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I've never really believed in death as oblivion of consciousness. It just never seemed to fit, somehow.
I have poked into the corners of the subject quite a bit -- learned some mediumism, done a bit of astral projection, read up on some reincarnation evidence stuff, felt/heard the odd ghost, looked at near-death experience stuff, even tried a bit of EVP. I found plenty of stuff to suggest that a level of consciousness survives death and comes back later for another game.
I have thought about death (and the implications of survival) a fair bit, right from early childhood. I try to avoid strong beliefs in general -- I prefer opinions, so I can go on thinking about things -- but by the time I'd got to 18 or 19, I had a fairly clear, involved picture of what I thought was most likely to be going on. The one thing I never did was read any new-age stuff on the topic -- it just didn't interest me, although I couldn't tell you why.
Last year, a friend pressured me into reading Michael Newton's book "Journey of Souls". In brief, Newton claims to be a psychotherapist who drifted along into regression as a mental tool, and then accidentally regressed a client into the "Life Between Lives". Having done it once, he got curious and did it several thousand times, using the sessions to quiz his subjects about the other side. In doing so, he says he has built up an absolutely consistent, complex picture of between-lives reality. He maintains that everyone he has regressed has described exactly the same stuff, regardless of conscious religious belief, nationality, acculturation, &c &c.
That may indeed be so.
The bit that absolutely rocked me was that this other side, as described, was almost exactly identical to the framework I'd worked out over all those years. There's a couple of minor elements of his big picture which I don't quite agree with, but otherwise... Frankly, reading his book felt exactly like coming home.
Which was nice.
In some ways, I find the idea of a reincarnatory cycle rather unfortunate. The unshakeable implication is that all that stuff you'd rather just sweep under the carpet does matter  You can't just be utterly self-indulgent, or whatever. Even if I'm the one holding myself to account -- which is my opinion -- that doesn't mean I'm going to let myself off lightly. There are good sides to it too, of course: second chances, old friends, yadda. All of the options have their ups and downs, but survival certainly isn't a 'Get Out Of Jail Free'!
T.
PS: *waves cheerfully* Hello Barbelith! |
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