Question on the Afterlife

I was recently asked this question: What are your thoughts on using the afterlife as a fix for problems occurring in the present life?

I decide to speak to this because it raises some interesting points from a unique perspective. Most spiritual questions I get come from clearly defined camps, each with their own tropes. This question doesn’t fit any of those tropes, and it requires some effort to come up with a thoughtful response, so I’m not surprised that only one trollish type threw out a dismissive answer. 

This question seemed very confusing to me at first, then I realized that it’s coming from a materialist point of view, that the whole concept of an afterlife was invented to make people more content with their lot in life, especially if it’s not a good one. There’s a ton of information on all of this on the web, so if you’re truly curious, you need to spend some serious time with Google. I’m just going to skim the surface, starting with the easy part first: Religion and politics.

Religion and politics have been joined at the hip, basically, forever, with religion being used and shaped for political purposes. You don’t have to squint too hard to see Christianity as instrument of white, European culture, actively used to justify eradication indigenous cultures, and teaching the people who survived to “turn the other cheek,” be humble, pious, be thankful for your lot, and get your reward in heaven. This led to the creation, in the nineteenth century, of a particularly heinous form of Christian fundamentalism in the U.S. deep south that put whites on top and black people in chains, in a hierarchy ordained by God, and which survives to this day:

“Whereas an earlier generation of evangelical preachers had opposed slavery in the South during the early nineteenth century, Protestant clergymen began to defend the institution, invoking a Christian hierarchy in which slaves were bound to obey their masters. For many slaveholders, this outlook not only made evangelical Christianity more palatable, but also provided a strong argument for converting slaves and establishing biracial churches.” 

-The Slave Experience: Religion 

That said, there’s a deeper question: Was the very concept of an afterlife inventedat all, or has it always existed? In one sense, every concept was “invented” at some point: Food, water, birth, death, alone, together, language. Every human goes from not having any of these concepts to knowing them, as they grow, and somebody must have been the very first, among the whole species, to do so. But, of course, the afterlife is an abstract concept that doesn’t exist in the real world…or does it? Philosophers and theologians have been arguing this point for thousands of years, but now, through science, we’re beginning to see that the mind is not the brain, that the brain does not create the mind, and that information and/or personality somehow can exist outside of the physical/temporal framework we call physical reality.

What science? The five decades of research by the Division of Perceptual Studies at the University of Virginia School of Medicine:

“Through their careful study, the DOPS researchers objectively document and analyze the empirical data collected regarding human experiences suggestive of post-mortem survival of consciousness. Rigorous evaluation of considerable empirical evidence collected over fifty years of research, suggests that consciousness may indeed survive bodily death and that mind and brain appear to be distinct and separable.”

There’s the studies supported and collected by IANDS (International Association for Near Death Studies), which also  suggests there is much more going on in NDEs (Near Death Experiences) than just illusion, delusion, hallucination or fraud. I could go on, for there is much more scientifically validated information out there, but, if you are interested, there is Google, if you’re not, then nothing I say will matter.

Nothing known to date proves the existence of an afterlife, but it does make clear that there is a lot more going on in the world than a materialist viewpoint can explain. Neither does the evidence prove 

the existence of any god or gods or any particular religion. But it does suggest a basis for some of the foundational commonalities of all religions. In the end, it probably won’t make much difference in your life, so you pays your money, takes your choice, and believe what you want. 

One closing note: There are people on Wall street using paranormal techniques to make money. They have exactly zero interest in telling or convincing anyone that what they do, works. Why? Because less interest means less competition and less competition means more profit.

Take care.

A Question on Reincarnation

A question I was asked:

In regards to reincarnation, if something becomes something else (i.e. a different personality as a different person), then in what way is it the same? If it’s still in some manner what it used to be, how is this reincarnation (coming back as another)?

I don’t usually answer questions about reincarnation, but I am moved to address this one. Reading through the existing answers, I see ones that are enlightened, judgmental, esoteric and angry, in about equal measure. I know that those reading them will pick the ones that fit their worldview and dismiss the rest. In my years with this subject, I thought I had seen it all, but one answer contains a clever bit of arrogant judgmentalism that I haven’t seen before! Human beings are nothing if not endlessly creative!

I lean toward the actor analogy: That the “you” that you are now is a part you are playing, and that there is a greater and more fundamental “you” that is the actor playing the part of “you” in this lifetime.

Most of the questions and misconceptions in the idea of reincarnation come from human centrism, the idea the humans are the measure of all things. That each person’s personal experience of being at the center of the universe extends to all things, material and spiritual. That whatever your experience, whatever you believe, that is the one and only way to experience and believe. Flat Earthers are a perfect example of this. While it is easy to find things in the physical world that can be explained by the idea “the world is a sphere,” they choose to come up with complex and often nonsensical explanations of why the world looks round, but isn’t. The key point here is we choose to believe something, then tailor our perceptions to match that belief. This goes for culture, religion, hobbies, pretty much any endeavor that humans engage in.

This question assumes that the personality that you have now, with all its personality, memories and quirks, is the only real, authentic, “you,” and if you remove any of those elements, you would not be “you” anymore. Also, that who you are now is the most important you, and must be preserved for “you” to continue on. But, what if there was a “you” independent of all that? What if you were more than just a collection of memories and feelings? What was the “you” that existed before you were born, in the womb? Before you had memories? Ideas? Thoughts? A personality? Are you your thoughts, your memories, your personality? Or are they just something you have?

There are more versions of reincarnation than you can shake a stick at. The one that I find most consistent with the research at University of Virginia, the work of Dr. Brian Weiss and the recall of people who have Near Death Experiences, to site a few sources, is that there is a greater “you” that exists outside of time and space, as we commonly know them, that extends itself into our reality to become a soul of a child and experience life as a human in our 3-D reality. This soul forms the basis of your personality and your ethics, and sometimes exposes memories of other lifetimes and other realities. These souls come here of their own free will, with agendas that have little to do human values and religions, especially those that teach exclusion, hate and fear.

You will, of course, take from this what you will. Jesus said to let those with eyes, see, and ears, hear; you will take from this what you are ready for. Good luck and take care.

Karma Is Dead, Long Live Karma!

Back around 2012, there was a big hullabaloo about the End of Karma. That all seems forgotten now, but it was a big deal at the time. What does that mean to say there’s no Karma? Well, first I’ll define Karma, for there’s lots of different views of it out there. In essence, Karma is the reincarnationist’s version of sin and blessings, a metaphysical system of credits and debits that you accumulate throughout your life, which then are cashed in, for happiness, or suffering, in your next life. The main difference between sin and karma is that with sin, you get one chance to get it right, then you are judged and sentenced for eternity, but karma gives you multiple chances.

Another difference is that, with sin, God or some god, is your judge, where with karma, either you judge yourself or it’s like a cosmic computer program where all your actions are fed in, and out spits a life, outfitted with the proper amount of suffering and reward for to your particular case. This is really just an outline, there are more variations than you can shake a stick at, but you get the idea: In both cases, of sin and karma, we are told to behave ourselves because of a cosmic system of rewards and punishments.

The main problems with both of these systems is that what is sin, what is “good” or “bad,” is highly dependent on where your are born, who raised you, what religion you belong to, and current events. You could easily say that sin has be so overused in our cutler that it’s become meaningless. Depending on who you talk to, drinking the wrong drink, wearing the wrong clothes, being born with the wrong genes, or even thinking the wrong thought, are grievous sins requiring eternal punishment. This makes it a bit difficult to know exactly what values are “good” across all cultures. Heck, the notion of what is a sin, varies hugely among Christians in the United States alone, how’s anybody supposed to know what to do? Especially when we’re not talking about one culture, in one time, but across all eternity.

Could we do without this whole system? The argument against is “What prevents atheists from stealing and murdering to their heart’s content?” When I hear this, I can’t help but wonder about how good and moral someone is, if the only thing that prevents them from committing all kinds of amoral acts is a threat of eternal punishment? And, since you don’t have to look don’t have to look any further than the daily newspaper to find any number of sinful acts, including mass murder, committed by professed Christians, it seems that the system doesn’t seem to work all that well. And, maybe the reason it doesn’t is that the entire thing was made up by people to control people. I suppose you could say they had good intensions, but things have gotten way out of hand, driven by those, on one side, who want loopholes to allow them to do what they want, and those on the other who want a rule for everything.

In the end, it all boils down to one rule “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” If we all followed that, in our behavior and in our justice system, we’d definitely have a different world. And, the thing is, in the light of eternity, what else really matters? Many religious are convinced that following arbitrary rules makes the closer to God. That’s all well and good, until the rules are hateful, hurtful and result in emotional, financial and physical harm to others. You know that vigorous proponents of racial and economic segregation would be incensed at the idea that they couldn’t live where they want, work where they want, have their children go to the schools they want. Perhaps the best justice system would be to treat people as they treat others, and that, in my view, is how karma is supposed to work. If you discriminate, you will be discriminated against, if you steal, what you have will be stolen, if you rape, you will be raped (regardless of sex), if you abuse, you will be abused.

But I don’t think that is how the cosmic system works, it’s not a balance-the-scales, the-good-get-rewarded-and-the-bad-punished kind of thing. Kama is “dead” because karma never existed, and neither does sin. Both are human inventions. I find that reincarnation, as a way to gain experience in all aspects of being human, fits the world much better than other philosophies. It answers the question “Why does a good God allow so much suffering in the world?” with the answer that God has nothing to do with it, we create the world we want, with the result that we have to then live in it. Near death experiences and past life regressions both show that we are not judged, ever. We decide what kind of life we intend to have, not God or anyone or anything else. We even decide if we are going to incarnate at all.

Some souls choose to be the Hitlers, Stalins, religious zealots, abusers and mass murders of the world for their own reasons. Perhaps to create opportunities for suffering, for acts of heroism and self sacrifice. Perhaps to gain an understanding of what it’s like to be that kind of person. Who knows? But it only takes a short look at the world to see that we all live by our own moral codes, sin and karma not withstanding, so it’s best to clean up your own “karmic” house before you set out to judge and set rules for others to live by.

It just seems to me that the way to a peaceful life is to treat others as you want to be treated and to have compassion for those who don’t, and are victims of those who don’t. This makes things simple and avoids a lot of convoluted mental and moral juggling to aline your ideals with what is actually out in the world, and in your head. Take a moment to recognize how you really wish to be treated and put that out in the world every day. It will come back to you in ways small and large.

The Next Demotion

Poor mankind! Poor humans! We keep getting knocked down off our perch, our place in the grand scheme of things just keeps getting smaller and smaller! Once upon a time, in the good old days, we were the center of the universe and everything revolved around us. We, (especially white males) were the epitome of creation, those were the days!

But then Galileo had the bad taste to look up in the sky and see that something revolving around another heavenly body, how impolite was that? For that gross breach of etiquette he was place under house arrest for the rest of his life. Not so long, in his case. How foolish was he for actually seeing something that contradicted what everybody knew what true?

Not long after that, Kepler came along and showed that we weren’t the center of our solar system. In his case, he made sure he was dead before his ideas were published. Smart man! 

It took a long time for that idea to really be accepted, but, since then, in the last two centuries, the our demotions, in the physical world have come faster and faster. We’re not the center of our solar system. Now our sun is one among countless other stars, in no way better or special, at the outskirts of our galaxy, again, not unusual or special in any way, among countless other galaxies, in a universe so vast, with numbers so large, that the mind simply can’t comprehend how insignificant we humans actually are.

If that wasn’t enough. For a long time, it was figured that we had one of the rare, of not the only habitual planet. Turns out that planets are a common as dirt, with at least as many planets as stars, and the number of habitual planets is, again, so large as to be boggle the mind.

Next we find that life isn’t limited to existing in the relatively narrow band of environments we were familiar with. We have found simple life forms living in space, in the deep oceans, and far underground, miles underground, far from any sunlight, in environments so hostile and toxic, in temperatures and pressures so extreme, that anything we’re familiar with would be destroyed in a matter of moments. This tells us that life could exist in many different places in our solar system alone, not to mention the rest of the universe. Things are not looking good for our civilization! Though many still want to cling to the belief that we are the most intelligent and advanced thing out there, that is looking less and less likely every day. It’s probably only a matter of time until we find proof that we are not alone. What a blow to our ego!

If that wasn’t enough, a more subtle revolution is also going on. It’s funny, in a way, because it’s been going on for centuries, but most people haven’t noticed. You would think that the major world religions would be fighting this new view, but they generally have nothing to say about it. I believe the reason are that they, for the most part, don’t recognize it as a threat. Most of the faithful accept their human-centered theology so thoroughly that they can’t conceive and any other point of view. Religious leaders are so confident in their singular point of view that they only worry about threats from other religions, like them.

In my view, the limitations of Christian theology become more and more obvious, the more you look into it, and the attempts to resolve these problems end up going down one of two paths: In one, they double- and triple-down on the basic premise of one universe and one afterlife, where you go to heaven to hell, depending on a fairly arbitrary set of rules, and where the justifications and explanations of this structure and these rules are so Byzantine in their complexity that they freely admit that no one understands them. “It’s Gods’ will,” they say with a shrug. In a way, this resembles the bizarrely complicated schemes that medieval astronomers came up with to explain the moments of the heavenly bodies, necessitated by the assumption that everything had to revolve around the earth.

One the second path, theologians start to deviate from the simplistic assumption that our human experience is the only experience there is. One can’t step too far down this path and still be acceptable to the Church, or any religion. It seems that, at it’s heart, every religion, no matter what it says, can’t quite let go of the idea that they are the “best” or “only” way to….what, be “saved,” “enlightened?” That, I suppose, is part of human nature, to assume that whatever makes sense to you is the best and only sensible option. Despite this assumption of followers of every religion that theirs is the “best so far,” a sea-change is in the works.

The first first sign on this change is noticing that every religion and faith is just one among many. Not first or best, just but one among many possible faiths. And that there is no objective measure, or reason of any kind, to promote one over any other, other than “This is what I believe.” This is just as hard for the faithful to swallow as the idea that the earth revolved around the sun was for medieval europeans. As I said, the battle isn’t really on yet, for most people don’t see it coming. Most people think that there is a “war” between the sacred and the secular, but that’s an illusion. What’s really going on is a blending of materialism and spirituality, resulting in a new worldview that is putting the squeeze in the millennia-old dogmatism of western religions.

What we are starting to see, derived from research into reincarnation and NDEs, (Near Death Experiences) our human experience is just one tiny part of a much large tapestry. Far from there being one “reality” and one “afterlife,” there are an uncounted number possible realities we could be born into, and what we call “the afterlife” is much larger, richer and more varied than we are capable of imagining. Just like in the physical universe, where we have been demoted to just a single species, on a insignificant planet, drifting on the outskirts of an unremarkable galaxy, floating among uncounted billions of other galaxies, our human experience is just one among countless experiences a soul can, and does, have, and is no more important to the grand scheme of things than the life of a bacterium to the cosmos.

That’s not to say we are unimportant, we are, just not in the ego-driven, human-centered way we want to believe. We are part of something so much greater than we can imagine, and we each contribute to this whole in our own special way. Like a small child who doesn’t understand the contribution she will one day make as President, we do not comprehend our ultimate power and destiny, once we mature. In the meantime, we would be best served by learning the lessons beyond the material, the promote the best of us, elevate the worse of us, and contribute to all those around us.

Between Life and Death

“Is there a state between life and death where spirits hang out?”

I was asked this question recently. My first reaction was that it almost seems a bit silly, then I realized that it’s a reasonable question, given that our culture doesn’t officially recognize any sort of life after death, outside of religion. I suppose there’s a whole book to be written about the way people invoke God, Jesus and a Higher Power in one breath and distain for the supernatural in the next, but that’s not for today. I should just accept that most people are either completely ignorant when it comes to spiritual matter, or have aa very simplistic, childlike conception that hasn’t been thought about since they were six.

Short answer about life after death: There appears to be another place where souls go after death. Some call it heaven, others like to objectify it as another “plane of existence” or “energy level.” Whatever it is, the transition is often described as a journey through a tunnel to a white light. However, not all spirits make that transition, and they end up hanging around with us, unseen and unheard, for the most part.

Souls can stay for many reasons. Common ones are, fear of punishment/judgment from a religious upbringing, addiction or drugs, power or sex, unfinished business, and, perhaps the saddest cases, souls simply don’t know they’re dead. This can be because they died suddenly, or while unconscious, and, because they believed that death was nothingness, conclude that they must be still alive.

I know that seems odd, I mean, how could you not know you’re dead? Aren’t there lots of clues that *something* is different? The problem is that souls need a physical body to function properly in this reality. Without it, the tend to lose track of time and space, and even memory gets tricky. Without a body that keeps track of time through its needs and process, awareness tends to live in a perpetual “Now.” With, perhaps, only a dim awareness that they’ve repeated the same actions and asked the same questions, over and over again. Physical bodies seem to also play a role in forming the new memories that allow a conscious to draw conclusions, make deductions and “move on.” Souls appear to be more or less stuck in the attitudes and state of mind they had when they died. Souls usually can only be reasoned with on a basic, emotional, immediate fashion. Childlike, in a way, you can reason with what’s right in front of them, part of their current reality, but if you try and get too complicated or abstract and you will lose them.

I’m sure that, right now, people with extensive experience with the “other side” are probably giving me a hard time right about now. They have had contacts with spirits that were highly intelligent and helpful, or otherwise don’t fit the description I just gave, and I agree. The reason is, there’s a distinction between “souls” and “spirits.” Souls are the departed that have not yet returned to the light, and Spirits are entities that either have gone to the light and returned or have never incarnated in the first place. There is a process of reintegration that all souls must go through to be able to function effectively in a discarnate form. You can look to Sylvia Brown’s books, Answers About the Afterlife or many other places for descriptions about what that’s like. The point here is that I’m talking about Souls that have not yet gone back to the light, not Spirits, that have returned.

Could you say that souls, stuck in transition, so to speak, are between life and death? In a way, I suppose, but I wouldn’t say that. Their bodies are most definitely dead, no question there, but their souls have not completed the incarnation cycle, so perhaps. It occurs to me while writing this that immortals would also be “stuck” and unable to complete the cycle. I have no personal interest in living forever. I think eternal life is overrated. Without the periodic refreshing of viewpoint, knowledge and enthusiasm that comes from each incarnation, existence would devolve into a increasingly meaningless succession of days and events that would blur together into utter blandness.

As a final note, I want to add that I feel that the “supernatural” is much more complicated than anyone seems to think. It’s as rich in variety and life and experience as our “natural” world, perhaps even more so. We only see a small portion though our very limited lens, and one of the reasons it seems so confusing is we only see disconnected parts of it. Like the Blind Men and the Elephant story, where each man touches a small portion of the animal and concludes that the whole animal is like the tail, the foot, the trunk or the ear, we each get our own piece of the “other side” and we draw our own conclusions, which are distorted further by our own limitations and beliefs. All in all, it’s not surprising that people from different cultures and different backgrounds paint very different pictures about what they perceive.

Heaven Is Real?

I just read “Heaven is Real, But So Is Hell,” by Vassula Rydén. 

“*Heaven Is Real But So is Hell* contains a first-hand account of the supernatural world of God and His Angels and of Satan and his demons. It brings a timely and critical message for our world and ill be one of the most throught provoking books you’ll ever read.” — From the dust jacket.

It’s not meant to be fiction, but it reads like a cross between The DaVinci Code and Constantine, minus all the fight scenes. Being psychic from an early age, Vassula paid little attention to the things she saw until she started writing messages from God and her Guardian Angel. To date, the messages number in the thousands and form the basis of her world ministry to reunite the three branches of Christianity: Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox. Along the way, she has met with the Pope, has been villainized, converted thousands of people, had her writings declared heretical by some church authorities, fully consistent with the teachings of Jesus by others, and has amassed a huge following around the world. Along the way, she has had numerous encounters with Satan and demons and her messages, as quoted in this book, talk a lot of the war between good and evil. To be saved, they say, everyone has to pray unceasingly to God to save them from the influences of Satan, who is around us every day, ready to pounce at any sign of weakness.

I Googled her to find out what’s been going on since the book was written. The book was published in 2013, but the it’s accounts seem to end in the early 1990’s, and I wanted to see other points of view and what’s happened since. As far as I can tell, her battle still continues, with millions pushing for church reform and many, very vocal, opponents that call her every evil thing you can think of and would gladly burn her at the stake or crucify her, if they were able. She’s probably one of the most important religious figures of our time, and you’ve probably never heard of her. How such a large movement merits no mention in any religious or secular publication that I’ve seen is a topic for another time.

What’s important to me about this book is the supernatural parts of the story. This book documents many miracles of different kinds, like instant healing, and other manifestations that occur in her presence. How does this jive with the rest of the world, the paranormal and, most importantly, other religions? The picture her messages paint, is of a very Old Testament theology where you must repent your sins and love God or go to hell. There is no other option. Where does that leave other world religions? As being one of the “outsiders,” someone raised in our Christianized western culture, but not significantly steeped in any particular flavor of “church,” I look at this from a different perspective. As you probably know, I am uncomfortable with demonstrative, in-your-face, Christianity, too many bad memories of suppression, discrimination and hypocrisy, both in the past and the present, I suppose. I realized today that if I shift mental gears and think of it as just another world religion, I can accept it as easily as, say, native American traditions. But when I see the actions of the ugly, bigoted, hateful, self-important Christians around me, I find it difficult for me to be comfortable with Christianity as a force for good in the world. 

Where I’m coming from is that Christianity is just one spiritual option. I know, theists of every stripe don’t like that, but it’s the only thing that makes any kind of sense to me, in a just universe. On the other hand, if the Gods are out to get you, it really doesn’t matter what you do, you’re screwed anyway. For that reason, I choose the philosophy that things aren’t really all that bad, the evil is something we put in the world, not the other way around. I know many people can’t conceive of a world without Satan, but that’s not my world. Why that is, is a discussion for another time.

The thing is, “miracles” don’t always occur in a Christian, or even religious, context. The paranormal happens every day, all around us. The research by Rupert Sheldrake, Dean Radin, and many other scientists show that the paranormal is, indeed, more “normal” than “para.” Think for a minute what would happen if this research was accepted my mainstream science, what would it mean to the religious if everyone could work a miracle in the same way that anyone can write code? then all the saints and miracle workers, throughout the ages, would be nothing more than garden-variety psychics, more more “blessed by God” than Madam Zolla, the medium. If “anybody and do it,” no God necessary, then what happens to religion? Of course, religions are about much more that miracles, but most of them depend on them for their legitimacy. 

My view is that these messages are focused primarily on Christians, if other pick up on it, great, but their purpose is not to convert the world, but to try and unit the fractured and bickering sects of Christianity. Overall, Vassula’s message appears pretty much the same as what Jesus said 2000 years ago, yet the authorities are fighting it just as hard now as then. Time will tell if her effort does bears fruit. But, if you’re from another spiritual tradition, you should be aware of what’s going on. These messages and miracles are very real and are very powerful, within their contexts. There are lessons here for every tradition about letting your personal and cultural biases and preference rewrite whatever spiritual messages you are exposed to into something “comfortable.” 

I don’t believe that miracles and contact with non-corporal entities is only limited to some religious or spiritual context. It’s possible that we’re on the cusp of a spiritual transition that makes religious preference akin to the choice between iPhone and Android. Where God is accessible to anyone who cares to look, without going through gatekeepers that tell you what to believe and how to believe it, and, maybe, on the way we will finally get over our stubborn insistence that “like me” equals “good,” and “not like me” equals “bad.”

Alex Malarkey

Today I’m finishing up “The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven.” I can say that I have mixed feelings about this book. The book is the true story of Alex Malarkey, a boy who had his spine severed at the base of his skull in a auto accident. Although that type of injury is presumed to be fatal, he survived. He remains a quadriplegic, but he has no brain damage and recovered his ability to speak. Way beyond what doctors expected. During the accident he left his body, witnessed many things that occurred where he was not physically present, and then spent a week in heaven while his body was in a coma. After he woke up he sees angles often, and many explicable things happened around him in the time after his accident.

My feelings are mixed because of the point of view of the book. Even though I was raised in this “christian” society, I have seen way too many hateful things done “in the name of Christ” and way too much hypocrisy to be comfortable with the language of this book. I’m sure it’s aimed squarely at Evangelical Christians, because it will turn off pretty much everyone else. Phrases like “our God is awesome” border on paganism, at least according to the theology that I’ve learned, that there is only one God. Are they claiming the one-and-only creator of the universe as their very own, and nobody else’s? Alex mentions the Devil frequently as well.

That said, there are many events in this book that are not explainable by medicine or science, and I’m sure that every non-religious public figure, and most conservative religious, will write write them all off as coincidence, selective memory, hallucinations or anything else that makes them comfortable. I’ve read Christian theologians arguing against any kind of “direct influence” of God in todays world. “Small” miracles are acceptable, but big, bold, blatantly supernatural things are just not how God works.

Near the end of the book, Alex Malarkey received what’s called the Christopher Reeve operation, that would allow him to breath on his own. This case received so much publicity that there were front page stories in the local newspapers. Kevin Malarkey noted that an editor had removed all references to God from the statements they’d made. I find that interesting, but probably not for the reason you might think.

We live in a secular society, enforced by the Constitution. But for most of our nation’s history, Christianity has gotten a free ride, in terms of getting it’s practices and views inshrined into the customs and laws of these United States. What other religion has all it’s major events made into national holidays? “In God we trust” printed on our money. Christian prayers at governmental events. During the Kennedy era, there were jokes about how silly it was that we could have a Catholic president, (as opposed to Protestant) These things have changed in may way over the past 50 years, but we still hear, way too often, that “We are a Christian nation.” And that, in practice, “Freedom of Religion” only applies to Christians, as they fight to get their “Christian” principles back in the law books.

In this climate, it’s understandable that editors might not want to appear to fan the flames by publishing too much “faith in God” stuff. That could make it appear that they are endorsing that point of view. I find that a little surprising, considering that this is rural Ohio, but, perhaps, they hoped that the story would be picked up by the national new services and they didn’t to come off as bible thumpin’ hicks. I thought the idea of object news is to report what happened and what people said, not to edit it to make readers more comfortable. Isn’t that censorship?

These editors appear to be treading a thin line. But I think what’s really going on is more subtle: Our society is so afraid of anything non-materialistic that even articles were religion plays a central role need to be “sanitized” to remove anything “supernatural.” I suppose there’s a certain amount of sense in that, since all of the three major world religions claim exclusive rights to God’s grace and any miracles that come from that. I find it endlessly amusing that the media of our culture are just as afraid of Jesus, as they are of UFOs, ghosts, spirit mediums, channeling, and paranormal events and research in general.

Now I’m going to throw my own interpretation on what Alex Malarkey reported. From my point of view, the boy Alex’s descriptions of heaven and other events are very childlike, and very much suit the Sunday schools lessons aimed a six-year-old, which he was at the time. I’m not saying that’s where he got his information, I’m saying that the message and information was expressly tailored for a six-year-old.

This is my interpretation of views outside of this reality: What you see is expressly aimed at you, personally. It’s adjusted for what you can accept and are comfortable with. While NDE experiences can seem very different, they do have commonalities that link strictly Christian experiences to completely new-age pagan ones. And there is the strong implication that there is some intelligence orchestrating how these experiences play out. In Alex’s case, it’s clear that the message was aimed squarely at the Evangelical Christian community that he is a part of, while Dr. Eban Alexander’s NDE, for example, was notably non-Christian and clearly for a different audience.

I have never be comfortable with the idea the “God is running everything.” I get this message from every corner of the faith spectrum, but I always have assumed that it’s all about my own intension and “natural laws” of the extended reality. I’m beginning to question my assumptions. One thing I do think is true, is that the realty beyond this one is unknowable, in the sense that it can’t be expressed in this one, and all attempts to do so are bound to express only a fraction of what’s there. Like trying to explain what life is really like to a subsistence farmer in Africa. You may think he understands, but you know that what may look like heaven to him is anything but. Every description of the afterlife will express only a small fraction of the whole picture, and it will be ripe for misinterpretation. It could very well be that there are “natural laws” in the extended reality that push us toward a peaceful and loving world society, or it could be an intelligence that is pushing for that goal, using every tool at its disposal. There’s probably no way to definitively know, short of crossing over. I don’t believe that the afterlife is Christian, Muslim, Jewish or whatever, but it’s the essence from which the core of all these religions sprang.

As uncomfortable as the language of this book makes me feel, I believe there’s a message there for me. I think I need to be a little less judgmental of these views and really try on the idea that, while I’m responsible for my life, I’m not the only one who has input, and it’s Ok to ask for help. That’s difficult for me, especially when the helper is a nameless, faceless, being of unknown origin and providence. The quality of my meditation have changed markedly, in the past few months, and this might be where they are leading.

P.S. I have been reading the articles about Alex Malarkey recanting his story and saying the book had “substantial inaccuracies.” You never know what to make of these types of stories, they play so well into our cultural narrative that you can never be sure where they may have come from. It’s clear his story elicited considerable anger from certain conservative parties, sales of the book were lagging and the message was being “reinterpreted” in certain quarters to suit various agendas. It’s possible it’s all fiction. It’s also likely that the book interpreted parts of the story in ways the rest of the family was not comfortable with. It’s known that Alex and Beth Malarkey (his mother) had grow extremely uncomfortable with the types of attention they were receiving as a result of the book, so, perhaps, recanting looked like one way of getting out of the spotlight. It’s even possible the fractions within their church were putting pressure on them to recant. In any case, we will probably never know for sure. It’s been said that if Jesus showed up today, conservative Christians would label him a dirty, socialist liberal, undermining the Christian/American work ethic and family values by helping the poor and forgiving prostitutes and sinners, just as the authorities of Jesus’ own time did. As in all articles of faith, judge for yourself. The material world will be no help.

The Smaller Part of Me

I had an insight when I was reading the textbook for my next class, Spirit Releasement Therapy, by William J. Baldwin. I was reading a section that talked about how a soul prepares for it’s next life. If you heard anything about reincarnation, you’ve probably heard that souls actually design their next life. Some people are uncomfortable with that idea: Why would anyone create a life of suffering? I don't pretend to have all the answers, but consider: How would Mother Teresa have become a saint if there were no suffering? And there's the simple fact that things don't always go as planned. With hundreds of lives intersecting on a daily basis, it should surprise no one that a certain amount of chaos throws things off track, from time to time.

The preparation of each life can be a very elaborate affair. In a way, I bet it has a lot in common with designing a video game: There's an initial world to design, then the characters, with their strengths and weaknesses, and then the plot, full of twists and turns, and branches where each choice take you down different path. Some people say that you work with a coach, and perhaps a small group, to develop a proposed plan, which you then present it to a board or counsel for approval. Approval isn't easy. There can be a lot of back-and-forth, if they think you are taking on too much, or not enough, or for any number of other reasons. You also need to recruit people to populate your life and play the major roles. Yup, you need to "cast" all the important players in your life in a way the serves their goals as well as your own. I bet you never considered that those people you can't get along with actually volunteered for that position, and are acting as you requested them to. As you might imagine, designing a life is not a trivial affair.

I have read about all this before, but this time I saw it in a new light, and this new light is a bit uncomfortable. It hit me that the "between life me" is probably a much wiser, more expansive, more spiritually aware and masterful, version of me than the version that's writing this. By comparison, my current personality is probably more like a splinter, a sub-personality created for the purpose of experiencing the life that the greater "me" designed.

I don't know about you, but that makes me feel a bit, I don't know, diminished? I have just gotten used to the idea that I'm a much larger being than I am currently aware of, and that I expect my awareness to expand over time, and over death. But it kind of just hit me that everything I am now, everything I have, that all the growth I have achieved, is just a small portion of "me." That somewhere, off in another dimension or plane of existence, there is a much wiser, a much more enlightened and greater part of me, that is waiting for this me to complete my education and return with the latest set of lessons to be added to the whole.

I keep seeing this greater, wiser, me creating this life full of turmoil and … challenges … and then giving "splinter" me the job of actually living it. I get to take this mess and make it work Ug! I suppose that if it was too easy, there would be no point. And I also get that personal growth has nothing to do with the accumulation of facts and skills, but the uncovering and acceptance of the wisdom that can only be acquired through experiences that test your very soul. While I may be the smallest part of me, I contain the essential awareness and values necessary to meet the challenges I have set for myself. That doesn't mean I can't fail, but that it's within my power to succeed, brilliantly.

Outside of the funhouse

Every time I think my life couldn't get any stranger, it does. Maybe, at some point, down the road, none of what I'm going to say will be particularly unusual, but for now it's taking a little getting used to.

Tonight I re-aquainted myself with some people I hadn't seen in a while, and I noticed some connections which were beyond my reach the last time I saw them. (My, how much rings have changed.) One, who I've know for, maybe, eight years, and have always had some affection for, was clearly my sister in a previous life. We were both sisters, and she was the youngest. Although she's older than me, this time around, and I've always thought her a bit, well, odd, I've always felt a noticeable affection and a bit of protectiveness towards her.

Ok, no big deal at this point. I've been seeing connections a lot lately, so what's one more? Well, one thing I forgot to mention when I wrote up my life as a shaman, was that my "father" in that life was also someone knew from before. He's not here, in this life, but we've worked together before and probably will again, just not this time. So, now I have connections from other lives to this life, and other lives to other lives, what else is there? I'm getting to that.

The other person I reconnected with also had some kind of connection with me, but it manifested in a different way: It seemed to me that something about her that didn't seem right. I don't mean that there was something wrong, but that something just didn't seem to the way is should be.

She's considerably younger than I am and pretty and nice enough, but I alway had that nagging sense.  I could never put my finger on what was out of place. Today it clicked: she had the wrong face. Ah, so we've lived together before? No, we haven't. But that didn't make any sense, how could I know her if I've never known her? What gives? There was definitely a strong connection here but where could it have come from if we've never known each other? Things got more puzzling when I realized that she was connected to two other people who I had shared lives with. Just a friend of a friend? I don't know, maybe. But there seemed more to it than that.

It took me a while to draw the obvious conclusion, and once I saw it, I don't see how I could have missed it. All four of us were buddies in, what? the afterlife? A higher plane? Wherever is is that you want to call the place were we hang out before we are born and return to when we die, that's where all four of us hang between lives out and, apparently, have some long-standing partnership or working relationship.

I never occurred to me before to consider relationships on that level, relationships that span, perhaps, thousands of years? More? If that doesn't stretch your mind, I don't know what will. Now, I suppose, I'll be looking more deeply onto all the connections I sense in people I meet, for the universe is a lot richer than I'd realized. I have read about stuff like this, but it all just seemed, you know, kind of abstract, and it didn't really have anything to do with my life. On the other hand, I'm constantly asking to be shown more stuff and be given more understanding, so I really shouldn't be surprised at how odd things are getting. Now that I get this, I better brace myself, for something still odder is probably coming down the pike pretty soon.

And you know what? Bring it on! It seems reasonable that at some point I'll reach my limit, but, until then, Show me more, I dare you! I've never been more unsatisfied with this limited existence than I am now, even though I'm probably happier than I've ever been. I'm living a life that's pretty damm cool. It has it's ups and downs, and I don't know where I'm going, but I'm discovering mind-blowing stuff first hand, and that's as amazing as it gets.

The most significant down is dealing with the blindness and negativity that permeates my culture. But I'm beginning to think that it's not a pervasive as I've always believed. because I've lived my entire life inside the funhouse mirrors of denial, I don't really have any idea how far it actually goes. The reflections seem to go on forever, but I know they don't, so it's clearly time to find my way out of the funhouse and see what the world is really like.