I have one questions which puzzles me as an atheist. Having read Moen's books,
then tried out doing retrievals, and also written some of them down on this site,
I'm still wondering...

Why are there so many Christians here referring to God?

Reading both Monroe's and Moen's books, there seems to be indications of the opposite.
Deceased people appear as "angels" to help some people easier move to F 27. People
believing in any kind of Earthly religion usually gets stuck in the BST Focuses, etc.

So, why do some of you still cling on to Christian beliefs, when so much in Monroe's and
Moen's (and Buhlman's) writings point to the contrary?

Sigh.

I am Jewish but have a great love of the truths found in the New Testament.

The problem here is the lack of understanding of what "christian beliefs" are.  Before disparaging the religion, tell me, have you read and or understood the gospels?  They are pretty straight-forward.  The main message JC brings is to love God, and love your neighbor as yourself.  To be open to acting in a loving way. 

JC taught by parables - stories meant to bring understanding to those who heard the stories.  Some take literal or fundamental interpretations of the stories and convert them into a not-so-loving end.  This is not what my take on the christian doctrine is truly about.  When men were about to stone a prostitute, JC was quoted as interceding and saying "let him who is without sin among you cast the first stone."   They all put down their stones and left.  This teaching is in stark contrast to some of the ideas of "conservative" people in some churches, who might indeed have cast a stone. 

In the writings on encounters in heaven - be it from TMI, or other mystics, there are many corroborative stories that: 1.  there is a God - a transcendent force of pure love underlying all of our being or essence that we allow into or shut out of our lives.  2.  That the golden rule - to love thy neighbor and tolerance is important.  And finally 3.  That we create our own realities, heaven or hell depending on the innermost loves that we fan with our own thoughts and flames.

A deeper understanding of Christ's message is completely compatible with Monroe-Moen findings; that is; the kingdom of God is not to be found without (the material world, a "heaven") but within yourself.  This notion, is confirmed by mystics who realize that we, as conscious beings are co-creators with God, who, by our choices allow or deny his love and spirit into our minds and actions.  God is not some anthropomorphic old man on a throne, but a force of elemental love which permeates us, or is distanced if we choose to think and act unlovingly.  This is a difficult concept for some.

So I see no contradiction between the true teachings of Christ as shown in the Gospels and parables of the New Testament and the findings of explorers and mystics.   Now fundamentalists who thump a Bible to express their own hatred - that speaks for itself.  But they do not express christian thought, love and ethos when preaching against others, etc. 

Why are there so many Christians on this site?  Why not?  The teachings are based on love and immortality.  Why not have explorers from the world's 2 billion or so christians come to this site? 

M

Pauli,

If you read what JC speaks of  - his "quotes" and passages, then most actually deal with love and living a loving life.   These interpretations you mention are not handed down as "rules" from the New Testament.  They are misinterpretations of the stories or parables of JC. 

How could one who admonishes a group not to stone  a prostitute and to "judge not, less ye be judged," be of the same mind as the Bible thumping fundamentalist who excludes others?  Simple answer - the truth behind the message of the gospels is all about love and tolerance.  The "spin" of the fundamentalists is their own twisting of things.

M

Well certainly the source of everything is more than mindless pure awareness that became capable of thought only after beings such ourselves came around.

I believe people are mistaken if they believe that Robert Monroe and Bruce Moen don't believe in God. Robert did speak of the Creator, and Bruce met with this being. Robert didn't like to use the name "God" because of all that's been attached to God. But if you read what Robert wrote in Ultimate Journey there is an intelligent being who is responsible for the creation of us and the universe we find ourselves within.

I don't mind using the word God because I'm not willing to give up the name God simply because some people have attached false concepts to God.

Regarding Jesus Christ, unexpectedly at first, I had spiritual experiences that showed me that Jesus the man did in fact exist and he was a very qualified spiritual messenger. These experiences took place in a way where it wasn't a matter of my spinning out some belief oriented experiences. I've read of other people who had experiences with Jesus that weren't based on their belief system.

Perhaps—just as some souls have their spiritual progress delayed for a while because they get stuck in a religious belief system; perhaps some souls have their progress delayed because they shrink down in fear anytime somebody brings up the names God and Christ. If they reconsidered how they view things they might find out that God and Christ can be thought of in a way that is wonderful rather than negative (and supposedly stupid).

Paul,

You are an atheist who apparently believes in an afterlife.  How can you have such a belief without some sort of concept of Supreme Intelligence orchestrating life here and in the hereafter? 
As Matthew eloquently explains, you seem to have a crude caricature of the diversity and true teaching of the early church.  For example, do you realize that the early church provides the first LITERARY example of a belief in soul retrievals?  Do you realize that early Christianity and the Judaisn of late antiquity teach the pre-existence of the soul? 

Bruce's site now has a special section for religious discussion and I have posted a comment on 3 of the long--abandoned threads there.  Why don't you engage me with such questions there?  Bruce created that special discussion section for that purpose.

Don

[Paul: I don't get the impression that such a being is needed or that any indications points in such a direction.
The theory of evolution postulates progression towards more advanced and adaptable life on the basic of natural selection and genetic mutation.  These principles help certain species survive and reproduce their gene pools.  But nothing in evolutionary science predicts that disembodied human spirits would survive in a blissful, loving, and productive postmortem lifestyle.  There is no genetic mutation in the supposed afterlife. 

[Paul:] I don't get the "Supreme" in Supreme Intelligence either.

Most Christian theologians deny that God is a unique supreme "Being" among countless created beings.  Rather, God is conceived as the answer to the ultimate philosophical question, "Why is there something rather than nothing at all?"  This question has no answer from an atheistic perspective.  But what if God has in God's own nature tha reason for God's own existence?  In othe words, what if God is not a particular Being, but rather the ground of all Being?  Put differently, what if God is the underlying unity beneath all things?  From a Christian perspective, these are questions that lead to belief in the biblical God.  Now the god of Bruce Moen and Robert Monroe is conceived differently, but neither are atheists. 

[Paul:] No such being seems to exist in a world full of pain and evil.  Why would someone Supreme allow such things?

Your question can be answered in great detail.  But are you really open to having this question answered?  If so, start a thread on the problem of evil in Bruce's religion section.  By the way, you do know that the Christian model is not the only model of the ground of all being?   Why have you closed the door to non-Christian theism?

recoverer wrote on Jun 1^st, 2012 at 8:04pm:

But we don't have free will. Monroe reported numerous times that his I-There
controlled him, made him do tests, made him move around in the astral.

Also, Monroe's Creator is far from the Christian god, so I'm still puzzled
why people interpret Monroe's Creator as a Christian god.

It certainly isn't.

recoverer wrote on Jun 1^st, 2012 at 10:13pm:

You will, if you pay more attention.

In your dreams, you will do things you usually wouldn't do, and those actions
are directed by someone else.

Also in retrievals you will. One example of my own is when I rudely push
down a wall in the White Collar Businessman retrieval.

I had no intention in doing such a thing, yet I was made to push down the wall.

A child born in a Muslim family will often become Muslim. A child born in
a Christian family will often become Christian. Not much free will there.

In my opinion, free will is an illusion Christians cling on to. It's part of
the Christian god concept.

I've found that my dreams pretty much represent my conscience and values as they are. If we experience something that seems to vary, perhaps there is an aspect of mind that we aren't acknowledging. Through a dream our higher self lets us know about this aspect so we will deal with it.

When it comes to free will, I believe we always have it, it is just that people sometimes get so bogged down in their psychological conditioning that they don't use their free will in a wise and loving way. The more they realize that they are limited by their psychological conditioning and seek to gain freedom from it, the more they will do so.

The part of themselves that is always free is what allows them to notice their psychological conditioning and become unhappy about it.

On numerous occasions I made the point of inwardly noticing that despite my psychological conditioning, the decision making part of myself is always free. It is a matter of how I choose.

For example, the other day a road crew set up construction right by where a freeway entrance is. This made it so drivers had to come to a complete stop right by where they entered the freeway. A very dangerous situation. As I drove by the road crew I honked my horn with hope of pointing out the situation they created. One of the road crew members flipped me off.

I could've followed the pattern of my mind that wanted to be angry with him, but instead I chose to have love and understanding for him. Therefore, instead of using my mind in a negative way, I used it in a positive way.

It could be argued that I made a positive choice because I had the spiritual background to make such a choice. A person who hadn't spiritually developed himself might not have easy access to the same positive choice. This is true.

However, this doesn't mean that he doesn't have free will. It just means that he hasn't gained the wisdom to use his free will in a wise way.

As a way of comparision, a person with a strong aptitude for math (free will) doesn't become a person with a weak aptitude for math simply because he doesn't have all of the variables he needs in order to complete the equation he is working on. 

A part of allowing the beings you create to have free will is allowing them the time to learn to use it in a wise and loving way.


PauliEffectt wrote on Jun 2^nd, 2012 at 11:05am:

[Paul Effectt: ]When Christians pass over they have some sort of likelyhood to end up stuck in Focus 25.
I wonder how Christians on this site tackles that aspect of the Monroe view?

I think you are distorting Monroe's view.  As evangelist Billy Sunday used to say, "Being in a church don't make you a Christian any more than being in a garage makes you a car."  BSTs seem to be regions with limited developed towards agape love.  Many Christians live lives that often express pure unconditional love within a context of the corporate Body of Christ, within which the whole is far more effective than the individual parts.  Those Christians, in my view, inhabit postmortem realms beyond so-called Focus 27, realms that, from my reading, neither Robert Monroe nor Robert Bruce has ever visited, though Robert Bruce claims to have glimpsed this from afar.  Christian NDEs depiet these higher realms as realms which are brighter than the sun, realms in which the grass, water, flowers, etc. each emanate unearthly music that harmonizes in an ecstatic whole.

That said, there is an interesting harmony between Monroe's focus model and the Bible.  The Bible locates the standard entry point for Christians as Paradise (= Park) which is located in the 3rd heaven (Focus 27?)Substandard Christians can be confined to the first or 2nd heavens, which may correspond to Focus 25 and 26 in the Monroe model.  Christians conceive of Paradise as the starting point for the journey "higher." 

Don

Paul, so you don't think Focus levels (and the biblical heavens) work according to the principle that like attracts like (atheists attract atheists with similar core desires, etc.)?

I was a child born into a strict Jehovah's Witness family but instead I made the choice not to believe in God. So it doesn't matter what family you are born into. Your personal belief system is just that, your own.

Berserk2 wrote on Jun 4^th, 2012 at 7:56pm:

I don't think so, because atheists are not the same, they have a tendency
to vary greatly, so the risk of them getting stuck in F 25 is much less, than
the risk is for Christians.

Also, atheists have less prejudice about the afterlife, which further lowers
the risk of getting stuck in a BST.

Even more, atheists seldom have any preconceptions about what others _must_
believe in to come to "Heaven", which also reduces the risk of getting stuck in
F 25, hollow heaven or hell.

There are, to be sure, varying levels of atheism.  I have seen descriptions of atheists who were so zealous about their belief in the scientific method that they assured all people they taught or met that death was a long sleep and there was nothing more (and there was no God).  Those atheists will be closed minded and may truly find death to be a "nothingness,"  possibly accounting for the frozen-type "soul statues" which have been seen by Bruce and others. 

So yes, if atheism is not a strict zealous dogmatic belief, and the atheist is open to the possibility of an afterlife, then he/she could have a rather easy time of it.  But he were so set in his belief system, he might be "asleep" a long time.

M

Paul, my stetement "Atheists attract atheists with similar core desires" already assumes that there are different kinds of atheists.  So I don't understand your comment about atheistic diversity.  Matthew's comment about independent astral reports of '"soul statues" presents one postmortem danger for athieists.   Another danger is their separation from an God consciousness and thus from any significant experience of Pure Unconiditonal Love that might lead to awareness of universal higher intelligence (God).

Don

Pauli,

Most devout Jews and Christians see the Old and New Testaments as instruction and allegorical stories to learn about a way to live.  The few who take the stories as an unquestioned historical record miss the point.  The story of Adam and Eve has more to do with the fall of man from grace and the separation of man from God.  There is no where that I know of in Genesis that it is commanded that the reader accept the story as a historical document. 

If God is, as Don has put it a fundamental force which animates our being, and we are manifestations of the divine, insomuch as we allow entry of love into our lives and that is others, then yes - God created and continues to create man.

But your conception of a Judeochristian God and mine are very different.

M

Focus 27, that statement is nothing but ignorant, uneducated bigotry.  You have no clue about the rational grounds for the Christian faith, and so, you must simply pontificate that it must be true because of the strength of their faith.  I know of no Christian with that outlook.

Even Atheism is a belief system. What if being in the earth life system and getting stuck and retrieved, living in various focus levels, entering and exiting multiple lives here and there is all a part of a grand experience only our total self or I-There can fully appreciate? Being an atheist, Christian, Muslim, Pagan....it's all a part of the experience of being alive, aware, of being co-creators.

Maybe there are so many Christians because Christ really had something to say. He was able to perform miracles that for us Earthlings are impossible for the foreseeable future. He multiplied food, walked over water and his first miracle went to the joy of people: he multiplied wine. Who would not want to be able to do all that?

And yet with all his powers he preferred to have himself crucified instead of using his powers against other people.
That deed of love and devotion was never seen before.

Jesus was ready for his task when he came to Earth.
He had completed his evolution on this planet millions of years ago and had reached the All where he consciously reunited with God. Other souls from his time on Earth have also reached that, but Christ was the First.
Him being the First makes him special. That is what decided him and his fellow brothers in the All that he should return to Earth to do something to lift up the consciousness of us on this planet.

He knew what would happen to him. He was ready for that.
From my understanding we don't have to try to become as Him here on Earth because that is not part of the Divine plan for us.
We don't have to necesseraly let ourselves be killed but it is important that we do not kill ourselves.

He said that other people will come after him who will do greater things. Those people have been with us but we have to acknowledge them and open up to a new kind of understanding of the Afterlife and our position in the Universe.

We know now that life did not start with Adam and Eve. We know now that the Universe started with the Big Bang.
If Christ would have talked about the Big Bang 2000 years ago people would not have understood him. The conscious of the people was not ready for that yet.
Even in the Middle Ages you had to be careful with what you said. If Dante had spoken freely and written his Divine Comedy like he intended he would have been tortured to death. That was not worth it and the book would have been forbidden.

So Christians know that Christ is special. I believe in Christ too.
But I don't want to have anything to do anymore with the Bible or the Church. The Church is stuck in old dogmatic beliefs and is not open to new concepts about the Afterlife.

Very little data? Did I read that correct? "Very little data?"

I have read 'The Masters of the Far East' by B.T. Spalding. In the early 1900's or so he made a trip to the Himalaya and met with extraordinary masters overthere. He also met with Jesus.
If you don't believe that then that is up to you.

I have also read 'the Cosmology of Jozef Rulof'. In that epic work Rulof and his Masters were allowed an unprecedented and unique visit to Jesus in his own habitat the Seventh Cosmic Degree.
Again if you don't believe that then that is up to you.

And in the books of Rulof Christ is all over the place. He is considered by the Masters of Light the highest living human being in the Universe.

If you search better I have no doubt you will find more records that point to the existance of Jesus Christ.

But if you don't believe such records then what does it take to make you do believe?
Should Jesus appear in His own flesh and blood before your very eyes and lift Himself 3 foot up in the air before you would be convinced?
Huh???

[Focus 27:] There is very little data to back up that Jesus even existed! If you do your research you would find it laughable. Believing in Jesus is a belief in the existence of a human that could very likely be simply a story. The bible  and the original texts are literally the only direct referenced to Jesus in existence! Outside of that, each Jesus reference refers to these same texts and not in a way that he was directly seen/existed outside of these texts!
It's so funny!

What is "funny" or rather sad is how willing you are to pontificate based on poor research; yet you slam those you accuse of doing no research!  So I'm going to expose your ignorance with a few telling questions that I can answer, but you you cannot.  (1) What is the evidence for Jesus' existence from early non-Christian sources, including archaeology?  (2) How can Jesus' existence be definitively established by links with incontrovertible eyewitness testimony?  After the deafening silence of your inability even to articulate the historical basis for such claims, I will start a thread in the Religion section (where it is more appropriate) that refutes your claim.

Don

rondele wrote on Jun 15^th, 2012 at 4:17pm:

You are wrong.

Let me take a quote from someone perhaps Christian:

Alan McDougall wrote on Jun 22^nd, 2012 at 1:39am:


What puzzles me at this forum is that some people write forum posts as if they
have read absolutely nothing of Monroe's and Moen's experiences.

Instead there's some kind of religious belief, by Buhlman call unsubstantiated,
which doesn't seem to fit anywhere along the discoveries of Moen. Are those
books' experiences completely ignored? Is Moen talking to deaf ears? I just
don't get it.

Why?

Mogenblue wrote on Jun 22^nd, 2012 at 6:46am:

You may not need to have an OBE to be able to experience the afterlife on your own,
if you use any variation of Moen's method.

Mogenblue wrote on Jun 22^nd, 2012 at 10:03am:

You could perhaps get a little more knowledge and a little less mere beliefs.
Monroe always urged people to turn beliefs into knowns.

I typed down my variation of the Moen method almost a year ago and it starts
with the title "HOW I GO ABOUT RETRIEVALS".

If you take a look at the link at the end of the Maureen Caudill book review,
you can read my variation of doing the Moen method.

Or as Monroe used to put it: "Why don't you take a look yourself?"

Well, Mogenblue, I have showed you the door. But you have to decide if you want to open it.

Mogenblue, you are absolutely right.