreams (and their waking equivalent.)

My lucid dream contact with Ralph at an outdoor MIT cage near Annie's is as impresive as any of your alleged verifdations.  Lucy confirms that there is an outdoor cafe there and a nearby cafe with a similar sounding name.  I d id not know this.  And it was impressive that I was able to stab Ralph in the chest with my finger to verify a sensory component to his presence.  Only later did I recall that Ralph had at one time lived a few blocks from MIT.   But even that level of verification is too flawed to be decisive.  It would be ireesponsible for me to claim I encountered Ralph's spirit.  

[recoverer:] "My feeling is that if one of us learned something from Jesus Christ himself, you wouldn't believe it if didn't fit within the confines of your limited intellectual framework."
___________

You overlook the sad reality of both spirit impersonators (e. g. ACIM) and New Age neglect of the criteria needed to distinguish genuine contact from hallucinations and dreams shaped  by wishful thinking.  Claims to have contacted Jesus must be subjected to comparisons with Jesus' known pesonality, claims, and spiritual teaching.  

Don

All I can say Don, is that my experiences with Jesus have included the experience of divine love. An imposter couldn't fake divine love.

Regarding there being enough humans to help with retrievels, 1) many spirits don't need help from somebody in the physical when it comes to crossing over; and 2)  there is more to how retrievels are done than you know. Whatever the case, I don't see how your cynicism here will help with the numbers game.

I know that when you hear of people making contact with spirits you often think in terms of demonic imposters and hallucinations. Isn't it is possible to have contact with spirits to an extent, where it is very clear that they represent God's light. After a while there isn't a need to batter them for proof for every retrievel that occurs.

I doubt that you'll listen to what I have to say. I can't think of one occasion when you've opened yourself to another poster's oppossing opinion. I've opened myself to what you've had to share a number of times. Remember, the meek shall inherit the earth.

I can say Don, is that my experiences with Jesus have included the experience of divine love. An imposter couldn't fake divine love.
_______________________________________________

Most people can't distinguish divine love from ecstasy.  In any case, your comment is naive and ignores the fact that misinterpreted affective arousal is a standard feature of spirit impersonation.  As a young man, I spoke in tongues for years and experienced its intense loving ecstasy.  This experience has been effectively used to cure drug addictions in Christian clinics.  Yet when I turned 16, I had an experience of speaking in tongues 100 times more potent and love-drenched than my earlier experiences.  I instantly realized that this experience was the real thing and that most of my prior experiences, as blissful as they were, were the sincere product of intense desire and self-delusion.  

"Regarding there being enough humans to help with retrievels, 1) many spirits don't need help from somebody in the physical when it comes to crossing over; and 2)  there is more to how retrievels are done than you know. Whatever the case, I don't see how your cynicism here will help with the numbers game."
_______________________________________________________________

Your unthinking New Age evasions overlook two obvious facts: (1) There are many more trapped discarnate souls than there are incarnate retrievals to assist them in their release.  (2) Again I say, you must learn to read.   I've just pointed out that spirit guides could easily offer guidance in the techniques and strategies of retrievals prior to their actual peformance.  

"Isn't it is possible to have contact with spirits to an extent, where it is very clear that they represent God's light?"
__________________________________

Again, you must learn to read.  Like door-to-door Jehovah's Witnesses, you think of your canned answers before you've determined what the other guy has said.  I've already conceded Roger's point that Presbyterian minister Hewell Vincent's retrievals during WW2 seem quite convincing, as do Swedenborg's.  The point that you keep ducking is this.  ES's astral explorations establish the possibliity of routine incontrovertible verifications.  Such verifications would recruit the incarnate volunteers needed to retrieve those who are still earthbound, often after centuries of being trapped.  The most reasonable explanation of the failure of wannabe astral adepts to secure such verifications is that they are deluded and lack Swedenborg's ability to contact genuine guides or earthbound spirits.  

"I doubt that you'll listen to what I have to say. I can't think of one occasion when you've opened yourself to another poster's oppossing opinion. I've opened myself to what you've had to share a number of times. Remember, the meek shall inherit the earth."
________________________

You understandably resent the exposure of your arguments to their decisive flaws, and so, in typcial New Age fashion, you resort to snide ad hominems.  In fact, I am far more open than you can imagine.   I would love to delude myself into imagining that I retrieved Janet after her suicide.  I loved her very much.  Also, the Bible and the early church teach the possibility of retrievals.  So I am eager to confirm biblical teaching. But as I've said, Janet's wellbeing is more important than my need for comforting closure.    

As I've learned more about Dark Knight's living Hell and ghastly battle with negs, I'm reminded of the anemic New Age screed you threw at this brilliant scientist instead of just asking more questions to gain a handle on the enormity of her plight.  She has left virtually no stone unturned in her quest for real help and fortunately quickly saw through the sheltered and turf-conscious ghetto mentality of her respondents here.  

Don

Thank you for proving my point Don.

It's odd how you try to convert people to your way of thinking, by showing your contempt for them. No thank you. I'll take the divine love of Jesus Christ anyday, despite your prejudice about my ability to experience it.

Perhaps you should remove the motes from your own eyes, before you cast stones at others.

Recoverer,

for the umteenth time, I repeat: reread my last wto posts and weep over your bigoted mischaracterization of what I've actually said.  Then, for the first time, actually address my refutations.

Don

Don.  Being the intellectual being that you are, you should realise that your obvious lack of love you share with others will most likely trap you in a low level in the afterlife.  You study the book, yet seem to have taken nothing of importance from it.  Perhaps you should read it one more time.


OOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!  haha

Okay Don. I'll give it a go.

[quote author=Berserk link=1168058488/60#62 date=1174425244]I can say Don, is that my experiences with Jesus have included the experience of divine love. An imposter couldn't fake divine love.
_______________________________________________

Most people can't distinguish divine love from ecstasy.  In any case, your comment is naive and ignores the fact that misinterpreted affective arousal is a standard feature of spirit impersonation.  As a young man, I spoke in tongues for years and experienced its intense loving ecstasy.  This experience has been effectively used to cure drug addictions in Christian clinics.  Yet when I turned 16, I had an experience of speaking in tongues 100 times more potent and love-drenched than my earlier experiences.  I instantly realized that this experience was the real thing and that most of my prior experiences, as blissful as they were, were the sincere product of intense desire and self-delusion.

[I know the difference between ecstasy and love. When I've had experiences of divine love they had little to do with me and had everything to do with the divine presence I was in touch with. I felt love, reverence, grattitude, and humility; felt like getting down on my knees; and thought that the presence I was in touch with was the most beautiful thing I've ever experienced even though I couldn't see nor here it.  I did see the image of Jesus Christ one time during such an experience.

I don't know what speaking in toungues is about. Didn't have anything to do with what I experienced. My understanding is that Paul spoke in tongues so he could preach the Gospel to different tribes. I'll leave this one to you.]

"Regarding there being enough humans to help with retrievels, 1) many spirits don't need help from somebody in the physical when it comes to crossing over; and 2)  there is more to how retrievels are done than you know. Whatever the case, I don't see how your cynicism here will help with the numbers game."
_______________________________________________________________

Your unthinking New Age evasions overlook two obvious facts: (1) There are many more trapped discarnate souls than there are incarnate retrievals to assist them in their release.  (2) Again I say, you must learn to read.   I've just pointed out that spirit guides could easily offer guidance in the techniques and strategies of retrievals prior to their actual peformance.

[I don't know the answer to the numbers factor. I don't see how this factor will be helped by trying to talk people out of taking part in retrievels. I'm not some lame brain person who accepted that I was helping with retrievels without becoming certain. I've fooled myself in the past enough times to know better.]
 

"Isn't it is possible to have contact with spirits to an extent, where it is very clear that they represent God's light?"
__________________________________

Again, you must learn to read.  Like door-to-door Jehovah's Witnesses, you think of your canned answers before you've determined what the other guy has said.  I've already conceded Roger's point that Presbyterian minister Hewell Vincent's retrievals during WW2 seem quite convincing, as do Swedenborg's.  The point that you keep ducking is this.  ES's astral explorations establish the possibliity of routine incontrovertible verifications.  Such verifications would recruit the incarnate volunteers needed to retrieve those who are still earthbound, often after centuries of being trapped.  The most reasonable explanation of the failure of wannabe astral adepts to secure such verifications is that they are deluded and lack Swedenborg's ability to contact genuine guides or earthbound spirits.

[How do you know they haven't obtained verifications? Plus things aren't always set up so that verifications are possible. For example, how are you going to verify the retrievel of a kid in India? You're really thinking in a small box on this one. What if you worked with spirit beings on retrievels who have proven to be completely trustworth? Do you really believe they would involve you with a wild goose chase? Why assume that people haven't made contact with beings that represent the light?

How do your attempts to unrecruit people help with the recruiting factor?]  

"I doubt that you'll listen to what I have to say. I can't think of one occasion when you've opened yourself to another poster's oppossing opinion. I've opened myself to what you've had to share a number of times. Remember, the meek shall inherit the earth."
________________________

You understandably resent the exposure of your arguments to their decisive flaws, and so, in typcial New Age fashion, you resort to snide ad hominems.  In fact, I am far more open than you can imagine.   I would love to delude myself into imagining that I retrieved Janet after her suicide.  I loved her very much.  Also, the Bible and the early church teach the possibility of retrievals.  So I am eager to confirm biblical teaching. But as I've said, Janet's wellbeing is more important than my need for comforting closure.

[Your approach on this forum didn't suddenly pop into my mind after your so called exposure of my arguments. My criticism of your approach existed before hand. You don't know the retrievel experiences of other people well enough to compare them to what happened with Janet.]

As I've learned more about Dark Knight's living Hell and ghastly battle with negs, I'm reminded of the anemic New Age screed you threw at this brilliant scientist instead of just asking more questions to gain a handle on the enormity of her plight.  She has left virtually no stone unturned in her quest for real help and fortunately quickly saw through the sheltered and turf-conscious ghetto mentality of her respondents here.  

[There's a lot of wisdom in what I wrote on the Dark Knight post. Try considering what I wrote. I made the first statement I made on that thread, because it is significant that a demonically oppressed person can write long posts.  The fact of how she was able to write one showed that she hadn't lost complete control of her willpower.  It was her choice to become defensive so quickly. Have the people at the other forum helped her? Did they tell her that by connecting to divine will she'll have all the power she needs to overcome what ails her, or did they try to discourage her by coming up with their stock and trade "Martin Malaci says this, and blah, blah says this?

Regarding your being open minded, what if you met up with Jesus and he told you that there is some truth to the disc/higher self/over soul viewpoint? Would you doubt him because the gospels which speak to the masses, don't speak of such things?

Have you ever considered this? Perhaps part of the reasons people like Bruce Moen don't speak of Jesus Christ much, is because it is understood that there are a lot of people who have been turned off to Christ because of fundamentalism? I was one of those people. If Bruce would've written about him I might've wondered about him. Fortunately I became humble enough to question my confusion, and with the assistance of my spirit guidance found that Jesus Christ is a significant part of the human race's spiritual welfare. It might even extend beyond this. The gospel according to John touches me the most. The guidance that helped me open up to Jesus; sent me messages such as "accept Christ," "Trust Christ" and "Jesus saves;" is the same guidance that put in more than one good word for Bruce Moen before I opened myself up to the presence of Christ.]

Dude,

I have never claimed that my posts here display PUL.  But for troubled souls like Dark Knight, I strive to establish a friendly E-mail rapport far removed from the close-minded bigotry of this site.  My new friends know I try to support them with my prayers and my reflections on the personal problems they share and they thank me.  Does this mean I am offering them PUL?   Unlike some of the unctious PUL sharks on this site, I would never make such a claim.  Probably not, but I do try to be a good listener and respond to the best of my ability in a way that they might find helpful.  Whatever PUL is, it is a way of being manifested in daily human contact, not an ecstatic feeling that vanishes the moment one's ego is offended.  I'm not convinced that recoverer has ever experienced PUL, but I don't deny it either.

recoverer,

In typical New Age fashiion, you relentlessly impute unworthy motives to someone you barely know.  I am not trying to prevent the bogus retrievals alleged on this site.  On the contrary, I want people to persist and hone their skills to seek out the Swedenborgian calibre retrievals with verifications that would recruit millions to this noble enterprise.  Your relentless insistence that verifications are not always practical is evasively disengenuous .  I have repeatedly acknowledged possible exceptions and simply drawn attention to the countless cases in which verification should be possible and routine.  
The lack of such routine verifications is a powerful argument against the validity of retrieval claims in general.   Both spirit guides and retrieval targets should easily recognize the power of such verificaitons to recruit counltess new retrievers.  After all, they routinely provided ES the desired verifications.  

The accusation from your ilk that I am close-minded is ludicrous.   If anything I am too open-minded for my own sanity.  As I've repeatedly insisted, I need to believe that retrievals are possible to justify my own faith.   But I also recognize that love without integrity is vacuous.   The widespread lack of critical discernment demonstrated by New Agers strikes me as a formidable argument against the legitimacy of astral exploration.  I am loathe to accept that verdict because it threatens the foundations of my Christian faith.   But someone needs to place a higher premium on hard-won truth over cowardly comfort.  I don't like the role of playing God in the lives of needy people.  So the least I can do is question that foundation of my core beliefs that there is a loving God who cares and an afterlife that makes our sufferings worthwhile.  Questioning the basics can be very threatening and disheartening.   But I won't be deterred from my quest for integrity by this site's shamelsss ghetto mentality.

Don

Don:

HOW DO YOU KNOW PEOPLE DON'T GET VERIFICATIONS?? Perhaps there are some people who don't actually do retrievels despite what they believe. But don't lump them all into one bucket because they haven't read Swedenborg. Don't tell the people who actually do help with retrievels that they are full of it.

If you don't think people like Moen are doing enough, and you really care, then do some retrievels you can be certain about, write a book, go on tour, open a website, and gather the verification statistics you're looking for.

I'm certain that many people will get along quite fine without Mr. Swedenborg. If a person is able, then they are able.

"HOW DO YOU KNOW PEOPLE DON'T GET VERIFICATIONS??"
___________________________________________________

Duh!  How do you know that a doctor in rural Montana has not divcovered the cure for all types of cancer, and yet, chosen to keep it a secret?   Our claims must be limited by the AVAILABLE public evidence.   Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof to make them credible.  If we genuinely love people, we will acknowledge their limitations and our own, and allow them to set the standards by which they might be convinced.  The dubious claims of New Age navel gazers just can't create the momentum needed for retrievals to become credible and hence more common.

"I'm certain that many people will get along quite fine without Mr. Swedenborg."
_________________________________________________________________
No, you just don't get it.   ES set the standard by which astral contacts can be measured.  Like all sciences, we must build on the insights of the experts.  ES proved that spirit guides can offer high-quality verifications.  Their failure to do so for modern wannabe adepts calls the authenticity of their astral exploration into question.  If a  wannabe retriever cannot obtain the requisite verifications, she must experiment until she learns the reasons why not and pass this information on to other seekers.   She will also humbly concede that just maybe she can't contact the dead at all like ES can, but continue to try.

Don  

Let us step back from this debate and understand a few simple facts.  Firstly, this is NOT a ghetto; this is a forum where seekers from disparate backgrounds get together to exchange ideas, experiences and find support.  As such, no one who posts a retrieval or mystical experience is looking for criticism or to be put through a scientific grinder.  And know you this, Sir Don - no one here sets himself/herself up as "the new age authority," and no one bows or worships to a ghetto mindset.

Bruce has addressed in his writings a great reason why the afterlife is hard for most people to contact, and why communications are not frequent.  It has been called M band noise.  Essentially, we are told that to be incarnate on the earth plane, we voluntarily constrict our perceptive awareness.  Otherwise, we would not be able to function with all the "noise" constantly being encountered both on the physifcal and spiritual planes.  Bruce likened it to turning on several dozen radios on different stations at the same time, and then trying to discern the speech or music out from just one of them.  In order to function, we narrow our perceptions and filter out the noise being broadcast - or so the theory goes.  Thus, when trying to make contacts or get information during meditation we must break through this voluntary narrowing of perception.

Perhaps there are some like Swedenborg, or mediums (George Anderson has had some amazing verifications), who have a more direct access past this M-band noise than most of us.  Big deal.  We all don't have to achieve this perceptive state to have valid experiences.  The purpose of this website is to exchange information about the afterlife.

How dare anyone assume that if one does not have concrete verification about a  poster's experience that it is bogus!  The means of communication, the symbols we see in meditation, are not just yes/no questions, or precise numbers such as birthdates, etc.  

I think it would be interesting for Bruce/Allen to set up a "verifications" forum, where people could exchange experiences which have later been verified in the physical plane or after a review of personal items.  Perhaps someone (Don), should approach them about this.  

In an upcoming thread, I plan to tie the evidence that conscious thought alters physical and spiritual reality together with "the imagination method" described by Bruce in this website to make contact with the deceased, and show how, despite Don's yammering on about concrete verification, there is a solid grounding to show that pure intent does have an effect, be it for contact or a retrieval.  
Prior to starting this new thread, I leave Don with one question:  what does it mean in the gospels in Matthew 17:20 when it is said:

"And He said to them, "Because of the littleness of your faith; for truly I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you."

Matthew

Matthew,

There is no one here who longs more fiercely to do retrievals than me.  I was obsessed with this possibility long before I encountered Bruce Moen's site.  When  I performed an emotional retrieval myslf, I was initially thrilled before honesty began to  trump wishful thinking.  Love without integrity is self-indulgence.  Your "M-band" excuse is irrelevant to the question of how spirit guides respond to the request for verification protoculs.   Why are they never asked?   If the astral projector is not lucid enough to pose such a question, that is a good indication that he is experiencing a foggier level of consciousness than lucid dreams.  If  astral explorers can't be bothered to ask, then I can only conclude that they are indifferent to the potential value of retrievals for humanity in general.  Why do we never even hear of requests for the name, earthly address, and time of death of the spirit guides encountered?   I never receive a credible answer.   No, this IS a cultic ghetto and the refusal of its denizens to even attempt to astrally pose the key questions is deplorable.   And Matthew, ES's success calls into question the elusive line between genuine and counterfeit astral exploration.  I have had many paranormal experiences.  So it is with great reluctance that I must admit that my own astral experiences are bogus.  I actually want to be convinced that my extension of this verdict of wannabe explorers here is mistaken.  But you can't separate the astral trip from the credibility of the explorer.   Instead of continually ducking the key issue, embrace my challenge, inquire about verification protoculs, and post the answer.  Otherwise, you have no credibility with people of common sense outside the New Age ghetto.  i make no apologies for this obvious verdict.

Don

Berserk wrote on Mar 20^th, 2007 at 11:53pm:

There is no one here who longs more fiercely to do retrievals than me.

Don, if you truly wish to create that which you long for then you must get out of your own way.  On one hand you believe in the existence of retrievals and on the other hand you believe they are bogus.  

You are holding cross-purposes and in this you will never be able to create what you really want because your cross-purposes appear to cancel each other out.  

Mathew, I will look forward to you upcoming thread.

May the peace that surpasses all understanding be with us all.

Love, Kathy

I don't want to have a continued debate with you Don. Despite our differences of opinion I like and respect you. I believe that you really do want to do what's right, and I honor your faith in God and Christ.

If everything I have done with retrievels is just a sham, I'll find out one day.

Don your repeated use of the word "ghetto" for this forum reveals your superiority complex over us. you think we are all lost, and that you would rescue us from delusion. at the same time, if you truly had a savior complex, which it seems most ministers do, then you would instead be offering us some hope along with your denouncing of our experiences as real.

you merely challenge yourself not us. the same you believe in our ghetto-ness, yet you return here. you are drawn here despite our inferiority to your supposed knowledge backed up my your useless degrees.
I accept you here as one of us, to cause us to think it through, find our own flaws, ask guides for verification, etc. but I would ask you to lighten up on the ghetto talk as it's so demeaning to many newbies. I've become hardened by your talk so it doesn't bother me personally anymore, I have you to thank for toughening me up, as well a few others.

We are all EXPLORERS here we are equal to you in the sight of our creator and what I want from you is to offer us a means to explore better and not to just end your posts with such absolutism as you do.
lead us, guide us, don't kill us with kindness.

as to asking for verification within retrievals or obes or other types of exploration, that is something we can concentrate on in the future, then try to pass the verifications on to the public, but the verifications are left up to personal interpretation of each individual, so good luck with that.
I did ask for verification with guides once. it was an obe. there were 3 men guides and they told me I was in South Dakota and they tried to show me with a mental map where Cami's college dorm was; since I have never been to SD I was not familiar in my brain which freeway, streets they were talking about, only that the geographical location I was retrieving Cami at was not the same as the college location they were describing. and I couldn't or didn't think to ask more questions about her last name as I had trouble out there even spelling her first name; I had not known Cami was a real name, it was all unfamiliar. so I would suggest in explorations, ALL of it is new..unfamiliar, yet you know for certain you are leaning something new.
the strangeness of being outside the body is a thing must me cultivated and you must understand we are in a kindergarden age concerning this business

so stop picking on us, it's dreadfully unkind and rather hopeless all in all the feeling you give me...

From Wikepedia:
A ghetto is an area where people from a specific racial or ethnic background are united in a given culture or religion live as a group, voluntarily or involuntarily, in milder or stricter seclusion. The word historically referred specifically to the Venetian Ghetto in Venice, Italy, where Jews were required to live. It was later applied to neighborhoods in other cities where Jews were required to live. The corresponding German term was Judengasse; in Moroccan Arabic ghettos were called mellah. The term came into popular, world-wide use during World War 2, in reference to Nazi ghettos (see below).
The term now commonly labels any poverty-stricken urban area. In the U.S. the news media created terms like rural ghetto to describe mobile home parks, farm labor housing tracts and Indian reservations to indicate that the poorest areas in the U.S. aren't within major cities. In the United States, urban neighborhoods where Hispanic immigrants settled in the late 20th century (called barrios) are said to be comparable to ghettos, because most immigrants form a culturally isolated enclave and may choose to remain there or associate with their own group.
"Ghetto" is also used figuratively to indicate geographic areas with a concentration of any type of person, with or without poverty (e.g. gay ghetto) or for non-geographic categories (e.g. "sci fi ghetto" [1]). The term is also used to describe an item or an action as cheap or flimsy. Some consider this use of language to be an offensive misapplication[2].
Some people in the U.S. and Europe strongly dislike the term ghetto, believing it to have racist, elitist and culturally insensitive overtones, and the mention of such a word to describe a working-class ethnic community is considered a generalization or an insult. Many social workers and community leaders suggest alternative words to describe these areas like economically disadvantaged areas as the location of the areas are often isolated from its outer worlds.

---------------------------------------------------------------

Don,

I see you as a very sensitive fellow. Why would such a person use such language as "ghetto" to describe his friends?

Just to rile us up, which you do occasionally succeed in doing.

Of course, there is little difference between that and some of the verbal activities of others among us.

We like to rile each other up and ruffle each other's feathers sometimes.

I suppose it is too much to expect people in this world to be kind 24/7.

We must all have something deeply in common with each other to be here on this forum together, and that is a need for fellowship, community, and the quest for experience and knowledge.

I hear Don's plea that something be done to create verifications which will be convincing to scientists, scholars and the like.

However, it is true that in this world any position one might take can be refuted or minimized, no matter what evidence is there.

Notice how the debate on earth climate changes continues to rage among scientists and politicians....

Notice how the poor are still poor and the weak still persecuted.

I simply feel that Real Love has no boundaries. If you want to have verifications, Don, then you must let go of all of us and let go of your mind and let go of your past and your future.  You must let go of everything that holds you to this earth, even your memories of your loved ones, and simply let Love tell you what it is that you need to know.

Love never fails.

blink :)

Woe; you people constantly pick on Don.  Why? Don has chosen his full time occupation to minister God's word - can you not understand how close to God Don must be and how he helps people in need, real need in earth?  Yet you carry on with your profanity.  Ghetto?  Don, again you being polite.

And Don I agree with you regarding retrievels. I regard 'retrieving' as chasing shadows of ghosts. The irony is people do not study God's Word or understand the importance of accepting Christ into their lives before they pass but hey it's okay to go a rescue 'stuck souls' after.  

'It is not me that you have betrayed; you have betrayed yourselves' 2 Esdras 1:27

Don, my post on reincarnation;

You know Jesus spoke in parables and in my heart I'm learning these parables and in gathering these parables - silence came to me and the Fear of God is before my eyes.

My concern in carry on with this discussion is it may be viewed as an argument, not saying by you but possibly by others.  I have too much respect for you Don and most of all the Word of Christ is too sacred to display in such a manner.  Those who seek will find and those who knock will enter.

May you carry on in Love Don.

"And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep, and that mutter: should not a people seek unto their God? for the living to the dead?"  Isaiah 8:19

So augoeiDon

You too think we should all be waisting are lives away reading some half-nonsense piece of 2000 year old literature? Disgusting. Oh yea, Don is being very polite by insulting most of the members of this board and the forum itself.. real polite.  I'm not saying I take offense to what Don says.. just that you are totally wrong in your assumption that this is polite. I believe Don wants to be close to god, like you say, so he constantly tries to prove other people wrong about their thinking, only to further confirm to himself that his beliefs are true.  This is not the path to discovering god, however.

To Matthew-

Doc, you said

"I think it would be interesting for Bruce/Allen to set up a "verifications" forum, where people could exchange experiences which have later been verified in the physical plane or after a review of personal items.  Perhaps someone (Don), should approach them about this.  "

Actually, a few days ago I used the Search Website function on this board at http://www.afterlife-knowledge.com/search/search.html

And I typed in verification to see what I would get.

Two retrieval accounts came up several times within the 17 hits that came up.

One was a retrieval of a fireman who died during 9/11.  The other involved a retrieval during a workshop in Germany.  At one time there were many such "verified" retrievals grouped and posted on this website.  Either they have been removed or I was unable to locate them.

Anyway, I urge everyone to read these two accounts.  I think it would be a worthwhile effort to read them and then post comments about them.  Remember, these two accounts are apparently being used as some of the best examples of genuine, verified retrievals.

Doc, I think your idea is excellent.  Another idea that has merit would be for Bruce to set up a Forum dedicated to those who have participated in his workshops.  I for one would love to be able to discuss, on a post-mortem basis, the thoughts and conclusions of my classmates but as of now, there is no way to do that.  I bet there would be a wealth of information these groups could provide.  

Bruce has claimed that every workshop produced verified retrievals.  Speaking only for myself, I can say that no such verified retrievals were reported during my workshop, so apparently Bruce must have obtained this information after the workshop was over.  If that is the case, I would like to hear more about them.

It's troubling that so many posters seem to be offended when claims of verification are challenged.  Remember, there were plenty of folks (largely in the scientific community) who were skeptical of claims that the earth was flat.  I suppose many of them were vilified also.  The thing is, we can only progress when we are courageous enough to go against the prevailing grain.  And, as Don pointed out, if retrievals are proven to be real, just think of the beneficial consequences of such a discovery in terms of those who are in dire need of those of us with that ability.

Roger

I think the way to prove retrievals are real is to prove it to oneself by pursuing the act of doing them, and through the heart. The way to prove them is not by tearing down someone's belief, but by aiding them to construct belief.
I don't think my post was picking on Don and neither is anyone else. we are merely expressing our unique viewpoints of which there are many.

I for one have given up trying to figure out Don's purpose on this board other than he really does think we are all deluded and possibly hell bound. He actually sits on Bruce's board and attempts to ursurp Bruce's position in his absence, by every chance finding fault with either Monroe's or Bruce's experiences. Tell me one thing good about the books Don, and I'll change my mind about what you are doing here.

back to retrievals..they are based on extending understanding, compassion, to those temporarily stuck in a belief system, which belief system is like a sticky goo on the astral body, thats why I say we do retrievals right here on Earth, not just in the astral. We do it through our communications to each other. there is nothing mysterious about helping others out. We have nothing to prove. You have to prove it to yourself by wishing to be of service to life as a basis point.

Love, PUL, is like a fine china shop. The universe is a beautiful place to live in and explore, unless you are a bull in a china shop Don, breaking everything that is beautiful in our souls, we are ALL divine and sacred beings and we must believe in each other in order to advance into these profoundly healing areas of retrievals.

You can start believing in others and yourself by respecting what the intentions of this board was in the beginning set up by Bruce and Rosalie, a place to explore without judgment, without censorship retrievals, obes and the like.

you could if you wanted, let us "rescue" you instead of you rescuing us. thats the true value of retrievals.
Picking on Don...yea, right. give me a break. I've been here too long, thats for sure.

 Don, you strike me as an intelligent guy, and so i'm confused of why you don't seem to understand that too much focus and attention on the left brain side of things, tends to decrease right brain perception and activity.

 Every time i've tried to engage in psychic activity, i've had to control and quiet my left brain part of self, thinking, analyzing, relating to other things, etc. or otherwise my right brain part just kind of shuts down and i can't pick up anything in a psychic manner.  

 This is because i have a strong and developed left brain focus, and i'm slightly polarized to that more so than not.  

 You talk a lot about Swedenborg and his consistent and often very accurate verifications.   You seem to hold this above our heads, as him being the standard by which everyone should be living up too.  

 Have you ever considered that maybe Swedonborg was an unusually spiritually developed person, who had a unusual and fine balance between his left and right brain aspects?    Have you considered that he may have been more innately gifted in that area than most?

 So, because i try to play and write some music, but its not that great and developed overall, i should give up because i'm not at the level of Mozart or Bach?   Because i don't have the degree of developed abilities in that area...

That's f'ing ridiculous.  We're all doing the best with what we got, and there are few people in the Earth with the developed abilities of Swedonborg, and the unusual balance between left and right parts of self, that he must have had to be able to bring back so much detailed info and verifications.  

 One might very well say that Swedenborg was a Mozart in the art of Retrievals.  Don't expect us, the average spiritual student, to live up to such gifted and developed standards.  We are not crap because we don't live up to this standard, just as the average musician is not crap because he's not on the level of a Mozart or Bach.

 Bruce talks about this balance and merging of the right and left brain as well, he calls the right brain side of self the Perceiver, and the left brain side the Interpreter.   It is not easy by any means, to get these perfectly balanced and in-sync.   It takes a lot of practice and innate spiritual developement as well.  

 It is somewhat an attribute of what Bruce calls a "big curl", but it's also an attribute of constant and consistent practice, as well as living a life of love and service (which is what also leads to becoming a "big curl").

 Btw, i'm not saying that verifications don't have any importance at all, a certain amount of discrimination and critical thinking within any spiritual practice i believe is a necessity, otherwise you are correct, people can just delude themselves and delusion certainly isn't helpful or constructive either.   What i am saying though, is that its not as easy as it sounds, and it certainly isn't as easy as Swedonborg made it look like.  

 So please keep this above possibility in mind, and don't be so critical and judgemental of others here--it really is not all that helpful.   Sure, would i say that some here could perhaps benefit from some more left brain focus... Yes, but at the same time there are some here who could benefit from some more right brain focus and balance and honestly i think you fall into that category.   Us males (on average, not all by any means) are often too polarized to that expression and imbalance, such as often the opposite with women.

 Instead of looking down upon those here, and criticizing them, why not practice, practice, practice retrievals yourself and use you and your progress as the standard, but not comparing to others here?

The exciting thing is that no one has come out against the idea of trying to get more cases of spiritual contact verified in the physical world.  We have all said that having no verification does not mean it did not happen.  Don is playing the devil's advocate in saying that without any verification, he must assume that contact with the deceased was bogus.  Don, you know exactly what you are doing.  I do believe that avoiding a smear on individual seekers as being part of a herd/ghetto is essential in continuing to flesh out your ideas and continue a dialogue here, on this Afterlife knowledge board.  

If Don had stated his belief that further verifications were essential to exclude wishful thinking from real spiritual experiences, and left it at that, people would have loved it (I think).  But then the provocative banter comes in, "ghetto," yada yada yada, and feathers are ruffled.  We are above all that.  

I thnk there shoud be a subcategory of this AK forum entitled Verifications of co afterlife contact.  It would make a fascinating section, and allow an energetic individual to compare several verifications and what they al had (or didn't have) in common.  


M

it sounds like a good idea, a section just for verifications which were gotten by more than one person participating. organizing such a thread would take some doing but I'll bet there are some here could help. the question of believing or not believing is left up to the observer though, but you gotta start somewhere. love, alysia

Don's attitude has been pointed out to him before, to no avail. The practical, diplomatic and ethical importance of not causing unnecessary offense when trying to convince someone is often lost on him.

Rob

Like how this entire well researched topic started by Don has been lost on you?

It seems as if it's difficult, maybe impossible, to push for solid verifications of retrievals without it being interpreted as somehow disrespecting Bruce and the work that he does.

I can only speak for myself, but in no way am I trying to discredit Bruce.  And frankly I don't think others are either.  We all have one big thing in common.....we want to know for a certainty that the afterlife does exist and that our loved ones survive death.

The difference is, some of us are satisfied with things as reported by others, while some of us want concrete evidence.  Unless Bruce has changed his mind since his northern VA workshop, he also emphasizes the importance of verification.

I have read many retrieval accounts, and I have to say that none of them present what I consider to be conclusive evidence that contact with a deceased person took place.

So part of the problem is the definition of what constitutes verification.  Bruce used to have that definition on this website, but it seems to have disappeared along with a group of retrievals that were identified as conforming with Bruce's criteria for verification.  I wish they were still around somewhere.

Since I can no longer find these retrievals, most of what I can say is based on memory (except for the 9/11 retrieval).  

Anyway, the essence of these verified retrievals was that *a person does a retrieval *the person is told something that the person was not aware of and/or had no way of knowing *afterwards, the person finds out that what he was told during the retrieval was in fact true.  And from this sequence, the conclusion was reached that the retrieval was verified to be real.  In other words, genuine contact was made with a deceased individual.

Ok, this is a good start and could possibly mean that the retrieval was genuine.  My problem is, we have no way of knowing whether or not the information gained during the retrieval was unknown to the retriever or not.  For example, I do a retrieval and I'm told by my deceased father that I can find his will in the bottom drawer of an old desk in the basement.  I go in the basement and sure enough, I find the will.  Does this mean, therefore, my retrieval was verified?

It sure is convincing, but it's also possible that long before his death, I perhaps overheard a conversation between he and my mom wherein he told her where he was putting his will.  Maybe I was just a young kid and I had long since stored that bit of information in my subconscious.  And, since I had gone into a state of meditation in order to do the retrieval, my subconscious was freed up and the channel to that long-forgotten piece of memory was open.  And I mistakenly thought that I received it from my dad instead.

The above scenario pretty much captures, by example, those cases where verifications were claimed.  Maybe it's very unlikely that I overheard such a conversation, but it's POSSIBLE.  

What we have to do, in my opinion, is to eliminate such possible explanations before we conclude that a retrieval account is in fact verified.

So now the question is, how can we know for sure that information gained during a retrieval was not information that we ourselves already knew but had forgotten?

One way is to first attempt a retrieval that does not involve a member of our family.  It really has to involve a person we never knew and furthermore (unlike the 9/11 retrieval) not even involve a friend of a friend.

Preferably it would involve retrieving someone who died a long time ago (not someone whose death was widely reported in the papers, like Elizabeth Kubler-Ross or Spalding Gray) and someone with no ties to our family or circle of friends.  If this person gives a piece of personal information.....maybe his serial number when he was killed during a specific battle during WWII.....and then we do the research and find yes, there was a soldier who died during that battle and yes, that was his serial #.  And the soldier was totally unrelated to us or to any of our friends.

For me that would be verification.  And I have to say, if cases like this exist, I have yet to find them.

I just think we have to be diligent and rigorous if we really want to be able to say that the retrieval we did was real.  Notice that I said the "retrieval" and not retrievals in general.  Because I DO believe there is such a thing as retrievals.  I am in no way refuting the concept.  I do believe retrievals exist, and have existed for many centuries.  I just think it's important to possess documentation before claiming a specific retrieval was genuine.

I think you have made some important points, Rondele. Regarding retrievals for friends, acquaintances or family members, certain elements of the retrievals MAY or SHOULD be private matters.

It would NOT be respectful in many instances to display all kinds of private information in a public place just so that certain people would be satisfied.

However, if there were some guidelines for some experiments that we, as a group, could support each other in....that might be something supported by our guides as well remaining respectful of other people involved.

Thank you for your considerate thoughts here.

love, blink  :)

Thanks Blink, but just to clarify, I'm not asking that personal information actually be posted.  It would be sufficient, in the example I gave, that the person simply said that they retrieved a WWII soldier who gave his Serial #, and that the # proved out after doing the research.

Obviously we would have to take the person's word for that.  I wouldn't expect that names or personal information be actually posted.

(The only caveat being that, for instance, if an independent researcher were conducting research for a book, he or she should have access to such information in order to be sure it's authentic.)

Augo:

Since you're in a self righteous finger poking mood, why don't you ask Don what he thinks about Rudolph Steiner?

"Like how this entire well researched topic started by Don has been lost on you?"

My post was about his attitude.

with love,
Rob

Augoeideian and Donald sitting in a tree
K.I.S.S.I.N.G.
First comes love
Then comes marrage
Then comes the second coming of Jesus in the baby carrage

Hee hee hee hee hee!  You are funny, Dude!

Where's the nearest wooden object I can desecrate!

I declare that I will inscribe this verse with a pocketknife somewhere where All may see True Love given voice into the wilderness!!!!!!!!!

Oh, maybe not.......maybe I'll just Sing it annoyingly All Day within earshot of Everyone I know.......  :)

love, blink, who believes that True Love should Never be a Secret because......welll, that's no fun for the rest of us....

Last night on "Coast to Coast" Art Bell's guests were two of the top experts on lucid dream research, Stephen LaBerge and Dominick Attisani.  Art asked them if OBEs were real.   They laughed and both praised OBEs as very enjoyable but as nothing more than particularly vivid lucid dreams which have no clear relevance to postmortem survival.   Both researchers have experienced alleged OBEs.  LaBerge cited a study bo Dr. Karlis Osis on 100 alleged OBE adepts.   These adepts claim the ability to discriminate between OBEs and mere lucid dreams.  In the study they were asked to enter a nearby room via OBE and describe its contents.  ONLY TWO SUBJECTS PRODUCED ANYTHING RESEMBLING VERIFICATIONS!  

As both of Art's experts pointed out, ESP is common both in ordinary dreams and remote viewing and has no necessary connection with the "unique physics" of alleged OBEs.  Like myself, these two dream experts have thoroughly explored the paranormal lab research on OBEs and concluded that this research fails to provide rational support for OBEs.   Sleeping OBEs do not constitute good evidence for an afterlife.  

By contrast, on Bruce's site, even dreams of the recently departed are routinely uncritically construed as evidence of genuine contact.   This gullibility fueled by wishful thinking may be comforting, but in the long run it only makes belief in an afterlife less credible.   The findings of LaBerge and Attisani only confirm my conclusions about my own OBEs and retrieval experiences.  For me, these experts have just put the nail in the coffin for the legtimacy of most sleeping OBEs, especially those of Robert Monroe.  

But I cling to one glimmer of hope--future research on verifications through waking astral exploration.  So far Bruce Moen's methods have not produced convincing verifications, but his methods might be fine-tuned by Bruce or someone else to produce more meaningful results.  Furthermore, it's hard for me to conceive that Swedenborg's awesome verifications during the waking state can be so easily dismissed as the waking equivalent of the lucid dream state.

Don  

Ah ye of little faith in OOBEs,

This is the same discussion that Dave and I have had before.  If you say "all crows are black" and you can find even ONE instance of a white crow, you have disproven that hypothesis.  Likewise, for those lucid dreaming specialists.  If you have only 2 or 3 episodes of documented OOBEs where a verification is present (either reading a number, seeing and relating a real time event or making contact with the deceased), then it disproves the notion that "OOBEs are not real, but merely wishful dreams."  

There is ample evidence that certain verifications have been obtained in OOBEs.  Victor Zammitt's site can support this.  However sometimes OOBEs are not verified and do seem to be waking dreams.  OK.

The "ESP" explanation still cracks me up after all these years.  Somehow, if you say that it isn't a real OOBE, but only ESP, it makes it more based in physical reality, and less of a chance that anything spiritual occurred.  Now keep in mind, science does not acknowledge anything called "the soul" or spirit, and most Western science considers the mind/ego to be an epiphenomenon that came by as a fluke of evolution.  Thus, the notion that if person A claims to go OOB, and gets a verification, it is not really true because somehow he "read the mind" of person B is laughable.  If there is consciousness/spirit, and if one person could know the thoughts of another without any direct physical communication, it would follow that there is in fact a human soul, and that we, as human beings are more than the sum of our parts.

If we are spirit/consciousness interacting in a physical plane, of what importance is it that we travel from one physical earth location to another in an astral body, as opposed to just perceiving the journey in our mind.  Remote viewing has no less of an implication for postmortem survival or the primacy of consciousness than does OOBE.  We have a mind/consciousness perceiving things in a manner impossible with knowledge gained by the input from our usual senses.  

Don recently cited evidence on my "faith of a mustard seed thread" of healing from a distance with intent of one or a group of minds on another person.  If true, there is no obvious physical connection between those praying and the person being prayed for.  One must postulate a spiritual healing, or a connection between all things (people, places and things) in order to make sense of the healings.

Are many OOBEs fanciful lucid dreams using our imagination?  Perhaps, yes.  However, if according to my thread, thought and intent creates physical and spiritual reality, then one can not dismiss all lucid dreams as mere whimsy.  Once you accept the primacy of consciousness and the interconnectedness of people with each other, and with God, you would be wrong to dismiss dreams in such a flippant manner.

Matthew

"The Sanctimonious"

Dear Matthew the Sanctimonious,

Greetings, How ya' doin'? No sense in responding here except keep up the good but futile work.

Jean

Hi Jean,

Thanks.  Don recently gave me that monicker.  Kind of liked it in a tongue-in-cheek sort of way.



Best to you,


Matthew

Matthew,

I know he tagged you with that one, that's why I got such a kick out of your sign off.  I think I fit in there somewhere on the same post and I was going to sign off with one of the tags that were meant for "ilk" like me but I'm just not motivated to look up that post again.

But I did want to say hi and let you know I appreciated your responce.

Bye, Jean :-*

Good one, Doc.

Love
Irene

Quote:

Augo: Since you're in a self righteous finger poking mood, why don't you ask Don what he thinks about Rudolph Steiner?

Ah well; each to their own understanding.

On the one hand, some areas of New Age thought tell us that we plan our lives out prior to birth, and that the rarity of ADCs (after death communications) stems in part from the "spoiling the ending of the movie" phenomenon.  If we knew whe we incarnated that there was no risk to our choices and free will, or that we were immortal in consciousness, we might make decisions differently.  Remember Bill Murray in "Groundhog's Day," where he was stuck in the same day over and over again.  He found he could not die - even if he committed suicide he would wake up at 6 AM in the same town on the same day.  So with this knowledge, he did some pretty crazy things.  This school of thinking goes, that we are part of a divine intelligence, and that in order to fulfill our spiritual goals on earth, we need to believe physical life is real.  Thus ADCs are thought to be rare in this model so that they wouldn't spoil the unfolding of our lives.

The other school of thought is that ADCs are so rare because of the difficulty for those in spirit to "get through," and contact us.  In this vein of thought we have Bruce's "M band noise," the phenomenon of constricting our awareness of the spiritual plane to work and fit into a physical body.  This train of thought has the rarity of ADCs being attributed to the difficulty in communication itself, or more specifically the difficulty in incarnate human beings in perceiving the spiritual plane.

The first school of thought presupposes that we are empowered to make many prelife decisions and our very much part of the planning.  The second school of thought makes no such assumptions.  They are not mutually exclusive.  I wondered what most of you thought about this...


Matthew

I don't know that ADCs are all that rare...practically everyone I mention them to who has lost anyone close has had something.  I think what is rare is people admitting to them, and not letting themselves get talked out of the reality of what they've experienced.

I think we get to make decisions about our lives the way we decided to get on an express train journey...we have a choice at several points, but once we're one, we're on for the duration of that ride.  Then (either at another point in this life, or maybe between lives, depending on how long the "journey" counts as) we make another decision, get on another train...and then are at least less in control until that journey is over, when we make another decision...etc. etc. etc. ad nauseum... ;)

At this point of the game it isn't necessary for me to do the verification game, but here are a few.

One time while meditating I heard a little dog barking outside. I thought he was this short nosed dog from down the street. I wondered what he was doing in front of my house. Then I saw a perfectly clear image of a long nosed dachshund barking, with more hair than dachshunds tend to have. I got up, looked outside, and I saw a dog that looked just like the dog I saw in the image.

One time I astral projected to a house. I wasn't familiar with the house, but I could tell it was accross the street from a school. I drove to where the house would be and there it was.

One time I had a problem with ants in my house. I couldn't figure out where they came from. I was meditating one day and I saw a bunch of ants crawling around within the walls of my house. I saw that they were entering my house through a hole at the back of a book case. I checked and there was a hole behind my bookcase.

One time I was laying awake in bed one morning. I experienced myself driving on the freeway on my way to work. Suddenly I had to slam on the brakes to avoid an accident. I could feel the motion. That morning I decided to not drive in the fast lane. While commuting to work, in the exact same area where the above occurred, an area where the traffic had come to a halt, I looked in my left mirror and saw a car coming along very fast. He didn't apply his brakes until about 15 feet before it was time for him to meet up with the car if front of him. He plowed into the car and because of a domino like effect four cars in that lane ended up getting involved with the accident.

I have had dreams that warned me about changes that were going to happen at work and the changes happened.

I have done a couple of retrievels where I could verify names by doing an internet search.

Sometimes it isn't possible to receive such information, so instead I'll receive information I have no way of verifying.

For example, one time while meditating I made contact with a friend who had passed away (I didn't plan to do so, it just happened). He showed me where he lives in the afterlife. I asked if I should contact his wife, and he didn't feel this was a good idea. Instead for verification purposes he provided me with information I knew nothing about. He told me Mount Rushmore and a name of a town other than where Mount Rushmore is located. I looked it up on the internet and it turns out a meeting was held in this other town in order to determine who should be added to Mount Rushmore.

Another such example is as follows. I doubted that my retrievel experiences were real. I asked for a verification. I was shown the cover of Robert Monroe's second book. I hadn't read it. The pages opened and I felt page 144, and saw page 145. I didn't understand why. I got the book, opened it to page 144, and saw that this is the page in which a chapter called "Rescue Mission" begins. The reason I felt 144 rather than see it, is because the first page of a chapter in Robert's second book isn't printed. The second page of a chapter does have the page number printed. In this case page 145.

One time I was given a number. I can't remember what number, something like 1653. I was also given sleeping giant. I couldn't figure out what this meant until I searched both items at the same time on yahoo. It turns out that in Virginia there is a mountain called sleeping giant and the elevation is exactly 1653. I had no way of knowing this.

When a person does retrievels it isn't always practical to ask for information.  Often the information isn't available.