In the Philip experiment, a group of table sitters created a character named philip, who then rapped on the table, spirit style, to respond to questions put to him. He answered according to the biography they had created for him.

I have read descriptions of BSTs in which the appropriate resident god was apparently also created by the same process that the BST was created. In other words, the BST came with its resident god.

In one BST, the appearance of Jesus coming way off in the sky, as described in Luke, was enacted for the benefit of the people in that BST that believed that story. It was a staged performance of that story, arranged by the people higher up in the BST.

In his book Far Journeys, Robert Momroe described a BST presided over by a strange god, who had everyone lie down on the floor whenever the god appeared.

There are other stories like this, where the resident god did not seem quite "normal" according to most of the descriptions we hear.

I think all consciousness becomes interconnected at a higher level.  When we experience something like that either or both: we interpret the experience according to our own needs and beliefs or the higher conscious point of view, it speaks to us in terms that will be meaningful to the particular individual.

Never heard of the Philip experiment Boris mentions but that illustrates it.  Here several people created an expectation or belief and Philip lived up to it.  Expectation and belief are powerful.

Rob

it seems thoughts are things and whatever we conceive heaven to be right now, we form these thought forms that are called self creations. so we create this way the afterlife. so for instance the nde person u describe, to my perception, while they were in a physical body they had some thought put into the hell and heaven realms; they imagined Jesus would explain everything once they died. sure enough, they die and a guide comes along and takes the form of Jesus, to get his attention for one thing. as the guide can look into his mind and see, he only wants to talk to Jesus as his whole life that was the expectation and we have this tunnel vision over there. the guide will take any form necessary to get his attention. Not that JC does not appear for real, but in this case I sincerely doubt this was a real manifestation of JC, but a guide that was showing this person his own thought formation and his own beliefs about where he thought he "deserved" to be sent. then I am sure if the guide did not retrieve the person to a better place, the guides come back, or another one does until there is success. in this case they guy came back to his body and interpreted his experiences according to his best perceptions of what it was like over there for him, not for everybody.

one thing I noticed about this board, a lot of people carry a belief or fear of hellish regions, so that is only guilt feelings. we can get over guilt feelings here by meditating on ourselves, checking the guilt monitor, doing self retrievals, having chats with people we are in disharmony with, in the end we all have already been forgiven because we never left the heart of god in truth, we are dreaming we are here. but I don't expect anyone to understand that concept that you are innocent therefore don't have to form thought forms of hell to experience.  I'm not saying theres no justice or punishment for deliberate wrongdoing, as working on yourself entails suffering in itself, but it's best to leave this old world with a satisfied mind, now lol, I have to resort to song lyrics again...Dabears! stop me!   There's a tremendous amount of literature on NDE's, we have to learn the truth from gleaming the commonalities that run through the lot of them, and that would be closest to the truth.

love ya DaBears...

I believe it is a mistake to believe that one can create the experience of Christ according to one's belief, but not do the same thing when experiencing things according to how a person like Robert Monroe has defined things.

Regarding people having an NDE where Jesus shows them a fire and brimstone like hell realm; first of all, I've read a lot of NDEs and that kind of experience is rare and contradicts the experiences of others. Some fundamentalists claim that NDEs come from satan. I wouldn't be surprised if some fundamentalists have made up NDE experiences in order to contradict NDEs that they believe come from satan.

I believe NDEs are partly a mix of what we believe, partly a mix of what spirit guidance tries to show us, and partly a mix of what the spirit World wants to communicate to people.

Regarding the first and second factor, if a person is really stubborn about fundamentalist ideas, it might be difficult for such a person to have an NDE that doesn't include fire filled hell realms. Therefore, guidance might not have a choice.

Regarding the third factor, my feeling is that the divine powers that be understand that there is a lot of confusion here in the physical when it comes to what spiritual truth is. They want to improve what our overall understanding is, get us to me more open to loving viewpoints, but it is hard to do so when people have minds that are closed in various ways. Therefore, they arrange for various types of NDEs to take place, so different audience members can be reached. The hope is that a time will come where people will no longer believe in things such as a wrathful, vengeful God and eternal damnation.

I believe it is more than a matter of belief. It is also a matter of how open to love a person is. If a person is vengeful and insists on seeing souls get tortured for all of eternity, he or she won't have the freedom to go beyond his or her fire and brimstone belief system.  On the other hand, if a good hearted person has a fundamentalist belief system, the love in his or her heart will allow he or she to have an NDE that goes way beyond a vengeful mindset. Many fundamentalists have had such experiences. DaBears posted an NDE not too long ago where a Baptist lady had an NDE that went beyond the fundamentalist viewpoint. I was able to experience heaven years ago, even though I was very atheistic at the time. Perhaps because I still had enough openess of heart to do so. 

Thomas Sawyer's NDE is one of the best I've read. He experienced things to extent where it is hard to believe that he was heavilly influenced by his preconceived concepts.

http://www.near-death.com/experiences/reincarnation03.html

Wow Dabears!

I didn't say that at all. If anything, I said the opposite. I was referring to what people experience during an NDE. Not what is actually true. Perhaps I need to take a writing class.


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So, let me get this right.. You are saying that those stuck in the belief system of fire and brimstone hell, might be stuck there forever... Since, they can't see past the falsities of their beliefs?? On afterlife101.com they said those in hell will always be saved quite briefly.. Because they will be helped by guides.. They will see the truth once they asked for help..


peace [/quote]

Dabears asked: Hey I liked that NDE I read it awhile ago and I'm glad you brought it back to my attention! Was he saying that Jesus is God?? God is everyone imo...
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I don't get that impression at all. I haven't got it all figured out, but my feeling is that the Christ principle existed long before Jesus incarnated on this earth. This principle has something to do with how God manifested.  Jesus was an incarnation of this principle.  My guess is that there are places in the universe that don't use the terms "God" and "Christ."  They probably don't use the word "love" either. This doesn't mean that these principles don't exist in a manner that is way beyond what can be contained in the letters of a name.

Like you, I believe that God is everywhere. Even the computer screen you're looking at now is a part of God. What else is there?

Da Bears said: Great to see were on the same page.. You're a great Christian.. I like how you use love in your words and not fear like most Christians!!


"I don't know about all Christians having fear. The Catholics I grew up with for the most part weren't motivated by fear. I've never heard them speak in terms of satan, demons, eternal damnation etc. I don't know what percentage of Christians think in such a way.

My feeling is that fear is on the same side of the fence as hate and anger, so it is better to inspire people through love. This doesn't mean you can't warn people about things that are unfavorable.  Life isn't all peaches and cream."