Roberta Grimes

127 thoughts on “Near-Death Is Not Real Death”

1. Dear Roberta,
   Thank you for this blog entry. If we are ever going to fully understand what it means to be human and having this experience we perceive as incarnation, it’s important for us, also, to grasp the experience we perceive as NDE. Of course an NDE has nothing to do with death, but it can be a very powerful and positive experience in its own right.

   Nearly everyone who has had an NDE — as well as the numerous serious researchers who have amassed tremendous data on the phenomenon — will say that it is not so much the NDE that is significant as what happens to people afterward. It’s the after EFFECT, not the after LIFE that matters. Nearly everyone “returns” a changed person, usually with an awareness that there isn’t so much an after life but that there is ALWAYS life. And the awareness of the consciousness of the whole universe is also important. Many people return with a renewed sense of purpose. Likewise, many return feeling depressed and dejected. Remember — when we return from an NDE, it’s almost always to a broken body, or a broken situation of some kind. NDEs have been romanticized in popular culture, but they can be very difficult experiences to have and to re-integrate from. Some people do not re-integrate easily, some do. But most important, it’s an EARTH-LIFE experience, not an experience of the after life. Perhaps they are even carefully worked into our lesson plan?

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   1. Dear Mike, I have seen no evidence just yet that an NDE is ever anything other than a spontaneous response to some life-crisis – and usually it’s one that threatens death of the body – but it’s too early to tell whether people coming into new lifetimes might be starting to plan on them, now that we have had half a century of the much better health care that makes them more reliably possible. We’ll watch for signs of that!

      And yes, NDEs are wonderful evidence that our minds easily exist apart from a functioning body, which doesn’t actually prove that we will survive our deaths but it does give us a good indication of that fact. If only experiencers would leave it at that! But from the beginning there have been a few NDE-ers who have felt the need to teach what they saw and heard in their individual NDEs as if it was evidence of what happens in the course of a genuine death; and we are at the point now where there are so many survivors of NDEs that people in general are being led to lose sight of the fact that NDEs have nothing to do with death so they are not evidence of anything real that ever actually happens to anyone!

      This mission-creep we are seeing in NDEs is a grave threat to the mission now underway to raise the consciousness of this planet. If we can’t counter the nonsense, then very soon it will be almost impossible for seekers to find and believe what is actually true about death and the afterlife! So then the great effort now underway to raise the consciousness vibrations of this planet will have been retarded severely, or even defeated for what may be a very long time.

      What we have at risk if we can’t smother this disinformation while it is still in its cradle is going to be our topic for next week.

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      1. In another culture, more in tune with nature and humanity’s connection to the whole of creation (vs Western culture feeling separate), we would have a better understanding of the personal vision quest. An NDE, whatever it is, is most remarkable for the generally long-term transformation it brings about in the individual. If we understood and recognized a vision quest, as shamanic/mystic cultures did, that is probably what we would call NDEs. It’s important if one is interested in NDEs to read the credible research and not the popular accounts. From a purely practical perspective (to invoke alliteration) the important factor for Western culture is that NDEs have made serious researchers look a little differently at the question of mind/brain functionality. If you are interested in that, other commenters have mentioned the serious research, a sample anyway. Beware bestselling books or commercial documentaries. Meanwhile, the medical world is beginning to take a different tack on death and dying (the real process) thanks to some very compelling experiences reported by end of life caregivers—hospice nurses, ICU doctors, ER staff and the like. These are not NDE anecdotes, but witness accounts of actual deaths.

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2. Like other inappropriate words and terms ‘near death experience’ is a misnomer and might less incorrectly be termed an ‘apparently near-death experience’ – andex! 😉

   I like to tell folk who say they died that they are plain wrong because death is a one way trip. There ain’t no ‘coming back’ from it to tell the story!

   Nonetheless andex can be very helpful in triggering an interest in spiritual and afterlife issues, an experience often reported as life-changing. My guess is that learning about survival – be that via andex or in whatever other way – and being able to accept that simple truth is indeed life-changing for many and perhaps most. It certainly was for me. 🙂

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   1. Hello dear Mac! I had never heard of andex, so I googled it. Andex is a packaging company in Minnesota. It’s also a species of beetle in the family Dytiscidae. What does either have to do with NDEs??

      To be frank, until perhaps three months ago I was with you on this, thinking that NDEs were doing a wonderful job of opening people’s minds, kind of in the mold of “I don’t care what you say about me, so long as you spell my name right!” But then I started to get emails like the one quoted in this post. And on the same day just a week or two ago, I got two emails:

      1) A very sincere and eager researcher told me he had assembled a whole diagram of the afterlife based entirely on thousands of NDEs, and I had to break the news to him that he had just diagrammed thousands of people’s nonsense dreams.

      2) Another very sincere person sent me a PDF of a book about to be published because she hoped I would consider her for a Seek Reality interview, and she also had devoted considerable work to figuring out death and the afterlife based on thousands of NDE reports. When I told her that in fact NDEs have nothing to do with actual death or the genuine afterlife, she told me that was just my opinion.

      Real energy by sincere and valuable researchers is now being diverted into years of studying and trying to make sense of what is just personal garbage! It was then that I decided that I had to say something. It is time for all of us to speak out for the truth!

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      1. apparently near-death experience’ – andex!

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         1. Dear Jean, you should be working for the CIA or some other sleuthing organization!

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      2. Is this the reason that so many NDE experiencers are told “you have to go back?” Those exact same words are said to thousands of people who have had an NDE, so there is obviously something to this. In other words, they haven’t officially died and their time here isn’t up yet. Some have seen things that hadn’t been invented yet i.e. a laptop computer, a flat screen TV and so on. I do not believe that they are experiencing an actual afterlife, but it is clear they are having some type of mystical experience that we don’t quite understand. Some have seen dead loved ones like close friends or relatives, and they are often told (you guessed it) that they have to go back.

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         1. Dear Lola, there is no time in the astral plane, which could explain why some “future” items were seen by NDE-ers… although, on the other hand, these are all unique personal experiences – dreams, in essence – so how would we know what any NDE-er actually saw? That they would meet with dead loved ones – and even conceivably loved ones they hadn’t known were dead – is easily explained, since there are many places in the astral where we meet with loved ones as we astral-travel while our bodies sleep.

            These experiences are in the nature of vivid dreams of every conceivable description! And they are of no more import beyond the mind of the experiencer than would be any other kind of vivid dream.

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3. dear roberta i realy enyoyed your comments terry

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   1. Thank you, Terry! And I enjoy hearing from you ;-).

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4. This is the kind of conclusion I came to myself recently the more I read about life after “death” myself. That is changes people to more love, spiritual awareness, etc. is a fantastic side effect.

   When it comes to reincarnation, this is a tricky subject, as messages received through mediums differ on this topic. Some say no and others say yes, and those who say yes propose ideas that differ widely, so at this point I find it hard to truly accept the idea wholeheartedly.

   Of course, spirits come back to help us, to guide us, but it would be wrong to call those reincarnations. Are the attacks of evil spirits also reincarnations? What about possessed people; they truly do exist.

   This remains a confusing topic, and hopefully we can find out a lot more.
   Does hell exist? Yes, the dark realms of the sprit world can be called hells. Many hells on different levels as well. In some there are a few spirits, in others many more. But indeed, no fire. Except the fire of remorse, regret, etc.

   One thing you didn’t mention yet. I guess next week you will remind us that since millions have had NDE’s that it will serve as a positive spiritual force that will help change this crazy world into one of true love, true peace, true brother and sister hood.

   The Covid-19 crisis also will accelerate this positive evolution of the human spirit.

   Thank you always for your insightful blogs every Sunday.

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   1. Dear Adri, the fact that there is so much confusing information in all the areas that most interest us here is precisely why I have written the Fun series as brief summaries of what we know to be true plus an extensive bibliography. I have done decades of research, and in the area of the death process and the afterlife (in particular) there is so much evidence received before about 1940 (back in the days of deep-trance mediums), and it is so consistent even in small details, that it is possible to use it to create such a detailed picture of the death process and the afterlife – particular as it appears to recent arrivals – that we can say definitively, This is it! This is what the death process and the afterlife are objectively like, in detail, and moreover here is an annotated bibliography of seventy books where you can learn it all for yourself.

      As you point out, it is harder to do that with reincarnation, which is why I haven’t yet written a definitive The Fun of Coming Back. But we do have a great deal of consistent information received from a few sources, and as the veil continues to thin I can envision being able to write that book eventually.

      I’m confused, though, about your claim that hell exists. Hell in the religious tradition of a horrible place to which we are condemned for our sins emphatically does exist, but:

      (a) What Jesus called “the Outer Darkness where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth” does indeed exist. It is the lowest afterlife level, and those who cannot forgive themselves for something done on earth may put themselves there for a time; and

      (b) Some folks think that certain earthly places or experiences are hell on earth. On that I voice no opinion!

      I think NDEs can continue to be positive spiritual experiences – what are called Spiritually Transformative Experiences, or STEs – only for so long as the leaders in the field continue to treat them as that, and continue to insist that they are not related to death. Once there is a strong current of belief that NDEs can tell us anything about actual death, the whole field will have become a bulldozer wrecking the possibility that humankind can learn enough to grow spiritually. It is actually because NDEs now are so valuable as we all seek spiritual growth that I am resolved now to save the whole field from falling into a destructive set of false beliefs!

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      1. Humanity has survived so many “bulldozers wrecking the possibility that humanity can learn enough…” that I suspect that it is actually a part of the process. Best to “resist not evil” in the sense of feeling appalled about how people interpret such things. Good to have a voice of clarity about the non-relationship of NDE to actual DE, but not necessary to worry about “smothering in the cradle” people’s various levels of misinformation, disinformation, and incomplete understanding. Truth will out, though over the millennia and not necessarily at the pace and completeness we would like. Alas.
         As an example, look at the teachings of Jesus.

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         1. Oh dear Susan, how I wish that you were right! Unfortunately, though, we no longer have millennia to waste. The teachings of Jesus were given to us for just this time, and packaged in false religious teachings for their preservation. Now, for the first time in human history, we can confirm that those teachings are right, and we have sufficient communication with those who are not actually dead to be constructing a completely evidence-based picture of death and the genuine afterlife.

            So now at last we have a pool of real knowledge, just at the time in human history when the consciousness vibration of humankind has fallen so low that a campaign has begun at the highest levels to raise the vibrations of this whole planet. And here we have that clear and pristine pool of knowledge! We have the power to really do this! Except that people who don’t know what is going on but have had personal experiences they want to share are attempting to pour murky dye into that pristine pool. It is up to us to save the truth from pollution, or else to willingly let humankind slip into another thousand years of darkness. I’m sorry, but it is time for people who want a better life for us all to speak up now in defense of ending at last our millennia-long ignorance!

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            1. Hi Roberta, thanks for replying. I like your idea of speaking up, In fact if I hadn’t stumbled onto your website It would have taken me much longer to come to the recognition that NDE is not the same as the actual experience of crossing over, though I was on the same trail of recognizing that there was a difference. In our modern culture, we have such a deficit of context and language for different spiritual states. It seems to me that NDEs are appropriately labeled, but perhaps not appropriately classified. I’m very grateful to see the distinction between NDE and actual “afterlife” pointed out. I too think humanity is on the verge of the realization that our current concept of life ending by death is mistaken. I think it will be as unstoppable a shift as the Copernican Revolution, however, regardless of dis/misinformation from NDEs, scientific materialism, religious distortion, etc. We can help the process most by sharing our understandings, and doing our best to be receptive to the peace that passes understanding.

5. A major problem for earnest seekers is that many incarnates may appear to have ‘the answer’ with any particular individual perhaps coming over as authoritative as the next.

   No matter what credentials they may have, no matter what claims they may make for themselves or the sources of the details they provide, those individuals are still subject to the constraints most incarnates suffer from. A small few are likely not to be constrained in those ways but how can regular gals and guys differentiate?

   Words and ideas genuinely sent from discarnate communicators reach most of us through third parties, via go-betweens. We see them as mediums, teachers, seers, gurus or whatever. But we have been taught we should always test the spirit. When we can’t perhaps the best advice is that we should accept only what appeals to our reason. Not accept what is said just because one teacher or another, one guru or another, has said it.

   Faith, belief and even religion may carry some of us through difficult times but none of them necessarily paints a true or even helpful picture. Misinformation is hardly preferable to ignorance and may even be worse. 🙁

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   1. Oh my dear Mac, how much easier all of this is for you! All you need to do is decide – as you say – what appeals to your own particular reason.

      But that is a luxury I don’t have. I’ve been tasked with doing all the research I can and assembling what is actually, objectively true about death and the afterlife based upon assembled facts supported by many other assembled facts and not based upon what I might want to believe. It took me forty years to get to the point where I could be pretty confident about what is objectively true about death and the afterlife, and after a decade in print what I had learned by 2010 has held up well. But still I am always testing it! No pressure, but I feel as if the weight of everyone’s ability to finally learn the truth still is all on me….

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      1. Easier or harder depends on one’s perspective, just like half-full or half-empty. 😉

         We’ve traveled to this point in our lives from different directions but we both know we chose the paths we traveled. It’s a subject we’ve discussed and debated many times over on ALF. 🙂

         It’s sad you feel the way you’ve outlined in your last paragraph because the reality is that many are engaged in that task.

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         1. Yes, there are more and more credible people studying and researching this topic, and I give them all the credit in the world – people like Dr. Raymond Moody, Dr. Pim van Lommel, Dr. Jeffrey Long and Roberta, just to name a few. Never before in history has this happened. However, as I mentioned before, I do not think their experiences represent the actual afterlife. It doesn’t coincide with what the “dead” tell us, as they apparently “stepped over” the threshold where NDE’s take place, and they then experience the real deal. I think this is why they are so often told they have to go back. The spirits that tell them to return say this because they know they aren’t actually dead and aren’t meant to be dead at that particular time

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         2. Many are engaged in this task, true; but very few are taking personal responsibility for finding and delivering the objective truth to people who are craving it. Until you have seen an entire book written for public consumption that authoritatively describes a whole alternative death-and-afterlife universe based entirely on NDE accounts and apparently altogether devoid of the genuine and altogether consistent evidence that you and I have studied, you won’t understand why I take such deep personal responsibility for trying to keep the marketplace free of confusing nonsense about death!

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            1. I definitely see your point. I avoid books etc. based solely on NDE stories. I think the authors – many of whom are doctors – find it easy to talk to patients directly about these things, but since they can’t “talk” to actual transitioned people, they avoid the rest of the story, so to speak. Thank God for people like Dt. Gary Schwartz who took it one step further.

6. I flat lined for 15 minutes in 2008; no NDE. The last thing I remember was calling the male paramedic ‘mam’ followed by (8 days later) being rolled out of ICU. A nurse stopped the person driving the bed and bent down to kiss me on the forehead. Still don’t know what that was about. What I now understand is the concept of ‘Nothing’. Eight days gone as if they never happened.
   I asked someone that researches NDEs why most people don’t experience them. His response was that most people would not understand them or that they already understand the process and don’t need them. I said that in a way I feel cheated. He reminded me that for some that have them they can be more like a curse. I would have to assume that would depend on the direction of the elevator.

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   1. Oh dear Amanda, the fact that most people who are very ill don’t recall having a near-death experience seems to be primarily a factor of the severity of the illness. Evidence suggests that a near-death experience is essentially a forced out-of-body experience caused by such instability in the body that it literally expels the occupant. Some NDEs are quick – out, then back in – while some are more extensive, and that aspect seems to be governed by both the extent to which the experiencer’s body is in extremis and the decisions of his guides.

      Your experience is harder to understand, since if someone truly had no heartbeat for 15 minutes straight then based upon current knowledge it would be biologically impossible for that person’s material body to survive. Perhaps you were flat-lining intermittently? If that is the case, then it may be that your body was never sufficiently stressed.

      On the other hand, we should add that some NDEs occur when the body has not been severely stressed. In these cases the decision to trigger an NDE might have come from the experiencer’s guides. Then again, there are people who have had several NDEs, which strongly suggests that some people are more susceptible to them.

      Much as they give us wonderful evidence that our minds can exist outside our bodies and even when those bodies are entirely non-responsive, a NDE really is not a significant event, except to the person who has one!

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   2. Do you consider that you died, Amanda?

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      1. Hello Mac, I did. Now I’m not so sure. My hospital records stated 15 minutes, but what was going on during that time? I’m just getting more confused.

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7. Hi Roberta,
   My dear cousin had an NDE and her perplexity she told me was, ” I thought your Mother would be there to greet me. I assured her that I believed my Mother would be there when the time came, but it wasn’t your time, so of course she wasn’t there for your NDE. ” She agreed but it seemed to still make her nervous about crossing over when the time comes, and the “unknowns”. I have not studied NDE’s in any way, and therefore what I believe and think I understand just resonates on a deeper level of both logic and love. My challenge of late has been working out anger and fear in my own life, and what the true source for that is. Basically, trying to approach it from a more spiritual point of view than psychological. What is perplexing, and I believe there is some significance to it as it has been re-occurring in my nighttime dreams in some manner, shape, or form for many many years. I often dream I’m in an educational setting, usually a university, and it is time to graduate and I don’t have all my credits, or I am missing this or that, and the issue boils down to not only not having what I need to graduate, but I do not know what exactly I am missing and no one can tell me why. The elusiveness of this makes me frustrated, weary and angry. While I don’t believe every dream is meaningful, I do believe there must be a spiritual lesson here. I wonder, as I have heard stated, that we probably travel to the other side during sleep; can dreams also be spirit guided and should we dismiss them, or seek a spiritual meaning? Could the dream be telling me something more regarding something that I need to accept and not question on a deeper level?

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   1. Gee Tim. This is weird, as I’ve had similar dreams – some in which I showed up on the wrong day to take an exam and others where I have to cram and study for a “test” of some sort that is coming up soon etc. I wake up scared and angry at myself for getting the date of the exam wrong or waiting til the last minute to study for a test etc. That lasts for just a couple of seconds before I realize it is “just a dream”

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   2. I don’t claim to be a dream expert, but from what I’ve read this type of dream is pretty common. I used to have them quite a bit myself – I hadn’t studied for the test, or I missed most of the classes, or I lost my class schedule. A recurring dream of that type is probably trying to point out something in your life that you need to pay more attention to, maybe some part of the “lesson plan” you came to work on, or possibly a feeling you aren’t living up to some ideal or you are somehow “lacking.”

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      1. Sounds like a good explanation, Scott. Since these types of dreams are rather common, it is probably some kind of “wake up call.”

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   3. Dear Tim, the sort of dream that you mention is perhaps the most common form of all! It is my understanding that it is an expression of your own anxiety that you may be missing something important, rather than any external heads-up from Spirit. You are a seeker, and you feel blocked perhaps? But it is possible to get beyond that.

      Yes, most nights we travel out of our bodies while they sleep. Often we stay close to our bodies, but sometimes we travel in the astral and visit with dead loved ones and our spirit guides, take classes, and so on. Our dreams customarily are not directly related to these experiences, but often when we wake up we will have clarity about something that had been bothering us (which is why we are told to “sleep on it”) – and that new confidence does have its roots in these meetings.

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      1. Great insight – and I suspect it may go ultimately go back to my ego and needing some sort of affirmation and perhaps pride in accomplishment. But accomplishment cannot be measured by mere certificates, degrees, titles, or salaries, and that’s something that I am constantly reminding myself.

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8. But my brother didn’t die a natural death! He jumped to his death three days ago!! Now what?? 😣

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   1. Dear Shari, I am so sorry for your loss! And a natural death is not always a planned death, of course. There are a few accidental deaths that truly are accidental (but very few); and a suicide like your brother’s apparently never is planned. But he made the decision and ended his life, so of course his death was entirely natural! I want to add, too, that people who commit suicide are rescued, loved, and comforted – no one ever judges them for having done that except themselves, and great care is given to loving and counseling them to help them get past whatever remorse they might feel. Please just keep sending your brother love and support, and I’m sure he will be just fine!

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      1. I had heard that about suicides as well. They are offered help by teachers etc., and that makes perfect sense. It would be cruel for them to be treated otherwise. They were already in the depths of despair to begin with! To penalize them and send them to some awful place would serve no purpose whatsoever.

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         1. Well said, dear Lola! In fact, the level of help, guidance, and support that suicide victims receive there is phenomenal.

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9. Greetings Roberta ,

   Asking if u think all the millions of virus victims will all be at the same VIBE LeveL , as a souL group, once they pass ? OR be more each case different for each souL ??

   Do u get a sense they will get LOTS of compensastion & special entitlement because they had to exit early from their earth life, the ones who did NOT contract to go early thru no fault of their own

   Todd
   N
   Toronto , ONT

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   1. Dear Todd, there is some pretty strong evidence that those who die in disasters of various kinds or in pandemics have actually all left at a planned exit point. And they leave the earth at the consiousness vibratory rate that they have achieved by the end of their life on earth, so clearly they all will be at different “VIBE” levels, as you so dramatically put it.

      There will be special help available if any of them need it, of course, but neither compensation nor entitlement exists in the genuine afterlife. Those are both earthly concepts exclusively.

      Although there are indeed heroes who get special welcomes home! Generally it’s in the form of a big parade. These heroes of the afterlife are people who have done something extraordinarily loving, even if what they did was never noticed on earth. The biggest parade that I recall reading about was for a woman who had taken the Lord’s urging to “let your left hand not know what your right hand is doing” when you give to others so seriously that she had tried to do one secret good thing for someone else every single day of her whole adult life. We know that she received a parade for the ages because someone who was newly dead early in the 20th century described her parade to his loved ones through a deep-trance medium. And, I thought, with more than a trace of envy 😉

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10. Dearest Roberta,
    I think you could be facing a protracted and serious battle to broadly suggest that NDEs are not experiences of the true Afterlife.

    You see my wise dad always told me that if you want to understand people, you need to try to look through their eyes; to see from their position. (Dad also added that seeing form another’s point of view, which may progress to become empathy, is key to understanding the whole human world.)
    So if I put myself in the position of someone who has had a dramatic, even protracted NDE, I begin to understand something of where he/she is both coming from and going with this:

    Imagine an NDEr who had a profoundly dazzling and life altering experience. He (or she) would be repurposed from within and he may get the urge to ‘tell the world’ about his revelation. He may be moved to ‘dedicate himself to helping people and to raising the consciousness of humanity.’ If he is, say, a doctor or business owner he may have the resources to launch a new career complete with lecture tours, videos, books, meditation and healing centers etc… How is he going to react when you say that his dramatic, near fatal experience – that has been hard won via an agonizing, protracted hospital recovery – is not a true experience of the Afterlife?

    You might be faced with the anger and indignation of someone whose ‘God given revelation’ and ‘sacred mission’ have been challenged outright. Such a rebuke of his ‘truth’ could result in great offense being taken and a strong reaction. Who knows my dear? but knowing a little of human nature gives me pause for thought.. This situation may become difficult.

    Please know that I too feel that NDEs have a very large subjective factor involved. The messages ascribed to them seem overtly personal and the sheer range of experience types do not agree with one consistent reality.

    Personally I do not focus on NDEs. I prefer The Way, as Jesus gives us an actual method to draw towards oneness with God that ends separation and the doubt and fear that it engenders. ❣️🙏🏼🌅

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    1. Dear Efrem, if freeing the truth about the afterlife from obfuscation by NDE-rs is the hill on which I am going to die, then bring it on!

       When people publicizing their NDEs have confronted me and I could not avoid it, I have told a number of NDE-ers who were trying to capitalize on their NDEs that their extraordinary experiences had nothing to do with the genuine afterlife. Some of them have been willing to listen. Some have been adamant in ways that made me sure it was their ego talking, to the point where I assume now that all NDE-ers seeking to publicize and profit from their NDEs are just speaking from their egos. And as with all others who are vibrating so low, the sooner we help them get past that, the better!

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       1. Dearest Roberta,
          Some people are dedicated I’ve found, and some people are devoted. Some are more of the head and some are more of the heart. My dear, you are both at once.

          May you be protected from on High; may you see things though and see the growing fruition of your mission before you shuffle off this mortal coil in peace. I wish that you do not have to die on that hill in that way.

          Of course I wish this for you: Here’s hoping that the waters of truth gently wash away the foundations of sand, on which the towers of false Afterlife beliefs stand. (Thence no need for a last stand on the hill.) ❣️

          Those NDErs not bound by the chains of their ego may well be able to see that although their wondrous experience does not describe the actual Afterlife, they are a testament to the vastness of soul consciousness, well beyond the limitations of the human physical experience. The people that bring back rich experiences of love and acceptance still have much to share. They can inspire us to higher things.

          Those NDErs that staunchly reject anything beyond their rigid egos must at least not resort to unethical actions or become unscrupulous – else let them be found out.

          Let Love protect and prevail. 🌅

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          1. Oh my dear Efrem, thank you for worrying about me! But Thomas has been frank with me from the beginning, so I pretty much know the score. He has been urging me to put people in place who can carry this work on after me, and to set it up so it can run itself; he has let me know that most of the results of our efforts will unfold when I am in the bleacher seats.

             And I don’t mind at all! As Jesus said, “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends” (JN 15:13). If that is what it will take to make my work here optimally meaningful, then I say, bring it on ;-).

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             1. Woah. Yes Roberta, our Jesus did say that. And I know you mean this to your very core. 🙏🏼

          2. Beautiful commentary.

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             1. Thank you, dear Susan! I feel that I have been given the gift of work to do for the Lord, and there can be no greater joy than that!

11. Hi Efrem: At one time, I thought NDE’s would give us a lot of insight into the afterlife, but as you said, they don’t point to a consistent reality. At the same time, the people they happen to insist that they are not dreams. I don’t think they are either, but I have to wonder if they are somehow orchestrated on a personal level for the people who experience them. Again, they are not consistent with the actual afterlife evidence, as the person hasn’t actually died. Maybe it’s like walking into a huge corporation and sitting in the waiting room for a while and then leaving. You haven’t seen the whole building and what’s going on in the many offices beyond the waiting room, so you essentially are clueless about the whole corporation.

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    1. Hello dear Lola,
       I do like your corporation waiting room analogy. This analogy, as with NDEs themselves, may show that a little knowledge is more dangerous than none at all. I suspect that this is the case because people attach all sort of wild ideas to the basic NDE experience, which cannot help but spread confusing and erroneous information.

       I’m sorry Lola, but I don’t believe that a six armed, seven eyed demon with a glittering exoskeleton is going to drag me to hell when I die, just because someone saw it in an NDE and because I am not a member of a certain evangelical church. I’m not going to take that stuff onboard.

       Though I too wonder about the nature of NDEs, which are different kinds of inner experiences and not dreams.

       Is the astral realm so fertile with creation and creativity, that the individual’s mind interacts with the exuberant creation power there? Do our minds in conjunction with this creative power produce a type of personally valid experience? Is this done to teach the experiencer something? Is the NDE the deeper soul talking to Creation?

       Perhaps NDEs reflect a person’s beliefs back to them? Is that why fundamentalist Christians get visions of Heaven and hell? Alternately, is that why spiritual people get visions of a love based place without any demons or hell?

       So many questions come to mind here. I get the feeling that in the non physical astral realm, ‘creation play’ is central, though it is hard to grasp such an abstract plane with my human mind.
       🙂🙏🏼🕊

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       1. Efrem and Lola et al, see my comment above.

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          1. I did read your comment, Mike, and I’m so glad you mentioned that hospice patients most often experience seeing friends and relatives who died before they did. While some people likely think that NDE’s are common among hospice patients, they are actually uncommon. Most of them see dead friends and relatives as clearly as they see their human visitors. However, the thought occurred to me that if energy is so easily manipulated over there, who’s to say that the “loved ones” we see are real? If energy can be manipulated to resemble Jesus-like beings, the angel Gabriel or whatever, it certainly could be manipulated to appear that our dead loved ones are actually there among us.

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             1. Dear Lola, the loved ones we see as death approaches are indeed the genuine article. When you see a great religious figure or any famous figure known by a lot of people who is nevertheless important to you, then that could be a guide who is giving you that experience; but our loved ones are indeed real! To be called upon to come for us is an honor and a delight to them.

          2. Hey Mike,
             I certainly did reflect on your comments above:

             Though there is too much to mention here, your point about ICU staff, doctors and hospice nurses in end of life care, describing people seeing deceased loved ones before they pass is most salient. I too have listened to such medical professionals explain deathbed experiences. And they speak just as Roberta does about dying – or transitioning to the Other Side. Their anecdotes are truly fascinating!!!

             May I recommend a YouTube video featuring Becki Hawkins who recounts such end of life anecdotes by her patients. Becki Hawkins has been a registered nurse who worked in oncology and with hospice patients for thirty years in the USA. She has also been a hospice chaplain. She wrote a book about these stories called ‘Transitions. A Nurse’s Education of Life and Death.’ (It can be found on Amazon.)

             Her experiences of the dying have lead her to believe that death is a natural, spiritual process helped by angels and loved ones already on the Other Side. Becki says the dying are lead across to the Afterlife by people who love them. She also believes there is no hell.

             The Youtube video of about an hour is fascinating, inspiring and poignant. I’ve noticed that her anecdotes agree with what Roberta wrote in ‘The Fun of Dying.’

             As my own Aunt Honey (Hannah) was dying she saw her deceased brother Eze (Ezekiel) come to her bedside to take her ‘home.’ So you see Mike, these anecdotes have a personal resonance for me.
             👍🙂🙏🏼

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             1. Thanks, Efrem! I am familiar with the work Becki Hawkins is doing. Your recommendations are worth everyone’s time! Just want to add, to the original point of this blog post, that the actual experience of the NDE does not seem to be the point as much as the after effects. If a person has a positive NDE (many do not) the return once re-integration is successful can be profound for the experienced—like any successful vision quest. But it’s eye-witness testimony like Becki’s that help everyone under stand the most profound moment that we will all experience.

             2. Thank you, dear Efrem! I am reassured and delighted to find that I am not the only one who is fighting for the truth. Sadly, sometimes it can feel as if I am!

       2. Dear Efrem, indeed NDEs do reflect the experiencers’ beliefs right back to them, and this is by design. The NDE is an unexpected interruption in a planned lifetime, and since the experiencer will be coming back, his guides don’t want to cause him distress or confusion.

          As for whether the astral plane is a kind of playground for the mind, we should add that the astral is non-material, and from what we can see from here the more advanced minds can easily mess with its “physical” aspects.

          Reply

       3. Thanks for the laugh, Efrem. (I’m referring to your six armed seven eyed demon). Yes, some NDE’s are on the silly side. I love what you said about the possibility of our minds being in conjunction with a creative power. I agree with you about “creation play.” To the person having the NDE, everything is taken literally, as 99% of people are not aware of the fact that energy can be manipulated by higher level beings, and everything looks so real that it is never questioned. Like you said, it is hard to imagine such a plane with our limited minds.

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          1. 👍🙏🏼❣️

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    2. Dear Lola, we are told by those who have transitioned that NDE experiences are tailored by the experiencers’ guides for their benefit and based upon what is in their minds. The idea is to use the opportunity to send them back into their lives with a new level of understanding, and with the added certainty that they are not going to die. Your notion of a corporate waiting room is a good one!

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       1. Well, your guides explanation certainly makes sense. Did you know that it totally coincides with the explanation “Seth” gave through Jane Roberts? Seth told her that guides appear to people in such a way to match their comfort zone i.e. Jesus for Christians, angels for Jews, Buddha for Budhism and so forth. All this was to make them less anxious and scared. Then when they calmed down a bit, the “ruse” was disclosed., The higher spirits have learned how to manipulate energy to appear in different ways, as you point out. Of those that came back, almost none of them knew about energy manipulation and thought what they saw was “real.”

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          1. I’m not surprised that the Seth material agrees, although Thomas is kind of making a wry face. He generally doesn’t like modern channeled materials. But NDEs and everything that seems to happen in them just all constitute even more proof that you and I are completely loved!

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             1. if we’re completely loved by Spirit then why are our prayers ignored when we’re in great fear, pain, despair, etc.? And I mean in situations that it’s obvious that we can’t currently learn lessons from those negative situations.

                Roberta writes: Dear Ali, insofar as we can determine, prayers are never ignored! The Godhead and our guides have a much different perspective than our own, so their answers may not be ones that we recognize as responsive to what we see as our needs at the time, but that makes their attention to us no less loving. And please don’t assume that there is no lesson learned from any specific situation! Even a loved one in a coma could be taking on that role as a service to others, to aid them in their learning.

                This whole process of growing spiritually as a result of planned earth-lessons is a great deal more complicated than what any of us can really get our minds around!

12. Hi Roberta. NDE accounts used to fascinate me, but these days I find them about as hard to get through as someone’s slide show of their latest trip to Disney World (Slide show? I guess I’m dating myself with that one.😄) They are subjective and more meaningful to those who experienced them. If they become spiritually transformative, all the better for those folks, but I hadn’t really considered how they could really muddy the waters of true afterlife research. Good point.

    Another point you mentioned, the work of Dr Ian Stevenson, is one I have wondered about. Do these cases represent a rare subset of unplanned sudden deaths – usually murders – in which the spirit needed rescuing but they jumped just as suddenly into an unplanned rebirth, if such a thing even exists, grabbing the nearest foetus they could find before that rescue happened? If such a thing can indeed occur, would the primary guide stick with them into the new life? That would certainly be more than they signed up for – ugh! This sort of jump could explain the uncharacteristic memories of the previous life, normally erased so as not to interfere with the new life plan, but this time there is no real plan.

    Reply

    1. Great point, Scott! A sudden unplanned death could certainly mess things up and keep memories of their most recent lifetime more on the surface. This could certainly explain why some people have such vivid memories of a previous life i.e they haven’t been away from it long enough to forget it.

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    2. Yes, Scott, the version of reincarnation that Ian Stevenson studied and wrote about was pretty much what you have laid out: a sudden, unplanned death; a confused being stuck outside his body that can no longer sustain life; and a usually rather prompt decision by that being to jump into the fetus of a pregnant woman passing by. The same kind of thing seems to happen in wartime: there are instances, for example, of people born on pacific islands who claimed to have been shot down during WWII and who had memories to back that up. These being without bodies usually seem to find the requisite fetus pretty quickly, but some seem to have been stuck in place for years.

       And as for who the new being’s spirit guide would be, who knows? Remember that they “phone home” on most nights while their bodies sleep, so it may well be that a new guide joins them. And no one knows what happens to the being whose body that was supposed to be, either!

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13. Do you really think my brother will hear me, Roberta??
    Because I need to talk to him so badly!! I need to apologize for neglecting him too much, and for not telling him that I loved him! I need to explain the complicated and difficult-to-express things that happened in our family of origin, and tell him that I DID see the scapegoating towards him, even if the others didn’t, and validate his buried but felt experience it. I need to tell him what I didn’t tell him here!! I didn’t quite get brave enough -even though I was getting there; I was getting braver and stronger (getting over my own surgeries and my alcoholism), and ready to find ways to reach out to him more consistently and better. I was starting to realize that he might be in a bad way…and now it’s too late!! Too little, too late. 😖

    Reply

    1. Yes, of course he hears you, dear Shari. And it is not too late! Please put yourself into a peaceful, quiet place and simply speak to him aloud. Be calm and loving. And do this often! The peace that doing this will begin to bring to you if you persist at it will be a loving hug from him ;-).

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       1. Great advice, Roberta and, Shari, she is right. I have had proof that they do hear us, so it is really never too late.

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14. You have had proof?! Oh, thank you, Lola! I hope they ALL do then!

    I’m trying to talk to him, but I’m full of regrets & tears! I am not calm at all! I will try to go for peaceful, calm, & loving. That’s good advice. Eventually I might get there!

    I do want to communicate to him often. For the rest of my life, I want to love on him!! I’m so happy to know that it is ok to do this a lot; that it’s not bothersome, or doesn’t keep me or him stuck or anything.

    Reply

    1. Shari: They can hear us and see us, but we can’t see or hear them (except with the aid of a digital recorder) because they are at a higher vibration than we are. Don’t worry about this being bothersome. In fact, it will have the opposite effect. At first it feels weird to talk to what seems like thin air, but just talk in a normal voice mentioning his name, and say what’s in your heart. I promise he will hear you, and you can do this as often as you wish. Try to drop the regrets, as it isn’t necessary to hang onto them. It benefits no one

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15. Thanks to all for the profound comments. It is quite reassuring to hear that most of what has been stated is consistent with what I have learned from other sources.
    While NDEs are meaningful from an individual perspective, I now understand why such events are not a reliable basis for understanding the dynamics of a true death.

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    1. Thank you, Tom! And I hope that as the opportunity arises, everyone here who knows the truth will speak for the truth. It is going to be more important than you know!

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16. Thank you, Lola. It’s hard to drop my regrets when this is all so new, and I comb through the last months and weeks and days, and can see with fresh eyes where I tried, where I was awkwardly trying, where I didn’t try, where I screwed up, and how I coulda-woulda-shoulda. But why wasn’t I just texting him very regularly??? 😩
    I guess maybe I need to share my failures to love & care for him, and the confusing why’s for that, first with him? And then I will have to let them go. 😓

    Reply

    1. Dear Shari, it is crucial to your own future happiness that you forgive yourself. There is nothing you can do to change the past! You can send him your love and support as part of your daily routine for the rest of your life, but first you are going to have to forgive yourself (based on everything we know, he already has, and your forgiving yourself too will be a gift to him).

       If you would like a PDF of my book on forgiveness, just send me an email through the Contact block on this website and remind me of who you are.

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17. Thanks, Roberta.
    If you think he has forgiven me, then I guess I can forgive me too, bit by bit. It has been a rough 4 1/2 days.

    It’s weird that I was kissing his name on old cards that I was sorting through that afternoon (but nobody else’s name), and I couldn’t throw away any of his cards! And since Christmas, I have tried four times to throw his Christmas card away while culling through the cards, and just never could. The last time I tried was the weekend before he died. Now of course I never will.

    But, I wish I had had the intuition to contact him that day while he sat in his car for 5 hours trying to screw up the courage to jump!😔

    Reply

    1. Dear Shari, if it helps, you can think of how unhappy his life on earth was and how much happier he almost certainly is already. He is getting lots of love and support, he is free of all earthly stresses, and he urged you to come and talk about it here, where he knew you would get lots of love and support.

       Life on earth is hard! I don’t care how rich and healthy and famous you are, earth-life is hard. I am such an optimist and so sunny by nature (I bless my spiritually advanced mother for that), but still I am coming to realize now that living on earth day after day is hard duty for all of us some of the time, and for some it is hard duty every day. So please forgive yourself! Know that he is going to be fine and happy where he is now, and give yourself the gift of spiritual peace.

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       1. Roberta, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your wise & loving help through this initial phase of crushing shock and grief and remorse. Just so he’s ok now, is all I care about! Thank you.

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18. Dear Roberta,

    Having never experienced an NDE I think of them as more of a catalyst towards a deeper spirituality for those who have planned for them rather than an evidentiary experience. And if you subscribe to that notion, then belief in reincarnation is a given. How can you plan your next life is there isn’t going to be the next life?

    Could it be that belief in reincarnation is almost a prerequisite for the afterlife? (As I write this I realize that reincarnation doesn’t preclude NDE, but it does offer a more credible alternative.

    I started to do a little research on reincarnation as early Christian doctrine. I focussed on the early Church father, Origen who was, perhaps, the last great proponent of reincarnation. Well, you won’t get that impression if you read the Wikipedia Article on Origen. The best view you get is rather mixed if you rely solely on the internet. I would imagine that what is close to the truth lies deep within the Vatican library, but I will never see it; not in this lifetime, anyway.

    Roberta, do you think this sort of research is a lost cause? I hope not. I would like to do my part in raising the consciousness of our planet.

    Cookie

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    1. Hi Cookie,

       I share your appreciation of Origen. The early Roman church decided he was a bit too dangerous – that sort of free ranging thought, not that he was necessarily right on everything, was more than they wanted, and speaking of the thought police, I wouldn’t trust anything on Wikipedia these days relating to the sorts of topics we discus here. We must never stop fearlessly researching and seeking for truth, however much the merchants of materialist dogma and conformity try to stop us. Thankfully, I feel that with the help of spirit, and brave researchers like Roberta, the tide is starting to turn. 🙂

       Reply

       1. Dear Scott, you are certainly right about Wikipedia! It is so militantly materialist that some folks with more independent minds are working now on an unbiased version, but without funds behind it unfortunately not many people know about it (I can’t even recall what it is called).

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    2. Dear Cookie, I’m sorry, but some of this confuses me. When you say, “Could it be that belief in reincarnation is almost a prerequisite for the afterlife?” are you saying that unless you believe in reincarnation while on earth, you won’t make it to our universal afterlife? Of course that isn’t possible, since if it were then eighteen hundred years of sincere Christians would simply have blacked out at death like so many extinguished lights! Belief in reincarnation in the West has been severely limited for more than a thousand years, yet we know that all these people did in fact make it to the afterlife just fine. Am I missing something in what you are suggesting? But dear Cookie, it doesn’t matter what anyone has believed while on earth. We do know that for a fact!

       And we know why the early councils stamped out belief in reincarnation, and even rooted out of the canonical Gospels almost everything that Jesus said about it. The councilors at Nicaea in 325 told us that they thought that without reincarnation, people would try harder in what they would think was their one lifetime. So, dear friend, researching how the early church then stamped out the belief altogether may be of some value in helping former Christians become more comfortable with the truth, but that seems to me to be its only value. Am I wrong in this? What are your thoughts?

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       1. Yes, reincarnation was definitely frowned upon by Christianity because they felt that if Christians believed in it, the church could no longer have the control over them that they could if people thought they only had just “one shot” at life. This is just one more example of the fear they tried to promote.

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19. Roberta,

    It seems I always manage to include at least one error in my post. A case in point: “Could it be that belief in reincarnation is almost a prerequisite for the afterlife?” A better rewording is “Could it be that belief in reincarnation is almost a given for belief in the afterlife?” I meant for each reader to think, “well, of course”.

    Cookie

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    1. Heh – Dear Cookie, welcome to my world! I re-read and tweak these posts repeatedly before posting them in order to minimize mis-speaking. Hmmm. I’m not sure that a belief in reincarnation is important to our belief in the afterlife, since I had established all the basic understandings that I still have at least a couple of decades before I even allowed for the possibility of reincarnation (I was so stubbornly Christian even into my fifties that I refused to countenance the thought of reincarnation, even though it kept hitting me over the head). You have me wondering, though, what people must have internalized as certainties in order to vanquish their fear of death, since for everyone to get past that fear is the whole point of our teaching about life after death. I’ll think about it further – thank you for this suggestion!

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    2. Hey David,
       I always seem to leave some misspelling or general error in my replies, even after I’ve read it over. I’m kind of shoddy these days! Cant help it…
       Your reincarnation idea is interesting. It seems to me that we plan the next life after we have lived and then reviewed the life we’ve just had.

       I was familiar with this idea as a kid, as Judaism has a belief in reincarnation, though the European Jewish schools don’t teach it. Reincarnation is called ‘gilgul neshamot’ in the commentary scriptures. That literally means ‘the wheel of souls’. Or wheel of lives, loosely translated.
       I reckon that reincarnation is part of the ascension process; ascension of vibrational growth to higher levels in the Afterlife, 🕊🙏🏼🌅

       Reply

       1. Dear Efrem, I think you are roughly right on reincarnation timing… except, of course, for the fact that there is no time. Furthermore, evidence suggests that all our lives through all of history are happening out of order, happening at the same time, and influencing one another. Honestly, it sprains your mind even to think too much about it! We are told, however, that it does make sense, although it is impossible for us to understand it from here. We’ve got to be back in our eternal minds if we hope to make much sense of it.

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          1. Woah. Amazing. I’m looking forward to getting my eternal mind back and truly understanding what living without time is like. I must wait for now, though.
             🌅🎉

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    3. My approach to matters spiritual is often to consider how they affect humankind generally rather than at a personal level. But in terms of needing to accept the principle of reincarnation before being able to accept the notion of survival then in my own case it was definitely not. I was sold on the certainty of survival long before I even looked at the possibility of reincarnating into this world.

       Even now when I write on the subject of reincarnation, 35 years on from my ‘awakening’, I make the point that reincarnation is not compulsory and not proven. Neither is eternal life proven, of course, but there’s an abundance of evidence that it’s so. Beyond that we may only look to teachers and guides generally acknowledged to be authoritative for our guidance. Which teachers and guides is up to the individual.

       One teacher/guide whose words still help me said that among his peers there were some who declared they’d never met a spirit individual who had reincarnated. But that teacher himself was totally persuaded that reincarnation was a fact. 😉

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       1. Dear Mac, no one has been more reluctant to embrace reincarnation than I have been, for most of my life! But I have of late come to see it as having been just as well-proven as is universal human survival. The fact that outside of time it is a great deal weirder than anything we even can imagine from here doesn’t change that!

          Before 2015 I had seen enough good evidence to become confident that some sort of reincarnation does happen, but then Thomas altogether convinced me. The second time I spoke with him through an excellent medium, in the spring of 2015, he began the conversation by saying, “You wonder how many lives we have lived together.” That question never had crossed my mind! But he went on to tell me we had had 17 lifetimes together, and then he tried to talk to me as a familiar, perhaps assuming he had made me remember all those relationships. But I was still clueless. He told me (by then sounding somewhat exasperated) that we both had lived more important lifetimes in the opinion of the Councils – whoever they are! – than his Jefferson lifetime, so please move on from that. I was still clueless. Still star-struck. But fifteen years before, when I was testing mediums, a couple of mediums had tied me to Thomas Jefferson as well – one had told me Jefferson had called me his son, and my name had been Richard. Now, TJ had no son who survived infancy, but in old age he did have a young protege named Richard Rush, and he thought of him almost as a son. I later learned that young Richard had worked with old Thomas on his Gospels project, and I understand now that our shared interest in helping the Lord was the main reason I signed up for this lifetime. Then I listened to the recording of Thomas Jefferson speaking through Leslie Flint in about 1960, and it was so much the same voice he had in old age that as I listened it brought back a vivid memory of sitting and talking with him in his cabinet over tea, in intense morning sunlight.

          I accept all of this now. I know it’s true. He and I have eased back into a relationship that has extended over many lifetimes, and that feels pretty wonderful! Of course reincarnation is real. Jesus even talked about it, and while the councils tried to root it out of the Gospels some references to it still remain. But your reluctance to believe and my certainty of knowing lie on a spectrum quite similar to the spectrum of understanding that we see in afterlife research: some need to do more personal research than others do, which is fine, because in the end it’s for each of us to learn the truth individually that is going to banish fear from this planet.

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20. Efrem,

    I think an analogy would be that in this life I was a lawyer and created a number of legal briefs that because of grammatical errors actually gave an opposite impression of what was intended and some had caused serious ramifications, such as the imprisonment of the innocent.

    After my “death” I will review my life and in particular how my carelessness caused so much harm, that I would choose to have an occupation that gives immediate feedback on carelessness. Perhaps like someone I knew who worked in a chem lab, mixed the wrong chemicals, which caused a small explosion that blinded him. That would cause me to learn and become more diligent without the possibility of endangering others in the process.

    Cookie

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    1. Cookie,
       I hope that you can raise your vibration close to perfect Love in this life, and not have to come back to this Earth again. (Unless you WANT to return just to help raise the consciousness of others.)
       👍🙏🏼🕊

       Reply

    2. Dear Cookie, with the caveats that I gave to Efrem about the effects on reincarnation of the lack of objective time, this is roughly the way I understand reincarnation as well. At least for purposes of living with it from here, it makes a good model! For another example, we have been given to understand that many who had been slaveholders in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were so appalled by their life-review memories that they planned prompt reincarnations as the darker-complected descendants of slaves during the Jim Crow period in order to get themselves into better spiritual balance. That is very much the sort of thing that reincarnation allows us to do!

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21. Hi Roberta, thank you for a very interesting post!
    I have a question about books channeled through loved ones. I have read both Mikey Morgan’s Flying High in Spirit and “My View from Heaven: A Boy’s Story of His Journey to Heaven and the Purpose of Life on Earth” by Sarina Baptista (channeled from her son).

    The books are similar in that they are written by a recently-dead reporter. I thought Sarina’s book is also an accurate book?

    Reply

    1. Hi Timo! I have read the Baptista book as well, and met and interviewed Sarina. I think her book is better than most in terms of accuracy. The reason why Mikey Morgan’s book is the better choice is that he has achieved and he is now speaking from near the top of a highly stratified reality, so he can give us much more of the big picture. And his book is entirely accurate! I helped to get it written, but my sole role was to ask questions after the first draft was done and thereby help them complete the narrative. Every bit of what is in that book came from Mikey himself, and based on my half-century of research it is all absolutely accurate.

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22. My approach to matters spiritual is often to consider how they affect humankind generally rather than at a personal level. But in terms of needing to accept the principle of reincarnation before being able to accept the notion of survival then in my personal case it was definitely not. I was sold on the certainty of survival long before I even looked at the possibility of reincarnating into this world.

    Even now when I write on the subject of reincarnation, 35 years on from my ‘awakening’, I make the point that reincarnation is not compulsory and not proven. Neither is eternal life proven, of course, but there’s an abundance of evidence that it’s so. Beyond that we may only look to teachers and guides generally acknowledged to be authoritative for our guidance. Which teachers and guides is up to the individual.

    One teacher/guide whose words still help me said that among his peers there were some who declared they’d never met a spirit individual who had reincarnated. But that teacher himself was totally persuaded reincarnation was a fact. 😉

    Reply

23. Mac: I know which teacher you are referring to, and the statement he made concerning reincarnation always puzzled me but then, the thought occurred to me that maybe at the level he is at, reincarnation does not occur because it is no longer necessary. In that way, he wouldn’t actually witness it from where he is, but he knows that it exists, perhaps at a lower level. Everything these teachers/guides tell us comes through mediums, and we have to keep in mind that sometimes the medium isn’t able to convey the complete story. I noticed that Mikey Morgan also said he had no plans to come back, and that could be because he is at a high enough level where reincarnation no longer takes place.

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24. Dear mac,

    How do people know if they have reincarnated, or not? The only way I know to gain such knowledge is to visit a therapist trained by Dr. Michael Newton or another LBL (Life Between Lives) therapist and see what you were a few lives ago.

    Or, you might watch David Wilcock’s show on Gaiam TV as there is one episode where he claims to be Edgar Cayce’s reincarnation, on the evidence that he has some psychic powers, his facial structure looks like Cayce’s and his horoscope is similar to Cayce’s.

    So it gets down to the rules of evidence here. Wilcock has some strong evidence, but I think it falls short of absolute proof. Even harder would be to prove that “I have never reincarnated”. So, those peers of your teacher who declared they never met a spirit individual who had reincarnated are either on shaky logical ground or perhaps we can shorten the statement to “They never met a spirit individual”.

    Cookie

    Reply

25. quote: “Mac: I know which teacher you are referring to, and the statement he made concerning reincarnation always puzzled me but then, the thought occurred to me that maybe at the level he is at, reincarnation does not occur because it is no longer necessary. In that way, he wouldn’t actually witness it from where he is, but he knows that it exists, perhaps at a lower level. Everything these teachers/guides tell us comes through mediums, and we have to keep in mind that sometimes the medium isn’t able to convey the complete story. I noticed that Mikey Morgan also said he had no plans to come back, and that could be because he is at a high enough level where reincarnation no longer takes place.”

    That guide was sure reincarnation was a fact although one might imagine not necessarily involving everyone. It’s a puzzle that his peers said what they did and I don’t think the guide had any explanation for their apparent ignorance. One would surely have thought that those ‘higher up’ the spiritual progression ladder would still know what’s learned at lower levels so I have no idea why his peers seemed ignorant of reincarnation, or, more accurately, had never met a spirit who had reincarnated. Perhaps they led sheltered lives!!! LOL

    I agree with you that mediums are unable to convey anything like a complete picture. Come to that neither can guides!

    Mikey Morgan may indeed carry out his declaration he will not return to this world. That may eventually be the decision by other spiritually evolved teachers/helpers/guides. It’s not necessarily that they don’t need to – Mikey didn’t NEED to in connection with his spiritual progress. Perhaps even these evolved beings eventually accept they’re on a hiding-to-nothing staying around the lower levels, especially that of this physical world? There will always be others just as there has always been others in the past. No single spirit individual is indispensable to this world and none likely ever has been.

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26. So it gets down to the rules of evidence here. Wilcock has some strong evidence, but I think it falls short of absolute proof. Even harder would be to prove that “I have never reincarnated”. So, those peers of your teacher who declared they never met a spirit individual who had reincarnated are either on shaky logical ground or perhaps we can shorten the statement to “They never met a spirit individual”.

    Perhaps you believe that guide was mistaken or was telling a lie? You are free not to accept what he says but unless you know more about the guide’s peers than he did then your belief about (quote) “shaky logical ground” is plain dumb.

    Equally dumb is your mention of “rules of evidence” and linking that to the rest of your statement. There are no rules of evidence as it ain’t a court of law! shidad!

    There is no actual proof we led previous lives or proof of survival beyond death. There is though abundant evidence of the latter and a fair bit of the former.

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    1. Um, dear Mac? Please let’s be very careful to always speak with politeness and kindness here!

       Dear Cookie, I understand what you mean when you say that the fellow on Gaia claiming to be Edgar Cayce has not fully made his case. There is no reason not to apply reasonable rules of evidence as we try to substantiate any non-physical phenomenon! Ultimately, the only one who can decide whether or not any collection of evidence can amount to proof is the person who has collected and is now evaluating that evidence.

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       1. My apology to you, Roberta, for the frustration I’ve allowed to show with blog responder David Button who has also been writing in a similar vein over on the forum section of your website. I don’t drop into curmudgeon mode so often nowadays but there are times when my patience wears tissue-thin. I am, after all, only human. Please forgive me – I’ll try to do better.

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          1. Dear Mac, you may be somewhat curmudgeonly, but to me that is part of your charm 😉

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27. I still have a strong hunch that the translation through Barbanell left out a thing or two that wasn’t entirely picked up by the medium – something as simple as not reincarnating from a higher plane, for instance. The whole meaning of a message can be misconstrued over some very simple omission. Even the addition or elimination of one single word can totally change the intended meaning of a message.

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    1. Oh dear Lola, this is very well said!

       Mediums are mind-reading with dead people, for heaven’s sake. For them to get a few things wrong simply comes with the territory!

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       1. I’m not trying to defend or promote but in the particular situation we’d been considering – one involving deep trance mediumship – the medium was probably as far ‘out-of-the-picture’ as it’s possible to be.

          Granted there may still be a possibility of coloration of the material communicated – a possibility no matter who is channeling whom, and just as much a possibility for anyone now as it was in the past – but I fail to see how deep-trance mediumship could fairly be equated to (quote) “mind reading dead people”.

          I do, however, totally acknowledge that any medium/channeler of any flavor is acting as a go-between and coloration of any communication from any spirit individual must always be considered a possibility.

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          1. Oh my dear Mac, of course it’s mind-reading with dead people! Whether it’s the loved one we are trying to contact or the guides of that loved one or the guides of the medium, all communication there is by mind. What else would you call it? And yes, I think there is often some coloration – good word! – of strongly-held views of other discarnates in the room. I think that just comes with the territory.

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       2. Sure, that’s common sense. Even with people who are still alive, a message that is not even given telepathically can wind up with a whole new meaning after it is repeated to a few people just by misinterpretation or leaving out a word or two. And this doesn’t take into account the medium’s inner thoughts about the manner, which can also muck up the interpretation.

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          1. Good point, dear Lola!

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28. Hey mac,
    What “fact” can ever be truly proven? I’ll answer my own question. A fact that is revealed is proven; the revelation is the proof. Or, if the “fact” is from a closed system, then the system owner can state facts about the system with certainty. I don’t think Wilcock’s evolution has been revealed, though the jury might still be out on that.

    I’ll back off on the spirit individual reincarnating as there is at least one who hasn’t reincarnated -God. I’m not sure about angels, so I will concede the point there.

    Stay well, my friend

    Cookie

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29. quote, Lola

    “I still have a strong hunch that the translation through Barbanell left out a thing or two that wasn’t entirely picked up by the medium – something as simple as not reincarnating from a higher plane, for instance. The whole meaning of a message can be misconstrued over some very simple omission. Even the addition or elimination of one single word can totally change the intended meaning of a message.”

    Fair comments, Lola, to which I’ll add my thoughts.

    Firstly I don’t have the transcript or verbatim details from the compilations of the guide’s trance communication. Perhaps foolishly I’m relying on my general recall of what he said which I’ve done my best to recall and from which I’m now drawing on.

    So based on my recall, the guide said that among his peers there were some who said they had never met a spirit who had reincarnated. (I’ve assumed that by saying they were his peers they would be at a level of spiritual progression similar to his own.) By contrast the guide declared he knew reincarnation to be a fact. I don’t recall his offering an explanation of his peers’ contrasting views but I am prepared to be corrected by a verbatim account.

    Detractors might retort that the guide was not as spiritually advanced as people thought. They might also say there was coloration of the message coming from the medium’s mind. Fair comments on the face of it and both are possibilities. Yet those who have studied the texts, along with the guide’s explanation of the effort he put in to working with ‘his instrument’ in order to achieve the best communication he could (my words) and to avoid ‘contamination’ of his message, suggests that’s not likely. Criticism might look like shallow consideration of the overall picture.

    Add to all the above the widely-acknowledged quality of his other communications and I’m inclined to think that what was communicated was what he transmitted. Remember, too, that ‘his instrument’ was in deep trance rather than being a mental medium conveying in words details communicated telepathically. In mental mediumship criticism may always be leveled – maybe justifiably – that the medium is framing, shaping and perhaps coloring a message based on their personal beliefs and prejudices. No arguments from mac on that score – it remains that way right into the present. 😉

    So, Lola, and anyone else reading my response, one must evaluate for oneself. I’m not seeking to promote the words and ideas of this or any other spirit guide. Every individual should reject whatever does not sit comfortably with her/him but in this particular case I strongly believe it’s important to consider just the transcribed words and I’m inclined simply to be puzzled by the message rather than to try to make things fit.

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    1. “Firstly I don’t have the transcript or verbatim details from the compilations of the guide’s trance communication. Perhaps foolishly I’m relying on my general recall of what he said which I’ve done my best to recall and from which I’m now drawing on. ”

       Mac: Your recall was correct. I read the same material and that is what he said. Even though this was said through a deep trance medium (and I agree that this is a “better deal” than anything said through a mental medium), I still think there is room for error – not really error but omission of a word or two or more. We have to study what all guides say overall to get a good idea of what they actually wish to convey and not just rely on one or two of their messages. In this case, both you and I have done this, and I am more interested in his overall view of things rather than another reincarnation explanation. I have heard so many views on the subject of reincarnation, it would be impossible for me to pick one out of a hat and say it is the true one, so I have kind of given up on that.

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30. quote, Cookie

    “Hey mac,
    What “fact” can ever be truly proven? I’ll answer my own question. A fact that is revealed is proven; the revelation is the proof. Or……………..arnated -God. I’m not sure about angels, so I will concede the point there.”

    As you’ve addressed me by name – despite the subjects you’ve written about having precious little to do with me – I’m inclined to think you’re being mischievous and trying to poke me into reacting.

    I’m not going to play along.

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31. As some will know the mechanism of communication is one of my favorite topics. I’ve done the subject to death! But, Roberta, mind-reading for me is what magicians do.

    A mental medium picks up telepathically what a communicator is trying to get across and conveys it to a recipient by word-of-mouth and I acknowledge the limitations and/or shortcomings of that process.

    In deep-trance mediumship the medium is mute and still, two significant differences between that and clairvoyant or clairaudient mediumship. Communication remains telepathic but the medium does not translate (a word used earlier) because the medium does not speak. The effect of the go-between can not totally be negated but can be minimised. OK you could argue there could be subliminal involvement/translation but that sounds like splitting hairs.

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    1. Dear Mac, even the best deep-trance medium situation is not immune from the influence of the medium’s guides, the communicator’s guides, and the simple fact that people not in bodies communicate in boluses of thought and in order to make those thoughts sensible to living people in the room, someone not now in a body has to “translate” them.

       As a case in point, when my beloved primary guide, Thomas, communicated through direct-voice medium Leslie Flint in about 1960, he griped about that very problem, saying how precise communication could be in the afterlife and muttering something like, “Words, words, words, and none of them very accurate or meaningful.”

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       1. I don’t disagree that mediumship isn’t precise and a lack of precision may be down to the communicator as much as the medium. I’m sure, though, some discarnate communicators must be more proficient than others just as some incarnate receivers must be.

          It would seem logical to me, however, that communicated ideas would be less likely to be colored when there is either a pre-existing relationship – even if not consciously recognised – and where preparatory work has been done. We could debate until the cows come home which flavor of mediumship is most likely to provide the least-inaccurate transmission of ideas/teaching! 🙂

          Mikey Morgan said recently on ALF that spirits found in the ‘upper levels’ are most adept at telepathic communication so perhaps where there are concerns about the quality/accuracy/authenticity of guidance it’s when it’s coming from discarnates who are not upper-level beings? And/or when they and their ‘instruments’ are not sufficiently in tune with one another?

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          1. “Mikey Morgan said recently on ALF that spirits found in the ‘upper levels’ are most adept at telepathic communication so perhaps where there are concerns about the quality/accuracy/authenticity of guidance it’s when it’s coming from discarnates who are not upper-level beings? And/or when they and their ‘instruments’ are not sufficiently in tune with one another?”

             I think this probably happens far too often.

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             1. Insufficiently experienced / knowledgeable / patient individuals who are untrained and unsupported but BELIEVING or encouraged that they have the attributes needed for effective trans-dimensional communication. Add to the mix possibly egotism and excitement and it’s a recipe for uncertainty.

32. As a final point, if the logged number of comments in a particular blog topic indicates the depth of reader interest then it appears death and afterlife conversations are of significantly more interest than most others.

    I’m sayin’…… 😉

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    1. Yep! But in order for us really to teach about death and the afterlife, we’ve got to teach a lot of other things as well. It’s kind of like trying to teach quantum mechanics and make it sensible. First you’ve got to teach precise communication in English, every level of mathematics, traditional physics, cosmology, the role of consciousness….

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       1. quote, Roberta “Yep! But in order for us really to teach about death and the afterlife, we’ve got to teach a lot of other things as well.”

          I suppose that’s how it is for you, Roberta but I’m not a teacher. And for me the process of learning was different – there WAS no direct teaching.

          Firstly, by way of bereavement, I became acquainted with and quickly accepted the notion of death, survival and what follows. After that I began my own search for understanding – nobody taught me anything. I learned as I went along. Maybe that’s why I often see matters-spiritual in ways different from others?

          More ways to skin a cat than one. 😉 Guess we’re about done this week. 🙂

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33. We all in our own way will have to decide the spiritual “value” of NDE’s and writings by those etc. Nothing profound about that but I will say if it makes a person better TOWARDS others in kindness
    etc, thats a good thing and helps raise there spiritual “vibes”towards a higher lever or calling for themselves.

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    1. Dear Steve, until less than a year ago I thought of NDEs as a gift to us all, a way to make the notion of spiritually transformative experiences (STEs) a part of our popular culture. I knew most of the leaders in the NDE field, and none of them were claiming that NDEs were actually death! On the contrary, Raymond Moody – who coined the term – told me that of course NDEs had nothing to do with death. He said, “That’s why I called them NEAR-death experiences!” It has been only within the last year at most that I have begun to hear from people who are trying to use NDEs to better understand actual death, and it was only a few weeks ago that a fellow sent me his proposed diagram of the afterlife based on his reading of NDEs. On the same day, a woman sent me her book about to be published about death and the afterlife that was based entirely on reading lots of NDEs. Neither of these people accepted my telling them that NDEs have nothing to do with death; in fact, the woman told me that was just my opinion. You are right in saying that the spiritual aftereffects of NDEs and other STEs can be wonderful! But if NDEs are about to plunge us into another century of darkness and confusion where our understanding of death and the genuine afterlife are concerned, then that is too high a price to pay.

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       1. Roberta, agree with mostly what you have said. Not fearful of dying just apprehensive kind of like when one is going on a new trip or vacation, excited but not fearful.
          I think you know what I mean.
          Take care

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          1. Dear Steve, I do know what you mean. And oddly, I am not apprehensive at all – I’m excited at the prospect – which makes me wonder whether I will still feel this way when I am 85 and some doctor tells me I’m about to pack it in. Very oddly, I think I’ll just be relieved that I have finally made it all the way to the exit gate!

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34. quote, Roberta “You are right in saying that the spiritual after effects of NDEs and other STEs can be wonderful! But if NDEs are about to plunge us into another century of darkness and confusion where our understanding of death and the genuine afterlife are concerned, then that is too high a price to pay.”

    hear, hear – I hope the scenario described doesn’t play out. 🙁 This world faces enough problems already without adding that misinformation to the mix. 🙁

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    1. Well, dear Mac, the good work you do on afterlifeforums.com is helping to hold the ignorance at bay, so thank you very much for that!

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       1. thank you, Roberta 🙂 I do what I can.

          You’re providing teaching here in your blog and I try to offer learning support over on ALF’s forum pages. 😉

          I’ve been wondering if both locations will see an increase in activity as events ‘out there’ impact folk’s lives more and more. We should soon find out…..

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35. quote: ” Not fearful of dying just apprehensive kind of like when one is going on a new trip or vacation, excited but not fearful.”

    quote: “oddly, I am not apprehensive at all – I’m excited at the prospect – which makes me wonder whether I will still feel this way when I am 85 and some doctor tells me I’m about to pack it in.”

    Both great ways to express your feelings, guys. 🙂

    I’m not afraid of death but I am apprehensive about the way it might happen and my hard-wiring makes me want to carry on here as long as possible anyway.

    I’ve frequently declared myself more an observer than a participant and I’m constantly considering how I feel as I’m approaching the end of this particular incarnation. If I see another decade here I hope I’ll have the mental capacity to continue my observations and I also hope I’ll be able to face my death with equanimity.

    But I readily acknowledge in the life plan I made before I incarnated this last time I may well have scheduled something rather different! 😉 🙂

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36. I was wrong earlier about mine being the last comment – perhaps I’ll be right with this one! 🙂

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