Of course, we lose contact with the physical and all that this entails--relationships, physical skills, appreciation of Nature's physical beauty, etc.   But that is not what I mean.  I'm starting this topic in response to Kathy's question about Peter Novak's theory.  I think his theory is seriously flawed, but he draws attention to a serious issue that needs further exploration.--what mental functions can be lost at death.  My earlier thread on astral memory loss is clearly relevant here, but I want to broaden my exploration of this issue.  

Let me begin with Robert Monroe's definition of Focus 23 [= the biblical Sheol]:

"A level inhabited by those who have recently left physical existence but who either have not been able to recognize and accept this or are unable to free themselves from the ties to the Earth Life Sustem.  It includes those from all periods of time ("Ultimate Journey"  240)."

Any normal human with the equivalent of his earthly brain should be able to recognize in just a few minutes after death that he is neither dreaming nor still in physical reality.  The failure of so many to recognize their own death indicates a radically diminished mental capacity.  According to Monroe, this diminished capacity seems to be virtually permanent for many souls.  Many souls trapped in Focus 23 even seem to be insane.  I find this widespread condition depressing and wonder how and for whom it might be reversible.

By analogy, I recently realized that, even in my most lucid dreams, my mental capacity in more limited than in my waking state.  True, I see the dream scene in great detail and my 5 senses can be intensely engaged in the experience.  I know that I am dreaming and that my body is "back there" in bed.  I can even argue with my dream characters that I am God in this dream universe and that they are mere figments of my imagination.   But I am never sufficiently lucid to control the reactions of my dream people.   Nor is my memory as focused on the events and agendas of my waking reality as when I'm awake.   If this lucid dream consciousness is the equivalent of what many deceased souls experience in Focus 23, then I can see why they have trouble even discerning that they are dead.    

What part of mental functioning do various categories of the newly dead at least initially lose (memories, intellectual astuteness, critical thinking, spiritual perception, etc.)?   For Focus 23, what distinctions can be drawn between earthbound souls (e. g. alcoholics), those who don't realize they're dead, and those who are insane?  What categories of people only lose these functions temporarily?  What categories lose them indefinitely?  Do we lose other parts of our earthly mental functioning as we "ascend" to higher planes?    

I have been rereading what Presbyterian minister Howell Vincent has discovered about these questions in "Lighted Passage" and how this issue impacts his astral efforts at soul retrievals.  I normally establish a detailed agenda for threads I initiate.  But I am eager to learn from your own reading and astral experiences on this issue, and so, this time I will postpone my discussion of Rev. Vincent's astral insights until I see what you have to share.  

Don  

Don,

"A level inhabited by those who have recently left physical existence but who either have not been able to recognize and accept this or are unable to free themselves from the ties to the Earth Life Sustem.  It includes those from all periods of time ("Ultimate Journey"  240)."

>> Any normal human with the equivalent of his earthly brain should be able to recognize in just a few minutes after death that he is neither dreaming nor still in physical reality.  The failure of so many to recognize their own death indicates a radically diminished mental capacity. <<

From my experience what you are saying is no different than saying that any normal human . . . should be able to recognize in just a few minutes after falling asleep and starting to dream that he is dreaming.  The experience of those "souls trapped in Focus 23" is exactly the same as someone who is asleep and dreaming but unaware of that fact.  While you could call it the result of "diminished capacity" it is exactly the same experience for the "trapped soul" as a physically alive person being asleep and dreaming.  All it takes to escape "this widespread condition" is for that "trapped" person to realize that they are dreaming.  For some "trapped souls" this condition may persist for a very long time indeed.  So "how and for whom it might be reversible"?

From my experience I'd say it is reversible for every person who is "trapped."  It is usually reversed in one of three ways:

1.  Much as is often the case with triggering events that cause the shift from ordinary dreaming to lucid dreaming, some incongruity within that person's experience causes them to question whether or not they are "awake" or "dreaming."  Questioning the reality of their situation can cause the deceased person to become more lucid, realize they've died, and escape their "entrapment."

2.  A nonphysical Helper manages to make their presence known to the "trapped person" and that Helper guides them out of their entrapment.

3.  A physically living Helper like you or me takes on the role of the Helper and either assists another Helper in the guiding process or does it ourself.

Number 3 is why I teach the Art of Retrieval.  We can be involved in ending the deceased person's entrapment by taking part in the process of retrieval.  In Ultimate Journey Monroe describes this process and the Lifeline program he and others at The Monroe Institute developed to teach retrieval.

>>   I can even argue with my dream characters that I am God in this dream universe and that they are mere figments of my imagination.  But I am never sufficiently lucid to control the reactions of my dream people.<<

An alternate possibility might be that the reason you can't control your "dream people" is that they are not "mere figments" of your imagination.  What if they are real people whose existence if independent of yours?  Maybe no matter how lucid you become you won't be able to control these people because their actions are under their own control?

Bruce

#3 also describes the work of Rev Vincent during WWII when he helped soldiers killed on the battlefield to find their way to the light.  As he explained in his book written in the 1940s, the vibrations of a physically alive person made it easier for the soldiers to perceive his presence.  I would guess that sooner or later a Helper would have done the same thing given the number of casualties vs. the number of trained retrievers. 

A larger question is raised by Don-  "What part of mental functioning do various categories of the newly dead at least initially lose (memories, intellectual astuteness, critical thinking, spiritual perception, etc.)?"

I remember the movie Three Faces of Eve, a true story about a schizophrenic.  She had 3 separate, unique and very distinct personalities.  These personalities had no conscious recognition of the existence of the others.  I wonder, when she died, which personality emerged?  All of them?  Or maybe none.  Maybe her spiritual identity absorbed all of the experiences of the 3 earthly personalities?

I don't recall any of Bruce's books discussing the whole question of identity (or in any other materials come to think of it).  Any ideas on this? 

Rondele said:
'I remember the movie Three Faces of Eve, a true story about a schizophrenic.  She had 3 separate, unique and very distinct personalities. '

Aren't the 'split' personalities of a schizophrenic all aspects of one person that the therapist then tries to reunite?  So as Eve moved into the afterlife, her total self would go, or the parts that were too frantic etc might require a partial retrieval. But there would still be the core who is the true Eve. Maybe for dramatic effect and 'tension', the author didn't show Eve reunified.

Bets

Thanks Don!  I don't want to get too far off topic but could you explain the meanings of soul and spirit in the old and new testaments?

Good posts from everyone.  I need to read them more carefully.  Dave mentions association and Albert mentions mind and belief.  I only have time for a quick comment.

We use our energy field to sense the world around us in the physical.  At least the consciousness of the higher spiritual levels remain after death, the lower ones disappear.  What happens to the consciousness of the lower levels?  Do we continue to use our energy field to sense the afterlife?  Or is it mind only?

Sorry gotta run out the door.

K

recoverer wrote on Apr 17^th, 2007 at 1:21pm:

Great post recoverer!! I'd like to say alittle more though.. Yes, people who have strong religious concepts of heaven/hell will have quite a difficult experience with getting beyond their illusions of what happens after death..



People there really is no hell.. God never created it.. Man has created hell with mans' own free will..

I got this from a great site.. About heaven and hell.. Read it below please..

Most religions preach about heaven and hell, and how those who either do or do not believe in one thing or another will inevitably end up in one of these two places. What are hell and heaven? Are they real? Where are they? And who gets to go where? Christianized hell is portrayed as such a real and frightening place filled with monsters and Satan, where one is punished for their sins and suffers eternally. There is no way out. Oh, you know the pictures that have been painted by Dali and other artists depicting the burning pit where those not worthy of being recognized or loved by God are tossed, abandoned and tortured. Damned for eternity.
Heaven, on the other hand, is supposed to be eternal bliss. And only the very worthy end up in heaven, and are showered with flowers, angelic music, and peace. Beauty is all one's sees in heaven. With the stringent demands made on humans to be everything but human, (never mind seeing human as divine) while being constantly reminded that they are sinful and unworthy of heaven, heaven must be very under-populated. In fact, with all those rules to be met, I can't imagine one person being successfully led through those pearly gates! Can you? (No, not even Mother Theresa - she believed that she was less than divine, herself.)

Hell and heaven are very dramatically presented, aren't they? But do we even know what these words mean? Could it be we have all been fed non-sequiturs for centuries to the point where we no longer remember what these words really mean, therefore we live in constant confusion (like the Tower of Babel) because we don't properly use our language? Wow - just imagine what that does to our communcations on all levels with one another!

Hell: Prepare yourselves for a possible shock: The word 'hel' means 'light.' It also means 'earth.' Check your Germanic dictionaries if you don't believe me. In fact, check many languages and find the meaning of the word 'hell.' Some will say it means 'cover.' If hell is such a negative place, then why do we refer to the sun, who gives us life, warmth and nurtures us, as 'helios?" Perhaps the thought of diving into the sun would be hell, itself. Maybe that's how it all originated? But, realistically, you wouldn't even make it that close without first disintegrating. Ah, but then you'd become pure energy, pure light, just like the sun, itself! Your real essence, in other words. Why, we even used to worship* gods representing the sun's energy - Ra, Apollo, for example. So, why would it be something to be feared and avoided, at all costs?

A 'demon in hell' can also be called a 'genius in the light.' Demon, or daemon, has conflicting meanings. It can mean our inner genius, divinity or genie. It is a word sharing the same root thing as 'diamond!' Some dictionaries say demons are inferior divinity or evil spirits. How can they be both? Both divine, genius and evil? Think about it. Do they not cancel one another out? Or, can we put all under one divine umbrella? What definitions have you been taught?

The horns on the devil are also used to depict great divine light emanating through the individual. Same thing was shown with Hathor, Moses, White Buffalo Woman. It is a positive symbol of higher consciousness and knowledge, not evil.

Devil comes from the Sanskrit world meaning 'deva,' which relates to the good angels of the Hindu pantheon. Were you taught that Satan means adversary or plotter? 'Adverse' meaning 'to turn towards?' After Zoroaster and the Persians conquered Hindu territory the conquerers miraculously transformed the Hindu gods into devils! So, the Hindu devas became the Persians devils.

If we look at the pattern of religious manipulation through language, the word "daemon" was changed into having a evil implication. "It was just more Christian propaganda used to brainwash the followers of the Greek and Roman religions into rejecting their old gods in favor of the newly created Christian character," as one scholar explains. This old ploy cunningly used good timing to coincide with the burning of millions of books; books which had they not been burned would have allowed people to see the truth of how they were being lied to. And the word 'evil' probably comes from the same root as the word 'apple,' which is 'upfel.' Who decided that apples were evil? The apple itself isn't evil.

Rabbi Ahron Lopiansky explains that Judaism talks of "Satan/devil," but it sees Satan as "...an agent of God, testing the sincerity of man's deeds, the strength of his convictions, and the stamina of his moral fiber. Although this so-called devil seems to entice man to do wrong, he is not inherently an evil being. Rather, he is conducting a "sting" operation; overtly enticing to bad, but in reality working for God. A cursory reading of the beginning of Job conveys that message: God sends out Satan to test Job's righteousness. Just as a dentist or doctor tests the firmness of a bone or flesh by probing it, just as the army tests the integrity and trustworthiness of its intelligence agents by tempting them, so too does God test man. A test reveals the inner worthiness of a person's deeds, demonstrating what they are really made of."

Heaven: Could this word come from 'heave' - meaning to toss, lift or raise? Those lofty ideas. No doubt it does. And what about 'heavy,' meaning 'weighty.' This can get to be lots of fun, eh? 'Ven' means 'air.' 'Ven' can also be 'van,' which means 'sail,' 'wing,' 'basket,' and it can be a shovel used in testing ore; and of course, it now means a type of large vehicle capable of transporting many people. The more accurate root of "heaven" comes from "haven." The word "heaven" also has its roots in Hebrew in "ha'shamayim," which means "the skies," " high places." Maybe you can come up with some other meanings for it. See the conflicts over and over in modern language?

Worship...another interesting word. "Wor" means literally "war," or "where," and "ship" meaning a "state" or "condition." The word religion is interesting, too. "Re" means "back," or "again," or even "in reference to." "Legion" is "a body of infantry in the ancient Roman army"; or "vast host." Re-legion. Armies of God in a war ship? Is religion about war? Or hosts of God?

Now that the brief etymology portion is over, let's get into the other areas of what these words have come to mean to a great many people in the religious and social sense. In fact, they have come to dictate and control much of our beliefs and lives.





Both heaven and hell are places, dimensions, and overlapping dimensions, created with those of like mind and emotions - thoughts and feelings so intense that it creates a vortex of bioelectomagnetic energy so concentrated that it densifies and materializes. This material form can be ectoplasmic or physical. It takes on the form of the creator's beliefs. This form resonates with like energies, drawing them to one another. (Like attracts like.) This, then, creates a larger vortex of the same energy. And it keeps growing and building and desiring it's life to be continually fed. This, then, becomes a real gathering place.

Hell, as that place of suffering and damnation, stems from a belief that becomes real through the energy we give it by our feelings of being anything less than holy or divine, directly related to guilt, shame, anger, pain, separation, sadness, blame, martyrdom, need for punishment, victimhood, fear. Ironically, the fear of being in what people believe to be hell may actually create that kind of hell, itself.

In the case of hell, the only way these energies can be nourished is by having more of the same energy filling it up, adding more fuel to the fire. In order to stay alive it seeks out its food in many ways. Finding a weakness, such as addiction or anger within a person to attach itself to is one way: Attaching to the little bit of belief in that individual it can use for its own survival. And it can also be utilized by people as in the practice of voodoo to get a life force that can be manipulated and directed. You see, the life force, the energy, never dies. It changes form, and its form can be intentionally changed. These energies will seek out others and build on itself unless we become conscious of them and choose to release them through other avenues.

Hi Bets-
Afterlife-ish? - Actually, the part of psychology in which I specialize is primary process phenomena in pathology and creativity.  I've known several people who would cheerfully have made me more afterlife-ish but I escaped.

Primary process is the operational description for emotional thinking.  It's difficult for me to express verbally because I always use symbols working at home. I'll try to condense.

Very generally, we have a self-definition that includes whatever we feel important, including our existence. To continue being ourselves, we must maintain those attributes by which we define ourselves. Thus, going from moment to moment, we must find a reality in which our self definition is supported.

Attitude is the tendency, or inclination, to make a certain kind of choice given a certain stimulating event. We adopt an attitude that presumably guides us through reality frames (instants of experience) that keep us defined. Emotion is the pressure toward that attitude, so that eg. rage inclines us to batter our adversary, fear inclines us to flee, and so on.

Without a body, our definition is the sum of all the relationships associated with being who we were in the past. Thus, without a body, we are just history, plus a dynamic tendency for interaction. Emotion arises as the logical projection of our history, and manifests as the dynamic. Were the available realityinto which to next move our existence to not support all of our definitions, then those fall off. This is sensed as some kind of suffering.

Within the range of our experiences carried in our history, which is the entropic definition of the soul, more or less in Edgar Cayce's terms, we can move about, and thus we can "think" to some degree. This is how a meditator "thinks" while in deep trance. But this is absolute, black and white, dichotomous thinking that either fits us into some future option, or does not. Thinking in this sense, is an emotional activity, in that it carries our entire attitude toward life, the universe, and everything.*  With this kind of thinking, we more or less "live the thought", as opposed to abstract thought and rational knowing. Thus, the thought is, of itself, also the motivating factors normally sensed when we have an "emotional experience".

The reason that we "live the thought" in primary processing is that the mechanism by which it is handled is our collection of attributive relationships with the world, so that these are altered as we alter our attitudes. In this way, the physical body is involved in emotions when we have one, and when we don't, our definition as an historically supported event is altered.

Were we to be able to exist as a static structure, matters might be different, but our existence is in the dynamic between instants of external definition. Thus, as we "live the thought" we also alter attitudes and the choices made. The options for participation in some of the other available future states are more likely in some cases, less so in others. But we are forced, willy nilly, to participate, because only in the dynamic do we exist. (Tha's why Freud said that we have two dynamic goals - total pleasure in our actions, "eros", like Juditha having sex with a succubus, or we can gravitate toward placidity and minimal effort, "thanatos", the state that Chumley seems to be seeking, so that he doesn't get drafted into some unspeakable spirituality.)

There is a specific kind of logic associated with emotional "thinking" which is most conveniently reduced to three interdefinitive aspects (as compared to the everyday world in which the relationships of the parts are rarely important). These three aspects are process, relationals, and substantives, They are the same as in quantum analysis of events.

Egyptian lore (eg. Papyrus of Ani) emphasized the necessity for the dead soul to be at peace with all three of these aspects, and with their seven logical products, and their 127 logical products as well, where is why there is a "negative confession" in Maati of 42 traits that would be destructive. (42 actve traits, 84 relational and substantive traits ignored, plus being Osiris, gives 127. - The same theme is echoed inside tombs where we often see it as 127 serpents.)

This is a lousy description because it's abstract, while the topic is any but abstract. I suggest that to "get the feeling" you imagine placing yourself in various states of existence in the world, noticing the physical and emotional changes that are implied. Tibetans seem to use this type of "thinking" to accomplish all manner of worldly tasks while in unbroken meditation. All that is needed is to be "in accord" with everything around us, so that everything serves. I think Catholics call this a "state of grace.

* that's 42 according to the Hitchhiker's Guide:-)

Hope this is useful-
dave

berserk,

The true man is the soul, comprised of matter, very fine matter, and, formed out of etheric energy. At the physical term called death, the spirit, made from the same energy, that the soul is in cased in, both leave the physical body with all if its Earthly mental functions, memories, emotions, feelings, and the ego.

The brain is merely a biological organ, that the soul transmits electric pluses to the brain, to allow stimulation, and for the thought process to exist, along with triggering nerve pulses to animate the muscles and the body, and it's various fuctions to experience this physical enviorment..

The purpose of the spirit body, is to create indviduality of the soul, as it grows within the body, to create the duplicate you in spirit form. This idenity, and your soul energy is what separates you from others in the spirit world, this is your spiritual signature.

Once we all leave this physical existance, by way of the endless ways we all exit this world into the next, along with our beliefs, determines our place in the spirit world. Although not a permanent condition, we all come to light eventually.

Those that have near death experiences, are not the same as true death, and are having an sprirtual experience, and of created illusion by the brain being forced to evaluate two worlds at once, thus experiences everything by way of their beliefs.
This wher they encounter highly evloved spirit; the being of light, that knows them completely, and explains to them there weaknesses, and stengths.

This where they see their life for what it really is, and what it means, or doesn't mean to all those that they are conected to. The only thing a near death experience is used for, is to reaffirm ones life plan, and to get them back on track. There are no coincidences, these indviduals have these experiences for this very reason.

Dimensionally Yours,
Rick