Breo
The Living Force
I have copied your posts into a text file and added a simple content table.A first step would be to move some of the written posts over to a text editor, and continue the writing there.
I have copied your posts into a text file and added a simple content table.A first step would be to move some of the written posts over to a text editor, and continue the writing there.
Well, a book cold be a group effort, but the main idea I think can be singular, do you have a question you would like your book to answer? you've gathered a lot of the information, it may be just a matter of organizing and adding some context. I daresay you could do it!Writing a book is different from writing a few posts, as I have done so far. It seems to me that a collaborative effort is required, and we would need to talk over what it should look like in the final stage, including what we expect from the readers. Maybe one could have both a shorter version, and a longer version, or at least a chapter that sums up the essential points, so those who have not read all the explanations still have something to work with, if they are interested.
I seem to remember that Baldwin's work lead to similar conclusions, essentially one isn't freed from certain limitations after passing, not even from the remnants of bodily sickness or injury, if one isn't aware. So I am not surprised to read that one's political leanings remain as part of one's perception even after passing.I watched a big bunch of videos of NDE accounts these past few days. I knew the experiences were colored by pre-existing religious ideas, but it seems they are colored also by pre-existing political (and likely other) ideas. Because the spirits in the experiences don't always offer a judgment, the experiencer is free to interpret what they see based on existing programming.
For example, one guy felt he received confirmation that Hillary Clinton would be a good president and that Trump made all things worse and instigated the "insurrection." At the same time, he saw the USA accelerate markedly into decline toward civil war because of the Supreme Court decision to accept gay marriage. Interesting. Grain of salt recommended.
And remain upon "returning" to 3D.I am not surprised to read that one's political leanings remain as part of one's perception even after passing.
I seem to remember that Baldwin's work lead to similar conclusions, essentially one isn't freed from certain limitations after passing, not even from the remnants of bodily sickness or injury, if one isn't aware. So I am not surprised to read that one's political leanings remain as part of one's perception even after passing.
Maybe a comforting thought to speak about with a person who's about to leave this physical realm would be to address the issue of reincarnational cycles.Writing a book is different from writing a few posts, as I have done so far. It seems to me that a collaborative effort is required, and we would need to talk over what it should look like in the final stage, including what we expect from the readers. Maybe one could have both a shorter version, and a longer version, or at least a chapter that sums up the essential points, so those who have not read all the explanations still have something to work with, if they are interested.
The book, or booklet, can come out when the presentation of the material is balanced, sufficient and you and people in the group are happy with it. The timing for publishing would to some extent be dependent on how extensive and involved the writing process becomes. A first step would be to move some of the written posts over to a text editor, and continue the writing there.
The Road to Immortality provides the reader with a sublime vision of the afterlife, allegedly communicated from 'other side' by the eminent psychologist and psychic researcher Frederic William Henry Myers. Myers was one of the founders of the Society of Psychical Research and he spent much of his life researching the survival of consciousness, so it is not surprising that having passed away in 1901, if he found himself conscious of his surroundings, he would try to communicate with his colleagues and loved ones still in the flesh.
The reason, therefore, for the universe and for all appearances ... is to be found in the term "evolution of spirit," the need for complete fulfillment which can be obtained through limitation, through the expression of the spirit in form. For only through that expression can spirit grow, developing from the embryo, only through manifestation in appearance can spirit obtain fulfillment. For this purpose were we born, for this purpose we enter and pass through myriad worlds or states, and always the material universe is growing, expanding, giving fuller and fuller expression to mind.
THE following statement is an index, or rather an itinerary, of the journey of the soul.
(1) The Plane of Matter.
(2) Hades or the Intermediate State.
(3) The Plane of Illusion.
(4) The Plane of color.
(5) The Plane of Flame.
(6) The Plane of Light.
(7) Out Yonder, Timelessness.
Between each plane or new chapter in experience there is existence in Hades or in an intermediate state, when the soul reviews his past experiences and makes his choice, deciding whether he will go up or down the ladder of consciousness.
(1) The Plane of Matter consists of all experiences in physical form, in matter as known to man. These experiences are not confined to the earth life. There are experiences of a similar character in numerous starry regions. Sometimes the body vibrates faster or slower than the body of man in such starry places. But the term "physical" expresses its character and nature. [3rd density?]
(3) The Plane of Illusion is the dream period connected with life passed on the Plane of Matter. [5th density?]
(4) The Plane of color. Existence in this state is not governed by the senses. It is more directly controlled by mind. It is still an existence in form, and therefore an existence in substance. That substance is a very rarefied matter. It might be called an air of matter. The Plane of color is within the terrestrial zone or within the corresponding starry zone wherein the soul previously had experience of a physical existence. [a stage of the 4th density?]
(5) The Plane of Pure Flame. In this state the soul becomes aware of the pattern his spirit is weaving in the tapestry of eternity and realizes all the emotional life of those souls fed by the same spirit. [a final stage of the 4th density?]
(6) The Plane of Pure Light. Within its borders the soul obtains an intellectual conception of all the previous existences within its group-soul. Further, he realizes all emotional life within the body of the world or earth soul. [6th density]
(7) Lastly, the Seventh Plane. The spirit and its various souls are now fused and pass into the Supreme Mind, the Imagination of God, wherein resides the conception of the Whole, of universe after universe, of all states of existence, of past, present and future, of all that has been and all that shall be. Herein is continuous and complete consciousness, the true reality. [7th density]
Hades is a term which corresponds with the astral plane. Immediately on the dissolution of the body there comes a brief period of seeming disintegration, a temporary dislocation of those parts which make you one. According to his nature and make-up every traveller from the earth is affected in a different or varying manner by this place or state on the frontiers of two lives, on the borders of two worlds.
Animal-man If you are what I term Animal-man, in other words, if you belong to the primitive type, you will make a corresponding choice. You will desire to go downwards, that is to say, you will choose to be an inhabitant of matter as dense as the physical body you discarded when you passed into Hades. Usually you return to earth. But I am told that the Animal-man occasionally prefers to enter a material existence on some other planet in which matter may be even denser than any earthly substance
I stated that no progress was made in Illusion-land. This is, in a sense, incorrect. No seeming progress is made. Illusion-land is the dream of the earth-personality. For a short while after his entry into that state the soul is at peace, warring desires are quiescent; but they wake again at the time the dream is beginning to break. In fact, when these furies are roused they themselves break and shatter the dream.
"Summer-land," then, is the dream of the earth personality, so it should not be regarded as either Heaven, Hades or Hell, but merely as a resting place on the road when the soul dreams back, and thereby summarises the emotional and subconscious life of his earth existence. But he dreams back in order that he may be able to go forward once more on his journey.
Your present surroundings are, in a sense, your creation, in that you are mentally so unemancipated; your nerves and senses convey to you your perception of life. If you were capable of focusing your ego or daily consciousness within your deeper mind, if in short you trained yourself to pass into a thought compound from which form, as the senses convey it, were absent, the material world would vanish. You would no longer perceive it. If you were sufficiently developed spiritually you might be able to escape form altogether, though actually this is not possible until you have had numberless further experiences.
However, on higher planes of being your intellectual power is so greatly increased that you can control form; you learn how to draw life to it. As a sculptor takes up the formless clay and shapes it, so does your mind draw life and light to it and shape your own surroundings according to your vision. In the first state your vision is limited by your earth experiences and memories, and so you create your own version of the appearances you knew on earth. Understand, however, that in Illusion-land you do not consciously create your surroundings through an act of thought. Your emotional desires, your deeper mind manufacture these without your being actually aware of the process. For still you are the individualized soul caught within the limitations of your earthly self and caught also within the fine etheric body which now is yours.
If Tom Jones is changed by death into a great seer or into a lofty spiritual genius he is no longer Tom Jones. He cannot, therefore, be said to survive death. However, I can assure you that he follows the slow path of evolution; he is born into the next world with all his limitations, with all his narrowness of outlook, with his affections and his dislikes. He is, in short, thoroughly human.
He belongs to a great multitude who must, as we describe it over here, dream back in order that they may later on go forward, proceed towards the ultimate goal, towards a state of spiritual vision when they may enter the timeless state, may pass out of the great cosmic picture and enter within the mind of their Creator. But there is much to be done by Tom Jones before he can, if ever, attain to that condition. He is still an infant needing playthings like a child, and, therefore, requiring about him a world of appearances.
The more advanced souls--whom the Church may call the angels and whom I call "the Wise"--can exist in tenuous forms within vast vistas of space and lead within it an extraordinarily vivid existence. Tom Jones is quite incapable of facing such a strange and strenuous state of being. So we, who are a little more advanced than he, watch by the gates of death, and we lead him and his comrades, after certain preparatory stages, to the dream which he will inhabit, living still, according to his belief, in earth time. He bears within him the capacity for recalling the whole of his earth life. Familiar surroundings are his desperate need. He does not want a jewelled city, or some monstrous vision of infinity. He craves only for the homely landscape he used to know. He will not find it here in the concrete sense, but he will find, if he so desires it, the illusion.
An image is drawn from the young soul's memories. It is of a country considerably more beautiful than--but not unlike the country Tom Jones and his comrades have known. This country is not real. It is a dream. But to Tom Jones it is as real as was his office desk and the alarum-clock that roused him in the morning, summoning him to his work. It undoubtedly presents a more attractive appearance than his little grey London world, but in essentials it is of the same familiar stuff from which his England is made. Within this dream he will find his friends, some of his own people, and those two or three persons he really loved; that is, if they have already gone before him, been summoned by death at an earlier time.
These wayfarers find themselves in familiar surroundings amongst people of a similar mentality. But they find very frequently that their actual needs are not the same. They are not condemned to some mechanically performed task for the greater part of their existence, because their etheric bodies do not require food. They draw what is essential for their well-being from that all-pervading invisible substance. On earth men are slaves of the physical body, and, therefore, slaves of darkness. In the Hereafter we may truly say that, given certain conditions, they become servants of the light. As food, or its equivalent money, is not the principal object of their existence, they have at last time to serve the light. That is to say, they are in a position in which they can reflect at their leisure and begin to reach towards this strange and marvellous life of the mind-
After hunger there comes sex. Has this need also disappeared with the dissolution of the body? I think my answer, in most cases, should be in the negative. It has not disappeared, but it is changed. And here we come face to face with one of the great problems in this period of transition.
Now, I would give you one more illustration. Let us take for example a man, or if you prefer a woman, who has led an immoral life on earth. Here I may borrow a saying of the angel who appeared to John: "He that is filthy let him be filthy still." (Rev. xxii. 11) The man who comes into this life with a sex history of a reprehensible kind finds, when he enters the Kingdom of the Mind, that as his mental perceptions are sharpened so his predominant earth-desire is intensified, his mental power being far more considerable. He can, at will, summon to himself those who will gratify this over-developed side of his nature. Others of his kind gravitate to him. And for a time these beings live in a sex paradise. But bear in mind that it is created by their mental "make-up," by their memories and their imagination. They yearn still for gross sensation, not for that finer life, which is the spirit of sexual love, that perfect comradeship without the gratification of the grosser feelings.
Nearly every soul lives for a time in the state of illusion. The large majority of human beings when they die are dominated by the conception that substance is reality, that their particular experience of substance is the only reality. They are not prepared for an immediate and complete change of outlook. They passionately yearn for familiar though idealized surroundings. Their will to live is merely to live, therefore, in the past. So they enter that dream I call Illusion-land. For instance, Tom Jones, who represents the unthinking man in the street, will desire a glorified brick villa in a glorified Brighton. So he finds himself the proud possessor of that twentieth-century atrocity. He naturally gravitates towards his acquaintances, all those who were of a like mind. On earth he longed for a superior brand of cigar. He can have the experience ad nauseam of smoking this brand. He wanted to play golf, so he plays golf. But he is merely dreaming all the time or, rather, living within the fantasy created by his strongest desires on earth.
After a while this life of pleasure ceases to amuse and content him. Then he begins to think and long for the unknown, long for a new life. He is at last prepared to make the leap in evolution and this cloudy dream vanishes.
There is also what I might call the ladder of consciousness. The rungs of the ladder represent the various lives from the alleged beginning to the final achievement; though it is not for me to say that there is any finality. When I use the term "final" I merely desire to indicate the limits of my vision. Now the soul or ego is the actual self or surface awareness on each rung of the ladder; the spirit is the light from above. It illumines every rung of the ladder, embraces the whole. The soul, then, is merely the part, the gatherer of experience, the representative of the mystery behind all life.
The higher the ego climbs on the ladder of consciousness, the nearer it draws to other kindred souls. I have already told you that there may be a thousand, a hundred, or merely twenty souls all fed by one spirit. Their consciousness of comrade-souls increases on the higher levels of existence. In time they are able to enter into the other souls' memories, perceive their experiences and be sensible of them as if they were theirs. Mind becomes communal in the last stages, for the spirit, the unifying principle, is tending all the time to produce greater harmony, and therefore greater unity. These various individuals are merging more and more, becoming one in experience and in mind, and thus attaining to undreamt-of levels of intellectual power.
On the lower rungs of this ladder of consciousness dwell those souls who still cling to human habits of thought, to the earthly personality, to their own individual line of thought. On earth some of them have been extremely learned. But knowledge does not make a wise man. A great Indian Yogi, a Chinese sage, a learned or holy Christian father may dwell for aeons of time within the Third and Fourth Super-terrestrial States. They are typical representatives of Soul-man, and they have his short-comings. They cling to the line of thought which was theirs on earth, and so they remain sadly individualized in it; they are caught in its dream, and are snared in the many errors thereof. For instance the Indian Yogi and the Chinese sage may still seek only to follow the aspiration of their particular religion or philosophy, the freeing of the soul from matter, ecstatic contemplation of the universe.
They appear to gain their aspiration; but in consequence they abide merely on one of the lower rungs of the ladder. They believe that they have attained to Nirvana, that they have passed out Yonder, entered into the Mystery of God. But they have done nothing of the kind; for they are still individualized, still clinging to their blissful little dream created when they were on earth. They are living in the stagnant pond. They are progressing neither up nor down. They have no contact with the material aspect of the universe, and their state of alleged ecstatic contemplation narrows and limits experience, confines them still in the prison of their own ego.
The spirit, which lights up the ladder, is an individualized thought of God, a thought that may dwell within its own life, or that may still be in intense and direct contact with God when that thought contacts directly the human ego.
The soul becomes possessed of a new awareness as well as of finer perceptions when he decides to go upwards rather than downwards on the ladder of consciousness; and, therefore, he enters the Fourth plane of being. On earth the average man's normal ego is largely controlled by the body's desires, though the spirit inspires its life and at times lights up the darkness of the human brain with luminous flashes. Still, the spirit, or what I call the deeper mind, can only faintly impress itself upon the ego. Now, in the Fourth stage the spirit is able to enter, with greater intensity, into the time measurement which I call the soul or ordinary consciousness. This soul becomes sensible of the change through his greatly increased intellectual powers. With that increased awareness there comes greater concentration. The memory of the earth life, in its details, is for the time being lost. As long as the soul dwells in form he is subject to the rhythm of the universe and, therefore, to some form of time.
The soul bears with him, however, the fundamental emotional memory, or rather retains contact with it in the first stage on the Fourth plane of life. This plane of color might be more aptly termed "The Breaking of the Image." For on this level of consciousness the soul learns how to control form, learns by myriad experiences the ghostliness of all substance. In the anterior period of his evolution he has been controlled largely by substance. Slowly the graven image is broken, slowly the ego learns so to draw from the higher soul or spirit that he can, at will, break up his form and break from all forms, all appearances about him.
Now this sensitive Soul-man realizes first of all that he has entered a world of myriad colors, lights and sounds. He is sensible of a body entirely dissimilar from the human body. As regards appearance, it can only be described as being apparently a compound of light and colors unimaginable.
In this many-colored region the form vibrates with extreme intensity, for now mind expresses itself more directly in form: so that we can hear the thoughts of other souls. At first only one at a time may break upon that hearing. But after a while we become sensible of the fact that we may hear the thoughts of several souls, each apart and distinct from the other. We dwell in a world of appearances in some respects similar to the earth. Only all this vast region of appearances is gigantic in conception, terrifying and exquisite according to the manner in which it presents itself to the Soul-man. It is far more fluidic, less apparently solid than earth surroundings.
This many-colored world is nourished by light and life in a greater purity, vibrates at an unimaginable speed. The souls, who dwell within the first zone, realize that with increased consciousness they have gained a far greater sensitivity. A hostile Soul-man's mentality may, with a powerful projection of thought, blast and wither some part of your body of light and color. You have to learn how to send out protecting rays.
You will understand, therefore, that pain and pleasure, joy and despair are once more experienced. Again, however, they differ greatly from the earthly conception of them; they are of a finer quality, of an intellectualised character. Mightier is their inspiration, more profound the despair they arouse, inconceivable the bliss they stir within the deeps of your being. On this luminiferous plane the struggle increases in intensity, the efforts expended are beyond the measure of earthly experience. But the results of such labour, of such intellectualised and spiritualised toil and battle also transcend the most superb emotion in the life of man. In brief, all experience is refined, heightened, intensified, and the actual zest of living is increased immeasurably
Our conception of space differs entirely from yours. I can give you a faint glimpse of it if I use the wireless message as an illustration. I have but to concentrate my thought for what you might call a moment and I can build up a likeness of myself, send that likeness speeding across our vast world to a friend, to one, that is, in tune with me. Instantly I appear before that friend though I am remote from him; and my likeness holds speech--in thought, remember, not words--with this friend. Yet, all the time, I control it from an enormous distance; and as soon as the interview is concluded I withdraw the life of my thought from that image of myself, and it vanishes. Of course, I can only make this contact with those on my plane who are familiar with me and, therefore, are in my rhythm.
THE group-soul is one and yet many. The informing spirit makes these souls one. I think I have explained to you before, that as there are certain centers in the brain, so in psychic life there are a number of souls all bound together by one spirit, depending for their nourishment on that spirit.
When I was on earth I belonged to a group-soul, but its branches and the spirit--which might be compared to the roots--were in the invisible. Now, if you would understand psychic evolution, this group-soul must be studied and understood. For instance, it explains many of the difficulties that people will assure you can be removed only by the doctrine of reincarnation. You may think my statement frivolous, but the fact that we do appear on earth to be paying for the sins of another life is, in a certain sense, true. It was our life, and yet not our life. In other words, a soul belonging to the group of which I am a part lived that previous life which built up for me the framework of my earthly life, lived it before I had passed through the gates of birth.
Many Soul-men do not seek another earth life, but their spirit manifests itself many times on earth and it is the bond which holds together a group of souls, who, in the ascending scale of psychic evolution, act and react upon one another. So, when I talk of my spiritual forbears I do not speak of my physical ancestors, I speak of those soul-ancestors who are bound to me by one spirit. There may be contained within that spirit twenty souls, a hundred souls, a thousand souls. The number varies. It is different for each man. But what the Buddhists would call the karma I had brought with me from a previous life is, very frequently, not that of my life, but of the life of a soul that preceded me by many years on earth and left for me the pattern which made my life. I, too, wove a pattern for another of my group during my earthly career. We are all of us distinct, though we are influenced by others of our community on the various planes of being.
When your Buddhist speaks of the cycle of births, of man's continual return to earth, he utters but a half-truth. And often half a truth is more inaccurate than an entire misstatement. I shall not live again on earth, but a new soul, one who will join our group, will shortly enter into the pattern or karma I have woven for him on earth.
In the Fourth stage the soul becomes sensible of the group-soul, and through the awareness there arises a great change. He begins gropingly to realize the character of experience, the possibilities of mind; and in this Fourth stage if he is a Soul-man he is peculiarly liable to error. That is to say, once he becomes cognisant of the group-soul and of its many emotional and intellectual experiences he may, if a certain section of that group-soul be in a fixed mould, take upon himself its shape and remain within it for aeons of time.
Now, if the soul is to pass from the Fourth to the Fifth stage he must first shake off, cast from him any dogma, any special earthly outlook which has shaped his mentality, which confines it; so that his vision is limited, and his experiences are, therefore, also limited; consciousness of reality being thus withheld from him.
THERE comes a time when the soul who dwells on the Fourth plane of life prepares for the incident of death. This death does not resemble the death of man. At this particular point in evolution the soul has perfect and absolute control of form, of his appearance, of his eidolon or living ghost. This is the last veil between him and a conception of existence without form. He must free himself before he can go up another rung of the ladder, and freedom can only come through the deliberate process called "The Breaking of the Image." It is the farewell to appearance, to form as a necessity, to color, to feeling as a certainty, as a condition of life.
Again the soul enters into unconsciousness; and when he is born into the Fifth stage he has cast from him certain attributes that were his when he still inhabited the Image; for his soul was, in part, that Shape of Light he has now discarded. Between each plane there is this lapse into apparent oblivion, a stilling of all processes, a great calm. It is called Hades by the ancients. Here the soul seems to pause. Slowly, however, vision returns, the traveller perceives, imaged upon the glimmering sea of eternity, all his experiences on previous planes; all the past images that make up the story of his life are spread before him. He studies them in the light of his Unifying Principle or spirit. They rouse, according to his nature, his varying desires, intellectual and emotional. He knows then that he must choose either to go forward or backwards. The spirit actually forces the choice. It has to be made according to the fullness of his experiences in the previous life. He has entire free will, but inevitably he chooses his greatest need.
It is necessary to describe by some symbol each chapter in the Book of Life. The term "flame" expresses the Fifth stage. For now the soul becomes emotionally whole, aware not alone of himself, but of all those other souls who are of his group. He remains himself, yet is all those other selves as well. He no longer dwells in form--as it is conceived by man--but he dwells still in what might be described as an "outline." All the past emotions, passions, intellectual modes of expression belonging to his companion souls shape this outline, an outline of emotional thought; a great fire which stirs and moves this mighty being now.
While he abides in this Fifth plane experience is manifold, is a multiplication, loses, in a sense, its apparent oneness. He lives indeed a life that seems to burn like a flame. It is a time of severe discipline, of vastly increased intellectual feeling, of great limitations, of boundless freedoms, of the glimpsing of infinite horizons. "Swoons of contemplation, agonies of dreaming," states in which all lucid thought lies fallow, states in which the intense feverish activities of all the passionate existence of his comrade souls flame through his being. He is thus all the time becoming more and more merged with the Unifying Spirit.
The soul, on this Fifth level of consciousness, is continuously conscious. There are now no gaps, no periods of non-existence. He revels in the emotional and intellectual life of all those comrade souls who are on the various rungs of the ladders which reach up to the One Spirit and are lighted by it.
It is a glorious existence, despite certain sinister aspects. The Soul-man, however, may not leave it for the Sixth plane until the group-soul is complete, until those other souls, necessary to this design woven in the tapestry of eternity, have also attained to this level of consciousness. Some may still be far behind. But while in this state of being, the Soul-man becomes aware of the emotional life of all the more primitive souls who inhabit denser and denser matter and, yet, belong to his group. He becomes aware, in short, of all the parts of the great body which his spirit, or the Unifying Principle, feeds with its Light.
The actual construction of the group-soul must be clearly visualised. Its spirit feeds, with life and mental light, certain plants, trees, flowers, birds, insects, fish, beasts, men and women; representatives of living creatures in varying states of evolution. It inspires souls who are on various planes, various levels of consciousness in the After-death. It feeds, also, creatures on other planets. For the spirit must gather a harvest of experience in every form. Gradually these intelligences evolve and merge. The experience necessary to the spirit is completed when all the souls necessary to the design have reached this Fifth plane. Once they become sensible of their oneness and their individuality they may go forward to the Sixth plane. There is, then, a breaking of the threads, a casting away of the dross of emotional experience, a sifting and changing on the part of all these souls. They pass once more into Hades and review, in that state, all that now lies behind them.
LIGHT, though composed of many colors, is colorless. The spirit, though composed of many souls, is above and beyond pleasurable and painful moods of the mind. It belongs, therefore, to the Sixth plane, which is suitably described by the symbol of white light.
Now, on this level of consciousness pure reason reigns supreme. Emotion and passion, as known to men, are absent. White light represents the perfect equanimity of pure thought. Such equanimity becomes the possession of the souls who enter this last rich kingdom of experience. They bear with them the wisdom of form, the incalculable secret wisdom, gathered only through limitation, harvested from numberless years, garnered from lives passed in myriad forms. Knowledge of good and evil and of what lies beyond good and evil now belongs to them. They are lords of life, for they have conquered. They are capable of living now without form, of existing as white light, as the pure thought of their Creator. They have joined the Immortals.
The purpose of the Sixth plane of being might be described as "the assimilation of the many-in-one," the unifying of all those mind-units I have called souls, within the spirit. When this aim has been achieved, the spirit which contains this strange individualized life passes out Yonder and enters into the Mystery, thereby fulfilling the final purpose, the evolution of the Supreme Mind.
The Seventh state might be described as the "passage from form into formlessness." But pray do not misunderstand the term "formlessness." I merely wish to indicate by it an existence that has no need to express itself in a shape, however tenuous, however fine. The soul who enters that Seventh state passes into the Beyond and becomes one with God.
Actually the passage from the Sixth to the Seventh state means the flight from the material universe, from that space which is a part of it. You dwell not only outside of time but outside of the universe on this last plane of being. Yet you can be and are, in one sense, within the universe. You as part of the Whole--and by the Whole I indicate God--may be likened to the sun; your rays pervade the material universe, yet your spirit remains detached from it, reigning in the great calm of eternity. To be of the universe and to be apart from it is, possibly, the final achievement, the goal of all endeavor.
In a few brief words I have spanned existence within aeons of time, and I have endeavored to give you a glimpse of that mystery, timelessness. When you dwell out Yonder, you, as a part of the Divine Principle in its essence, are wholly aware of the imagination of God. So you are aware of every second in time, you are aware of the whole history of the earth from Alpha to Omega. Equally all planetary existence is yours. Everything created is contained within that imagination, and you, now by reason of your immortality, know it and hold, as the earth holds a seed, the whole of life, the past, the future, all that is, all that shall be for ever and for ever.
Chapter XII - THE INCIDENT OF DEATHActually, only on the Seventh plane when we are one with the Supreme Idea do we realize the reality of the Universe. It is unreal so long as it imprisons soul and spirit. It is real once these are merged and freed from it, dwelling in the infinite liberty of Pure Intelligence.
Once that state is attained we perceive that old masterpiece, the Universe, as a Whole. We realize it in every microscopic detail, and in its greatest proportions. We perceive the Whole of it as an intellectual concept within the Supreme Idea. We perceive the part of it that is playing out its drama. And thus we exist as the seer and the lover, experiencing all that life as an act of thought. So we reach the zenith of experience. We know the reality of the material Universe, we are aware of the other reality, the Idea, which contains its duplicate from the beginning to the end as a thought.
We receive from all those myriad spirits who control parts of the material universe the complete impression of it in its least, in its greatest aspects. Therefore we live as never before, we are caught in no Nirvanic swoon. And we join in that contemplation of the destruction of the present Universe, of the creation, life and extinction of other universes, and so on endlessly. We live in the intellectual concept of them all and we are aware of that part which now plays out its drama on the stage of eternity.
There are physical atoms and there are psychic units. The psychic unit develops as it dwells within and without the physical atoms, in the various stages of existence. The psychic unit dwells within the fantasy of ever finer and finer substance, gaining all the while. The psychic unit escapes from that substance, returns to its home in the Idea. But this escape does not mean annihilation. It is one now and yet many, just as the physical atoms of the human body are one and yet many. Understand, therefore, that the Universe is only unreal so long as you dwell within its confining web, within form. It is real when you are free from it and are able from Out Yonder to survey it as a whole and to know it as an act of pure thought.
Chapter XIII - THE EVOLUTION OF THE PSYCHEMany are these forms. For our present purpose it is advisable that I should name only four of them. (1) The double or unifying body--in my opinion falsely named the astral body. (2) The etheric body. (3) The subtle body. (4) The celestial body or shape of light. The two latter are occupied by the soul on the higher planes and can be altered greatly in appearance by a mental act, or by an act of will.
Now, discarnate intelligences have probably informed you that the secret of death is to be found in the rate of speed at which the outer shell vibrates. For instance, a human being is primarily aware of the visible world about him because his body is travelling at its particular rate of speed. Alter the timing of your physical form, and the earth, men, women and all material objects, will vanish for you as you vanish for them. Death, therefore, means merely a change of speed. For the purpose of this change a temporary dislocation is necessary, for the soul must pass from one body travelling at a certain vibration to another travelling at a different rate or time.
During the whole of a man's earthly life he is accompanied by the double or unifying body. It is the link between the deeper mind and the brain, and has many important functions. When you fall asleep your consciousness no longer controls the physical shape. There is not only an apparent cutting off, but an entry into apparent oblivion. The usual disordered dreams are frequently but the play of nerves roused and irritated by the daily activities. Actually, during sleep, the soul exists within the double while the body is recharged with nervous energy, with life-units. So sleep has been wisely recognized as being even more important than food or drink.
It is necessary only for you to realize that the double, if it could be made visible, is, in appearance, an exact counterpart of the physical shape. The two are bound together by many little threads, by two silver cords. One of these makes contact with the solar plexus, the other with the brain. They all may lengthen or extend during sleep or during half-sleep, for they have considerable elasticity. When a man slowly dies these threads and the two cords are gradually broken. Death occurs when these two principal communicating lines with brain and solar plexus are severed.
Slowly the soul then rises into the double and for a brief time hovers above the physical counterpart. Some day men will be able to photograph this moment, and the being that passes thus may be registered on the plate as a little white cloud, a pale essence. Only so can this kernel of personality appear to even the finest material instrument. But, to discarnate beings, very different will seem the flight of the soul, for the perceptions of the etheric body are far more finely attuned. And usually those relatives or friends who attend upon death journey to it from the etheric world.
Actually, this unfortunate man has not forgotten his past nor is he intellectually a blank. A certain part of the mechanism of the brain has ceased to function, so he is unable to manifest any intelligence, dependent on memory, to the visible world of men. But he is still intellectually alive, and retains complete power over his memory apart from his actual physical body. For the double or unifying shape is the counterpart of that physical body, and registers, more or less as the brain registers, facts and experiences in the life of its owner.
Bear in mind that the double accompanies the man from birth till death, houses and shelters his soul, serves him even more faithfully than the actual physical shape of which he is daily aware.
As the double casts away an outer husk, only its essential part, the etheric body, which has accompanied the traveller and functioned for him all through his earth life, goes on and serves the soul on the plane of illusion, maintaining continuity of individuality through continuity of memory.
As birds live in air so do these souls exist in the etheric zone which is about the earth. They are inhabitants of the world of illusion. Now, on that plane, save in the last stages, there is an almost entire absence of conflict and effort, accordingly there is an absence of any true creation.
The After-image might be likened to an old traveller's cloak. Though he discards it, it remains by the roadside and may be picked up and worn again. Ghosts have been known to walk for many years in certain old mansions at certain seasons, or inconsequently, without apparent rhyme or reason. Say to yourself if you meet one of these restless shades: "Here walks the ancient cloak, the old disguise, perhaps, of some Roundhead or Cavalier, of some cowled monk or holy nun, of some modern gentleman who has indulged in butchery or has himself been murdered--with new weapons but with the same old passions of rage and hate behind him
It is that same repetitive passion that provides the energy which, for a brief space, re-animates the Afterimage. But it may not walk in its own place if there be not association of memory, an energising thought or idea behind it. Somewhere within the far realms of space exists the brawler who died so violently, or the nun or monk who enriched that cloak with all their brooding religious passion. They are resting, withdrawing temporarily from their active life in another sphere, and, for a moment, by reason of the binding threads of past fate, envisage again the old scene where they lived or from which they took their leave of life. They cast on it but the careless thought which is now unclouded by remorse, regret or any emotion. But the mere light flick of their thought stirs up the old cloak, causing it to masquerade again within the building or about the grounds which were familiar to it in life.
All rules have their exceptions and so all hauntings may not come under any one rule. But it is accurate to accept the average ghost as a persistence of a manifestation of energy through the medium of the After-image, focused by the pull of an old thread of passionate memory.
No man or woman has ever really succeeded in understanding or grasping the whole lofty vision of love as it was seen by the Christ. So now, as I survey the present earth and perceive the chronicle of the years, I am sensible of the need of a word which has not been debased by men, which can still suggest and contain the primary need of the soul, which will define that urge so essential to the psyche when it would climb from one rung to another on the ladder of consciousness. The permanent reality of progress is to be found in increase of wisdom. For wisdom may be defined as "right judgment concerning truth".
Consider, then, the significance of "wisdom." For, clearly, within that lofty word resides the highest love between man and woman, intellectual love, compassion, faith and last, but not least, the power of vision. All these are possessed by the man or woman who rightly judges truth. And, on whatever plane your soul or the soul of the beloved is evolving, be assured that wisdom is the primary urge which causes this soul to choose to go up rather than down, to select the finer life, the greater reality, rather than existence in denser form, in more material worlds.
So must it be on each plane of being in the Unseen. Wisdom is the light that, in every instance, gives shape and life to love, is its secret hidden root, is the inspiration, the power that causes the forward and upward progression expressed in the term--the evolution of the psyche.
I want you to understand that there are not, save in very rare cases, two wills making decisions at the same time consciously. There is only one, because there is only one channel; but the subliminal self, which is outside the larger mind--if you prefer that term--is exceedingly active, and, when messages in daytime are sent to it through the channel, that is to say, via the nerve-soul, then this mind works upon the message and sends it during sleep, in a new guise, back to the nerve-soul, which it can easily do, because the soul is apart from the body, quite still, and yet able to reflect the desired image which it craved for in waking hours. This is, on waking, attached by it to the brain cells, and you find some problem solved for you as by a magician when you are roused again out of sleep.
Actually the nerve-soul is detached from the body when you are in the state you call sleep. That means there is no direct interpreter, or medium, between the spirit and the brain cells. This is important. The body, as I have previously stated, is largely dominated by this nerve-soul. It becomes almost quiescent when the latter is withdrawn into a metetheric atmosphere. The nerve-soul is bathed in this atmosphere, and receives a very necessary stimulus, or rather nourishment, from what I believe you now call ether. But ether is a broad term, and it is in reality a subdivision of ether that feeds the nerve-soul during sleep.
Now, while the nerve-soul is absent, the spirit is still close to the body. It cannot send the image--as I have termed it--directly to the brain. It makes no effort to do so usually, but there are occasions when the higher nerve centers are in a particularly susceptible state. Then the spirit may endeavor to cast upon it some image, or rather to direct one, through invoking a residuum of power that has been left behind by the nerve-soul. Then your sleeper will dream, perhaps, of some future event, or will image some violent death that is taking place elsewhere. The spirit draws within it the reflection of certain emotional affinities of the being who is slumbering and it thus succeeds on rare occasions in casting an image of the future, or of some present happening, upon the quiescent brain.
I have spoken of sleep in a rather crude manner, and I have endeavored to show you that it is owing to the need of nourishment that the nerve-soul, or interpreter, has to withdraw and that this leads to an isolating process. The spirit can still animate the body; but only in very rare cases can it influence the directive centers in the brain, for its medium is absent. Undoubtedly during the hours of sleep a certain stratum of the subliminal self pervades the brain, or would seem to do so. What actually occurs is this. Certain old associations, old emotions, have been roused by events during the day. The nerve-soul has not allowed them to enter the active consciousness, it was busy with other matters. They have remained there, like a stream that is dammed up. The dam is removed, through the absence of the nerve-soul, and these memories, particularly if the nerves be in a state of tension, flood the field of the brain, and enter again the old frames, looking down once more on that interior where they had been, for a brief space, its decorations and the images of conscious thought.
The nerve-soul or the nerve-memory is, naturally, very much influenced by the consciousness. I have already told you that it responds very rapidly to stimuli. Very well, the consciousness braces itself for an effort. It desires to catch the thought sent by the agent when you arrange a telepathic experiment. That mere desire has, with many people, the effect of stiffening the nerve-soul into a kind of stillness. In that condition it is motionless. It cannot receive. The brain has sent an instinctive warning to it not to receive. In this case instinct conquers the conscious desire. It is the instinct that protects the individual against the inroads of alien thought. In its essence it is a right one. If you kept perpetually registering the thoughts of others a very unwholesome condition of brain might develop. Nature, therefore, gives the human being this protection from the many arrows of thought that might pierce the armor of consciousness and injure the mechanism. If a human being has this instinct sufficiently controlled he is likely to prove receptive. The nerve-memory or nerve-soul is, of course, very directly connected with the inner mind which plays its part in the reception of a telepathic message.
Now, in our life--the life of the so-called dead--there are three states also, though it cannot be said that they closely resemble the three orders of consciousness that prevail for man. Even when asleep you are, in a sense, conscious, sometimes more so than when you are in this subjective state, for pain or noise may rouse you, whereas the deeply entranced man may not feel pain, may not be even roused by thunder. When we discarnate beings desire to communicate through some sensitive we enter a dream or subjective state. There are two degrees of it that are important in relation to ourselves. If we are but slightly entranced we are detached from the memory of concrete facts in our past life. Further, if we communicate directly through the medium, though we often retain our personality, our manner of speech, we are frequently unable to communicate through the medium's hand or voice many exact facts about our past career on earth, sometimes not even our own names. We can enter into the deeper mind of the medium and read many of the memories belonging to him, which are outside the cells, or neurons, being joined to them by invisible threads.
Reading this creates confusion for me and it seems like pretty words without much substance.Here are some pretty interesting excerpts from The Road to Immortality by Geraldine Cummins.
Chapter II - THE CHART OF EXISTENCE
Chapter III - THE PLANE OF ILLUSION [5th density]
Chapter IV - CONSCIOUSNESS
Chapter V - THE PLANE OF COLOR [a stage of the 4th density?]
Chapter VI - THE GROUP-SOUL
Chapter VII - THE PLANE OF FLAME [a final stage of the 4th density?]
Chapter VIII - THE PLANE OF WHITE LIGHT [6th density]
Chapter IX - OUT YONDER, TIMELESSNESS [7th density]
Chapter X - THE UNIVERSE
Chapter XII - THE INCIDENT OF DEATH
Chapter XIII - THE EVOLUTION OF THE PSYCHE
Q: (L) Alright, let's move on to the next item on my list. The next one is... I put this on the list, but I dunno if it should be there. I thought it was something that would be useful: to connect with ancestors and honored saintly type people in 5D for protection. I thought that that would be kind of a useful thing. I think people should find out if they have any ancestors or deceased relatives or somebody who were good and decent people who one can talk to mentally or communicate with by writing letters to them, or dream communication, and ask them for protection.
A: Yes
Q: (Ark) And if you can't find your ancestors, you have to find someone else's ancestors!
(L) Well, that's true. You can hook up with somebody who has good ancestors, and their ancestors become your ancestors by you having shared realities. You're opening up and sharing your worries and troubles. The good ancestors of any group or any one person in a group kind of become the good ancestors of other members of the group.
(Pierre) And here you mentioned not ALL your ancestors - just the good ones. The same is true for the saintly figures. I think people should be aware that there are many saints who were not saints and other people who were vilified who were actually good.
(L) There are saints who were made saints, but they weren't actually very good people. And then there are other saints who deserved that title. That's a good topic for discussion... not a C’s discussion, but rather a discussion amongst people. Another thing I thought it would be useful for people to do would be to guide the newly deceased. If there is somebody in your circle of acquaintances or group or whatever who is in the process of passing over or recently did pass over, you could in some way help guide them in the reality to which they may not be accustomed (obviously), but mainly because of their thought patterns during life. So many people in this materialist-driven world do not think that there is an afterlife or another world. When they get there, they don't know what to do! They don't even realize who or what they are or which way to go. Is that a good one?
A: Yes but for certain people obviously.
I'm noticing on YouTube there may to be an active effort by mainstream Christians to gather NDE stories to publish as evidence of heaven, Jesus, Holy Spirit, etc. Seems like they want to "tip the scales" towards their Biblical beliefs among people seeking out NDE stories.As Laura has often said, quoting someone I think: "A dead presbyterian is still a dead presbyterian"
- Kelly Curry, Near-Death Experiencer in 2003"The creator gave us free will... on this planet we can do anything we want to do. The only thing it affects is us. It affects our growth. You think you're doing something to somebody else but you're not, you're doing it to yourself. You're putting yourself into a position to have to deal with whatever it is you put out there. Some people don't see that happening in life. They don't see that all the crap they're going through might have to do with the way they treat others or what they say to others. They don't see the connection in that. They think it's happening to them. They don't think they're the progenitor... but we are."
- Alysa Rushton, Near-Death Experiencer"We are individuated rays of this one sun, but we appear separate from each other... Because of that, what one person does in terms of changing their life or changing the program they're running... that then informs the total consciousness... The more we work on ourselves down here, the more we inform this consciousness... because ultimately we are this one being... One of things that they showed me on the other side is that so many people, for so many generations, have held such intense physical trauma and hardship, and that one of the things we're doing at this time... is unprogramming that trauma... unpacking it... clearing it from our system."
How true! Everyone has such a different conception of the words we use. Speak the word red and one person perceives an apple, another a fire truck, etc. I can’t recall where I read it but I remember Gurdjieff stating that language is the worst form of communication.Another that I heard, but can't find now, struck me with its focus on how bad communication is here on Earth, suggesting that this was something critical to work on. The experiencer said it was a garbled mess of misunderstanding compared to the telepathic communication that goes on at the next level.
It is especially difficult when people are not physically present with each other. So much is missing, particularly the communicated energy being perhaps fragmented/incomplete/unknown, though even that may be mis-read, I believe.Gurdjieff stating that language is the worst form of communication.