Haha I hope everyone likes the Subject of this post.  It was just a joke by the way, I know some of you die by the words of this man so please don't lynch me.

This is mainly for Beserk, but also for everyone.

So I was thinking about one of Swedenborgs theories and ran into a bit of a paradox.  He claims that the longer you are in the afterlife, the more your outer most virtues and personality are stripped away, and your deepest self emerges.  And he says that will bring you into heaven or hell.  Well it seems apartent to me that the outer shell that you eventually emerge from is based on your life on earth, and your inner self is what you were before your life on earth, since our existance before earth is most likely almost infinately long.  So if this is so, that we shed our personality that we gained on earth, and like this dude claims, we eventually forget it all anyway, then there would be no point to even having a life on earth, and we would not be here.  And lets say we shed our skin and our inner most personality is evil and sinnister, sending us to a hell.  Well that would mean that this is how we were before our life on earth as well, being as we just shed our earth-gained personality.  So if we were this evil being of consiousness before earth, that would mean we were in hell before we came to earth. Which means we would not even be on earth, we would still be in hell.  If we evolved from the hell we were in into the higher levels then it would be possible to come to earth, but then that evil in us would not be present any longer.  

And by the way, this man began his astral journeys at the tender age of somthing like 56 or 58.  This gave him plenty of time to construct a belief system during his life, which I have no doubt skewed some of his experiences and findings.  For example, this dude calls any being he saw out there an "angel".  I am not dogging him in any way, but it is obvious that a man from that time period would not have the open-mindedness of someone from today.  And to call Monroes journeys "bogus" is absolutely biased and irrational, I couldnt help but notice this remark in one of the previous posts.  Monroe had a remarkable number of verifications.  Perhaps you are assuming that he wrote every single journey he took and every single verification in his three books.  Monroe was not as egotistical as your man Swedenborg, it is obvious that he had much better intensions then him as well.  Monroes goal was not to convince the world that his way is right, but it was to give people the tools and motivation to explore for themselves.  Just because Monroe does not give a verification for every one of his experiences does not in any way prove that they are "bogus".  Like I said, his motives for his work are much more charitable and benificial to humanity.   As I was writting that last word 'humanity', I had deja vu.  As if I have typed this exact message before.  Weird.

Dude,

Perhaps you should change your nickname to "Crude Dude." You are creating a crude caricature of ES's position and obviously have never read the relevant section in his magisterial book "Heavenl and Hell." I will repost a portion of my relevant ES post on the 3 transitional stages of dying for your illumination:

"When we die, we are still alive and just as human as ever.  To convince me of this, [the Lord] has allowed me to talk with almost all the people I have ever met during their physical lives, with some for a few hours, with some for weeks and months, and some for years.  This was primarily so that I could be convinced and bear witness ("Heaven and Hell," 437)."

"There are three states that we pass through after death before we arrive at either heaven or hell.  The first state is one of more outward concerns.  The second is one of more inward concerns, and the third is one of preparation.  We go through all three states in the world of spirits.  Some people do not go through these states, but are either raised into heaven or cast into hell immediately after their death (HH 491)."  

The "world of spirits" is a transitional state between the heavens and hells and seems to be the equivalent of Focus 25 and 26 in the Monroe-Moen nomenclature.  The highest level of the world of spirits seems to be the equivalent of Focus 27.  In biblical terms, the world of spirits embraces Hades (not to be confused with Hell) in its lower planes and Paradise, an old Persian term for "park", in its upper planes.  

(1) OUR FIRST STATE AFTER DEATH

"We use the outward aspects of our spirit to adapt our bodies in the world--especially our faces, our speech, and behavior--to our interactions with other people.  The more inward aspects of our spirit are the ones proper to our intentions and consequent thought, which rarely show in faces, speech, and behavior.  We are trained from infancy to present ourselves as friendly, benevolent, and honest, and to conceal the thoughts of our own intentions.  As a result, of this habitual behavior, we scarely know our inner natures and pay no attention to them (HH 492)."

"Our first state after death is like our state in the world, since we are then similarly involved in outward concerns. We have similar faces, voices, and character; we lead similar moral and civic lives.  That is why it still seems to us as though we were in this world unless we notice things that are out of the ordinary (HH 493)."

Most NDEs are marvelous experiences.  But ES chillingly insists that the initial postmortem state is normally wonderful even for people who will ultimately find their way to a hell.  ES's mention of their trips to gorgeous gardens and parks in the first state recalls descriptions of Focus 27:

"Their friends...take them around to various places, into the company of different people.  They go to different cities, to gardens and parks, often to gorgeous ones because things like that appeal to the outward concerns they are involved in.  Many of them think they will make it into heaven because they led moral and civic lives in the world, not reflecting that both good and evil people lead similar outward lives (HH 495)."

ES adds that "the first state after death...rarely lasts more than a year for anyone (HH 498)."   This fits neatly with modern research on contacts received by the recently bereaved from deceased loved ones.  One study indicated that 50% of Americans and 48% of the British report convincing contacts with their deceased loved ones within the first year since their death.  After that, the number of such contacts dramatically dwindles. Making such contacts is much harder for those who have moved on from the world of spirits to a heaven or a hell.

(2) OUR SECOND STATE AFTER DEATH

"Our second state after death is called a state of our deeper interests because then we are given access to the deeper reaches of our minds, or of our intentions and thoughts, while the more outward interests that engaged us in the first state become dormant (HH 499)."  "We as spirits are brought...into the state of those deeper intentions and consequent thoughts we engaged in when we were left to ourselves in the world and our thinking was free and unfettered (502)."

At this stage we shed aspects of self that were shaped by social expectations, peer pressure, and the need to present an acceptable presenting self that can mask our inner self.  As a result, "people who were inwardly devoted to the good...then behave..more wisely than when they were living in the world...In contrast, people who were focused on evil...then behave more insanely then when they were in the world (HH 505)."  It now becomes impossible to act one way and inwardly be another.  The person pauses at this threshold world long enough to become one with her own nature.  ONE'S TRUE SELF IS STRIPPED OF ONE'S VARIOUS SUPERFICIAL ACTS THAT HELPED US DECEIVE OTHERS.  YOUR TRUE SELF AT LAST BECOMES EVIDENT TO ALL WHO ENCOUNTER YOU.

"Once people like this are in the second state, they are let back into the state of their more outward concerns for brief periods of time.  They then retain a memory of how they behaved when they were in the state of their more inward concerns.  Some of them are embarrassed and admit they were insane.  Some of them are not embarrassed at all.  Some of them resent the fact that they are not allowed to be in the state of their more outward concerns all the time, but they are shown what they would be like if they were continually in this state.  They would constantly be trying to do the same things covertly, misleading people of simple heart and faith with simulations of goodness, honesty, and fairness.  They would destroy themselves completely because eventually their outer natures would be ablaze with the same fire as their inner natures (HH  506)."

"The things they [evil people] had done and said in secret are now made public, too, because now,  since outward factors are not constraining them, they say the same things openly, and they keep trying to the same things without any fear for the reputations they had in the world...They [visually] look to angels and good spirits like the [evil] people they really are (HH 507)."

(3) OUR THIRD STATE AFTER DEATH

Our third state after death is one of instruction.  This state is for people who are entering heaven and becoming angels and not for people who are entering hell, because the latter cannot be taught
(HH 512)."  Their close-mindedness prevents them from sensing the vast heavenly world beyond the world of spirits.  "As a result, their second state... ends in their turning straight toward...the hellish community that is engaged in a love like their own."  The general intention of the hells is to ignore God and vault the interests of self above all others.  

Heaven is not just reserved for Christians.  On the one hand, ES casually mentions bishops he has encountered in hell.  On the other hand, humble and teachable agnostics who have lived the equivalent of a loving Christian life will then be "taught things like that God exists, that heaven and hell exist, that there is a life after death, that God is to be loved above all, and our neighbor as ourselves, and that we are to believe what is said in the Word because the Word is divine (HH 512)."  

Dude, you also gleefully mischaracterize my critique of Monroe in your allegation that I dismiss his astral journeys as "bogus."    

In fact, I'm willing to concede that RAM may have had genuine OBEs. Why else would I purchase a complete set of his Gateway CDs and practice with them?
Why else would I apply to take the standard Gateway course at TMI?  TMI denied my application because they were already booked.  In an experiment conducted by Charles Tart, RAM's gift did not bear up very well under close scrutiny.  "His [RAM's] continuing description of what our home looked like and what my wife and I were doing was not good at all; he `perceived' too many people in the room, he `perceived' me doing things I did not do, and his description of the room itself was quite vague."  [See Tart's Introduction to "Journeys Out of the Body."].  RAM's books report a couple of OBEs which might be construed as verifications.  But the calibre of his verifications is not even close to that of ES's many spectacular verifications.  

Since you raised the issue, let me draw your attention to just some of RAM's dubious claims that tax my credulity to the limit.  In his college days, RAM gained acclaim for a play he wrote.  It is his creativity as a playwrite that is on display in 3 of his delusory past life experiences during supposed OBEs:

(1) a prior incarnation as a cave man pilot of a mentally controlled aircraft that is forced to dodge the spears of primitive hostile natives (UJ 157): The combination of prehistoric and modern technological motifs exposes the delusion here.  It seems fanciful to smply resort to the desperate expedient of claiming that cave men and pilots used to  interact regularly on another planet.

(2) an incarnation as a "vibrationist" from a "probably" non-human race whose members "have and use the ability to manipulate matter to suit whatever need through mental vibrational energy (UJ 158f.)  Sure!

(3) a prior incarnation as a novice Christian priest invited by his fellow priests to rape " a frightened young girl" who is tied down and spread-eagled for a kind of spiritual test for RAM: RAM asks us to believe that the girl is a prior incarnation of his wife, Nancy (UJ 154-56).  As corrupt as some in holy orders sometimes are, no Catholic order would formally invite a novitiate to rape a young girl!

RAM offers an earlier version of this memory in "Far Journeys," 115-16.  The 2 versions contradict each other in enough absurd ways to discredit this whole past life memory.  In both versions, a young girl is tied down on a church altar, but RAM is dissuaded from performing the nasty ritual by the deep expression in her eyes.  In the earlier version, his assigment is to kill her with several stabbings from a sword.  Supposedly, these stabbings will cause her "exquisite ecstasy."  In the later version, he must simply rape her.  In the earlier version, RAM is already a priest and is well aware of the deadly ritual he must perform.  In the later version, he is only a novice and has no advance inkling about the nature of the ritual.  In the earlier version, a mob will stone him to death if he backs out of the ritual.  In the later version, the ritual is just a test.  The other priests would stop him if he proceeded.  The earlier version has a fairy tale ending: a bright white ray melts the sword and severs the ropes that bind the girl.  In the later version, the white light simply signals the end of the vision of RAM'S past life.  Need I say more?

Equally absurd is RAM's alleged OBE encounter with an alien who emerges from a flying saucer looking like comedian, W. C. Fields.  this alien confesses that his species has come to earth not to do DNA experiments, but to collect jokes (UJ 48-50).  

Alysia, you continue to amaze me.   You greet my new threads with insults and then simply cheerlead those who engage me in debate.   You see no need to apologize for making sport of my cancer and for rewarding our private communication about my cancer by telling the board that you think I am in fact dying and lying about it.   But I expect nothing better from you.  What disturbs me is that the New Age groupies on this board generally seem to see nothing wrong with such abominable insensitivity.  If I were dying and wanted to keep the gravity of my cancer private, what right do you have to try to increase my pain by "outing" me in that way?  Fortumtely, my blood tests have all been clean so far.   Perhaps that may change, in which case I would not give you the satisfaction of notification.  

Don

Quote:


You say that I misjudge your view of Monroe, yet here its quite obvious that you call his experiences bogus.  You say the same thing about Moens experiences too, Ive heard that a few times.  Its your opinion and thats fine.  Your entitled. 

You spotted four experiences that Monroe wrote about in which is perception of things was probably distorted for one reason or another.  Of course, Monroe has somthing around the ballpark of 35 years of experience.  When you put this into consideration, it is ludicris to dissmiss all of his work simply because 0.001% of his experiences did not suite your taste.  Of course, the main focus of my post was the fact that there are condraditions in Swedenbogus's work, and of course I never recieve any comments when I bring up the fact that his beliefs played a role in his experiences, because I'm sure you realise this.
I take it that you became head over heals for Swedenbogus, and when anything new or different came along you dismissed it and tried to find any evidence you could to discredit.  I am not criticising, simply making an opinionated observation.

Swedenbogus had more verifications, but his name is, for the most part, buried in the dirt of the 18th century. Monroe's name will live on forever, however, for he has helped millions in thier quest for greater knowledge, understanding, the expansion of consciousness, and the evolution of the spirit.

I do not see the need to label every new member to the board as a "new age groupie".  The fact is that us "new age groupies" may very well lead the future world into a new state of human consciousness and spread peace and love.  That is my goal anyway, and I do not believe that throwing us in the backseat with dispise and impatience is a loving thing to do. 

In debates, there are generally two sides.  In your last paragraph, it seems as if you take it that people on the other side of a debate with you are your enemy.  You claim Alysia is insulting you, and that me and other newbies are insensitive, when in reality absolutely no insults were thrown even in your general direction.  Your sternness and matter-of-fact approach to debates, such as this one, only intensifies the beliefs of those on the other side.  Thats just simple psychology, someone with as many years on this earth as yourself should know this.  So it appears as if perhaps you are only trying to convince yourself.   

Its sometimes good to have a mediator in a debate such as this. Thanks for the input Doc.  The title of this post is not meant to be offensive, but humorous.  I am probably close to 20 years younger than you, so I assume our senses of humor may be a little different.  I see no reason to change it, it is only offensive to Swedenbogus, and I don't hear any complaints from him.  Probably because all of his outer shells have been stripped away and he is probably in one of his hells.  Even if he wasnt in hell he probably wouldnt remember who he was in this life anyway.  Am I right? (my sense of humor strikes again- we cant be straight faced 24/7 can we?)  But alright, Ill change the title..

I Am Dude wrote on Dec 29^th, 2006 at 4:17am:


It's often a tactic of a bully to say that their rudeness and lack of empathy is "just a joke".  That way if someone's offended, they can deflect it by saying that  "Ahhh, you just don't have a sense of humor".

 B.T.W; I have a "retarded" friend. She is one of the most loving and sweet human beings I've ever known. I associate that word with someone who emanates caring and innocent love.

Just a few thoughts, nothing more.

Tim

I don't have answers for any of you, nor do I wish to 'save' anyone.

These personal exchanges don't serve anyone here. They seem to justify behavior and firmly set stances. There's little of the fluidity of love in them that I can feel; otherwise there might be some dancing going on instead of this... whatever-it-is. You put a word to it.

I wish Alysia would walk in Don's shoes. I wish Don would walk in Alysia's shoes. Then I wish you both would walk around shoeless and feel the common ground underneath your bare feet.

It might be good to try and read your posts as-if another person's eyes were reading them, to try and see yourself as others might see you. Not for the purpose of judgement. But to get a slightly bigger picture than your own views.

It's strange to see two people I feel love for engage in a public exchange of defense and attack. You must want my input too. This is it.

Love, Tim F.

Berserk wrote on Dec 29^th, 2006 at 3:13pm:


Don,
      Re-read my post and look to see who I was quoting in it. I was quoting "the dude". That's who my comments were directed to, not you. It was the dude saying "it's just a joke" that I was responding to.

It's true, I just stepped in the middle of it here. Oh well. I like the middle.

Love, Tim F.

clipping from Don: Like you and recoverer, I am not pleased by the mutually reinforcing insights of Robert Bruce, Swedenborg, and NDEs like Dr. Ritchie's that our earth memories soon become dormant.   But I can't dismiss this and their verifications simply on the grounds that I'd prefer it to be otherwise.
_____

in the interests of pursuing this concept and to get away from mud slinging I would very much be pleased upon departure from this Earth to "forget" this life, even though it has been interesting, I look forward to further adventures. I have personal evidence we are loved an embraced and forgiven our debts on the other side by surrendering our will into the light.

Don, I know u want me to come right out again and divulge what you wrote to me recently in a pm. well, I will not! for then you would have further attack remarks to me and I'm not here for that nonsense. I would be pleased if you are going to pm me ever again, that you also respond back to me after I took two hours to give to you my thoughts, I received no acknowledgment whatsoever, except here.
I really am trying to get it together with you but I am giving up as I'm not able to. this is a job for god and his hierarchy of helpers. bless us all in our struggles...we could be discussing something else besides these grievances against one another.