Some of you may have seen this on the Blog.  For those who haven't I have posted the story of retrievals at a Vermont orphanage that happened a while back.  My blog software doesn't make it easy to for folks to post replies to the blog, so if there are any questions or other replies, here it is.

Bruce

Monday, November 02, 2009
Vermont Orphanage
Pharon and I were recently invited by a friend, Krisa, to spent a few days at her cabin on Lake Champlain in Vermont. This was just before the Fall colors were in full brightness and it was a special treat to get away. Krisa attended a workshop in Salt Lake City several years ago as an attempt to learn how to contact her son who died unexpectedly at the age of thirteen. I'm happy to say her attempt back then was successful and after the workshop Krisa continued to practice the techniques she learned. That began regular conversations with her son in a continuing relationship that is still active today.

During our minivacation to Vermont Krisa introduced us to the surrounding area. We picked quarts of fresh rasberries and she and Pharon made sugar free jam that we now have several jars of at home here in Florida. We learned a new card game and sat for hours feeding the wood stove and playing cards.

On one of our outtings to Burlington we happened to drive past a building constructed as an orphanage in the 1800s. Krisa was familiar with some of the history of the orphange (not all of it pretty) and was curious to know if there might be anyone 'stuck' there. Later, driving back the way we came we turned into the old orphanage parking lot and slowly drove around to the back of the building. We stopped at a big parking lot and I gazed out the window of the car without any particular thought in mind.

Suddenly a children's playground came into my mind's eye and I realized that back somewhere in the history of this place what was now a paved parking lot for cars had been a playground. Images of children running and playing formed in my mind and my attention was drawn to two little girls who were jumping rope together about twenty feet from the car. One of the two, the older one, perhaps eight or ten, looked my way and our eyes met. I could tell that the longer I looked into her eyes the more she became convinced that I could see her. She walked toward the car, never breaking her gaze, and when she stopped with her face a foot or two from me I smiled, just to let her know that I could see her and that I was friendly. What happened next is something I have never seen before.

Off to my left, about twenty feet away a brilliant white-bluish light starting shining. Within moments the light transformed iinto an arch-topped structure the size of a big door that looked like the kind of garden trelils you sometimes see used in outdoor weddings. The entire structure was made of bright, shining white light and there was a sign in big letters above this doorway structure. The sign said only one word, "HOME." I realized that Helpers had been waiting for the opportunity to retrieve kids from the orphanage and were ready to create the doorway at a moments notice. Our "chance" stop behind the building had given them the opportunity.

I look over at this doorway structure and back to the eyes of the little girl. Then did it again while sending her the thought, "Look where I am looking." It took a couple of tries but she finally looked at the doorway. She looked back into my eyes with the thought, "Is it true? Is that the way I go to find my home?" I smiled and nodded yes. She turned toward the doorway and walked toward it, stopped, turned back and looked at me again, she smiled and then she stepped through the door and disappeared.

Other children continued to play as they had been doing when I arrived. A few saw the bright doorway and the sign over it. Some of those walked toward it, curious about what it was. A few of those were brave enough to step through to doorway. Tears were streaming down my face as I watched.

We drove a little further toward the back corner of the building and stopped again when I "saw" a small group of boys ages five to ten or twelve. Two of the older boys had somehow gotten cigarettes and were smoking where they thought no one could see them. When they realized I was watching them they ran off in different directions and I sent them all the thought that it was okay and I wouldn't tell the Nuns, and that they should go to the playground and see the new thring that was there, along with sending an image of the doorway.

Later that evening, back at the cabin, I closed my eyes and shifted my attention back to the orphanage playground to see how things were going. Helpers guided me to a little synopsis story of what happened to the little girl after she stepped through the doorway. She was greeted by two adults who told her they were her parents and she was welcomed into her new home. It was a happy, joyful time. After settlling in a little the girl decided she wanted to go back to the playground with her parents and talk to other kids to tell them they could step through the doorway and go home with their parents. Some kids she took by the hand and then she and her parents walked them through the doorway. They were all met by their "parents."

Checking in on the situation a few times each day for the next couple of days I found fewer and fewer children still stuck there. Kids who had already left and joined their parents were coming back with their parents and going into the building to retrieve other kids who were stuck inside the building.

Near the end Krisa joined me and she encountered two of the nuns who had worked at the orpanage. The younger of these two seemed to be a good-hearted soul, the older was a rather gnarly woman who enjoyed the power of her position a little too much. Krisa retrieved them both.

It never ceases to amaze me that there are so many ways that retrievals happen.

Bruce

Thanks for your post, Bruce.

It seems your initial retrieval could be called a condensation nucleus for the retrievals performed by the returning children with their "parents". The strong relationships of these children to the remaining children and the place enabled them to act as a bridge between helpers and those retrievees. That's just what I thought.

Spooky

You never seem to Amaze me Bruce. Br U C E. You never seem to make me see things in a new light. I love your course and while I have had little luck with retrievals so far I do believe in them, Especially when I hear you tell these wonderful happenings. I Hope you will continue to share as only you can you magnificient adventures. I wrote a song for you once but I wonder if it will mean much unless you are familiar with my TOE that I posted here.'

Focus: Twin E's Heaven
You tell me Heaven is a place
Maybe not with pearly gates
But still a place that places you among the status quo.
I don't know

You tell me the climate changes
Are not your concern of late and
God's got all this trouble we see under control
I don't know

I would like to have a place to go
When the water flows too far above my head
It wouldn't really be a place for show
But in the end it's not a bad place to be dead
I could sing with my friends and party there
With lots of the good life for us all to share
That's when I always get your cold blank stare

Focus 27 (twin Es Heaven) may be the place for me
Maybe Focus 27 could hold the key
It makes good sense as a means to an in
I think I could say Bon Voyage to your trivial sins and YES OUI you could be in
Because Focus 27 may be my own Godsend
For me

Brother do you see E?
For energy is everything
Brother you see E
And energy waits not for thee
The M.O. 's the inner G  this time around
This Modus Operandi casts your life upon the town
Mass Energy M -E -M -E -M -E, that's ME! You! We! Oui?
Brother, you see E

My mother taught me how to chase
My father taught me not to waste
My sister teaches me not to be in haste to close my show
I don't know

All your words are passionate
But I think that's too rational
Aren't my dreams just as real as this world you suppose
You don't know
Br. U C E  M.O. E is N

Hi Bruce,

I very much enjoyed you sharing this retrieval, as I enjoy hearing about all of yours.  Each retrieval always seems to have something new to teach us. 

What I especially like is that you went back later to get more of the picture and participate more.  That is an area I would like to have more experience with.  As you know about me Bruce, I have been lucky with spontaneous amazing experiences but I really need to work on creating them for myself.  Which is where I learn a lot from you about the use of priming the pump of imagination. 

Maybe you could talk a little bit about that here and use your retrieval as an example?  As you know, it can be very difficult to tell, while it's happening, where the pretending ends and the real stuff takes off on its own.  For me, I tend to notice this easily if there is a great opening of my perception.  But it can be harder to discern if my sense of perception doesn't do some big firework-display of going into that just-like-physical-reality-perception stage. 

I'm also curious, do you think that these children's spirits were held here because of spending a lifetime in the orphenage?  It's so sad to think that so many children either did not grow up (died from illness?) or grew up into adulthood without parents and thus parts of their being were stuck longing for that. 

I'm fascinated with the myriad of ways that Helpers can appear and play a role. 

Love,

Vicky

This is such a beautiful retrieval story. Thanks so much, Bruce, for writing down all the details and sharing it here.

Vicky wrote on Nov 19^th, 2009 at 4:09pm:

As you know, it can be very difficult to tell, while it's happening, where the pretending ends and the real stuff takes off on its own.    I'm also curious, do you think that these children's spirits were held here because of spending a lifetime in the orphenage?  It's so sad to think that so many children either did not grow up (died from illness?) or grew up into adulthood without parents and thus parts of their being were stuck longing for that.

Vicky,

As you know for many years I struggled to gather verifiable evidence to convince myself first that this place we call the Afterlife exists, and then that my further exploration of it wasn't just a self deluding hoax.  After doing retrievals for so many years and getting enough verifications it has become easier for me to deal with the desire to know where the fantasy ends and the real stuff begins.  Easier because with most retrievals I no longer care which is which.

I intimately understand that if my beliefs about the Perceiver and Interpreter, and how they function, are real. I will NEVER directly observe what I am really observing.  With enough previous verifications I am confident that my activities are real and that the retrievals I do benefit whoever it is that I am actually retrieving.

I understand my present approach would not be useful for beginners or those with too few verified experiences.  For them I would say continue to utilize the Basic Premise.  Learn how to contact and communicate with the deceased, gather information you have no other possible way of knowing except by that contact, seek to verify that information.  When verification happens there is an important step to do . . .
Go back over your memories of the experience of gathering the verified information.  Put particular focus on your feelings during the gathering of that information.  You may identify a feeling or pattern of feelings that you typically experience when receiving information that will later be verified.  Likewise, you may discover feelings you typically experience  when you are gathering information that will not be verified.

With lots of practice you may discover that always getting verification becomes progressively less imortant.

It was my feeling during this retrieval experience that very few of those retrieved had died in the orphanage. At times disease would go through the orpanage population and larger numbers would die, but I assume that most of those must have already been retrieved because I didn't find them.  So, there were some deaths, but most appeared to be Aspects of the children fragmented off by the experience of being orphaned and by experiences living in the orphanage.  The way I checked on this was to pick a child and intend to follow the events of their physical lifetime.  A few were placed with families, some ran away from the orphanage in their teen years and struck out one their own.  Some just became old enough to legally leave the orpanage and went on with their lives.

Bruce

Bruce,

I haven't had as many verifications as I would like, so I know what you mean about trusting the process.  It's more important than focusing too much on trying to get facts.  When you describe your emotion during this retrieval, it was very touching. 

I like what you said about feelings...About going back over the experience and looking at what you're feeling.  I use this method too as a guide!  What I find is that usually during a nonphysical experience, I'll start experiencing feelings of emotions that I wasn't expecting.  They can hit me so hard that just the act of letting myself feel them can seemingly be a way of opening perception and especially opening belief.  I imagine this is what was going on with you in your experience when you said you had tears streaming down your face. 

I notice that when I get overwhelmed with feelings and emotions that I wasn't expecting, that's when the need to force pretending doesn't need to happen anymore.  It's at that point that I don't feel I'm making anything up anymore.  Instead it begins to feel like I'm observing and experiencing rather than pretending!

What also comes to mind, while talking about this, is that you are right about our need for always having verification.  Even without it, trusting that the process is helping the other person is what's important.  Because even without our direct experience of what is actually really taking place, and even without any verification for us, it is true that on another level what really needs to be happening is definitely actually happening.  So therefore, the significance of our perception of the experience is less important than the truth of the meaning of the experience itself...but what we experience of our feelings is indeed a huge part of our own belief and growth. 

Thanks for much for sharing Bruce,

Love,

Vicky

spooky2 wrote on Nov 19^th, 2009 at 5:10am:

It seems your initial retrieval could be called a condensation nucleus for the retrievals performed by the returning children with their "parents". The strong relationships of these children to the remaining children and the place enabled them to act as a bridge between helpers and those retrievees. That's just what I thought.

Spooky,

Yes I can see what you mean by condensation nucleus and it fits.  I had heard of these sorts of things being set up by individual, Retrieval Stations some call them. 

A workshop participant later traveling through Central America on a bus kept encountering stuck folks in small towns the bus stopped in.  She experimented with creating a nonphysical cantinas with lots of bright flashing lights, music and the smell of good food in these towns as a place that would attract stuck folks.  She reported that these retrieval stations worked and so it became a habit to create them in each town she stopped in on her tour.
In the case of the orphange I would have said the retrieval station that formed did so by itself, except that I was aware of Helpers who actually constructed it.
And, as you pount out it created a sort of bridge that was then used by some of the orphans retrieved to initiate more retrievals.

Bruce

Hi,Im picking up something here.those kids may have all died in a fire on that same place where they were playing.It seems they all died at the same time.just my opinen.george

Bruce;
This is such a beautiful retrieval story. Thanks you so much Bruce for sharing this, i honestly don't know how i miss this one .. :-[

A bit late but thank you.
PUL, R.

george stone wrote on Nov 23^rd, 2009 at 12:32am:

Hi,Im picking up something here.those kids may have all died in a fire on that same place where they were playing.It seems they all died at the same time.just my opinen.george

George,

I don't think that all the children I saw at the orphanage died there.  Some of them did, but I think it was a small number.

I think what I encountered for the most part were aspects of children who lived at that orphanage.  Sometimes a person cannot stand to experience some parts of their life.  Sometimes those experiences are traumas or feelings that arise from some part of their lives. 

Sometimes that person with split off a fragment of themselves, an aspect, and that fragment exists to be the part of the person who holds those feelings, traumas, etc.  The aspect is "spun off" from the main conscious awareness of the person so that the aspect holds the feeling or trauma at a subconcious level.  Often the person is no longer consciously aware of the trauma because it is being held subconciously by the aspect of self. 

Many times we read or hear about a person suddenly remembering some terrible thing that happened to them that they had completely forgotten about.  Sometimes this is an indication that the aspect has rejoined the main conscious awareness of the person.  That can be a retrieval.

From the perspective of the aspect of self, it is a self aware being.  It is aware of its existence and that existence of often a very narrow, limited version of the more whole person.  The aspect of self may be completely unaware of the existence of the greater part of itself that it was spun off from.

For example, a child who has a parent die my not be able to cope with the feelings of loss and grief.  The child may spin off an aspect of self to hold the feelings at a subconscious level.  The child may then not experience those feelings of loss and grief.  But, for the aspect of self those are the only feelings it is experiencing.  If we are on a "mission" to do a retrieval we may be led to this aspect of self by a Helper.  The child who originally spun off this aspect of self may have grown up, grown old and died.  But we still find the aspect of that person's self, stuck in a Focus 23 state of mind stuck in a perpetual state of grief and loss.

That aspect will appear to be the age the child was when the aspect was fisrt spun off.  That aspect will be suffering the feelings of loss and grief it has been holding and experiencing since the moment it came into being by being spun off.  It will be hopelessly stuck in those feelings, not knowing or experiencing any other feelings.

Not every person we retrieve is a person who died and got stuck after death.  Sometimes we are  retrieving an aspect of a person's self that came into being during that person's childhood, or at other times, and is still stuck in a Focus 23 state long after that person's death.

Practicing the Art of Retrieval is so important for so many reasons for so many people.

George, thanks for giving me the opportunity to talk about this.

Bruce

Maybe some of those "parents" who welcomed the children could have been the persons to whom a child belongs as an aspect? It's of course a question where an aspect goes to when it is "retrieved". If the person, to whom this aspect belongs, still suppresses this part of it, it remains split-off of that person. We could speculate if it's not possible that an aspect could become an own person.

   In some of my early explorations, where I tried to find out about the Higher Self and reincarnation, I was told that it actually can happen that a person splits off into 2 or more persons, and this seemed not to be too absurd, as I found a human person, a "probe", is actually created by the Higher Self from distinguishable parts (traits, affections, talents, memories etc.).

   I came across a great variety of retrievees, scared, frustrated, delusive, shock-frozen, depressed, in the darkness of denial, but there were one or two which didn't seem to fit. I recall one male figure staring at the sunset somewhere in the nonphysical. I couldn't communicate with him. My impression was that this figure wasn't a whole person, but a part of the memory of a person. I can't remember exactly what I did, but finally this fragment had been, unlike other retrievees, sort of absorbed by something which resembled the impression I had when I attempted to contact my higher self.

   The relationship of a person to it's aspects might be similar to the relationship of the higher self and it's persons/probes.

   I recently had the idea, a split-off of an aspect could enable persons to have psychic/mediumistic experiences which otherwise would be blocked by the belief system of this person, when this aspect is conscious/strong enough to make contact to the core person, and is able to communicate with nonphysical entities. The core person then can remain a disbeliever in nonphysical communication and interpretes the actual happening communication through this aspect as "inner voice" or "fantasies" or, in more dramatic cases, as a personality disorder or schizophrenia.

Spooky

Bruce Moen wrote on Dec 7^th, 2009 at 7:51am:

Not every person we retrieve is a person who died and got stuck after death.  Sometimes we are  retrieving an aspect of a person's self that came into being during that person's childhood, or at other times, and is still stuck in a Focus 23 state long after that person's death. Bruce

It is my belief, and guess, that there are more split-off aspects needing retireval than the whole-personality kind.  But I would guess we are able to retrieve those of our own selves throughout our lives at various times in different types of new experiences and through dreams.  And probably we are not even too consciously aware of it taking place.  I also think we can retrieval others' split-off parts not realizing that they are what they are.  We only assume we are retrieving the whole person since we have no way of knowing the difference.  The Helper could very well be the source of the split-off aspect.  Much like what Spooky explained? 

Vicky

Hi

Spooky said  "I recently had the idea, a split-off of an aspect
could enable persons to have psychic/mediumistic experiences
which otherwise would be blocked by the belief system of this
person, when this aspect is conscious/strong enough to make   contact to the core person, and is able to communicate with nonphysical entities. "

When I read that, I asked, 'Could that be?!" and felt a strange response inside near my heart. It felt like a shape to the right of my heart sometime in the past had been lassoed and the rope twisted tight, but now was untwisting! The untwisting was very freeing, quite a relief, and even caused a few burps (pardon me.)
In Brazil there is a concept of 'HeartMan,' the intelligence of the heart. I think Spooky's idea just freed my HeartMan abit.  Thanks, Spooky!

Vicky, I've been thinking and meditating about Aspects lately, and found that a retrieval I'd reported here about a lost little boy sitting on the curb was actually an aspect of my brother.  I'd noticed that about that time my brother's moods and sense of humor seemed to improve greatly but I didn't connect the retrieval with him then.
I'm going back over my other retrieval notes to meditate on those also. I agree with you that aspect retriieving could be hapening alot.

Bets

Learn, or try again. there is no splitting of what we are. Just a remembering. When I can come back with evidence ( like solve an unsolvable murder ) then I will be sure. But I dont see that happening. There is a reason why we dont remember. And if your one of the one in 1 million, or billion, fess up.  :o
Don't make us come find you

I'm sorry guy's, but these splitting off of our physical selves into a 'cloned' conscious copy of ourselves, living in that time period when we 'split' is a lot of hogwash! The Afterlife Realm or the Earthbound Zone must then be a chaotic mess of 'split personalities' and 'Personal split-ghosts-personalities-clones' of Millions or Billions of past physical people, from all the ages past, 3 or 4 thousand ago or more! Living in their own trauma or pleasure, in countless or infinite past time zones personal to their conscious age-self at the time they 'split'. I, you, me, must have a huge bunch of 'aspects' from all our past lives out there waiting to be retrieved!? What about the mammals we eat for food?  Do they have 'aspects' out there too from the slaughterhouses? This is New Age Science-Fantasy at its best. No doubt started by some original author, in a book, and all the rest jumping on the fantasy bandwagon! We are not monkeys-sheep with wallets of cash and credit cards! Honesty and rational thought seems to be so lacking in these Afterlife circles. Sincerely. Carl & Family      
   

Hi Carl,

You cannot apply the small part of yourself that is logical to the way the afterlife works; it's a different realm requiring wholey different involvement. 
Humans have been considered a multi-layered being since back in the Sanskrit days.  Look it up.
(You'll perhaps be relieved to kow that this post of yours is the last of yours i ever plan to read. You are not trying to find truths and discuss experiences.  Goodbye.)

Bets

Carl,
If you are truly looking for evidence then read My Big Toe by Thomas Campbell. If not then I think you are merely an illusion yourself. Not trying to find answers but merely to have everything handed to you so you can find more reasons to disagree. I'm with Bets, unless you make some kind of effort.

Truth is so often much stranger than fiction, Carl, but you are entitled to your opinion. I think, strange as it sounds, what actually happens to us is quite like what you described. I see our 'selves' more as patterns, however, patterns of behaviors and occurrences, more than anything else that we may believe that we are.


carl wrote on Dec 9^th, 2009 at 1:31am:

I'm sorry guy's, but these splitting off of our physical selves into a 'cloned' conscious copy of ourselves, living in that time period when we 'split' is a lot of hogwash! The Afterlife Realm or the Earthbound Zone must then be a chaotic mess of 'split personalities' and 'Personal split-ghosts-personalities-clones' of Millions or Billions of past physical people, from all the ages past, 3 or 4 thousand ago or more! Living in their own trauma or pleasure, in countless or infinite past time zones personal to their conscious age-self at the time they 'split'. I, you, me, must have a huge bunch of 'aspects' from all our past lives out there waiting to be retrieved!? What about the mammals we eat for food?  Do they have 'aspects' out there too from the slaughterhouses? This is New Age Science-Fantasy at its best. No doubt started by some original author, in a book, and all the rest jumping on the fantasy bandwagon! We are not monkeys-sheep with wallets of cash and credit cards! Honesty and rational thought seems to be so lacking in these Afterlife circles. Sincerely. Carl & Family

Carl,
I admit it must sound strange when taken, sort of, "literally". But is is not quite that strange, at least not stranger than anything else is. I hope I can clear it up a bit:

Bruce said, aspects could have own experiences, and can appear, when approached, as persons. However, when they're rightly called "aspects" of a person, this means they still are part of a person, but have been isolated and outcasted, suppressed, of a person's conscious psyche. But they're still a part of that person, and even when that person has no conscious awareness of this part, it still influences the person. It is not the way you laid out that there is a dramatical multiplication of persons so that we'd end up in chaos; it is a varying degree of focusation of a person as an entireness. The physical-encompassing world of mind isn't made of spatial divided things, such as bodies, but of more or less communicating regions of awareness. That way, a full integrated person appears as a razor-sharp powerful presence, while a low-integrated person appears as weak, "wide spread", instable, but not too seldomly as a surprising person.
   My opinion of course.

Spooky

Multiple personalities  are a well known phenomenon in clinical psychology- often the result of trauma such as childhood sexual abuse. The film Sybil starring Sally Field was an example of this ( based on the case of Shirley Ardell Mason). These sub-personalities are an individual's way with coping with an intolerable situation but cannot really be considered as 'real' people in themselves.

Dave

I was woundering,you never here of men having them.George

Dave,


heisenberg69 wrote on Dec 11^th, 2009 at 2:36pm:

Multiple personalities  are a well known phenomenon in clinical psychology- often the result of trauma such as childhood sexual abuse. The film Sybil starring Sally Field was an example of this ( based on the case of Shirley Ardell Mason). These sub-personalities are an individual's way with coping with an intolerable situation but cannot really be considered as 'real' people in themselves. Dave

One of most satisfying experiences utilizing the concept of "aspects of self" has been working with psychotherapists in Germany.  There is a small percentage of clients, perhaps as many as 5 to 10%, that are eventually told that there is nothing else that can be done.  They have been through every form of therapy known to the psychoterapist's team without making a dent or scratch in the psychological problems in their lives.  In some cases these clients cannot work or be around other people due to their "illness."  According to the therapists I work with these clients are eventually told, 'We're sorry, there is nothing more we know to do except give you medications to make your condition more bearable.

One therapist described his first aspect of self therapy session with one such client.  After putting the client in a light trance and suggesting that a Helper would come the client began to describe the Helper.  The client was instructed to ask the Helper to guide him/her to the source of the present difficulty.

A short time later the client was arguing with the Helper saying that the scene he/she had been brought to could not possibly be the cause of the  problem.
After interviewing the Helper, through the client, and the client directly, all during the session, the therapist understood how the events in the scene (from client's present lifetime experience) described a trauma that led to the present psychological difficulties.  The therapist then used pretty standard theraputic techniques during that session to help the client deal with that life event in a more constructive way with a more productive, positive outcome.

The client was guided to retrieve the aspect of self from the scene and the experience using the technique I teach in the Self Discovery, Self Healing workshop.  The aspect was 'absorbed or reabsorbed' into the body of the client as aspects of self often are.

The kicker was that the therapist told me that after the client was brought out of the light trance after that one session the client was 'cured.'  The psychological difficulty was gone and the client was able to go back to work, live and enjoy life.

When people who don't understand the concept of Aspects of Self attempt to explain them away as some profit-motivated, new age, hogwash fantasy I think about the clients of that psychotherapist.  He and several other therapists in Germany are using the Aspects of Self concept in conjunction with Helpers in treatment sessions with their most difficult clients.  I hear that kind of 'it's all new age hogwash' kind of comment and think about how the lives of those clients are changed, and I smile. 

It maybe indeed be such new age, hogwash, but for those clients, it works.

Bruce

Thanks Bruce. For some reason some concepts seem harder to get a handle on than others. For example retrieving whole 'stuck' people seems easier for me to believe than retrieving aspects of people. But that does'nt make the latter less likely only a signal to me that my knowledge may be incomplete and I need more data. I think thats the key difference between open-minded skepticism and closed-minded skepticism. Open-minded skepticism means that you're not willing to take everything at face value but at the same time are realistic to know that 'knowns' change with new experiences/information. Close minded skepticism means a kind of blinkered thinking -a 'Medusa Mindset' as one friend put it.

There seem to be two extremes of opinion when it comes to the 'New Age' beliefs. There is the archly cynical, super-sceptic who thinks its enough to simply label beliefs they don't currently hold as new age to discredit them. The other seems to be that all 'metaphysical' ideas are equally valid experience or no experience.What I liked about your books is that you avoid both the above extremes, dealing  with some pretty esoteric concepts but in a rational, experience- based way.

One of the exciting things about Afterlife concepts  is that may be able to be used to treat psychological/spiritual problems which traditional psychotherapy has not been successful which you talk about in your post. I have a good psychotherapist friend, who uses a transpersonal approach, who I have introduced your books to. It would be great if you were able to publish such experiences as you describe above for sympathetic people such as him- for the important thing is that it works and helps people.

Dave

Is it possible that we are retrieving the character of the person instead of their higher self?

The learning experience could be more for us than them.