Of two (or more) minds

In the comments thread of my post "Proof of life," RabbitDawg made an important observation: 

Reports of NDE's often mention access to an overwhelming amount of knowledge, love and understanding, but in the psychic medium world, the spirit you had when you left will be the spirit you have when you land on the Other Side.

In reply to this, I wrote: 

This is the big unresolved issue for me. There seem to be two internally consistent but mutually exclusive storylines: 1) the spirit undergoes only a slight change (or no change) and keeps living much as it did on earth, unaware of any past lives or larger meaning; and 2) the spirit remembers all its past lives, sees its earthly incarnations as personas or roles played, and prepares for its next incarnation with the help of other, equally enlightened members of its Group Soul.

This may correspond in some way to the gnostic distinction between the psyche (soul) and the pneuma (spirit). The psyche is the ego-mind; the pneuma is the higher self or oversoul.

Possibly one way of thinking about it is that the pneuma infuses the physical body, and the psyche is an emergent property of this combination. That is, the psyche comes about as a result of the intermingling of matter and spirit, but it is a property distinct from either. (By analogy, neither hydrogen nor oxygen has the property of wetness, but in the right combination - H₂O, water - the property of wetness emerges.)

But how we can reconcile the two storylines remains perplexing to me. This may be a "Flatland" situation where the solution would be obvious if seen from the correct perspective, but the perspective isn't available to us in this dimension. Maybe the psyche and pneuma are one and not-one at the same time, in a way that makes sense only in terms of some higher-dimensional logic. Maybe not.

As Yul Brynner might say, "Is a puzzlement."

My comment prompted Matt Rouge to offer a very good summary of a possible solution to the conundrum: 

This may be a "Flatland" situation where the solution would be obvious if seen from the correct perspective, but the perspective isn't available to us in this dimension.- Michael

I think this is the correct direction, and I'd like to build on what no one said, as I think he's basically right. Here's my belief system re this point based on what I've experienced and learned thus far:

1. The NDE is a *different* experience than just *being* in spirit, but I don't think it's all that incompatible with it, and I don't perceive all that great a contradiction. The Afterlife is in the 5th dimension (or higher), and people there definitely experience things in a different way than we do. I think this comes through adequately in ADCs. When people have an NDE, they go to 5D and back, and that is going to be a mind-blowing experience.

I know from my experience in dreaming (4D or higher) that it is *very* tough to translate the experience back into our 3D heads. For example, I had been thinking recently that in dreams I am just waist up--I have not much experience of my legs. Yet soon after that I had a dream in which I was riding around on a scooter, the kind you glide on and have to use your legs, and I was able to remember the *fact* that I had used my legs a lot, but it was still hard to remember and translate all of it back into 3D.

Likewise, a lot that people experience in NDEs is hard to "cram" back into their heads and to describe. I think ADCs are going to be the same kind of thing: a lot is going to be hard to communicate.

2. All of our incarnations live forever in the Afterlife. They don't "disappear" when they reincarnate. This *is* a case in which the Flatland explanation applies. People both reincarnate to advance *and* continue to advance in the Afterlife. The reason why this is true is that time here is *contained* within the higher-dimensionality "time" they experience. Further, the entire soul family is *contained* within the higher-dimensionality of the Higher Self.

3. At the same time, from our perspective here, this is the *only* world and the *only* time. It is only through this "trick" that we are able to use 3D to advance.

It's interesting to look back on the past. We can see ourself in the past, but s/he can't see us (barring precognition). It takes no "work" for me now to be 41 instead of 21--it just is. Likewise, I am also 61 (if I make it that far!) looking back on 41, yet I can't see that yet. We are used to the arrow of time, but it is really weird when you think about it. Similarly, higher dimensions allow beings to *be* in different states at the same "time."

Hope this helps!

Finally, I chimed in with an excerpt from Michael Tymn's book The Articulate Dead. In Chapter 19, Tymn discusses an archaeological excavation of a medieval abbey that was aided by channeled information from the deceased monks. A briefer version of the story, also by Mike Tymn, appears here.

Here's the excerpt from the book: 

On January 26, 1912, Johannes [the chief communicator] seems to been on the defensive after other monks pointed out his errors and commented that he had an idealized recollection of the abbey because of his strong attachment to it. They explained that he was earthbound by his love and that his spirit clung in his dreams to a vanished vision which is spirit eyes still saw. Seemingly suggesting a group soul or higher-self nature, Johannes, in his defense, responded: "Why cling I to that which is not? It is I, and it is not I, but part of me which dwells in the past and is bound to that which my carnal soul loved and called home these many years. Yet I, Johannes, am of many parts, and the better part does other things – praise, praise be to God! – only that part which remembers clings like memory to what it sees yet." [Spelling and vocabulary modernized; Latin expression translated - MP]

Rarely did [the archaeologist] ask about matters other than the abbey, but on one occasion he, directly or indirectly, questioned something relating to reincarnation. A more fluent English-speaking spirit responded: "The facts live, and the emotions and events. The puppets die and are not. The leaf is reproduced; the ears grow; but the old time is dead. You understand not reincarnation, nor can we explain. What in you reincarnates, do you think? How can you find words? Blind gropers after immutable facts, which are not of your sphere of experience."

[Michael Tymn, The Articulate Dead - citations omitted]

Having quoted this, I commented: 

The key words are: "It is I, and it is not I, but part of me which dwells in the past ... Yet I, Johannes, am of many parts, and the better part does other things."

And: "What in you reincarnates, do you think? How can you find words? Blind gropers after immutable facts, which are not of your sphere of experience."

Although these statements were made on separate occasions by different communicators, together they dovetail pretty neatly with Matt's hypothesis. 

All of this reminds me of a speculative notion I advanced almost exactly a year ago (on January 4, 2011) in a post called "Slices of life," which I'm reproducing below.

There are many other good comments on that thread, including "no one's" reference to the Tibetan Book of the Dead. But I couldn't let this post grow too long. 

I suspect that the key to resolving the enigma is to say (as Matt does) that higher-dimensional reality allows for perspectives that seem magical or impossible to us, but which would be perfectly logical, simple, and even obvious in the right environment. This is the case in the book Flatland (which I highly recommend), where the behavior of the main character is baffling and disturbing to his fellow Flatlanders, but simple enough for him (and us) to understand. For instance, the character can disappear from view and reappear some distance away. How? He jumps up and lands in a different spot. Since the Flatlanders cannot perceive the dimension of height, they believe he somehow dematerialized and rematerialized, when actually he was there all along, occupying the third spatial dimension.  

It appears that the higher spiritual planes have less to do with spatial dimensions and more to do with dimensions of consciousness - an admittedly vague term. In these realms of "multi-dimensional consciousness," it seems that one's consciousness can be in two (or more) places at once, or involved in doing two (or more) different things at the same time. 

This is probably impossible for us to grasp, since we cannot imagine being divided into two or more loci of awareness and yet retaining our identity as a single consciousness. To us, it seems as if it must be one or the other - if we are two, we cannot be one; if we are one, we cannot be two. But this may simply be "Flatlander thinking," no more valid in higher planes than the Flatlander's commitment to two and only two spatial dimensions is valid in three-dimensional space. 

Below is the blog post from last year. Incidentally, if I were redoing it, I would upend the cone in the diagram so the higher planes are on top. I'd also put less emphasis on the issue of time and timelessness, since the perception of time is just another aspect of awareness that would be altered in multi-dimensional consciousness. 

 

Slices of life

As readers of this blog know, I've been puzzled by the divergence between two sets of afterlife reports. One set essentially involves a trip to either a disturbing, hellish limbo or a beautiful paradise (known as Summerland to Spiritualists), while the other set involves an immediate awareness of a higher self that chooses various incarnations for the purpose of growth.

The trouble is that the first set of reports (often found in NDEs and mediumship) typically has little to say abut reincarnation and suggests that the earthly persona continues after death. But the second set (obtained through hypnotic regression and the channeling of allegedly advanced spirits) insists on reincarnation and regards the earthly persona as a temporary role that is quickly discarded. 

Moreover, the two sets of reports differ in other aspects. The first set focuses on an earthlike environment of gardens, parks, homes, and even cities, inhabited by beings in human form, while the second set tells of a more abstract environment of pure geometry in which souls see each other primarily as glowing lights (with different colors of the spectrum relating to different degrees of spiritual evolution).

The easiest course of action would be to jettison one set pf reports and concentrate exclusively on the other. But I think there is pretty good evidence for both, although the first set has been more extensively investigated, and the second set is weakened by the inherent problems of hypnosis (e.g., hypnotized subjects may confabulate or may be influenced by the hypnotist). If I had to choose just one set, I'd go with the first, but I suspect that there is some truth in each set -- but not the whole truth in either.

Noodling on this, I sketched out the simple little diagram reproduced below. I admit this could look a lot better if done on a computer, but I'm busy right now and don't have time to put together a better chart. Still, this crude drawing at least gets the basic idea across.

The idea is that the Self, in the sense of the totality of the spiritual entity that we know as "I," may extend across various levels of existence. Spiritualists are always talking about different planes of reality, and the implication is that we travel from one plane to the next. But suppose that our Self actually cuts across all the planes simultaneously, and what "travels" is only our awareness (or at least our primary awareness, in the sense of of our principal focus). Moreover, suppose that time either has no meaning in this scheme or operates very differently from the way it does in our spacetime universe. The end result is that the Self could operate on various levels at once, and the story told by the Self when focusing on its experience in one plane would differ from the story it tells when focusing on a different level of experience. 

Though I did not mark it this way in the diagram (because I didn't think of it), we could label each sub-Self as Self 1, Self 2, Self 3, etc., with higher numbers representing higher levels of existence. Note that the Self is depicted as a circle on each plane, and that the radius of the circle varies consistently as you go from one plane to the next. Awareness on higher planes is represented by a bigger radius, while awareness on lower planes is represented by a smaller radius. This simple graphic tries to express the idea that consciousness expands as it moves deeper into the system.

Note also that various circles are slices of a cone, which represents the Self in its entirety. The cone expresses the idea that these circular slices or cross-sections are part of a larger, continuous whole which bridges the gaps between the planes. Because the Self is ultimately one entity, no matter how it may be sectioned into slices, no part of it is really cut off from the rest, which means that the relatively restricted awareness of the earth plane can come into contact with the higher awareness of higher planes (perhaps through prayer, meditation, or a burst of insight sometimes known as "cosmic consciousness"). This viewpoint also dovetails with the hypothesis popularized by Aldous Huxley that the brain serves as a "funnel" or "filter" restricting a wider range of consciousness. 

Perhaps this diagram, though obviously simplistic and metaphorical, can make some sense of the conflicting sets of reports. NDErs and ordinary mediumistic communicators are reporting from the level of awareness depicted here as "limbo" or "Summerland." Those who recall past lives under hypnosis, and especially those who recall a life between lives, may be reporting from a higher (or deeper) level of awareness. In this respect it is worth noting that between-lives therapists insist that only the deepest stage of hypnosis can access these memories. Naturally, the reports of purportedly high-level channeled beings would also reflect a higher plane of awareness. 

What is perhaps most noteworthy is the implication that all of this is going on at the same time, or perhaps "outside of" time. While it may seem as if we are engaged in a long and tedious struggle to attain spiritual enlightenment, this model suggests that we have already attained it -- in fact, that we never had to attain it because it was part of us from the beginning. The various lower levels of awareness with their more restricted range (represented by smaller radii) are part of a continuum with the highest level of awareness, so whatever we are seeking on this plane has already been found (actually did not have to be "found") on the higher plane. And the awareness on that plane is just as much "I" as the awareness on this plane; it is not a separate entity, though it may feel separate from the limited perspective of earthly life.

Finally, notice that the various cross-sections form a series of concentric circles, suggesting that each smaller circle is contained within the larger one. Nothing is lost; there is only expansion to a wider point of view. If this is correct, then it may be wrong to say (as, in the past, I have) that the ego is sloughed off after death. It may be more correct to say that the ego is subsumed within a wider consciousness that places it into a more appropriate perspective, thus robbing it of its power to mislead or confuse. This higher awareness, even on the limbo or Summerland planes, would be consistent with many reports of communicators who see their own mistakes more clearly than than they did on earth, and who (especially at the Summerland level) have risen above their earthbound limitations of perception. The field of induced after-death communication offers many examples of communications that seem to come from this level of awareness.

I'm not sure how clear this all is, and being busy, I can't revise and clarify my remarks as much as I ordinarily would. But it just may be the case that the apparent contradiction between the two sets of afterlife reports can be resolved by looking at the whole issue from a different perspective. 

My thanks to commenter Juan, whose remark about slicing off circular sections of a sphere probably got me thinking along these lines (although I realize I am not going in quite the direction he suggested). 

 

 

 

Comments

[Sophie]

Michael,

Your thoughts are downright riveting on this theme. I am aware that I am lifting the following passage from your text rather crudely, such that I might even be pulling it out of context. This is the passage:

'But suppose that our Self actually cuts across all the planes simultaneously, and what "travels" is only our awareness (or at least our primary awareness, in the sense of our principal focus). Moreover, suppose that time either has no meaning in this scheme or operates very differently from the way it does in our spacetime universe. The end result is that the Self could operate on various levels at once, and the story told by the Self when focusing on its experience in one plane would differ from the story it tells when focusing on a different level of experience.'

I have recently had two experiences of time operating 'differently from the way it does in our spacetime universe'. This is what happened:

First experience: I glimpsed a person in a crowded street who died recently and is still the central figure in my life. He beckoned impatiently to me, and I hurried towards him. A woman cut across my path and blocked it. That woman was me ... 20 years ago! (I immediately recognised the hairstyle and coat I wore at the time and 'she' was wearing now.)

The shock was enormous. I fainted, and was transported to hospital by an ambulance. My doctor asked me to confirm that this had happened. I went to both hospitals to which the ambulance could have taken me, but neither had a record of my admittance. I am tempted to think that this was a lucid dream, although I have never had one before.

The second experience was yesterday: I was looking out of the window in my flat that overlooks a promenade, and saw my loved one walking along beside a woman, chatting animatedly to her. His hairstyle was the longish, floppy one he wore twenty years ago. The woman he was talking to was me 20 years ago, in the same coat and with the same hairstyle as 'she' was wearing when 'she' cut across my path a week or so ago (i.e., in the first experience I reported). 'I' waved to 'them', but though 'they' had stopped and were looking up at 'my' window, obviously talking about it, 'they' did not offer any response. Eventually, the sauntered off, and a building blocked my view of them. This time, I was not at all disturbed. (This cannot have been a dream: I had just returned to my flat after a long walk, and the stuff I had bought was still in the bags beside me, where I had dropped them.)

So I experienced myself in two time slots simultaneously: in the present slot, and in a slot 20 years ago. Are these experiences somehow significant, or just droll?

[Douglas]

Amazing stuff here Michael, and Sophie, these are amazing experiences!

In line with this, I trawled through some channeled information and one popular channel, 'Elias', communicating through Mary Ennis - a successor to Jane Robert’s Seth, has provided some information on the apparent divide between NDEs and ADCs.

For Elias, the ADC accounts are closer to the 'everyday' immediate afterlife experience of most people. What we call the afterlife, is what he terms the 'transition area', where individual 'focuses' (us) slowly transition to full awareness and incorporate their past experience into their consciousness. Your full unrestricted awareness is known as your 'essence', similar to the diamond metaphor used by Silver Birch and alluded to by Michael earlier.

The transition area can involve many earth-like environments and in fact will be highly variable depending on the projections of individuals engaged in this area of consciousness. As such, information coming from there to here may be mixed and of variable quality.

On the other hand, direct communications with essences who have completed transition are likely to be far more powerful and direct. However, for ease of communication, many essences may well choose to communicate via the guise of the focus (individual personality) that the participants on this side are most familiar with, such as friends and family etc, so many of those personalities that we communicate with may in fact be much more than they appear, but they are purposefully narrowing their awareness into a familiar focus personality to ease communication with us.

With regards to NDEs, Elias is adamant that while NDEs are very real and powerful life altering experiences, they are actually NOT typical of what happens to most people immediately upon death.

Instead, his interpretation is that the NDE experience is a specific experience undertaken by the individual essence when it wishes to dramatically alter the direction of its focus in a radical manner. We know about NDEs precisely because people return from them. It is no accident that they are never the same again after the experience – this is precisely the aim of the NDE. It appears to us to be an accidental brush with death, but according to this source at least, the experience is far from accidental; it is designed to open the perception of the focus, the individual, to a wider vistas of reality in a mind blowing way, a way that is designed to radically realign the life direction of that individual. Whether you fully agree with Elias’s interpretation or not, we can certainly agree on the end result.

[tsavo]

Re: the cone

It's interesting that Scott, one of Jane Sherwood's channeled entities (who was later revealed as T.E. Lawrence) described a similar cone of existence with respect to space and time, but in an inverted fashion:

"It is like a cone divided into planes which contract as cone goes up so that a larger plane beneath can be surveyed. Of course, height is merely symbolical; the contraction is an inverse way of showing the expansion of the area open to observation in the planes below. Do you follow? Also-and see how beautiful-from the higher places of the spirit observation of the whole of the lower ranges of being must become possible as time and space draw together into a vertex of the absolute. Here we have an instantaneous survey of all time and space; the view-point of Omniscience."

The Country Beyond, Jane Sherwood p 95

[no one]

MP, I'd liked your cone then and I still like it a year later.

Using your model, here is what I think happens during NDEs where the experiencer enjoys very expansive cosmic perceptions; upon flatlining, awareness instantly rockets to the the widest levels of the cone.

If the person had actually died and not been revived, awareness would then move back down to narower bands of the cone.

Karma, thought habits, desires, etc are responsible for the postmortem narrowing shift; acting like gravity (what goes up must come down).

Thus the model helps us understand a) what the Tibetan Book of the Dead is talking about and b) why ADCs describe something different than some cosmic NDEs.

I also think that as the focus of awareness narrows there is something akin to a slowing of vibrational level of the etheric being. It's like a compressing of photons - just a metaphor, but maybe not too far off base.

[Kathleen]

It seems to me the Buddhists have the answer: the ego is an artificially created entity, created by our life experiences and memories. It is not the "real you." The soul is the real you. Perhaps mediums are simply calling forth earthly egos, as the souls that possess these egos know that they are most familiar to those left behind on earth. The soul can wear the ego like a suit of clothes in order to manifest and make it self recognized by those left on earth.

[RabbitDawg]

Michael's "Flatlander" metaphor makes sense, in fact, it looks like a given IMO. Near-death experiencers and medium communicators both express frustration with the limits of language when they try to portray the mechanics of life on the Other Side.

By definition, NDEr's have not passed over the Barrier of No Return, so they wouldn't be privy to any perspective beyond that point. Many of them have said that they were given "tours" of what to expect, but they never really experienced life without an earthly body in its permanent state.

I'm about ready to accept my Flatlander limitations, and take what I hear in credible sounding reports from both perspectives at face value. Of course, I'm always open to any insightful explanation.

[doubter]

Douglas: With regards to NDEs, Elias is adamant that while NDEs are very real and powerful life altering experiences, they are actually NOT typical of what happens to most people immediately upon death.

Instead, his interpretation is that the NDE experience is a specific experience undertaken by the individual essence when it wishes to dramatically alter the direction of its focus in a radical manner.

Elias's channelled answer makes the most sense to me, among concepts that involve the real existence of the soul and an afterlife.

However, it is quite possible that the whole panorama of afterlife evidence including NDEs and mediumship consists of elaborate deceptions created by some agent, perhaps a collective unconscious mind having psychic abilities. Ultimately Us, in other words. This type of explanation eliminates a pile of miscellaneous problems with psychical evidence for the afterlife. For instance, the one starting this thread, the inconsistency between afterlife reports via NDEs and via mediumistic communications. And the problem that most mediumistic communications don't mention reincarnation, despite the existence of ample evidence for it from veridical testimony of children. Or the puzzle of why NDEs don't seem to happen much with blacks, as opposed to caucasians. And even the old problem of suffering - why would souls permit or even create human suffering? Simple answer: productions of the unconscious mind (as opposed to real souls and spirits) do not have to make logical sense, be consistent with each other, be consistent between races and cultures, or have moral validity. They are arbitrary, created by inner processes influenced by collective and individual fears and desires.

Such an explanatory frame has the advantage of simplicity versus the various complicated schemes to explain inconsistencies discussed in this forum. But of course it has big problems of its own. I am merely suggesting that there are radically different potential explanations for the phenomena discussed in this forum.

[Art]

"And even the old problem of suffering - why would souls permit or even create human suffering? Simple answer: productions of the unconscious mind (as opposed to real souls and spirits) do not have to make logical sense, be consistent with each other, be consistent between races and cultures, or have moral validity." - doubter
---------------------

Or the suffering teaches the soul something important it needs to learn, something it can only learn here and can't be learned in heaven? And when the soul gets to the other side it realizes that this side is only a holographic projection, Maya, an illusion, and happened in the blink of an eye compared to eternity? And that the education of the soul is too important to leave up to chance?

[A Reader]

[i]Or the puzzle of why NDEs don't seem to happen much with blacks, as opposed to caucasians. - doubter [/i]

Um, sorry, where did you get this statistic? From all I've read, NDE's do not occur more or less frequently in people based on race, religion, sex, age, etc. Keep in mind that the majority of NDE studies have been conducted in countries where the population is mostly Caucasian, but that doesn't mean that only Caucasians have them or that they have them any more frequently than any other race.

And what would race have to do with a "collective unconscious mind" anyway? If its a collective unconsciousness, then it stands to reason that it would include information from all races - white, black, asian, hispanic, or any other race.

[Ray]

And what would race have to do with a "collective unconscious mind" anyway? If its a collective unconsciousness, then it stands to reason that it would include information from all races - white, black, asian, hispanic, or any other race.

Good point A Reader. Doubter, I have seen a few of your post and I appreciate your level headed analysis on this topic but this comment raises some questions. If it was a collective consciousness that was inventing for example mediumistic communication how come we don't see more drop in communications from African Americans, Hispanics, Asians etc when combined far outweigh the total number of Caucasians in this planet. If this was simply a collective mental game we are playing on ourselves, I would expect more involvement from these groups in the psi literature.

While we are on this topic there is something I have been thinking about. Why don't we read about too many noncaucasians being mediums or having psi phenomena? I know spiritualism is still huge in Brazil and mediums are plenty but other than Brazil and some tribes which have Shamans you don't hear about too many (as an example) African American mediums. I would be interested if anyone has any further info on this.

[no one]

Ray, I think it is strictly a matter of cultural and researcher bias going both ways - caucasion to non-caucasion and vice versa.

I have read everything I could find on the Haitian voodoo religion. Communication with spirits is fundemental to it. Its roots are in Africa where, apparently there is also a tradition of communication with spirits. I know from personal relationships that communication is a feature in at least some Native American practices.

Asian cultures are very much concerned with spirits and there is a long tradition of mediumship in China and S.E Asia.

Obviously, the Tibetan Book of the Dead indicates an ancient understanding of spirits (developed in part through mediumship?) as we move west.

Agreed though that you have to dig a bit to find this material.

I think the language barrier plays a role.

Lack of trust on the part of non-caucasions is also a barrier. I think that sometimes caucasions don't appreciate how screwed over (by them) non-caucasion feel and how much trust has been violated.

Also, I think there is racism on the caucasion side. If some exotic tribesman says he can talk to spirits we dismiss the claim as the foolish childlike beliefs of an ignorant primitive. If someone modernized like ourselves makes the claim, we are more apt to listen and take it seriously.

Down in new Orleans - and generally in the deep South of this Country - there are ample numbers of Blacks practicing all sorts of mediumistic traditions. Some with Voodoo religion influence and some more with a christian basis.

We learn about these things largely because a) someone got a grant to study them and published results or (mostly) b) because someone is selling a book or services. Sadly, in this country, caucasion is more marketable for reasons I already mentioned.

[Ray]

No one,

Excellent points and you made me think about some other cultures that I have been blinded to maybe by my own subconscious bias. It would be a massively difficult undertaking but a cross cultural book on spirit communication from across the world would be an utterly fascinating book. To present it in detail and accuracy would most likely require a lifetime of travel and research though.

[no one]

Ray, I thought about that too. If I ever hit the big jackpot I would travel the world doing that research. I'd even set up a foundation to continue the work after I'm gone. Maybe start a journal too (International Journal of Mediumship).

[Art]

"Or the puzzle of why NDEs don't seem to happen much with blacks, as opposed to caucasians." - doubter
---------------------------------------
"Um, sorry, where did you get this statistic? From all I've read, NDE's do not occur more or less frequently in people based on race, religion, sex, age, etc. Keep in mind that the majority of NDE studies have been conducted in countries where the population is mostly Caucasian, but that doesn't mean that only Caucasians have them or that they have them any more frequently than any other race." - A Reader
-----------------------------------------

When I first read that I figured it's probably because blacks might have statistically less access to high quality health care?

I do remember watching a couple of African American NDE's on the Biography Channel show about NDE's. One black guy got shot while waiting for his wife and the other one I think was a bus driver that had a heart attack? I've seen a few black NDE's on television. There may be less of them but they do happen. I think like ~ 12% of the United States population is black? So that would automatically reduce the number of NDE's and then blacks may have less access to health care, it may take longer to get to the hospital, they may die quicker because their health related problems are more serious, like getting shot by gun shots, high blood pressure - etc.

[doubter]

Or the suffering teaches the soul something important it needs to learn, something it can only learn here and can't be learned in heaven? - Art

The usual "spiritual" rationalization for innocent suffering. A possibility I suppose. I would just ask if any of us have signed up for our lesson plan? By Us I refer to our human selves including egos and memories as opposed to our (hypothesized) souls. Of course the answer is no, leaving this explanation uninspiring and a great injustice. Of course that doesn't mean it isn't true. The collective unconscious theory is at least simpler, not invoking additional entities or moral/spiritual principles.

[no one]

doubter, another explanation, one that I prefer, for suffering is that we have free will and some us decide to use that free will to create suffering for others, as well as ourselves.

A scientific genius can create weapons of mass destruction or he can create vaccines. A great leader can enslave his people and start wars or he can create just societies with peace and prosperity for all. These are choices of free will.

Simply by focussing our awareness on the earthly plane such that we entered as an incarnate, we have chosen to suffer the afflictions of being a carbon based life form.

Now we may not have consciously desired the bad things that can happen down here, but, all the same, they are a consequence of the desires and impulses that attracted us to this plane of existance.

Now, some people say that's a no good perspective because it's like saying that anyone who is suffering is getting what they deserve, even if obliquely. However, I think that is an immature criticism of the perspective.

Yes, maybe in some sense we are getting what we asked for, but that doesn't make the suffering "ok", nor does it give us permission to become callous to those who are suffering. To the contrary, it provides us with an opportunity to better ourselves and better others by helping out, by making a difference.

Without moral or spiritual principles the injust you say you despise would flourish well beyond current levels.

Free will is a hard thing for some people to accept. You have to take responsibility and you really can't get angry at others when the choices you make get you hurt.

My son once got too serious about a certain girl. i told him, "stay away from her. She's nothing but trouble. You're going to get burned". Did he listen? No. Did he get burned? Oh yeah. real bad. Did he sign up to get burned? No. He signed up for a good time. Was he responsible for his own fate? yes. Was he happy about his fate? No. Should, I, as his wiser older elder have stopped him from seeing the girl before it was to late? I don't think so. He had to go out in the world and live and learn as a free spirit. Did I kick him around afterwards when he was suffering? No. I welcomed him back and talked it over with him and provided support..

That's how it is.

[Ray]

The jury is still out for me on this one. Over in this corner we have Art who believes that we are meant to go through a little shared pain here on earth and there have been some channeled material which supports this. I think Silver Birch being one of them. I can see that but I am also attracted to the free will notion which has also been peppered throughout supposedly channeled material (cant remember any specific sources off the top of my head).

Random question but I think it warrants being thrown into this Suffering vs. Free Will Debate....where do random asks of nature fit into all this? Hurricanes, earthquakes, tornado, volcanic eruptions, etc why would a loving source for this entire universe (call it God or whatever floats your boat)create such random and chaotic occurrences in nature? Obviously we don't have "free will" to decide to have a steaming flow of lava do us in simply because we happened to live a nearby active volcanic site. Nature throws a wrench into this entire debate for me and makes me a little nervous that the "naturalist" who believe that we are nothing more than accidental mutations might be right. It's hard to believe that a source for all this would create something so deliberately destructive against it's own creation.

[Ray]

This might be a good one for Keith Augustine to chime in for but he probably doesn't read the blog much anymore.

[doubter]

Ray - And what would race have to do with a "collective unconscious mind" anyway? If its a collective unconsciousness, then it stands to reason that it would include information from all races - white, black, asian, hispanic, or any other race.

...... If it was a collective consciousness that was inventing for example mediumistic communication how come we don't see more drop in communications from African Americans, Hispanics, Asians etc when combined far outweigh the total number of Caucasians in this planet. If this was simply a collective mental game we are playing on ourselves, I would expect more involvement from these groups in the psi literature.

The collective unconscious I am suggesting would be mostly generated by the local culture, society and race, and manifested through the individual unconscious minds of the humans involved. With this source you would expect the frequency, form and content of supposed spirit communications, NDE reports, past incarnation memories, etc. to vary greatly between these groups. They do. For instance, between America, Africa, Brazil and India. Explaining this requires great contortions and complications to a single unified spirit/soul/afterlife/reincarnation paradigm.

The collective unconscious theory would also explain the fact that these phenomena not only seem to be mainly peculiar to certain cultures but also have developed historically over time. For example the rise of spiritualism and seance phenomena in the mid 19th century in mainly in America and Europe, followed by its being mostly forgotten by the 1950s (except in Brazil). And the rise of NDEs as a phenomenon in the 1970s. And (to bring in something outside the usual topics here) the rise of the UFO phenomenon starting during WW2 with its heyday in the 1950s through the 1980s, followed by its mostly going away by today. Close encounters and observation of physical vehicles just aren't happening any more. It is almost as if a hidden collective decision is made "Oh, the old stuff has become boring or irrelevant or overcome by changes like the Internet, so let's generate a new paranormal wave." What's next?

One more clue that the source of psychical phenomena may not be actual souls and spirits, but manifiestations of a collective unconscious, is the curious fact that there doesn't seem to be any new information about the physical world sent by spiritual channels. I mean information not already existing in human minds. We would expect that, in just one of numberless examples, benevolent spirits and souls would have transmitted some basic information about the germ theory of disease and the real nature of bubonic plague, at least how it is transmitted. Just this small amount of new information could have spared humanity from much of the incredible, untold innocent suffering of the Black Death. Instead, humanity has had to learn these facts of the natural world painfully slowly through the historical accidents of European history leading to the scientific revolution.

It seems to me that all of these observations are significant clues to the real source of psychical phenomena. I actually hope this is a wrong interpretation, however. It is so much more reassuring to go with the spirit/soul paradigm.

[no one]

ah, whither Keith Augustine.......as far as natural disaster go, I lump these in with the consequences of free will. You have desires, foci, karma that draw you to the earth plane? Well, earthquakes, volcanoes, viruses all happen here. It's all part of the package.

Denying that the spirit exists because these things happen pretty much assumes that the spirit is headed up by a "god" that controls each and every aspect of everything that happens in the universe no matter how miniscule and, moreover, arranges each and every miniscule aspect of everything for your personal pleasure and satisfaction.

I think this assumption is wrong on several levels.

1. It's very much a primitive childlike concept of god. Quite frankly it's absolutely Fruedian in that it sees god as a parent figure whose purpose is to control the environment and protect the child and maintain the child in a perpetual womb-like state. Who said god is like that? It's been years since I've read the bible, but once I did read it Genesis to Revelations looking for references to this type of god and I didn't find any. I've read the Upanishads too and it's not in there either. So I don't know where this notion of god that the Keith Augustines argue can't exist even comes from. It's a straw man.

2. It assumes that suffering is of no value; or at least a net negative value.

2a. It assumes that human life on earth trumps infinite life as a spirit. Suffering here and now on earth is not compensated for by long term spiritual progress. It negates the "no pain, no gain" maxim that is obvious to those who seek to achieve bigger things here on earth.

3. It assumes that being a victim of a natural disaster is not, to some extent, a matter of personal choice. For example, I know people that live in CA and joke about the "Big One". If such an earthquake strikes and they suffer are they victims of a godless universe or are they responsible for living in a fault zone? Who lives in a trailer park in tornado alley? Who builds and inhabits beach front property in a tsunami or hurricane zone? Are these not choices with consequences? Was the great plague/black death not a consequence of the choice of people to live in filthy crowded cities? Not blaming the victim here, but there are human decisions, made of free will, in the chain of causation.

4. This will sound weird and wrong, but it assumes a huge amount of suffering has actually been quantified and that it is great in scope and scale to the point of being overwhelming. In a lot of societies death is not as strange and unfamiliar as it is in ours. Nor is brutally hard work. People are resilient and take things in stride. One reason that people in the third world have a lot of children is that children die. It's an accepted fact of life and life goes on when it happens. The keith Augustine crowd would have us see such events as the end of happiness and joy or at least catastrophically crushing events. The truth is, they are not. People mourn and then move forward.

But mostly #1.

[no one]

"Instead, humanity has had to learn these facts of the natural world painfully slowly through the historical accidents of European history leading to the scientific revolution."

doubter, these are interesting points.

First, how do you know that the discoveries were "accidents"?

More importantly, you are completely ignoring human societal organization and politics. Look what the establishment did to renaisance figures who proposed radical ideas, using science, like the earth revolving around the sun instead of vice versa. Yet you think that a mediumistic communication concerning the source of plague would have gained traction?

This is bogus argumentation.

Through free will human societies chose to be ignorant and, as a result, members of the societies suffered.

"With this source you would expect the frequency, form and content of supposed spirit communications, NDE reports, past incarnation memories, etc. to vary greatly between these groups. They do."

I think they do not. Some of the details are varied by local and language, but the core elements remain consistent across cultures.

Your other objections are mostly due to gaps in available literature due to the issues I outlined up thread.

[Ray]

Doubter,

I see your point and there is certainly a case to made for this. Maybe I'm being obtruse but it almost seems like you see the psi evidence as super psi amongst living agents. I can certainly see how a reasonable person could come to that conclusion based on the evidence but there are certain phenomena that do not so easily explain your observations of collective consciousness being responsible

1) Harry Stockbridge Case
2) Direct Voice mediumship
3) Ian Stevenson reincarnation research
4) Runki Leg case
5) Veridical NDEs and Obes

there are obviously many more cases than this but just to name a few. how would your theory explain Veridical info that was not known to any living person and then later verified ? I had a reading with medium Georgia Oconnor and my grandmother came through and said she was concerned about my moms thyroid issue which I didn't know she had until after the reading ended and had to verify. additionally my mother didn't know I was going to speak with a medium and the medium never spoke to my mother. It is these types of psi events that seem to put holes in the collective unconscious theory because none of the players knew each other or the information that came across. If it were that easy to obtain information that is supposedly just hanging out in the collective unconscious why don't militaries just train their soldiers to get together in seances to conjur up pretend dead ghost to tell them information on the enemy?

If we had no Veridical cases of information not known to anyone I would most likely side with your observation. Now what would really make this question an enigma was if Veridical information was provided by made up Philip ghost ? Was the conjured Philip ghost able to give details like you see with the better mediumidtic case studies? I don't know the case well enough to answer this but would add weight to your theory.

[no one]

There probably is something like a collective consciousness (see Rupert Sheldrake, Carl Jung), but it doesn't stop there.

[Kathleen]

no one, you bring up some interesting points about suffering, particularly child mortality. I read something recently that not too long ago in the West, 100 years or so ago, it was pretty much expected that at least one, if not several, of your children, would die. Childbirth was also risky for women (it still is to some extent). People were still expected to carry on. Suffering is also always in the mind of the beholder anyway: what is "suffering" for one person is a minor annoyance for another.

[doubter]

Random question but I think it warrants being thrown into this Suffering vs. Free Will Debate....where do random asks of nature fit into all this? Hurricanes, earthquakes, tornado, volcanic eruptions, etc why would a loving source for this entire universe (call it God or whatever floats your boat)create such random and chaotic occurrences in nature? Obviously we don't have "free will" to decide to have a steaming flow of lava do us in simply because we happened to live a nearby active volcanic site. Nature throws a wrench into this entire debate for me and makes me a little nervous that the "naturalist" who believe that we are nothing more than accidental mutations might be right. It's hard to believe that a source for all this would create something so deliberately destructive against it's own creation.

I agree. Of course the usual "spiritual" explanation for human-inflicted innocent suffering is the necessity for free will. Certainly this can't justify "natural evil" like disease and natural disasters. If I recall, one approach to this is the weak argument that independent natural forces and imperfect physical bodies which break down and die are somehow necessary conditions. In other words there are no other possible but less cruel worlds where something like humans could exist (perhaps not having gone through a long evolutionary process), have free will, and learn. This does not seem to be very reasonable.

At least the strict reductionist materialist view is invalidated, since there is a massive amount of evidence for psychical phenomena.

[RabbitDawg]

Regarding the cultural variations in reporting NDE's, we discussed this over a year ago in the comment section of this blog. There was one comment that hit home for me and I saved it.
Here's a copy 'n paste reproduction:

"Well, as a black person/African American (who is old enough to remember when I was colored and/or a Negro), I'll add my two cents: My paternal grandfather was preacher and he could tell the most convincing ghost stories -- among southern black folk ghosts were often referred to as "haints" (don't know the origin of the word nor if there is an official spelling, but it sounds just like it reads). And it wasn't just the man-of-the-cloth who talked about haints; many claimed to have seen them and spoke about them with the deepest belief. A haint might appear out of nowhere and appear almost as anything: a fiery red head woman whom you just ran over with your car ... or a man as tall as a telephone pole -- without a head -- running across a field ... or some kind of animal with the biggest eyes in the world. I'm sure that similar "haints" exist the stories of many around the world.
So, as has been noted, there may be a bias against seeking out or giving credence to accounts from black people particularly if that black person isn't as, so to speak, pure as Caesar's wife (i.e., if a particular black person in any visible way conforms to any of the pernicious stereotypes then his/her account is likely be dismissed and/or seen as the result of a superstitious and unscientific mind). I would not be surprised at all that more NDE experiences of black folks would be found if someone made a concerted effort to find them. Now, I don't really care whether anyone does conduct a study and not saying that anyone should; but it might be interesting."

The existence of haints aside, the point of this anecdote is simply that, from my experience of having lived around and known quite-well many black and white folks (up and down the socioeconomic ladder), I would say that black people are GENERALLY more likely to discuss NDEs/psychic experiences/etc. amongst each other and employ conventional Christian religious terminology in describing such experiences. If you describe certain things using conventional Christian religious terminology it seems that such descriptions will, generally, be glossed over and/or dismissed. I, too, have noted that among all the NDE-related videos I've seen I can only recount seeing one black person (a woman). I don't have any data but I'm pretty sure plenty of "black folks" have these experiences ... but just as many black people will note that they've never been contacted by Nielsen for tv/radio ratings or interviewed by a pollster perhaps there are, as noted by someone else, cultural factors at play ... and culture is always at play, it seems, usually in very subtle ways. For example, it's been noted often that white doctors often interact differently with their black patients (see, for example, http://mirroronamerica.blogspot.com/200 ... among.html). I don't raise this point to say that doctors are actively racist, but to say that doctors are human and may employ behavior that's so much a part of our cultural air that the doctor doesn't believe it applies to him/her. That's human nature".

Works for me.

[no one]

"In other words there are no other possible but less cruel worlds where something like humans could exist (perhaps not having gone through a long evolutionary process), have free will, and learn. This does not seem to be very reasonable."

But there are other less cruel worlds; the spirit world.

You want a carbon based based world that doesn't obey entropy? You'd have to re-write physical laws. Is that what you want god to do to satisfy you?

That's the point of Michael's diagram. This physical experience we're having is just the tip of the iceberg.

Rabbitdawg, "Works for me."

Yep. Me2.

[Ray]

Excellent find Rabbitdawg and I'm also glad to see I'm not the only one that copies and pastes posts I find very interesting :)

[RabbitDawg]

Oh, it might be nice to include a verifying link to the thread that I referred to in my above comment. Try (34th comment down from the top):
http://michaelprescott.typepad.com/michael_prescotts_blog/2011/06/goin-home.html

[Ray]

no one youre on fire today. I loved your counterpoints to the nature argument. I think bottom line it's a bias I probably have from my Catholic upbringing and I'm subconsciously bringing the baggage to my psi revelations as I am fully aware and we discussed many times on here that there can be an afterlife with no creator. I guess where I get hung up on with what the source of it all is is with the channeled material in which you see references to "the great white spirit" the "source" or something along those lines. The Rectur and Imperator group that has come through some mediums like Piper and William Stanton Moses mention the source as God. Either way what you said makes perfect sense about natural disasters occuring on our plane

[no one]

Ray, ha ha..on fire....it's nothing a little pepto won't cure. Long day running meaningless reports, waiting for the data to come back, drinking too much coffee......

I don't know. IMO, there *is* a source. I'm just saying that it doesn't have to be a source that micro manages everything and everyone.

I even think the source is all about love and harmony, just maybe at a different level than we can relate to because it is beyond persoanl ego.

[doubter]

....there are obviously many more cases than this but just to name a few. how would your theory explain Veridical info that was not known to any living person and then later verified ? - Ray

I'm familiar with the examples you listed. Another would be the Maroczy versus Korchnoi chess match carried out through medium Rollans. There are strong arguments against "super-psi" as the explanation for afterlife evidence in the best mediumistic communication and reincarnation cases, for instance. A collective unconscious producing these phenomena through super-esp would have to have incredible powers. I mentioned at the beginning of this that there are many problems with the collective unconscious theory.

However, there are also a lot of problems with the soul/spirit theory that could be more simply resolved with some concept involving an internally generated phenomenon, than by elaborations and rationalizations of the soul/spirit theory. We also don't know how to reconcile the facts of human physical and psychological evolution with the soul/spirit theory. To me this is intriguing and only emphasizes that we just don't know what is really behind psychical phenomena seemingly indicative of souls, spirits and an afterlife.

[Michael Prescott]

"And (to bring in something outside the usual topics here) the rise of the UFO phenomenon starting during WW2 with its heyday in the 1950s through the 1980s, followed by its mostly going away by today. Close encounters and observation of physical vehicles just aren't happening any more."

That's an interesting point. I had read something similar recently. Since I've never been too interested in UFOs, I was unaware of this development, but apparently the number of reports has dropped off dramatically. And if you think about it, this is exactly the opposite of what you would expect if the phenomena were real - because nowadays people carry cell phones with built-in cameras everywhere they go. If flying saucers were an objectively real phenomenon, we would expect many more photos and videos of them now that digital cameras have become ubiquitous.

Perhaps this dovetails with the longstanding prohibition of bright light - or even passive infrared viewing equipment - in materialization seances. Clearly in many cases we are dealing with outright fraud, but could it be that, even in genuine cases, the group unconscious knows that these thought forms will not photograph well? The prohibition of infrared photography, etc., could be attempt to protect the phenomena from too close a scrutiny.

Similarly, maybe the disappearance of flying saucers is attributable to the collective unconscious realizing that they are now too easy to photograph!

But having said this, I'd add that a thought form presumably has its own kind and degree of reality. So it's not that flying saucers and materializations are necessarily "unreal," but rather that they occupy a sort of borderland between real and unreal. And while materializations may indeed be thought forms generated by the group consciousness of the sitters and medium, it is still possible that these thought forms serve as vessels or vehicles for the consciousness of discarnate spirits. In fact, the mediums themselves have long claimed that the sitters contribute to the materialization by supplying some of their own "ectoplasm." Who knows if there is any such thing as ectoplasm? This could be just a rationalization or crude interpretation of a process involving contributions from the unconsciousnesses of the various sitters.

[no one]

"there are also a lot of problems with the soul/spirit theor"

which soul/spirit theory are you against?

it would be helpful to know that.

[doubter]

no one - First, how do you know that the discoveries were "accidents"?

By "accidental" I meant that observation of the historical record indicates that a long complicated series of unique never to be repeated events, trends, communication of ideas from abroad, insights based on previously accumulated data, etc. etc. resulted in the scientific revolution. A long contingent historical process that looks accidental though certainly that isn't absolutely certain. We can always postulate some unknowable outside influence with no evidence.

....Yet you think that a mediumistic communication concerning the source of plague would have gained traction?

Surely the spirits could have found some way of transmitting the information, especially if they could influence the leaders of the scientific revolution as you suggested. Like Giordano Bruno, who was burned at the stake.

This is bogus argumentation.Through free will human societies chose to be ignorant and, as a result, members of the societies suffered.

Sure, humans chose through free will not to innately know the bacterial origin of much disease, not to innately understand the true nature of the solar system, not to innately know the nature of the elements and chemistry. Society hardly chose to be ignorant - people were ignorant of scientific truth because these truths are profoundly nonintuitive and people looked at the world in an entirely different way. It required an unlikely series of historical trends and events for certain Europeans to throw off the bonds of superstition and ecclesiastical bondage.

The fact remains that it seems that no really new (not already existing in human minds) information about how the natural world works has come through from spiritual sources. Even with an amazing clairvoyant and psychic like Swedenborg, his channelled information about the planets and their inhabitants looks like fantasy.

[doubter]

no one - "there are also a lot of problems with the soul/spirit theor"

which soul/spirit theory are you against?

I am not really against all variations generally of the notion of the existence of human souls, spirits and an afterlife. I just have doubts, based on certain kinds of evidence, that still incorporate the real existence of psychical phenomena.

[Ray]

"That's an interesting point. I had read something similar recently. Since I've never been too interested in UFOs, I was unaware of this development, but apparently the number of reports has dropped off dramatically. And if you think about it, this is exactly the opposite of what you would expect if the phenomena were real - because nowadays people carry cell phones with built-in cameras everywhere they go. If flying saucers were an objectively real phenomenon, we would expect many more photos and videos of them now that digital cameras have become ubiquitous."

I feel the same way about alleged hauntings especially ones that reoccur in homes for years. My sceptical side wonders if there is objectivity to this and it keeps reoccurring why not try to film it to back up your story?

[no one]

"Society hardly chose to be ignorant - people were ignorant of scientific truth because these truths are profoundly nonintuitive and people looked at the world in an entirely different way. It required an unlikely series of historical trends and events for certain Europeans to throw off the bonds of superstition and ecclesiastical bondage."

Sorry doubter, you are re-writing history to fit your paradigm. For example, long before the plague hit Europe circa 1300 there were organized societies across the globe that understood the public health benefits of bathing and other personal hygiene, public sanition, etc and these societies did NOT experience plague. The Europeans ignored knowledge that had existed for centuries and lived in filthy, garbage strewn, over crowded, stinking cities. They got hit hard by plague.

Generally, the boom in scientific knowledge circa 1450 in Europe was so remarkable because it followed a period of knowledge surpression that was the dark ages. 1450 just picked up where society had left off a thousand year's prior with the greeks, Romans,Chinese and Arabs and even the Egytians. That was human choice to organize society in such a way that it would go backwards for a thousand years.

I think the truths you celebrate were highly intuitive and the fundementals had been hit upon long before the dark ages. Humans were on a scientific discovery roll before political forces stopped it.

"Surely the spirits could have found some way of transmitting the information, especially if they could influence the leaders of the scientific revolution as you suggested."

Maybe they did. They reincarnated enlightened humanitarian minds in a great enough number to turn the tide.

"Like Giordano Bruno, who was burned at the stake."

Exactly, this is the material realm. Ultimately ideas have to be transformed into actions and have to be carried out physically and they can be opposed physically. That's how we do things here.

I am kind of curious as to why you think it is the disincarnate spirits' job to influence the course of events moreso than it is the incarnate spirits' job. The spiritual concept is that we incarnate to play out a role here on earth. What would be the point in incarnating if we could do it all from the other side?

[The Gipper]

no one - you seem to be putting everyone in the same boat - as if the majority (ie the poor and averagely intelligent) actually have a choice in how they organise their lives or how they get educated. And exploitative materialism is (apparently) the chosen truth - it's winning all over the world. Spirituality may be winning on this blog, but sadly it's not winning in most places.

[Juan]

However, it is quite possible that the whole panorama of afterlife evidence including NDEs and mediumship consists of elaborate deceptions created by some agent, perhaps a collective unconscious mind having psychic abilities. Ultimately Us, in other words. This type of explanation eliminates a pile of miscellaneous problems with psychical evidence for the afterlife. For instance, the one starting this thread, the inconsistency between afterlife reports via NDEs and via mediumistic communications. And the problem that most mediumistic communications don't mention reincarnation, despite the existence of ample evidence for it from veridical testimony of children. Or the puzzle of why NDEs don't seem to happen much with blacks, as opposed to caucasians. And even the old problem of suffering - why would souls permit or even create human suffering?

You say that the collective unconscious with ESP hypothesis is simpler than the afterlife hypothesis, but it is really so? In a sense the collective unconscious hypothesis is simpler because it only makes use of living beings and super-psychic powers, but in another sense the afterlife hypothesis is simpler, because it is the most direct and less convoluted.

The problems facing the afterlife interpretation on psychic phenomena are not severe enough to reject this interpretation. Let's see why. The apparent inconsistency between reports of NDE and mediumship is not just because the NDE reports deal with a afterlife plane other than the plane deal in mediumship. Is this an ad hoc response? No, it would be an ad hoc response if not follow from what we know, but it follows from what we know as certain mediumistic communications and the Tibetan Book of the Dead. The fact that most mediumistic communicators not talk about reincarnation despite evidence of reincarnation, only confirms what we knew for certain mediumistic communicators, such as Frederic Myers, death is not complete enlightenment: people on death remain more or less the same beliefs as when they were alive. Is this ad hoc? Again no, because it follows from what we knew about certain mediumistic communications. On why NDEs seem to be less in blacks than in caucasians, and replied that this assumption is false because NDEs seem to occur equally in all races. And the problem of suffering, I will not be like everyone else in this blog: I just do not know why there is suffering or if reality is good and meaningful in the end, what I know is that these issues are totally independent of empirical research about the afterlife and that the most likely is that certain empirical phenomena are evidence of an afterlife.

[no one]

Gip, no I understand your point and I considered it myself. My point is that depsite your point, the man made problems of this world are still the result of human's exercising free will.

An evil king choses to oppress his subjects. It's not god doing it, it's man.

As for the subjects, true that not all are equal in terms of abilities, however, together they are a mightier force than any king. So I would say that, ultimately, if they are oppressed, it is because they chose to be.

Martin Luther King (a personal hero) is an example of someone rising up against an oppressive establishment and bring along the oppressed masses, even though it was a fatal decision. There are many examples throughout history.

Generally, that choice is to fight for freedom or live relatively safely, though oppressed.

The only way for evil men to triumph is for good men to do nothing.

I'm not saying it's easy or fair, but there is a choice for free will to make. Always.

[The Gipper]

"Martin Luther King (a personal hero) is an example of someone rising up against an oppressive establishment and bring along the oppressed masses, even though it was a fatal decision."

He was a man of high intelligence. Apart from that,you seem to have a Wild West mentality. What about women with babies. Should they rise up and sacrifice their young ones? My main point is that if people are "culture bound" and of limited intelligence and education, they aren't even *aware* of the choices an educated person like you has. That's the No 1, top-dog problem, and I think it's the essential point that Doubter was making.

[Juan]

The collective unconscious theory would also explain the fact that these phenomena not only seem to be mainly peculiar to certain cultures but also have developed historically over time. For example the rise of spiritualism and seance phenomena in the mid 19th century in mainly in America and Europe, followed by its being mostly forgotten by the 1950s (except in Brazil). And the rise of NDEs as a phenomenon in the 1970s. And (to bring in something outside the usual topics here) the rise of the UFO phenomenon starting during WW2 with its heyday in the 1950s through the 1980s, followed by its mostly going away by today. Close encounters and observation of physical vehicles just aren't happening any more. It is almost as if a hidden collective decision is made "Oh, the old stuff has become boring or irrelevant or overcome by changes like the Internet, so let's generate a new paranormal wave." What's next?

I think your doubt is that psychic phenomena, including UFOs, let us see some intelligences, but we do not know what intelligences are, if they are the spirits of deceased human beings, aliens, sliders, the collective unconscious or other things, as if all these hypotheses about what those intelligences were equal. They are not, but the hypothesis that some of these phenomena are caused by spirits of deceased human beings is much more plausible than other hypotheses. Consider these with some examples.

In past certain apparitions could be interpreted as angels, fairies, succubi or spirits of deceased human beings. Why this latter interpretation is superior to the other? Because apparitions often have human aspect, sometimes have the appearance of a deceased human being, sometimes they appear to loved ones at the time of his death and sometimes they transmit messages to witnesses that they did not know. Hence, the most natural interpretation is that some of these apparitions are spirits of deceased human beings.

Another example is Eileen Garrett, who said that during her childhood she saw auras around plants and animals. She also saw light beings with human aspect that only she could see. Once she saw how the aura is separated from the body of an animal that had died and was still making his living. When she was an adult she discovered her talent for trance mediumship. So the most likely hypothesis is that these auras that Garrett saw are the vehicle of the mind that continues after death and that can control a medium during one of their sessions.

Then there is the fact that the belief in spirits of deceased human beings is universal and not specific to certain cultures and eras. It is true that there has been an evolution throughout history, as the rise and fall of modern spiritualism, but this does not imply that there is no afterlife, but cultures can be more or less receptive to the manifestations on the other side. Besides modern spiritualism was not merely a cultural fashion, it must be placed within a spiritualism as old as mankind. On the rise of NDE in recent years, this is easily explained: most people was near death was dying, but lately with the technological advances we can revive many people near death, which gives a rise of NDE reports.

About UFOS, not true that currently are not UFOs, currently flying objects are still seen no one knows what they are and come to be filmed, just that society seems to have lost interest in these phenomena, but I think it can not compare with psychic phenomena we address in this blog: most UFOs can be airplanes or balloons or little known weather phenomena and that a minority be something really extraordinary, which has had different interpretations along of history: in the past, angels, fairies or devils, and now, aliens, chrononauts or sliders, but nothing in the same UFO phenomenon more inclined us of these hypotheses or otherwise. Only the fashion of the time leads to a hypothesis or to another. This fickle character and associated with cultural interpretations of the phenomenon can be made in favor of the hypothesis that UFOs are creations of the collective unconscious, although this hypothesis seems almost contradictory because it attempts to shape, interpret, which by hypothesis itself has no shape but takes various shapes throughout history. However, psychic phenomena such as NDEs, shared-death experiences, mediumship and possible memories of past lives are traits themselves that lead us to the afterlife hypothesis. It is not something external or cultural phenomenon, but internal to the phenomenon. Hence, psychic phenomena are best evidence of the afterlife that UFOs are evidence of the entity we choose.

[Juan]

The collective unconscious theory would explain the fact That Also These phenomena seem to be not only unique to Mainly But Also Certain cultures have historically Developed over time. For example the rise of spiritualism and seance phenomena in the mid 19th century in America and in Europe Mainly, Followed by its being mostly forgotten by the 1950s (except in Brazil). And the rise of NDEs as a phenomenon in the 1970s.

I think your doubt is that psychic phenomena, including UFOs, let us see some intelligences, but we do not know what intelligences are, if they are the spirits of deceased human beings, aliens, sliders, the collective unconscious or other things, as if all these hypotheses about what those intelligences were equal. They are not, but the hypothesis that some of these phenomena are caused by spirits of deceased human beings is much more plausible than other hypotheses. Consider these with some examples.

In past certain apparitions could be interpreted as angels, fairies, succubi or spirits of deceased human beings. Why this latter interpretation is superior to the other? Because apparitions often have human aspect, sometimes have the appearance of a deceased human being, sometimes they appear to loved ones at the time of his death and sometimes they transmit messages to witnesses that they did not know. Hence, the most natural interpretation is that some of these apparitions are spirits of deceased human beings.

Another example is Eileen Garrett, who said that during her childhood she saw auras around plants and animals. She also saw light beings with human aspect that only she could see. Once she saw how the aura is separated from the body of an animal that had died and was still making his living. When she was an adult she discovered her talent for trance mediumship. So the most likely hypothesis is that these auras that Garrett saw are the vehicle of the mind that continues after death and that can control a medium during one of their sessions.

Then there is the fact that the belief in spirits of deceased human beings is universal and not specific to certain cultures and eras. It really has been an evolution over history as the rise and fall of modern spiritualism, but this does not imply that there is no afterlife, but cultures can be more or less receptive to the manifestations on the other side. Besides modern spiritualism was not merely a cultural fashion, it must be placed within a spiritualism as old as mankind. On the rise of NDE in recent years, this is easily explained: most people near death was dying, but lately with the technological advances we can revive many people near death, which gives rise a rise of NDE reports.

[no one]

"That's the No 1, top-dog problem, and I think it's the essential point that Doubter was making."

I read doubter's point as being there can't be spirits or god because people are oppressed and suffer. In doubter's thinking spirits and/or god would remedy the suffering if they existed; remedy perhaps by giving humans information and making them aware of truth.

However, I say that humans have free will and make the choices that cause them to suffer. It does seem that when suffering goes on too long and/or reaches some level of critical mass, a great leader arrives on the scene and leads the people out of it (e.g. a Jefferson an MLK, a Ghandi, a Newton or a Galileo).

Here's a question for you and doubter. Given your poor opinion of the average Joe's intelligence and ability to discern truth and make good choices, where do these highly gifted leaders come from? How is it that they are so superior and driven? Could it be that spirit *does* intervene occasionally by sending an advanced soul to incarnate an advance humanity?

Because despite all of the doom and gloom and suffering that doubter seems to perceive as man's lot, as a species we have made remarkable progress.

Again, though, mostly I object to doubter's objection because it assumes a) a top down god that control everything b) given a, we would be automatons lacking free will c) it is predicated on a world that would not allow for spiritual advancement (i.e. we wouldn't make any choices, we'd just be blissed out all of the time).

Wild West mentality? Guilty as charged, to a degree. The way I see it you can be free to ride the open range (live free or die) or you can play it safe and follow leaders and societal trends. The latter, according to you and doubter results in suffering and ignorance. Why surrender one's freedom to capricious power hungry leaders leaders? Yes, of course for the good of the women and children. Then the child lives to inherit an oppressed existance?

The choice is yours.

You sort of acknowledged my point with the wild west statement.

[no one]

Good point Juan. Why lump mediumship and survival in with UFOs and bigfoot?

[Juan]

And (to bring in something outside the usual topics here) the rise of the UFO phenomenon starting during WW2 with its heyday in the 1950s through the 1980s, followed by its mostly going away by today. Close encounters and observation of physical vehicles just aren't happening any more. It is almost as if a hidden collective decision is made "Oh, the old stuff has become boring or irrelevant or overcome by changes like the Internet, so let's generate a new paranormal wave." What's next?

It is not true that at present do not see UFOS, currently flying objects are still seen no one knows what they are and come to be filmed, just that society seems to have lost interest in these phenomena, but I think the UFOs not comparable with psychic phenomena we address in this blog: the mayority of UFOs likely are balloons or airplanes or unfamiliar weather phenomena and a minority be something really extraordinary, which has had different interpretations throughout history: in the past, angels, fairies or devils, and now, aliens, chrononauts or sliders, but nothing in the same UFO phenomenon more inclined us of these hypotheses or otherwise. Only the fashion of the time leads to a hypothesis or to another. This fickle character associated with cultural interpretations of the phenomenon can be made in favor of the hypothesis that UFOs are creations of the collective unconscious, although this hypothesis seems almost contradictory because it attempts to shape, interpret, which by hypothesis itself has no shape but it takes different shapes along history. However, psychic phenomena such as NDEs, shared-death experiences, mediumship and possible memories of past lives are traits themselves that lead us to the afterlife hypothesis. It is not something external or cultural phenomenon, but internal to the phenomenon. Hence, psychic phenomena are best evidence of the afterlife that UFOs are evidence of entity we choose.

[tsavo]

It's conceivable that the reason the number of UFO  sightings appears to have declined from its heyday (really like to see the numbers here) is because the number of *bogus* sightings has declined. I think only something like 5% or so were originally considered truly "unexplained" by Project Blue Book.  I think the French gov't still has a monitoring agency going. They might have more up-to-date numbers for backwards comparison.

An exceedingly good recent book on UAPs (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, a better term for sightings these days, to exclude contacts, etc) is "UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and  Government  Officials Go on  the Record", by Leslie Kean. Authoritative, exhaustive documentation of sightings by extremely reliable sources. No contact stuff. No cell phone video stuff.

[doubter]

no one - I am kind of curious as to why you think it is the disincarnate spirits' job to influence the course of events moreso than it is the incarnate spirits' job. The spiritual concept is that we incarnate to play out a role here on earth. What would be the point in incarnating if we could do it all from the other side?

I notice that you don't argue with my observation that there has been no new information about the world received from the spirits. Not even once. You would think at least a few individual souls would interfere in the struggle and send a little help through once in a while, like how about the use of chloroform or ether for anesthesia a few decades before they were accidentally discovered? Want to undergo an amputation without it? After all, apparently high level beings (supposedly with access to such information) have repeatedly come through, like the Jane Roberts Seth readings.

The human condition is such that spirits and souls if they exist appear to remain dispassionate, merely observers of human experience. It doesn't matter what kind, pleasure, joy, suffering - it's all grist for the souls' mill. Maybe so, but humans have free will and don't have to like it. I just point out that a logical alternate explanation for absolutely no information from souls and spirits is that there just aren't any, except for deep levels of the human psyche.

[doubter]

no one - I read doubter's point as being there can't be spirits or god because people are oppressed and suffer. In doubter's thinking spirits and/or god would remedy the suffering if they existed; remedy perhaps by giving humans information and making them aware of truth.

My point is that such beings if they exist appear to have the benefit of souls in mind rather than the benefit of human beings.

However, I say that humans have free will and make the choices that cause them to suffer.

This is beyond ridiculous. Tell that to the African children born with AIDS, or born into starvation and disease. Tell that to someone agonizingly dying of bone cancer. Tell that to someone paralyzed from the neck down by a criminal's bullet. Examples are endless. Much suffering is completely innocent and not brought on by personal choices. Deal with it and don't deny it.

Could it be that spirit *does* intervene occasionally by sending an advanced soul to incarnate an advance humanity?

It could be. But it is curious that, as I keep pointing out, no really new information ever comes through. This denies many kinds of practical help that would advance human knowledge, and denies ever having any sort of proof of the existence of such advanced beings.

Again, though, mostly I object to doubter's objection because it assumes a) a top down god that control everything b) given a, we would be automatons lacking free will c) it is predicated on a world that would not allow for spiritual advancement (i.e. we wouldn't make any choices, we'd just be blissed out all of the time).

I do not assume "a top down God that controls everything". Humans have free will, but their human selves don't choose to be born. God doesn't control everything, but God has the power to change anything. Spiritual advancement is obviously allowed because it happens sometime. We obviously can make choices though they are greatly limited in scope.