FuzzyQuark,

From a post below . . .

>>   I have read Bruce Moen's first book & all of Robert Monroe's, and I am concerned about the lack of consistency there is between their books and various other OOBE/afterlife type books available. <<
 
   Our individual beliefs and expectations always stand between any objective Truth and what we perceive that Truth to be.  We as human beings never perceive that Truth without it being colored, filtered and distorted by our beliefs.

   Any author such as Robert Bruce, Robert Monroe, myself and others who explore our afterlife can never see the objective Truth of it.  We can only report what we each perceive that Truth to be through the influence of our beliefs. Since each of us has our own unique set of beliefs and expectations we will each have our own unique description of that Truth.

    I would say that if what you mean by "the lack of consistency" is that none of these books agree on every single specific detail, that this is an expected outcome given the nature of human perception.  What one author perceives as "7 astral planes" and another author perceives as Focus levels 23 through 49 could be describing exactly the same Truth, or, different portions of the same Truth.

  So the real question for you as someone attempting to learn the Truth by reading the books of many different authors is: Can that objective Truth be found by reading what these authors write?  The short answer is, no. But, in my opinion what these authors write can still be useful in such a quest by looking for what IS consistent between their writings rather than what IS NOT consistent between their writings.

When I became disillusioned with the teachings of the religion I was raised in I first went looking for the Truth in the beliefs of other religions.  I read every book I could get my hands on that described the beliefs of religion I could find.  Within the beliefs of each religion there were always inconsistencies.  After reading quite a number of these books I discovered that there were common threads running through all of the sets of beliefs.  I decided that whatever was common to all of them was closer to whatever the Truth is than any one of them.  I'd say:  Treat us authors the same, look for common threads.

>> That's why I'm looking for some certainty about the afterlife, I don't want to leave it to chance as I might find the Christians were right and I'm doomed to burn in hell for eternity. I know that is a ridiculous idea, but it's not something I even want to take 0.0001% chance with. <<

In my opinion no one will ever achieve that level of certainty by reading someone else's description of the Truth.  In my opinion at that level of certainty can only come through one's own direct experience.

Bruce