mnmulchi said:
I agree, and on top of this they could have been referring to "recent" incarnations. From my understanding, incarnations do not have to proceed in a linear sequential fashion. Souls can choose to incarnate at any 3D "Earth time" needed for their lessons. If they were referring to the actual Pope John V, maybe he did "recently" complete that life in a more objective view.
Well, I hadn't thought of that! But I don't think it computes, and as an explanation is on the tortuous side.
mnmulchi said:
If they were referring to the actual Pope John V, maybe he did "recently" complete that life in a more objective view.
That would be 'recently' from their point of view, not ours. As Laura asked the question from the 3-D point of view, I would expect them to be aware that a reply made with reference only to their own viewpoint, without accompanying explanation, would be confusing to anyone in 3-D. If the answers involve esoteric mechanics beyond the scope of our 3-D mental apparati, they say so. For me, this exchange has the apparency of a straight answer to a straight question. I would expect the Cs to add something like, 'that last one was recent by our reckoning, not yours.' But there again, perhaps not.
mnmulchi said:
From my understanding, incarnations do not have to proceed in a linear sequential fashion. Souls can choose to incarnate at any 3D "Earth time" needed for their lessons.
Where do you derive your understanding?
I have heard reports of double, or even multiple parallel incarnations, running concurrently in 3-D to enable speeded-up learning. The soul can project holographically, the parts splitting up while retaining their essential 'wholeness'. But I've not heard of parallel incarnations in separate historical eras. Or backwards and forwards incarnations, hopping about in our time. Which is not to say these things don't happen, all the time (so to speak). On this subject the truth is probably outré beyond our wildest imaginings.
My understanding derives in part from Ian Lawton's privately printed
The Book of the Soul. He reviews and tabulates the findings of the major inter- and afterlife researchers, like Stevenson, Newton, Wambach, Whitton, Modi, Cannon, Fiore, Hans Ten Dam, et al. (Not having looked at the book for years (it came out in2004) from my present position of understanding I would now guess that he was only getting pieces of the picture: no cyclic model of time, no STS/STO orientation, no Lizards, no OPs, no return to primal matter; and, as far as I remember, no Gurdjieffian forming of an essence which will survive the shock of death.)
Lawton combs by proxy the tens of thousands of cases of regression (and some of pregression) now on record, and attempts to discern the ground rules of soul incarnation as reported by the thousands who have now undergone past life regression. He delves through various anomalous possibilities that are reported, like parallel incarnations, possession, 'walk-ins', spirit attachment, etc etc. But, as I remember, the consensus is that souls choose their lives from what is on offer in a forward moving sweep, that they don't generally dot about backwards and forwards in time. That the flow of learning is accumulated in one direction, through progressive incarnations that are broadly understandable as moving from a 'past' to a 'future'.
Now I put it down, this model sounds limited. If you were standing in the 5-D, completely free of linear time, planning your next incarnation, you would have a much wider palette to choose from by looking in all directions at once. But perhaps there is some function that militates against this idea, the tangling of karmic lines or some such. Souls normally incarnate in groups, with pre-planning involved, sharing an ongoing commitment to shaping the developing course of events in 3-D. It might not be so practical for individuals to head off in different directions in time. But perhaps all bets are off for 'advanced' souls (like Sadat and Arafat) who have qualified as guides and choose tough incarnations. Perhaps our timelines are sculpted through retrocausality by elders in 5-D. (As the Lizzies do.)
Incidentally, I defer to the Cs over any earthly researcher. I don't know if there is a 'what happens after death?' thread on the forum where the Cs pronouncements on the subject are all pulled together?