Author Sandie Gustus has let me know about a book that may be of interest to readers of this blog. It's called Less Incomplete, and it deals with out-of-body experiences and how to interpret them. A good description is found here:
I haven't read Less Incomplete yet, but since it sounds intriguing, I thought I'd mention it and post a link to the Amazon sales page for the print edition:
Less Incomplete is also available in a lower priced Kindle edition.
Good - I hope this book addresses the 800 pound gorilla sitting in the OBE bedroom. With all the popularity of OBE's in our culture these days, why is there such a lack of veridical cases documented under laboratory conditions?
The best explanation I can come up with is that OBE's shouldn't be taken too literally. Like most intense spiritual experiences, ya get what you need.
Posted by: RabbitDawg | December 29, 2012 at 09:18 AM
Thanks for the recommendation, Michael. I am ordering this. Unlike Rabbitdawg, I trust calm OBEs more than ecstatic NDEs. The reviews suggest there is a lot in the book about karma, which is interesting because it contradicts the stuff peddled by the likes of Anita Moorjani (“If there were one message from my NDE I wish everyone could understand, something I wish to shout from the rooftops, it would be this..your ego, intellect, body and spirit…every aspect of you is perfect. There’s nothing to let go, nothing to forgive, nothing to attain. You already are everything you need to be.”)
It will be nice to see such New Age rubbish roundly contradicted.
Posted by: Barbara | December 29, 2012 at 10:22 AM
"It will be nice to see such New Age rubbish roundly contradicted." - Barbara
--------------------------
Except for that it is most likely true.
"I had the realization that I was everywhere at the same time...and I mean everywhere. I knew that everything is perfect and happening according to some divine plan, regardless of all the things we see as wrong with the world." - excerpt from Carl Turner's mystical experience
"The moment I stepped into the light. I then knew everything there ever was to know, every answer to every question that could ever be asked.......I was not "told" anything in the light, as much as, I just knew everything there was to know. I knew why there was bad in the world, I knew why there was good, I knew that every little thing that will ever occur here, is exactly planned out, in order to bring about something else. Everything we have ever done or known or will know, is perfectly planned out and perfectly in tune.......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." - excerpts from Jame's E'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." - excerpt from Michelle M's NDE
The soul's lessons are embedded in our everyday lives and it is holistically imprinted with what it needs to know regardless of who we are, or where we live, or what we believe.
We are simply spiritual beings having a physical experience, learning about time and space, what it means and how it feels to be separate, and make memories of what it was like to live in a 3 dimensional + 1 time universe.
And arguing and disagreeing on message boards is just one more way of experiencing duality and separation. Little different from the myriad of other ways we experience duality and separation in life.
Posted by: Art | December 29, 2012 at 11:04 AM
Hey Art, if we were already perfect we wouldn't need healing.
Posted by: Barbara | December 29, 2012 at 11:38 AM
"Hey Art, if we were already perfect we wouldn't need healing."
It's so hard to capture these realities in words, but I know how Anita Moorjani would respond to that: to heal is to *remember* our perfection. And I won't argue with her.
Posted by: Bruce Siegel | December 29, 2012 at 12:30 PM
I read Less Incomplete during the summer of '11. I couldn't put it down. Like a lot of other books/materials out there on how to have OBE's, I didn't end up really putting any of the techniques into practice - so I can't say whether or not they work. I was highly impressed by all of the high profile individuals who were plugging the book at the time and figured I might learn something I hadn't heard before, which I did. The book is good, but you have to be dedicated to doing the practices.
I've worked my way through most of the first 3 CDs of the Hemi-Sync gateway experience too - and though I've had some interesting experiences with "vibrating" and even feeling as though I had expanded throughout the universe, I never once had a sense that I left my body.
I did once have an OBE way back when I was in college, while both very drunk. While I am not very friendly on an intellectual level to messages that "we can do nothing wrong" and that all is right with the world, I did come into contact with some beings of light who telepathically communicated just this idea to me - that all of us were very brave to choose to exist here and that regardless of appearances, everything is working toward a perfection that will come no matter what. There was an acknowledgment that things may not be so great right now - but that all would be great, and therefore, all is perfect as it is. In the hours following the experience, I had a heightened sensitivity to plants, the sky and stars, and other people. I had a sense of reverence toward life that I never had before or since.
But, you know, we have events like the Newtown tragedy going on - and I'll be damned if I tell people going through such tragedies that everything is hunky-dory and all is well with the world. Our suffering is sacred, too.
Posted by: Philemon | December 29, 2012 at 12:52 PM
We learn the thing here that can't be learned there. We're not here to heal, we're here to learn about the things that can't be learned on the other side, the place we call heaven. The things that are different on this side from the other side. The things that can be learned here that can't be learned there.
Time and space, separateness, what it's like to occupy and control a physical body, and make memories of what it was like to live in a 3 dimensional + 1 time universe.
And just like when you were in grammar school and your teacher knew what was in your workbooks, but you didn't, the soul's lessons are too important to leave them up to chance.
and the lessons have to be emotional enough to overcome those feelings of oneness and connectedness in Heaven. We here in the physical universe can't begin to understand the feelings of oneness and connectedness in heaven.
When we get to the other side we'll look back on this life like it was a "dream in itself" or an "illusion," and that it went by in the blink of an eye.
Posted by: Art | December 29, 2012 at 04:25 PM
"But, you know, we have events like the Newtown tragedy going on - and I'll be damned if I tell people going through such tragedies that everything is hunky-dory and all is well with the world. Our suffering is sacred, too." Philemon
---------------
Separation has been going on for millions of years. I remember seeing a video of a young male chimpanzee that was mourning it's mother after she died. Luckily this little half grown chimp was adopted by an adult male in the troop. I'm sure our ancient hominid ancestors experienced and suffered the same thing.
55 million people were murdered during WWII. When Ghenghis Kahn and the Mongol horde rode across Central Asia they literally wiped out whole races of people. They slaughtered millions. Pol Pot was responsible in Cambodia for killing several million people, as was Stalin and Mao Tse Tung. 250,000 people died in the Asian Tsunami. During pandemics like the Spanish Flu of 1918 no telling how many people died worldwide.
Death is nothing new. It's a given in this life. From the moment we are born and separate from our mothers till the day we die and our death's become a lesson in separation to the loved ones we leave behind life is one big long lesson in separation.
The death of someone we love is the ultimate lesson in separation. Nothing else comes close. The more emotional the experience the more powerful and long lasting the memory it creates.
and it has to be that way to overcome the incredible feelings of oneness in heaven. It has to be emotional enough so that we remember after this physical body dies what it felt like to be separate.
Posted by: Art | December 29, 2012 at 04:33 PM
Barbara wrote:
... Unlike Rabbitdawg, I trust calm OBEs more than ecstatic NDEs.
I dunno Barbara, lately, when it comes to spiritual experiences I find myself applying the phrase (with apologies to the Rolling Stones) "you get what you need". Maybe too much.
After reading Micheal mention that he found a certain medium to be "very evidential", I took the plunge and tried a reading myself. I might add that Michael did not endorse or press his readers to go to her, he only mentioned her in passing.
I did not anticipate my reaction - I'm still reeling.
I didn't realize that if I ever encountered near-indisputable evidence of afterlife communication, it would be so internally shocking. After all, I "believed" in the afterlife before I started.
My after-reading mood shifted from elation to a low level funk, from smug excitement to questioning my own mental stability. I kept searching myself to make sure I wasn't fooling myself. Let's face it, you can't talk to just anybody about this stuff.
One of the things I found to be so evidential was the sequence that the personalities appeared. It wasn't who I had anticipated, but it was what I needed to shake my doubt.
For instance, the first personality to 'appear' was a co-worker I hadn't thought about for several years. It took a week to dawn on me, but he was there right out of the gate because the first thing I be on guard for was information available on the internet. This guy, and descriptions of his personality would be nowhere online.
Another co-worker who had recently been murdered came through and gave a different account of what happened than what was reported in the media, and his account filled in some holes in the official story that had been bugging me. Holes in details that would not be obvious to anyone except someone closely associated with him. The mediumship account made more sense, even though the news coverage made the whole case sound like a slam-dunk. The correct assailant was caught, BTW.
There are issues with my Father that were dealt with and other things, but the point is that I didn't get what I wanted, I got what I needed. I guess I'm incorrectly walking around thinking that all spiritual experiences are like that.
Yep, OBE's are a whole different animal. :)
Posted by: RabbitDawg | December 29, 2012 at 06:26 PM
"After reading Micheal mention that he found a certain medium to be "very evidential", I took the plunge and tried a reading myself."
Thanks for sharing that, Rabbitdawg. Sounds like quite an experience! Was the medium in question Georgia? (I think that was the name.) I'm starting to feel tempted to give her a call myself. What's her last name again?
Was your reading by phone?
Also, I know some of the commenters have been withholding their identity from her by using other people's credit cards, etc. Did you take any steps like that?
Posted by: Bruce Siegel | December 29, 2012 at 06:56 PM
Yes Bruce, it was Georgia O'Connor. Nice lady. Using alternate credit cards sounds like a legitimate idea, but in my conversation with her, I mentioned how what she does must be intensely stressful.
She pointed out that it has its spiritual rewards, but sometimes people would go over the top to test her - pretend living people were dead and things like that. Whenever that happened, she usually "got nothing", but the attitude seemed to be (understandably) insulting to her. I found it admirable of her that she would continue the reading, anyway.
Posted by: RabbitDawg | December 29, 2012 at 07:42 PM
Oh yeah, I forgot to confirm that it was a phone reading.
Posted by: RabbitDawg | December 29, 2012 at 07:46 PM
"Using alternate credit cards sounds like a legitimate idea, but in my conversation with her, I mentioned how what she does must be intensely stressful."
Are you saying that it would make her job more stressful if she didn't know your real name?
"sometimes people would go over the top to test her - pretend living people were dead and things like that. "
I'm not talking about such extreme measures, just withholding your real name. Would that fall into the category of things that would make it more difficult for her to communicate with the deceased?
Posted by: Bruce Siegel | December 29, 2012 at 08:50 PM
If I read Rabbitdawg correctly I thin in effect what he was saying was that some people knowingly responded negatively to information she was giving them or provided information knowing it to be incorrect? TBH if they are expected to provide more than Yes or No I'd be suspicious.
Posted by: Paul | December 29, 2012 at 10:23 PM
Some skeptical researchers tried to fool Leonora Piper (a famed Victorian Era medium) by providing false information to her. The result was a confused and inaccurate reading. I suspect that in such cases the unconscious mind takes over and tries to answer the questions by whatever means possible, including confabulation.
I'm glad your experience was so positive, RabbitDawg!
Posted by: Michael Prescott | December 29, 2012 at 11:17 PM
RabbitDawg, my own reading with Georgia was also quite mind shattering, even though I was already 100% convinced of survival - and not just convinced by intellectual musings, but by numerous paranormal experiences. I think I understand what you are going through. Take it easy.
I used an alternative name and a bogus email account to register and was shocked that the first thing out of the spirit of my recently deceased father (the first spirit to come through) was, "what's wrong with the name I gave you?".
So much for fooling the medium.
I didn't mess with credit card IDs because I saw her in person and only paid after the session had ended.
Re; OBEs - there is much confusion as to how to define one. is what is being discussed a "real" OBE or something else. There needs to be a clear set of criteria. Does the book provide one?
Posted by: no one | December 30, 2012 at 01:55 AM
"I didn't realize that if I ever encountered near-indisputable evidence of afterlife communication, it would be so internally shocking. After all, I "believed" in the afterlife before I started."
I think anyone who does readings must be very brave, because it can elicit some very strong reactions.
I did an "accidental" reading of someone about a year ago. I call it "accidental", because as a rule I don't tell people when I see ghosts, not even parapsychological researchers who might be very open to the idea of survival. I was talking to a researcher on skype and saw someone walk past in the room behind him. I had assumed I was seeing a living person and asked the researcher if he had family visiting for the holidays.
He started asking me what I thought were "dumb" questions at first... what did the person look like, how was he dressed... stuff like that. It took me a minute to catch on that the researcher was alone in that room as far as he could see.
That conversation changed things. We were supposed to be talking about PK, not ghosts. And then that researcher found out that his deceased son was in the room with him. If he had asked me for a reading, I would have refused. I don't do readings. But I wonder if he needed one enough that things just happened the way they did.
Posted by: PsiSigh | December 30, 2012 at 11:17 AM
Now that I think of it, I should add that Georgia never asked who I wanted to talk to nor ever asked any clarifying/probing questions. We knocked on the door, were greeted and then led to sit down in a pleasant quiet room that seemed to be reserved for the pupose of sittings (it's off on one end of her house and has an entrance that leads directly to it), engaged in a very brief introduction and explanation by Georgia of what might happen; all that was first names only, then Georgia took maybe a minute to focus in which we were all quiet (all being Georgia, my wife and I) and then she immediately stated that there were two spirits - she distinctly pointed at me and said "your father and mother" - to talk to me and launched without hesitation, into communications from my father which began with him asking what was wrong with the name he had given me (I used a different last name and a different spelling of my first name when I registered on line for a date with Georgia).
Actually, to clarify, before the inquiry about the name, Georgia made my father's classic "time is wasting" gesture - jabbing, with barely veiled anger, the index finger of the right hand toward the left wrist where a watch would be. Georgia did say something about my father being impatient and saying he has been waiting for this and to hurry up and get started - then came the question about the name.
The in-person reading is probably even more evidential because my wife and I noticed that Georgia's facial expressions and body gestures often assumed those of the spirits. This really added realism to the display that we both thought was evidential. For example, the time is wasting statements would not have had the same impact had they not been accompanied by the forceful finger jabbing - something that would missed over the phone.
After the session I asked Georgia what she thought life on the other side is like and why some spirits seem that they are merely carrying on just as they did in life (no NDE type enlightenment, etc). Georgia did say something to me about the spirits deliberately showing themselves as their personalities were in life SO THAT I WOULD BELIEVE and take their messages seriously. If they had arrived with more advanced personalities I might not have recognized them or may have only been partly convinced. I'm pretty sure she said something about spirits having to work and evolve on the other side. There is a fish tank in the room and she motioned at it and said that from the spirits' perspective, we are like the fish in the tank. Sometimes they come up to the tank and have a look inside at us and other times they are off in the greater expanses of their world doing other things.
Maybe that's more of the get what you need idea.
Along those same lines I caution some folks here, the spirits were NOT all enlightened love and happiness. Partly, for me at least, what was a bit shattering about the experience was what the spirits said and the implications of that moreso than the simple proof that there are spirits.
Posted by: no one | December 30, 2012 at 11:19 AM
Are you saying that it would make her job more stressful if she didn't know your real name?
Naw Bruce, I was the one who brought up the topic of stress. At some point in the midst of the reading I started to feel a little heartache for her. I thought about how hard it must be for any legitimate medium to deal with people in the throes of deep grief, bone-headed skeptics playing games, and folks who don't want the session to end. I'm sure they get the occasional clinical basket case as well. After talking with her, I could tell that Georgia has a soft spot for people in distress.
... my own reading with Georgia was also quite mind shattering...
That was the part that surprised me the most, No One. I think my internal Witness / Observer got a kick out of watching me wander around in an existential daze for about a week. Heck, I'm still trying to land. Which brings me around to...
It's all MICHAEL PRESCOTT's fault!!! :D
Just kidding Michael, most of us out here love ya - your "diamond" is already pretty well polished. Thank you for what you (and your regular commenters) do.
Posted by: RabbitDawg | December 30, 2012 at 11:58 AM
OT, but perhaps of interest to some, is an article that mentions a child having a premonition about the recent tragedy in Newtown:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/12/27/168152215/shootings-leave-sandy-hook-survivors-rethinking-the-odds
(I've noticed that signing in through twitter changed my name at the bottom of my posts. I usually sign in as Sandy).
Posted by: PsiSigh | December 30, 2012 at 12:31 PM
"At some point in the midst of the reading I started to feel a little heartache for her."
Yeah, me too.
At one point in my reading, when my mother was communicating, Georgia broke out in tears. They were flowing down her face. There are boxes of facial tissue strategically positioned around the chairs and sofas where guests sit, but none within immediate reach of Georgia's chair.
As she wiped her tears away she apologized and stated that, "This has never happened before".
I felt really guilty having brought two intense spirits (she had commented, "You have an intense family") to her. I ended up apologizing to her and asking her if she was ok. I was having similar thoughts and concerns as RabbitDawg.
Georgia, being most kind and gracious, dismissed my wories and said she was alright and that she has spirit helpers that protect her and put things right; though after the session I used her restroom before we left and while I was in there she told my wife that she had a need to hug a child and then did give her youngest, a most adorable little girl, a big hug.
So I wonder if it really is all that easy for her sometimes.
Posted by: no one | December 30, 2012 at 01:00 PM
"That was the part that surprised me the most, No One. I think my internal Witness / Observer got a kick out of watching me wander around in an existential daze for about a week. Heck, I'm still trying to land."
I was very surprised by my similar reaction as well.
After my session with Georgia my wife and I visited some spiritualist churches in our area.
My reaction to readings we had there was, "yeah. whatever". The readings were so vague and so filled with fishing, obvious cold reading, obvious misses based on images strictly from the minds, subconscious or otherwise, of the spiritualists that we decided that at best the spiritualists are no talent wannabes.
Maybe, if you're a first timer and if you're NOT deeply blown away and left psyhologically realing, you didn't see a real medium.
Posted by: no one | December 30, 2012 at 01:11 PM
The thing that impresses me about Georgia is that she charges very little compared to other mediums (the obvious fake sylvia brown, charges something like 600 every half hour) a tad ridiculous
Posted by: someone | December 30, 2012 at 02:05 PM
Back on topic, with all the recent exploration of OBE's, I'm surprised that there isn't more veridical verification. Maybe there is, but it doesn't get much mainstream press (surprise, surprise).
I have seen some credible cases of verified remote viewing, but it's usually in niche books and on websites and blogs dedicated to the topic. Maybe I need to get out more.
Posted by: RabbitDawg | December 30, 2012 at 05:59 PM
Rabbitdawg, OBEs are one of my favorite topics.
I am not completely surprised that there is not more veridical proof of the phenomenon being "real". Most people who have the experience have it somewhat randomly and sporadicly. They can't control it. No way to slim chance you're going to be able to put them in a lab and get a positive test result.
Then again, someone like R. Monroe should be able to reproduce the experience in the lab. Has he been tested? How about any of his school's exponents.
Somewhere I read that someone had been lab tested and passed the test. I can't remember who, what , where.
I myself have had OBEs of the classic Monroe type; the vibrations, seeing the body, etc, etc. I am NOT convinced that it is simply a matter of something (an etheric body?) separating and roaming about, otherwise normally, in our physical world. I very much tried to verify my own experiences. Some passed the test. However there was a juxtaposition of time. For expample, one time i went OBE, traveled to a common area outside my apartment, saw a potted plant lying on the ground in a certain pot. After coming out of the experience I rushed outside to the location to see if such a plant was there. It was not. Two or three days later, however, the exact same plant in the exact same pot was lying just as I had seen it OBE. Who put it there or why I don't know. I hadn't told anyone about the OBE or the test prior to physically discovering the plant.
Time juxtapositioning is a common feature when I have these experiences. How could you test such a thing? Protocols would have to be expanded accordingly, perhaps becoming too loose. If the possibility is not recognized a fail would be recorded.
I think the paradigm used to understand OBEs has to be changed. I think it is outside our current understanding of things.
Posted by: no one | December 30, 2012 at 07:58 PM
No one,
It was Charles Tart, he tested a Miss Z. Details are here:
http://near-death.com/tart.html
Posted by: Ray | December 30, 2012 at 08:10 PM
"Back on topic, with all the recent exploration of OBE's, I'm surprised that there isn't more veridical verification."
Don't some remote viewers say that their sessions are akin to OBEs, if not indistinguishable from them? And RVers like MacMoneagle have proven to most of us who have looked long and hard at the evidence, that remote viewing is a repeatable, verifiable, skill.
Not 100% accurate or reliable by any means. But with results that go way beyond chance.
Posted by: Bruce Siegel | December 30, 2012 at 08:44 PM
"Two or three days later, however, the exact same plant in the exact same pot was lying just as I had seen it OBE. "
I can relate! Your experience is similar to the precognitive dreams I often have.
Posted by: Bruce Siegel | December 30, 2012 at 08:46 PM
I found articles about Karlis Osis research on astral projection and attempts to find out if something really out of the body during an OBE:
http://www.alextanous.org/sites/default/files/172_370278175.pdf
Posted by: Juan | December 31, 2012 at 05:03 AM
There is a fish tank in the room and she motioned at it and said that from the spirits' perspective, we are like the fish in the tank. Sometimes they come up to the tank and have a look inside at us and other times they are off in the greater expanses of their world doing other things.
Wow, this really rings true to me.
Posted by: Philemon | December 31, 2012 at 09:41 AM
no one,
did you ever find that wallet your dad hid from you ?
Posted by: Ray | December 31, 2012 at 10:24 AM
no, Ray, no wallet. A number of other moved/missing objects have turned up in weird places, but not the wallet. The object moving seems to have stopped as of about a month and a half ago.
Juan, that ASP pdf in your above link is great! Thanks. The results are pretty much what I would expect; a mixed bag with a few stellar successes a number of failures and some confusing garbled non-hit/non-failures in between. I think it very much speaks to the complex and confusing nature of the OBE.
Posted by: no one | December 31, 2012 at 10:53 AM
No One,
Good assessment of Juan's link. That is what my thoughts were too. It is very similar to the results of the Book Tests conducted by Drayton Thomas and Gladys Osborn Leonard.
Posted by: Ray | December 31, 2012 at 10:59 AM