I just finished reading The Secret Life of Genius: How 24 Great Men and Women Were Touched by Spiritual Worlds, a new book by John Chambers. Previously I'd read the same author's highly interesting volume Victor Hugo's Conversations with the Spirit World, which recounts a series of séances held by Hugo and his family when they were exiles on the Isle of Jersey. I expected Chambers' latest book to be much the same -- a study of spiritualistic experiments and investigations carried out by other famous people.
In fact, however, the new book offers a little more variety. The 24 figures profiled in its pages had many different ways of interacting with or being influenced by "spiritual worlds." In a couple of cases, I wasn't sure I saw the "spiritual" connection at all. Chambers' account of Jules Verne, for instance, does a good job of suggesting that Verne was an overgrown adolescent boy, but I didn't see any evidence of a particularly spiritual worldview. His account of Ben Jonson makes it clear that the famed Elizabethan-Jacobean playwright did his homework when writing about alchemy, but Jonson was known as the sort of person who did his homework when writing about any subject; I'm not convinced he had any special, personal interest in alchemy.
Most of the examples are considerably more clearcut. They range from sages and seers - Nostradamus, Madame Blavatsky, and guru Sri Yashodo Ma - to famous writers with an interest in the occult - Goethe, Blake, Mary Shelley, Balzac, Tolstoy, Yeats, and of course Hugo - to other noted figures whose connection to paranormal interests is more oblique. The latter include H.G. Wells, who may have had a near-death experience in his youth that provided material for some of his later writings; Winston Churchill, whose meat-and-potatoes spirituality served him well throughout his life; and Harry Houdini, the nemesis of physical mediums, whose crusade to unmask them all as frauds may have been driven by a deep-seated desire to believe in after-death communication.
I particularly like Churchill's commonsense approach to the subject. Discussing his years as a soldier in My Early Life, he wrote:
I found that whatever I might think or argue, I did not hesitate to ask for special protection when about to come under the fire of the enemy: nor to feel sincerely grateful when I got home safe for tea. I even asked for lesser things than not to be killed too soon, and nearly always in those years, and indeed throughout my life, I got what I wanted. This practice seemed perfectly natural, and just as strong and real as the reasoning process which contradicted it so sharply. Moreover the practice was comforting and the reasoning led nowhere. I therefore acted in according with my feelings without troubling to square such conduct with the conclusions of thought....
I came across a French saying which seemed singularly apposite. [He quotes Pascal's epigram, "The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of."] It seemed to me that it would be very foolish to discard the reasons of the heart for those of the head. Indeed I could not see why I should not enjoy them both. I did not worry about the inconsistency of thinking one way and believing the other. It seemed good to let the mind explore so far as it could the paths of thought and logic, and also good to pray for help and succour, and be grateful when they came.
This is the kind of thing that resonates with me. But there are other conclusions and inferences drawn by Chambers' parade of spiritual seekers that strike me as less meaningful. One theme, recurring especially in the later parts of the book, is that spirit entities are somehow dependent on the living for their sense of self and perhaps for their very existence, and that spirits -- and even God himself -- are desperately seeking answers from us through their contact with the living.
This idea is part of the huge mass of purportedly channeled material produced by the Pulitzer prize-winning poet James Merrill and his partner David Jackson -- material incorporated into Merrill's 500-page poem The Changing Light at Sandover. (It was also suggested to Carl Jung in some strange occult experiences, mentioned below.)
The material produced by Merrill and Jackson constitutes a kind of alternate history of the world, recounting the rise and fall of other races prior to the human race, including a species of batlike creatures who are now, apparently, trying to communicate with us. There is even an alternate version of human history, in which the pharaoh Akhnaton perishes after building "a fifty-foot-high rock-crystal pyramid" meant to harness "the power of the sun" - a technological feat that goes horribly awry.
Needless to say, there is no record in any standard history books of such developments. It all sounds most bizarre, and even Merrill himself says he maintains "an attitude of perfect ambivalence toward the spirits."
Chambers seems to take such communications altogether more seriously than I would. He also takes seriously the large number of channeled messages purportedly arising from extraterrestrials, a subject that comes up in his study of Nobel Prize-winning novelist Doris Lessing. Lessing wrote a five-part series of science fiction novels sketching out the idea that Earth is under the protection of an advanced race of aliens from "the Canopean and Sirian galactic empires." Chambers writes:
Lessing can take her place in the proliferation of information being channeled these days through mediums on Earth ostensibly from aliens scattered around the universe. This "alien literature" can be strikingly rich. Most of these channeled ETs share a message that locates humanity within a vast intergalactic network of spiritual evolution. They say they are converging on earth to give our species a necessary boost to the evolutionary process. The alternative to taking this giant stride forward (which must be done quickly) is the disappearance of humanity.
Chambers gives examples of such channeled material from the work of Patricia Pereira, Darryl Anka, and Ken Carey. One of the problems, however, with such messages is that they contradict each other, as Chambers acknowledges:
An overall examination of material channeled from aliens (at least fifty mediums have books out) reveals that alien worldviews divide up into two distinctly different camps. One group ... describes our Milky Way galaxy as teeming with hundreds of millions of different sentient planetary life forms; the others say its representatives are not exactly aliens but more like angels, come to help us Homo sapiens, whose planet, Earth, is the only one inhabited by a sentient species in the entire Milky Way galaxy ...
Does this mean that, insofar as the two camps thoroughly contradict each other, we can't take anything these aliens say seriously, that everything they say is a figment of the medium's imagination?
Chambers addresses this question by suggesting that "our experiences of channeling aliens and our perceptions of them are also necessarily filtered through our subjectivities. Ken Carey is an Evangelical Christian, and Evangelical Christians are taught to believe that humankind is the only species in our galaxy."
I would suggest a different explanation, not only for the "alien" communications, but for those received by Merrill and Jackson, as well. Many mystical traditions, not to mention modern spiritualist teachings, tell us that there are both lower and higher spiritual entities. The lower entities tend to be earthbound by nature. They hover around the earth plane, sometimes attaching themselves to vulnerable humans and making mischief. They also like to communicate false or misleading messages. Even when trying to communicate what they see as the truth, their understanding is so limited that whatever they tell us is likely to be wrong.
In this respect, it may be relevant to note that Merrill and Jackson received all their communications via the Ouija board, an instrument notorious for its propensity to attract low-level, earthbound, mischievous or malicious entities. Perhaps it is not entirely a coincidence that the communicating entities in that case described themselves as batlike creatures. Traditionally, batlike creatures are seen as devils. And devils may be nothing more than confused or ignorant low-level spirits interfering with human affairs.
To the extent that the various communications from "aliens" and "bat-creatures" are genuine, and not the product of the various mediums' subconscious minds, the communications probably reflect nothing more than the bewilderment and hostility of undeveloped spirits. It's interesting to note that one of Merrill and Jackson's communicators became so hostile to them (rudely ordering them around) that they temporarily stopped using the Ouija board. I doubt that a genuinely advanced being would behave this way.
I also greatly doubt that God needs human beings to supply him with the answers to his questions. Merrill and Jackson, according to Chambers, came to this peculiar conclusion:
The more they pondered this, the more it seemed to the two that the shape of God -- his very existence -- must be dependent on the feelings and thoughts of mankind as a collectivity. It was not that Homo sapiens "made up" God. It was that God was Pure Being, and dependent on our imagination for his very shape and form.
Mustn't this also be true for heaven?
The question of heaven comes in because Merrill and Jackson's communicators claimed that if the human race obliterated itself, then the spiritual worlds themselves would cease to exist. Thus the continued existence of "heaven" depends on the continued existence of life on Earth.
Chambers adds:
In Zürich in 1916, the spirits of the dead had milled forlornly around C.G. Jung, besieging the forty-one-year-old psychiatrist standing bewildered in his living room for answers to their questions. They knew nothing, the spirits said -- neither who they were, nor where they were, nor even if God existed.
This experience prompted Jung to formulate the theory that God is not conscious of himself, and that "all the monstrous, apparently senseless biological turmoil" of evolution had as its end the manifestation of consciousness via the brain -- a solution "found as if by chance, unintended and unforeseen, and yet somehow sensed, felt and groped for out of some dark urge."
Jung's point of view reminds me in some respects of the theory of "biocentrism" presented by Robert Lanza and Bob Berman in a recent book, which I discussed here. But is it possible that "the spirits of the dead" Jung witnessed (assuming they were not a hallucination) were low-level, earthbound spirits, and that their ignorance and confusion were a direct result of their undeveloped condition? Jung never seems to have considered this possibility, though it is consistent with much mystical lore and many mediumistic messages.
Incidentally, I was surprised that the chapter on Jung made no mention of his near-death experience in 1944*, which presents a far more positive view of the afterlife, including the promise that "I would receive an answer to all [my] questions" - a viewpoint considerably differemt from that of the spirits who "knew nothing ... neither who they were, nor where they were, nor even if God existed." Again, it would seem reasonable to conclude that some spirits have answers and some don't, and the ones who don't are not the ones we should be listening to.
A similar objection might be made to Norman Mailer's claim (recounted in Chapter 22) that he heard the voice of God. In an exceedingly odd episode, Mailer was eating a donut in a late-night diner when he heard God tell him to get up and leave without paying. With some reluctance, Mailer obeyed the instruction. He later theorized that God sometimes needs people to break the rules, and developed a rather elaborate theory of God as a besieged deity at war with the Devil. It seems more likely to me that if there was any paranormal element to Mailer's experience, the voice he heard was that of a low-level spirit, not God.
Perhaps the best advice one might give to Mailer, Jung, Merrill, and others like them is found in 1 John 4:1:
Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.
In quoting this passage, I don't mean to suggest that only messages consistent with Christian orthodoxy can be accepted as genuine (though this is the point of the quote in context). I simply mean to say that not all channeled messages are created equal. Some are products of the subconscious and may be sheer confabulation; some may be pulled telepathically from other people's minds and reproduce their assumptions and prejudices; some may reflect the influence of low-level spirits, who are often confused, ignorant, or hostile; and some undoubtedly reflect a more advanced discarnate consciousness that genuinely desires to teach us, though it is still not infallible.
There is, I think, a great deal of chaff in such messages, and relatively little wheat. Sifting is necessary.
Whatever one thinks of the conclusions reached by some of the figures profiled in Chambers' book, The Secret Life of Genius is a consistently fascinating and provocative look at an underappreciated side of human creativity, showing that a fascination with "spiritual worlds" is not so much an aberration as, in many cases, a defining attribute of the inquiring mind.
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*Art, you should read this. It's kind of "holographic." Note especially Jung's reluctance to return to a "three-dimensional" world of "boxes." Quoting Jung: "For it seemed to me as if behind the horizon of the cosmos a three-dimensional world had been artificially built up, in which each person sat by himself in a little box. And now I should have to convince myself all over again that this was important!"
I've read the description of Carl Jung's near death experience a couple of times. It is fascinating. One of my favorite quotes comes from Carl Jung,
"What happens after death is so unspeakably glorious that our imaginations and our feelings do not suffice to form even an approximate conception of it."
Posted by: Art | July 14, 2009 at 02:38 PM
excerpt from Carl Jung's NDE:
"Nevertheless something remained; it was as if I now carried along with me everything I had ever experienced or done, everything that had happened around me. I might also say: it was with me, and I was it. I consisted of all that, so to speak. I consisted of my own history and I felt with great certainty: this is what I am. I am this bundle of what has been and what has been accomplished."
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We come here to become ourselves. Spiritual beings having a physical experience. We are creating ourselves. Separate, unique, individuals. Something that can't be accomplished in Heaven due to those overwhelming feelings of oneness and connectedness, i.e. it's "holographicness."
The way we "become" separate is by experiencing duality and separation. Separation in every way, shape, and form possible; and the most emotional kind of separation we experience while we are these physical bodies is to lose someone we love. Nothing else comes close. That is why I think we may never be allowed to know absolutely 100% for certain that there is life after death and one day we shall be reunited with all those loved ones we have lost because if we knew for certain that one day we would be reunited with our loved ones death would lose a little bit of it's sting and would cease to be the powerful lesson in separation that it is.
Posted by: Art | July 14, 2009 at 02:54 PM
"Again, it would seem reasonable to conclude that some spirits have answers and some don't, and the ones who don't are not the ones we should be listening to."
Reminds me of the hungry ghosts of Buddhism.
Posted by: dmduncan | July 14, 2009 at 05:59 PM
“The question of heaven comes in because Merrill and Jackson's communicators claimed that if the human race obliterated itself, then the spiritual worlds themselves would cease to exist. Thus the continued existence of "heaven" depends on the continued existence of life on Earth.”
My research suggests the very opposite of this statement. The astral worlds would not suffer even if the earth disappeared. There appears to be much variation of thought on the other side. To believe all spirit communication from the other side has the same level of intelligence would be the same as believing every human’s idea of reality on this side is of the same intelligence. An extreme example would be a Hitler and a Mother Theresa’s view of reality.
“This experience prompted Jung to formulate the theory that God is not conscious of himself”
This statement by Jung may fail to understand the concept of infinite. Our finite minds cannot comprehend infinite. We cannot even define infinite. Infinite is beyond definition or even to a great degree our concepts. As one of my favorite spirit teachers has stated to define infinite is to limit infinite.
Now Meister Eckhart talked of a Godhead that is like a barren desert and a God that is responsible for all of creation. Two God’s? My belief at this time (subject to change I hope if evidence warrants that change) that god’s are responsible for all creation and the Godhead is the life force and divine intelligence which all conscious Beings even “gods” draw from this infinite source all of their vitality, intelligence, and substance.
If we look at on-going continuous (never ending?) improvement in a soul’s intelligence and creative ability where would this evolutionary journey come to an end? I.e. does it ever end? If we don’t become as gods with greater and greater creative abilities and awareness then what is our destination?
Now from my point of view for Infinite or Pure Awareness to experience an infinite variety of expressions then indeed finite Beings are needed with limited awareness. This limited awareness expresses itself at some point as a flow of thoughts also described as consciousness. And to be dynamic those life forces we now call Beings have attained a consciousness with limited awareness must progress in their awareness. Static consciousness does not exist maybe static awareness exists but not consciousness.
I have read where some spirits call this progress or evolution in consciousness for all souls the law of progress.
Posted by: william | July 14, 2009 at 06:53 PM
I'm sorry, I can't help myself. I've been trying to stifle myself all afternoon. Okay, just this once and I'll try not to say it again (OCD)...
"some of it's true and some it's hooey."
Posted by: Art | July 14, 2009 at 08:37 PM
"Reminds me of the hungry ghosts of Buddhism."
When writing this post, I also thought of hungry ghosts - specifically the disturbing book "The Siren Call of Hungry Ghosts," by Joe Fisher, which recounts Fisher's growing obsession with tricksterish, deceitful entities who seemingly latched on to him after he visited an amateur medium. Fisher appears to have been driven to suicide by his belief that the "hungry ghosts" were tormenting him.
"some of it's true and some of it's hooey."
I said the same thing in the main post: "... not all channeled messages are created equal. Some are products of the subconscious and may be sheer confabulation," etc.
Posted by: Michael Prescott | July 14, 2009 at 11:31 PM
Sheer confabulation sounds so much more respectful and polite than just calling it hooey. I don't believe the Medium's "self" disappears during these sessions. Their own predjudices, beliefs, cultures, and ideas get mixed in with the message. I suppose everyone just needs to read it for themselves and sort out what rings true to them.
Sometimes when I'm sitting in Church daydreaming I wonder or think about if you could look inside the people's heads of those sitting around me, and know what they are thinking, how many different religions I would see or find? Most folks sit there so quietly I don't have a clue what they really believe? That's one of my main complaints about Church, there really aren't any lively discussions. It would be so much more interesting if there were.
Posted by: Art | July 14, 2009 at 11:42 PM
"some of it's true and some it's hooey."
One person’s truth may be another person’s hooey just as one person’s hooey may be another person’s truth. You can bet the first person that stated they thought the earth was not the center of the universe was threatened with making hooey statements or worst. The most respected scientists rebuked the first person as making hooey statements that claimed heavier than air flight was possible, etc.
Now this gives me a chance to quote one of my favorite intelligences from the other side.
“As there are different degrees of knowledge, as are there different degrees of truth, different grades of steps in the approach to the Underlying Reality. As one gets a closer glimpse of some truth, it will appear to him in a different light and perhaps he will not recognize it; but everything is some reflection or shadow of the Underlying Reality, which is Being, which is what you call your Selfhood, or Universal Consciousnesses or God. So do not regard anything as false for all things are true in their degree.”
Looking for one truth or truths about the other side from spirits is like herding cats, just when you think you are on to some truth and heading in the right direction those truths take off in all directions.
“That's one of my main complaints about Church, there really aren't any lively discussions. It would be so much more interesting if there were.”
I think this was indeed the original format of Christianity then it turned professional and into preachers and sermons. I earned four college degrees and I think I now can remember just two lectures in those 24 years. Now the so called discussion groups that claim lively discussions those discussions better be on track with popular Christian beliefs or else.
If you want to try something interesting Art have your church purchase “living the questions” and it’s content will facilitate some lively discussions. I attended two of those living the questions discussion groups from some very liberal Christian churches and at the homes of those in the discussion group and it was very rewarding and they even share a meal. A real bonding experience for everyone.
I think Art this is exactly what you would find interesting. There was so much discussion they had to limit people on the amount of time they spent talking. It appears that Christianity is in the process of waking up. Not everywhere of course.
http://www.livingthequestions.com/xcart/home.php?cat=366
Posted by: william | July 15, 2009 at 01:11 AM
I think Christianity is actually very very simple, and the more people try to intellectualize what it's about the further they wander from what it is. Remember some years ago the woman who was held hostage in her own home by a criminal who had shot a guard or cop to death? The woman was a Christian, and herself someone who had had trouble (who hasn't?), and her response to the situation was to talk to the guy, she actually cooked a meal for him and expressed her concern and care about what he had done, and in the end she convinced the guy to turn himself in, which he then did.
Any group or church that considers itself liberal or conservative is playing the same game from opposite sides of the board.
The work is in the practice not the thinking you are nobler or better than others because you think you are more awake or enlightened and the other guy is not. I mean, if you had put a religious intellectual in that same situation it probably would have turned out completely differently, with tearful screaming, pleadings for life, attempts to escape, and a shootout in the end.
What that woman did was to put herself in that man's situation rather than to speak to him from "above."
As an old Bulgarian friend of mine would say (supply your own Bulgarian accent):
"Easy to say, much harder to do."
Posted by: dmduncan | July 15, 2009 at 08:30 PM
"Any group or church that considers itself liberal or conservative is playing the same game from opposite sides of the board."
presumably Hitler and Gandhi are in the same game called 'Planet Earth'
Posted by: barbara | July 16, 2009 at 04:48 PM
“presumably Hitler and Gandhi are in the same game called 'Planet Earth'”
I would suspect when they passed from this earth they ended up in different realms of existence. Hitler advocated violence whereas Gandhi advocated nonviolence. Both violence and nonviolence have degrees of wants inherit within them. Wanting and not wanting have degrees of suffering within them.
Although nonviolence as a change agent appears to be a more effective mode for changing society but both violence and nonviolence have adverse side effects. India had tremendous internal violence after England left India. In fact the country split into two counties.
Not sure game is the word I would use but both Hitler and Gandhi are expressions of that that is or the life force most call God. The name Hitler has taken on the role as a synonym for evil. Surely he advocated and did evil actions but he had a lot of help. It took very special economic circumstances and a self-righteous society to put him into power.
Actually I have read he never got more than 37% of the votes. Germans lined the streets to cheer him on after the invasion of Poland and France. In a few short years bombs would be dropping on their homes and they would be hiding from the Russians, as the Russians were brutal to them for payback for the millions of Russians their soldiers had killed.
Now evil is nonexistent as an absolute reality. For evil to be a reality then infinite would have to be evil or some portion of it as evil. Infinite cannot be evil or it would not be infinite. But there are evil actions but all those evil deeds are based in unawareness or ignorance of our true or perfect reality. No exceptions. For there to be an exception God would have to be evil.
Posted by: william | July 16, 2009 at 07:26 PM
I believe we will all be healed when we enter that Light. And yes, I believe that God is that Awesome and loving. The whole point of the parables in the gospels is that God's love is absurd and obsessive. Who goes off and leaves their 99 sheep to find one lost sheep? When you came back the 99 sheep would be gone. When the prodigal son comes back who but a loving and absurd God would welcome that prodigal son back home again? I've read a plethora of near death experiences and the majority of them reiterate over and over again the awesome love that awaits us in the Light.
Posted by: Art | July 16, 2009 at 11:52 PM
"The name Hitler has taken on the role as a synonym for evil."
Hitler was a good heroic man who fought against forces of evil (communism). Of course he made some mistakes and had opinions which I don't support, but to claim that he was evil is stupid and ignorant.
Stalin's name should be synonym for evil.
Posted by: Raimo | July 17, 2009 at 06:14 AM
Adloph Hitler was both Evil and Good. Just like every human being. Hitler was the product of his environment and his upbringing. He became the person that his DNA, his childhood, the food he ate, the books that were available for him to read, etc. made him to be.
When he entered that light he felt connected to the whole Universe and felt like he literally became every other soul in the Universe. Empathy. Once you experience that level of empathy you cannot hate everyone else.
Posted by: Art | July 17, 2009 at 09:36 AM
"Hitler was a good heroic man who fought against forces of evil (communism). Of course he made some mistakes and had opinions which I don't support, but to claim that he was evil is stupid and ignorant."
I don't often say something like this, but you, my friend, are completely nuts.
Posted by: Michael Prescott | July 17, 2009 at 12:19 PM
"When he entered that light he felt connected to the whole Universe and felt like he literally became every other soul in the Universe."
Why would Hitler be in the light? Pretty much everything that's come to us from channeled communicators on this subject indicates that people who caused great evil while on earth remain in a state of confusion and ignorance for a long time after they die.
Some people who've had NDEs also report either being taken to a hellish place, or passing by such a place on the way to someplace better.
Maybe Hitler, after many incarnations and much repentance and atonement, will someday enter the light, but I very much doubt he's there now.
Posted by: Michael Prescott | July 17, 2009 at 12:27 PM
“Hitler was a good heroic man who fought against forces of evil (communism). Of course he made some mistakes and had opinions which I don't support, but to claim that he was evil is stupid and ignorant.”
An interesting perspective on Hitler. Also the statement was that Hitler’s name has become a synonym for evil not that he was evil. To state that Hitler was a good heroic man is also an interesting viewpoint as about 50 million people died in World War II and some claim six million was put to death in his death camps.
Also the statement was that evil is nonexistent but one could say that evil deeds or actions do exist. The underlying reality of those evil actions is I suspect is what a Jesus or Buddha would see clearly while the rest of us see the appearance not this underlying reality.
If communism is the forces of evil one has to wonder what Nazism should be called. There are many people in the world that believe capitalism is the forces of evil. Calling others the forces of evil can be very self destructive to self and others. While watching a late night talk show several months ago this host of the show stated with communism man exploits man and everyone agreed but when he stated the rest of the sentence there was silence.
His entire sentence was “with communism man exploits man with capitalism it is the other way around”. Man’s inhumanity to man is an interesting and I believe a spiritual topic whether it be communism, Nazism, socialism, tribalism, capitalism, nationalism, patriotism, or religionist.
“When he entered that light he felt connected to the whole Universe and felt like he literally became every other soul in the Universe. Empathy.”
My research does not support this statement but some aspects of my research have supported some of this statement. I lean in the direction that what we sow we reap not as punishment but as a means to guide us to every increasing depths of love for self and others. Some spirits call this the law of progress.
I would suspect that Hitler had some lower realms of existence to spend time in until he reached that point of having more empathy for all. Or maybe reincarnated he back to earth for another incarnation and hopefully this time able to achieve a greater empathy and love for self and all. A couple of spirits have stated that Hitler’s father bears much of the blame for Hitler’s actions. I also suspect that Hitler had tremendous self-hatred for self and all and projected that self-hatred onto the world. His ego tried to compensate for that self hatred in a variety of ego and often violent attacks on others.
Not all NDE’s come back with a story of empathy for all.
“Hitler was the product of his environment and his upbringing. He became the person that his DNA, his childhood, the food he ate, the books that were available for him to read, etc. made him to be.”
He also made some choices in his life that were very destructive to a lot of people including himself. All the things you mentioned above were influential in his choices and his boundaries so to speak but he was not just a product of his environment. The choices he made and we all make is due to the maturity of our soul and the maturity of our soul appears to determine the level or realm of existence we arrive at after we cross over.
Posted by: william | July 17, 2009 at 12:59 PM
“Why would Hitler be in the light? Pretty much everything that's come to us from channeled communicators on this subject indicates that people who caused great evil while on earth remain in a state of confusion and ignorance for a long time after they die.”
This is what my research reveals to me. My research also reveals that there is hope for all but it is the soul that keeps itself in these lower planes of existence that many call hellish realms or Hades; not a deity or a devil. The book I am reading now supports this above quote. The book’s title is, “the testimony of light” by Helen Greaves.
It appears that a “troubled” soul can put itself in a Hades realm with their thoughts but there are always spirits attempting to reach these souls and trying to convince them there are better places to be and it is their thoughts that keep them in such a gloomy and lonely place. I find that a very positive aspect of the other side that many spirits are involved with as their “work” as a soul.
Posted by: william | July 17, 2009 at 01:21 PM
Pretty much everything that's come to us from channeled communicators on this subject indicates that people who caused great evil while on earth remain in a state of confusion and ignorance for a long time after they die. - Michael Prescott
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I'm sorry, but I have very little faith in "channeled information." I deeply suspicion it's culturally biased and deeply influenced by the mind of the supposed channel. Every once in a while Mediums hit on little gems, but a lot of what comes out of their mouths is of little value.
I think this Universe was created the way it is for a reason. It's a place of learning and was never meant to be perfect. The more emotional the experience the more powerful and long lasting the memory it creates. The great thing about it is that it's just a temporary illusion that we must endure in order to learn about time and space, separation, and make memories of what it feels like to be "inside" a body, but after we cross back over into "heaven" we will look back on this life like it was a dream in itself.
excerpt from Jame's NDE:
"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."
http://nderf.org/james_e_nde.htm
excerpt from Michelle's NDE:
"I felt an understanding about life, what it was, is. As if it was a dream in itself. It's so very hard to explain this part. I'll try, but my words limit the fullness of it. I don't have the words here, but I understood that it really didn't matter what happened in the life experience, I knew/understood that it was intense, brief, but when we were in it, it seemed like forever. I understood that whatever happened in life, I was really ok, and so were the others here."
http://nderf.org/michelle_m%27s_nde.htm
Posted by: Art | July 17, 2009 at 02:12 PM
"To state that Hitler was a good heroic man is also an interesting viewpoint as about 50 million people died in World War II and some claim six million was put to death in his death camps."
Communism has caused death of over 100 million people. Somebody had to fight against that evil. Stalin is responsible for most deaths in World War II. That 6 million figure is just propaganda.
"Every once in a while Mediums hit on little gems, but a lot of what comes out of their mouths is of little value."
I agree with Art. I don't trust most mediums.
Posted by: Raimo | July 17, 2009 at 02:26 PM
"That 6 million figure is just propaganda."
Raimo, you're crazy.
Art, it seems to me that you're accepting the evidence that appeals to you and rejecting the evidence that doesn't appeal to you. This is a classic case of confirmation bias.
It's easy to find confirmation of what we already believe, but such confirmation is of little value. The evidence that challenges our beliefs is what we should be paying attention to. Admittedly, this is easier said than done.
Posted by: Michael Prescott | July 17, 2009 at 02:40 PM
Art, it seems to me that you're accepting the evidence that appeals to you and rejecting the evidence that doesn't appeal to you. This is a classic case of confirmation bias. - Michael Prescott
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No. A few years ago I had a personal mystical experience where I saw the big picture. While here in this physical universe we experience duality and see everything as being separate and think that "duality" exists in heaven also. It doesn't.
There is no separation or duality in Heaven. Which means that we will know and feel what it was like to be the other person. All knowledge means all knowledge. Everything, every single bit
of information.
The education of the soul may be too important to leave it up to chance. God is in control even when we don't believe He/She is. There are no coincidences and everything happens for a reason. Everything. Even the bad stuff. This physical earthly life is a school and we are only here for a little while. The blink of an eye compared to eternity.
Posted by: Art | July 17, 2009 at 03:04 PM
When I saw 'that comment' about Hitler I thought it was just a wind up,so I didn't bother chipping in. As it obviously wasn't.......my father was in a German prisoner of war camp. Several hundred yards away was a another camp where Jews were incarcerated and incinerated(don't remember which.. and my father died in 1981)but what he saw he could never get out of his head. He loathed Hitler and the Nazis with a vengeance.
Posted by: steve wood | July 17, 2009 at 03:19 PM
"He loathed Hitler and the Nazis with a vengeance."
So are you advocating hate ("loathing") as a way forward, spiritually speaking? Did Christ not tell us to forgive our enemies?
Posted by: barbara | July 17, 2009 at 03:42 PM
"Did Christ not tell us to forgive our enemies?"
There's a limit to what we can reasonably forgive, without betraying the victims.
I also loathe Hitler and Nazis, and make no apologies for it.
And yes, Stalin was just as evil. It's not a competition. Both men were brutal dictators who killed millions. The (mainly superficial) differences in their ideologies are irrelevant. Their ideologies were just rationalizations for their power-lust and homicidal tendencies.
We shouldn't let our quest for "enlightenment" and "spiritual growth" blind us to obvious, common-sense moral judgments. The wanton killing of millions is just wrong. Any philosophy that tells you it's not wrong is a philosophy that's leading you astray.
Posted by: Michael Prescott | July 17, 2009 at 03:58 PM
Barbara,
I may be wrong, but I assume you weren't there, just as I wasn't there,either.In my opinion, 'armchair' forgiveness of unimaginable atrocities is for GOD alone.
Didn't Christ say,"If anyone was to damage one of these(a child)it would be better if a millstone was used to drown him etc.
I don't need to elaborate, surely.
Posted by: steve wood | July 17, 2009 at 07:18 PM
Stalin for all his evil was content to keep it in his borders. He also went after people who he believed endangered him.
Hitler wanted to expand his evil across the globe and he nearly did. He also killed people not because he felt they were dangerous to him, but simply because they were undesirable in his eyes. He killed people simply for existing. Stalin did not go that far.
While Stalin possibly did more evil, Nazism if it had been unchecked would have done, far, far evil. Oh the Holocaust killed 13 million, not 6 million.
Posted by: Kris | July 18, 2009 at 12:46 AM
Jame’s and Michelle’s NDE’s are very much in tune with what many spirits are saying from the other side. Maybe it would be nice to think that how we live our lives on earth does not effect our lives in the other realms or worlds. To suggest that we all go to heaven in spite of our level of consciousness or how we lived our lives or the choices we have made in this life from my point of view fails to understand the evolutionary process of our consciousness.
There have been some great mediums with exceptional abilities and many of these exceptional ones never charged a cent and they had a deep interest in advancing knowledge for all humans. Many scientists have researched them and found much of the information verifiable and not just telepathy.
“Did Christ not tell us to forgive our enemies?”
Christ Jesus was light years ahead of the rest of us. I suspect the asking for forgiveness has to come from Hitler not just from Christ or anyone else. It appears that all actions have consequences even evil actions. How else would we learn if there were no consequences or feedback?
Yes Christ would have and may have forgiven both of them but their self-hatred projected on to others, their self righteous and selfishness would carry on to their next life or lives. Jesus would be able to see the underlying reality of their evil actions that the rest of us cannot see as we judge by appearances. A lot of causal factors had to happen in Germany for Hitler to do what he did.
“In my opinion, 'armchair' forgiveness of unimaginable atrocities is for GOD alone.”
In my opinion God would see no need to forgive as God sees the innocence in all of its expressions. We were created in innocence (involution) but in our evolution of consciousness process we error with often some major errors.
Posted by: william | July 18, 2009 at 02:22 AM
"While Stalin possibly did more evil, Nazism if it had been unchecked would have done, far, far evil. Oh the Holocaust killed 13 million, not 6 million."
Stalin was a communist and communism did go unchecked, resulting in around 110 MILLION deaths worldwide under all the communist regimes, with the Soviet Union responsible for most (63 MILLION) and Stalin in particular the most prolific of the Soviet murderers (43 MILLION).
And yet despite the horrors of communism there are still ignorant people who have a romantic notion of communism as the best thing for humanity, while Nazism is derided as evil as if communism were a better alternative. Particularly under Stalin, the communists made the Nazis look like amateurs.
Posted by: dmduncan | July 18, 2009 at 02:58 AM
“while Nazism is derided as evil as if communism were a better alternative”
I am not sure that anyone I have ever read or talked to claim communism was a better alternative than Nazism. Both are failed ideologies that self-destructed. Communism is sold to the people, as the people’s party and third world societies are susceptible to such propaganda.
This is why I believe a large middle class is needed in any society to avoid chaos and bloody revolutions. A society of haves and have nots is a society ripe for revolution.
I am a bit of a world war two buff and when I see German movies of hundreds of thousands of Germans lining the streets in Germany with flowers in their hands cheering Hitler on after he invaded Poland and France that tells me that nationalism and patriotism can overwhelm the rational mind. I.e. and the spiritual mind.
Posted by: william | July 18, 2009 at 03:46 AM
Let's not got saying that Stalin was a communist. His system was a warped and twisted version of it, hence Stalinism. The man was a brutal man, but there has never been a true working communist system.
Many people (in the US particularly) equate communism to this big evil that was ruled over by people like Stalin and Mao, when in fact they were not communists at all. They may have started off with good intentions, but in the end it descended into fascism much like Nazi Germany.
Why do you think Stalin chased Trotsky into exile in Mexico?
Posted by: Mark | July 18, 2009 at 05:05 AM
Getting back to the original thread, the book sounds interesting. Also I've read enough NDE 'accounts'(not too certain about channelled communication) that mesh together, to get a reasonable picture of what the hereafter might be like and it sounds wonderful, but as a heavy drinking etc lapse catholic I'm far from certain that I'll be breezing through the swing doors exchanging high fives with St Peter.
'Vicki Noratuk' for instance talked about going past hell and I've heard that statement from others many times. Don't like the sound of it. If could do a deal NOW I'd settle for Purgatory and the one hundred thousand Hail Marys that eventually get you out.
Posted by: steve wood | July 18, 2009 at 08:55 AM
What did I say ?
Posted by: steve wood | July 18, 2009 at 02:31 PM
“but there has never been a true working communist system.”
There never will be for a variety of reasons. One being they confuse organized religion and religious dogma with spiritually. We are spiritual beings and this cannot be eliminated from our lives for the so-called good of all.
“'Vicki Noratuk' for instance talked about going past hell and I've heard that statement from others many times. Don't like the sound of it.”
Neither do I but it makes sense if we understand the evolution of consciousness process. Consciousness evolves into higher and higher levels of love and divine intelligence and not always in a ladder step format. Maybe more like a spiral advancement in love and intelligence.
It appears we have the ability to create our own hellish or Hades condition with our thoughts that gives us a certain vibration level. Like Art I too bought into there is no such place as hell with my beliefs in life between life hypnosis as being an accurate account of life after we cross over. I learned a valuable lesson with this experience; don’t put all your life between life knowledge in one basket. I.e. it may have a hole in it.
This is why I think a Hitler and anyone that has hated, jealousy, or whatever type of selfish thoughts may have to endure some time in a Hades condition of their own making. The good news is there appears to be “spirits” that are always there to help those that want to give up their selfish thoughts or hate and help them move to a more loving realm of existence to continue to learn and advance in love of self and others.
Posted by: william | July 18, 2009 at 02:57 PM
"In my opinion, 'armchair' forgiveness of unimaginable atrocities is for GOD alone."
So Jesus was wrong to tell us to forgive our enemies?
I am prepared to accept that yours is a valid point of view. But in doing so, I have to say: "Jesus was wrong." Don't I?
If I don't want to say that, then I have to find a way to understand how to forgive. One way is to not judge at all, by accepting that people are driven by forces beyond their control and comprehension. In other words, we are not free. We are pawns in a game with the illusion of free will.
Posted by: barbara | July 18, 2009 at 04:05 PM
We don't REALLY know exactly what Jesus said. Even the synoptic gospels vary. To what degree 'turn the other cheek' is meant to be observed, I dont know.
'He who calls his brother a fool shall be in danger of hell fire'
That statement must be just as valid as ....
...'Forgive seventy seven times,' because it also comes from the gospel.
Calling someone a fool, or reading into it as I think it was probably meant to mean at the time...was trashing another persons reputation etc.
Hitler did quite a bit more than that and I beleave Christ would have had something a lot stronger to say about the holocaust. On the subject of free will, he could have let the Jews go, even after he'd trashed their lives. He didn't HAVE to starve, beat and murder them.
Posted by: steve wood | July 18, 2009 at 07:43 PM
“So Jesus was wrong to tell us to forgive our enemies?”
No I think he nailed it. Forgiveness does not release the enemy from their own karmic consequences but it may let us bypass karmic consequences for our own misguided desire for revenge, hatred, or whatever. There are consequences for our actions and any actions not based in love will have consequences.
The soul would “never” advance if these cause and effect consequences did not exist. I should also state that actions based in love also have consequences but what most would term the better kind but better may be a moral judgment. Forgiveness of our enemies may have more to do with the development of our soul and character than the development of the soul of the person or enemy we are forgiving.
Jesus appeared to be more concerned with our souls than our material success on earth. Forgiveness I believe is based in understanding of what really is not in just stating the mere words of forgiveness.
“In other words, we are not free. We are pawns in a game with the illusion of free will.”
This is an age-old debate about free will. Would we rather not have a perceived self and unique identity? There is a great price to pay for that personal identity in suffering and our struggles in life but most of us I suspect prefer having that identity of our own. Also we may be in the early stages of soul development and I believe there will be much greater things to come in our life in these other realms of existence.
The closer we get in awareness to this supreme infinite Absolute that most call God the more creative power and universal intelligence we attain. And with this universal intelligence comes more joy and bliss. When we try to exert power without this universal love and intelligence problems arise. I.e. Hitler, Stalin, etc.
As I often quote I like what this “master mind” stated in the book the open door.
“Man is not a creature of blind circumstance or environment; no more is he a free moral agent in the sense of possessing a will that gives him an option in life. He represents the law of progress in his evolution, the change from the potential to the dynamic….. thus he has no will of his own other than the inherent tendency to express himself and this is necessity……..he is not a blind sport of environment, for the potentiality inheres in him not in his surroundings and the necessity lies in his relation to the external not in its relation to him.”
As I have stated many times on this blog I prefer the term “choices within boundaries” because the word free has implications of a freedom of bias and conditioned beliefs. People say well everyone knows right from wrong but we can have knowledge of what is right and wrong and still because of many factors choose a selfish outcome and harm others and ourselves.
Posted by: william | July 18, 2009 at 08:10 PM
I know Communism killed all those people Duncan. However Nazism if unchecked would have killed so many more. Tell me how many Asian and African Nordics are there?
Posted by: Kris | July 18, 2009 at 11:13 PM
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