DocM
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Roger,
I understand your point that even "verified information" may not mean proof of an afterlife. Explanations such as "ESP" "mindreading" and the like are always brought up. You say you would want a firewall to know that any information gleaned was not forgotten and then remembered.
Ah, if it were only that simple. The fact is, that we are, at our most basic level manifestations of unique points of consciousness. At times, it appears that we may access information that is known to the universe, but that we, as earthly individuals would have no way of knowing. Cayce called this th akashic records. Jung wrote of a collective unconsciousness. In Monroe/Moen speak, there may be a hall of records or information center in Focus 27.
So how do we know if an ADC is an ADC or our own consciousness accessing this vast knowledge base? How do we know whether a medium is speaking to our departed loved one, or accessing the information without true communication via ESP or another method of information gathering? Where is the ultimate proof? Some would say "we just know" when its real. A subjective experience.
That isn't very satisfying, is it? Yet our conscious awareness must by its very nature be subjective. Objective reality seems to consist of a physical plane where the rules are agreed upon by a multitude of individual points of consciousness. These appear to us as unbreakable laws while we live (gravity, laws of physics, etc.). Our rational minds like to make these laws immutable, yet we always seem to find exceptions that bend the rules. Although we may cite certain laws in physical space as objective, we find that our own experience is always subjective.
Take Don's dream, for example, in which he wrote of having a lucid conversation with a person (perhaps a deceased friend or colleague- I don't recall exactly) at an outdoor cafe, and touching their chest to see if they were real. On awakening, he knew it was just a dream. Yet during his dream, for all intents and purposes, to his conscious mind it was his present reality.
I put it to you that no one can ever pass your test of infallibility for afterlife communications. One can always conjure up other plausible explanations. What seems clear, beyond doubt, is that those who experience direct communications from loved ones appear profoundly affected and changed by the experience. They feel the proof, apart from the confirmatory evidence. And nothing can convince them that it wasn't authentic.
Matthew
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