Pyramid power

Here's an interesting little daydream that might be helpful in thinking about some problems arising from mediumistic communications and reincarnation accounts.  It stems from the idea that spirits at higher levels of development exist outside of time as we understand it.

Let's take a spirit named Casper. Casper goes through many incarnations on earth, while occupying time between physical incarnations on the spiritual plane known in the vernacular as Summerland. Casper's physical lives naturally play out in what we might call “clock time”–the kind of time we are familiar with on an everyday basis. Casper's Summerland interludes also play out in some kind of time that is unfamiliar to us but that seems to be related to earthly clock time.

Throughout his various incarnations, Casper makes progress  in terms of spiritual evolution, and eventually he reaches the stage where he can advance beyond Summerland to the next plane of spiritual existence. For the sake of simplicity, we will call this the 4th plane. On the 4th plane, Casper exists entirely outside of time as either we or even the inhabitants of Summerland experience it.

Okay. Think about what that means. Casper has reached the point where he exists outside of time. That means, in terms of earthly reckoning, he has always existed, he exists right now, and he will continue to exist indefinitely.

Meanwhile, here on earth, Casper is undergoing one of his many physical incarnations, and may not be anywhere close to the spiritual epiphany that will eventually summon him to the 4th plane.

Casper is in two places at once! He is here on earth at this very moment, perhaps incarnated as a stevedore in New Delhi or a greengrocer in Santa Barbara. But he is also on the 4th plane, because he is always on the 4th plane, because the 4th plane is outside of time.

Now, if Casper in his present earthly incarnation were aware of all this, he might say, “Well, then, what's the point of my striving through a series of difficult earthly incarnations when I am already on the 4th plane, and in fact have always been there and always will be?”

But Casper's objection would be misplaced, because it is precisely his series of incarnations that allowed him to attain his transcendent state on the 4th plane in the first place. If he had not undergone those incarnations, he would never have made it to the 4th plane. The fact that he is on the 4th plane means that he did undergo (or will undergo, and must undergo) the necessary incarnations.

Casper might say, “That means I have no free will.” Maybe yes, maybe no. It's entirely possible that he has a great deal of freedom of action in any given incarnation, and that in any one lifetime he can make mistakes that retard  his progress, or make good choices that advance his progress. On the other hand, he seems to have no freedom  of choice about participating in the overall process, nor is the end result of the process in doubt. We might say, not poetically but as a literal statement of fact, that it is Casper's “destiny” to rise to the 4th plane; he is fated to do so, and we know this because if he had not done so he would not be there ever, which means he would not be there now. 

Does this mean that Casper's identity is bifurcated into a timeless aspect and a time-bound aspect? Is Casper cut in two? From our earthly perspective it would seem so. But from the perspective of the 4th plane, it may not seem that way at all. It's impossible for us to know how things would appear to an inhabitant of a higher-dimensional plane of reality, just as it is impossible for the inhabitants of Flatland to imagine living in a three-dimensional world.

We might, however, make the idea a little clearer by means of a geometrical analogy. Suppose we picture earthly existence as one point on a triangle, while Summerland occupies the side of the triangle directly opposite that point. This is a two-dimensional figure, drawn on a sheet of paper–paper that is lying flat on a table. Now let's imagine that we place a small paper pyramid over the triangle in such a way that the pyramid's base precisely covers the triangle. The top of the pyramid represents existence on the 4th plane. What we've done, in short, is to extend a two-dimensional figure into a three-dimensional solid.  

Now imagine yourself as a point on the two-dimensional triangle traveling from the vertex representing earthly life to the line representing Summerland and back again, over and over, leaving a trail–represented by a straight line–each time. As a moving dot, you would be aware only of the line behind you–the history of your current incarnation. But suppose you instead occupied the vertex atop the three-dimensional pyramid. From this elevated vantage point, you could look down and see all of the lines spread out below you–all of your lifetimes on earth and in Summerland.

And yet your consciousness is not actually bifurcated, because the triangle is part of the pyramid (namely, the base), and the pyramid as a whole represents your awareness.

Naturally, it would be possible to repeat this process. We could take our three-dimensional pyramid and squash it (conceptually) into a two-dimensional triangle, then build a new pyramid on top of it. And so on, and so on, building into higher and higher dimensions, each of which subsumes all the lower dimensions that went into building it up.

If the 4th plane is outside of time, what could the 5th or 6th or 7th planes be like?

The mind boggles.

Comments

[Hrvoje Butkovic]

Michael Prescott:
”On the other hand, he seems to have no freedom of choice about participating in the overall process, nor is the end result of the process in doubt.”

The second point is my understanding as well. It leads me to conclude that getting to the 4th plane is not the goal of the process, but a by-product.

I’m not sure about the first point. I think it depends on where Casper resides at the outset. If he starts on the 4th plane, then presumably he doesn't have to go through Earthly incarnations in order to get there. If so, then Casper engages in the incarnation process because it gives him something that the 4th plane does not, rather than in order to simply get back where he started.

[Michael Prescott]

"If he starts out on the 4th plane ..."

In this scheme it might be more correct to say that there is no "start." Having attained the 4th plane, he is always there and has always been there, right from the "start." Yet he must have attained it in order to be there. Essentially it's a strange loop in a tangled hierarchy:

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

This cannot really make sense from the standpoint of our three-(physical)-dimensional world. But maybe it can serve as a way of looking at such questions as: Why do mediums never say a given spirit is unavailable because he has already reincarnated? Why do Michael Newton's patients give accounts that differ radically from those of most NDErs and channelers? Why is there disagreement among spirits about reincarnation? What is the relationship between the earthly ego and the higher self? etc.

[Hrvoje Butkovic]

Yes, it is difficult to talk about what things were like at the beginning of a timeless dimension. I struggle just thinking about it.

What I was trying to point out is that your analysis seems to presuppose that Casper made it to the 4th plane through the Earthly plane, whereas I’m saying that he might have resided in the 4th plane before the universe was created, and that incarnations don’t take him any place new. In other words, he doesn’t attain the 4th plane; it is his natural home.

[Juan]

Interesting post, Michael. The analogy is like saying that we are circles in a two dimensional world as we live in a biological, but that at death we become spheres in a three dimensional world. But we have always been spheres, ie, we have been in the afterlife, because a circle is just a section of a sphere, not otherwise separated from it. So the death would be a step in the consciousness of a three dimensional world to a world of more dimensions.

But one problem I see is that none of these worlds could be completely out of time. Well, the spirits of higher planes are out of time so as we understand it, but they can not be totally out of time, because the spirits are sentient beings, and be conscious is moving from one state to another state of consciousness, but that pass now account for time. So, time is a necessary condition of consciousness, so even when there are our conception of time in the afterlife, some conception of time will have to apply for sentient beings of the higher planes.

[Douglas]

I think this is in the direction of how things are. The part of us that resides in the 4th dimension would be what is traditionally called our 'higher self', and perhaps it communicates with its many incarnated aspects in verious ways.

Also, as aspects, we should ourselves be able to reach out via our higher selves to *other* aspects, such as what Matt has related.

[passenger]

I'm just a bit curious. What exactly is time? Is time a fundamental force, a particle, or wave, etc?

I know the effect of time (sending one into space and another at home) but I don't really know what "time" is

[Cyrus]

It may be that higher dimensions are not necessarily 'better'. People always think of things in those linear terms, that it's somehow 'better' to be on the 4th plane, and 'better' still to be on the 5th.

I think in reality it's more like every dimension offers different things. I also think going between dimensions is as simple as altering one's state of consciousness back-and-forth to different levels.

Many people enjoy trips on drugs like mushrooms, acid, etc. But, I don't think many people say that an acid trip is 'better' than our ordinary reality, but rather it's different and it can be used to gain some greater insight (I wouldn't know personally, I stay away from drugs).

And, when you have an hallucinatory experience on a drug, it's not that you are "entering" this other realm from a previous state of absence. Instead, certain ways of perceiving reality are lifted or changed, and it turns out you were 'there' all along.

In this regard, it's possible we currently exist in all dimensions at once, 1 through 10 or however many there are.

For an advanced spirit, it may simply be a matter of tuning between them. One focuses on the 4th or higher plane, and you are suddenly in an abstract world of thoughts that form as you think them.

Refocus again, and you return to much more solid and tangible Earth-like settings.

I imagine staying too long in any of these environments eventually spurs a desire for a change of scenery. That's why it's improper to imagine any one realm as superior to the next.

[Matt Rouge]

Michael,

Great post. I think it's basically correct.

I had a kind of channeled vision recently that involved a blue metallic torus that was taken apart and put back together, and it had gold inside.

Yes, that's completely meaningless to anyone but me... but I was able to *see* the well-known and -accepted truth that our true nature is enlightened.

There are a couple other things I've experienced lately that have complemented this.

One was a kind of small satori experience that had to do with anger. I was angry or upset about something. I went into the routine of trying to be perfect, to control the anger or work with it, or whatever. But then the higher wisdom said, "It doesn't matter if you're angry."

And I laughed because I saw that it was true, that my success in this moment really has nothing to do with my worth. Paradoxically, once this truth is accepted, success becomes much easier.

Another complementary thing has been working with higher beings. They have a very nonchalant attitude toward failure. "Oh, you failed? Fine, keep going." Their attitude toward you and their level of acceptance of you does not change. Again, paradoxically, this makes success easier to attain.

So one of my new mantras, or things to run through my brain, is this: "My enlightenment is already in place. The only thing is adjusting my conduct to fit it."

Bringing this back to Casper, the lives are conduct to fit the enlightenment. Why have them, why not just be that point of enlightenment and nothing else? Because we are building Being. We are co-creating the Universe. We are the consciousness and content that can now appreciate the meaning of enlightenment. We are perfection's enjoyment, exploration, and magnification throughout infinity of itself.

Etc.

[Matt Rouge]

Passenger,

My take on time is this. Godel's Incompleteness Theorem teaches us no system can be both complete and non-contradictory. I think time is the *method* our physical universe uses to complete itself and resolve contradictions in itself. Other universes/planes/etc. may use other methods to complete/resolve.

For example, imagine a car driving down the road a short distance from A to E. What if I told you that the car was at points A, B, C, D, and E all at the same time? You'd say that's impossible, that's a contradiction. But if I say the car drove through all the points, then there is no contradiction any more, since we know how time and change work (or at least we are familiar with them on an animal level).

In this way, time is the *means* of resolution-completion.

[Sandy]

Matt, I'm always amazed when someone can have experiences like yours and have the presence of mind to critically interpret them. I don't have that particular gift. My default position tends to be, "this is crazy", even when I have enough feedback to suspect that maybe it isn't.

Did you come upon your own experiences gradually, or were you jump-started by something like an NDE? I've been told that the frustration and fear I've gone through when trying to deal with unusual experiences is fairly common for NDErs. Presumably because we aren't always ready to get that push into the unknown.

The best I can do at this point is just to record the experiences as best I can and leave the metaphysical interpretations to others for the time being. I admire your ability to do both.

[Matt Rouge]

Hi Sandy,

Thanks for the kind words. I'm wary of patting myself on the back for any of these things, since I don't want to be narcissistic, and I don't want to be wrong. So I don't know if I'm doing it right, but I appreciate the positive feedback.

I had OBEs when young, including a tremendous one when I was 6 that was just written off by my parents as sleepwalking. It's only been in the past couple years that I see that it was a tremendous OBE and a totally lucid state. I was talking to my mom and apparently standing in my closet but I was seeing totally different things. I was able to travel all around our house... it just kept going and going. But here's a veridical detail that also fits our discussion of time here. I met in this experience a "mean mommy" and a "nice mommy"--two versions of my mother. The weird thing is that the "nice mommy" was like older and had teeth missing. It turns out that my mom did lose teeth in that area, and this vision really did look like my mom in her 50s. "Nice mommy" was downstairs in the dark house reading me stories from a book. Note that this was a perfect simulacra of my house, not a dream of the house where it was light or something. So I think it fits the OBE concept, and I was probably astral but actually in the real house. I do think that I saw the future to some extent in that OBE, and it really was my future mother there in some sense.

I had some other experiences. Dreams I now know were more than just dreams. But I really started to get psychic in high school, and it's grown from there, especially in the last 10 years, when I've really embraced it.

As far as interpretations go, I've found that my experiences fit the basic New Age worldview pretty well. I just try to make sense of everything that happens to me and of the universe as a whole. I share with people like you and try to take other people's data points into consideration too.

[Matt Rouge]

Sandy,

Also, do you have a blog post or somewhere where I can read about your NDE. You reference it a lot and I'd like to learn more about it to understand your point of view and insights better.

[Sandy]

Hi Matt,
I used to have my NDE account posted on my old blog, but that isn't public anymore. I am going to post it on my new blog within the next few days because I know it's something that people are curious about.

It's funny that people like reading my NDE account, because the narrative of that story doesn't affect me as strongly as the parts of the experience that I can't put down in writing. What I have written down is extremely edited, because you would pretty much have to write a book to do it justice and I'm too shy to share all of it anyway.

I'll let you know when I post something about it on my blog.

[Dammerung]

I've been a long-time reader and occasional commenter on your blog, and I've written a four novel series that tries to depict the universe of the afterlife as being much like this world: suspenseful, funny, boring, sexy, dangerous, and fun in unpredictable doses. I'm having trouble getting anyone to even look at the material though. I don't know if it's the supposedly hackneyed premise of an afterlife at all, or the the paramilitary setting for the characters, or just that I'm not a good enough writer - but I was wondering if you had any advice on getting someone in the industry to so much as glance at it. I know this isn't exactly the place, but hey - the Editorial Police aren't going to get me. Yet, anyway!

[Matt Rouge]

Dammerung,

Self-publish. :) That's what I'm doing.

[Michael Prescott]

Dammerung, in this age of self-published ebooks, you don't need to get anyone from the book industry to greenlight your project. You can put it out yourself in Kindle, Nook, and Smashwords editions, and in a print-on-demand edition (from CreateSpace or other outfits). I'm making more money off ebooks than I ever made from traditionally published books, even though some of my print titles were bestsellers. I would suggest visiting Joe Konrath's blog (Google it) for more info.

However, if you still want to go the traditional route, email me and I will give you the name of someone you can approach. You can find my email on the homepage of my author website, michaelprescott.net.

[Michael Prescott]

"In other words, he doesn’t attain the 4th plane; it is his natural home."

It's possible. Perhaps talking about attaining something is a mistake on my part.

If you look at the Escher drawing in the Wikipedia page on strange loops (linked above), you may get a sense of what I'm talking about. Where does the drawing start? Where does it stop? Or you can think of a Moebius loop - a strip of paper folded into a loop with a twist in it. Which side is Side A and which is Side B? There appear to be two sides, but a pencil can trace a line over the entire loop, on both sides, without ever lifting off the paper. So in a sense there is only one side.

Analogously, we might say that the distinction between planes or levels is ultimately unreal, and there is only One. But all these analogies fail, because we are trying to visualize something that we cannot really imagine.

"The analogy is like saying that we are circles in a two dimensional world as we live in a biological, but that at death we become spheres in a three dimensional world. But we have always been spheres, ie, we have been in the afterlife, because a circle is just a section of a sphere, not otherwise separated from it. So the death would be a step in the consciousness of a three dimensional world to a world of more dimensions."

That's an excellent analogy, Juan, and reminds me of a scene in Flatland that has (for me at least) clear metaphysical implications.

"some conception of time will have to apply for sentient beings of the higher planes."

Probably, but what I meant was that the 4th plane spirits are entirely outside of "clock time," i.e., time as we perceive it.

[Kathleen]

That is a very ingenious way of showing the higher self.

I'm still down on reincarnation though. I don't see the point of it. As Art wrote, all's life seems to do is make people selfish and mean. Generally it seems we start out kind and sweet as children and then it goes downhill from there. (I know, some kids can be awfully mean sometimes, but I think they're the exception.) One psychologist pointed out that people just seem to be more and more of what they are in life - if you're kind, you'll be an old kind person, if you're a jerk, you'll just be an old jerk. I've never really seen jerks progress as they get old, they just get worse. JMHO of course.

[Matt Rouge]

Kathleen,

You wrote,

"all's life seems to do is make people selfish and mean."

Ah, but life makes people. That's a little like saying, "All car companies do is make cars defective."

[passenger]

Maybe we reincarnate for empathy. Think of a bunch of KKK members killing and harassing black people.

Now let's assume that one of those KKK members reincarnated into a black person. During his second life, he will suffer discrimination.

let's assume he is reincarnated back into a white person. If he can remember his previous life, he's more empathic to blacks than his KKK first life.

I think it's like the blue eyes brown eyes experiment by jane elliott

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Elliott#The_exercise

[Kevin W.]

Sandy:good to see your posting here. Like Matt, I look forward to reading whatever you wish to share about your experiences. Are you aware of Greg Taylor's book project regarding the survival of consciousness? He had a successful fundraising campaign on the Daily Grail website and is hard at work even as we type. I offered what little I could to help, but I'm thinking your story would most likely be of interest to him. He can be reached through the Grail.

[Kathleen]

Matt, I've got an 11-year old Subaru that runs like a charm and looks like a million bucks. I'm thinking when it dies, it's done its time in this world and will go straight to Summerland forever and not be reincarnated as a Toyota.

The problem, passenger, is that no one seems to remember. Although there are southerners who have been indoctrinated with racism, but don't go along with it.

[Sandy]

Hi Kevin, thanks for the kind words. I'm glad to hear Greg Taylor's book is a go. I didn't contact him because I don't think my case is particularly interesting.

[passenger]

@Matt,

I understand what you're getting at but this doesn't make me feel any better.

We all know what time is. But what exactly is it? Is it like light which is both a particle and a wave? Or is it like dark energy which we just made up and can't really prove or explain?

I once asked a physicist what time is. I was told "it is relative." ok...but what exactly is it?

this is just a pet peeve I've been having

[passenger]

btw I remember the pyramid craze in the 80s or 90s?

what exactly was going on?

[Matt Rouge]

Passenger,

I associate the pyramid craze more with the 70s/80s. Alan Parsons Project came out with "Pyramid" in 1978, lol.

Asking what *thing* time is is a little like asking what *thing* the space in a chamber of your heart is, I think. That space is not really a thing in itself but instead a relationship between other things. Yet, that space is crucial to your heart's functioning.

So it is with time (IMO). It is a relationship between things. It is not a thing. St. Augustine defined time as "the tendency not to be." So he had an idea of entropy, too. But take away the negativity, but time is a relationship between things that makes change possible.

[Michael Prescott]

Time is generally understood as a dimension, isn't it? If a point moves in one direction, it becomes a line. If a line moves parallel to itself, it becomes a plane. If a plane expands perpendicular to itself, it becomes a solid. If a solid moves along a timeline, it becomes a solid in motion. The timeline is just another axis, only unlike the x, y, and z axes of physical dimensions, it is an axis we can perceive only by inference. That's my rough grasp of it anyway.

[Sleepers]

This time definition subject is going way over my head. lol.

I just can't imagine time being anything different than a linear timeline. Its a line that moves in one direction, no going back no going forward... its just really hard to imagine anything different.

[Matt Rouge]

Michael,

Yep, that is a common explanation, but I personally believe that time itself has more than one dimension. I could be wrong though.

[Hrvoje Butkovic]

I remember reading in one of Dolores Cannon’s books on past life regression that she also experimented with future life regression (or whatever term fits better here), with similar results. If both past and future are accessible to us right now, then I suspect that time is just a concept that we use to make sense of physical reality rather than something that exists ‘out there’.

[Hrvoje Butkovic]

Sleepers:
”I just can't imagine time being anything different than a linear timeline.”

This might be an artefact of the culture we are living in. Nature-based societies tended to conceptualise time as cyclical, and some conflated future with distant past (both were ‘potential’ to them). I suppose that this concept of time made more sense to them.

[passenger]

@ sleeper and Hrvoje,

I agree that ancient culture and religion tends to see the universe as going through cycles instead of X to Y.

For example, the Mayans predict that the next cycle would occurs in December 2012. The I Ching from China and a host of other ancient civilizations for one reason for another believed that the next great cycle will occur this December.

Unfortunately those who aren't well verse in history automatically proclaimed Doomsday on Dec 2012. While the mayans did indeed have 1 temple that proclaimed doomsday, the temple was more of a sect than the majority belief.

Also there was an argument a long time ago on how time progresses. One scientist believed that time was like blocks on top of blocks. Another believed that time is like an ocean. The two remaining science believed that time was linear but one believed that time was ALWAYS X to Y and the other believed that X could take infinite of path to Y.

As to the first linear scientist, the argument was time travel was impossible. You can't go back in time do something to change the future. This is the excuse for why no future "us" has traveled back in time. we could always travel forward in time but we could never come back and report our time travel.

To the second scientist, there is no change. The belief is you could go back in time, kill hitler or FDR and the future will always be the same. The infinite sequence to the same result.

I remember watching the debate on PBS. Of course I don't believe in any of them because no one has traveled back or forward in time.

But time travel would be nice. I would go back in time and tell myself to not take my first date to a drive-in movie theater and spill coke all over her dress.

Boy was she pissed.

[passenger]

btw how do I italicize?

is is Type words ? I've been doing this but it causes the entire webpage to become italics

[passenger]

< i. >

is what I meant

[Bruce Siegel]

"If a line moves parallel to itself, it becomes a plane."

(Actually, I think you mean perpendicular to itself, right?)

Your description of time reminds me of that wonderful scene at the beginning of The Time Machine, the 1960-or-so film with Rod Taylor, one of my favorite movies.

On the evening he is to embark on his grand journey/experiment, The Time Traveller invites his closest friends to his home, where he gives them a brief lecture on time, somewhat as you did.

Then he produces a tiny prototype of the time machine he has invented, sets its spinning wheel in motion, and the thing disappears before their eyes! He explains that the gadget has not moved upwards or forwards, but through the fourth dimension we call time.

As I recall, his friends are remarkably unimpressed. Go figure.

As to the main thesis of this post, Michael, it's pretty much aligned with my own thinking. I would go a step further back towards Source and say that Source itself is eternally outside time, while sending parts of itself--you and me, for example--into other realms (like Earth), that incorporate time.

[lynn]

I think the concensus on time is closer to Matt's explanation, and is in relationship to entropy- here's an address for a scientist of interest in the field-

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/02/what-is-time/

Interestingly, in the early days of my channeling - 'entropy' was given to me by my guides as the answer to how small things can be in two places at one time and not big things i.e. how quantum physics worked. But like the scientist Foster, I think we are getting too complicated instead of looking at what we have and what is operating in the universe. Nothing is in isolation, and big things must have more gravity which help to hold them together. I guess my guides got tired of how the problem bugged me and decided to help out. But I don't know that I'm anymore enlightened.

On Pyramid power as such, I remember reading an article on one of the founders of Psychical Research I think in the States, who after his death sent channeled information to a number of psychics around the world, each with a piece of information about the afterlife and which only made sense when put together, and the address to send it to.
Some of you may know his name- sorry its lost to me and I tried to goggle it.

He talked of levels, each requiring more spiritual development, and hinted that those at higher levels resembled god in power and therefore had to show utmost responsibility and humility. The lower levels resembled earth, if you wanted to drink all day you could conjure that up, the reason being to expunge all earthly desire i.e. being drunk all day would start to wear on you. It kind of gels with me. My pennies worth. Lyn

[lynn]

Also, I suspect that the real 'you' resides in spiritual form, and part of you comes here to learn. We tend to think of human life as the starting point, when really I feel its the journey along the way. Cheers Lyn

[Matt Rouge]

FWIW, my guides, like Lynn's, don't shy away at providing scientific information. They told me that time has three dimensions: local linear time, the short cycle, and the long cycle.

Local linear time is what most people mean when they talk about time: events progressing. It is the only of the three dimensions in which entropy pertains.

The short cycle is a dimension in which repeating events occur, like a heartbeat or the seasons, or the revolution of the moon around the Earth. Note that this is a *dimension* in which cycles of any given length can occur; they are not necessarily all "short."

The long cycle refers to time cycles in which reality itself will make a permanent shift. Note again that this is a *dimension* in which more than one type of such shift can occur. The December 2012 shift is one such shift, but we can also have our own personal reality shifts. This dimension is especially important in evolutionary changes and is a key to understanding how species evolve and humanity evolves. Right now science tries to understand evolution only in terms of local time, and it ends up confused as to how great leaps of evolution can occur.

[Michael Prescott]

Passenger, you do italics this way.

To open the italicized passage, use < i > but with no spaces between the brackets and the i.

To close the italicized passage, use < /i > again with no spaces.

The important thing is to put a forward slash / in front of the i when closing.

However, I would suggest that people NOT use italics OR bold formatting, EVER. It is too easy to make a mistake and screw up the rest of the page. I used to fix this, but I'm not going to bother anymore, so from now on, if it's screwed up, it stays screwed up.

I never use italics or bold in my comments. For emphasis, I use asterisks or, occasionally, all caps. To quote text, I use quotation marks. Putting it all together: "I suggest you *not* use formatting, EVER."

TypePad ought to make to possible for commenters to fix their own mistakes with an edit function, but of course, being TypePad, they have not made this very basic feature available.

Did you ever notice that TypePad and toilet paper have the same initials?

[Matt Rouge]

Michael,

I hear you, but in a debate or a point-by-point response, it's hard to see what's going on without using bold IMO.

Why the hell would a formatting error bleed into the next comment--all comments thereafter on the page? It's frickin' idiocy. TP indeed.

[Michael Prescott]

"in a debate or a point-by-point response, it's hard to see what's going on without using bold IMO."

I would suggest just using quote marks, or setting off quoted material with ### or something similar.

[Sandy]

I thought just putting in a closing tag would shut the italics off, even if it's in the next post. But that doesn't seem to be the case.

[Sandy]

OK, who turned off the italics?

[Bruce Siegel]

Maybe you did, Sandy! Did you try that closing tag? Seems to me I had some success with that a while back. But when I tried that in my last post it didn't work. I put both of these at the top of my post:

because I wasn't sure which form had been used.

Here's hoping I didn't just a launch a new round of the diagonal plague. :o)

[Bruce Siegel]

OK. that blank space in my last comment is where I inserted the closing tags. They didn't show up and I think I'll leave well enough alone.

[Sandy]

I put three closing tags at the start of my post, but it didn't affect the preview and when the post first showed up it was still in italics. Later on it was fixed. Very odd.

[Michael Prescott]

Weird.

I believe this proves what I have suspected all along. Sandy is a witch.

;-)

[Sandy]

Just be nice to me MP or the italics are coming back on! :P

[Sandy]

(OK, MP, fess up... you turned off the italics, didn't you?)

[Michael Prescott]

Nope.