(2) THE NEED FOR DIVINE PERMISSION

Reply #5, describes Jeff’s spectacular verification for Leonard of his family’s postmortem survival.  The deceased Jeff drives his old truck, describes his total financial and investment situation, etc.  Why are ADCs this remarkable so rare?   Jeff’s spirit gives us a hint.  Jeff eventually laments that he must abruptly terminate his visit: “I’m sorry, Dad; I’m not PERMITTED to drive any further.”  In his discussion of memory loss in the higher planes, Swedenborg offers this reason for the occasional restoration of earth memories “They [memories] can be reproduced when it so pleases the Lord (HH #461--See reply  #13).”  In both cases, special permission is needed and that permission may explain why impressive ADCs are so rare.   Under what circunstances is such permission granted and who must give the permission?  Presumably God or a divine agent.  Perhaps, the permission is granted in the context of a Past
Life Review in which the deceased soul is forced to experience the emotional impact of his earthly actions on others.   

High-quality ADCs are very rare after the first year of the loved one’s death.  In his taped astral messages to George Meek, a deceased engineer named Mueller is forced to terminate his recordings because he must “ascend” to a realm where such contact is no longer possible (see reply #3).   Mueller is never heard from again, even through channeled contact. 

Robert Monroe’s OBE explorations convince him that his recently deceased wife will be unreachable after 6 months. To this, Bruce Moen responds:  “Bob Monroe completely rejected  the notion that his own wife Nancy, could be contacted by anyone more than six months after her death.  So what!...It turned out he was wrong, and it may be very hard for those of us in contact
with Nancy to talk to Bob about these contacts and pass along her messages to him (R37).”  The chatty ease with which channeling and Bruce’s method of Focused Imagination allow contact with deceased loved ones. seems inconsistent with the contrary evidence I have cited.    Either some astral explorers are deluded or a  new synthesis is possible.  In either case, Bruce’s apparent indifference to such apparent contradictions is unfortunate. 

Don

Kathy,

You refer to the case of discarnate loved ones who wtness "healings at the higher levels of our being." Such a healing process is precisely what Robert Bruce witnesses via OBE.  He discovers that the loved ones visiting the spirit hospitals have virtually no earth memory recall.  The presence of loved ones during NDEs need not imply that they have intact memories of the new arrivals.  Perhaps, they have been brought to the scene by divine providence as a source of comfort for the newly dead.  Or perhaps they are just imagary recreations of the loved one's image to create an air of familiarity.  We must resolve such issues with astral evidence, not with wishful thinking that craves a premature harmonization of the possiblities. 

[Matthew:] "Don, your scenario with memory loss implies an impasse or a profound loss as earthly memories are shed.  I have seen you mention the restoration of these memories by God's grace, but sort of brush it off as something ES mentions as a seemingly rare event.  I think this grace is the key event to reconcile the issues you cite from astral adepts (mostly Robert Bruce)."

No, I dont "sort of brush it off" as rare.  At this stage I am merely trying to deliniate the paramaters of the memory problem and possible solutions as a prelude to offering my own proposal.   Astral adepts and their fans generally extend their Ghetto mentality to other astral explorers, and so, do not take contrary experience-based evidence seriously.   With all the contradictory claims, one cannot simply rely on direct experience.  Either many explorers must be deluded in important ways or an unforseen synthesis is possible.   Currently, I am sketching out the options that might facilitate such a synthesis. 

Don

To imply permanent memory loss does not sit well with many aspects of after death communication.  Also, it invokes a "Chumley" kind of fear, that despite our love for family and friends, most of us will lose the ability to remember our earth lives.  

My solution to the presence of loss of memory and rarity of after death communication is simple; we are either aware of this process or we are helpless to stop it.  I choose the former.  It is my strong belief that free will enables us to make decisions in the physical and in spirit (as above, so below).  We are also more complicated beings than the simple separate individual soul model can explain.  

I believe that when we focus our attention on new tasks and other divine activities, if someone interviews us, (i.e. an astrally flying Robert Bruce), we may not have total recall of our earthly memories.  Many examples of ADCs suggest that grief of a living relative may prevent a loved one from "moving on."  On to what?  To another activity that can not be linked to the living family member, I suppose.  

That being said, it seems that a part of us, through PUL remembers our relatives, and is with them when they need us for support.  To learn about PUL as we ascend to heaven, yet to forget our loved ones completely would be to create an illogical divine law.  This is why Swedenborg states that we can be brought back to our complete and detailed earthly recall after our inner selves have moved on through God's grace when it is suited.  If we are all co-creators with God, and have a spark of divinity in ourselves, and are supposed to grow in terms of PUL, can there be any doubt that permanent memory loss is not our spiritual fate?

God's grace is ever present.  Our love is there always, as is the love of heaven.  I therefore can't see how mandatory spiritual amnesia that is permanent is a viable option.  More likely, it is a selective focusing of consciousness on a new spiritual task with a temporary forgetting of one's earthly life.


Matthew

I am with Doc on this one.  The evidence for memory loss after death is apparent.  That is not the question.  The question is, what are the circumstances conditioning this loss of memory.  The two possible answers to this question are that (1) the memory loss is permanent, and (2) the memory loss is temporary.   

(1) If the memory loss is permanent, this would imply that we have been loosing our memory from the begining of our very existance.  If it happens after our lives on earth, then it's happened before it as well, and you can't just pick and choose what you want erased from your memory-one memory is just as valid as them all- which means that it is not only our earthly lives we forget, but everything in our memories. Who we are, our very essence, would be forgotten, erased from our minds. We would find ourselves in a state of confusion, not knowing who we are or what our purpose was.  Of course, this would have happened far before our lives on earth, unless you belief your existance began with this life(which I doubt anyone on this site believes). This theory contradicts with the evidence from NDEs where the person would be greeted by guides and helpers, and upon seeing these beings immediately remember who they were and their relationships with them from a time far before their life on earth.  Our experiences, especially those of PUL, are what cause us to spritually grow, fills our being with more PUL, brings us closer to oneness with god.  If we loose the memories of these experiences and forget they ever happen, then we also loose that PUL.  If you become someone, and you forget who that person was, then you are no longer that person.  If this theory held ground, it would basically mean we would be doomed of an everlasting cycle of gaining PUL and loosing it again.  That is not our purpose, that is not what [we,I,god] intended.   

(2) If the memory loss was only temporary, depending upon the current circumstances of the beings existance, this would make much more sense.  It is perfectly logical that engaging in a new spiritual journey would change our state of mind, our vibrations, and our track of thought from our current level to a higher one.  If you ask a man swimming the 100 in the Olympics what movie he saw the first monday of last month while he is swimming, he is going to have no idea, his state of mind is focused on a totally new thing and his train of thought is on a different level.  It does not mean that movie is totally wiped from his memory, just that he cannot recall it at the moment.   

It is obvious that memory loss is a recuring theme of ADCs.  However, this does not mean that our memories are totally wiped clean as we spiritually progress after our earthly lives.  In fact, this is quite an absurd theory.  Conditional, temporary memory loss not only perfectly explains the same data, but is much, much, much more logical.   

Well put Doc and OOBD.

I believe that the transition into the afterlife would be a much smoother experience with a gradual increase in past Earth-life memories. Also, as Doc mentioned: "Spiritual progression may require a new type of consiousness, where we are more concerned with God's love and the unity of all things than the duality we find in the physical world."

It's something that would have to be experienced with the vast spiritual myriad sensory input to be fully understood.

PUL,
Cosmic_Ambitions

Hi Don-

Strangely, I find the story of Leonard more disturbing than reassuring.  Let's briefly replay what happened....Leonard's son, daughter-in-law, and two small grandchildren are killed in a plane crash. 

One day, his son Jeff suddenly appears, seemingly in the flesh, and the two of them go for a short drive with Jeff at the wheel.  Jeff reassures his dad that everyone is alive and well.  Then he announces he is not permitted to stay any longer, exits the truck and disappears into the woods.

Even after this amazing experience, Leonard still grieves.  Shortly thereafter, Karen, Jeff's wife, appears to Leonard while he is out for a walk.  She admonishes him that he needs to move on.

Finally Leonard accepts what he's been told and gets on with his life.

On the face of it, this is truly an amazing experience.  We read about people having dreams about their deceased loved ones, and other types of contacts that can be interpreted as reassurances from our loved ones that they are ok.  But this is a whole other dimension.  Both Karen and Jeff not only appear, but manipulate their physical environment.  Jeff drives a pickup truck, and Karen's footsteps actually cause branches to crackle.  In other words, they seemingly become physical in nature.  They are able to do what other spirits cannot.  For example, alcoholics who hang around bars trying to imbibe liquor.  Their hands simply pass thru the bottle.  They cannot move physical objects.

What enabled Jeff and Karen to do this?  The easy answer is that Leonard's grief was so deep and distressing that they were given a special and rare gift in order to let Leonard get on with his life. 

But this just begs a larger question.  Millions of people experience grief just as deep as Leonard's.  Countless numbers of parents lose children to disease or other causes of death, sometimes cruel such as kidnapping and murder.  And these people suffer from grief for years, sometimes until they themselves die. Nothing occurs along the lines of Leonard's experience. 

So at least to me, this story doesn't bring comfort.  In fact, when you think about it, it's easy to become angry.  Assuming this story is true (and I have no reason to doubt Don whatsoever), why don't we hear of other similar accounts?  Why are parents of missing or murdered children not given the comfort that was given to Leonard?  It strikes me as totally unfair, arbitrary and capricious. 

If it can happen once, it should be entirely possible and even probable that it should happen many times.  What makes Leonard so special?  What was it about his grief that justified such a remarkable intervention? 

In fact, if it didn't really happen...if it was really a lucid dream so convincing that Leonard believed it happened in his waking life....that would actually make more sense to me.

Don:

Since you mentioned Betty Eddie, in one of her books she states that the advantage we have over demonic beings, is that they can't read our minds.  If she is correct,  and again, since you mentioned her as a source, how could such a being trick us into believing that we're communicating with a deceased loved one, if they can't even read our minds.

She stated that they determine if a person is somebody who can be influenced by looking at their aura.