Hi folks,

This is actually my first post.  Just wanted to share a curious find made through bookstore "happenstance."

A few weeks ago I came across the Nandor Fodor Encyclopaedia of Psychic Science at a used-book store. I was intrigued by a brief browse through it, but it was too expensive.  Later I found a less expensive copy online and ordered it.

Some days later, I was looking through it and came across the following entry:


Quote:

GROUP-SOUL, a philosophical concept, expounded by the discarnate F. W. H. Myers in The Road to Immortality, of a number of souls, all bound together by one spirit, acting and reacting upon one another in the ascending scale of psychic evolution.  There may be contained within that spirit twenty, a hundred, a thousand souls.  "The number varies.  It is different for each man.  But what the Buddhists would call the karma I had brought with me from a previous life is, very frequently, not that of my life, but of the life of a soul that preceded me by many years on earth and left for me the pattern which made my life.  I, too, wove a pattern for another of my group during my earthly career. . . .  I shall not live again on earth, but a new soul, one who will join our group, will shortly enter into the pattern or karma I have woven for him on earth. . . .  Here, in the After-death, we become more and more aware of this group-soul as we make progress.  Eventually we enter into it and share the experiences of our brethren. . .  Its spirit feeds, with life and mental light, certain plants, trees, flowers, birds, insects, fish, beasts, men and women; representatives of living creatures in varying stages of evolution.  It inspires souls who are on various planes, various levels of consciousness in the After-death.  It feeds also creatures on other planets.  For the spirit must gather a harvest of experience in every form."

Kind of curious, isn't it!  I can't remember if it was before or after finding this entry that I found another entry that identified the source more fully.  The Road to Immortality (1932) is one of two books automatically- or directedly-written by Geraldine Cummins that are attributed to Frederic Myers, the other being Beyond Human Personality (1935).  Among other books, she also wrote Swan on a Black Sea (1965), her last published work, with scripts attributed to Mrs. Winifred Margaret Coombe Tennant, known as "Mrs. Willett" in the publications of the Society for Psychical Research, who produced much of the material in the "cross-correspondences" researched by members of the society in the first quarter of the twentieth century.  (Charles Fryer, in Geraldine Cummins: An Appreciation, calls this latter work "perhaps the most impressive piece of evidence for survival of death so far to be documented," which is quite a strong statement!)

I haven't yet received my copies of these three books, so I can't comment further on the context of the "group-soul" entry at this moment, but it was intriguing enough to prompt me to go ahead and mention it.  I think there are full-text transcriptions of the two Myers books available online.

With best wishes,

James Ward 

Hello James:

I've heard of F.W.H. Myers, but haven't read anything about him. When it comes to the relationship between disks and soul groups, I look at it two ways.

On the one hand, disks can form together to make soul groups.

On the other hand, perhaps disks are a kind of soul group (smaller soul groups can exist within larger soul groups). Consider how a disk starts with just one incarnation, and eventually it might have a large number.  Does it have the energy for numerous incarnations right from the start, or does it receive more energy from source according to need?

If it gets more energy from source, does it get energy that hasn't been utilized in a particular way, or does it get the energy of a being who wants to hook up with a group it can learn with? I had a dream that seemed to suggest that the later possibility is true, but I'm not certain. My memory is unclear on this>>did BB join Robert Monroe's I-there?

Going by what I've been able to figure out by thinking about it and considering the spirt messages I received, each self (probe) incarnates just once, and eventually rejoins its disk. For example, one time I saw my disk members connected with each other, they represented my past lives, yet they still existed in their own right (albeit, in a unified state), even though I'm here in this world. It is as if a form of tag team is in place, except you get only one turn. Perhaps there are exceptions.

What you shared above seems to support what I just said. When sources of information speak about reincarnation they don't tend to speak in this way, but there are some that do.

It seems to me that the sources that speak of reincarnation in the way I'm doing so, speak of it from a higher perspective. If after we return to our disk/soul group we share information with it completely, where is the need of reincarnating again?  When it comes to the core of our disk, our higher self, it never has to incarnate again. Only a small extension of itself, a probe, does so. 

When it comes to earth based attachments that would require us to incarnate again, perhaps we don't rejoin a disk until after we've overcome most of these attachments, and do so within various spirit realms.

It isn't as if this world has more to offer than our disk's connection to source. If some sort of attachment based issue needs to be worked out, another probe/extension of total self can be sent out. I figure it's more about collecting information than overcoming attachments.

Another way to look at this, if souls are merged as a disk or soul group there isn't much difference when it comes to the unity that is experienced. There might be some historical differences.

Hi James and Recoverer,

It's exciting to hear similiar truths similarly expressed by different souls ! I think if these ideas were just fictitious imaginings, that parts of them would not ring true. Or that they would simply copy each other.

Yet I get a rush of acknowledgement from reading Myers, Monroe, Moen, and Recoverer, among few others. Yay!

Bets

That's an interesting way to put it, "rush of acknowledgement."  :)

   Nice find James. 

I generally agree with Recoverer, but my experience has shown me that exceptions can and do happen with the concept of a particular Disk "probe"/self incarnating more than once. 

  I know of one "probe" within my Disk which after he phased into the purely nonphysical levels of Consciousness, decided to directly incarnate again with the permission and go ahead from our more Whole self, the "Disk".   

  The reason why is because he felt he had really gone off the path in that life, and he in particular really wanted a chance to try again (he lived a rather slow vibratory/selfish/materialistic life). 

   Interestingly, this particular probe/self incarnated under the same name and lived a very similar life in many ways to his "past life".  Going to the same places, personality very similar, similar lifestyle, vocations, etc. 

  Perhaps not so surprising since it was one of those rare cases of direct self reincarnation.   

  This had the effect to sort of "blank out" his memories of his "past life" for him in the more limited sense, but of course the memories/energies are contained within the larger Disk data bank.  Interesting that he himself remained so unconscious to these, yet it was there in the Disk all along... 

  Now, the real and more important question?  Did he improve in his try over, his do again?   

Yes, sort of.  His physical life was ended in sacrifice for others.   He had finally "redeemed" himself and eventually became a fully conscious Disk member. 

  My sense is that the above rarely happens when one considers the many various projected selves into time/space of a Disk.   

  Sometimes Guidance speaks to us in generals in order to teach us important over views which are often more important than the specific details and exceptions to the averages.

I did write that perhaps there are exceptions.

  I know, and i was expanding upon that since it was just a teeny little footnote of exceptions could be possible. 

I'm really happy you all found this source to be interesting!  I just received my print copy of The Road to Immortality today in the mail and started reading it.  Meanwhile you have given me more food for thought in your discussion... (Thank you!)

James