Hi Carl,
carl wrote on Sep 27th, 2009 at 2:08am:HI Bruce!
How about giving me some other persons testimonies about what you have explained above, including members of your inner website circle? Instead of just writing about it without any written evidence or quotes from others!?
In my view no amount of any other person's testimonies or evidence, mine or anyone elses, can possibly prove that I, or they, have actually experienced anything that existes beyond physical reality. No matter whether it is written, tape recorded, delivered in a face to face contact, delivered with a hand on a stack of Bibles, or in a court of law. There will ALWAYS be room for doubt on the part of someone who has not directly experience these things.
To some that may seem to be a cop out, but after years and years of exploring beyond physical reality I find it to be true. No amount of other people's evidence can be completely convincing. Even after a person begins to have these experiences it is typically difficult to accept ones own experiences as anything other than some sort of self-deceptive hoax. It took me years of having these kinds of experiences before I could begin to believe I wasn't just making them up. I had to find ways to prove it to myself beyond my own doubts. What I finally came up with was what I call the Basic Premise:
1. Find a way to make contact and communicate and communicate with person who is known to be deceased.
2. Gather information from this person you have absolutely no way of knowing except by this contact and communication.
3. Seek to verify within physical reality that this informations is accurate and real.
4. If you can verify the information you still haven't "proven" anything, but you have gathered evidence that this deceased person still exists, somewhere beyond physical reality.
As you can see in posts by others in this thread there are possible alternate explanations to cause dismissal of evidence gathered using my approach. In my case eventually the weight of all the evidence, and its internal consistency within a much larger perspective crushed my doubts. But I tell everyone in every workshop I give to not believe a single word I say, rather, gather your own evidence through your own direct experience, and then come to your own conclusions.
Nothing anyone says can or should be cause for you to change your beliefs, only your own direct experience can or should be cause for you to consider changing your beliefs.
carl wrote on Sep 27th, 2009 at 2:08am:If you can "imagine", as you say often, a new meeting place in the afterlife, then visualizing it into an afterlife fact, then agreeing with others who describe it!
There are two ways this is done in the Partnered Exploring workshops. First, the descriptions of the details Rosalie and I created have been written in the teaching outline I use for years. Those who have attended the workshop more than once would tell you that the descriptions I give don't change from one workshop to the next. Second, there are often real-time events, during the exercises in which we are exploring the Meeting Place, that are verified after the exercises. There are two basic types of these events that often occur during the exercises: interactions between participants; interactions between myself and participants.
Participants routinely encounter each other, nonphysically, during the exercises and routinely verify whatever mutal experience they had together.
Sometimes during an exercise I will attempt to interact with individuals or groups, nonphysically, in a way that might be remembered by them after the exercise and serve to verify their experience of the encounter. Here's an example from a workshop in Tokyo.
There were about seven groups of participants with five to seven people in each group. I was guiding an exercise to explore the Meeting Place (through a translator) when suddenly realized that I was nonphyically standing with one of the groups. It was a group of five or six women. I decided to try to interact with this group with the intent that they would be aware of my presence in their group and remember the interaction after the exercise. They were standing together, talking (nonphysically) to each other. I moved (nonphysically) to the center of their group and began talking loudly to them (nonphysically) to try to get their attention. That ploy worked and so I began saying and doing things that I hoped they might remember later. As I was doing this I happened to look off to my left (nonphysically) and saw another of the groups in the workshop, and saw that I was also standing (nonphysically) in the middle of that group, talking to them at the same time. This came as a bit of a surprise to me, but it isn't the first time I have found myself in two different places at the same time. Thinking this was a perfect opportunity to give the ladies in the group I was standing in something to remember after the exercise, I made exggerated movements with my hands to get the ladies to focus on them. Then with an exaggerated sweep of my hands I pointed at the other me standing with the other group, hoping they would look at what I was pointing to. When I did this I was in for another surprise as I realized that the me in the other group had done the same thing and that me was pointing back at the me standing with the ladies. And then as I looked around I was in for another surprise. I saw all the other groups (remember, all of this is happening nonphysically) and saw that there was another me standing in each group point a finger at one of the other me's in another group. I hope that description wasn't too confusing.
After the exercise, when I shared this experience with the whole group, one man, named Ken, suddenly looked very shocked. He then shared with the entire workshop group that he had witnessed it all just as I had described, but, he had seen me in all the groups before I had seen myself in the second group. Kn experienced a quite strong belief system crash as a result of his experience. Coincidently (?). Ken was in the second group. Ken also supplied, in his debriefing, details of the Meeting Place that to me indicated that he had been there and observed the place.
BTW, Ken recently informed me that he has written a manuscript for a book, in Japanese of course, and is working toward getting it published.
carl wrote on Sep 27th, 2009 at 2:08am: How do we know you are not just making it up(agreeing with others in their descriptions of your imagined or make-believe place) for future eventual monetary gain?
Carl, the Afterlife Knowledge Guidebook contains every concept, technique and exercise I have ever taught in the Exploring the Afterlife workshop. everything you need to begin learning how to have these experiences is contained in that book. There are written scripts for all twenty-six exercises so that readers can make their own exercise tapes or CDs instead of buying the set I recorded in my own voice. When someone buys a copy of that book in a bookstore my "monetary gain?" is approximately 85 cents. If I am doing this only for the money it is a really inefficient, stupid way on my part to try to swindle people out of their money for my own "monetary gain" don't you think"
carl wrote on Sep 27th, 2009 at 2:08am:How about "imagining" a new place in the afterlife, and telling Don about it, whom I honestly trust, then asking your inner circle group to describe it on your website? Or are you going to put this into your "too hard basket?"
Carl, I don't have any "inner circle group." And if you expect that doing this would actually prove anything to you, in my opinion, it is not something for the "too hard basket" it goes into the "impossible to do basket." If it is someone else's experience there wll ALWAYS be some room for you to doubt it, distrust it, and dismiss it. In my opinion to prove it to yourself is only possible through your own direct experience.
Carl, are you going to put this task into "your too hard basket?" "
carl wrote on Sep 27th, 2009 at 2:08am:And bar me and delete this post!?
Carl, the only people (and there are very few of them) who are ever banned from this site are those who, after being warned via email, repeatedly, flaggantly violate the Posting Guidelines. Disagreeing with me isn't listed there and quite frankly I expect folks will disagree with me. Proving the existence of anything that exists beyond physical reality to ones self (let alone to others) isn't an easy task.
Bruce