Alan McDougall wrote on Mar 17^th, 2016 at 3:27am:


1. You misunderstood. Or I was not clear. To the reader who is not hung up, who has an internal or better still, a centralised locus of control, has his own mind, and who can differentiate between information and knowledge, it doesn't matter whether I say something is my opinion or my knowledge. He treats it the same. As information. And weighs it for himself.

2. The principle contributor for my out-of-body excursions is prayer. Is prayer to Almighty God. It is prayer that causes the out-of-body experiences, and prayer that causes second sight too, and other things. Often I have had no intention whatsoever to leave the body, it just occurs during prayer, or afterwards. I may have a strong yearning to know about something, and then in prayer or after prayer I am enabled to go and see for myself. But everything in one's psyche and life must be lined up, like the disks or pins in a lock. If things are all in place, and if such experiences are permitted within the purpose of one's life, then such experiences can be a natural result of intense prayer. And the prayer must be potent prayer, combining faith, love, soul and breath.   

3. It is true that we only have one life on Earth. But there are more layers to the Earth than we can commonly see from this most densest layer. From when we first enter into Earth, to when we finally depart, is one life with many sub-lives cycling through the Earth's layers, until we have learnt all Earth's lessons. That we only have one life here is true, and that we have many is also true.

4. I may talk of leaving the body, but my first encouragement of others is towards their own best self, their conscience, their better judgement, their own life duties, and to the timeless virtues that liberate the soul, such as faith, charity, love, forgiveness, truth, thankfulness, courage, strength, kindness, chivalry, harmlessness, and many others. An appreciation of freewill and its potential to learn, within their self, and more importantly within others. To cultivate a sense of good humour, even in adversity. To have thankfulness every day, for all life's blessings, even the littlest ones. I encourage others not to follow the crowd, unless they judge the crowd to be right, but to think carefully for themselves, to develop their own conscience, and strength of character, to be their own man, and their own woman. To be the best father, mother, son, daughter, brother, sister, friend, worker, colleague, employer, neighbour, that they can be. And to do so quietly, without fanfare or big noting. And without expectations on others, but only on their self. To work on their own character as best they can, in the direction their own conscience and best judgement would have them go. If on top of attending to that, and whatever else they need to attend to in their life, they also wish to explore the possibilities of soul, perhaps through leaving the body, then I am laying down some hints and guidelines.      

5. Throughout my posts are sprinkled definitions. Definitions are the building blocks of thought and understanding. Descriptions too, and laws, rules and guidelines. They are only information, not knowledge until proven to be so by the individual. Such definitions can be pondered and mulled over by those who will, and used by those who wish to trial them. Contemplated and installed if considered useful. Adjusted to suit themselves or used as is. I reserve no copyright on such things. Most of them are not mine anyway. I was given them. Regarding those definitions that I word, I encourage others to make my words their words, my understandings their understandings, if that suits them. I am happy for others to run with what I put out there. I don't want credit. As said, they were given to me freely, and they have served me immensely well, and I put them out freely for others to use or adopt and hopefully be benefitted even more than I have been.   

cb

I use the term occult in its professional sense. Occult means hidden, or generally out of sight, obscured, as yet not fully manifest. The term is often used in medicine and psychiatry to indicate the presence of something unseen or yet to manifest. http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/occult   

It is true that there are definite risks to one's mental wellbeing and life potential in meddling with the occult arts, which are the generally hidden arts of the soul. And the risk is particularly present where drugs are involved, and where there is little focus on the traditional virtues, and little effort in character development.

That is why I stress right personal conditioning through cultivation of virtues, the greatest of which is love. And developing a good and strong character, valuing the freewill of others and accepting one's own individual responsibility, and putting one's physical life duties and responsibilities ahead of seeking occult knowledge. And of course, steering clear of illicit drugs and irresponsible use of prescribed drugs. Occult knowledge and skill can result as a by-product of right prayer, right relationships and wholesome living.

Several of the New Testament Disciples experienced out-of-body excursions to higher planes, out-of-body lessons and revelations, and heightened vision. Many of the Old Testament prophets did too. There are many such accounts in the bible, there for the reading. And they resulted from prayer, faith in God, and right living. Read the histories of the Saints and see that many of them too had such experiences. But again, it comes through good, charitable and wholesome living, together with development of soul through love, prayer and faith.

Occult skill is like the disks coming into their right place in a safe's combination lock. When the recesses in the disks line up, then the bar drops in and the lock may turn. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwJhgNEeKvs 
The personality mechanism is like that. When the mental, emotional and physical bodies (thinking and conduct) align with the true conscience, which is the highest sense within our self of what is good and right to do, and that part to which God speaks. And also align with heart, which is that part of us through which God's power moves. Then there is a direct flow-through from the inner upper peak of our soul or oversoul, down and through all our bodies/layers or component parts of our soul and personality mechanism. When our breath and attention aligns with that flow-through, and coordinates it in the right way, then we are capable of the occult or generally unknown abilities of soul.

Live a good life, be charitable with your resources and energies, value truth and honesty, and value other people's freewill and your own individual responsibility, be considerate and helpful, kind, strong, and brave when you need to be. Become familiar with your conscience, and live it out through your being, and your mistakes in life will be minimal. Let your occult knowledge develop naturally, on top of, or secondary to, those more important things in life. And if there be room in your life's purpose, then like the prophets, disciples and saints of olden times, you will safely experience and learn about the hidden abilities of soul.


However, if you dabble in drugs, then do not go near the occult. If you do you will likely go mad. You will develop irrational delusions and projections.

If you have a mental illness or mental-emotional fragility, then do not pursue occult knowledge. Doing so will almost certainly cause you to decline and possibly unravel. Instead, keep yourself grounded with practical down-to-earth hobbies and interests. Concentrate on developing good relationships with sensible people. Study the traditional virtues, gently cultivate them and humbly practice them. And your mental and spiritual health will improve. 

With due respect old man, your wires are crossed. Paul was not stoned to death. Stephen was stoned, and Paul who was then called Saul, witnessed his stoning. It is in the book of Acts. Paul’s kind of death is not generally known for certain, but tradition and historians suspect he was beheaded under Nero during the mid 60’s. And Paul spoke not of himself going to the third heaven but of another man in Christ, whom he did not name, who was raised to the third heaven and gained teachings to keep to himself. It is in Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians, where he talks about controlling his image in the eyes of others. But those things are beside the point anyway. 

Paul mentions many things that suggest occult knowledge of the human condition, including our earthly and celestial bodies and elemental spirits. Paul’s description of marriage between man and woman and its representation of the relationship between Christ and Church is occult. As are many of the observations of the Preacher in Ecclesiastes, and as are the other books where mostly one has to have similar or related knowledge to recognise what they have written about, such as Elijah going by whirlwind up to heaven, Isaiah’s vision of heaven, the spirit travels of Ezekiel and his sights of wheels within wheels, Jacob’s ladder between heaven and earth, Daniel’s visions, are occult and out-of-body related. Jesus, Peter, James and John transformed so they could see and commune with Moses and Elijah. The revelations of John of Patmos, and visions of heaven revealed to him while in the spirit, and many of the gnostic segments of John, and 1 & 2 John, are occult or above the physical or out-of-body related. Most if not all of the parables have multiple levels of meaning, including occult levels which if one is taken up in spirit or attune beyond the physical plane then their occult meaning is seen.

If Alan wishes to try to discourage out-of-body investigations, that is fine. If anyone is doubtful or fearful of the occult, they should stay away from it. That is best. Occult knowledge is not necessary to be a good person, no more than scientific knowledge is. It can complement though. And I do say there are risks to occult study, as there are risks with everything. Look at any collection of mystics/occultists/out-of-body/spiritualist types and you will see plenty of nutcases amongst them. Go in any psych unit and you will meet plenty of people too deranged to function in the outside world but quite convinced they possess mystic/occult knowledge. Most are drug users too.

It is a matter of rightly mitigating the risks, understanding the laws of life, noting the landmarks and following the rules and guidelines, and developing sound judgement and right motive.
   
In the higher levels of the astral planes, well above the emotional planes, in what we might term the higher mental planes, exist schools of occult science, and the bell of every worthy school sounds out this message: Virtue before knowledge, purity before ability.

The message is engraved on the bell, written above the bell, so every student knows, and is reminded when it rings.

My own preference is to avoid "travels" to the other side, so to speak.  I take the advice of Emanuel Swedenborg, probably one of the most well traveled of them all, who strongly warned others not to attempt to go where he did because of the many snares and deceptions that he faced and that are prevalent in the afterlife.

I respect the position of cb, and the preconditions he identifies as important, before taking such steps.  Fact is, most of us don't have the strength of character and purity of motives necessary to avoid the pitfalls.  I know I don't. 

Although I attended one of Bruce's workshops and participated in the exercises, I didn't feel comfortable doing it and I personally don't think he should encourage others to do so.  Not to disparage his motives, just to say that it's not without its dangers given the wide diversity of the attendees and the law of unintended consequences.

R

Hi Alan-

Even RAM wrote about meeting an alien who looked like W.C. Fields, and said his mission was to collect jokes from Earth and take them back to his home planet which needed cheering up.

So I wonder, was RAM also a fibber or was it just an example of the rampant deception that ES warned about?  Regarding the moon story, maybe ES was himself a victim of clever deception?

R

rondele wrote on Mar 19^th, 2016 at 1:12pm:


Who then is RAM?

Gullibe? That works both ways. Accept there is a ceiling to your growth, why, because you are not worhty and people do not like that shit because blah blah blah. I had my first out of body experiences when I was about 9 years old. No demons, just me and geometric shapes floating about, thinking this is a novelty and vivid yet at the same timwe, water under the bridge, I have and am going to keep doing this