Posted by Roberta Grimes • November 02, 2019 • 74 Comments
Book News, The Teachings of Jesus, Understanding Reality
Nearly all the people now living who profess to love and follow Jesus have no awareness of who He is and why He chose to be born on earth. That fact is heartbreaking, when the truth about Jesus and His mission is so glorious! The only evidence we have now of the Lord and His mission is His genuine words as they are given in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, the four books of the Bible which are commonly referred to as the Gospels. And to be frank, I am a skeptic when it comes to strictly believing the words of someone who lived two thousand years ago and whose words were passed down orally for two generations after His death, then translated through two more very different languages before you and I first got to read them! But the greatest discovery of my life has been the fact that those that we used to think were dead uniformly confirm that the Gospel teachings of Jesus are the most essential core human truths of all.
I have shared with you what Jesus actually tells us in the Gospels, and how it is that Christianity has managed to get the Lord’s mission and message so wrong. For its first few centuries, Christianity was a movement based in the teachings of Jesus, and there were many variations on those teachings that were accepted under that movement’s broad tent. Ideas that are central to Christianity now were very much minority views for the first five centuries after He died! For example, more than six million Christian burials were conducted in the Roman catacombs up until the early fifth century C.E.; and in all that time, according to the nineteenth-century scholar John Ruskin, there is “Not a cross as a symbol in the Catacombs. The earliest Latin cross is on the tomb of the Empress Galla Placidia, 451 AD. No picture of the crucifixion until the Ninth Century, nor any portable crucifix until long after. To the early Christians Christ was living, the one agonized hour was lost in the thought of his glory and triumph. The fall of theology and Christian thought dates from the error of dwelling upon his death instead of his life.”
Jesus tells us in the Gospels that His teachings were meant to begin the 
arrival of the kingdom of God on earth. The fact that instead Christianity soon became a deeply fear-based religion is due to the fact that Roman Emperors adopted the Christian movement and imposed upon it their own orthodoxies to help them better control the faithful. Over the next millennium, the Roman Church stamped out more than three dozen differing interpretations of the Lord’s Gospel words at a cost of more than twenty-five million mostly brutal deaths. Even worse from the long perspective of history, the religion they erected in the name of Jesus has almost nothing to do with Jesus.
Let’s look briefly at a few of the false Christian teachings that don’t have roots in the Gospels, and in fact are entirely untrue according to those that we used to think were dead:
that sin is the breaking of human rules, when in fact with God there are no rules beyond the law of perfect love. After our deaths we will be judged by ourselves alone, and entirely based upon whether and the extent to which each thing we did in our lives was loving.There are other false Christian dogmas, too, that are not derived from the teachings of Jesus as they are expressed in the Gospels and affirmed by those that we used to think were dead. But these five bogus human ideas are the core teachings of modern Christianity! All of them are intensely fear-based, and all of them flat-out contradict the genuine Gospel teachings of Jesus. Fear is the polar opposite of love. You cannot love what you fear. And for so long as these five teachings are included in the dogmas of modern Christianity, the religion will continue to debase and defile the very people Jesus came to serve.
This travesty is further complicated by the fact that the Christian leaders who most ardently preach fear-based falsehoods like the five listed here will generally claim that in doing so they are “preaching the Gospel.” They exhort their flocks to go out and share these human lies as “the Gospel of Jesus Christ,” when in fact they are no such thing!
What does the word “Gospel” actually mean? Here is one dictionary’s definition: “The word gospel comes from the Old English word god meaning ‘good’ and spel meaning ‘news, a story.’ In Christianity, the term ‘good news’ refers to the story of Jesus Christ’s birth, death, and resurrection.” When used most strictly, the word “Gospel” refers to just those first four books of the New Testament which detail the words and the life of Jesus. “Gospel” doesn’t refer to the rest of the Bible, and it certainly doesn’t refer to any later-established Christian ideas! The genuine story of Jesus as it is set forth in the Biblical Books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John is Good News indeed! It is arguably the greatest news that ever has been given to humankind, but almost no Christian preacher on earth is currently sharing that good news with anyone. Even worse, many Christian clergymen have so misused the word “Gospel” that it has become for many a term based in fear. To quote one of these well-meaning but deluded men of God: “There is no other issue as important as how to be saved. That is why the Gospel, the ‘Good News,’ the death, burial, and Resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ must be taught without compromise.”
This terrible sullying of the term “Gospel” is at the root of Christianity’s 
current decay. In the United States, only 65% of adults now identify themselves as Christians, a decline of twelve percentage points over just the past decade. And during that decade I have heard from many who are in that twelve percent, all lifelong Christians who have fallen away in desperation and despair. The reasons they give for leaving Christianity generally boil down to these four:
When clergymen claim for their bogus use of the word “Gospel” a divine provenance that does not exist, they are polluting the Lord’s sacred message. To use a term that many of them are quick to apply to those who follow Jesus, these preachers are doing the Devil’s work.
This confusion about what is and what is not the genuine Gospel of the Lord is greasing Christianity’s slide toward oblivion. In simpler times, people were easily led to adopt the fear that lies at the heart of modern Christianity, and to accept with it the relief of knowing that they had a Get Out of Hell Free Card by virtue of the Lord’s sacrificial death. Even as late as a few decades ago, this false “Gospel” was widely believed; and if hell was real, then warming pews was a reasonable price to pay to escape it. Now, however, the abundance of afterlife information and its easy dissemination via the Internet, when combined with the fact that twenty-first-century Westerners are generally more sophisticated, means that the old trick of “scare ‘em, then lure ‘em to church to save ‘em” that maintained Christianity for two millennia simply cannot work anymore.
But the coming fall of Christianity can be a great opportunity for Jesus! The only way to fight errors and lies is with the truth. Those who are being driven away from Christianity still retain a positive opinion of Jesus, who has an approval rating in the United States that stands at 90%. Even God’s approval rating in the same survey is just 52%! The Gospel teachings of Jesus are precisely what we need if we are ever to break humankind’s eternal cycle of fear, rage, and despair. Jesus has the answer, and He is much beloved; all He needs is a more efficient way to bring His true Gospel to humankind. And fortunately, that is an area where you and I can help!
My next book, The Fun of Loving Jesus – Embracing the Christianity That Jesus Taught, is due out early next year.
WOW. What an outstanding post. So much of this rings true. I come from a traditional Christian background and began to question things a few years ago. I stumbled upon your site a while back and it has been a priceless treasure to me. First time I’ve commented, but I read on a regular basis. Thank you, Roberta for all that you have done to get the truth out there. I admire your commitment and courage.
And WOW, dear Daniel, thank you for your beautiful words! As I’m sure you realize, all of this is the work of Spirit, very much including whatever commitment and courage I have managed to muster. Without the help of God’s minions, I don’t trust myself to write a word! But there is a tide now running full, and you and I and so many others are being carried on that tide. We get to help to ease its flow, but it is being engineered far above our pay grade; and what has been so awesome for me has been watching that tide fully turn and then become a flood.
Even ten years ago, I hardly ever heard from people like you and me – people who had been reared as strong Christians – and when The Fun of Dying was first published in 2010 and I “went public” with this work, i lost friends over it. But what a difference the past ten years have made! I couldn’t have posted anything like this ten years ago without suffering an indignant Christian pile-on (I get to approve comments, so no one else ever saw those); but it has been years now since I got even one such attack. As Shakespeare quotes Brutus in his play Julius Caesar, “There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.” And for the first time in my life, I really can feel and see this tide in ever greater flood toward a fortune in love and joy that all of humankind will claim!
dear Roberta I was married 58 years when my my wife died last year which devastated me although I believe in the afterlife I cant seem to find much on meeting up with our loved ones when they come to meet us can we hug them??you can imagine what your feelings would be what kind of bodies would we have? how would we speak to one another? its very nice to carry on with your afterlife but not so if your spouse who your yearning for is not with you terry
Oh my dear Terry, you will indeed hug your beautiful young wife, you also will have a young and healthy (and solid!) body, and the joy of knowing that your love is perfect and you have an eternity in which to share it will be beyond anything you can imagine now!
Actually, from the start of my reading of hundreds of early-twentieth-century afterlife communications, one of the main things I wanted to know was whether we all would have solid bodies. But it took me years to become sure of that! Apparently the fact that everything there is solid – it feels like normal life, only now perfected – was so taken for granted by the newly dead that no one ever mentioned it!
Then finally, wonderfully, someone asked a woman what her body was like, and whether it was solid. She said rather indignantly that her body was as solid as their bodies were, and it was young and she looked better than ever! Since then, of course, this has been abundantly confirmed. But as your comment suggests, we would of course have to be solid, wouldn’t we? If you can’t hug your wife again, and I can’t hug my husband, then how could heaven be a heaven at all?
dear Terry
I realise your question is for Roberta but I hope you’ll forgive my presenting the AfterLifeForums’ approach. (Roberta’s forum website ALF)
Firstly I’m sorry you’re here under such desperately sad circumstances but bereavement often leaves folk wondering about the matters you’ve raised. You’ve asked about hugging and what our bodies are like, questions that frequently come up on ALF. The answers are simple – our bodies in the spirit dimensions are as solid and real as they are for us here in this physical world so we can hug in just the same way with all the enjoyment and emotion we experience here.
You will initially communicate in a way that feels much as it does here – by speaking. But actually it’s your thoughts that are doing the communicating. Communication is telepathic but when we first cross over it feels like ordinary speech and there is nothing needing to be learned – it happens totally naturally.
From the way you’ve written I have no hesitation that the love you shared before your dear wife’s passing will still be just as strong and she will be there for you when you pass over from this world to hers.
What I’ve ‘said’ here are not my thoughts or ideas. Teachers, guides and those we used to think of as dead have told us what happens in the world of the spirit. I’m using my words to re-tell what they say.
I hope this helps you to begin to accept that separation at death is a temporary thing and that you’ll be re-united in the way you’re hoping for. 🙂
mac, admin. support, AfterLifeForums
Dear Terry, I am so sorry for your pain. As Roberta and Mac have replied, you will be able to have and hold your dear wife again.
I do so miss my Mum who passed away in 2010, and a while ago I had a beautiful poignant dream in which Mum and I met and embraced. It was so vivid and has stayed with me, and I know it really happened. I recently listened to Roberta’s interview with David Low on Seek Reality, which was aired Feb 11 2019. He said that we can remember our dreams if we set the intention. Knowing that we meet with our loved ones at night when we sleep, but don’t usually remember, I have started saying before I go to sleep that I would like to meet Mum and Dad in my dreams, and I would like to remember it in the morning. I am just starting now to remember my dreams.
Maybe this would work for you.
Best wishes, Alex
I am grateful that the night after writing my last post, I again said before I went to sleep that I would like to meet Mum and Dad in my dreams. I did indeed have a dream in which I was with Mum and Dad. In the dream, we were remarking about how solid we felt! I hope this may help you Terry.
Great article, as always, every week. Thank you!
You write:
The reasons they give for leaving Christianity generally boil down to these four:
1. They can no longer believe Christianity’s teachings, and especially the five points outlined above that are not based in the teachings of Jesus and are also said by the dead to be false.
2. They love the Jesus they first met as children, but they don’t find Him in the pews as adults.
3. They find many of the Christian faithful to be cliquish, judgmental, and “un-Christian.”
4. They find in modern Christianity only rules and dogmas, not spiritual food.
Might there be a fifth reason, and that is the sad disparity between what church leaders say and what they do? In other words, the widespread hypocrisy? The sexual, financial, and other scandals? Affecting both the Catholic and Protestant churches?
Also, so many churches have become nothing more than social gathering places, where the coffee hour after the service has become the more important gathering point, offering little true spirituality. While community building is impportant, and gives you a sense of belonging, without a deeper understanding of the true meaning of Jesus’ words, you wonder where this will go.
But you hit the nail right on the head by talking about fear-based religion. It’s even worse in some other religions.
Blessings, love and peace,
Adrian
P.S. Happy finishing your new book!
Oh dear Adrian, you’re right. I often hear these two reasons as well! Since my focus has long been a need to ever better understand the Lord’s mission, I haven’t paid as much attention to the corruption and sexual abuse in Christianity, nor have I cared enough about the social-club atmosphere that permeates so many churches. But these are also important warnings about what Christianity has become! As Jesus said, “Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they? So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit” (MT 7:15-17). It seems ever more perfectly clear that Jesus nailed in His Gospels precisely where a human-made Christianity was going to end us up!
And it seems that every religion is fear-based, as you point out. It doesn’t matter how much fear a religion instills: if it holds to any reason for people to fear, it is making its adherents’ spiritual growth almost impossible. Seeing this has presented a problem as we have talked about how best to establish for Jesus The Way – the original Christian movement that the Roman Emperors subverted. And as happens whenever Thomas wants me to grow, he has been letting me flounder with that!
I think his wish for me to puzzle out and better understand The Way is one reason why this next Fun book has been delayed for two years after I thought it was entirely written. It seems much better now that it has stewed for awhile – he was right about that – and he tells me now that it can indeed come out in the spring. But we’ll see!
I will buy the book!😃
Such an outstanding article as usual. It is amazing that the true words of Jesus have survived at all over these past two thousand years considering a fact that I recently learned from a course I took titled “Lost Christianities” by Dr. Bart Ehrman a biblical scholar who states in Lecture 23:
“We do not have the original texts of any early Christian book (or of any literary work from antiquity). Instead, we have copies made much later –not the first copies or the copies of the copies –but copies from hundreds of years after the fact. At present we have nearly 5,400 copies (or manuscripts) of the New Testament (in Greek), from extremely small fragments to entire massive tomes containing all the books. The earliest copy of any book of the New Testament is called P52 and is the size of a credit card. A fragment, written on both sides on papyrus, it dates to around 125 A.D. and preserves some words from John 18. The first full manuscript of the entire New Testament is the Codex Sinaiticus, dating from the second half of the fourth century. Most of the manuscripts we have date from the Middle Ages. Strikingly, no two of these copies, except for the smallest fragments, are exactly alike in their wording. No one knows how many differences of the wording there are among these manuscripts. It is safest to put it in comparative terms: There are more differences among our manuscripts than there are words in the New Testament.”
I am so looking forward to reading Roberta’s new book about Jesus when it comes out next year. I will have much more confidence that it is the truth than I do in say the King James Version of the bible, which was by the way funded and heavily influenced by King James a known witch hunter. Is it any wonder why mediums and psychics have been persecuted for the last 400+ years of history?
Dear Don, the fact that we have something very close to the actual words of Jesus as the dead confirm them is a greater miracle than I realized it was at first. Jesus spoke those words in Aramaic. They were passed down orally for about 60 years (I call it two generations, but it may be more like three) before they were written down, translated into Greek, then eventually translated into modern English (Revised Standard Version, New American Standard Bible, etc,. all of which are much more accurate and precise than – say – the King James version). What are the odds that anything in those modern Gospels is even close to accurate, after so many translations over so much time?
We have the Gospels now in something close to their original Aramaic, and Aramaic is a very different language than both Greek and English. When we compare direct English translations of those Aramaic Gospels with the English Gospels that have passed through an intermittent Greek translation, they are almost unrecognizably different. Yet those that we used to think were dead uniformly tell us that the multi-translated version of the Gospels through Greek is much closer to what Jesus actually said and what He meant to convey to us than is the English translation made directly from Aramaic!
Writing that again gives me chills, because the only conceivable explanation is that the Lord closely oversaw our modern translations. In effect, He spoke to us freshly there. No other explanation seems possible to me.
Don: Having read your comment about King James having been a witch hunter, I looked up information about him and found that he not only was a witch hunter, but one of the most bloody and ruthless ones in English history. Therefore, I find it difficult to believe that the King James version of the bible was put on such a pedestal for such a long period of time, especially since you said it was “funded and heavily influenced” by King James. Why didn’t a red flag go up about this many years ago? The King James version is still being used – perhaps out of habit?
Dear Lola, there has been a strange assumption in a lot of Christian sects that an older translation must be a better translation. And aren’t witches evil? So King James’s wiping them out must have been a good thing, right? After all, we’re talking about the same religion that conducted the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Salem Witch Trials, and the burning at the stake of many hundreds of people over the years as a way to “save their souls.” We talk about how barbaric some other world religions are, but there is none that really holds a candle to Christianity when it comes to millennia of inhuman cruelty to our innocent fellow man :-(.
Yes, that’s right. I forgot that, given the times, most likely, people could have actually supported him for this brutality and might have even been convinced he was guided by God to do the unspeakable things he did. Add to that the fact that King Henry VIII had several of his wives murdered because divorce was a mortal sin “in the eyes of the church”, and you have one hell of a fun religion!
Roberta I only have one comment. AMEN
Thank you, dear Joe – short and very sweet!
All,
I’d like to hear from someone who is a member of a Christian church and is truly following Jesus’s teachings and has managed to reconcile those teachings with what the church teaches. I am in a situation where I find that some of the (Episcopalian) church’s teachings are mesh nicely, some it takes a sort of reinterpretation, and for a few, there is no reconciliation. So far I have just conveniently ignored those.
To complicate matters, I am part of the church leadership. My title is Junior Warden and am the layperson in charge of the physical plant. Thankfully, maybe, I am not the Senior Warden who is the layperson in charge of the church’s spiritual direction. I find that, for the most part, the members of the church are warm, loving people and many are my friends.
As a beginner in becoming more loving, I am probably missing out on some advice from guides, so I wonder if anyone else has been in the same situation and could relay guidance as to what to do next: stay, leave, dissemble when asked a spiritual question, or come right out and say what I really believe, come what may. Thank you.
David: My advice would be to hang in there. I know a pastor and assistant pastor of the largest Catholic parish in Birmingham Alabama (Bible Belt territory) who are very supportive of the loving messages that are coming from the other side even when they sometimes contradict church dogma. The pastor keeps a box of books written by Julie Ryan (one of his parishioners a psychic/medium) on hand to pass out to bereaved individuals who come to him in there hour of need. So times are changing and with the help of individuals such as yourself those changes can be evolutionary vs revolutionary.
That’s heartening. 🙂
Dear David, as Shakespeare has Polonius saying in the first Act of Hamlet, “This above all: to thine own self be true. And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.”
It is up to your church whether it will allow differing views: some will, and some will not. But in practice, some church versions – and Catholicism, in particular – are quite open to these more modern understandings at the local level. I hope you will find that is true of your church!
dear Roberta thank you for your comments you always buck me up can I also thank MACadmin support for his reassuring comments many thanks
Dear Terry, I’m sure Mac is delighted to have been able to help you!
Thanks for another affirming post. For someone who has come from a lifetime of Christian teachings, it is truly Good News. I was contemplating that my not believing in Jesus as my salvation from my sinful self was just a convenient way for me to bridge the gap in my own condition and selfish interests. In reality, not believing in Jesus salvation creates more work and more personal responsibility for my actions. I cannot fall back on my laurels and let Jesus be the saving grace. Now I must work harder and truly be accountable for everything that I have done. In order to grow spiritually, I must learn everyday and be more loving and forgiving.
Dear Timothy, that’s an interesting take. I have indeed noticed that people who cling to their (nonexistent) Get-Out-Of-Hell-Free Cards don’t want to hear the complicating (although far more wonderful) truth about Jesus, but I never had put myself in their shoes. You’re right: if you can’t just get a free ride on Jesus, you do have to take more responsibility for yourself! But of course, all of that is more than worthwhile, because managing your own spiritual growth is not really difficult. And it’s joyous! Also, most important of all, the GOOHF card turns out to be fiction, while genuine spiritual growth is real!
Thank you for the help, in particular, “To thy own self be true”, which jumped out at me, and not just because you put it in boldface, Roberta. I will take it as marching orders from one of my guides.
Cookie
So often, what you say tickles me, dear Cookie!
thank you Roberta, your articles. have helped me so much,I now believe in an afterlife, and no hell, you have been very clear on that,this has been working on myself for about 10 yrs. I am much more content and now I know what it means to have love, joy and peace. I never felt this while attending church.
Dear Millie, to hear you say that at last you have love, joy, and peace is the most beautiful thing for you to say – thank you for saying it! Bringing that feeling to you in the presence of Jesus is the entire purpose of my life!
“What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god.”
– Hamlet Act 2, Scene 2
Dearest Roberta, what an inspiring and wonderful blog this week. I’m urged to share a response, and it is about the inherent advantage that Light has over Darkness.
In the verses above, Hamlet declares his scorn for mankind by mocking the elevated thought of his time. The Prince of Denmark here, as his great heart is breaking, is filled by the inrush of despair that ultimately defines his fate.
And we the audience are left to witness Hamlet cut down amid the flowering of his manhood. Tragic. Yet Roberta, the lines above are sooo remembered and have been pondered by so many millions, for over four centuries since their writing. Somehow the message of the eternal, bright, inner nature of man persists and gives rise to deep reflection. Thus Will Shakespeare placed his shining jewel of Spirit on the dark velvet of despair, for all to plainly see. Thus the Bard was ever wont to do.
In the same way, the teachings of the Master, of Jesus himself, shines through the dark confusion of troublesome religions and bloody human history:
To me Roberta, it is the lighthouse that defines the storming night; it is the love, gratitude, empathy and forgiveness of Jesus that will define the growth to Spirit that is yet to come. If things were not so dark, how would we desire to see the light so intensely? Many, many more people will flock to the Light.
That’s why I think that those who roll their eyes cynically when someone says that humanity will rise are actually wrong. Sorry, but the way the human understanding has changed since the fifties shows that ‘mind change’ is accelerating. So we CAN make it as a species.
The other thing my dear, is that with a renewed understanding of the message of Jesus, people may need to wrestle with the sources of this knowledge. They will need to understand that channeling those beyond earth life is real. (This May be an obstacle for some people.)
I get the feeling that, even though understanding here has been incremental, there may need to be a big boost given by Source towards the acceptance of the Afterlife by masses of people. Something new may need to ‘happen’ so that many people realize that life beyond life is proven, and its information is trustable:
Maybe a soul phone or soul TV will become scientific breakthrough technology. I don’t know – but something along these lines would really get humans’ attention. Then we would really see a leap in the vibration of humanity!
Loved this blog my dear and I’d be fascinated by any response you and Thomas might have. 🙏🏼❣️🌅
Hi Efrem: You mentioned that maybe a soul phone or soul TV may some day be a reality. I don’t know if you are aware of it, but there actually is a soul phone in the works. The “team” of scientists that are working on this at the University of Arizona is headed by Dr. Gary Schwartz, a professor of Neurology and Psychiatry, and they have had pretty good success with it so far, but it is not yet perfected. However, the fact that they have put so much time and effort into this makes me think they actually expect good results from their efforts, as they are all well respected, and not easily fooled. Even more astonishing is that Schwartz claims he is being helped with this project by people who were scientists while they were in physical bodies, such as Nikola Tesla. You can read more about this at http://www.soulproof.com. There are many other web sites for it as well.
Dear Lola, all the actual scientists working in this field are not now in bodies, since no earthly scientist knows enough to do much of anything! Dr. Schwartz, like all the others, is taking direction from them. Mark Pitstick, a member of the Soul Phone team, will be on Seek Reality in December to talk about this – they are getting to the point of wanting to bring us all into the know!
Oh Mark will be a great guest. I know you will enjoy him and you’re right. Nikola Tesla is only one of many who are working on “the other side” with this project. They have hinted that they are getting closer to a solution for this.
Thanks Roberta for this, and looking forward to your interview with Mark Pitstick.
Hey Lola,
This soul phone research is a wonderful thing. Thanks for sharing it! I’ll check out the link. Isn’t it amazing that this type of research is actually happening? I’m coming to see that this is a good time to be alive and see what happens next. 😉❣️
Oh my dear Efrem, you always have such wonderful things to share with us! One advantage that being in my seventies gives me is that I have enough of a history on earth – and a history of observing the advancement of the truth in this field – that I can tell you without reservation that we really are seeing progress! Even just since the dawning of this century, we are seeing so much spiritual opening and awakening on the part of so many people. It feels like a miracle! And all of it is happening in careful conjunction with the decline of Christianity – in retrospect, none of it seems to be random – so it is advancing all around us but making hardly a ripple where a ripple might be troublesome. Really, it is amazing to watch!
And yes, there is advancement happening in the area of electronic communication between there and here. The scientists actually doing this work all are in what we call the afterlife, where everyone is a great deal smarter and where some of the greatest scientists now reside. The people working on these projects from here are always just the lab assistants! The Soul Phone that is Gary Schwartz’s baby is one such project; the hard-wired communication between stations there and here that Craig Hogan has been working with is another. And there are others. The technical problems are almost insurmountable in all cases, but everyone is persevering!
The soul phone concept is a fascinating one, but I have a few questions. In one of Suzanne Giesemann’s Daily Way posts, she mentions that for a spirit, manipulating something like an electric light is “child’s play”, which I found striking – why, surely there’s your soul phone, I thought.
If it was easy for a spirit to get a light to blink off and on again, then they could establish contact with a simple code – one blink for yes, two blinks for no. Or a spirit could send a repeating message in Morse, if the recipient was familiar with it.
A slightly more sophisticated set-up might be a bank of light bulbs on separate circuits, each one with an alphabet letter taped next to it.
This is basically 19th century technology – Thomas Edison could have built one. Which led me to wonder – why is this not ubiquitous?
Various answers have occurred to me – for example, even if making a light bulk blink on and off is child’s play, would it also depend on the recipient being in a receptive state? So perhaps that’s the hurdle. Or maybe if the practice becomes widespread there’s a danger of mischievous entities stepping in and pretending to be someone they’re not (much like terrestrial phone and email scammers!) So that could be the issue, perhaps – it’s a case of establishing protocols that would enable the genuine spirit identity to come through and no other?
Anyway, the “child’s play” comment made me think… 🙂
Well, sure, dear Alex. Those not in bodies are energy beings, and they easily can affect electricity, so why not just text with them? I attended an exciting presentation about developing just such an on-off texting switch that Gary Schwartz gave before a large audience… four years ago. Apparently the idea is great, but its reliable execution presents a lot of problems. Among them is the one that you mention – you could find yourself texting not with your loved ones, but with imposters – but apparently there are lots of other problems, too. When Mark Pitstick comes on Seek Reality in December to talk about the Soul Phone state of play, I’m hoping he will be able to tell us that a lot of the problems have been solved!
Just to say I’m looking forward to the Mark Pitstick interview, also that I’ve been really enjoying listening to the past Seek Reality sessions (still haven’t heard them all), they provide welcome beacons of positivity during the day – much appreciated.
I love your blogs, Roberta! And I wholeheartedly agree.
Here’s a question because I have someone close to me who is a conservative Christian:
Some will argue that the meaning of Jesus dying on the cross to “save us for our sins” is that, since Jesus was actually God, God came here to die for us because he loves us so much. And that by dying willingly as God on the cross, humanity’s sins are then atoned for. So he suffered for us so we don’t have to. Again, as god, not as god’s son whom he was sacrificing Pagan-style. I have more trouble refuting that argument, though something still feels off about it to me.
Dear Corey, saying that Jesus came as God to die for our sins really is no improvement over saying that Jesus came as God’s Son to die for our sins. Why would anyone at all have to die for our sins? Who is requiring that someone die for our sins, if not God? Who else has the power to command God? So God is requiring God to die because we have sinned? And if God didn’t die for us, what awful thing would happen to us, and who would be commanding that awful punishment for us if not God? Or is the whole charade just so we can feel guilty about having been so bad that Jesus has to suffer? I’m sorry, but I can’t see how this is even really a change from straight penal substitutionary atonement. Either God holds us as guilty and Jesus has to suffer in our place, or in fact God doesn’t want to punish us and Jesus does not need to die at all.
The truth is that there is evidence in the Gospels, strongly echoed by the dead, that the whole idea of sin is a purely human one. Jesus in the Gospels and the dead agree that God doesn’t care about the human-made rules that churches lay on us – God doesn’t even care about the Ten Commandments! – but God cares only that we “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.” God’s Law of Love is the only law! Jesus says this plainly in the Gospels, and the dead agree with Him.
You might tell your friends that the very fact that they feel they have to make this tweak shows they know that there is something wrong with the traditional Christian interpretation. And in fact there is! Their twist changes nothing. Actually READING the words of Jesus in the Gospels and realizing that Love is the only law is the only way to reconcile stumbling and error-filled modern Christianity with the pure truth of Jesus and the Holy Spirit.
If you want to hand out a few copies of Liberating Jesus, just send me an email ;-).
Thanks for replying to this question twice! 😉 I think it’s important for people to realize that as God’s children, we are completely lovable and no one would need to die for us to save us. I feel like if I were to believe that, I’d feel so worthless. Like, wow, I’m really that bad that God had to die for me.
Regardless, I think what Jesus did (dying on that cross) was definitely an act of love. He was saying nothing of this world can hurt him (or us) and love conquers all. He didn’t fear death. I think it can still be a powerful idea but man did Christianity mess it up!
Thanks Roberta for the insights. I have several questions but can wait for subsequent blogs if the answers are complicated.
You made reference to “doing the devil’s work.” While there are probably some misguided spirits out there, I did not think the devil as described in Christian teachings is real.
While I agree the purpose of Jesus’s death was not to save us from judgement, could you give a brief description of what it was.
Finally with regard to solid bodies, I assume spirits do not appear to us as such since we are not viewing them in their true home which is the astral plane.
Thanks for your guidance.
No, dear Tom, of course you’re right: there is no Devil. There is not, and there cannot be by the laws of consciousness physics, any powerful evil entity in opposition to God.
And the death of Jesus on the cross was apparently a tweak in His plan that He added not long before His death occurred, because He was having such a difficult time convincing the primitive people around Him that in fact their lives would be eternal. They had seen people and animals die and decay! They wanted to believe Him, but they simply couldn’t trust in their own eternal survival in the face of all the evidence. So Jesus arranged to undergo a ghastly and very public death and interment, just so they would know He really was dead… then a few days later He re-animated that body and walked out of the tomb. It was a big “Ta-DA!! See? I didn’t really die, and neither will you.”
As for whether spirits might appear to us as solid, yes sometimes indeed they do. It seems to take a lot more energy, so it’s rare and they don’t stay long… and oddly, the really solid ones seem to appear generally in kitchens. They walk in, say “Hi Mom!” and give Mom a real and solid hug, then leave right away 😉
Roberta: I’m replying to this for a very odd reason. It’s because of what you said about kitchens. Up until a couple of years ago, I had paranormal events in my home, but always in the kitchen and nowhere else. A friend of mine had the same problem and so did her sister but only in the kitchen. I didn’t see an apparition but there was the sound of footsteps, things were moved on the countertops, and the kitchen light would flicker on and off, but only in the kitchen and nowhere else in the house. This makes no sense to me and I never came across any explanation for it in any of the literature, but wondered if maybe you did.
I have wondered about that too, dear Lola. It’s a commonly reported phenomenon! I think it has to do with the presence of lots of electrical energy (outlets, appliances) and water, both being used and in the pipes. Compare that to a bedroom, where half the time there is no energy to speak of! I have come to conclude that beings not in bodies can use electricity and/or the energy in water to augment their own elevated energy and give us more dramatic signs (including materializations). Beyond that guess, though, I don’t have a clue!
Dear Roberta. I feel very hopeful that we are starting to see humanity approaching a tipping point in consciousness. As I look around, doing research, it seems like more and more people are open to, understanding of, and hungry for, the kinds of eternal truths that Jesus came to teach. It only took 2000 years to get there (almost exactly, which is interesting.) Could all the negativity swirling around the planet be the darkness before the dawn? So many movements for justice are popping up all over the place. Maybe all the hoopla over 2012 was just the clarion call. I get the feeling 2020 will be the biggie, ushering in a hugely transformative decade. If the Soulphone demos planned for next year come to pass, that would really be something! Your interview this week about all the work being done at the Monroe Institute underlined the progress for me as well. Maybe that is why Thomas wants to wait until next year for the new book, because it will be seminal moment? I sure hope so. I look forward to that interview with Mark Pitstick.
As an aside, it is amazing how often your interviews will wind up answering or mirroring what has been rattling around my head the previous week or so. I couldn’t figure out why I’ve been obsessed with shamanism lately, to the point that I signed up for a class in shamanic journying, unless it has something to do with what my guides have in mind for me. It blew my mind when you were discussing the Lifeline program at the Monroe institute, and it sounded just like what shamans describe, such as retrieving lost parts of people’s souls, and helping spirits cross over. They just use drums or rattles instead of hemisync recordings. I will have to look into the Monroe Inst. course offerings. 🙂
Dear Scott, as you know, all of this is being engineered far above our pay grade! I think you’re right about how the stars seem to be becoming aligned for a spiritual breakthrough on earth, but I don’t know (and cannot even imagine) the timing. I just do what I’m told! If each of us will simply do our little part in obedience to Spirit, all will unfold in God’s own time, which is what everyone on earth should want!
It’s so easy – isn’t it – to read into numbers and dates whatever we want them to mean?
Folk have regularly predicted stuff that simply didn’t happen at all, or not in the way and not in the time frame they claimed it would. And other folk are desperate for there to be an appearance, or the return, of some spiritual leader who will transform this world of 7.7 billion souls into a ‘land of milk and honey.’
Ain’t gonna happen in my view. 🙁
Quick observation:
I have noticed in pop culture, several fictional series that touch on time travel, spiritual connection across the “divide”, etc. – perhaps it signifies that people are becoming more open to and fascinated by the idea of communication with dead.
Without statistics it’s impossible to know if folk “….are becoming more open to and fascinated by the idea of communication with dead.”
Take a look back at the situation around World War 2, for example, when it might be argued that Modern Spiritualism was in it’s heyday. Folk at that time flocked to public demonstrations of mediumship, doubtless hoping for communication from loved ones lost in barely-imaginable numbers. There was then no such things as pop culture and the only way to express an interest in survial et al was by reading and writing about it and/or going to see or hear practitioners privately or at public addresses etc.
Now folk can spout off about all manner of stuff in the social media it can give the impression that those who do spout off are truly interested in a subject. But they may just enjoy spouting off! 🙂 Just take a look at the gumpf to be found on Twitter and Facebook!
And it should be kept in mind that fiction also attracts fantasists who have more interest in fantasy than in simple reality. 😉
Tim. A good point that I hadn’t thought about. Another quick observation is all the spiritually advanced children that seem to have been incarnating recently – the so called indigos, crystal children, etc as well as some of the autistic, ADHD, etc – the “Alphabet Children” – will be coming of age soon. They will make us look like Model Ts. Greta Thunberg is a good example, whatever one may think of her politics.
I’ve been interested in disorder of the autistic spectrum for many years. Recently it’s become fashionable to think affected individuals are spiritually gifted – eg ‘indigos’ – and/or that there are more of them than there used to be. That’s supposition.
We don’t have a way of assessing if they – or any other group for that matter – are ‘spiritually gifted’ (whatever that means) and there is no statistical evidence I’m aware of to show there’s been a percentage increase in overall numbers. Of course there is likely to be more ‘sufferers’ because the global population is constantly increasing but where are the benchmark values to compare present day numbers with those from past decades?
Greater awareness/identification/classification of any disorder can make it appear there’s been an increase in the percentage of sufferers affected by it. 😉
Roberta, thanks for your answers. I am with you on two of the three but find it difficult to see that a person as powerful as Jesus somewhat aborted his life’s mission when he was crucified. When revising former beliefs I need to first understand sources of the erroneous ones. Then I can generally find references in the gospel that support my new belief or in some cases find nothing to refute it. Anyway this discussion is much too deep for this venue. Certainly you understand I never take one person’s word for anything, otherwise we would not be having this discussion. You might be able to assist by referencing a book which deals with this subject. Thank you.
Dear Tom, of course you needn’t believe anything I say to you about anything! I just would add that I never said that “Jesus somewhat aborted his life’s mission when he was crucified.” On the contrary! He had completed His planned mission (His mission was many-fold, and it has been discussed in earlier posts). What was still a problem as He prepared to leave was the fact that He couldn’t convince His listeners that they were going to live forever. It was apparently the only item on His list of important new revelations that caused real resistance. So to wrap up that straggling end, He added His very public death and resurrection to prove once and for all that death isn’t always really death.
How do I know this? It is abundantly clear, both from the Gospel words and from people that we used to think were dead, that the Christian reason given for the death and resurrection of the Lord – that He died for our sins – is altogether bogus. But there had to be a reason! So I asked my beloved guide, Thomas, and He gave me the only answer which still, years later, makes any sense to me and is consistent with all the evidence. He said that Jesus wasn’t going to go out that way (although he never told me what the first plan had been), and it was entirely the Lord’s decision that He put Himself through His crucifixion and re-animation. I gather from Him anecdotally that Jesus was already from the highest aspect of the Godhead, and the further merit that He gained from doing this awful thing for us was stunning to His home team.
Actually, Thomas’s explanation makes some of what Jesus said in the process of being captured, judged, and killed actually make more sense. It fits. But of course, I urge you to ask your own spirit guide the same question that I asked mine!
Dearest Roberta,
The message that I got, even before I’d heard of your good self, was indeed that Yeshua, Jesus, rose from the dead to complete His ‘walk with humans through their lives.’
You see, I saw that His love is so great that He incarnated to teach us and bring us home. (Of course He was called ‘Rabbi’ which means Teacher or Master.) Thus He endured a full human experience, with all its joys and pains. He showed us our Spirit self, beyond the human self. And He performed overt ‘miracles’ because people then were more gross in terms of awareness, and He needed to show them astonishing things so that they would believe Him. He did all this out of love.
So when He resurrected He was showing people that we live after death and our true nature is beyond the physical; it is not only soul but Spirit. IE: Life beyond death was also part of the human experience. (He also said that He prepared a place for us with Him. Ensuring that we understood our own afterlife.) Hence it always was about life beyond life; He was about real transformation, not about paying a debt. Everything He did or said inferred and implied transformation. Is not resurrection the ultimate transformation?
I also came to understand that Jesus took his birth at that time, to be with us in a very close way. Since He is beyond time, He is with us now, and at any time in this world. Kind of like His life accompanies every life in every time.
Anyway Roberta, this is what I got to see some years ago and this sense has stayed with me ever since.
🌅🙏🏼❣️
Sounds good to me, dear Efrem! And I don’t think the notion that Jesus didn’t initially plan crucifixion into His life really changes anything. It doesn’t matter. As you say, He came to teach us all these beautiful and amazing truths that had previously been beyond human ken; and as with all of us, it is likely that His methods for fully delivering those teachings likely evolved “on the ground,” as it were, in the course of His journey through life. What matters is that He came from the highest aspect of the Godhead – quite literally, He came as God on earth – and that His teachings are the surest method for achieving rapid spiritual growth, which we now understand is the apparent reason why we even come to earth at all.
Hi Roberta! I mentioned in a comment above, which just got slipped in between others, that I would buy your book when it comes out. I suspect we all, through the blog, already have an inkling of its context and conclusions, but I look forward to seeing it come to fruition. So beg if you have to, but get that book out next year. It’s time! Meanwhile, I asked my wondrously patient and compassionate spirit guide this fundamental question about why the Master died so brutally and (–and remember, I have reason to believe she hasn’t experienced an incarnation in 1,000 years or so and was in northern Canada, so she was never a “Christian” –) her answer was, “Why do you want to know?” She can be very mercurial, as we’ve seen before.
It’s important to remember that the most astonishing point of the story of Abraham and Isaac isn’t that Abraham was willing to sacrifice his son, but that GOD STOPPED IT! The point of that story is never told properly. In that era of religion, human sacrifice to appease divine powers was acceptable. The story is a cultural artifact that turns that ritual upside down, and God clearly says, “NO!” Stop doing that. To that culture, this would have been a powerful message and a critical turning point in the relationship between earth and the rest of creation.
We don’t read that story correctly anymore because the culture has long since moved beyond the acceptance of human sacrifice to God (we have other kinds of human sacrifice, but that’s for another time). So the shock value of the scene in the story in which God intervenes is not typically analyzed in Sunday school.
The story of why Jesus died was told to a 1st century audience in a culture that needed to hear something in order to make sense of what had just happened. Actually, the embellishment of the story probably came even later — as we’ve discussed elsewhere in this blog — to seduce an audience who was even further entrenched in their own sense of powerlessness in the cosmos. So the point is, not why did the Master die, but why did he rise?
And what did he say to the disciples in those weeks following his resurrection (we’ve lost of a lot of those stories)? The point is, as he said, “I am always with you.”
We don’t need to haggle over what Jesus said or didn’t say to those folks in the 1st century, or whether his teachings in that empire would inevitably lead to execution by a horrific means of extended torture. Those details are functions of that era. What we know is that He is “always with” us. Always, as in still, as in now, as in as I write this. He is always alive. Always speaking. Always teaching. His words now are the words we have, and we do indeed have them, every day, if we listen.
And they are still as simple as they were then: Love, unconditionally. Forgive, totally and everything. Serve others, with no strings attached. Live with joy.
Dear Mike, the book is in design now, with a planned pub date in the first quarter, so that is an improvement! And what you say about God’s rescue of Isaac is interesting. Most read that story as God testing Abraham’s faith and obedience, but I like the idea that it was broader than that.
The blog post that I’m now working on got jumped in just last night, when I had what I thought was what was wanted about halfway done. Suddenly, Thomas wanted something else! And it is immensely disturbing to me. Calvinism. The horrific vision of an unloving, arbitrary, and cruelly unmerciful God that came out of the Protestant Reformation. We so take for granted the Lord’s vision of a perfectly loving and infinitely lovable God that you again articulate here! I never had thought about it much before, but for most of Christianity’s history the visions of God the various aspects of the religion were putting forth bore no relationship at all to the God of infinite love that Jesus consistently shared with us.
BOOM !!!
Oy. It certainly feels that way. Whenever Thomas does this, I basically keep saying to him, “Really?” “Are you serious?” Over days of time. I mean, Calvinism is the bedrock of the Baptist Church, the Methodist Church, of mainline Protestantism in general. And now he wants to put a bomb under it? Welcome to my world!
Uh oh – John Calvin was a little bit whacky
Um, just a little bit…??
The old fear VS love thing? I know people who think God should be feared, not loved.
Thanks again Roberta. I understant most of what you are saying. But it is difficult to assume the original plan was altered if we do not know what it was, although it is certainly possible. It was my impression that life plans were generally confidential, even at our higher levels of being. I definitely need to do more study on this subject.
Dear Tom, we all alter our plans as our lives unfold. We typically meet with our guides a few nights each week, and often with other key people in our lives and their own guides as well, and we make tweaks to reinforce lessons, to get rid of events if we no longer need them, to add other events as opportunities present themselves, and so on.
I don’t know if what I said is right, that the crucifixion was a late-in-life decision to demonstrate that human life is eternal. It came from Thomas, and it surprised me when I heard it; but as I write this, he is again confirming it. I accept it, because since Jesus didn’t die to “save” us, or to make us feel bad, then why else might He have chosen such a ghastly public death? Thomas hasn’t told me how He had initially planned to leave, but he gives me the sense it would not have been dramatic. For Jesus, His teachings were everything – they were the reason why He came! So He wouldn’t have chosen such a dramatic death unless it was meant to be part of the lessons.
Sadly, without his brutal and dramatic death, Jesus might not have been remembered after a century or so. If he died peacefully of old age or some disease, we may not even be talking about him today.
That’s an interesting take, Lola! And perhaps you are right. But there have been some great spiritual teachers whose words were remembered without their having died so horribly, and for the first five hundred years or so His movement prospered with little attention being paid to His death. Without the crucifixion, too, it would have been less likely that this whole false set of dogmas and sacrificial redemption would have been attached to him! Still, you might be right. Two thousand years is a very long time.
Oh my gosh, you’re right. No one could possibly get the idea that he “died for our sins” if he passed away from an illness. Thus, the horrible devastation that followed would not likely have taken place, at least to the extent that it did. If the first 500 years passed uneventfully, how did things change into all that insanity. Was it an attempt by the church to use it as a means of control?
Yes! What changed was Constantine’s “conversion,” and then the fact that he and his successors imposed an orthodoxy of beliefs on their new religion and ruthlessly stamped out every other view. Religions can be powerful means of controlling the masses, and the Council of Nicaea in 325 and the six that followed it were used to shape Christianity in that mold.
I forgot about Constantine, but I bet he started the ball rolling to turn everything into a fear based “religion” including the died for our sins idea in order to make people feel guilty for being human. This would compel people to follow the rules (set up by Constantine and others) out of a fear based guilt for causing the death of Jesus. This is totally diabolical, but people in those times were too naïve to figure this out. Unfortunately, it worked because the Vatican became one of the richest organizations in the world.
You’ve got the gist of it. But dear Lola, remember that 1500 years ago all religions were based in fear. A thousand years ago. Fear was how we rolled, and what was done to the Christian message was nothing out of the ordinary. What is different here – and miraculous! – is that we have a sufficient part of the original message from God preserved in the Gospels, and we now have confirmation from the dead of what Jesus really said, so this two-thousand-year detour can be fixed. We can go back, sit at the Master’s feet, then carry forward His genuine Way, as if Christianity never had existed at all!
This fact about fear-based religions serves to underscore how revolutionary Jesus’ teaching was. “You have nothing to fear but fear itself,” and “You cannot die because you were never born.” Very radical stuff, in His day and even today — although we do have better perspective on it now. Imagine having never heard this before within your local culture.
PS- In Catholic school, Constantine was presented to us during history and religion classes as a hero, because he “Christianized” the Roman empire.
Dear Mike, when I studied Christianity in college, Constantine was presented as a hero as well. History is written by the winners, after all, and organized religion has been the winner until now. But in fact Constantine assumed control of nascent Christianity and shaped it into something so different from what Jesus clearly intended, based upon His Gospel words, that the truth is that Constantine created his own control-based movement and gave it Christianity’s name.
Thomas tells me, however, that this was all part of the plan, in some way that I cannot understand. He is quite insistent about it! I have come to explain it to myself in what might not be the right explanation, but if this was all meant to happen then perhaps the plan was to conquer the world with an aggressive form of Christianity in order to make Jesus known and much-beloved everywhere, and then when the time was right to have Him take off the false religion and spread His perfect truth. I don’t know! But I do know that whenever I try to say that the currently prevailing version of Christianity was a mistake, Thomas insists to me that it was not, but instead it was part of the plan which now calls for that old and false version to fall away, and for the truth to prevail. None of this is up to us – we just work here!