Don-

Yes, I found Rev Vincent's book probably one of the most reaffirming books about the existence of the afterlife and the reality of retrievals that I have ever read.  He had no interest in promoting himself, unlike so many others.  Also he had a deep religious faith and proved it by spending many years as a missionary.  As I recall, everything he reported was the result of his own personal experiences.  No mediums were involved. 

I love how you saw Kojak just before you wrote your post responding to my own post about Tavalas.  Probably just a case of Telly wanting to make sure we know his story was true!  When I heard him tell about it on radio many years ago, he graphically related how he had felt once he learned the man had died years before.  I have no doubt that he was telling the truth.  Especially in those days, someone who freely talked about such stuff would probably have jeopardized his career, and might have been written off as a nut.  All the more reason to believe it actually happened.

On a different note, it's apparent how many people there are on this board that appreciate your contributions and definitely want you to stay.  Your posts are well written and stimulating.  Unlike so many others who post just the same old woo-woo stuff, you give us food for genuine thought.  You also educate us.  Please don't let a few folks chase you away.  They don't speak for the rest of us by any means. 

There are precious few theologians who also have an abiding interest in exploring the nature of the afterlife.  Yes, you tend to post long, sometimes difficult material to absorb, especially in this day and age of instant gratification and short attention spans.  Who knows, maybe you'll awaken some dormant brain cells in the rest of us along the way.

Hi All! Again,it's been a long time since I've posted on these boards, but here lies one of the first significant places of help through probably the most challenging time in my life thus far...so I like to check in when feeling up to it, and have a bit of time on my side. I notice, that as much as I love to simply read through several topics, if I'm going to post at all, it should be right after reading the original poster...then I have the added fun when I go back and read through the entire thread....I can be long winded as it is...forget it as I pick up yet more and more information....lol...

Personally, right now I'm in a transitional stage on many levels, and am finally starting to feel more responsive and the simple passage of time and a grudging willingness on my part to ask for help, has been playing out in ways I hope to someday share about, as I hopefully become stronger from the experience. One thing I found to be very helpful throughout all my life is writing down my ideas and thoughts, and reading the ideas and thoughts of other people. I literally just let myself be drawn to a subject, and decided to try and post my very humble two cents about whatever my mind can dive into at this time...

I want to try to at least loosely,follow the train of thoughts here(very rich and engaging,by the way), and simply put out my little views or experiences...soo,the first question was in thinking about such things like channeling,OBEs, astral travel,NDEs, and finally ADCs....and how much relevance is given to each of these. I'm one of those(I'm not sure where my lable lies,lol) that has always been attracted to these subjects,and since I love to read, found as much literature on these sudjects as I could, b/c I have had personal experiences with all of the above...and I don't say that in any way as a la-ti-da kind of way at ALL....I have been learning and my understanding about all of them,and experiences with all these things have continued on,and I constantly am interested in hearing the differing view points on the "why"s and "how"s of it all from many different places and people. I feel blessed b/c I feel no conflict within myself about one thing...that all religions, and experience or relating with something outside our immediate selves, or inside, for that matter....that it is a very personal and individual thing to each person,and there are many paths to the same creative source,and some common denominators about life. I am pretty eclectic in my beliefs....and each experience that I've had with any of the above mentioned things, has been important to me usually on many different levels, and that I think all of them have value. It's kind of the way I feel about my two sons...they are both so entirely different personalities...and they compliment each other and myself perfectly...I honestly cannot say I love one over the other, and the love would be the kind that is not comparable. I'll never tire of reading yet more and more experiences like these from others that have them...it has been a gift.

There was a valid question of why verifications of post mortem survival are so rare...or seemingly rare,esp.the more spectacular kinds...and that is something that I've wondered about myself(whereas it seems that I've been lucky to have a rather rich supply, and then others none,and maybe just none"yet",or it isn't time,or perhaps they've already mastered these things in another way,at another time....who knows?)...and have since had my own thoughts on these things....some people I believe we have more immediate karma, work,or need of closure with...etc....and then I think probably there are certain processes that some of us have to go through that could make it at least not in our own time, wether that's the deceased or "survivor". I can offer one humble example of this in my life.My grandmother died when I was like 11 turning 12.She happened to be very sensitive, dare I say psychic...but right from a very young age her and I clicked,we were very close...and my mom admittedly even envied that a bit...b/c her own relationship with her mom was often strained...my mom is downright fearful of her own sensitivities, so kind of rejected that in her mom, to really simplify this...and I was/am way more like my grandmom...I felt her when she died, I knew what time she left, even before going home and getting the news, b/c it was unexpected, and my parents were amazed that I knew, before they told me...but anyway...even though their relationship was often strained, there was real love there,and my mom and grandmother made a pact...my mother told me about this...that whoever died first, would come back, if there was life after death, and make it known to the other.....it was a kind of chuckled at thing,but known in the family. However,my mom got increasingly frustrated, b/c she said that even though she could feel love for her and maybe a vague sense of love from her,she hadn't experienced anything.....she knew that my grandmom would remember the promise...but nothing(although there has been some instances now, years later, but my mom is more open now, as well)...anyway....my godmother was my mom's best friend at the time...she only recently died herself,from cancer....but she was very close to my mom,and she really liked my grandmom,though she is a total skeptic, or was, in anything like an afterlife. Anyway...It was a couple years after(she died),and I was in my toughest teen years,running away,and spending long periods of time on the run...and my mom was understandably, distressed. So...one night,my mom said she was awakened suddenly from a sound sleep, about 2am, to the sound of "someone"calling her name, very loudly,and in her ear,so that she woke up and tried looking for who was calling her....she said she couldn't recall the sound of the voice, but that it was loud.The next day my mom's best friend and my godmom called my mother, very very shaken...she wanted to tell my mother about something that happened to her the night before, but first swore her to secrecy...finally my mom got from her that the night before, around 2am, she recieved a phone call. My godmother said she was immediately awake, and phone calls at that hour were something alarming,thinking of her five kids...etc... she swore that it wasn't a dream....(I had a phone experience myself, years later) but she continued on that when she picked up the phone,it sounded kind of like a long distance connection at first, but then started coming in clearer, and to her amazement, it was my grandmother.They had been friends in life,she knew her voice, but couldn't believe what was happening. Anyway, my grandmother reportedly told her that the reason that my mom hadn't "heard" from her was b/c of my mother herself..she said that my mom on a subconscious level decided it was too risky at this time in her belief system,to be able to hear her...she said she tried and tried but my mom could not hear,and that there was some kind of universal laws about the receiver being ready to recieve....she told her that finally, she was able to call her,so that she could give my mother the message she wanted to give at that time,which was not to worry about me(I was on the run, gone for months, homeless,hiding...etc..and at this time,I had some of the most intense spiritual experiences in my life thus far...and I felt very much taken care of,care free,unlike my present self, lol...)she wanted my mom to have faith that I had many spiritual watchers and guardians, and it was in my destiny somehow,and that I was well loved......My mom told me about it years later,and now recently, she's actually started having some ADCs herself...and she says now that she cannot really explain it, but that she believes now,that she would not have been ready at the time, even though she wanted it to happen,if my grandmom had contacted her...but that's only one tiny little instance, but the first that came to my mind.

There was some mention about the planes of astral travel,and ADCs...and I think that is interesting,I cannot wait to hear more when I read through, about the focus levels and such.I only know that I intuitively understand what is meant here,and I feel that certain dream states,astral travel,and ADC's are at least close to each other in dimension, or for lack of better terminology right now, levels of being...sometimes it has felt to me that there are almost tangible sensations in between these, and I for one...am content that I will spend the rest of this lifetime at very least exploring these.....and as I read information sometimes with certain material it feels more like an "Oh Yeah"experience, like I knew the info without having the conscious thought words to it, but it was like riding a bike, it all started flooding back materials with many instances for me...and I know I have so much to learn and explore,and am even one that suspects I'm not real "at home" in a physical body....and I feel kind of "homesick" all the time,to what I feel is a truer representation of my nature and myself...but so much can happen in a day! With so much of the rest, I picked up on what you said about best remaining open.....definately my feel...I hope I can remain teachable and open......

Sometimes silence says volumes...again,just my own take....like reluctance to enter into too much debate with others in similar fields,but with personal experiences...could it be as easy as knowing that there are so many realities,so many options,possibilities? So much is what we make it...so there might be little room,at least for me, I would hope that my experiences  would not cloud anyone elses,or to say that theirs, if unlike mine is not as valid,....again, I find wisdom in different explorations...and I think it will always be personal in a way, but I find myself so much more tolerant of other peoples experiences,and have learned so many times almost nothing is impossible.....and/or a "mistake" and hope that my reality continues to change and grow,as much as I can handle it to at a time.

I think it would be good for me to wrap up my end here... I have wondered too at sometimes what seem to perhaps be "imposters" coming through in a reading,seance,whatever it be called...and think that there might be many reasons or combinations of them for that....sometimes I think too, that perhaps a loved one might need helpers to help them energetically get to the point where they can express their thoughts as fluidly as some can....like a kind of "medium"on the other side, or after death...however it is put...and again,I think that the feeling of "I just knew"is probably the best thing to go with the gut feeling....of course there is the idea of picking up on the surviving people's thoughts, memories, feelings, knowledge of events...etc..and then there is the channel itself, we are all in some kind of transition,I think ...so in the end it has to be personal discretion and intuition....unfortunately sometimes it can be too easy to underestimate ourselves....or the myriad of possible interferences...I think at the end of the day,we all have to make peace with our own gut feelings and intuitions, and try and remain open to change......

Whew! What a mouthful...again,I'm grateful,and always will be to this site b/c it offers a place to put these thoughts out and exchange them with each other....I was happy to have the time today, and hope to be reading up some more....I love the minds in here,,,take care all...Tanja

Don-

I am much more impressed with the retrievals mentioned in Rev. Vincent's book Lighted Passage than I am with anything I have read on this website.

And consider this.....Vincent did not communicate with those he retrieved.  He was able to direct them to the light, but that was all.  There were no conversations. Because their vibrations were closer to physically living people, they could perceive his presence.

I am leery of anyone claiming that they conversed with those they "retrieved."  I think that's where we are getting thrown a curve.  It's much more likely that conversations are the product of our own wish fulfillment than actual contact with the deceased.

I sometimes come close to throwing out the baby with the bath water, until I re-read Vincent's book.  That was written in the 1940s, before the internet and during a time when the whole notion of retrievals was pretty much unknown.  Not only that, the book itself was not about retrievals but about the death of his daughter.  It just so happened that WWII was raging at the time, and deaths among the military on all sides was extremely high.  And Vincent tells us toward the end of the book about his "rescue" work involving dead soldiers.  I don't know for certain, since Vincent has long since died, but I'd be willing to bet that no sort of nonverbal communication took place, otherwise he surely would have written about it.

And therein lies the difference.  I recall that Bruce's account of his retrieval work re. the earthquake victims was along the same lines as Vincent, in that he guided them to the light but did not communicate with them. 

Also, Vincent considered his retrieval work to be highly spiritual in nature.  It was not a parlor game with him.  In fact, he prayed for guidance before engaging in that activity.  I think that our motivation in attempting retrievals is key.  I wish Vincent had told us how he even knew about the whole concept of retrievals in the first place.

I agree with you Betson.  I would not attempt to claim that my experiences are anything other than what I have reported. They are what I experienced.  However, in attempting to convey "conversations" I think it is important to note that these things do not occur for me as if I am sitting in someone's living room and talking with them, literally hearing voices. It is an impression of what I am trying to communicate and an impression of what is being communicated to me, through ideas, words and feelings.

I don't know what other people's experiences feel like, so I can only describe my own. I don't approach anything like this as if it were a parlor game. If there are humorous elements, or what some might consider "wacky" elements to some of them, that is not my concern. My concern is in simply attempting to learn from new experiences.

I'm sure there are those who regularly do retrievals, methodically, and never report them. However, those of us who do are simply performing what anyone would do who is given such an opportunity. When I am in deep meditation I do not have control over what happens.  It simply happens.

I appreciate Betson's consistent interest and appreciation for everyone's efforts. This is a site dedicated to Bruce Moen and it is fitting, since he has expressed his own concern about these matters, that those of us who feel up to it, actually try to assist in these retrievals, or contacts, or what have you.

If a person is spiritually minded, only good can come of it.  In my experience, any kind of "psychic" activities, which Bruce does not claim this to be anyway, cannot be performed successfully without the correct attitude of respect for the process.

It just doesn't work, not for me, unless I am mentally in the right "place" and I doubt if it works for others either unless they are too.

The other day I pulled out a tarot book which I had not looked at for a while. I opened to a page, which happened to be the "death" or "rebirth" card description. I had been in a meditative state most of the day. I shuffled the cards.  I pulled a card.  It was that same card.

When these kinds of synchronicities occur on a regular basis, you know you are in contact with something important.

Much respect and love to you all, blink  

Regarding what Don (Berserk) wrote:

First of all, I don't believe it is fair to state that retrievels are nothing but imagination if one hasn't taken the time to partake in them.

Second of all, it isn't a matter of tricking stuck spirits, it is a matter of people in the physical providing them with a vibrational rate they can perceive. The ability to see light energy goes along with the ability to feel love. If a stuck spirit isn't open to experiencing love, it won't be open to seeing spirits with a higher vibrational rate that manifest God's love and light more than they do. That's what really happens during so called out of body experiences. Your vibrational rate increases and you perceive what you weren't able to perceive before.

If Don wants to consider a source other than Moen, he could consider George Ritchie's book Return from tomorrow.  George Ritchie wrote the following while speaking of a hell like realm:

'That entire unhappy plain was hovered over by beings seemingly made of light. It was there very size and blinding brightness that had prevented me at first from seeing them. Now that I had, now that I adjusted my eyes to take them in, I could see that these immense presences were bending over the little creatures (human spirits) on the plain."

If you read pages 66 through 67 of George Ritchie's book you'll find that the spirits in this realm couldn't see Jesus nor the light beings that eagerly waited to help them.  The same was true for Ritchie until his vision increased.







[quote author=Berserk link=1168058488/45#52 date=1174343193]Betson,

Astral explorers often claim that afterlife progress is a function of spiritual growth which changes the energetic make-up of the confined retrievee.  The use of "tricks" to entice the retrievee out seems in tension with this claim and is precisely the sort of ploy I'd expect imagination to invent in theabsence of real knowledge.  

Hi Don

Thanks for bringing up the subject of reincarnation.  I have written quite a bit on reincarnation and in retrospect can  see how this might be viewed as incorrect - I do apologies if it was seen this way, it certainly is not my intention.

I do believe in reincarnation and have found scriptures hinting at this mystery.  Coincidentially I have been reading the second book of Esra, the prophet, and here the Angel Uriel talks to him and tells him about the souls who are waiting in the womb until Judgement day.  This has me pondering reincarnation over the last few days quite intensively.

Your knowledge is appreciated and respected and I wouldn't mind discussing it further, if it suits you.

Have run into a really busy patch at work though so might only be able to put forward my post in a couple days but in the meantime I will collect my thoughts and writings together.

Best regards
Caryn

I would remind Recoverer that Bruce himself has repeatedly emphasized the importance of obtaining verification showing that an alleged retrieval did, in fact, occur.  Bruce made this point to those of us attending his northern VA workshop and I'm sure he did the same in others.

You seem to be saying that a retrieval experience is real as long as the retriever believes it to be so.  For what it's worth, that is definitely not what Bruce has been teaching.  In fact, I have long believed that Bruce needs to tighten his definitions of what constitutes verification, because extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. 

If we downplay the importance of verification (and by this I mean solid evidence), we will end up discrediting the entire concept of retrievals.  We will relegate it to the status of a parlor game rather than a serious, spiritually based effort that could really be an essential service to the deceased.

  Sometimes a person (espeically guys on average) have too let go of the left brain part, especially if it tends to be really strong in an individual, and let the right brain part take over more even at the expense of some critical, logical, or materially based thinking. 

  This is why those who are predominantly polarized to the left brain aspect of self, rarely have psychic experiences, because its the right brain aspect of self which actually perceives nonphysically and predominant left brainers via their constant and powerful concentration on critical and logical thinking, it automatically tends to repress the right brain's activity .   Left brain perceives physical and interprets nonphysical perceptions garnered from the right brain part of self.

  This is why there are so many more women on average who are more innately and strongly psychic and intuitive than the majority of men, because there tends to be a greater and more innate balance to the right brain and feminine polarity.   Men have been taught to shut down their feeling and intuitive side, we have largely been brainwashed to reject that "irrational" and invisable side to us, though it sort of stays alive in some mainstream religions.

  While the above tends to be true, or is true on average, at the same time, you will notice that those few who have broke a lot of ground in the spiritual and psychic areas (the Swedenborgs, Cayce's, Monroe's, Yeshua's, Buddha's, etc.), tend to be men more so (not always) because of the greater activity tendencies as well as a more balance with critical and logical thinking, thus they can potentially explain things better in terms that all can understand, from a logical, rational, and reasoning viewpoint.

  It's interesting how females and males balance each other out here in the physical.  I would say on average that there is a greater percentage of faster vibrating and intune females on the earth as compared to males, but that occasionally a male comes along with a greater balance who achieves some really unusually high ground so to speak and more so has as greater or more powerful impact and affect on the collective, but overall the average male is definitely less intune and aware than as compared to women. 

  A nice and odd balance.  Anyways, got really off track here.   Suffice it to say, many men have a hard time incoperating more feminine energy and awareness within self because of the conditioning of (especially western) society towards that of the more purely left brain modes and ways of being, and since the male body represents in the Earth the greater attunement to masculine energy, which is connected to the left brain in a sense. 

Neither one is better than the other, they are meant to be perfectly balanced and merged.   It's imbalance which manifests weakness and incompleteness, and its balance which manifests strength, harmony, and completness. 

  For some, its beneficial for more right brain and less left brain, and for others its more beneficial for more left brain and less right brain.  Pretty much everybody fits into one of those two categories to varying degrees of intensity.  Some have both strongly developed but swing between extremes, and a very few have both almost completely balanced or do have it completly merged.   It does go beyond just left and right brain, masculine and feminine energies encompass more than just that symbolism and comparison.