DocM
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Dude,
"Swedenbarf" and "Swedenbogus" and "Swedenbiotch?" You are showing your youth and level of maturity, by demeaning one of the most insightful and educated and by all reports good-natured men of his time. Have you read any of his writings? If you did, and could understand that he was not putting through some standard church dogma, you'd be singing a different tune.
He had one of the most brilliant, systematic and logical minds of his time (or any other), had numerous inventions and patents prior to his spiritual phase which rivaled other great minds/thinkers such as Davinci and Gallileo. But most importantly, his quest for knowledge was without preconceived notions. Unlike the church of his time, he was told, most emphatically by deceased people, that those who believe in a holy trinity but do not understand the unity that is God, just don't get it, and don't move on until they do. Many considered this to be heresy at that time and place, and some wanted him tried for heretical writings.
This is not to say that Swedenborg (please take note of the correct spelling), did not have belief systems, however, he was open minded. Read what he has to say about time and space in heaven. He said that those spirits he conversed with could not understand linnear time as we do on earth. For them, it was only understood as a change of state (from one state to another), but time did not exist for them. Likewise, he described the difference in terms of space and distance in heaven. What he found was that distance/space really depended on thought. Bring someone to your mind, and it brought them to you. Distance was not a factor (it was instantaneous), merely a property of thought in the spiritual realms. In understanding and writing all this information, he had to have no preset expectations, otherwise he would not have come up with these concepts most foreign to his century (remember, he was born in the 1600s).
The idea that metaphysical writers before Monroe and Moen are flawed without their understanding and experience is absurd. There were profound metaphysical writings over thousands of years, and I would venture to say, it would take the better part of a lifetime to go through and understand a fraction of what is out there.
What strikes me as laughable is how some readers and members on the board fall into their own belief systems when it suits them, and then criticize others for not recognizing their systems. The theory of the disc, and probes is quite interesting, but it is a set of ideas or beliefs. In some ways, I see the disc theory as a step backward because it still separates us from God and the divine by an intermediary, step - the disc or oversoul (which is not God, but a complex structure closer on the metaphysical chain to God or "all that is").
The theory of simultaneous incarnations directed by a disc is also just that - and while I like to run hypothetical scenarios by my own thought process too, I think it would be presumptuous to say that this is truly the way things work.
Of course the reincarnation issue is not settled, and will not be by mere debate. In one sense, we all will find the answer upon our demise, if we keep our conscious memories.
Don is merely pointing out that many take the reincarnationalist view for granted, without considering that those who experience past lives may be merging with the memories of another in a mental realm, where such transference of thought is thorough and common (read up on TMI versions of "thought balls").
Matthew
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