Hi Don.I have read all about swedendorg and his vissits to the spirit world.I have also read that there are things that god does not want us to know.and one of those things is reincarnation.There is a reason for this.If people knew that reincarnation is a fact,There would be more people killing themselfs to try and get a better life next time around.George

Don-

One thing for sure, we'll never find consistency in our research of the afterlife.  Even material supposedly channelled from highly evolved entities can be totally contradictory much less inconsistent.

I have concluded that it's really a fruitless enterprise, especially if the objective is to achieve some sort of conclusive answer as to what lies in store for us after death.

Speaking just for myself, I have spent way too many years reading everything I can get my hands on if it promises insight on the afterlife.  And the more I read, the more confused I get.  Sometimes I get to the point where I just throw up my hands and tune out of the whole deal.

One thing that ES says, however, has really hit home with me.  Yes, we can have faith in God and yes, we can have love.  BUT unless we tie those things to good works while here on earth, they are empty and useless.

What difference does it make if we read all the available literature on the afterlife, and are up to speed on the "insights" of the latest new age guru if we aren't helping others in the best way we can?  Even if we have compassion for those among us who need a helping hand but we don't respond, that compassion is nothing more than an empty feeling.

Bruce says that retrievals are just "training wheels" for the further exploration of the afterlife.  That's fine as far as it goes, but I think it misses a larger point.  Even if that exploration provides legitimate information (and I'm skeptical of that), it is still lacking an important, maybe essential, ingredient, if it doesn't result in us helping our fellow human beings.

In fact, I'll go one step further and say that a life devoted to helping others is far more important even if we have no clue whatsoever what lies beyond this earthly life.

We can engage in endless debate and arguments on this board but it will never solve the mystery of the afterlife, so why not do something in the here and now that will be far more rewarding both to us and to those we help.

A SWEDENBORGIAN CRITIQUE OF THE
NEW AGE CONCEPT OF THE GROUP SOUL

In reply #18 I outline the grounds of ES's rejection of reincarnation.  New Age reincarnation is often associated with the concept of a soul Disk or group soul comprised of many manifestations of one's soul throughout history.  ES would view this as a perversion of what actually happens:

"Kindred souls gravitate towards each other spontaneously...for with each other they feel as though they are with their own family (HH 44),"  

"There was a kind of angelic face that appeared to me, and this varied according to the qualities of affections...that were characteristic of the individuals in a particular community.  These variations lasted quite a while, and through it all I noticed that the same general face remained constant as a basis, with everything else being simply derivations and elaborations from it.  So there was shown me through this face the affections of the whole community...Not many individuals leave their own community to go to another because leaving their community is like leaving themselves or their life...(HH 47, 49)."  

"Sometimes a whole angelic community appears as a single entity in the form of an angel, a sight that the Lord has allowed me to see. . .Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael are nothing but angelic communities that are given these names because of their functions (HH 52)."  

Similary, 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 kindred souls with the same purpose.  Yet this channeled conception might easily be confused with the soul Disk concept.  For example, consider this quote form Paul Beard, "Living On," p. 135:

"The group as a whole is in a real sense 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....[but] will be carried out gradually, until the various parts are gathered together and made a whole."  

This alternative understanding may be the key to solving a significant contradiction between Bruce Moen and Robert Monroe.  Moen claims to be part of the same soul Disk 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)."  Moen reports no such intimacy in his earthly encounter with Monroe.  Perhaps, Moen, Monroe, and even this unknown female are distinct and separate souls destined to participate in a group soul in this Swedenborgian sense.  If so, there is no such thing as retrieving portions of one's self.

The group soul in the Swedenborgian sense gets rid of the 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" Seth says, "There is no time schedule, and yet it is very unusual for an individual to wait for anything over 3 centuries between lives, for this makes the orientation very difficult, and the emotional ties with the earth have become weak."  But Seth 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!  A real contradiction!

Don

George,

Thanks for responding again.  In your last post you allude to an important issue--the question of whether some truths are withheld from us for our own good.  St. Paul admits that during his trip to Paradise he is told truths that he is not permitted to share (2 Corinthians 12:4).  Howard Storm tells me that his book "My Descent into Death" only describes the tip of the iceberg of his NDE revelations.  In her book, "Embraced by the Light," Betty Eadie confesses that many truths were erased from her memory when she returned to waking consciousness from her NDE.  But she adds this:  she learns in her NDE that, though the soul preexists before birth,  there is no reincarnation. 

Swedenborg originally experiences and learns about past life memories.  Only when he explores heaven and converses with angels does he learn that these are merely memories from distinct spirits with whom one is connected.  Even on earth it is well known that when someone is possessed by a discarnate human, that human's memories merge with one's own.   So this is far from "just ES's  opinion."  Besides, his verifcations are far, far superior to those of any modern astral adepts. 

I am still exploring issues associated with reincarnation.  But Swedenborg's verifications have earned him the right to be taken more seriously than modern adepts. 

Don

George,

Now you are raising the question that has fueled my spiritual quest more than any other since my teenage years.  Yes, the Bible teaches that God's love never permanently abandons anyone after death.  I have posted in this issue extensively in the past and should perhaps post on this again.  If we remain in Hell, then that is because we refuse to cast our gaze in a godward and more loving direction, not because God has rendered the final verdict on our lives.    The Bible also implies that soul retrievals are both possible and essential.  In this respect, Bruce Moen and Robert Monroe agree with Scripture.  Atheist Howard Storm is told the same thing by Jesus during his NDE. 

If reincarnation of the ego turns out to be a false doctrine, it nevertheless expresses the important truth that this life is not the end of our educational and evolutionary potential.  The heavenly planes perform the purification role that reincarnatiionists have often reserved for Earth.  As positive as I am about ES, I have so far not discovered where he directly addresses the possibility of retrievals from hell.  In my view, this is the greatest weakness in his otherwise unparalleled odyssey of astral discovery.

Don

that is where I'm at in my understanding as well Mairlyn, that the personality is the new consciousness born here, but that the personality is not the totality of the being itself, but like a probe, to gather new experiences and bring those gifts back into the entire disc/whole, adding to the pot, as it were, or what is called the harvesting of loosh  (god, I wish we had another reference point).
I wish to address to the question of reincarnation, that it can be seen to be for some both true and false. that when bleed thrus of various lives do come to the mind with detail and finesse, that these are meaningful to observe, in that these lives shown are not the same person as depicted in the images..these can be seen as experiences which happened to your twin sister or brother, a being so close to you, that you feel what they feel, you know them as well as yourself, just as my own twins, when I was spanking one (just a swat on the butt, ok?) the other twin at once hollared from another room of the house! I felt that! she said. they are like one person within a level of observation, yet with different personalities to express. they are joys to watch and learn by. this is perhaps a clue what these other lives may be like in terms of shared experiences.

from a religious viewpoint and I am not religious (this life, this personality)  we can take this topic and compare it to the bible where one person is sent into life with 2 talents, another with 3 talents, or gifts, and sometimes these talents in a spiritual sense are not used and so there cannot be much advancement unless whatever your talent is, that it is expressed for this is fulfilling to find your intentions here, what brings you pleasure to perform.

what this means to me personally is sometimes we can deny, or never find out what our talent is exactly because of whatever...not enough study, being lazy, or perceiving erroneously that there are obstackles in your way to do what u came here to do, maybe becoming addicted to whatever, we are good at having excuses why we didn't do the thing we love to do, whatever that is.
an example is: on my journey here I was a lowly housecleaner to my incorrect perception. but on a spiritual level I was in the right place. because I needed to understand about what good service was to another, no matter how much I knew I did not come to this planet to clean someone elses toilet...lol. by learning to love my job, by loving my clients, I was able to graduate from the profession..which by the way, it's an excellent spiritual position if approached to do good work in it. so maybe it doens't matter what position you hold in life, it only matters how well you do your job in order so that you can move to something more challenging and perhaps see your way clear to utilize what your special talent is.
my summation is one is never judged in the afterlife  and slotted into a prison for what you did or didn't do, but you judge yourself according to whether you did the best you could, and you examine the reason why you did as you did. it is the reason why you might have killed someone but you are not punished for the act itself, you are punished only if you "enjoyed" killing someone and for that intention of deriving satisfaction from such an act. a soldier has never been punished for killing in the afterlife review. he had a license to kill. but yes, I agree, that together we help each other evolve and that there should be here or there, and even in the most degrading BST's imaginable, some kind of opportunity to assist and retrieve these, just as there exists here on this side, counselors and teachers who attempt same and some are very successful to help others, thereby helping themselves evolve. I didn't mean to ramble. sorry. I'm sure glad this board is here.
love, alysia  
not finished yet. lol.  there are opportunities to grow, assistance is always offered here or there. judgment is aided by nuetral unbiased guides who assist the life review, who offer suggestions but not coersion for the thing of choosing one expression over another is important; on the other side you are either choosing to honor life or expressing you choose death. those who refused to be retrieved to life may change their minds down the road. if they wish to remain within a bst area to experience whatever their diviation is, their addiction, there is always another guide or being who can know how to pull them away from that. on the other hand, they may choose to remain in their bst from our perception of linear time, a very long time and not be wishing to join their disc to cooperate and continue whatever discs do within evolvement, winking out as it were....they say a leopard will not change it's spots, but spiritually speaking I am of the opinion that the power of foregiveness is the same power of PUL to allow the leapard to change it's spots.

I never thought I'd end up quoting something from ACIM, but on the subject of reincarnation, I think the author (whoever it is) has it absolutely bang-on.

Namely, if believing in reincarnation helps a person in his or her overall spiritual enlightenment, fine.  If it somehow has a negative affect, then let it go.  It's really not relevant.

It's obvious that no one really knows one way or the other.  We can quote from various books we have read (ie probes gathering loosh...whatever the heck that means) or we can submit our own theories. 

Either way, the fact remains that it is essentially irrelevant.  We can spend time discussing it until our computers crash or until we end up in a nursing home wearing a bib.  The result will be the same, we simply will not know. 

It may be entertaining to toss different scenarios around but it's not going to make us any more enlightened in terms of the big picture as to why we are here and what awaits us after death.

Roger and Alysia I agree! 

What matters more than anything is that we each have the ability to have our own experiences and draw from them whatever is meaningful to us...individually.  What we each experience and then believe, or believe and then experience is our own personal reality that has meaning to ourselves.  We will all have our own enlightening moments that make us grow, and they don't have to be the same for everyone in order to be true or real.