Messages

An African children's choir performed in our church 2 years ago.  Some of the children had Muslim parents.  One parent was converted from Islam to Christianity through a waking vision of Jesus.  I have his book.  My parents' missionary friend knows a Muslim mullah, Ahmed, who was dying of AIDs.  A young Christian couple visited him uninvited in his hospital room and prayed for him.  Ahmed was too sick to protest, but later said he wanted to kill them for their presumption.   That night, Ahmed had an NDE during which Jesus entered his room and gently touched him on the forehead.  Ahmed was only partially healed by this touch, healed enough to leave the hospital.  Here is the remarkable part: Jesus said nothing to him, but the encounter converted Ahmed to Christianity, even though the Quran also reveres Jesus as a prophet!  Why didn't this slient confrontation merely confirm Ahmed in his Muslim faith?  Clearly, the NDE conveyed some type of inner knowing. 

Ahmed then sought out the Christian couple and they again laid hands on him.  This time he was completely cured of his AIDs.  He became so zealous that he converted 3 mosques into churches.  But all is not well for Ahmed.  (1) Muslim leaders have sued him to win back their 3 mosques.  (2) His Muslim wife is threatening to divorce him, not because of his conversion, but because he is neglecting his marriage in his newfound zeal as a Christian.  My parents' missionary friend has persuaded Ahmed that he needs marriage counseling.  Thousands of Muslims have converted to Christiamity through such visions.  I wonder why them, and not, say, Buddhists or Hindus.     

If you are on anti-depressants and 2 anti-psychotics, is it safe for you attempt astral exploration, given that schizophrenics routinely encounter demonic illusions?  Only a psychiatrist is competent to answer such a question.  I am not presuming that you are schizophrenic, but this issue is tough because of psychiatrists generally dismiss astral encounters as illusory.  I wish you had access to a psychiatrist who is open to astral travel.  I still think you should consult your psychiatrist or prescribing professional before resuming astral travel. I am worried about an unintentional catalyzing of psychopathology. 

Don

Here are some of the questions I ask myself about potential Christian OBE patterns.  My own apparent OBE explorations are too few and rudimentary to be relevant.  If you have a Christian background, I'd appreciate your reaction to these questions.  What is really at stake in this issue?

(1) Are Christian OBE adepts more likely to visit real or illusory Christian heavens?  If so, do they usually
     visit planes that fit their preconceptions or are they shocked by a uniquely different experience?  Or
     are there so few Christian OBE adepts that few have ascended to the relevant higher planes to
      provide a pattern? 

(2) What is the relevance of Christian OBEs during NDEs to our question?  If beliefs follow expectations
     during OBEs, would we not expect Christians to often identify impressive astral figures as Jesus, God,
     or a distinguished Christian figure?  Are these identifications merely projections of archetypes or
     deceptions created by spirit impersonators?  Or do Christians often actually encounter encounter
     Jesus, God, or famous Christian figures during OBEs?  Do we have even enough case histories to speak
     of such trends?  Of course, these questions are complicated by the fact that Christians themselves
     enter the OBE state with different beliefs and expectations.     

I actually have anecdotal data for (3)-96) below and will provide details later:
(3) What if non-Christians encounter Christ without recognizing Him (e. g. Robert Monroe)?
(4) What if many atheists encounter the Being of Light during NDEs and this Being identifies Himself as
     Jesus even though the atheists never believed in Him?
(5) What if thousands of Muslims encounter Jesus during visions and at times during NDEs and are
     converted through this encounter?  Remember, the Ouran is high respectful towards Jesus as a virgin-     born prophet.

Don

Mustardseed, I quoted the New Living Translation to avoid muddying the waters with the issue you raise.  But I am delighted that you are biblically literate enough to raise it.  The Greek reflects the wording you mention.

(1) Let me first address the unresolved issue of Paul's "thorn in the flesh."  The modern scholarly consensus is that this thorn is some sort of physical ailment, not sexual obsession.  The leading candidate is some sort of vision problem.  But I can allow you to assess the plausibility of this conjecture yourself by quoting the relevant Pauline texts: "I can testify that if you could have done so, you would have torn out your eyes and given them to me (Galatians 4:15)."  "Just look at the large letters I use as I write to you with my own hand (6:11)!"  The other major candidate is a chronic malaria condition.  Paul's extensive travels through Asia Minor and Greece would have exposed him to countless malaria-carrying mosquitoes.  The relevant quote from Galatians 4:13-14 is more vague: "As you know, it was because of an illness that I first preached the Gospel to you.  Even though my illness was a trial to you, you did not treat me with contempt or scorn." 

(2) There is greater certainty about Paul's 3rd person reference to himself as "a man."  This is Paul's way of being coy about unwanted prestige accruing to him through his visions and revelations.  The clearest hint that he is talking about his own experience emerges from the shift to the first person in 12:6-8, especially: "To keep me from being conceited about these surpassing great revelations." The word "these" clearly points back to experiences like his OBE reported with the 3rd person in 12:1-4.

As a United Methodist pastor and an ex-theology professor, I sense no aversion among many Christians to involuntary OBEs or NDEs.  Self-induced OBEs are more controversial.  But I see no reason why this distinction is crucial.  True, one might encounter spirit impersonators during OBEs, but any spiritual gift has its counterfeit; and Paul urges us to actively strive for spiritual gifts.  Indeed, a couple of months ago my sermon topic was, "How to Become a Prophet."  I distilled materlai from my doctoral thesis for them.  The sermon seemed to be well received.  In the ensuing weeks, parishioners reported impressive revelatory dreams and highly luminous waking visions in darkened bedrooms.

I don't have time to talk about my own quest for revelatory OBEs, but will do so later.  I encourage you to read my thread, "Swedenborg: Father of Astral Projection" on p. 3 of the first OBE topic on this board.  He is the most gifted astral adept ever and in the higher planes he allegedly immerses himself in Christ's presence wherever he goes.

The teaching and practice of the early church is instructive on this issue.  St. Paul experienced at least one OBE, though he modestly declines to resolve the question of whether he experienced "phasing" or actually left his body: "I was caught up into the third heaven 14 years ago, whether in the body or out of the body, I don't know; only God knows (2 Corinthians 12:3)."  Here Paul anticipates Robert Monroe's shift from OBE talk to "phasing" talk to evade the unresolvable question of whether and in what sense one actually "leaves" the body.  Paul then equates the third heaven with "Paradise," an old Persian word meaning "park."  This is striking for 2 reasons: (1) Paradise is the preferred entrance point for Christians right after death (see Luke 23:42-43).  Paul's "park" reminds me of Robert Monroe's "park" which he designates as Focus 27.  (2) If Paradise is the 3rd heaven, then there must be a lower first and second heaven.  These 2 lower heavens remind me of the hollow heavens (Focus 25 and 26) allegedly visited by astral adept, Bruce Moen.    

The context makes it clear that the new Corinthian Christians considered their own OBE experiences and other divine revelations a badge of their spirituality.  Paul counters their arrogance this way: "That experience is something worth boasting about, but I am not going to do it.  I am going to boast only about my weaknesses...I don't want anyone to think more highly of me than what they can actually see in my life and message (12:5-6)."  

Paul then recounts his 3 prolonged prayer vigils to get God to remove some sort of "thorn in his flesh."  This thorn is some sort of physical affliction (i. e. likely the effects of malaria and/ or some sort of eye problem).  Though Paul has been used to heal others, God denies his request to remove this  "thorn" and offers this reason: "My gracious favor is all you need.  My power works best in your weakness (12:8-9)."  Paul's spiritual effectiveness derives from his humble acceptance of his physical limitations and his surrender to God's control in his miraculous ministry.

The church father Tertullian (200 AD) describes how a woman in his church regularly experienced OBEs during the worship service and reported back on her revelations to the elders after the service (De Anima 9:4).  . These elders then discerned whether each revelation was genuine or contaminated by spiritual deception.  So there is a rich history of OBEs in the early church.  These examples could be multiplied.  The early church recognizes that every paranormal experience of spiritual benefit has a counterfeit requiring discernment of the line between the genuine and the false.

H. THE NATURE OF THE SELF: PART I: A SWEDENBORGIAN CRITIQUE OF THE
NEW AGE CONCEPT OF THE GROUP SOUL

New Age reincarnationism is often associated with the concept of a higher self, soul disk, or group soul comprised of many manifestations of one's soul throughout history.  ES would view this as a perversion of what actually happens.  Objectivity on this question is of course impossible, but I place a premium on astral explorers who interpret such realities without doctrinal preconceptions.  Their preceptions have a chance to be more pristine.  Nothing remotely like a group soul was part of metaphysical discussion in the Sweden of ES's era. 
So ES is merely reporting what he experiences with no hidden agenda based on ideological opposition.  In "Heaven and Hell," ES reports his astral discoveries in this regard: 

"Kindred souls gravitate towards each other spontaneously...for with each other they feel as though they are with their own family (HH 44)," 

"There was a kind of angelic face that appeared to me, and this varied according to the qualities of affections...that were characteristic of the individuals in a particular community.  These variations lasted quite a while, and through it all I noticed that the same general face remained constant as a basis, with everything else being simply derivations and elaborations from it.  So there was shown me through this face the affections of the whole community...Not many individuals leave their own community to go to another because leaving their community is like leaving themselves or their life...(HH 47, 49)." 

"Sometimes a whole angelic community appears as a single entity in the form of an angel, a sight that the Lord has allowed me to see. . .Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael are nothing but angelic communities that are given these names because of their functions (HH 52)." 

Similary, in classical channeling, the group soul is not like the Monroe/Moen soul Disk composed of multiple selves of the same soul unit.  Rather, the group soul is composed of originally distinct kindred souls with the same purpose.  Yet this channeled conception might easily be confused with the soul Disk concept.  For example, consider this quote form Paul Beard's book ("Living On," p. 135) that sums of the consensus of the history of channeling in the classical period:

"The group as a whole is in a real sense a soul also, a group soul, and [the discarnate person] is in very truth part of this soul.  The bond, the common purpose, will not all be seen in a flash....[but] will be carried out gradually, until the various parts are gathered together and made a whole." 

This alternative understanding may be the key to solving a significant contradiction between Bruce Moen and Robert Monroe.  Moen claims to be part of the same soul Disk as Monroe.  But Monroe is astrally informed that he has only one parallel incarnation--a female one.  He is also told that "she would seem like a long-lost sister (UJ 174)."  Moen reports no such intimacy in his earthly encounter with Monroe.  Perhaps, Moen, Monroe, and even this unknown female are distinct and separate souls destined to participate in a group soul in this Swedenborgian sense.  If so, there is no such thing as retrieving portions of one's self.

The group soul in the Swedenborgian sense gets rid of the the troubling notion of parallel incarnations from a timeless astral realm.  Consider the contradictory nature of Seth's perspective on the timeless interval between lives.  In "Eternal Validity of the Soul" Seth says, "There is no time schedule, and yet it is very unusual for an individual to wait for anything over 3 centuries between lives, for this makes the orientation very difficult, and the emotional ties with the earth have become weak."  But Seth assumes that time is irrelevant for entities between lives.  The earth ties can only become gradually weakened if there is in fact a passage of time!  A real contradiction!

F. PART IV: ES ON CORRESPONDENCE--THE KEY TO DIVINATION

ES writes: "The whole natural world is responsive to the spiritual world--the natural world not just in general, but in detail. So whatever arises in the natural world out of the spiritual one is called `something that corresponds' (HH 89-90)."

A. HOW TO KILL WITH ASTROLOGY:

This aspect of correspondence might explain the various types of divination.  The most fascinating (if ghastly) radio interview I ever heard was with astrologer Jack Gillam.  At the birth of his son, Jack noted a "death aspect" on his son's horoscope that would become effective on the boy's 3rd birthday.  When this birthday arrived, Jack's wife kept the boy in the kitchen to keep an eye on him.  But when the phone rang, she got distracted and the child toddled out of the house, crawled through a hole in the fence, and headed for an apartment block next door.  The little boy fell into the outdoor swimming pool.  A 12-year-girl by the pool could easily have saved him, but she ran off screaming and so he  drowned. 

Psychiatrist Carl Jung did a study of astrological compatibility between couples.  He found that the predicted astrological correlation clearly confirmed their compatibility. Years later, Jung had second thoughts about these results.  Why should planetary relationships have anything to do with love?  He tried to replicate his earlier study.  This time he found no correlation between planetary configuration and romantic compatibility.  So why the difference?  Apparently, Jung's open curiosity in the first study attracted to him just those people whose horoscopes would create the illusion of  astrological validity.  Jung calls this synchronicity.  In my view, Jack Gillam's belief in death aspects worked like black magic attracting the event that he most feared.  His son's premature death was no doubt facilitated by influxes from negative spirits.

B. MY SPECTACULAR CARD READING:

When I was in grad school, I reluctantly agreed to take my date to the New England flower show.  Quickly bored, I noted two card readers sitting at a table.  One read regular playing cards and charged $5; the other read Tarot cards and charged $35.  I had never had a card reading before and didn't really believe in it.  So I chose the cheaper reading.

The reader asked me to draw 3 cards.  The cards looked like a lousy poker hand to me.  Then she told me 4 things: (1) I should dump the gal I brought to the show.  This amused me because my date had sneered at the readers when she passed them and I took this advice as the reader's revenge.  But the reader was right: we were incompatible.  (2) Then the reader told me I had serious issues with women.  My ex-girlfriend, Janet, had recently committed suicide, but this comment seemed too vague to impress me.  (3) Next, she told me I was good with children and implied that I'd be working with them very soon.  This seemed absurd to me.  I was working on my doctoral thesis and had no time for kids.  (4) Finally, she told me that in the next few days I'd be receiving a job offer from an exotic place, but that I should not accept it.  I dismissed this too because I hadn't even applied for a job.  When the reading was over, I'm sure she thought I viewed her as a fake.

The next week, I got a call from my thesis advisor asking me about an overdue chapter of my thesis.  While I made excuses, he told me he was the commissioner of the Arlington Youth Soccer Federation and that he needed a coach for an under-12 boys team.  He knew I'd played soccer in Canada and asked me if I'd do it.  How could I say no to my thesis advisor?  I felt manipulated and thought I'd hate it.  In fact, the 3 years I coached those boys were one of the highlites of my life.  I had never been married, but those boys became like the sons I would never have.  The next year we were undefeated and made it to the county championship game which we lost 2-1.  So the reader was absolutely correct about point (3).

Two days after the reading, I received an odd call from a professor in Newfoundland.  He asked me if I'd be willing to come and teach in his university there.  I was dumbfounded because I hadn't applied for the job. I reluctantly turned it down because I wasn't close to finishing my thesis.  The reader had said I'd immediately get a job offer from an "exotic" place that I should turn down!   Newfoundland seems pretty exotic to me. So the reader's fourth point proved absolutely amazing!

So how did my bad poker hand yield such spectacular clairvoyance?  For the same reason that Gillam's death aspect proved true?  I'll quote Van Dusen's Swedenborgian perspective (p. 185):

"Astrology is an example of correspondence between the inner person and planetary configurations.  The ancients had a whole host of ways of trying to divine the future and find evidence by the arrangement of material things: the fall of cards (Tarot), tea leaves, yarrow sticks (I Ching), cracked bones, etc.  Usually these systems required a considerable amount of interpretation that allowed some projection of inner processes."

I'm puzzled by several aspects of ES's principle of correspondence.  But he seems to have identified a spiritual principle that can can be both beneficial and a source of devastating evil.  I wish I had a better handle on it.

Every philosophy major knows that no arguments from design are airtight because they depend on unprovable assumptions and analogies which may seem intuitively strong, but cannot be decisively rescued from the charge that they might be "weak" analogies.  The best argument from design comes from Lehigh microbiologist, Michael Behe's book "Darwin's Black Box."  Behe argues that living cells depend on at least 6 systems or biological machines that are "irreducibly complex," i. e. not the result of incremental evolution.  What Behe means is that the components of these 6 systems are all essential to the cell's functioning, so that no component is indispensable.  Behe's argument sparked a furor in the scientific community.  I have read many attempts of scientists to rebut him; none of them seem successful. 

My problem with Behe is that evolution obviously proceeds with the help of other factors than natural selection and random mutation.  Clearly, the reality of consciousness played a vital role, but our scientific grasp of the nature of consciousness is so rudimentary that its relevance cannot be assessed.  Still, the Swedenborg-Sheldrake theory seems as promising as any supplementary principle because of the prominence it gives to the role of consciousness.   

Stillwater,

That's why off beat biological science needs to follow the same two principles that are so neglected in OBE exploration: verification and especially regular replication.  Sheldrake is constantly trying to confirm his theory of morphogenetic biological fields from an ever increasing array of studies.  But these confirmatory studies are still far too few, so to date his findings do not qualify as respectable science.  Still, it is truly fascinating that Sheldrake seems to be unconsciously reissuing ES's perspective on evolution through biological energy spheres.  This fascinates me because I don't consider natural selection and random genetic mutation to be sufficient in themselves to account for life's spectacular upward drive towards ever more complex, adaptable, and intelligent life forms.

F. PART III:

Normally, when seekers are fascinated by an arcane subject like astral exploration, they are absolutely delighted to discover that they have overlooked the Grandad of this field, especially when he is widely acknowledged as the most gifted astral adept ever.  But only seme of this site's seekers are normal.  Others are cowering members of the New Age Ghetto, who are overwhelmed by xenophobic rage or terror when someone like me shocks them out the warm milk of their mindless conformity.  So they whine, "Why cant we just keep religious themes out of this and keep our approach objective?  This just in: there is no objectivity in the realm of astral travel; fact and interpretation remain elusively inseparable.  That's precisly why we need a variety of astral experiences from people with radically different overviews.  ES is so special not only because he is the most famed and dinstinguised astral adept of all time, but because no one was actively pursuing OBEs in his day.  So his astral experiences are uncontaminated by the dummed down consensus of New Age Ghettospeak.  Of course, the fact that ES's experiences are not shaped by a ruling occult philosophy ensure that he offends not only the conventional church, but also less gifted modern New Agers.  But most importantly, ES's verifications are in a class by themselves. The next time you hear a professing astral adept whine about how hard it is to secure solid unequivocal verifications in etheric matter, just remind yourself that this adept is just admitting that he has not remotely refined his skill to ES's level.

Well, now that you've had a chance to see and sniff the broom up each other's New Age butt, it's time to resume more sweeping astral discoveries.    

SCIENTIFIC EXPERIMENTS THAT SEEM TO VERIFY ES's INSIGHTS INTO ENERGY SPHERES:

Biologist Rupert Sheldrake argues that the DNA molecule cannot contain all the information essential to the organism's formation; rather, DNA is a finely tuned receptor which taps into the information contained in the "morphogenetic field" of that organism, a field that seems to be the functional equivalent of ES's energy spheres flowing out from each organism.  Sheldrake contends that the form, development, and behavior of living organisms are shaped and maintained by this field together with genetic inheritance.  In a sense, these fields function like a kind of species memory through which the newly acquired characteristics of prior generations can be passed on to future ones.  The key to species evolution is this: the condition of an organism's systems is constantly updated in these fields.

Sheldrake put his theory to the test in an experiment he conducted on live TV.  Millions of BBC viewers were taught to see hidden images in puzzle pictures.  Before the program aired, a base line was established by observing how well people could distinguish the hidden image.  After the program, people from all over the world who could not have seen or heard the program were again asked to find the image.  The results indicated significant improvement in the worldwide ability of non-viewers to distinguish the image.

Sheldrake was building on the findings of animal research.  (1) At Harvard experiments on rats found that children of rats mastered a maze much faster (tenfold) than their parents, even though the offspring were not born at the time their parents were tested.  This result was replicated in both Scotland and Australia and the rats' performance dramatically improved from place to place even though there was no physical contact among the geographically separated rats.  

(2) In pre-WW2 Europe, milk was home-delivered in cartons.  A bird species (bluetits) suddenly began to land on top of the cartons, remove the cover, and drink the cream.  Some of the birds were even found drowned inside the cartons!  Bluetits have a range of 4-5 miles.  Yet this practice spread for a hundred miles within a year.  The same phenomenon occurred in Scandanavia and Holland.  Milk delivery ceased during the German occupation of Europe during WW2.  Bluetits only have a 2-3 year life expectancy; so all the avian cream drinkers died off.  But after the war, bluetits resumed their cream drinking and this habit spread just as before WW2.

(3) David Fontana ("Is There an Afterlife?", pp. 22-23) discusses a study in which measurements were taken of electrodermal reactions on the skin of receivers while they were subjected to a series of both arousing and calming thoughts from a sender in another room.  The sender would visualize the receivers in a very fearful situation or as relaxing on a sunlit beach.  The receivers had no idea which type of thoughts were being sent.  Thus the experiments show that even when receivers have no conscious awareness of whether they are receiving arousing or calming thoughts, the unconscious or morphogenetic field seems to be receiving the information and registering it in physiological reactions.

Has anyone here read the New York Times bestseller by Masaru Emoto, "The Hidden Meesags in Water?"   Much of the book consists of photos of artistically stunning and elegant crystals created through various types of focus on positive themes like love and forgiveness.  The ugly water formations result from a negative focus like "You fool!"  The beauty of this research is that it can be replicated by anyone.  I wonder how this is related to psychokinesis.

[Tiny:] "If you had studied a little closer, you knew that it wasn't all about Robert Monroe.
It was about a team that Monroe had created who brought the information down to him and the Monroe Institute from their own experiences in astral travel.

Ah, patronizing New Age assumptions!  "If you had only studied a little closer..."  I've read the entire Monroe trilogy, purchased the complete set of Gateway CDs for $550, and actively practiced with them for months.  What a waste of money!  I've regularly chatted with TMI grads online to determine if any of them has received an impressive verification.  None of then ever have, and so, they are  understandably annoyed at my persistence to discover if any of this is real.  I have retrieved suicides and had an OBE in which I was bouncing off the ceiling and gazing down at my sleeping body in bed.  At that time, such experiences seemed overwhelmingly powerful and self-authenticating.  Now I view them as nothing more than lucid dreams masked as OBEs. Lucid dream experts like Stephen LaBerge claim regular OBEs, but add that these are of course just lucid dreams of leaving the body.  

My subject was a response to queries about why the scientific establishment pays no notice to   RAM.  If the TMI founder can't perform well on verification tests, the scientific community won't care about RAM's groupies.  Of course, neither RAM nor students at TMI even come close to the quality of verifications provided by Swedenborg.  It is only because of Swedenborg that the subject of OBEs continues to hold my attention.  It is not just RAM who performed unimpressively on parapsychological tests.  In general, OBE adepts perform miserably on such tests.  So let's drop this unctious New Age conspiracy theory that the government is to blame!  Pass ordinary OBE verification tests and you'll change the world.  TMI grads have fared no better than RAM.  Quite simply, we need a modern adept as gifted as Swedenborg, if we expect to elevate OBE research beyond the level of New Age quackdoodle in the public eye.    

Robert Monroe remains in the new Age hinterland for one simple reason:  when the chips were down he couldn't deliver. True, RAM does have some quirky verifications.  For example, he pinches a lady during an astral visit and she later confirms the pinch.  "Oh, was that you?"  she says.  Then he astrally visits a dead doctor in a spirit hospital and does not recognize him; RAM instread sees a young red-haired doctor.  But he later confirms that he had seen the targeted doctor after all when he is shown the doctor's wedding photo.  RAM had known the doctor only in the latter's old age.   But parapsycholgist, Charles Tart subjected RAM to several tests of his OBE abilities, and in my view, RAM failed these tests miserably. You can read about some of Tart's tests in the Introduction to RAM's "Journeys out of the Body."  

When it comes to verifications of astral abilities, RAM is not even in the same class as astral adept Emanuel Swedenborg.  No modern astral adept is.  But ES dies in the late 18th century.  If he were alive today, he would be the superstar of the New Age astral exploration movement.  What we desperately need is a new Swedenborg.  If he were our contemporary, his astral gifts would attract significant notice in the scientific community.

PART II: EVOLUTI0N AND CORRESPONDENCE

ES discovers that in both the spiritual and natural worlds each person, animal, plant, and mineral is encompassed by its spiritual replica, an energy sphere which continually emanates from it.  ""Thus the natural world derives from the spiritual, and the spiritual from the Divine (DLW 283)."  This insight is independently confirmed by channeled material from deceased Oxford professor F. W. Myers.  Myers confirms the truth of the widely espoused "as above, so below" principle.  Myers reveals that dinosaurs existed in the spirit world before they became physical and that their prior existence as spirits was essential to their emergence on Earth.    If ES  had known about dinosaurs, he would no doubt agree.  He reports: 

"This whole natural world is responsive to the spiritual world--the natural not just in general but in detail.   So whatever arises in the natural world is called `something that corresponds'.  It must be realized that the natural world arises  from and is sustained in beng by the spiritual world exactly the way an effect relates to an efficient cause (HH 89)."

"Now because every single thing remains in being from the Divine,...and every single thing from that source is inevitably a representative of the real thing by means of which it has come into being, the whole visible universe is therefore nothing else than a theatre that is representative of the Lord's kingdom.  And this in turn is a theatre representative of the Lord Himself (AC 483)," 

So ES does not simply believe that God spoke and "Poof!" life appeared.  For ES, Nature provides a mechanism whereby the Lord's life reaches down to ultimates [evolved states] and returns to Himself through higher and higher "uses" (DLW 180, 316).  Both evolution and some form of reincarnation are at least consistent with this scheme of things. 

ES reveres biblical truth but insists that the Genesis creation story cannot be taken literally.  He precedes Darwin by almost a century and inevitably makes mistakes in his speculations about the development of life forms.  But he anticipates the general drift of modern evolutionary theory.  He recognizes the tiny lichen on a rock as a  developmental prelude to emerging forests.  He believes that each order of plants gives birth to a corresponding order of animals (WLG 30).  He traces the modern human species back to a primordial prehuman stage (SD 3390). 

In my view, he anticipates and corrects a flaw in the evolutionary principle of natural selection.  Natural selection assumes that chance variations create genetic advantages that improve the chances of survival.  ES accepts the role of randomness in creation, but insists that the Lord controls chance or probabiliity distributions (AC 5508).  His anticipation of evolutionary theory a century before Darwin is yet another confirmation of the validity of his gift of astral projection.

In my next planned post, I will discuss how his views on the origin and development of life forms find confirmation in modern scientific experiments.

F. THE CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN SPACE OR DISTANCE AND PSYCHOLOGICAL REALITIES

PART I: This is the first of 3 posts on ES's discovery of how the principle of correspondence determines the structure of spiritual reality.  What corresponds to distance are the feelings we have for each other.  To quote ES's "Heaven and Hell:"  

"People who are nearby are the ones in a similar state and the ones who are far away are in dissimilar states.  This is why space in heaven is nothing but the outward states that correspond to the inner ones.  This is the only reason why the heavens are differentiated from each other; as are the communities in each heaven and the individuals in each community. It is also why the hells are completely separate from the heavens.  They are in an opposite state."

"This is also why in the spiritual world one individual is present to another only if that presence is intensely desired.  This is because one person sees another in thought in this way and identifies with that individual's state.  Conversely, one person moves away from another to the extent that there is any sense of reluctance.  Whenever people move from one place to another, whether it is in their town, their courtyards, in their gardens, or to people outside their own community, tbey go there more quickly if they are eager to and more slowly if they are not.  The path itself is lengthened or shortened depending on their desire, even though it is the same path.  We can illustrate this by our own thoughts. . .for whatever we focus on intently in our thought is seemingly present (HH #193-96)."

This psychological equivalence to earthly spacial relationships among heavenly communities raises interesting questions.   Most of us have multi-faceted loves and tastes.  Assume for the sake of argument that I wind up in heaven.  I enjoy the company of men who make me laugh, men who love sports, and men who stimuate me intellectually.  I enjoy the company of women who have the gift of empathy, women who charm me, and women who balance me because they are very different from me, etc.    Let us assume that people of each type enjoy my company equally and are equally evolved in their spirituality.  How will the "geography" of these personality types be worked out?  What combination of strengths, interests, and quirks would bring my "type" together into a heavenly community?  Would I be with comedians who make me laugh, with men who stimulate me intellectually, with women who charm me, but are very different from me, etc.?  How can love be quantified?  Does God have some hierarchy of values that elevates some loving personality types to a higher level than others?  If so, what are they?  Perhaps, it is simply a matter of the purity and frequency of a soul's vibration.  So many questions, so few answers!

New Agers are generally close-minded to perspectives outside their Ghetto.  But some readers of a version of this thread on another site were actually converted through it.  Some of those initially became Swedenborgians.  This displeased me because ES's interpretations of Scripture have little value for moderns.  Only at the end of this thread will I offer my critique of ES.  Some progressed from New Agers, to Swedenborgian groupies, to more conventional Christians.  This greatly pleased me.  

No modern astral adept can match the quality of ES's verifications and the depth and elegance of his overview.  This will become increasingly obvious to readers as the thread progresses.  I'm glad that it annoys a close-minded New Ager like you that a healthy does of ES sells books.  Many books on ES were sold as a result of my ES thread on another site.  I could care less whether they buy ES books or not.

E. THE STRUCTURE OF THE SPIRIT WORLD: PART III: THE HEAVENS

In the heavens communication is telepathic, and so, is no longer based on human languages.  As ES puts it, "They are not able to utter...any name (AC 1876)."  There is no time as we know it in the heavens.  This transcendence of time explains why ES's angels [= discarnate righteous humans]
can be so accurate in their predictions. Modern adepts are often fooled by astral  predictions that emanate from ignorant but pretentious lower planes.  

ES encounters beings from other planets in the universe who expand the immensity of heaven.  In the heavens, everyone lives in societies with people of similar uses and disposition.  ES's astral travels reveal that heaven is far from a place of ideness.  Everyone there has spiritual work to do:

"Some spirits have believed that heavenly happiness consisted of a life of leisure.  Then they were shown in many ways that heavenly life consists of...thoughtful actions...that are services to others...So that these people might feel shame...they are allowed to perceive what kind of life this [idleness] would be.  They see that it is thoroughly miserable (HH 403)."  

ES's picture fits neatly with biblical teaching.  St. Paul asks rhetorically: "Don't you know that the saints will judge the world?...Don't you know that we will judge angels (1 Corinthians 6:2-3)?"  The Greek for "judge" can be translated "exercise jursidiction over" and the Greek for "world" ("kosmos") can be translated "universe".  So Paul's questions might be translated; "Don't you know that we will have jurisdiction over angel?"  and "Don't you know that the saints will exercise jurisdiction over the universe?"  Thus understood, the latter question may imply a future role for humans as co-creators with God in new universes!  In this regard, the identity of the "us" in Genesis 1:27 is intriguing: "Let us make man in our image."  This can be neither a literary we nor a reference to the Trinity.  So the "us" may refer to intelligent beings from prior creations and may thus hint at our ultimate destiny.  ES learns that there is government in heaven, but only those who are truly useful to others are allowed such power.  This insight parallels Jesus claim that the extent of personal civic jurisdiction in heaven depends on one's faithfulness in performing earthly responsibilities (Luke 19:16-19).

Spirits in the hells and the intermediate realm (ES's "world of spirits") are visible to souls in the heavens.  But "the heavens are not visible to spirits in the world of spirits unless their spiritual sight has been opened (HH 583)."  Those bound for heaven sense that there is an ultimate higher power and are determined to relate to it.  

In my view, Robert Monroe's aversion to the loving God of conventional spiritualities prevents him from exploring the heavens beyond Focus 27.  Some of his "Knowns" seem traceable to misunderstandings emanating from the lower astral planes:  e.g.

"These to me are Knowns: This, our Creator...does not demand worship, adoration, or recognition, does not punish for `evil' or `misdeeds', does not intercede or interdict in our life activity (UJ 224-25)."  

His biased terms "demand" and "punish" deflect attention away from two truths disclosed by Swedenborg's angels: (1) The heavenbound delight in in worshiping God and feasting on His love.  (2)  Many people are truly evil, but they in effect punish themselves by choosing to ignore the godly loving path in favor of the hellbound path on the basis of the principle like attracts like.  

Consider Monroe's astral principle: "There is no good, there is no evil.  There is only expression (UJ 217)."  This narcissistic principle is embraced by denizens of the lower astral planes, not by the higher heavens which Monroe, unlike ES, has been unable to visit.  This stress on self (valueless self-expression) stands in contrast with the resolve of the heavenbound according to ES: their humility and respect for the greatness of creation fuels a deep resolve to be with others and be of significant use to them.  In the heavens, says ES, the joy of one is the joy of all.  By contrast, the general design of the hells is an orientation towards self over others.  This splits existence apart and causes hell's  dissension.  Despite this, those with this orientation will most comfortably drift towards the company of likeminded people in the hells because they nevertheless feel better there than in the company of saints.  It just suits them better than the heavens.  

According to Monroe, in the astral planes, "there is no greater, there is no lesser.  There is only balance (UJ 217)."  This claim echoes ES's principle which, in my view, expresses this truth more accurately: "The relationship of heaven and hell...is like that of two opposites that act against each other.. This action and reaction yield a state of equilibrium within which everything exists...This is the spiritual balance which provides us with our freedom for thinking and intending (HH 536-57)."  Thus, hell is part of the enrichment of ultimate possibilities.    

zareste: "The idea that you can't reincarnate comes mostly from Roman Catholics. The council of Constantinople had reincarnation stricken from records and the Church subsequently destroyed information about it."

This pontification is decisively refuted by my thread which you obviously haven't bothered to read.  You need to come out of the New Age Ghetto and breathe the fresh air of honest and open inquiry.  Whe you do that, you will immediately realize that you have been had by New Age kooks who don't eve bother to check their sources.  Reincarnation is not even mentioned by the Council of Constantinople.  So nothing was "stricken from records."  The closest Constantinople comes to addressing reincarnation is its one-sentence condemnation of Origen.  But Origen taught the pre-existence of the soul, not reincarnation; and as my thread demonstrates, Origen repeatedly condemns reincarnation.  Reincarnation made negligible inroads even within Christian Goosticism.  My thread cites the few exceptions that proves this rule.

CF Traveller,

I didn't know that Beth has apparently left the site. She has so many posts in this section.  Her position about reincarnation in the Judaism and Christianity of late antiquity IS commonly embraced by New Agers and is easy to refute.  That's my point.  Whether Beth herself warrants the New Age label matters little to me, since I myself actively read New Age books, post on New Age websites, and in that sense might be deemed a "New Ager."  It is  naive New Age Fundamentalism that I oppose, just as I oppose uncritical Christian Fundamentalism.  I know New Agers who are thoughtful, open, and critically reflective.

E. THE STRUCTURE OF THE SPIRIT WORLD--PART II: THE HELLS

For ES all of earthly life is a preparation for a postmortem existence in which our core desires and feelings towards others cannot be hidden in face-to-face encounters.  In the next life we naturally gravitate towards people who share our values and want to play by our rules.  Besides, in the spiritual world there is no discrepancy between physical proximity and spiritual remoteness.  Essential affinity is presence, and essential incompatibility is distance.  For these reasons, "the Lord never turns His face away from anyone or spurns anyone, never casts anyone into hell or is angry (HH 545)."  "The divine aura that emanates from the Lord is a constant effort to save everyone (HH 595)."  "The Lord does not punish anyone: demonic society itself does (AC 245)" and its denizens ultmately choose that society because they feel most comfortable there.   The various levels of hell are appallingly squalid "in heaven's light," but quite glamorous in their own light (e. g. HH 553)..  Spirits who look "bad" to the "good" will look attractive to the "bad" who share the same core desires and values.  "When spirits voluntarily arrive at their hell and go in, they are accepted cordially at first and think that they have arrived among friends.  This lasts only a few hours, though.  All the while they are being probed to find out how crafty they are and, therefore, how powerful.  Once this probing is complete, the attacks begin in various ways (HH 574)."  "The hells are governed by means of angels [righteous discarnate humans]  who are given the ability to look into the hells and check the insanities and riots there.  Sometimes angels are sent there and their very presence brings matters under control (HH 342)."  Many modern NDEs seem to bear witness this supervisory role, notably the NDE of Dr. George Ritchie, whose experience prompted Raymond Moody to write the book that sparked modern interest in NDEs.  

"These two loves, love for oneself and love for the world, rule in the hells and actually constitute the hells...Love for the Lord and love for one's neighbor rule in the heavens and actually constitute the heavens (HH 554)."  ES identifies 3 basic levels of hells, each of which contains countless communities based on subtle distinctions determined by the principle like attracts like. (1) The first and mildest level supremely values brute force and is focused on behavior.  Here no one trusts anyone: one must either control or be controlled.  Spirits are reluctantly forced into alliances not out of sympathy, but out of common resentment of a common enemy.  Spirits are insensitive to the motivations of their partners because they are insensitive to their own motivations.  Yet in their minds, they are often "happy" because they enjoy the thrill of vengeance and the hatred that fuels it.  They establish new emotional normals.  Alliances are constantly broken down and reformed with new members as one's role fluctuates from victim to victimizer.

(2) The 2nd level of hells focuses not on brute force, but on the workings of the human mind.  Spirits here will try to con you out of anything you own.  Here your intellect is focused not on the effort to understand things as they are, but to create the illusion that they are as you want them to be.  The goal is not a cooperative venture to solve mysteries, but an egotistic obsession with defending one's point of view.

(3)The 3rd level of hells focuses on the workings of the human heart  Spirits here will try to work on your feelings until you have no will of your own.  ES associates the 3rd hell with the malignant creation of illusions.  Our feelings, undisciplined by rationality or realism, construct fantasy worlds where anything can happen.  Everyone at this level is a creator as well, which means that cosmic conflicts constantly erupt in which the odds are all against you.  Occasionally, you may prevail and your illlusions may invade the minds of your opponents; but more often you find yourself to be the martyr.  But in each mental battle, the winners become special targets in the next conflict.

In my next 2 planned posts, I will survey ES's experiences and insights into the World of Spirits and the heavens.

E. THE STRUCTURE OF THE SPIRIT WORLD--PART I: DOWNWARD AND UPWARD MOBILITY  

Dude,

Your question provides a natural transition to my next topic and is the best question I've been asked on this site.  A full answer would require me to read everything ES has ever written. I have not done this yet, but will give you my provisional reply.  I think the answer requires a recognition that ES is somewhat inconsistent in the way he describes the intermediary realm between the heavens and and hells--the World of Spirits, which seems to contain the Hollow Heavens and the upper hells discovered in Bruce's Moen's explorations of Focus 25-26 (terms borrowed from TMI).  ES's astral insight that new discarnates in the World of Spirits gradually ascend to a heaven or descend to a hell may already imply the use of retrievals. because ES describes the role of astral schools and makes it clear that astral progress is ultimately a matter of choice and of achieving the right energetic for ascent.  In my view, this "upward or downward" journey already implies a system in which the core personality can evolve, especially since ES's astral discoveries anticipate Darwin's theory of evolution by a century.  

As you know, Bruce Moen is especially concerned with the work of spirit retrievals; yet even he insists that it is almost impossible to retrieve souls in the lower hellish planes.  But here, ES seems more optimistic:  in his later works, he implies that even denizens of the hells can be converted and retrieved.  His biographer, Ernst Benz reports that ES has converted denizens of the hells with the result that their human appearance is restored: "The devils he converts change before his eyes, lose their bestial form, and regain their human faces (Benz, p. 327).  By "devils" ES does not mean demons in the traditional sense, but evil humans.  Perhaps, ES's astral perspective evolves over the years.  I hope to track down ES's retrieval references to which Benz alludes.  Ther are none in ES's "Heaven and Hell."

zareste,

Actually, ES's discoveries are quite compatible with the Focus structures identified by Robert Monroe and Bruce Moen.  What makes ES unique is that his explorations are far more extensive and his verifications are far more impressive.  A rational personal must not simply embrace what fits his preconceived notions and discard what challenges his perspectives.  Overall, modern adepts follow a New Age party line.  As such, their perspective are biased in an analogous way to the unified NDEs of many Fundamentalist Christians.  Fact and interpretation are inseparable in this realm; so verifications are crucial.  What makes ES's astral journeys so impressive is that he is so little influenced by contemporary role models, whether Christian or eastern.  And his astral journeys anticipated Darwin's evolutionary discoveries a century in advance.

In considering soul retrievals, this generally overlooked fact needs to be recognized: in both Hebrew ("olam") and Greek ("aioios"), the biblical words translated "eternal" do not mean that.  "Olam" just means "for a long time" and "aionios" means "age long."  Thus, intertestamental Jewish writers speak at times about what happens AFTER THE "aionios" period has ended.

So a belief in reincarnation made scant inroads in both the Judaism of late antiquity and early Christianity.  It is even a very minor view in early Christian Gnosticism.  And contrary to many New Age claims, it was never condemned at the Council of Nicea; its was quite simply too marginal a belief in Judaeo-Christian circles to warrant repudiation!  But Origen (c. 225 CE) attests a fully developed doctrine of the preexistence of the soul which was widespread in both Jewish and Christian circles in late antiquity. 

Of course, what these circles believed raises the question of the validity of modern New Age belief in linear and parallel reincarnations.  I will offer a preliminary assessment of this question in my evolving Swedenborg thread when it becomes appropriate to discuss his discoveries about past life recall during his astral journeys.   

D. THE 3 STAGES OF THE TRANSITION FROM DEATH TO THE NEXT LIFE:

I take seriously what ES's astral explorations have revealed on this subject because of his many awesome verifications of his conversations with angels and other discarnate humans.  ES claims that we was allowed to witness all 3 initial stages after death.  My source here is ES's classic book "Heaven and Hell" (= HH) from which I will now quote extensively:

"When we die, we are still alive and just as human as ever.  To convince me of this, [the Lord] has allowed me to talk with almost all the people I have ever met during their physical lives, with some for a few hours, with some for weeks and months, and some for years.  This was primarily so that I could be convinced and bear witness (#437)."

"There are three states that we pass through after death before we arrive at either heaven or hell.  The first state is one of more outward concerns.  The second is one of more inward concerns, and the third is one of preparation.  We go through all three states in the world of spirits.  Some people do not go through these states, but are either raised into heaven or cast into hell immediately after their death (HH #491)."  

The "world of spirits" is a transitional state between the heavens and hells and seems to be the equivalent of Focus 25 and 26 in the nomenclature of Robert Monroe and Bruce Moen.  The highest level of the world of spirits seems to be the equivalent of Focus 27.  In biblical terms, the world of spirits embraces Hades (not to be confused with Hell) in its lower planes and Paradise, an old Persian term for "park", in its upper planes.  The exact nature of life in these spirit planes will be detailed in a future post.   

(1) OUR FIRST STATE AFTER DEATH

"We use the outward aspects of our spirit to adapt our bodies in the world--especially our faces, our speech, and behavior--to our interactions with other people.  The more inward aspects of our spirit are the ones proper to our intentions and consequent thought, which rarely show in faces, speech, and behavior.  We are trained from infancy to present ourselves as friendly, benevolent, and honest, and to conceal the thoughts of our own intentions.  As a result, of this habitual behavior, we scarely know our inner natures and pay no attention to them (HH #492)."

"Our first state after death is like our state in the world, since we are then similarly involved in outward concerns. We have similar faces, voices, and character; we lead similar moral and civic lives.  That is why it still seems to us as though we were in this world unless we notice things that are out of the ordinary (HH 493)."

Most NDEs are marvelous experiences.  But ES chillingly insists that the initial postmortem state is normally wonderful even for people who will ultimately find their way to a hell.  ES's mention of their trips to gorgeous gardens and parks in the first state recalls descriptions of Focus 27:

"Their friends...take them around to various places, into the company of different people.  They go to different cities, to gardens and parks, often to gorgeous ones because things like that appeal to the outward concerns they are involved in.  Many of them think they will make it into heaven because they led moral and civic lives in the world, not reflecting that both good and evil people lead similar outward lives (HH #495)."

ES adds that "the first state after death...rarely lasts more than a year for anyone (HH #498)."   This fits neatly with modern research on contacts received by the recently bereaved from deceased loved ones.  One study indicated that 50% of Americans and 48% of the British report convincing contacts with their deceased loved ones within the first year since their death.  After that, the number of such contacts dramatically dwindles. Making such contacts is much harder for those who have moved on from the world of spirits to a heaven or a hell.

(2) OUR SECOND STATE AFTER DEATH

"Our second state after death is called a state of our deeper interests because then we are given access to the deeper reaches of our minds, or of our intentions and thoughts, while the more outward interests that engaged us in the first state become dormant (HH #499)."  "We as spirits are brought...into the state of those deeper intentions and consequent thoughts we engaged in when we were left to ourselves in the world and our thinking was free and unfettered (HH #502)."

At this stage we shed aspects of self that were shaped by social expectations, peer pressure, and the need to present an acceptable presenting self that can mask our inner self.  As a result, "people who were inwardly devoted to the good...then behave..more wisely than when they were living in the world...In contrast, people who were focused on evil...then behave more insanely then when they were in the world (HH #505)."  It now becomes impossible to act one way and inwardly be another.  The person pauses at this threshold world long enough to become one with her own nature.  

"Once people like this are in the second state, they are let back into the state of their more outward concerns for brief periods of time.  They then retain a memory of how they behaved when they were in the state of their more inward concerns.  Some of them are embarrassed and admit they were insane.  Some of them are not embarrassed at all.  Some of them resent the fact that they are not allowed to be in the state of their more outward concerns all the time, but they are shown what they would be like if they were continually in this state.  They would constantly be trying to do the same things covertly, misleading people of simple heart and faith with simulations of goodness, honesty, and fairness.  They would destroy themselves completely because eventually their outer natures would be ablaze with the same fire as their inner natures (HH  #506)."

"The things they [evil people] had done and said in secret are now made public, too, because now,  since outward factors are not constraining them, they say the same things openly, and they keep trying to the same things without any fear for the reputations they had in the world...They [visually] look to angels and good spirits like the [evil] people they really are (HH 507)."

(3) OUR THIRD STATE AFTER DEATH

"Our third state after death is one of instruction.  This state is for people who are entering a heaven and becoming angels and not for people who are entering a hell, because the latter cannot be taught (HH 512)."  Their close-mindedness prevents them from sensing the vast heavenly world beyond the world of spirits.  "As a result, their second state... ends in their turning straight toward...the hellish community that is engaged in a love like their own."  The general intention of the hells is to ignore God and vault the interests of self above all others.  

Of course, the heavens are not just reserved for Christians.  On the one hand, ES casually mentions bishops he has encountered in hell.  This is just one of the reasons why ES was branded a heretic by churches of his day.  On the other hand, humble and teachable agnostics who have lived the equivalent of a loving Christian life will then be "taught things like that God exists, that heaven and hell exist, that there is a life after death, that God is to be loved above all, and our neighbor as ourselves, and that we are to believe what is said in the Word because the Word is divine (HH #512)."