Hi Don, you make people think and you bring up some good questions, thank you.  LOL with that said, i do disagree with you on a lot of points, but that's beside the "point". 

I just wanted to mention that the way that Edgar Cayce operated, people would write him from all over the country of U.S. and sometimes from other countries.  He just needed a name and address, and there are examples where he describes the conditions of the person's house, people there, what they were specifically doing etc...  Some of this was further looked into by the A.R.E and they have on record signed affidavits, not to mention his high success rate in helping people with medical conditions that none of the medical people could treat, let alone "cure".
   The reason why his percentage of curing others wasn't even higher was for the simple reason that many, many doctors of that day would not go through with often very specific treatments Cayce outlined, or in many cases it involved so much self-discipline with diet and ways of life that many people did not follow through a 100 percent. 
  There is a book called "Healing Psoriasis" written by a Chiropractic doctor (temp. forgot his name, but if you want it i will look for it).   In it he outlines various cases of really bad psoriasis which he cures by following all the treatments as outlined in the Cayce readings, he fully gives Cayce and his readings most of the cudos for his success in treating this condition which by medical doctor standards is considered "incurable".
  Now, many people who haven't studied Cayce in-depth, fault Cayce for his prophetic readings on Earth changes.   Cayce was never a 100 percent accurate, but as far as outlining trends he seems to be quite on.   During my research of the Readings, i realized early on that many Cayce authors had mis-quoted and mis-interpreted the Earth Change readings to an unbelievable exent, so over the long years of the hundreds of Cayce books, this has given Cayce a "bad-rap".

  Many new-agers don't like Cayce because of lot of his metaphysical concepts were outlined in Biblical history and verbage.  This gives the false sense that Cayce was promoting Christian religion, but he wasn't.  He was equally at home talking about the Buddha, Mohummed, and earlier Christ like figures.  He goes quite in-depth about the past lives of Yeshua and says that this particular Soul-Spirit has influenced either directly or indirectly every major belief system which espouses the Oneness of the God-Force. 
   What Cayce really promoted was not Christian religion but Christ like living, and he constantly said no greater example could be found than in the humble, loving example of Yeshua who became the Christ.   Rosiland McKnight, a former co-worker of Robert Monroe wrote in her first book which outlines her recorded sessions with Robert, relates how one of her guides refers to Jesus as the highest vibrating personality to ever come into the Earth realm as a physical being.  With everything that Cayce relates about Yeshua and his very interesting "past", i'm inclined to believe so. 

I don't believe anyone needs to profess a faith in him, in fact i feel that he doesn't want that at all.  But i do believe that his example and pattern is perhaps the highest one in this last great cycle (182,000 years). 

The old mystery teachings relate that at the first of every new astrological age, a person arises out of the mass of humanity to become the World Teacher, and demonstrates by their life of pure service, love, and mastery over the physical plane their full Oneness with Christ, or Universal Love.  Well, we're coming up to the new age, but seeing as it is Aquarius, the emphasis is not so much on the World Teacher, but on a group and mass awakening.   The entrance of the Christ as Cayce talked about where he said this extremely fast vibrating consciousness would become increasingly prevalent after 1998.    

Perhaps i'm looking at it subjectively, but i do see this happening (thank God), there is so much searching, searching after the meaning of life, death, and the ultimate questions.   Tis a great and wonderful time to be alive, even if there are madmen controlling certain countries.

1. ASTRAL STRUCTURE AND "GEOGRAPHY"

First a word on terminology.  By Focus 24-27 I of course refer to the Monroe/Moen categories used to describe various alternative states of consciousness.  By "Classical Channeling", I mean the many representative mediums whose insights form the basis of Paul Beard's synthetic portrait of the afterlife in his book, "Living On: How Consciousness Continues and Evolves after Death." Beard's synthetic portrait of the astral realms includes the illusion-filled "Winterland" and "Summerland", above which loom the 3 heavens.  Swedenborg's astral travels have taught him this structure of the astral realms: 3 heavens populated by "angels" (= advanced discarnate humans), "below" which is "the World of Spirits" populated by "spirits" of discarnate humans who may yet graduate to a heaven or regress to a hell, "below" which are the hells.

Here is an oversimplified sketch of the common denominators implicit in the "geography" of the astral realms embraced by very different and at times contradictory sources of astral exploration:

(1) Focus 24 is a region for trapped, confused, and often semi-conscious deceased souls in need of retrieval.  This astral plane corresponds with the biblical Sheol or Hades and is universally acknowledged by mediums and astral adepts.

(2) Focus 25 seems to be the equivalent of both the "Winterland" of Classical Channeling and perhaps the biblical and Swedenborgian hells.  This astral level is governed by the principle like attracts like.

(3) Fovus 26 is apparently subsumed under Swedenborg's "World of Spirits", the Summerland of Classical Channeling, and the first 2 heavens in St. Paul's schematization.

(4) Focus 27 seems to be the equivalent of the Judaeo-Christian Paradise which is the preferred initial locale for Christians and the launching pad for progression to the next heaven (see Luke 23:42-43).  Focus 27 seems to be the equivalent of the first heaven of Classical Channeling.  Swedenborg insists that no one enters heaven by direct mercy.  So he would probably locate Focus 27 in the higher reaches of the World of Spirits just "below" the first heaven. 

(5) There seems to be a consensus among Swedenborg, Classical Channeling, and perhaps the New Testament that there are 3 heavens.  Some reservation must be expressed about including the New Testament within this consensus.  Paul locates Paradise in the 3rd heaven (2 Corinthians 12:2-4).  Below the 3rd heaven are 2 purgative heavens (see 1 Corinthians 3:12-15; cp. 2 Enoch 7) from which one can eventually graduate to Paradise. The implied 2 lower heavens seem to be the purgative equivalent of Focus 26, Swedenborg's World of Spirits, and "the Summerland" of Classical Channeling.  From that perspective, Paradise would qualify as the first heaven, not the 3rd.  Ancient Jewish theology sometimes identifies 7 heavens, apparently because 7 is widely viewed as the most spiritual number.  But Paul's apocalypticism may suggest that he agrees with the Jewish apocalyptic view that there are only 5 heavens.  If so and if we count Paradise as the First Heaven (not the 3rd),  then Paul can be reinterpreted to agree with the 3-heaven consensus. 

From my reading, I tentatively conclude that Robert Monroe's OBEs have never taken him to the highest 2 heavens.  Robert Bruce has briefly glimpsed it "from below" only once ("Astral Dynamics 476-477) and confuses matters by designating this unvisited realm "Summerland", the term Beard uses for the transitional planes below the heavens.  Bruce Moen once visited a realm he labels "the city of angels", perhaps the 2nd heaven.  In his FAQ section, he refers to others who have been permitted "a tour of the real heaven" and observes, "Graduates of Focus 27 are the most brilliant lights I've ever seen." 

2. THE GROUP SOUL OR ITS EQUIVALENT

Swedenborg's astral travels prompt him to adamantly (and I think convincingly) oppose reincarnation. yet he experiences what is apparently the equivalent of a group soul.  Consider these 2 sets of provocative quotations from his book 'Heaven and Holl:" 

"People are borne by their own natures...towards those who are like them (43)...There was a face like an angel's that appeared to me.  This face varied according to affections...[that] occur within a single community.  These variations lasted quite a while; and I noticed that the same general face stayed all the way through like a background, and that the other appearances were simply offshoots or projections from it.  So there was shown through this face the affections of the whole community, the sources of the differences in looks of the people there (47)...For leaving a community is like leaving oneself and one's life (49)." 

"From time to time, therefore, a whole angelic community may appear as a unit in the form of an angel, a sight which the Lord has in fact let me see
...Michael, Raphael, and Gabriel are nothing but angelic communities, given their names by reason of their angelic functions (52)."

Similarly, in Classical Channeling, the group soul is not like the Monroe/Moen Soul Disk composed of multiple selves of the same soul unit.  Rather, the group soul is composed of originally distinct individuals with a common purpose.  Yet this channeled conception might easily be confused with the Soul Disk conception.  For example, consider this quote from Paul Beard's book:

"The group as a whole is in a real sense itself a soul also, a group soul, and [the discarnate person] is in very truth part of this soul.  The bond, the common purpose, will not all be seen in a flash.  This review...will be carried out gradually, until the various parts are gathered together and make a whole (135)."

This alternative understanding may be the key to solving a significant contradiction between Bruce Moen and Robert Monroe.  Bruce claims to be a parallel incarnation frm the same Disk Self as Monroe.  But Monroe is astrally informed that he has only one parallel incarnation--a female one.  He is also told that "she would seem like a long-lost sister (UJ 174)."  Bruce reports no such sense of intimacy in his earthly meeting with Monroe.  Perhaps, Bruce, Monroe, and this unknown female are totqlly separate souls destined to participate in a group soul in this new consensual sense.

This consensual notion of distinct souls comprising a group soul gets rid of the implausibilities posed by the troubling notion of parallel incarnations from a timeless astral realm.  Consider the contradictory nature of Seth's perspective on the timeless interval between lives.  In "Eternal Validity of the Soul" (151-152), Seth says, "There is no time schedule, and yet it is very unusual for an individual to wait for anything over three centuries between lives, for this makes the orientation very difficult, and the emotional ties with the earth have become weak."  But Seth also assumes that time is irrelevant for entities between lives.  The earth ties can only become gradually weakened if there is in fact a passage of time!

Both Classical Channeling (Paul Beard, 80) and Robert Bruce report that time, though still operational, can be greatly compressed in the astral realms.  Swedenborg adds: "Angels [=discarnate humans in heaven] have no idea of the concepts of time and space...The reason...is the absence of years and days in heaven ("Heaven and Hell" 162-63)." 

Beard explains the momentous implications of the channeled notion of group souls: "[The deceased soul] sees that others in the group are dependent for the fufilment of the common task...on his efforts, as he is upon theirs.  Success and failure occur individually, but their real meaning lies within a group context...In various ways members of the group have let one another down, hampered each others' purposes, just just as at other times they have enriched...one another (137)."

3. ASTRAL MEMORY AND THE ILLUSION OF
    REINCARNATION

a. The Nature of Hidden Astral Memory Fusion:

Through years of astral exploration, Swedenborg discovered that the spirits who are with us can access everything in our memories.  This is not something they do consciously.  It comes them automatically whenever they are with us.  They may even think that the memories are their own:

"Angels who talk with us do not talk in their own language...but in our own language, or in some other language with which we are acquainted.  This is so because when angels speak with us, they turn themselves to us and connect themselves with us.  This connection...causes the two to be in like thought since our thought stays with our memory, and this is the source of our speech...;  The angel enters the person's entire memory, so that the angel is scarcely conscious that he does not himself know whatever that person knows, including his languages ("Heaven and Hell" 246)."

Discarnate humans in the heavens (= angels) understood and agreed with Swedenborg about this process, but "spirits" or humans confined to "the World of Spirits" (= Focus 25-26) were unwilling to believe this because it would precipitate a belief system crash causing them to reject reincarnation.  Quoting "Heaven and Hell",

"When I also talked about this with spirits, they were unwilling to believe that it is the [other] person that speaks, insisting that they spoke in that person, also that his knowledge is their knowledge and not the person's knowledge, consequently that everything that person knows is from them.  I tried to convince them by many proofs that this is not true, but in vain (246)."

Why haven't R. Monroe, B. Moen, and R. Bruce been able to confirm Swedenborg's repudiation of the reincarnational perspective to which he was exposed in the World of Spirits?  In my view the answer probably lies in this simple fact: Unlike Swedenborg, Monroe, B. Moen, and R. Bruce have very limited experience in the 2 higher heavens.

b. The Elusive Law against Hidden Memory Fusion:

Under normal conditions, spirits and angels who are astrally connected with us can access our memories, but we cannot access theirs.  If we do, then we have memories of things we have never seen or heard and create the illusion of past reincarnations.  So it violates a spiritual law for a spirit or angel to speak to us from his own memory.
Swedenborg warns" I've been allowed to learn this from direct experience ("Heaven and Hell" 256)."

Swedenborg then explains that the false doctrine of reincarnation is prompted by spirits who violate this law during their hidden bonding with incarnate and discarnate humans.  Since these connecting spirits typically have a character and values similar to our own, it is likely that people who have false past life memories would see their own personality mirrored in these past lives.

The problem of enforcing this law against stealthy memory fusion needs further clarification.  But the operation of this law may explain the communication problems experienced by Robert Bruce during his attempts to converse with visitors to an astral Healing Center.  Let me illustrate this with 2 quotes from his Astralpulse website article entitled "Astral Rest and Recovery Areas":   

"Spirits I have spoken with 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 their 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 seem to be aware only of their present reality, that of being in 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 me 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 detail than this.  The most common response I get from asking spirits what it's like where they come from is: `It's really lovely there and everyone is so nice.  I don't understand this,  I'm very sorry.  I know it well and can picture it in my head, but I just can't describe it to you."

The confusion and apology of these visiting spirits is probably due to the hidden operation of the law against memory fusion rather than to problems of differential vibration density caused by traveling among various astral planes.  Robert Bruce's belief system is very different from Swedenborg's.  So the coherence of RB's observations with Swedenborg's lends independent support to the truth of these Swedenborgian revelations.

Classic Channeling reveals one way discarnate spirits can circumvent the law against memory fusion.  The deceased F. W. H. Myers offers his solution: "I can build up a likeness of myself [and] send that likeness speeding...to a friend...in tune with me.  Instantly, I appear before that friend, though I am remote from him, and my likeness holds speech...with this friend (Paul Beard, 69)."

This sort of image projection via remote viewing may account for Robert Bruce's frustratingly superficial encounters with astral doctors and nurses: "The doctors and nurses that staff and run these astral hospitals do not seem to be real spirit beings... 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."   

I suspect that there are other ways for advanced discarnates to conceal their memories during astral encounters with us.   Perhaps, there are various degrees of soul bonding that can only be mastered with advanced training.  Astral travelers sometimes come across their deceased loved ones with their backs turned.   Perhaps, this is one means of avoiding the outlawed memory fusion caused by fully "turning to us."  More research is needed to solve this question.







   

Hi Don and all,

I seem to recall that some christian teachers acknowledge that spirit-travel may be initiated by God but that it is more dangerous when one wills to do it on their own - here we enter into the more arcane occult knowledge, which some deem forbidden.

Rebecca Brown who wrote 'He came to set the captives free' and other books on spiritual  warfare talks about wizards and witches using astral travel - she shares her battles with human spirits as well as demon spirits.

Anyway,....I'm sure we spirit-travel in dreams. I often visit or meet with my little sister in dreams - but shes often a little girl (3-5 yrs. old). She crossed over a few years ago at age 18 (police ruled it a suicide after many months of it being treated as a homicide.) We got some help from a medium who relayed some messages from Michele to us via automatic writing and other impressions which have helped us get thru it. She shared with us what was going on emotionally at the time. It was a strange case and tragedy for all.......but she wants us to go in life and quit dwelling in the past and about that dreadful day. Her passing inspired my recent research/studies in the Afterlife; spiritualism/spiritism and related fields. Her name is Michele Angeline Purcell. Prayers and healing love for her are so appreciated. She was/is an angel - the youngest in our family of 8 sibs. But I digress.

I havent read any of Bruce Moens books or any books for that matter on the specific practice of astral travel...and would like to know the best most comprehensive book or resource to begin my research. The Spirit-realm/dimensions are very wonderful indeed. At this point its more about looking at how astral travel suggests the reality of continuity of consciousness apart from the physical body. Not so sure I'm ready to jump into actual projecting too soon - although I could get back into prayer-forms where one uses their imagination and spirit to envision desired/willed states and ministries in Mind.....and such are experienced as actually transpiring. Such takes into the dimensions of mind and spirit relative to consciousness in all realms.

Thanks for recommendations on what to start out with - authors, teachers, etc.


paul

ROBERT MONROE'S APPARENT ENCOUNTERS
WITH JESUS CHRIST AND GOD

TMI's Explorer program includes a monitor in the control room who records what astral entities tell Explorers during their OBEs.  Sometimes, "friendly entities take over their physical bodies and speak using the Explorer's vocal cords." Alternatively, "the explorer converses with the nonphysical 3rd party and reports the conversation ("Far Journeys, 50)."

What Robert Monroe [RAM] overlooks is that one such entity is either Jesus Christ Himself or an impersonator.  The speech selectively quoted below contains 10 quotes and allusions from Jesus' words and 3 other New Testament quotes:

"Blessed are they who seek me...You have forgotten to seek me, much less gaze on my countenance, O ye of little faith (Matthew 6:30)!  There are countless numbers who live in the expectancy of my coming.  In truth, I never left.  Let him who has ears to hear, let him hear (Mark 4:9).  You seek me amidst your blindness.  You look upon me without recognition (John 14:9)...I am the peace beyond all understanding (Philippians 4:7).
...I am the light (John 8:12) that illumines the minds of men...I am your life (John 11:25) and you are my own....We are one in the Father (John 17:21-23).   Do not despair.   I will never leave thee nor forsake thee (Hebrews 13:5)....The time is not yet (John 2:6, 8)...  I defy logic and am beyond your conceptual imaginings.  I live and move and have my being in all there is (Acts 17:28).  You have sought me amiss (John 7:34).  My countenance is seen in each face of my Father's creation.  Look upon your brother and see my face (Matthew 25:40)...Learn of me (Matthew 11:29)...My children, abide in me (John 15:4) ["Far Journeys," 60-61)." 

Here RAM does not pick up on the many parallels with Jesus' words.  His apparent astral encounters with Christ and God seem to conflict with his belief system and are for this very reason evidentially significant.  In earlier OBEs, even RAM regularly displays reverent submission to an awesome figure that he recognizes just might be God's Son.  In "Journeys Out of the Body" we learn of RAM's frequent encounters with what again appears to be Christ Himself:

"It makes no difference where in Locale II, the event is the same.  In the midst of normal activity, whatever it may be, there is a  distant Signal, almost like heraldic trumpets.  Everyone takes the Signal calmly, and with it, everyone stops speaking or whatever he may be doing.  It is the Signal that He is coming through His kingdom.  It is an occurrence to which all are accustomed and to comply takes absolute precedence over everything.  There are no exceptions.  At the Signal, each living thing lies down--my impression is on their backs...with head turned to one side so that one does not see Him as He passes by.  The purpose seems to be to form a living road over which He can travel.  I have gleaned the idea that occasionally He will select someone from this living bridge, and that person is never seen or heard from again.  The purpose of the abdominal exposure is an expression of complete submissiveness."

"In the several times I have experienced this, I lay down with the others.  At the time, the thought of doing otherwise was inconceivable.  As He passes, there is a roaring musical sound and a feeling of radiant, irresistible living force of ultimate power that peaks overhead and fades in the distance ...After His passing, everyone gets up again and resumes their activities.  There is a complete acceptance of the incident as an ordinary part of their lives...Is this God?  Or God's Son?  or His representative (222-223)."

With His signature trumpets and aura of omnipotence, this figure truly does sound like God's Son, Jesus.  More importantly, His routine practice of performing retrievals everywhere in the presence of the awestruck denizens of many spirit planes should have made His will and identity a top priority for future Monroe exploration, especially in view of RAM's professed long-standing wish to meet the Creator ["Ultimate Journey," 222].  But RAM's disdain for the traditional God causes him to close his mind and ignore this obvious priority.  Perhaps, his reluctance is based on his "percept" that he couldn't tour the real Heaven if he wanted to ("Far Journeys," 201). 

RAM's professed wish may explain his later unpleasant encounter with "God".  A couple of years ago, I read an internet announcement that Robert A. Monroe had died of pneumonia in 1995.  I didn't think much of this at first.  But that changed when I stumbled on to pp. 208-09 of his last book, "Ultimate Journey".  In the context, Monroe has just resolved to seek out his "source".  Then he is accosted by "God" [?] in the same OBE:

"What blinding energy--I cannot move!
A  voice in my head--a cold, admonitory voice...
`I AM THE LORD YOUR GOD WHOM YOU SERVE.'
A feeling of immense pressure, as if I am dissolving...Now I am in water. 
MY LUNGS ARE FULL OF WATER...no, it can't be...there is no water...I have no lungs. 
I am being made to think that is where I am...
But what is this?  What God can this be?"

"`DO YOU NOT ACCEPT ME AS YOUR GOD?'
The idea of a God who threatens me amuses me...
I let this idea flow out.  `DO YOU NOT FEAR ME?...' YOU ARE DAMNED!  YOU ARE NO MORE THAN WASTED ENERGY OF ME, WHO IS YOUR LORD!'"

"Ultimate Journey" was published in 1994 and RAM died of pneumonia within a year of its publication.  One of the symptoms of pneumonia is a troubling cough caused by fluid in the lungs.  RAM'S exclamation, "My lungs are full of water!" sounds like "God" is angered by RAM's disdainful attitude and therefore allows him to experience a key symptom of the agent of his imminent death.  So what is the significance of all this?

Let's consider 3 alternatives.  (a) Can all this be explained as mere coincidence?  I think not.  True, OBE beginners sometimes experience breathing problems.  But by this time RAM is an astral adept and, in any case, he reports no prior OBE drowning sesnations.  Admittedly, pneumonia is the fifth leading cause of death in the elderly.  But the issue here is not the frequency of pneumonia deaths, but the timing of RAM's drowning sensation and the role of "God" as the messenger of doom.  RAM experiences this premonition a few months prior to his death!   His apparent ignorance of the validity of the  warning seems to contradict his claim to foreknow his "final departure schedule" [16]. 

(b) Perhaps RAM is not experiencing a genuine OBE here.  In favor of a purely psychological interpretation are symbolic dreams like this: in her dream a woman descends to her basement and pulls out a diseased fruit from her purse.  Shortly thereafter, she is diagnosed with ovarian cancer.   The dream basement symbolized the lower part of her body, the purse her femininity, and the fruit her reproductive capabiilities.  i doubt the validity of this interpretation because, in my understanding, pneumonia lacks a long incubation period.

(c) So what might "God" mean by forcing RAM to simulate his future fatal pneumonia?  Is this really God or merely an impersonator?  When atheists unexpectedly encounter Christ during their NDEs, they often exclaim, "But I don't even believe in you," and Jesus typically replies, But I DO believe in you."  So God's reaction to Monroe's smirky disdain is uncharacteristically severe.  But according to the Bible, God's wrath is the other side of His love.  RAM disdains words like "God" and "spiritual".  He identifies as "knowns" these 3 divine traits: God "does not demand worship, adoration, or recognition, does not punish for `evil' and `misdeed', does not intercede or interdict in our life activity (UJ 224-25)."   The futility of RAM's astral attempts at prayer is not unexpected, given his contempt for the notion of a personal God.  Other asrral adepts view prayer as a vital tool for extricating astral travelers from threatening predicaments.  RAM"s claim that God does not hold people accountable for evil is an extension of his misguided principle, "There is no good, there is no evil.  There is only expression (UJ 217)."  Astral adepts like Swedenborg and Robert Bruce have great respect for the power of evil exercised from astral dimensions. 

The reader might counter that Bruce Moen and some of his followers have had some astral encounters with the deceased RAM and that he seems to be faring quite well.  Perhaps he is.  But in my view, there are at least 3 reasons why such claims must be taken with a grain of salt:

(1) The astral insights of RAM and Bruce Moen are contradictory in an important matter.  BM caims to be a parallel incarnation of the same Disk Self as RAM.  But RAM is informed in the astral that he has only one parallel incarnation--a female one.  He is also told that "she would seem like a long-lost sister (UJ 174)."  BM reports no such sense of intimacy in his earthly meeting with RAM.

(2) RAM's daughter, Laurie, is the President of the Monroe Institute.  She told Roger that her father was in fact no longer making appearances to astral travelers.  She directed this comment to claims of ongoing astral contacts with her father.  She and her TMI colleagues are the most likely to know the truth in this regard but as Roger has said, it would be great to get her to clarify her assertion.

(3) Even if these encounters with a discarnate RAM are genuine, they fail to address the question of RAM's present locale and spiritual predicament.  Swedenborg's astral explorations have uncovered a chilling insight: even the postmortem experiences of those who ultimately gravitate towards a Hell initially have very positive experiences: "Most are taken to splendid places because this sort of place delights the outer senses they are involved in ("Heaven and Hell" 495)."  I am not implying that RAM is presently in a Hell.  "God" might have threatened RAM in a final effort to get his attention and inspire his conversion prior to his immiment death.  In any case, the Bible implies that God's love never permanently abandons anyone after death.

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Hi Don,............it does seem odd that these so called modern adepts do not consider and hold the older pioneers (swedenborg, etc.) and their records at least as a comparitive medium to judge their own experiences or include older data into the whole collection of OBE/Afterlife sciences.

A friend of mine sent me a host of Swedenborg books and he was indeed a man ahead of his times in many fields.  I would like to see a thorough progressive thesis/treatise upon OBE's and the afterlife from the earliest records to the present. I still have to check out at least the beginners book on astral travel, etc. that you recommended from the modern adepts...as I am more acquainted with older pioneers and spiritual records upon this subject. (have nothing from the author/moderator of this site and the other adept often mentioned here).

With that,....I find your interest and favor of Swedenborgs writings of peculiar interest. Judy who has posted here in the past is the one who is a student of Swedenborg - you may have collaborated with her on certain of his themes.

Other schools that I have shared here in the past include James E Padgetts writings and the Urantia Book - both discredit the idea of reincarnation. But the reincarnation issue is an asides really, - cosmetics. I go with the eternal progress of the soul program as most logical, at least in the relative realm of mortals ascending in spiritual perfection thru the medium of time & space (however these dimensions fare in the greater body of infinity). Will check out ur other posts.


paul

MD, a soul has a group of guides/higher beings who help the soul to decide what their life purpose will be. The soul sees for itself all that it has learned from past lives and makes the decision for him/herself with the help from the guides and higher beings. The soul also chooses those he/she knows from past lives to help with the life purpose.

With Love, Mairtreya

Thanks Mair!! Your explanation makes things easier to understand! Gee, I should have thought of the guides......duh!!! 
Love, Mystic

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Hi Don,.....It would be cool to explore the nonegoic form of reincarnation and its possibilities/implications. - as far as the reincarnation/resurrection dilemma goes...are you familiar with Peter Novak's theory? - I just recall it but havent studied it deeply - maybe you can survey if it has any potential. -

http://www.near-death.com/experiences/origen09.html



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I also seem to lean towards the pre-existence of souls yet am still exploring the dynamics/intricacies within concepts of reincarnation and all its dimensions. I also recall evangelist Jesse Duplantis having an OBE and he does tell about souls or spirits flying around the throne of God wanting to come down to earth which implies that intelligences or souls do pre-exist in some form before incarnation. (I was raised LDS so know the controversies involved here with their view of the pre-existence and the Eadie account, etc.). But yes,...I tend to dig Origen in some of his leanings...although he was later finally anathemitized.    Perhaps we can explore 'pre-existence of souls' from a christian perspective apart from and along with eastern perspectives.

About souls having choice in the selection of parents, locations, planets, worlds, etc.  where they may reincarnate for their spiritual learning...it would indeed be logical that such decisions are oriented and ultimately decided thru the government of divine Providence. Our curiousity is in just how much free-will liberty, if you will the soul has in choosing from any number of options given that divine Providence allows for any number to be chosen from....each choice being coordinated to the divine Plan although perhaps within different dimensional settings.

Finally,...the controversy with Origen and the doctrine of the pre-existence of the soul naturally brought up 'soul-migration'(transmigration) and reincarnation(rebirth) in all its possible varieties...which challenged the settled dogma of the church and opened up too big a can of worms doctrinally for the church Magesterium.


paul