Shanti's NDE

I'm always interested in near-death experiences that were reported before NDEs became popularized in the media. Recently I came across one in an unexpected place -- a book about reincarnation by Peter and Elizabeth Fenwick, titled Past Lives: An Investigation Into Reincarnation Memories.

In Chapter 1, the famous case of Shanti Deva is sketched out. When she was four years old, Shanti, a native of Delhi, India, began talking about a past life lived in a town eighty miles away. Though her parents did their best to discourage her, she eventually convinced them to take her seriously by naming her husband in her previous life and the address of their home. The husband had indeed lost his young life in childbirth shortly before Shanti was born. Alert to the possibility of fraud, the husband's family subjected Shanti to various tests, all of which she passed. Finally they accepted her story as true.

In contrast to many such cases, Shanti retained her reincarnation memories until her death in 1987 at age 61. The book observes, "To the end of her life she maintained her conviction that she had lived before as Lugdi. She remained in touch with Lugdi's family and was an honored guest at family occasions."

But what about the NDE? The authors continue:

There is an interesting postscript to this story. Four years after Shanti's initial reunion with her family, in 1939, the whole case was re-examined by Mr. Sushil Bose. He interviewed Shanti, and for the first time asked her detailed questions not just about her previous life as Lugdi but about her death. What she told him seemed at the time preposterous. Shanti described how just before death she felt a profound darkness and then saw a dazzling light. She knew then that she had come out of her body in a vaporous form. She described seeing four men in saffron robes who had come for her, a beautiful garden and a river. Now, half a century later, this is instantly recognizable as a typical near-death experience....

Before the 1970s, when Raymond Moody wrote his first book on the subject, Life After Life, little was known about near-death experience. Shanti's description has many of the typical features of near-death experience -- her awareness of her consciousness leaving her body, her meeting with a being of light and then entering a wonderful garden -- and also has cultural features (being collected by men in saffron robes) which are more typical of an Indian experience. It is highly unlikely that a young child could have invented this, and [there was] at that time no way she could have been told about it or read it. She believed she had the experience at the time of her death in childbirth in her previous life: we don't, unfortunately, know whether she had ever been seriously ill in her present life, and perhaps had a near-death experience that later surfaced as an apparent memory from a previous life.

Of course, if we take the story at face value, then technically it is not a near-death experience; it is a death experience. And in that case, we might be justified in thinking that NDEs do accurately capture at least the early stages of the true dying process.

P.S. A more detailed account of Shanti Deva's NDE, featuring quotations from interviews with her, is found here. 

Comments

[Robert]

Also, the idea of leaving her body in vaporous form corresponds to Moody's shared death experiences, where it seems to be quite a common feature. This adds some reinforcement to your point that her experience was not near-death but just plain death.

[Bruce Siegel]

"Of course, if we take the story at face value, then technically it is not a near-death experience; it is a death experience. And in that case, we might be justified in thinking that NDEs do accurately capture at least the early stages of the true dying process."

In Moody's book about reincarnation, he talks about his own past-life regression under hypnosis. In one of his remembered past lives, he describes a death by drowning and says, "At that point, a bright light engulfed me and I was overcome with total bliss."

When I read the book, I remember thinking that I was surprised he didn't say anything about being pleased to have a first-person confirmation (of a sort) of his NDE research.

[Iris]

Hi Michael, as you mention reincarnation in this post I would like to ask you and, og course, other readers of your blog, a question concerning the issue: To me, reincarnation research is the area of parapsychology I am best informed. When I am talking about reincarnation research I have in mind the work of the doctors Stevenson and Tucker and possibly spontanous memories of grown ups (I have read the book by the Fenwicks as well). In Dr. Stevenson`s research the interval between death and rebirth differ considerably. When one accepts that his best cases are researches equally well and do not differ considerably in their quality as "strong" cases some of the "strong" cases among the Druses of Lebanon involve an interval that is much shorter than 9 months. Take the cases of Suzanna Ghanem that Tom Shroder describes in some details - it is a very convincing case and the interval is only some days. I just cannot understand the process involved: Are there some babys in the womb that are not tied to a soul and where the souls of newly deceased are "welcome to enter"? Do they "kick" another soul out that was tied to the fetus originally? Is the process of "reincarnation different than we might think? I would love to hear other peoples`opinion!

[Douglas]

Hi, I'm new here, but thought I would share my two euros worth.

Remember that there is a possibility that what we call reincarnation may not be linear. That is, outside of our material universe there is no time, or rather 'time' is simultaneous - just as Einstein said when he said that past, present and future actually all exist at the same time - there is only now.

This is an idea promoted by Seth, Elias and others and makes sense according to various NDEs where people report that during their experiences, time doesnt really apply as we understand it.

According to the simultaneous time theory, we do have many human lives, but they all occur simultaneously. however due to the fact that part of us remains outside of time, we can still access these other lives in their entirety, even although they are happening now - weird I know.

Lives may be scattered across a vast time period. As we are so used to thinking in a linear time frame while here on earth, we automatically gravitate on 'past lives', which is why we hear so many reports about them. However, we should also be able to access 'future' lives, but as we are so used to thinking in a linear manner, it may be the case that there is a psychological barrier to doing so, explaining why we almost never hear about them.

It's odd to think that somebody's 'past life' regression may actually be describing another a life taking place *at the same time*.

I think most standard accounts of reincarnation just assume a linear structure and never even think to question it. But when you accept that time pertains only to the physical world, then it soon becomes apparant that so called 'past lives' can't really be occuring in the past at all. From a greater perspective - all our lives, like everything else, is occuring *now*.

Douglas

[Iris]

Douglas, your thoughts are very insightful! I have already considered the idea of "time not being linear" in this context, but the reincarnation stories of small children seem, at least to me, usually structured in time as they, like in Shanti Devi`s case, often remember the period between one life and the next or entering the womb or the like. Also, though the period is often much less than 9 months (and, in very few cases, a child remembers the life of someone who died some days after his or her next incarnation, it never seems to happen that children "remember" a parallel life. At least from what I learned from Dr. Stevenson`s cases. Of course, there still remains the option that some unconscious part of the personality of a person who is going to die in some months has already made a connection to an embryo who had just been conceived and unites with other parts of the concious fraction after the death of the "old personality", maybe that is the case...

[Art]

This might have some bearing on the discussion.

excerpt from Mellen Benedict's NDE:
"As the light revealed itself to me, I became aware that what I was really seeing was our Higher Self matrix. The only thing I can tell you is that it turned into a matrix, a mandala of human souls, and what I saw was that what we call our Higher Self in each of us is a matrix... {snip}... And it became very clear to me that all the Higher Selves are connected as one being, all humans are connected as one being, we are actually the same being, different aspects of the same being."
http://near-death.com/experiences/reincarnation04.html

Excerpt from Michelle M's NDE:
"I remember understanding the others here.. as if the others here were a part of me too. As if all of it was just a vast expression of me. But it wasn't just me, it was .. gosh this is so hard to explain.. it was as if we were all the same. As if consciousness were like a huge being. The easiest way to explain it would be like all things are all different parts of the same body." http://www.nderf.org/michelle_m's_nde.htm

[no one]

Nice find MP!

I think this account lends evidence in favor of my perspective that NDEs do not prove a holographic universe (sorry Art) or that total enlightment or eternal life in heaven or any of that sort of thing necessarily occurs upon death just because some NDE experiencers report these senations/perceptions.

I am quite certain that the soul is immortal. However, the NDEr merely experiences expanded consciousness due to freedom from the physical being. If not familiar with that state of mind the NDEr assigns grandiose meaning to it (e.g. "I knew everything!/I was one with everything!").

These states of mind, whether while embodied or disembodied, while awesome - and mostly not totally delusional - are transitory. Everything that goes up must come down.

[no one]

A shorter me....enlightenment is fleeting; embodied or disembodied.

[dmduncan]

Fascinating.

[Douglas]

NoOne:

I'm not quite sure how you come to that conclusion - can you explain please?

[Cyrus]

I think I know where no-one is coming from.

The reason is because if you think hypothetically about an afterlife, you still have a lot of work left to do when you cross over.

If you immediately just become one with everything / know everything, there's nothing left to do.

Meanwhile, life on earth is supposed to be the beginning of a long journey.

But who knows?

[sbu]

Reincarnation research seems to be in conflict with Art's hypothesis.

[Art]

{grin!} Art's not a fan of reincarnation. Think something else is going on. I think reincarnation is a misinterpretation of the evidence.

I think the evidence is "real" enough but that the story that we have made up to go along with the evidence probably misses the mark by quite a bit. Who wants to come back here once they have been to Heaven?

Children who haven't developed a strong sense of self "tuning" into someone else's memories. When they turn 7 or so years old their own sense of self develops and they quit tuning into those other memories. Adults that are hypnotized have their sense of self turned off and are able to tune into the memories of others.

As far as those supposed physical manifestations of reincarnation? If they exist they are just examples of thoughts being things or consciousness creating reality. Those memories conjured up the manifestations. There are similar examples in Michael Talbot's book The Holographic Universe.

What we percieve to be reincarnation is an illusion created by the nature of the way the Universe is made. Our brains are designed to be recievers and transmitters of information. A young brain is still tuned into the information universe and hasn't yet formed a firm picture of what "self" is. The tiny little mind is picking up information from someone's life that has lived in the past.

According to Dr. Fred Alan Wolf matter is a epiphenomena of consciousness. Consciousness is primary and matter is secondary. What does this have to do with reincarnation? It explains how or why some children manifest physical characteristics of people they supposedly "were" in a past life. When their minds are forming they are picking up this information and their bodies manifest those physical characteristics.

In past life hypnotic regression what happens is a persons natural filter is turned off and they are able to access the Explicate Spiritual Universe where all information is stored. Their minds tune into someone elses life that lived in the past. Everything we have done in our lives is stored on the cosmic hologram. If your interested in what that is go to about.com and do a search on string theory and the holographic paradigm.

We are here to learn "self", what it means to be an individual. The whole physical universe is set up to teach us seperateness, because the other side, the implicate spiritual universe is so connected or "one" that duality is the only thing we can't learn on the other side.

Everything manifested in this physical universe, height, weight, color, sex, etc., exists to teach us that we are seperate individuals, with our own identity. We exist in the physical to become an individual. The holographic universe explains everything that ever was or ever will be. Reincarnation conflicts with this theory and makes no sense at all. Reincarnation would make some very schizophrenic souls.

People that have had a near death experience come back and oftentimes comment on how they felt this tremendous sense of oneness and connectedness to everything in the entire universe. The reason for that is because in a hologram all the information is stored throughout the entire hologram.

Our minds work like radios and sometimes children, who haven't developed a strong sense of self tune into someone else's station. I think it's as simple as that. Our brains are recievers and transmitters of information. The same goes for hypnotized adults. Their own sense of "self" is turned off and so they start tuning into someone elses information. It's all got to do with a misunderstanding of that sense of oneness and connectedness on the other side.

Marineboy said it best:
"I suspect that reincarnation is a time-based misreading of "interconnection". Also, when people say they felt that "I" had all these past lives, I think the I is not the I they think it is, but the I of interconnection, the I of universal presence incarnating in myraid forms everywhere. Because there are no absolute boundaries to this "I" it seems in an nde as if it is THEY personally."

from Randy Geling's NDE:
"That was really cool! I kind of felt as though my body exploded - in a nice way - and became a million different atoms - and each single atom could think its own thoughts and have its own feelings. All at once I seemed to feel like I was a boy, a girl, a dog, a cat, a fish. Then I felt like I was an old man, an old woman - and then a little tiny baby."
http://near-death.com/experiences/animals04.html

from an interview with Dr. Pimm Van Lommel
"Van Lommel contends that the brain does not produce consciousness or store memories. He points out that American computer science expert Simon Berkovich and Dutch brain researcher Herms Romijn, working independently of one another, came to the same conclusion: that it is impossible for the brain to store everything you think and experience in your life. This would require a processing speed of 1024 bits per second. Simply watching an hour of television would already be too much for our brains. “If you want to store that amount of information—along with the associative thoughts produced—your brain would be pretty much full,” Van Lommel says. “Anatomically and functionally, it is simply impossible for the brain to have this level of speed.” So this would mean that the brain is actually a receiver and transmitter of information. “You could compare the brain to a television set that tunes into specific electromagnetic waves and converts them into image and sound."
http://www.odemagazine.com/article.php?aID=4207

The education of the soul is too important to leave it up to chance.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-social-thinker/201010/have-scientists-finally-discovered-evidence-psychic-phenomena

[Michael Prescott]

"Who wants to come back here once they have been to Heaven?"

Who wants to go back to school after summer vacation?

We do go, though. Because the powers that be (our parents) know that we have more to learn.

[nbruthman]

Art: What we percieve to be reincarnation is an illusion created by the nature of the way the Universe is made. Our brains are designed to be recievers and transmitters of information. A young brain is still tuned into the information universe and hasn't yet formed a firm picture of what "self" is. The tiny little mind is picking up information from someone's life that has lived in the past

This hypothesis seems somewhat strained. There are the many cases where personality characteristics, talents, abilities, and even languages are transferred from the previous life into adulthood, not just transient memories showing up between ages 3-7. This doesn't look like merely picking up data from the ethers. The birthmark evidence includes cases where ritual marks and deformities applied to the body of the dead person are transferred to the fetus. In these cases it is more as if the person's "subtle body" has also been altered and carries the alteration into the next incarnation.

"If it walks like a duck and looks like a duck and quacks like a duck it probably is a duck". All the evidence together looks much more like true reincarnation.

[Art]

I still think it's a made up story. I'll believe my story and you believe yours and we'll find out who was closer to being right after we both cross over into the Spiritual Universe.

[Leo MacDonald]

Who knows how many times we have already been incarnated? Makes you wonder, I think we choose to come back or not. It's not forced on us to come back we get to choose.

[dmduncan]

"I'll believe my story and you believe yours and we'll find out who was closer to being right after we both cross over into the Spiritual Universe."

And if either one of you can find a way to post the truth on Michael Prescott's blog, the rest of us would appreciate it.

[Cyrus]

Who's the most legit medium currently in existence? Because that person should be picked as the go-to for getting info back to MP's blog after any of us dies.

[Kathleen]

Cyrus, I'd venture George Anderson has got to be one of the top legit mediums. That man is uncanny.

As for reincarnation, I believe the Buddhists state you can get off the reincarnation "wheel" by embracing enlightenment, which itself seems to be the understanding that we are all connected and one. As part of that, what we become here as we grow up evolves into a false self, the ego, which we must recognize and reject.

[Art]

If the "I" that is "me" disappears then in what sense can that be construed as "life after death?" I see very little between that philosophy and the materialist philosophy of total annihilation.

If the separate, unique, individual that I have become through living my life disappears then for all practical purposes "I" no longer exist which to my way of thinking is not much different than what atheist skeptics claim happens.

[Bruce Siegel]

"The holographic universe explains everything that ever was or ever will be. Reincarnation conflicts with this theory and makes no sense at all."

Art, what do you make of the fact that in the Holographic Universe, Michael Talbot talks highly of the work of past-life researchers, and presents reincarnation as being compatible with the holographic perspective? In fact, he uses past-life research to support his basic thesis.

[Bruce Siegel]

""If it walks like a duck and looks like a duck and quacks like a duck it probably is a duck". All the evidence together looks much more like true reincarnation."

I think some people simply hate the notion of reincarnation, and are reluctant to give the evidence its due. Call me crazy, but I think Art fits that category, as did MP himself, perhaps, up to a few years ago. (Is that fair to say, Michael?)

Now I admit that, on the face of it, I myself wouldn't be eager to come back here. But I also know how subject to change I am.

Think of it this way. We all know how profoundly an NDE can change someone. Sometimes a spouse, for example, can hardly believe that they're married to the same person.

Now—imagine how much you will be changed by actually DYING—by leaving your current body for good.

Who's to say that such an extended "vacation" won't change you so radically that, ultimately, you may even find something appealing about the notion of coming back?

I've had the flu for the past week, and for much of that time, my life—looking forwards and backwards—seemed completely and unutterably bleak.

But there were also moments when I felt my usual optimism and cheer returning, and the sun shone once again.

So do I have a hard time imagining that, at some point in my future—far removed from this present life—reincarnation may actually seem like an intriguing possibility?

Hardly.

[Bruce Siegel]

The more I think about what I just wrote, the more sense it makes to me. :o)

It's true, of course, that NDE'rs often speak of their reluctance to come back into the body. But, nearly unanimously, I think, they also say that, in the long run, being on the Other Side has given them a greater appreciation for the "Earth adventure".

So, if a mere five minutes in Heaven can do that, is it so hard to imagine that a much more extended leave of absence from the body could re-kindle one's interest in the challenges and rewards of being human?

I think that we're all too eager to extrapolate how we'll feel tomorrow, based on how we feel today. If my own mystical experiences have taught me anything, it's that the universe is a system designed to surprise us at every turn.

[Michael Prescott]

"I think some people simply hate the notion of reincarnation, and are reluctant to give the evidence its due. Call me crazy, but I think Art fits that category, as did MP himself, perhaps, up to a few years ago. (Is that fair to say, Michael?)"

Yes, it's true in my case. I used to hate the idea of reincarnation. I don't anymore. Not sure why I've changed.

"If the 'I' that is 'me' disappears then in what sense can that be construed as 'life after death?' I see very little between that philosophy and the materialist philosophy of total annihilation."

I don't think the "I" disappears; I think it expands. We still retain our memories and sense of self, but we have a wider (and wiser) perspective.

Of course we do have to submerge our memories before reincarnating, but this is only a temporary amnesia. It might be compared to an actor getting so caught up in the role he's playing, he literally "forgets himself." But only for a while.

That's my best guess, anyway. I could be all wrong ... and I probably am wrong about much of it.

[no one]

MP, "It might be compared to an actor getting so caught up in the role he's playing, he literally "forgets himself." "

Your best guess is very close to being the same as my best guess.

Just one problem with the notion that once one has been to heaven one would not want to return is that it assumes that, upon death, everyone goes to heaven and stays there for eternity. While many NDEs describe a blissed out state we have to consider 1. is it actually heaven? 2. regardless of the answer to question #1 is the state of being perpetual? I see no reason to assume from NDE evidence that the answer to either question is "yes".

Furthermore, many NDEs do not describe a heavenly blissed out state. There is a whole spectrum of non-bliss experiences ranging from hellish to fairly mundane OBE states.

I recall one Ian Stevenson report where the individual claiming reincarnation remembered the time in between lives as being disincarnate and drifting along in the earthly sphere watching family members go about their lives and hanging out in a tree. This person could accurately describe details of daily life of the family members during the allegedly disincarnate period (e.g. I saw so and so running and twisting an ankle in the yard after tripping over the pet dog).

I agree that birthmark evidence is very interesting and somewhat compelling when combined with other correlations.

[Matt]

I think Douglas is onto something.
Quantum mechanics points to simultaneity--entanglement, superposition, etc. (Especially in light of time-entanglement research). The holographic principle also indicates reality is deeply interconnected.
But I won't discount the reincarnation experience and the evidence of those experiences. It's a perfect way for consciousness to organize information into intelligence.
It's interesting. Could there be "preincarnation?"

[Kathleen]

"I don't think the "I" disappears; I think it expands. We still retain our memories and sense of self, but we have a wider (and wiser) perspective."

I think what Michael wrote is exactly right. I don't think we lose our identity, but become more of who we really are, not less. The undesirable parts of our personality are shaken off, and we are more ourselves.

[Cathy]

I didn't believe in reincarnation, until my grand-daughter started to tell me at the age of two that she used to be a boy, had boy toys & did boy things. When she told me that I told her she was a girl now & that the boy had to go. It was an interesting experience for a non-believer.

[Art]

I started getting a bad cold yesterday and now snot is drooling out of my nose. I've got a sore throat and feel like crap.

Yeah, I can't wait to experience that over again! The first Noble truth of Buddhism is that all life is suffering and that I can agree with.

[Art]

"Art, what do you make of the fact that in the Holographic Universe, Michael Talbot talks highly of the work of past-life researchers, and presents reincarnation as being compatible with the holographic perspective?" - Bruce
-------------------------------------------

I don't worship any human. Any time I read any book I sift through it and take what I can use and discard the rest. I am convinced that what we call reincarnation is something else. Misinterpretation.

[Matt]

No pain, no gain, Art.

[Bruce Siegel]

"I didn't believe in reincarnation, until my grand-daughter started to tell me at the age of two that she used to be a boy, had boy toys & did boy things."

That's one of the more compelling aspects of these cases of apparent reincarnation with kids. As Carol Bowman points out, initially, parents often have powerful reasons NOT to believe what their children are telling them because it conflicts with their religion or other belief structure.

Yet ultimately, parents have little choice but to agree that something remarkable is happening. And at that point, it's hard for the skeptic to simply brush it all aside as wishful thinking.

[Bruce Siegel]

"I am convinced that what we call reincarnation is something else."

I actually agree with that, Art. I think that ALL of our metaphysical speculations are bound to be way off the mark because we're always trying to explain non-physical events using the limited words and structures our human minds can grasp.

But I think it IS safe to say this: Over the course of a timeless eternity, God chooses to experience Itself as each person, thing, tree, leaf, planet. What's more, God raises the ante and makes the Game even more compelling by shifting Its focus from one entity or level to the next, so that It can have the remarkable experience of seeming to be, for a while, JUST that person, or tree, or thing.

And that's a form of reincarnation is it not? Shifting our focus from one physical container to the next, with blessed "moments" interspersed when we return to our Largest Self.

On the other hand, maybe all that's just eight days of flu talking.

[sbu]

One major problem with the notion of reincarnation and the spiritual/consciousness/holograhic universe is the fact that we get more and more people or in spiritual words. the number of souls are increasing. I think this conflicts greatly with the idea that consciousness is a predesessor for the physical life/universe.

It seems therefore natural to assume that the "new soul/consciousness" is created with the infant body in the womb. And from this the natural conclusion is that the soul dies with the body. Unless a god exists who kindly trancends the souls of the deceased to the spiritual world. But then we are back with religion and faith.

[Michael Prescott]

"the number of souls are increasing."

Maybe so. Or maybe there are physical lifeforms on many other planets, so that an increase in Earth's population is balanced by reductions elsewhere. Or maybe time as we know it doesn't apply to spiritual realms, and all lives are being lived simultaneously ...

"It seems therefore natural to assume that the 'new soul/consciousness' is created with the infant body in the womb. And from this the natural conclusion is that the soul dies with the body."

Why? Couldn't the soul be created to begin its existence in a physical body and then continue in extra-physical dimensions?

"Unless a god exists who kindly trancends the souls of the deceased to the spiritual world. But then we are back with religion and faith."

Or ... unless there's 150 years of empirical evidence to suggest portmortem survival. Then we don't need religion and faith -- though I don't think there's anything wrong with faith, properly understood.

The Greek word for faith is "pistis." According to one source*: "PISTIS was the spirit (daimona) of trust, honesty and good faith. She was one of the good spirits who escaped Pandora's box and fled back to heaven abandoning mankind. Her Roman name was Fides, and her opposite number Apate (Deception) and the Pseudologoi (Lies)."

* http://www.theoi.com/Daimon/Pistis.html

[Iris]

Bruce Siegel, I like your last post. Something in it just feels right to me. What just seems difficult to incorporate into your theory is when a child also has memories from the "intermission period" and remembers how is soul entered the womb and the like...Maybe you wish to elaborate on this if your time allows?

[Alexander1304]

"Couldn't the soul be created to begin its existence in a physical body and then continue in extra-physical dimensions?"

These are question I ask all the time and fail to see one coherent answer...what IS soul(assuming it exists).I've seen interesting vide on youtube of series "Closer To Truth - Can Science Seek the Soul?"
Another question is about the mechanism of soul creation.If,as Michae stated,"soul be created to begin its existence in a physical body" - what is the mechanism is responsible for this act?God?Any Higher Being?Mother Nature alone(doubtful to my opinion)?At what moment of birth "soul" enters the body,if it is created but not reincarnated?

[Alexander1304]

I forgot to mention,that partricipants in the program are: Charles Tart,Dean Radin,Fred Alan Wolf,John Searle...At the end of the program they were asked what they think soul issue will be in 100 years of research.Dean Radin stated that the term itself will have to be re-defined.And I liked Fred alan Wolf's approach - like there is only One soul and we all are just part of it.Similar to what Bruce expressed here.He stated that this "truth" will be revealed to us all.Who knows,maybe there is something to that...

[Bruce Siegel]

"What just seems difficult to incorporate into your theory is when a child also has memories from the "intermission period" and remembers how is soul entered the womb and the like."

Well, since EVERYTHING that happens to you or me is something that's happening to God, why shouldn't God/we have access to those memories? It's true that, in general, God/we choose to forget such things so we can better focus on physical life in the here and now.

But exceptions to that general amnesia are important. We often refer to them as psychic phenomena or ESP. They're clues that God drops into the scheme of things to help us remember our true identity. They help us to have courage and faith. (There's that word, sbu, and as MP said, it doesn't have to be a bad thing.)

[Art]

"And I liked Fred alan Wolf's approach - like there is only One soul and we all are just part of it.Similar to what Bruce expressed here." - Alexander
--------------------------------------------

Exact same point I've made numerous times when I've posted quotes and links to Michelle M's and Mellen Benedict's NDE. And I can agree with that.

It's sort of like the holodeck on the Starship Enterprise being controlled by the ship's computer. All the characters are projections of the computer. They exist inside the computer. The computer is sort of analogous to the holographic film and the holodeck projection is analogous to our "physical" universe.

It's a metaphor and I'm sure like all metaphors at some point they break down.

[no one]

In my view these questions have already been answered sufficiently throughout the ages by mystics and mediums. My limited personal experience compells me to agree. Our thoughts - where we focus our awareness - dictates the experience both while embodied and while a disembodied soul. If we 'think' like an individual human consciousness then we are are an individual human consciousness and we are likely to reincarnate as such; possibly with memories of the previous body and life we existed in as an individual human consciousness.

AS MP suggests, souls, we are told, can move from other realms to inhabit bodies here and they can move from here to other realms. Again, it's all a matter of the level of "vibration" - or focus of awareness - of the entity.

I am suspicious of the idea that one level above us is this "God" and heaven in which is the oneness of all things. I think it more likely that there are levels of organization upon levels of organization. The "god" of one level may be a small fry in the bigger scheme of things. However, that god - the one we speak of - may also be the highest level of perceptual attainment that the human consciouness can attain. There is probably much that is simply unknowable. Possibly, attaining our god level - no mean task - is merely a step on an endless journey.

In other words, the ship's computer is just that. Other ships have other computers with different information. Maybe the ships' computers can share information and thus add to each others' databases. No doubt there are yet more ships whose computer software is not compatible with the Enterprise's systems.

[Ian Wardell]

sbu
"One major problem with the notion of reincarnation and the spiritual/consciousness/holograhic universe is the fact that we get more and more people or in spiritual words. the number of souls are increasing".

Why should the number of souls be increasing? I think that a rough estimate of the total number of people who have ever lived is just over 100 billion. So each and every one of the currently living 7 billion people could have had several lives.

Not that reincarnation need occur to everyone.

[sbu]

So you propose there always was +7 billion souls - let's put the number at 10 billion souls.

If we assume that for the first 100000 years of the existence of the modern human there was maybe 100 million people living the rest of the approx 10 billion souls would just have to wait in the spiritiual world to get a chance to get born into the physical world? And if so, would we run out of souls in the long run if the population of the Earth grows to + 100 billion people? Or is the number of souls infinite? hmm....

[Iris]

I think the process of reincarnation might happen differently from what we think. From the cases Dr. Stevenson examined it might be legitimate to conclude that it does not happen to everyone, only to those who die early and/or violently. Maybe those are drawn back by very strong emotional ties or in order to "correct" the elimination of a soul from earth that should still be there (sounds akward, I am realzing, English is not my mother tongue). I think considering humans living roday I do not think mankind has evolved to the better over the centuries, so if the reason why people reincarnate is to evolve for the better it has failed. Nor do I believe in the romantic idea of learning the way we do in school. I can imagine that we are not designed to have more than one life on earth and if people come back it is an individual corrective of extraordinary circumstances. I think the idea of chosoing the circumstances of one`s life is somehow arrogant. Ask starving people in Africa or those who lost their whole family in a war or suffer from terrible deseases. I think they are not too conderned about the "wonderful learning experience" and I`d think it is their very right!

[nbtruthman]

sbu: One major problem with the notion of reincarnation and the spiritual/consciousness/holograhic universe is the fact that we get more and more people or in spiritual words. the number of souls are increasing. I think this conflicts greatly with the idea that consciousness is a predesessor for the physical life/universe.

The skeptic argument is usually that a growing population of human bodies would somehow "run out" of souls with which to be reincarnated. This isn't a valid refutation of reincarnation. It is making some specific metaphysical assumptions with no particular justification. The skeptic is claiming to somehow have the supernatural knowledge that the number of souls is fixed, that every soul wants to be reincarnated, and that the period between incarnations is fixed. Other metaphysical assumptions are that the number of souls per body is always 1 (that is, no soulless humans are born, and that no multi-soul humans are born). It is easy to show that even given all the other assumptions, if the period in the afterlife varies, circular migration can easily fit various proposed total numbers of souls.

A paper in the Journal of the Society for Scientific Exploration covers this in detail (at http://www.scientificexploration.org/journal/jse_14_3_bishai.pdf ). The title: "Can Population Growth Rule Out Reincarnation? A Model of Circular Migration" by David Bishai. Some sample calculations from the paper:

Population growth rate over time is estimated as approximately exponential, with 5 million total population in 50,000 BC and 6 billion in 2000 AD. With a total number of souls = 10 billion, the average time between incarnations varies between 57,000 years in 50,000 BC down to 30 years in 2000 AD. With a total number of souls = 20 billion, the average afterlife "dwell time" varies from 114,000 years down to 106 years presently.

[Art]

Why would anyone want to come back? I have read a plethora of near death experiences and the only people who willing choose to come back are usually either mothers with small children or small children who are afraid their parents will be too sad if they leave.

The whole idea is illogical. The idea of "tuning into" memories stored in the Akashic records makes a whole lot more sense to me. As soon as their own sense of "self" is solidified they soon "forget" or quit tuning into those other memories unless they are like Shanti Devi who was encouraged and egged on by the culture in which she was raised. Most kids who say they have past life memories start to forget them by the time they are 7 years old.

[Michael Prescott]

"I think the idea of choosing the circumstances of one`s life is somehow arrogant. Ask starving people in Africa or those who lost their whole family in a war or suffer from terrible diseases."

Suppose we learn by facing our fears. If our greatest fear is to live in abject poverty, perhaps the only way to overcome that fear is to live that kind of life. Or if our greatest fear is losing all our loved ones, perhaps we need to suffer that loss in order to get past it.

I wouldn't rule out the possibility that the higher self is smart enough to make these choices even though the ego (understandably enough) will resist tooth and nail!

[nbtruthman]

I wouldn't rule out the possibility that the higher self is smart enough to make these choices even though the ego (understandably enough) will resist tooth and nail!

I think this belief system may be in the direction of the truth. Unfortunately it just can't accommodate the extremely widespread injustice of innocent suffering in the context of a system that is good from the human standpoint. The problem is, we live our lives as human beings, not as our souls (except for a very few exceptional ones.

[Art]

I believe because the physics of the other side is so very different from this side that there are certain things that can only be learned in this life that are impossible to learn in the next. All three things are closely related to each other.

Those overwhelming feelings of oneness and connectedness in Heaven preclude being able to know what it means and how it feels to be separate, and time and space not existing means it's impossible to learn about time and space in Heaven, and because you will literally feel like you are everywhere in the universe at one time it is impossible to "know" what it feels like to be inside a physical body or to control a physical body. All the stuff that we take so much for granted in this life can only be learned while being inside a body.

If you want to be a separate unique individual you have so spend some time on Earth inside a physical body. I think we simply come here to become unassimilated.

[Iris]

I think everyone`s greatest fear is losing a loved one or starving to death and yet many people escape facing those terrible events. Do you really think that those people suffering terribly just had a little bit "too much" fear in them that they now need to face it? And that they are "rewarded" in the next life with better circumstances in which they are born if they are brave enough not to kill themselves? COME ON! You might wish to tell a mother whose child just died from a tetanus infection just because she could not afford medication/prevention that at least her higher self had allowed her to face her innate fears. Easy to make such assumptions sitting comfortably at one`s desk....

[sbu]

Population growth rate over time is estimated as approximately exponential, with 5 million total population in 50,000 BC and 6 billion in 2000 AD. With a total number of souls = 10 billion, the average time between incarnations varies between 57,000 years in 50,000 BC down to 30 years in 2000 AD. With a total number of souls = 20 billion, the average afterlife "dwell time" varies from 114,000 years down to 106 years presently.

So the maximum number of people to inhibit the Earth at one time is 20 billion? Right.. This paper is completely meaningless. Why not just put the number of souls to a trilion or infinite maybe?

[Michael Prescott]

"COME ON! You might wish to tell a mother whose child just died from a tetanus infection just because she could not afford medication/prevention that at least her higher self had allowed her to face her innate fears ... etc."

Of all the topics I've covered on this blog, other than political controversies, reincarnation generates the most emotional reactions. I think our ego is deeply threatened by the idea of multiple incarnations, because this scenario suggests that the persona nourished by the ego is only temporary and is to some extent artificial or illusory. I strongly resisted the idea of reincarnation myself for that reason; but strangely, it doesn't bother me anymore. I've come to think the ego persona is a relatively trivial thing in the long run. It seems to me like a role we play, while our true self witnesses and learns from the performance. Your mileage may vary ...

[Michael Prescott]

By the way, I doubt that anything I said to the mother in the above example could ease her suffering, but if I were going to say something, it would be along these lines:

"Everything happens for a purpose; it's all part of a plan. We don't see the whole purpose or understand the plan now, but someday we will, and on that day you and your child will be reunited."

Admittedly, this would probably mean little to someone in the midst of such grief, but what better words are there?

[Art]

When people talk about the "Higher Self" or "true self" it reminds me of the worm like thing that inhabited Lt. Commander Jadzia Dax in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

"Jadzia Dax is a joined Trill. Though she appears to be a young woman, Jadzia lives in symbiosis with a wise and long-lived creature, known as a symbiont, named Dax. The two share a single, conscious mind, and her personality is a blending of the characteristics of both the host and the symbiont. As such, Dax has access to all the skills and memories of the symbiont's seven previous hosts."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jadzia_Dax

And speaking of illusory if the "ego" disappears, and what you are talking about is that little voice inside my head that I hear when I talk to myself, then for all intents and purposes I see very little difference between that and what skeptics talk about when they talk death, i.e. "total annihilation," lights out, that's all she wrote, worm food.

To me the theory of reincarnation is no afterlife at all. If the I that I think I am disappears then for all intents and purposes "Art Riechert" is gone which means that the skeptics are right, there is no life after death.

[Iris]

I think you have got me wrong, I do not doubt at all that reincarnation is possible or even necessary in some cases. I only cast serious doubts on the "great learning experience" or even the great plan that kindly leads us to enlightment and eternal bliss through helping us to improve through several incarnations. That might be plausible to those who are living comfortable lives and feel (maybe not even on a conscious level) they might have scored high in a previous live. I have nothing against the idea of several lives but my notion of it doesn` t require the idea that a great percentage of the world´s population is in boot camp right now while others have earned the right to just make the experience how it feels to enjoy themselves...I am very convinced that this is not how "Karma" works...

[no one]

I agree, Iris.

Art, your reaction to the notion of reincarnation reminds me a lot of the athiests' rejection of "god" that one hears so often; i.e. how can there be a god with so much cruelty and pain and suffering and injustice in the world?

Actually, I don't see, based on your premise of why reincarnation can't be true, how you can accept a spiritual/survival hypothesis any more than the athiest does.

Why, Art, if life on earth is so terrible, would we, as souls, ever incarnate at all? Even once?

Your answer seems to be, "to experience separation". That's it. That is the key bit upon which your whole theory hinges. However, if there is any truth to your supposition, then why would it not be necessary - or even desirable - for a soul to experience separation more than once? Maybe the soul didn't fully learn this lesson for reasons ranging from a life cut short to arrogant pride to misunderstanding.....etc, etc. Or maybe the soul did learn the lesson well, but then volunteered to return again to help others get through the lesson appropriately. Why could these things not be the case even within the framework of your theory?

Also, and I don't mean this in a harsh critical kind of way, but more as an item for discussion, but I think your view that pain = bad is fairly myopic. People elect do things every day that are painful; everything from running marathons to enduring pregnancies and child birth. One lesson I have learned in life is that agony and extacy are closely related. There's a fine line and one can turn into the other very easily. Even the loss of loved ones seems to add a poignancy to life.

[Art]

Why, Art, if life on earth is so terrible, would we, as souls, ever incarnate at all? Even once? - no one
--------------------------------------------

Not just duality and separation but also time and space and holistically imprint memories of what it's like to be limited to a physical body and live in a 3 dimensional + 1 time Universe.

Physical pain imprints on the body the parameters of that body, bits of information like pixels on a TV screen. The more pixels the more clear the picture. This is why cutters cut themselves, why some people get body piercings, why those guys self flagellated themselves during the middle ages, and why religious zealots in Malaysia stick metal rods through their skin and in the Phillipines certain people realistically re-enact the crucifixion and why some tribes of American Indians hang themselves by hooks through the skin of their chest and back. The pain is teach the soul about the body and the pain of getting a tatoo imprints information and tatoos are also a lesson in separation.

The education of the soul is too important to leave up to chance and the more emotional the experience the more powerful and long lasting the memory it creates.

[Sandy]

Maybe it takes more than one lifetime to see the beauty in this world despite the fact that people feel pain here. This life is so important. The beauty here isn't always easy to see. Maybe we just don't want to acknowledge it, but it's there if you look for it. It's precious and important, and if you can bring yourself to look at it then you'll know why you need to be here. Being alive is an extraordinary gift.

[Bruce Siegel]

"Most kids who say they have past life memories start to forget them by the time they are 7 years old."

As kids age, ALL their earliest memories tend to grow fainter or disappear, not just ones connected with past lives. Does that mean other remembered events are also unreal?

"The education of the soul is too important to leave up to chance and the more emotional the experience the more powerful and long lasting the memory it creates."

Your statement seems to me like a good argument for reincarnation. I mean, given the all-important need to educate the soul, why should experience on the physical plane be limited to just a single visit? Seems to me like an arbitrary cut-off point .

One physical life, but not two? Why?

[Bruce Siegel]

Change 3rd sentence to read: Does that mean other forgotten events are also unreal?

[Michael Prescott]

Art, suppose a child is stillborn or lives only a few minutes outside the womb. Would it have learned the lesson of separation? If so, why do most of us live three score and ten years? If not, wouldn't that soul, at least, have to reincarnate?

Where do we draw the line, anyway? Has a three-week-old infant learned the lesson of separation? What about a six-month-old? (Very young infants do not differentiate between themselves and the outside world.)

What about a severely handicapped baby with limited sensory input? What about a two-year-old who has not yet developed a strong ego? Can we acquire a sense of separation without an ego? If so, why do we ever develop an ego?

Isn't a certain amount of life experience required to fully learn this lesson of separation? If so, how can we be sure that one lifetime offers enough experience?

Just some food for thought ...

[Art]

I didn't say they were unreal? I said they were "borrowed" memories. Tuning into someone else's station.

Everything in this life is "unreal". It's a holographic projection from someplace else. It can be stopped and replayed ad infinitum. Michelle M said we'll look back on this life like it was a "dream in itself". Time and space on the other side don't exist. One has to be able to understand the implications of a holographic universe in order to understand my ideas.

"For if the concreteness of the world is but a secondary reality and what is "there" is actually a holographic blur of frequencies, and if the brain is also a hologram and only selects some of the frequencies out of this blur and mathematically transforms them into sensory perceptions, what becomes of objective reality? Put quite simply, it ceases to exist. As the religions of the East have long upheld, the material world is Maya, an illusion, and although we may think we are physical beings moving through a physical world, this too is an illusion."
http://www.earthportals.com/hologram.html

The whole purpose of life is to become a "separate, unique, individual." Reincarnation is a recipe for souls to be schizophrenic or have multiple personality disorder.

[nbtruthman]

no one: Also, and I don't mean this in a harsh critical kind of way, but more as an item for discussion, but I think your view that pain = bad is fairly myopic.

Tell that to someone dying slowly in excruciating pain from cancer. That pain is bad is inherent in the wiring of our brains. We are designed to suffer. Idealism diminishes in direct proportion to the proximity to the actual situation. These spiritual insights may be ultimately true, that all suffering is temporary and it doesn't damage and cannot destroy the absolute core of the person. But "spiritual truth" is irrelevant to and cannot relieve much or most of the pain. Such words are "feel good" rationalizations in actual situations of atrocious suffering. What I don't see is how they are relevant to humans - they are primarily aspects of soul consciousness. We experience life as limited human personalities naturally identifying with the body and with memories going back to childhood, not as immortal souls.

[Art]

We have to believe we are our physical bodies otherwise we wouldn't generate the emotions needed to imprint on the soul the lessons it needs to learn. The more emotional the experience the more powerful and long lasting the memory it creates. Emotion and memory are closely linked.

Emotions Make the Memory Last
"Ever wonder why some memories can stay vivid for years while others fade with time? The answer is emotion."
http://www.webmd.com/balance/news/.../emotions-make-memory-last

That is why we will never be allowed to know with 100% absolute certainty that there is life after death because the death of someone we love is the ultimate lesson in separation and if we knew that one day we were going to be reunited with them forever we might not mourn quite as much and death would lose some of it's power as the ultimate lesson in separation.

[nbtruthman]

sbu: So the maximum number of people to inhibit the Earth at one time is 20 billion? Right.. This paper is completely meaningless. Why not just put the number of souls to a trilion or infinite maybe?

The point is that mathematical arguments against reincarnation are invalid because they make all kinds of a priori metaphysical assumptions about things that we really don't have good knowledge of (like the time period between lives and the total number of souls). The paper just makes some interesting estimates based on a few example cases.

[Kathleen]

Art, the Eastern religions call the ego that "little voice inside your head" and state that it's not the "real you." I agree with that, because you can step back and observe this ego. In the next stage, we rid ourself of the ego...it makes sense, because how could we ever "find Heaven" if we're still stuck with our ego? I know I would love to be rid of some of the annoying things about my own personality, and my own ego's obsessions. I feel that there's a real self behind this ego, and that the ego and its vanities, pride, obsessions, etc., are no great loss, and are actually artificially created by our time here.

[Art]

If this life will teach you one thing it's about pain and suffering and how it's something you want to avoid.

If that little voice inside my head that I can hear when I talk to myself disappears then for all intents and purposes "Art" is no more and the materialist skeptics were right all along.

Either "I" survive or "I" don't. There can be no middle ground. If I say that I believe that "I" survive the death of my physical body then what I'm talking about is that voice inside my head.

[Michael Prescott]

"Either 'I' survive or 'I' don't."

I think it's more likely that what survives is the subconscious or, more accurately, the superconscious mind. I think this is probably more like the "witness" (higher self) than like the "I" (ego).

Who would want to go through eternity chained to the ego, with all its pettiness and selfishness? The ego is like George Costanza (of "Seinfeld" fame). The higher self is the part of us that laughs at George Costanza - and at ourselves when we deserve it, as we frequently do!

[Iris]

I wish to clarify, as a response to an earlier post, that women "endure pregnancy and childbirth" not because of an unconscious longig for suffering and pain but just bacause for the joy of having children. At least, that simply is it for me. No hidden motive, not because I like it "the tough way", I just wnated to hold a baby in my arm, so I became pregnant and gave birth. If I´ll have a second baby this is going to happen because I like kids not because I like to torture myself with pregnancy and delivery (to be precise: I weigh in my mind the inconvenience of 9 months of pregnancy against what having a child means for me and come to the conclusion it is worth it). So sometimes you do not need to search for dome obscure metaphysical meaning behind peoples´decisions, sometimes they do what they do for the most obvious reason.

[Zerdini]

Art wrote:

"That is why we will never be allowed to know with 100% absolute certainty that there is life after death because the death of someone we love is the ultimate lesson in separation and if we knew that one day we were going to be reunited with them forever we might not mourn quite as much and death would lose some of it's power as the ultimate lesson in separation. "

That is patent nonsense!

I know with 100% certainty that my loved ones survive as I've had meaningful conversations with them over many years. I didn't need to mourn.

[Art]

Zerdini of course I was talking about the collective "we." It's nice though that you have such confidence. I'm afraid that most people are not so lucky. I believe that most people go through life with quiet desperation wondering about "life after death."

I would say that I have a stronger belief than most because of all my reading. I sometimes try and quantify it and put a number on it and say I'm "97% confident" of life after death but of course that is just a made up statistic and the truth is that my confidence varies from day to day and some days I think about it more than others. By the way, one of the best books I've read recently about "life after death" is The Art of Dying by Peter Fenwick. I found it to be very comforting and uplifting.

I'm tired of the argumentative books and prefer books that just have lots of warm hearted stories about life after death encounters.

[sbu]

I know with 100% certainty that my loved ones survive as I've had meaningful conversations with them over many years. I didn't need to mourn.

Zerdini, could you please verify if the ego (the "I") survives death? This is a quite interesting question actually. Much of the evidence indicates this isn't the case.

[Zerdini]

@sbu:

I'm not sure what you mean by 'the ego (the "I")' and in what context.

All I can say, without a shadow of doubt, is that personality and memory survive, to the extent as I stated, that I was able to have meaningful and intelligent conversations. I am, of course, referring to the Independent Direct Voice mediumship.

[Zerdini]

@Art

Thanks that "we" managed to clear that up!

Reading books is helpful but cannot replace direct personal experience.

Kind regards

Z

[Art]

I don't like to argue. I want to be comforted. I'm looking for compassion, hope, and most of all love. What I find really strange is that a lot of people come to message boards/blogs looking for an argument? What a strange way to go through life?

I don't believe in absolutes. When I was a kid, before my mom died, she used to say "life ain't a bowl of cherries you know!" And she used to also say "you just got to live in this life kiddo!" Meaning that everyone just tries to do the best they can in life and make sense of it as best they can. We're all just trying to make it through.

[Zerdini]

@ Art:

It's not arguments that people come on a blog for.

It could be to learn from other people's experiences or to debate a topic they find interesting.

No-one has all the answers and, yes, we are all trying to understand life as best we can.

Especially those of us who are nearing the end of our earthly life! lol

[nbtruthman]

Zerdini: All I can say, without a shadow of doubt, is that personality and memory survive, to the extent as I stated, that I was able to have meaningful and intelligent conversations. I am, of course, referring to the Independent Direct Voice mediumship.

This seems to answer the question of whether the ego survives. Certainly the ego must encompass personality and memory. This survival of the ego must be temporary, however. In the context of reincarnation, I doubt that any sane personal ego self would knowingly choose some of the myriad miserable lives that happen on this planet, caused by being born in the wrong place at the wrong time. The High Self can see some great benefits in this perhaps, but not the poor human that has to undergo the actual physical experience.

It remains a question whether the Higher Self or whatever it is that remains can really be identified with by us humans.

[Iris]

I have some serious doubts on a "Higher Self" or other greater power that whants us to evolve to perfection to several incarnations (though I do not exclude the possibility because I do not claim to know). I believe, however, that reincarnation is a part of evolution and the highly intelligent, creative power that is involved. Spiritual and physical evolution might happen simultanously and sometime in the creative process it might have become obvious that "recycling souls" might is more successful than not. I think this process does not intend to lead to perfection but to diversity and a broader range of possibilities. It is hard to believe (to me) that someone/a wise part of us aims at perfection or a certain type of experience but that this creative power (a part of God in my opinion) just has the innate need to explore and this can be intensified by having (some) streams of consciousness come back. I hope that I was able to explain what I have in mind, it is difficult. I also think it is possible that we experience unity in life on earth and separation in the afterlife/other side (however you wish to describe it) for we are somewhat confined to our own subconsciousness/superconsciousness there and are not able to share experiences? maybe the sense of unity in the afterlife is only present on the plane of illusions? These are just thoughts and I only want to make clear that there are alternatives to a "great plan" - a creative power that experiments and plays and doesn`t find it at all necessary to figure out where it all leads to...

[Art]

I am convinced that the stuff that our souls come here to learn ain't the stuff that most folks think we come here to learn. I'm betting it's got more to do with just experiencing being in or limited to a physical body, learning how to control a body, learning what it means and how it feels to be separate, and what it means and how it feels to live in a place where time and space seem to be real. It learns what it is supposed to learn whether we want it to or not.

Those are things that are universal and everyone experiences regardless of who we are, or where we live, or what we believe. I'm betting that the Creator of the Universe is a whole lot smarter than we think it is.

[Zerdini]

@ nbtruthman:

I recommend reading:

BEYOND HUMAN PERSONALITY

Being a detailed description of the Future life purporting to be communicated by the late F. W. H. Myers

[Frederic William Henry Myers, 1843-1901]

Containing an account of the gradual development of human personality into cosmic personality through the mediumship of:

GERALDINE CUMMINS (automatic writing medium)

"For it has been my lot to be concerned in a work more important and more successful than anything in my own capacity or character could have led me to expect. I have been one of the central group concerned in a great endeavor; the endeavor to pierce, by scientific methods, the world-old, never-penetrated veil. The movement which took overt shape in 1882, with the formation of the Society for Psychical Research, was aided indeed by help from other quarters, but in its essential character was the conception of a few minds, and was piloted through its early dangers by a small group of intimate friends. With this endeavor to learn the actual truth as to the destiny of man I have from the very first been identified and, so to say, incorporate. Edmund Gurney worked at the task with more conscientious energy; the Sidgwicks with more unselfish wisdom; but no one more unreservedly than myself has staked his all upon that distant and growing hope." --Frederic Myers

[Zerdini]

In the introduction to “Beyond Human Personality”, Miss E. B. Gibbes writes:

The following essays were written automatically by Miss Geraldine Cummins in precisely the same manner as those contained in the book entitled "The Road to Immortality".

They purport to be communicated by the late F. W. H. Myers, one of the founders of the Society for Psychical Research and explain his conception of life after death in greater detail than was possible in the earlier volume.

In the above mentioned book is also presented a series of evidential cases which would seem to answer Professor MacBride's question (p. 10) and to offer cogent proof of the survival of human personality. It has not, therefore, seemed necessary to include in the present volume these and other evidential cases received through the mediumship of Miss Cummins. For such evidence readers are referred to the previous volume and also to various articles which have appeared in 'Light', the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research and other psychic papers during the last few years.

In his Foreword to "The Road to Immortality", Sir Oliver Lodge describes Miss Cummins as "an amateur trance-writer... an amanuensis of reasonable education, characterized by a ready willingness for devoted service and of transparent honesty."

The present volume was sent to him and in a letter to me he says that he has "no reason to doubt the likeness to Myers' utterances except perhaps what is said about solar beings and about conditions of life in stars. At the conclusion of this portion the writer deals with difficult subjects and is not to be taken as an infallible guide. The whole is interesting... I think the chapter labeled 'Prayer' is very fine."

It is of interest here to quote an extract from a sitting which Miss Cummins gave to Sir Oliver Lodge. The communicator announces himself as F. W. H. Myers, and Sir Oliver Lodge has kindly consented to its publication in this volume.
[Extract from sitting with Sir Oliver Lodge, Dec. 10th, 1933] is quoted in the book.

[Pete]

Hey, Z! How about recomending something in the 21st century

[Michael Prescott]

Why does it matter if the material comes from the 19th, 20th, or 21st century? Is newer always better?

If you want a more recent book (late 20th century), I've found the "Seth" material channeled by Jane Roberts to be pretty illuminating.

The 21st century is still pretty young. Give it time ...

[nbtruthman]

Iris" I think this process does not intend to lead to perfection but to diversity and a broader range of possibilities. It is hard to believe (to me) that someone/a wise part of us aims at perfection or a certain type of experience but that this creative power (a part of God in my opinion) just has the innate need to explore and this can be intensified by having (some) streams of consciousness come back.

This is an intriguing concept, also to some extent Art's view. It could perhaps explain the apparent indifference to human suffering on the part of Spirit, which is a hard to deny fact of human existence. What Spirit really desires would then be experiences of limitation, not available in its own native realm. Experiences of struggle, tragedy, loss, pleasure, pain, joy, suffering, they would all be just grist for the mill of the Soul, all equally good from the Soul perspective, which would be alien to the human. However, one must admit that such a desolate scheme (from the human point of view) differs considerably from most deep NDE accounts and most channeled and mediumistically delivered descriptions of the grand plan.

[nbtruthman]

Zerdini,
Thanks for the information. I just don't see how, whatever the glorious eventual result, any cosmic scheme of evolution of the personality and/or of the soul through trials and tribulations can justify from the human point of view the brutal fact of immense innocent human suffering over endless thousands of years. This is the ancient intractable problem of theodicity: the need for an argument in defense of God's goodness and justice in the face of the existence of evil and innocent suffering.

[Art]

The pain and suffering may be necessary to overcome the physics of the other side. We have to experience enough separation in this life to where the soul is really really really imprinted with what it means and how it feels to be separate. We here in the physical Universe can't begin to understand the overwhelming feelings of oneness and connectedness in Heaven.

It's like being part of the Borg collective. Let's say you were born into the Borg and spent your whole life as a Borg and had never known anything else but the connectedness of the Hive mind. The only way that some of the Borg drones were ever able to break their tie with the Borg was by being "rescued" by a race outside the Borg and then spending time as separate, unique, individuals.

Perhaps once our souls really really really need to learn and understand what it means and how it feels to be separate, way down deep in the deepest recesses of the soul, then they can go back to "Heaven" and live without losing that sense of "self" and have the best of both worlds.

The same is true of pain and suffering. How can you know what it means and feels to be "inside" or inhabit a physical body unless you had spent time inside one? If you were pure soul, pure consciousness, infinitely interconnected to everything in the universe and you literally felt like you were everywhere in the Universe at once the only way to really understand time and space and motion and being limited by a body (and lets face it there are some good things about being inside a body - making love, eating, hugging, riding a wave, or a bike, or feeling the warm sun on your body) then if you want to be able to truly understand those feelings you have to have spent some time in a physical body (and not just necessarily human) so you can know what it was like to be alive and live in a 3 dimensional + 1 time Universe.

The Universe is a huge place with billions of planets. I've read NDEs where they said that the Universe is alive with life. There may be myriads of creatures on other planets that we can't even begin to know about and understand.

I believe we are simply spiritual beings having a physical experience and each one of us individually has to learn about life so that after we cross back over into "heaven" we will be able to use this knowledge to conjure up our own version of heaven.... a place where thoughts seem to be things and consciousness creates reality.

Pain and suffering cause emotion and emotion

[Jane B]

Just stepping in for a moment in case anyone hasn't seen this new article talking about the AWARE study. It's short and focuses on one hospital (because it's from the town newspaper of that hospital) but there's an interesting comment from Dr. Parnia at the end. This particular hospital hasn't gotten any hits on its targets, but as usual, Parnia et al don't comment on how the overall study is going.

http://www.croydonguardian.co.uk/news/8798707.Croydon_hospital_studies_life_after_death/?ref=rss

He says, “The evidence that is interesting to me is that, contrary to my training, the entity we call the human mind and consciousness appears to continue to exist during the early stage of death.”

I don't think this is anything we didn't know - the important question is not whether the mind continues to function at any given point in the dying process, but whether it functions at a time when we can verify that the brain would not be able to support conscious activity. Hopefully there will be more revelations later on.

[Art]

Even if the AWARE study gets hits there will still be skeptics that will say "YES BUT!" Then suggest we jump through these new hoops they set up for us. The dichotomy between "us" and "them" will go on forever. There will never be a consensus of "scientist" agreeing that there is life after death. Not going to happen. It's not that kind of thing, or as John Edward says "it is what it is."

[Iris]

Art, I do not think that my view is pessimistic. It only does not presuppose that a(n) (in)finite number of clueless souls was created in order to strive for perfection and enlightment. I just wanted to introduce the idea that we are part of the creative process that is evolution, that the "spiritual plane" and the material world develop along with each other and that the "goal" of the process, maybe of the creator, is just creating without a fixed definition what it all should come to. What sense does it make for the "watcher" as opposed to the "ego" when the ego suffers and learns and loves and so on when the ego dies and the watcher is a detached entity, whise and omniscient, being connected to great knowledge and a higher truth? I do not think that the "creative game" is negative for there is no goal, I don`t think at all! I just think it offers many options about what happens after dying and reincarnating might not be for everyone...

[.]

That was a very interesting comment from Parnia if one reads between the lines. Is the foot in the door so to speak ?

Consciousness should NOT continue even into the early stages of death.

[Zerdini]

Zerdini,
Thanks for the information. I just don't see how, whatever the glorious eventual result, any cosmic scheme of evolution of the personality and/or of the soul through trials and tribulations can justify from the human point of view the brutal fact of immense innocent human suffering over endless thousands of years. This is the ancient intractable problem of theodicity: the need for an argument in defense of God's goodness and justice in the face of the existence of evil and innocent suffering.

Of course it cannot be justified and I would not attempt to do so.

I lived in Africa for many years and saw human sufferng on an unimaginable scale. I came to a personal conclusion that much of the suffering is due to man's inhumanity to man rather than due to a benevolent despot.

I suppose a lot depends on how you define God.

If you believe God to be a benevolent despot who hands out rewards and punishments for good and evil deeds then none of it makes any sense at all.

From a spirit(ual) point of view we are looking at what can be regarded as Natural Law which is impersonal in operation i.e. immutable, unchanging and the same today as it has always been.

Spirit teacher, Silver Birch, stated:

"Your experiences are all part of your evolution. One day, freed from the trammels of flesh, with eyes not clouded by matter, you will look back in retrospect and view the life you have lived on earth. And out of the jigsaw of all the events, you will see how every piece fits into its allotted place, how every experience was a lesson to quicken the soul and to enable it to have greater understanding of its possibilities."

[jcm]

Art: The Universe is a huge place with billions of planets. I've read NDEs where they said that the Universe is alive with life. There may be myriads of creatures on other planets that we can't even begin to know about and understand.

Actually more and more research indicates life on other planets might be rare (if it even exists of course which we can't know for certain). The majority of stars are red dwarfs unable to support life on planets, and the odds for finding planets in a lift-allowant distance from the host sun so far seems to be low (none found so far). Only suns in a maybe 10% disc region of a galaxy(called the Habitable zone) is likely to contain enough heavy elements to form rocky plantes (systems outside the disc will be mainly hydrogen+helium, inside near the galactric centre too much radiation). Finally we don't know what it takes for life to evolve (even though there are theories).

So in short it's impossible to predict anything meaningful about the frequency of life in the universe, the outlook for ever detecting exterestial life on Earth looks more and more grim, and the fact that some NDE's link their experience with these issues indicates the the NDE phenomena is becoming overhyped, that too much nonsense on the Internet is labelled as near death experiences even though it most likely all is going on in peoples imagination.

Show me an NDE with this kinds of features before Moody made the phenomena renown (or LSD was invented).

[Art]

I don't believe in chance. There are no coincidences. Everything happens for a reason, even the bad stuff. God is in control even when we don't believe He/she is. I hold fast to my original statement - The Universe was made for Life.

"I just knew everything there was to know. I knew why there was bad in the world, I knew why there was good, I knew that every little thing that will ever occur here, is exactly planned out, in order to bring about something else. Everything we have ever done or known or will know, is perfectly planned out and perfectly in tune... {snip}... It taught me that everyone, everything, is in its right place. Always will be, no matter how much we try to change, or try to destroy, or try to create, were simply doing exactly what was planned. The meaning of life, as I felt it to be, is simply to live. Were here because we want to be here." - excerpt from James NDE, http://www.nderf.org/james_e_nde.htm

And now it's time to go in the living room and watch The Big Bang on CBS! It's a hoot!