“Death is not the extinguishing of the light; it is only the putting out the lamp because the dawn has come.” — Rabindranath Tagore Qwisdom • various

Death in that instance is a glorious moment; a wonderful experience. Now the soul can return to its natural form; its normal state. There is an incredible lightness; a sense of total freedom; a limitlessness. And an awareness of Oneness that is at once blissful and sublime. (Walsch 141)CWG3channeled • modern • Walsch

Dr. Peebles: The death experience is in many ways for some a release from prison, from jail, into a true freedom of the mind, the heart, and the body. . . .

The greater pain, much greater pain, is from spirit to the earthly experience. (Pendleton 99)TDAchanneled • modern • Pendleton

We shall rise from that last sleep even as from some half-remembered dream of woe and feel those haunting shapes slip back into the night now past. Yes, young and strong again, shall we stand erect in the glamorous dawn of the new life, and stretch our spirit-arms to greet the glory of the rising sun. (Fox 158)APrOBEr • modern • Fox

A subject put it this way: “Death is like waking up after a long sleep where you had just a muddled awareness.” (Newton 50)DoShypnosis • modern • Newton

If the dying person overidentifies with the body then he can easily panic, thinking that all expression is therefore cut off, and for that matter that his consciousness is about to be extinguished. (Roberts 111-112)SSchanneled • modern • Seth

What of the Last Projection? There is nothing to fear. Be assured of that! The terror is not in us, but in the body—the poor, frail, animal part, so weary, yet dreading its coming dissolution. (Fox 158)APrOBEr • modern • Fox

• All parties avoid “dangerous” topics. . . .

• Discussions of “dangerous” topics stop immediately if someone becomes emotional. . . .

• When something happens to expose the fiction that is being sustained, then everyone pretends that nothing went awry: For example, in her research Dr. Bluebond-Langner describes a therapist who tells a child to draw whatever he wants. The child responds by drawing a grave. The therapist immediately took a break from picture drawing.

• All parties strive to keep interaction normal: As death approaches, more effort is spent pretending that everything is normal. The researchers cited above found a dramatic increase in the discussion of such “safe” topics as ward activities, restaurants, movies, television programs, and so forth.

• All parties strive to keep interactions brief: When reality intrudes, all parties strive to end the interaction. (Morse 71)CttLresearcher • modern • Morse

When [family members] come to visit, there is little meaningful talk about anything. The family members and the patient are often in a state of denial, so the subject of death rarely comes up. Instead, there is uncomfortable conversation about some postcard they have received, or hearing how sorry Aunt Jane is that they are ill. . . .

Most hospice patients want to have meaningful interactions with someone else. (Brinkley 103-104)

For the dying there is the comfort of having a loved one who is not trying to tell him he will be okay. (Brinkley 106)APitLNDEr • modern • Brinkley

Patients who have predeath visions are treated for “anxiety” with narcotics and Valium, both of which erase short-term memory and prevent patients from remembering any visions or near-death experiences they may have had. (Morse 56)

About ninety percent of people who die in hospitals are heavily sedated, endlessly resuscitated and medicated until even the most aggressive physician has had enough, and the body is permitted to die. (Morse 58)

Time and motion studies show doctors spending less time with a patient as he nears death. Doctors like to think they are in control of situations. When a patient starts slipping away, the physician can feel uncomfortable with a situation he can’t control. . . . Feeling emotionally close to a patient means that the doctor too will suffer an emotional loss when the patient dies. (Morse 62-63)

Technology—beneficial as it is—has made a terrible parody of death. Instead of a deathbed scene in which the patient shares a last moment with family and friends, people are more likely to be surrounded and sustained by machines. . . .

Many times with Airlift Northwest we would pick up children who had no chance of surviving and aggressively resuscitate them for the two or three hours it took to get them to the Children’s Hospital, where they would die in the intensive care unit. . . .

We did this because of the loving lie. . . . We wanted the parent to believe that everything possible was being done. Unfortunately, “doing everything” often meant taking dying children for a five hundred-mile airplane ride only to have them die alone, separated from their parents. (Morse 72-73)CttLresearcher • modern • Morse

Intense desire may move the disembodied entity to return spontaneously to the sorrowing ones left behind, but this spontaneous return is rare in the case of persons [who have led a pure life]. (Besant 37)DAclairvoyant • Theosophy • Besant

There is another and much more frequently exercised influence which may seriously retard a disembodied entity on his way to Devachan NOTE: the upper astral plane, and that is the intense and uncontrolled grief of his surviving friends or relatives. . . . Grief . . . however natural it may be, is yet in its essence selfish. . . . A man’s affectionate remembrance of his departed friend is . . . of real value to him. (Leadbeater 30-31)APclairvoyant • Theosophy • Leadbeater

Many people are unable to move into the spirit world because they feel they have unfinished business on earth.

My friend Beth’s mother lay totally paralyzed for eight months. . . . As I held her hand, I was deeply disturbed by her vibrations. Though she seemed to be in a resting state, she was deeply worried that her personal affairs were not in order. . . .

There were very specific instructions from her mother about the handling of the estate. Certain things needed to be arranged immediately. As soon as she knew everything had been taken care of, Beth’s mother passed on in her sleep.(Browne 33-34)RotOSclairvoyant • modern • Browne

Dr. Peebles: The experience of a wake, for example, that celebrates death, this as well we strongly encourage. . . . Certainly the tears must be honored, for missing the presence of a loved one, but in terms of the loved one who has passed, you can feel good for them. They are much better off. They are celebrating their experience of love.

So the wake is a celebration that the departed soul is well and that it is going on to a finer experience. It is also a “thank-you” to the soul for having lived with us and been with us. So the person who is on the spirit side, recently passed, feels so much better.

Compare that experience to John, on the spirit side, looking at Tara who seven months later is still crying her eyes out, day and night. And because he loves her, is he going to leave her? Probably not; he might stay around and still try to help her. And so Tara, in terms of loving John—if she really understood that—would stop crying, that’s all, and feel that love she has for John, so he can go about his business. (Pendleton 103-104)TDAchanneled • modern • Pendleton

ANDREW: She is very much bordering between your plane and the next. She is vibrating back and forth. She needs to get a greater familiarity with her next plane before leaving the Earth physical plane completely. We see this happening in the now. It is imminent, from our perspective. She’s been here and gone back many times, but she won’t be going back the next time she crosses over. (Mason 115)MBchanneled • modern • Mason

Mrs. Richmond: “These periods of calling my attention to and visiting the body were brief—just enough to keep the vital spark alive.” . . .

Richmond is said to have remained projected in the astral for many days. (Muldoon 132-133)PotABOBEr • Spiritualism • Muldoon

The people who were crossing over spent most of their time out of the body and away. . . . When the people were in their bodies, there were plenty of spirits around the room. (Brennan 68)HoLclairvoyant • modern • Brennan

Your consciousness may withdraw from your body slowly or quickly, according to many variables.

In many cases of senility, for example, the strongly organized portions of personality have already left the body, and are meeting the new circumstances. (Roberts 119)SSchanneled • modern • Seth

There is a period of adjustment after leaving any plane, although yours involves the most difficulty since your camouflage pattern is unusually rigid. . . .

Already Miss Cunningham’s vital core of awareness is appearing on another plane, and she appears there as a wondering, but not frightened, young girl.

“Will she be . . . fully materialized on another plane before she dies in this one?” Rob asked.

Yes. This is the case in her particular type of withdrawal. In a sudden death, however, this can be more upsetting to the personality involved, and since the new materialization is simultaneous, it can lead to confusion. (Roberts 179-180)SD&Pchanneled • modern • Seth

Predeath visions frequently involve visions of other worlds and conversations with dead loved ones. (Morse 48-49)

In many situations where a patient has been dying over a fairy long period of time, perhaps in a coma, a remarkable change takes place just before the moment of death. Family members or medical personnel notice a “brightening,” a different quality when the fatal condition briefly changes. The patient’s eyes may open, and sometimes there is a verbal expression of a vision, just a few moments before the long-awaited release occurs. (Rhodes 12)TtEresearcher • modern • Rhodes

Far from being sad, a high proportion spent their dying moments in a joyful, even elated mood. . . . This curious mood change towards happiness often coincided with them apparently seeing, and sometimes even holding conversations with, relatives already deceased. (Viney 196)SDresearcher • modern • Viney

On many occasions I have seen what the dying are seeing and have heard the same celestial music they have heard. This music is like standing in a deep stone canyon and hearing a distant symphony echo off the canyon walls. . . .

One day when I came in, Albert was staring intently into space. He put his finger to his lips so I would stay quiet and motioned for me to sit down. Faintly, very faintly, I could hear a soothing yet powerful music. We looked at each other in mystery.

“It started last night,” said Albert. . . .

“Can you come with me a minute?” I asked a passing nurse. . . .

“Do you hear it?” I asked.

She listened a moment and then shook her head. “Hear what?” she asked. . . .

[Albert’s face] was as serene as a sleeping child’s. Then it hit me. The music is coming from the spirit side. . . .

Another day passed and then another. . . .

“I’m going with the music,” [Albert] said.

Within five minutes he was gone. (Brinkley 104-105)APitLNDEr • modern • Brinkley

What happens at death: when the knots in the channels NOTE: Ida and Pingala are released, the winds flow into the central channel. . . . As the winds disappear, the bodily functions and the senses fail. The energy centers NOTE: chakras collapse, and without their supporting winds the elements NOTE: which support body functions dissolve in sequence from the grossest to the subtlest. (Rinpoche 249-250)TBoLDwisdom • Tibetan • Rinpoche

The thread of waking consciousness is connected with the core of the crown chakra. During sleep, this flow of energy diminishes, to be reactivated at the moment of awakening. The life thread, however, connects the heart chakra to the physical heart, and this connection is unbroken throughout life. At the time of death, the thread of consciousness withdraws from the crown center, and the thread of life withdraws form the heart, signalling the disintegration of all the other chakras. Thus at death all the interconnections are broken; the etheric body is first loosened from the physical body, then separates, and disintegrates within a few days after death under normal conditions. (Karagulla and Kunz 38)C&HEFclairvoyant • modern • Karagulla & Kunz

Being a registered nurse specializing in hospice care, [Marianne] is sometimes present at the moment of a terminal patient’s death, when she sees the vital aura—a diaphanous orb of the individual’s life essence—separate itself from the expiring physical body. It’s comforting that, on these occasions, without exception in her experience, she perceives a group of other discarnate entities hovering near to welcome the now disembodied but surviving essence of the newly deceased and escort it to its new domain. (Coddington 7)Eachanneled • modern • Coddington

Andrew Jackson Davis witnessed more than one death scene, through his ability to see astrally, and has stated that no two deaths are alike viewed either from the physical or the astral plane. . . .

“The physical body grows negative and cold, in proportion as the elements of the spiritual body become warm and positive. . . . The clairvoyant sees right over the head what may be called a magnetic halo—an ethereal emanation, golden in appearance and throbbing as though conscious.

“Now the body is cold up to . . . the hips and the arms to the shoulders. The emanation is more expanded, though it has not risen higher in the room. The death-coldness steals over the breast and around on either side. The emanation has attained a position nearer the ceiling. The person has ceased to breathe, the pulse is still.

“The emanation is elongated and fashioned in the outline of the human form. . . . The golden emanation is connected with the brain by a very fine life-thread.

“On the body of the emanation there appears something white and shining, like the human head; next comes a faint outline of the face divine; the fair neck and beautiful shoulders manifest, and then in rapid succession all parts of the new body down to the feet—a bright shining image, somewhat smaller than the physical, but a perfect prototype in all its details.” (Muldoon 309)PotABOBEr • Spiritualism • Muldoon

This last occurence (sic) is absolutly (sic) fascinating in that the soul extension and kundalini exit from the chakra that the person focused on the most in that lifetime. The ideal would be to leave out of the crown chakra or at minimum, the third eye. However, the soul extensions, or personalities, that were very astrally focused in that lifetime will leave out of the soul plexus chakra. If they were love-focused they will leave out of the heart chakra. If they were will- and communication- focused in that lifetime they will leave out of the throat chakra. If they were focused on spiritual sight as their main interest they will leave out of the third eye. If they were God-focused they will leave out of crown.

Which chakra the personality leaves out of will also affect the bardo NOTE: the period between incarnations experience and possibly which plane it will magnetized toward. CAMwisdom • modern (Theosophy) • Stone

According to Phoebe Bendit, at death a luminous ray flashes out the top of the head as the person leaves the earth plane through the crown chakra. (Brennan 68)HoLclairvoyant • modern • Brennan

Dying organisms emit intense amounts of electromagnetic energy or light. . . . Dying organisms emit a “light shout” more than a thousand times greater than their usual resting state. . . . This light is something NDErs actually see. . . . On rare occasions, other people have reported seeing this light radiating from a dying person. (Morse 144)TbtLresearcher • modern • Morse

The etheric body is first loosened from the physical body, then separates, and disintegrates within a few days after death under normal conditions. (Karagulla and Kunz 38)C&HEFclairvoyant • modern • Karagulla & Kunz

After shedding the physical body, you live for a few days in a body of etheric energy, but then, that body, too, disintegrates. (Kubis and Macy 66)CBtLITC, OBEr • modern (Theosophy) • Kubis & Macy

Dr. Peebles: John releases the body. But now . . . there is an etheric envelope, an etheric vehicle that is finer than the physical body and yet still contains the spirit and the soul. . . .

Don: This same being, John, who has just died, can he be aware of events transpiring on Earth since his death? . . .

Dr. Peebles: Yes, particularly for the first three months. Rarely is it longer than that. Often for the first three days the spirit is so involved with the total separation of the body—for upon medical death the spirit is not totally separate from the physical body. It can take some additional hours, or even up to three days, for a total release of the physical body, through the etheric. (Pendleton 100-101)TDAchanneled • modern • Pendleton

The “cord” of a newly dead person (whose “double” always contains the whole of the vehicle of vitality NOTE: etheric body) is sometimes described by a “communicator” as holding him near to his body—as not very elastic. “Robertson” found that a “cord” held his newly released, composite “double” within three feet of his vacated body. “Farnese” said, “It was as if a great chain held me fast; I could not go more than a few yards from my body. And then I saw why—a chain, as of dark silk . . . held me to my body. No power of mine could break it. As I moved, it stretched, like elastic, but always drew me back again. (Crookall 124-125)CBAPresearcher • modern • Crookall

Acharya: At the moment of death, when the heart ceases to beat, the etheric double registers extreme fear and wraps itself round the outside of the astral body in which the man is standing, since he was forced out of the physical body at the time death took place. The etheric part of the physical body knows that the death of the denser part means also death for itself and, in its desire to continue its existence, it clings to the astral body of the man, hoping to survive longer. By an effort of will the man can easily rid himself of this encumbrance. Until he does, he is suspended between the two worlds of consciousness; he cannot function on the physical plane, for he has lost his physical body, and he cannot function properly on the astral plane, because the clinging etheric matter makes it impossible for him either to see or hear properly.

Men who die fearing death often refuse to make the necessary effort of will which they are told to make by friends who meet them on the other side, but hang on to the remaining particles of physical matter in the hope of continuing their physical existence, the physical life being the only one they know. . . . Sooner or later they must let go and make the effort of will that I have mentioned—resisting the inevitable only causes them to be suspended between the two worlds for a much longer time than is necessary. A man who has acquired some knowledge of the subject of death . . . will at once shake himself free from this encumbrance and take up his life again under what I may perhaps call permanent astral conditions. (Richelieu 18-19)ASJOBEr • modern (Theosophy) • Richelieu

I. While the Soul has shaken off only the dense body, and remains still clothed in the etheric double. This is a brief period only, but during it the disembodied Soul may show itself, clad in this ethereal garment.

“For a very short period after death, while the incorporeal principles remain within the sphere of our earth’s attraction, it is possible for spirit, under peculiar and favorable conditions, to appear.” Theosophist, Sept. 1882, p. 310

It makes no communications during this brief interval, nor while dwelling in this form. Such “ghosts” are silent, dreamy, like sleep-walkers, and indeed they are nothing more than astral sleep-walkers. Equally irresponsive, but capable of expressing a single thought, as of sorrow, anxiety, accident, murder, etc., are apparitions which are merely a thought of the dying, taking shape in the astral world, and carried by the dying person’s will to some particular person, with whom the dying intensely longs to communicate. (Besant 82)DAclairvoyant • Theosophy • Besant

Don: Could you comment on the phenomenon in which those who have recently died are said to physically reappear to friends or family?

Dr. Peebles: They are manifesting their etheric bodies . . . which can appear to be physical. . . .

Now, this can take place not only through love but through great rage, or anger, or extraordinary emotions to slow the vibration down into an anchored locality in your physical world. And that’s the etheric body. (Pendleton 104)TDAchanneled • modern • Pendleton

Spirits are normally held close to the physical dimension, in real time, for a week or so after death. This is until the supply of etheric matter that binds the spirit to its physical body runs out.

During this time it is normal for the spirit to wander among relatives and loved ones, saying goodbye and coming to terms with their new state of existence. This goodbye process, eases the psychological trauma of death, and helps prepare the spirit for the next stage of existence. ToPOBEr • modern • Bruce

I had a client who died young in a schoolhouse fire while saving the children. This teacher stayed around town for some months afterward just checking on the kids and other people who were grieving at her untimely death. When I asked what prompted her to finally leave she said, “Oh, eventually I got bored”. . . .

Our guides do not compel or coerce us to move into the spirit world if our unfinished business is so overpowering that we do not want to leave Earth. (Newton 54-55)DoShypnosis • modern • Newton

Acharya: Immediately the effort of will to get rid of the etheric double is made, the etheric matter falls away and starts to disintegrate in much the same way that the dense physical body disintegrates, but whilst it may be months or years before the disintegration of the physical body is complete, the etheric part of it, being much finer and lighter in weight, returns to dust almost immediately. (Richelieu 19)ASJOBEr • modern (Theosophy) • Richelieu

As the days go on, the five higher principles gradually disengage themselves from the etheric double, and shake this off as they previously shook off the grosser body. . . . This ethereal corpse remains near the dense one, and they disintegrate together; clairvoyants see these ethereal wraiths in churchyards, sometimes showing likeness to the dead dense body, sometimes as violet mists or lights. . . .

One of the great advantages of cremation—apart from all sanitary conditions—lies in the swift restoration to Mother Nature of the physical elements composing the dense and ethereal corpse, brought about by the burning. (Besant 26)DAclairvoyant • Theosophy • Besant

The etheric double NOTE: etheric body [is] destined to slow disintegration. . . . [The etheric shell] remains within a few yards of the decaying physical body, and since it is readily visible to any one even slightly sensitive, it is accountable for many of the commonly current stories of churchyard ghosts. A psychically developed person passing one of our great cemeteries will see hundreds of these bluish-white, misty forms hovering over the graves where are laid the physical vestures which they have recently left; and as they, like their lower counterparts, are in various stages of disintegration, the sight is by no means a pleasant one. This . . . is entirely devoid of consciousness and intelligence. . . . Man casts off and leaves to slow disintegration no less than three corpses—the physical body, the etheric double and the Kamarupa NOTE: reorganized astral body—all of which are by degrees resolved into their constituent elements and utilized anew on their respective planes by the wonderful chemistry of nature. (Leadbeater 37-38)APclairvoyant • Theosophy • Leadbeater

The heart may actually cease beating for some time, and yet the astral cord may not be disconnected. Naturally this condition could not exist long before the cord would “snap”. (Muldoon 134)PotABOBEr • Spiritualism • Muldoon

Sandy (channeled): I have learned that there are many people who are caught in a kind of limbo space—a place between your reality and the next—because they have not severed this cord and made the final disconnect from their bodies. There remains a very thin, ever-fading connection. As long as this connection is not consciously severed, their souls will not progress. (Fairchilde 5)VftAchanneled • modern • Fairchilde

Acharya: When the physical body is dropped at the moment of death, the astral body, which before was a mass of revolving particles all intermingling, rearranged itself into an entirely different form. . . . Visualize the astral body after death as an ovoid, like an orange, with a core and with seven separate and distinct skins surrounding that core. The core represents the permanent atom relating to all the different spheres of both the astral and the mental worlds. The seven skins are composed of matter relative to the seven different spheres that exist at the astral level. . . . The outside or densest skin is made up of atoms similar to those which you require to function on the first or densest sphere of that world. When, after a period of time, you leave the first sphere and pass to the second, you drop that outer skin, leaving the atoms relative to the second sphere of that world, which now become active, on the outside of your body. The same thing applies when you pass to higher levels. (Richelieu 140-141)ASJOBEr • modern (Theosophy) • Richelieu

Six principles still remain as his constitution immediately after death, the seventh, or the dense body, being left as a cast-off garment.

Death consists, indeed, in a repeated process of unrobing, or unsheathing. The immortal part of man shakes off from itself, one after the other, its outer casings, and—as the snake from its skin, the butterfly from its chrysalis—emerges from one after another, passing into a higher state of consciousness. (Besant 17)DAclairvoyant • Theosophy • Besant

The kama-rupic vesture NOTE: astral body is purified of its grosser elements as the Lower Ego is drawn upwards, or inward, towards the devachanic region NOTE: upper astral plane, each cast-off “shell” disintegrating in due course. (Besant 35)Kclairvoyant • Theosophy • Besant

Randall Beard describes the transformation process as removing the many robes we wear upon our spirits. (Miller 66)ADresearcher • modern • Miller

Those . . . whose earth lives have been pure and noble have no affinity for this [seventh or lowest] plane, and the time of their sojourn upon it is passed . . . “in happy ignorance and full oblivion, or in a state of quiet slumber, a sleep full of rosy dreams.” (Leadbeater 39)APclairvoyant • Theosophy • Leadbeater

Just after death, there’s a period of unconsciousness which may be likened to the dream state in the physical from which there is a gradual awakening. The duration of this period is governed by the individual’s development. (Lynn and Cayce 53)NDchanneled • modern • Lynn & Cayce

In death, as in astral projection, the phantom NOTE: astral body may not become conscious for some time. . . . Some exist for a while in the dream state. (Muldoon 74)PotABOBEr • Spiritualism • Muldoon

You will notice that our vibrations are now changing, and growing more intense. . . . [This region] is a sacred place. No one is admitted here as a visitor, unless he be of high spirituality and pure heart. . . .

This region is the resting place of the disembodied souls for some time after they have left the physical body. In it they dwell in peaceful slumber. . . . This stage has been compared to the cocoon-stage. . . .

On all sides, stretching away as far as the eye can see, you perceive the slumbering forms of disembodied souls, each astral form resting in dreamless sleep. . . . Nothing but a sense of infinite calm and peace. . . . You doubtless feel the presence of certain great spiritual entities—though you see them not, because their vibrations are too high for you to see them even by astral vision—these are the great spiritual guardians of this realm, who protect the slumber of the souls at rest herein—the Great Watchers of the Sleeping Souls.

If you will watch carefully, you will notice here and there a movement indicating the awakening of some of these resting forms. A moment later the form disappears from the scene—it seemingly melts into nothingness. But is still is existent—its vibrations simply have changed, and it has moved on to another sub-plane, or division thereof, without having been aware of the scenes of this place. (Panchadasi 44-46)AWunknown • New Thought (Theosophy) • Atkinson

Dolores: Have you ever heard of the resting place?

Subject: Yes, if you are referring to what I am picturing, it is a special place for damaged souls to go to rest and restore themselves before they can enter the company of other souls or enter the plane of incarnation again. (Cannon 20)

Some people, if it is a traumatic death, go into a period of deep, deep resting until they can handle the experience of knowing that their body has ceased to exist. And the awakening will be very slow. . . .

They don’t know where they are. In their panic, they can hurt themselves by feeling, “I’ve got to get back, I’ve got to get back.” And they tie themselves to wherever they died by the feeling that this can’t be happening. (Cannon 21)

I had encountered people many times in the resting place. When they are here they do not wish to talk. They sound very sleepy and will volunteer no information, the same as a human would do if awakened in the middle of the night. They also can give no description, as though there is none to give. . . .

[Gretchen] kept trying to return to her lifetime in Germany even though it was impossible. She was continually sent to the resting place until all memory of the persistent life was erased. Then she was able to reincarnate and function normally. . . .

It took [Gretchen] 200 years in the resting place to finally reconcile herself to not being able to return to the life she had left. It was such a strong, violent life that when she was finally able to return to Earth it had to be as a complete reversal in personality. It was the only way she could cope and continue with her Earthly lessons. (Cannon 52-55)

Dolores: What level is the resting place on?

Subject: It has no level. It is. It exists because of a need for being without stimulation of any kind. . . .

It is amongst the planes, but it is complete unto itself. (Cannon 99)BDLhypnosis • modern • Cannon

[Ezra] is happy and his earth experience now seems only a dream. (Kubis and Macy 29)CBtLITC, OBEr • modern (Theosophy) • Kubis & Macy

Timestream: “Persons who die of old age on Earth wake up [on the astral planet Marduk] after a regenerating sleep.

“This sleep lasts approximately 6 weeks of Earth time. With some persons it may be less.” (Kubis and Macy 7)CBtLITC, OBEr • modern (Theosophy) • Kubis & Macy

The highest and lowest souls in the scale of development, awaken first. The average soul slumbers far longer than either. . . .

The highly spiritual person, needing but comparatively little transformation to fit him for the higher planes, may slumber here only a very short time, and then passes on to some of the higher astral planes; or, in cases of high development, may omit these higher astral planes, and pass on at once to the plane or planes above the Astral. . . .

The low, material soul, as a rule, awakens very speedily, and passes at once to the low plane for which it has an affinity. . . .

The average soul, on the other hand, requires a much greater transformation for its scenes of higher activities, and so remains much longer in the transforming sleep. (Panchadasi 48-49)AWunknown • New Thought (Theosophy) • Atkinson

There are souls whose energies shift into the etheric body, but whose mental or emotional levels, or both, keep them in the physical realm of vibration. These are souls whose mental or emotional vibrations are at the rate of the earth vibrations. And because they are locked into certain earth-level concepts, or emotions, they stay in this earth-level of consciousness until they are able to release the special thought-forms that confine them. These are considered to be “earthbound” souls—or ghosts, as you call them. (McKnight 61)

Often it is the emotional level that locks the soul into the earth plane. Because of a very strong emotional earth attachment, it still vibrates on the slower earth level. Therefore, the complete transition cannot take place until the soul mentally and emotionally releases the earth vibrations. . . .

Souls can be locked into the physical realm through both emotional and mental energies and sometimes for thousands of years of earth time. (McKnight 267-268)CJOBEr • modern • McKnight

Occasionally, a disturbed spirit does not want to leave the Earth after physical death. This is due to some unresolved problem which has had a severe impact on its consciousness. In these abnormal cases, help is available from higher, caring entities who can assist in the adjustment process from the other side. (Newton 15)

I find it is the younger souls with fewer past lives who remain attached to Earth’s environment right after death. (Newton 20)

Some souls do carry the negative baggage of a difficult past life longer than others. . . . The time of soul adjustment depends upon the circumstances of death, attachments of each soul to the memories of the life just ended, and level of advancement. (Newton 24)JoShypnosis • modern • Newton

There are some soul extensions who are so attached to the material world that they don’t allow themselves to go through the tunnel to the other side and are stuck on the earthly plane even through they are in their astral bodies. There are called “Earth-bound souls”. They may continue to live in the same house they lived in before death. They don’t realize that it is their own consciousness that is keeping them stuck on Earth and not allowing them to continue their spiritual evolution.

Those soul extensions of a more evolved nature will gravitate to their higher astral realms and possibly to the mental realm. CAMwisdom • modern (Theosophy) • Stone

Some remain interactive on our plane by choice. At least one was “restrained” by grieving family members; another feared infernal punishment; while most . . . were what we call “unaware,” “trapped,” or “earthbound” souls. . . .

The usual explanation for such unawareness is that the death was sudden and unforeseen, through trauma or an abruptly fatal turn of illness—or was so hysterically resisted—that the subject’s consciousness simply rejected, or blanked out, the fact. (Coddington 14)

[The unaware soul’s] focus remains on whatever it was intensely seeking at the moment of death. (Coddington 28)Eachanneled • modern • Coddington

The astral self slows its vibration to incarnate. When a reincarnational self becomes a “ghost” after death, the astral self is being kept weighted down, abnormally dense, which is a burden to it once the lifetime is complete. This occurs either when the reincarnational self won’t let go of the physical plane (or someone or something in it—sometimes addictions are involved), or when someone else won’t let go of the reincarnational self and the reincarnational self isn’t strong enough to free itself. (Hoodwin 342)JoYSchanneled • modern • Hoodwin

There are a variety of motivations for the lingering soul. For instance, someone who has been murdered or killed unexpectedly in an accident often does not want to leave right away. I find these souls are frequently bewildered or angry. The hovering soul syndrome is particularly true of deaths with young people. (Newton 13-14)JoShypnosis • modern • Newton

You may or may not realize immediately that you are dead in physical terms.

You will find yourself in another form, an image that will appear physical to you a large degree, as long as you do not try to manipulate within the physical system with it. Then the differences . . . become obvious.

If you firmly believe that your consciousness is a product of your physical body, then you may attempt to cling to it. (Roberts 120)

There are instances of course where the individuals concerned do not realize the fact of death. . . . In this state such an individual will also be obsessed with earthly concerns, and wander perhaps bewildered throughout his own home or surroundings. (Roberts 160)SSchanneled • modern • Seth

The Locked-Ins: . . . This group is composed solely of those who have permanently exited their current physical body—dead physically but don’t know it. Consequently, they are trying constantly to continue a physical existence to which they have become habituated. They often remain around physical locations, such as houses, and physically living persons to whom they have become attached. Some continue to attempt reentry into their dead physical bodies and to reactivate them, even into the grave. . . .

This group is totally and compulsively bonded to time-space materiality. Moreover, they appear to be deep into enveloping emotionally based fears and drives which they attempt to act out but never conclude. As a group, they are the major blockage in the flow of the human learning experience. Until they are reached and assisted or some glimmer of awareness occurs, they remain in this locked-in state for years, perhaps centuries. Their numbers increase constantly. (Monroe 239-240)FJOBEr • modern • Monroe

Our feelings and sensations remain with us after death, so that certain individuals who have died may go on for some time before realizing that they are actually in the other world. (Elahi 15)

As for sudden death, it is extremely unpleasant; in fact the soul doesn’t understand what has happened to it. (Elahi 95)PoPwisdom • Iranian • Elahi

Very often when soul extensions pass over like this, they will think of the family they have just left and they will immediatly (sic) be with a given family member. What they don’t realize is that they are in another dimension, and their family members can’t hear or see them. This can be quite confusing for people who haven’t realized that they have died. CAMwisdom • modern (Theosophy) • Stone

It’s terrible to be caught between two worlds. Shock is the major cause of this condition. . . . Battlefields are overrun with marching soldiers not aware they’ve been shot. They’d keep marching until they are convinced to go to the spirit world. . . .

There are special spirit helpers in charge of talking to these poor souls. Often, it takes many years to convince someone that they must leave the earth. (Browne 118-119)RotOSclairvoyant • modern • Browne

There is a surprising number of people who do not realize that they have passed from the earth in the death of the physical body. Resolutely they will not believe that they are what the earth world calls “dead”. They are dimly aware that some sort of change has taken place, but what that change is they are not prepared to say. Some, after a little explanation and even demonstration—can grasp what has actually happened; others are stubborn, and will be convinced only after prolonged reasoning. In the latter case we are oft-times obliged to leave such a soul for a while to allow a little quiet contemplation to work its way. (Borgia 78-79)LWUchanneled • modern • Benson

Those who do not accept the fact their physical body is dead and fight returning to the spirit world for reasons of personal anguish . . . we call ghosts. These spirits refuse to go home after physical death and often have unpleasant influences on those of us who would like to finish out our own human lives in peace. . . .

More often than not, these uncommon haunted spirits are tied to a particular geographic location. . . . They are damaged souls because they evidence confusion, despair, and even hostility to such an extent they want their guides to stay away from them. (Newton 45-46)JoShypnosis • modern • Newton

You may after death utterly refuse to believe that you are dead, and continue to focus your emotional energy toward those you have known in life.

If you have been obsessed with a particular project, for example, you may try to complete it. There are always guides to help you understand your situation, but you may be so engrossed that you pay them no heed. . . .

Large fields of emotional focus toward physical reality can hold you back from further development. . . .

Those who have not identified their consciousness with the body completely, find it much easier to leave it. Those who have hated the body find, strangely enough, that immediately after death they are quite drawn to it. (Roberts 130-131)

In [an obsession with earthly concerns], often the personality will insist upon focusing his perceptive abilities and energies toward physical existence. This is a psychic refusal to accept the fact of death. The individual knows quite well that he is dead in your terms, but he refuses to complete the psychic separation. (Roberts 160)SSchanneled • modern • Seth

On this plane, and the one below, are to be found groups of disembodied souls who persist in declaring that “there is no hereafter for the soul;” “the soul perished with the body;” etc. These deluded souls believe that they are still on the material plane, in spite of appearances, and they have built up quite a good counterfeit earth-scenery to sustain them. They sneer and sniff at all talk of life outside of the physical body, and bang their astral tables with their astral fists, to prove how solid all real things are—they believe only that which is solid and “real.” (Panchadasi 73)AWunknown • New Thought (Theosophy) • Atkinson

Not all ghosts remain here through blind ignorance; it’s said some know full well they are discarnate but nevertheless voluntarily inhabit this plane, for one reason or another. (Coddington 127)Eachanneled • modern • Coddington

Those who have bonded to the world through greed, bodily appetites, or other earthly commitments find it difficult to move on, and they become earth-bound. (Eadie 84)EbtLNDEr • modern • Eadie

Many other souls want to hover around the place where they died for a few Earth days, usually until after their funerals. Time is apparently accelerated for souls and days on Earth may be only minutes to them. . . .

There is one basic reason for many spirits not wanting to immediately leave the place of their physical death. This comes from a desire to mentally reach out to comfort loved ones before progressing further into the spirit world. Those who have just died are not devastated about their death, because they know those left on Earth will see them again in the spirit world and probably later in other lives as well. . . .

Emotional trauma of the living may overwhelm their inner minds to such an extent that their mental capabilities to communicate with souls are inhibited. (Newton 13-14)JoShypnosis • modern • Newton

Those who “overidentify” their consciousness with their body can suffer self-created torment for no reason, lingering about the body. Indeed, quite the forlorn soul, thinking it has no other place to go. (Roberts 109)

It is possible for an individual who has died to completely misinterpret the experience and attempt to reenter the corpse. This can happen when the personality identified himself almost exclusively with the physical image. (Roberts 130)SSchanneled • modern • Seth

Dr. Peebles: Now, often the ghosts . . . are beings who don’t have . . . flexibility. . . . Their belief is so focused and determined on a given house or city, or a place in the forest, that that is heaven for them; they don’t want to leave it. (Pendleton 104)TDAchanneled • modern • Pendleton

The denizens of Focus 23 NOTE: the near realm vary as much as humanity itself. . . . Some show concern about loved ones, relatives, or comrades and refuse to depart until they are reunited or reassured. (Monroe 254)UJOBEr • modern • Monroe

Acharya: We find a man who has been supporting a wife and a large family before his death. Probably he has not made adequate provision for them and he worries how they will manage. This is a very natural thing, but unfortunately it is a very foolish one too. . . . No worrying can bring practical help and it reacts on those left behind in a way that makes them more depressed than they need be. He is adding to their troubles instead of lessening them, and a solution of the problem only comes about when he realizes that those he has left behind are separate egos each working out his or her karma NOTE: lessons. . . .

There are people in this world who always make trouble for themselves, by worrying about things over which they have no control or by being pessimistic about the future. . . . After death such men are the same: they continue to feel depressed and to radiate depression wherever they go. Unfortunately, people with these depressing ideas continue to flock together. . . . Sooner or later men of this type are made to realize their foolishness by those who are ever on the watch for opportunities to help such sad cases. (Richelieu 24)

Acharya: Another very common case is that of the extremely jealous man who thinks he is in love with someone, whilst in reality all he wants is to possess that individual, body and soul, for his own personal gratification. Surely a man who really loved would be thankful to see the object of his love receive admiration and attention from others, but the jealous man is not. Having been jealous during his lifetime, he remains jealous after death, torturing himself indefinitely and uselessly by constantly watching the approaches of others to the object of his supposed love, hating those other people and trying in every way to influence them, but finding his efforts useless. (Richelieu 29-30)ASJOBEr • modern (Theosophy) • Richelieu

Acharya: Next, take the case of a miser who hoards his gold on earth. . . . Then think what such a man’s feelings would be when he saw from the astral level the hoard discovered, and probably spent recklessly by those who were fortunate enough to find it. He could do nothing, although doubtless he did hang round the hiding place for a considerable time after death. He may have tried to influence the searchers to go elsewhere. . . . He would know no method of communicating with them, except when they were asleep and temporarily at his level. In most cases they would remember nothing of such conversations and so be uninfluenced by his efforts. Once again, no one is punishing that man, nevertheless he is suffering from the uncontrolled emotions. (Richelieu 29)ASJOBEr • modern (Theosophy) • Richelieu

From “Orientation to the Existence Between” by Padmasambhava:

“If you yourself have great attachment to the wealth and possessions you left behind, or if you know that others are using your possessions, you will feel attached to them and angry at the people who are using them.” (Thurman 178)TBotDwisdom • Tibetan • Padmasambhava

Peter claimed to be afraid in his current state, not knowing what to do. He had been twenty and his wife was pregnant with Peter Junior when, deranged by cocaine, Peter committed suicide. He said he hadn’t expected to still be “alive” (aware) once he shot himself. When he saw the Light [of the astral levels], he cowered in this realm, confused and afraid. . . .

Peter alluded to watching his son, his family, and relatives on both sides of the Atlantic grow and interact in physical time, from which we concluded that he was not a “trapped” or “unaware” soul. . . . He also regretted having left the physical world and was struggling to continue interacting with it. (Coddington 152)

“Sister Agnes,” she wailed, “said I was very, very wicked. She said Jesus the Savior made my tummy hurt so bad. She said it wouldn’t have hurt if I hadn’t been a very wicked girl.” . . .

“You know where Heaven is.”

“Where they make people hurt,” she responded. (Coddington 82-84)Eachanneled • modern • Coddington

Usually when the soul crosses over and realizes that the level of karma NOTE: habits of thought they have attained this time has been in a negative direction, they don’t want to complete the transition because they are scared of what they will see. Meanwhile their minds will lock onto this source of the fear, and it might be the very scene from the life that caused their karma to develop in a negative direction. (Cannon 177)BDLhypnosis • modern • Cannon

Many victims of violent death, especially when the death was painful, have returned shortly after to mediums and have complained of still feeling the pain which was present in the physical body at the time of death. . . .

What really happens in such a case is this: The phantom NOTE: astral body, at the time of death, was exteriorized NOTE: projected and within cord-activity range, while sensibility was transmitted from the physical body to the astral body. . . .

This pain, in conjunction with the bemuddlement of such an experience . . . actually drives him mad, obsessed. . . . In this madness, the victim is often constantly living through—even for months afterwards—the death he experienced. (Muldoon 114-115)PotABOBEr • Spiritualism • Muldoon

Pain in the astral . . . is real; the sensibility is the same sensibility that it was when the bodies were in coincidence. . . . It is a real pain, and stays after the cable snaps and until it is cured by the mind. . . .

Perhaps this in some manner explains why some persons who have had arms or legs severed claim to be able to feel the arm or the leg after the stump has healed. Might it not be through the sensibility present in the astral, occupying the space formerly occupied by the physical arm? (Muldoon 116)

Three friends were sitting for spirit-communication when a soldier “came” to them, complaining that the bayonet (which killed him) was still through his body, and that it was giving him pain. . . .

Where did this soldier get his idea of pain? From having it transmitted across the astral cable, from the physical, while conscious. . . .

Surely there was no bayonet sticking in the phantom’s astral body. But there was! Not a physical bayonet, but an astral form of the bayonet, created by the mind of the phantom NOTE: astral body. (Muldoon 117)PotABOBEr • Spiritualism • Muldoon

For a short time you’ll feel the vibrations of the sadness of your earth friends. (Browne 13)RotOSclairvoyant • modern • Browne

Others, though aware of their mortal death, can be physically chained to the earth plane by surviving mortals. (Coddington 141)Eachanneled • modern • Coddington

Subject: Someone here on Earth is tying them so hard that they can’t leave. Every time you grieve for someone who is gone, you tie that person a little closer to being earthbound. (Cannon 172-173)BDLhypnosis • modern • Cannon

After death, the soul does not immediately lose its desire, but the physical organs that used to be the means of satisfying it are no longer there. . . . The soul suffers burning pain at being deprived of this pleasure. . . . It lasts until the soul has learned to stop craving what can be provided only by the body. (Steiner 114)Tclairvoyant • Theosophy • Steiner

If an addiction isn’t conquered before your physical death, it could keep your spirit earthbound. SRNDENDEr • modern • Rogers

That stranger who said he’d been in hell three weeks described it as a dark, dank, chilly, frightening place. A place where everyone retains their physical desires without a way to satisfy them. For example, the glutton can’t eat because he has no physical body. The alcoholic can’t drink for the same reason, neither can the smoker smoke, nor the drug addict get a fix. The miser can’t protect his money, and the sex-maniac, who doesn’t believe in love, finds it impossible to satisfy his lust. Hell is real Hell for anyone who lives only to satisfy his selfish desires. ISHNDEr • modern • Yensen

Human beings, who have quitted earth and in whom the kamic NOTE: astral/emotional/desire elements were strong, may very readily be attracted by the kamic elements in embodied men, and by their help become conscious again of the presence of the scenes they had left. (Besant 31)DAclairvoyant • Theosophy • Besant

Many of the spirits in the lower astral planes cause a great deal of trouble on Earth. They can communicate telepathically to others on Earth and inspire weaker people, who think these thoughts are their own, to act badly. For example, spirits of deceased alcoholics, drug addicts, murderers and other violent criminals, are drawn to people on Earth who have a similar disposition or to people of a weaker will and the spirits encourage the vices to which they are addicted. (Kubis and Macy 69-70)CBtLITC, OBEr • modern (Theosophy) • Kubis & Macy

Subject: It is usually the strong, exotic sensations such as from the various drugs that are in use in your society: alcohol, nicotine, heroine or what-have-you. So these spirits who are in transition stay around people who experience these things regularly to try to absorb their feelings, their physical sensations from it. They try to enjoy themselves vicariously. (Cannon 174)BDLhypnosis • modern • Cannon

Many alcoholics and cigarette smokers find themselves trapped on the lower plane as well. Their preoccupation leads them to hang around bars on Earth so they can vicariously pick up the effects of alcohol and cigarette fumes. They attach themselves to the auric field (an electro-magnetic field surrounding each person), like a parasite, trying to absorb into themselves the alcohol and nicotine. However, since they do not have a physical body, it becomes a hellish experience, like a thirsty man trying to drink water that is beyond his reach. (Kubis and Macy 94)CBtLITC, OBEr • modern (Theosophy) • Kubis & Macy

While he is thus a source of danger to others, he is utterly defenseless himself. For the moment passion has entirely controlled him; the true man has temporarily lost hold of his vehicle. Under those circumstances another and stronger will may seize that which he has allowed to be wrested from him. In other words, at such a moment, when a man is transported with rage, he is liable to be seized and obsessed either by a dead man of similar nature or by some evil artificial elemental NOTE: thought form whose vibrations synchronize with those which are dominating him. (Leadbeater 89-90)MV&Iclairvoyant • Theosophy • Leadbeater

The forces within this [psychic] NOTE: astral stratum work most directly upon the feeling nature—and this means upon the passion of the individual, because it is most easily reached.

Men and women who have lost the controlling power over their passion, which may be either sex or anger, have knowingly or unknowingly become entangled in the psychic stratum of thought and feeling, thereby opening the doors. . . . Through the open door, the forces within the psychic stratum fasten upon them, intensifying their own passion into an uncontrolled condition. (King 256-257)IADchanneled • Theosophy • Germain

Ruth (channeled): I watched a family move into my house. There was a little girl named Emily. She was so beautiful. . . . She could see me! We would play in the garden. She told her parents about me, but they thought that the “Ruthie” she spoke of so often was an imaginary friend.

I loved her, you see. I gave to her all the love and attention I wanted to give to my own daughter.

Years went by and after a time she could no longer see me, but I continued to follow her, to stay constantly by her side, even when she slept.

In this I did a great wrong. In my attachment to her, I not only shared with her the love I felt, I also unwittingly shared my sorrow. As a result, Emily carried a depression with her for many years, which she thought was her own. She also had an abiding terror of the sea, which she had absorbed from my experience. At the time I did not realize that it was I who was the source of her difficulties. (Fairchilde 62)VftAchanneled • modern • Fairchilde

AD (channeled): You can be received exactly the same way you always thought you would be received. You may remain in that narrowness if you want - you need never change unless you wish. God gives us perfect freedom in spirit. WFBchanneled • modern • Taylor

Subject: That which you expect to find . . . you do indeed find. Were they to expect to awaken into perhaps a carnival, then that would be what they would find. . . . If they expect to meet guides or friends along the way to help them toward the light, this is what they shall see. If they were steeped in the belief of damnation and hellfire and if they believe that they deserve this, this is what they shall also perceive. . . . More times than not, another soul will come and guide them to a place of healing so they will lose their confusion and understand what has occurred. (Cannon 21)

Subject: The mind will at the time of death create its own Hell if that is what it’s expecting. . . .

They remain there in their version of Hell until they realize that it is a manufacture of their own mind. It may take a year or it may take hundreds. . . . When they realize they don’t have to stay there it has no power to hold them and they are released to go where they truly belong. (Cannon 154-155)BDLhypnosis • modern • Cannon

Some of you have expectations without even knowing it. All your life you’ve had thoughts about what occurs after death, and when you “die” those thoughts are made manifest, and you suddenly realize (make real) what you’ve been thinking about. And it is your strongest thoughts, the ones you’ve held most fervently, that, as always in life, will prevail. . . .

You may create any subreality you choose—including the experience of hell. . . . Most of what you experience does not exist, yet you experience it nonetheless. . . .

Walsch: “What would stop me from creating such a place for all eternity if I believed all my life that there was such a place, and that something I’d done had caused me to deserve such a place?” . . .

One thing you will come to know and understand very quickly is that you are at choice, always, about what you wish to experience. That is because in the afterlife results are instantaneous, and you will not be able to miss the connection between your thoughts about a thing, and the experience those thoughts create. . . .

The soul responds to, re-creates, the mind’s most powerful suggestion, producing that in its experience.

Some souls remain in that experience for a time, making it very real. . . . Other souls quickly adjust, see the experience for what it is, begin to think new thoughts, and move immediately to new experiences. (Walsch 72-75)CWG3channeled • modern • Walsch

Difficulties can arise when the newly freed consciousness seizes upon its ideas of reality after death, rather than facing the particular reality where it finds itself. It can deny feeling . . . and even attempt to argue itself out of its present independence from its body. (Roberts 123)

A belief in heaven and hell, under certain conditions, can be equally disadvantageous. Some will refuse to accept the idea of further work, development, and challenge, believing instead that conventional heaven situations are the only possibility. For some time they may indeed inhabit such an environment, until they learn through their own experience that existence demands development, and that such a heaven would be sterile, boring, and indeed “deadly.” . . .

Others may insist that because of their transgressions they will be cast into hell, and because of the force of such belief, they may for some time actually encounter such conditions. In either case, however, there are always teachers available. They try to get through these false beliefs.

In the Hades conditions, the individuals come somewhat more quickly to their senses. Their own fears trigger within themselves the answering release. Their need, in other words, more quickly opens up the inner doorways of knowledge. Their state does not usually last as long, therefore, as the heaven state.

Either state, however, puts off the time of choosing and the next existence. . . . In all cases, the individual creates his experience. . . . This is a basic fact of all consciousness and existence. There are no special “places” or situations or conditions set apart after physical death in which any given personality must have experience. . . .

Any problems that were not faced in this life will, however, be faced in another one. (Roberts 159)SSchanneled • modern • Seth

An individual can be so certain that death is the end of all, that oblivion, though temporary, results. (Roberts 123)SSchanneled • modern • Seth

Some mediums in the last century, dealing with materialists who had died, reported that it was interesting when somebody asked them to get in contact with such people. They said it was hard to find these people and when they did find them, they had sort of made themselves a little “black hole” in after-death space, where they remained in a state of minimal consciousness, because they were convinced they couldn’t survive death, so nothing was happening for them. (Tart 189)BMSresearchers • modern • Tart

It is materially and spiritually impossible for beings of a lower state of evolution to live, consciously, in the higher worlds, as long as they have not harmonized their consciousness with the finer vibrations of those strata. (Yram 97)PAPOBEr • Yram

The soul just after death is encumbered with its complete body of desire, or kama rupa NOTE: reorganized astral body, and all the mental images formed by kama-manas NOTE: the mental body that are of a gross and animal nature are powerful on the lowest levels of this astral world. A poorly developed soul will dwell on these images and act them out, thus preparing itself to repeat them again physically in its next life. . . .

Some of the mental images encircling the newly arrived soul are the source of much trouble during the earlier stages of the post-mortem life; superstitious beliefs presenting themselves as mental images torture the soul with pictures of horrors that have no place in its real surroundings. (Besant 34-35)Kclairvoyant • Theosophy • Besant

Acharya: There are seven spheres of consciousness in the astral world. . . . Permanent inhabitants can spend their astral lives on any of these spheres, according to their natural desires. For example, a man may spend a few weeks on the first sphere, then the next two years on the second sphere, later passing to the third or fourth, as his habits and desires become less material and more artistic, intellectual or spiritual. (Richelieu 73-74)ASJOBEr • modern (Theosophy) • Richelieu

For the human spirit, death is followed by a time in which the soul strips itself of its inclinations toward physical existence. . . . Of course this takes longer in cases where the soul has been more tightly bound to the physical. (Steiner 113)Tclairvoyant • Theosophy • Steiner

Years go by after death during which the soul is occupied in gradually separating, unbinding itself from the context of its last life. . . . It is a life in which the soul chiefly lives through everything which it wills and desires and longs for in connection with its felt and willed memories of the life that is past. (Steiner 22)LBDclairvoyant • Theosophy • Steiner

When he leaves his material form . . . he only retains the harmonies, the expressions and the rhythm of his experiences on earth. But this is sufficient to attract him and keep him prisoner in a medium where he will be able to put into action his habitual affections. (Yram 31-32)

The vibratory rhythm of our oscillations . . . automatically places each human being in matter whose density decides the possibilities which are within his reach. (Yram 34)

To change from one plane or dimension to another is to die; that is to say, to abandon all lower desires.

In order to pass from one dimension to another it is necessary to abandon some part of one’s makeup; just as, at death, the physical body is left behind. (Yram 97-98)PAPOBEr • Yram

Subject: Due to the type of life they have lived they have attracted negative energies and influences unto themselves. When they cross over to the spiritual side of things, the negative influences are still clustered about them. But now they are conscious of these influences and they can perceive them because they are on the spiritual plane themselves. These things surround them totally and it affects their minds and makes them think that they are at a place that is very unpleasant. . . .

When they work on the different aspects of themselves, and as they correct or heal a certain attitude or what-have-you, the energy of attraction is no longer there. The negative influences dissipate or drop away since there is no longer the energy there to hold them. (Cannon 105-107)BDLhypnosis • modern • Cannon

(Q) Are the desires of the earth’s plane carried over into the spiritual plane?

(A) When those desires have fastened such hold upon the inner being as to become a portion of the subconsciousness, those desires pass on. . . . We find these conditions become a portion of the entity to the extent that the entirety of the subconscious becomes imbibed with that condition, wherein the entity depends upon that element for its sustenance. (Lynn and Cayce 57)NDchanneled • modern • Lynn & Cayce

By becoming attached to lower pleasures . . . one narrows down one’s field of action into a state of being where time increases in volume. (Yram 34)PAPOBEr • Yram

Your destination in the heaven or hell of Locale II NOTE: the astral realm seems to be grounded completely within the framework of your deepest constant motivations, emotions, and personality drives. The most consistent and strongest of these act as your “homing” device when you enter this realm. (Monroe 121)JOotBOBEr • modern • Monroe

[The soul extension] will gravitate like a magnet to the plane that is most appropriate to its soul development. CAMwisdom • modern (Theosophy) • Stone

Your state of mind, freed from its usual physical focus, creatively expresses itself in all of its power and brilliance. The state of mind itself serves as an intent, propelling you into realities of like conditions. (Roberts 324)UR2channeled • modern • Seth

Dr. Peebles: There are communities, little communities here of spirit, people who gather together to reinforce their Buddhist belief . . . their Christian belief . . . their atheistic belief . . . and so forth and so on. (Pendleton 37)

Dr. Peebles: If a soul believes with such intensity, anything, with no flexibility—no flexibility whatsoever—then upon arrival in the spirit side, you will find yourself sucked into a certain locality of the spirit side, with others who have that same determined belief, with no flexibility, so that you can have mirrored and magnified to you your own self. What typically happens in these localities is some reinforcement, to be sure, but eventually rebellion. For you see yourself so clearly, so crystallized, that you are able to identify the lack of flexibility; and all of a sudden there is a movement inside where you say: “Wait a minute, there must be something I haven’t thought of”—then immediately you leave that locality and you are attracted to another, which would perhaps say a larger truth representative of a larger community of life in the universe. (Pendleton 93)TDAchanneled • modern • Pendleton

Focus 24-26. This covers the Belief System Territories, occupied by nonphysical humans from all periods and areas who have accepted and subscribed to various premises and concepts. These would include religious and philosophical beliefs that postulate some form of post-physical existence.

On the way [to the reception center], some individuals will slip away into the Belief System Territories of Focus 24-26, where they will be welcomed by those of their own particular creed or faith. Others will continue to the Reception Center in Focus 27, where they may be greeted by loved ones no longer in physical existence. (Monroe 250)UJOBEr • modern • Monroe

AD (channeled): I did notice that there is a tendency among certain sects or religious people over here to congregate in their little groups and have their little sessions of what they feel are “heaven.” This is an interesting fact. I am told by my teacher here that eventually they become very bored with this narrowness, and then their own helpers and teachers here try to give them another thought and another idea and help them to break away from this narrow approach. WFBchanneled • modern • Taylor

Do you know that there are vast cities here, but also you do get communities of peoples who because of nationality when on earth, and possibly because of their colour even, they have this habit of clinging together, or being together. This is usually, of course, a temporary thing with most of them. GOCchanneled • modern • Flint

People are selected according to their impulses, which automatically place them in groups of similar character. . . . Beings of a greater development come to their aid, so that they may organize a state of affairs adapted to their characters. . . .

I once noticed, whilst I was in the astral world, a region in the ether where, after death, those people go who are neither good nor bad, and who know of nothing but their daily work, with its pleasures and difficulties. At first their material sensations persist. But . . . a devoted band shares the joy of helping these poor, half-blind people to put into operation the possibilities of the world in which they find themselves. They start by freeing them from their crudest material ties, and help them to organize a social system in which they will all be happy. . . .

Everyone was happy. I watched a certain class of workmen draw their wages and contrive important economies. Had they but known it they had but to think of it to become multi-millionaires. In the life beyond, as on earth, all is relative. One can only become aware by acquired knowledge. (Yram 139-140)PAPOBEr • Yram

The higher the plane of the Astral world, the less are the old earth scenes in evidence, even in the shape of the dim background we saw as we progressed on our journey. As we mounted on the scale, these old earth scenes grew very dim, and where we are standing now, on the fourth sub-plane, they are practically out of sight. . . .

As we pass from scene to scene, we see the “happy hunting grounds” of the American Indians, thickly settled with these old aborigines who have been dwelling there for quite a period of time. They are busy, and happy hunting their astral buffaloes, and other game. A little further on, we witness similar forms of the “Spirit-land” of other . . . people, in some of which the disembodied warriors fight and conquer great hosts of artificial foes, and then have great feasts according to their old customs.

Valhalla is here, as well as the other imaginary Paradises of the old races of men. . . . While there is nothing elevating in the pursuits followed in these scenes, there is nothing degrading or lowering, from a strictly spiritual point of view. But, there is in evidence always a living-out, and wearing-out, of the old desires of this kind, to make room for higher ones—all tends toward spiritual evolution. (Panchadasi 62-64)AWunknown • New Thought (Theosophy) • Atkinson

Souls are exactly the same the instant after passing into spirit life as they were the instant before. . . . The theologically-built eternal hell . . . is such a useful weapon in the ecclesiastical armory, and one that perhaps has caused more suffering in its time than many other erroneous doctrines. . . . The fervid adherents to any particular religious body will continue to practice their religion in the spirit world until such time as their minds become spiritually enlightened. We have here, so my friend informed me—I have since seen them for myself—whole communities still exercising their old earthly religion. The bigotry and prejudices are all there, religiously speaking. They do no harm, except to themselves, since such matters are confined to themselves. . . .

The same ceremonies, the same ritual, the same old beliefs, all are being carried on with the same misplaced zeal—in churches erected for the purpose. The members of these communities know that they have passed on, and they think that part of their heavenly reward is to continue with their man-made forms of worship. So they will continue until such time as a spiritual awakening takes place. Pressure is never brought to bear upon these souls; their mental resurrection must come from within themselves. When it does come they will taste for the first time the real meaning of freedom. (Borgia 17-18)LWUchanneled • modern • Benson

I have already told of the establishment of communities of those same religions here in the spirit world, so that the spirit world is in no better case than the earth world. When the earth world becomes really enlightened these communities here will disappear. . . . They are given tolerance, and they must exercise tolerance themselves, otherwise they would be swept away. They must never attempt to influence or coerce any soul into believing any of their erroneous doctrines. They must confine themselves strictly to themselves, but they are perfectly and absolutely free to practice their own false religion among themselves. The truth awaits them on the threshold of their churches as they leave their places of worship, not when they have entered. When a soul at length perceives the futility of his particular and peculiar religious beliefs he quickly dissociates himself from them. (Borgia 99)LWUchanneled • modern • Benson

Within . . . wide limits may vary also the length of their lives upon the NOTE: lower astral plane, for while there are those who pass only a few days or hours there, others remain upon this level for many years and even centuries. A man who has led a good and pure life, whose strongest feelings and aspirations have been unselfish and spiritual, will have no attraction to this plane, and will, if entirely left alone, find little to keep him upon it. (Leadbeater 25)APclairvoyant • Theosophy • Leadbeater

Persons who have . . . full fed the desire body while they have starved even the lower mind—these remain for long, denizens of Kamaloka NOTE: the lower astral plane, and are filled with yearnings for the earth-life they have left, and for the animal delights that they can no longer—in the absence of the physical body—directly taste. (Besant 39)

If a person has led a pure life, and has steadfastly striven to rise and to identify himself with the higher rather than the lower part of his nature, after shaking off the dense body and the etheric double, and after Prana has re-mingled with the ocean of Life, and he is clothed only with the Kama Rupa NOTE: reorganized astral body, the passional elements in him, being but weak and accustomed to comparatively little activity, will not be able to assert themselves strongly in Kamaloka NOTE: the lower astral plane. . . . All that is left of Kama NOTE: desire is a mere residue, easily to be gotten rid of, from which the Immortal Triad NOTE: higher self can readily free itself. (Besant 34)DAclairvoyant • Theosophy • Besant

There is occasionally a rare nature who, because of its great purity, passes through this psychic NOTE: astral stratum without ever knowing it or contacting it. This kind of individual is very fortunate indeed. (King 256)IADchanneled • Theosophy • Germain

Acharya: In most cases [people in the two spheres nearest to the physical world] do not remain there for the whole of their astral existence. There are exceptions who are so attached to the material existence, that they have no desire to progress to the higher spheres of the astral world—but they are forced to do so after a period that might run into two or even three hundred years, at which time the ego urges the vehicle he is occupying to pass through the “second death” to the mental world. This method of progress is not the usual one. (Richelieu 121-122)ASJOBEr • modern (Theosophy) • Richelieu

To the degree that we come to control the passions of our nafs NOTE: psyche, ego, the veils covering our angelic soul are lifted and we do gradually become aware of our preceding lives. (Elahi 91)PoPwisdom • Iranian • Elahi

Every spirit hates the lower realms for the unhappiness that is there. . . . And for that reason great organizations exist to help every single soul who is living in them to rise out of them into the light. And that work will continue through countless ages until every soul is brought out from these hideous places. (Borgia 86)LWUchanneled • modern • Benson

On the higher planes of activity, there are great and beautiful souls who volunteer to go into this stratum to help, through their radiation, to break its hold upon humanity. (King 258)IADchanneled • Theosophy • Germain

There’s always an entity available that an “earthbound” ghost will respond to, once the ghost’s attention is directed away from its self-limiting obsession. (Coddington 77)

In common with all these episodes [of earthbound souls], it was the subject’s perception of a loved or revered one’s having called or come to lead the subject away from this plane that finally achieved success. (Coddington 87)Eachanneled • modern • Coddington

It is possible . . . to lose yourself momentarily in the hallucinations NOTE: projections that are being formed, and in such cases another teacher must bail you out. Delicate probing of the psychological processes is necessary, and the variety of hallucinations in which you may become involved is endless. . . .

All of these hallucinatory activities take place usually some short time immediately following death. (Roberts 126-127)SSchanneled • modern • Seth

There is an order of personalities, an honorary guard, so to speak, who are ever ready to lend assistance and aid. . . .

Now this honorary guard is made up of people in your terms both living and dead. Those who are living in your system of reality perform these activities in an “out-of-body” experience while the physical body sleeps. They are familiar with the projection of consciousness, with the sensations involved, and they help orient those who will not be returning to the physical body.

These people are particularly helpful because they are still involved with physical reality, and have a more immediate understanding of the feeling and emotions involved at your end. Such persons may or may not have a memory of their nightly activities. (Roberts 120)SSchanneled • modern • Seth

There are many millions of souls that are in the earth vibration with the feeling that they are still in their physical bodies. They are locked into a time zone. It is necessary to penetrate their time zones, to talk to them individually and bring them into the awareness that they are no longer in physical form.

NOTE: By “time zone” I think she is referring to closed-in subjective time.

There are different methods of approach to these confused souls. It is a special type of counseling, and the sensitivity of the person who works with them is a very important factor in this type of work. It is most important to make these souls aware of the fact that they are no longer in the physical body.

It is important first to allow such souls to express their own personhood, and to describe their situation as they experience it—to tell their story—in their time level of reality. Then you must relate to such souls from the point of view of their present reality as they are experiencing it. They often will attempt to communicate with someone on the earth level, because they feel they themselves are still in their earth bodies.

They commonly do not recognize the presence of anyone from our dimension—such as their guardians, or loved ones who have passed over—because they are locked into an earth-time dimension. . . .

Sometimes you have to shock them into the realization that they are no longer living in the earth body. . . . Each personality is unique. Each person is special. Therefore, each situation is different. . . .

Ask them if there is someone that they have been close to who has passed on. If there is, ask them to look for this person, or to listen for this person.

An alternative method is to ask them to look around and describe what they see. They are always surrounded by helpers from our dimension who are constantly trying to get into communication with them. . . .

Another technique to use in assisting this lost soul is to ask it to touch what it believes is its physical body. Often this can shock such souls into the awareness that they are no longer in their physical body, as they realize that the body they are speaking through it foreign to them. The shock is an important process in awakening the soul to its true situation. . . .

There are many levels of souls that are lost. The ones we send through are on the threshold of enlightenment. Others are in such great darkness that we would never attempt to work with them in this way, because of the nature of their consciousness.

There are many delightful souls who are locked into the physical universe of reality because they are imprisoned by their own thought-forms. Often it is fear that confines them, brought on by the trauma of the event of death. It is such souls that we bring through in a crying need of help, and on the verge of breakthrough.

All souls have surrounding them many helpers. There are many levels of such helpers. That is why no soul is really lost in the universe. (McKnight 258-261)CJOBEr • modern • McKnight

Subject: They put up energy barriers without meaning to do it. . . . We usually have to watch them very careful and try to catch them at a vulnerable point so we can break through and give them a glimmering of hope. . . .

They have built mental walls and walls of energy about them to block out all that they don’t want to deal with. (Cannon 194-195)BDLhypnosis • modern • Cannon

Our lesson here is to focus on the entity’s obsession. For Angela, Effie, and Alice, the focus was on loved ones who—by our time—could safely be presumed to be in Heaven. Thus, God, Heaven, and loved ones residing there led to workable hooks. (Coddington 106)Eachanneled • modern • Coddington

Soul beings first awaken to true soul life by drawing from these higher regions. Their subdued life in the darkness opens up to the outside and starts to shine and radiate out into soul space. (Steiner 107)Tclairvoyant • Theosophy • Steiner

The others you retrieved—they disappeared when their belief systems took over, didn’t they? . . .

Their belief system is all they have to hold on to. So they go where they think there is some kind of security. But they never forget our attempts to help them, even though it doesn’t fit with what they expect. In time a doubt arises, perhaps ten lifetimes later, and a representative from their own I-There NOTE: reincarnating self retrieves them and brings them back where they belong. (Monroe 175)

Like the sex addict, each phased out when we encountered the radiation of a belief system with which they resonated. (Monroe 180)UJOBEr • modern • Monroe

I no longer was concerned with my sleep activities, whether I remembered them or not. Now when I relaxed and drifted out-of-phase into sleep, my EXCOM NOTE: reincarnating self took over and we worked together. Many of our tasks involved helping through, or retrieving, after the physical death process. In most of these instances, we became what we were perceived to be: father, mother, departed friend, even some “heavenly being.” . . .

The major task of my I-There NOTE: reincarnating self was to pick up previous life personalities who had been overwhelmed by Earth Life System addictions or various belief systems so that the essence of the personality was unreachable. . . . All such “rescues” took place in what we would label the past. (Monroe 179-180)

It was.. the collection and unification of the “parts,” not only the errant and missing ones in my own I-There NOTE: reincarnating self, but the parts of the entire I-There cluster to which I am bonded. (Monroe 226-227)

John A. Baylor: “After the guide and I took the child up, I felt a sense of completion and on some level a sense of homecoming, as if another piece of me was at rest now.” (Baylor 255 )UJOBEr • modern • Monroe

Subject: The longer they stay dead the more aware they become of the spiritual plane, simply because of a matter of vibrational attraction. (Cannon 175)

Angels (channeled): [This Heaven World] contains the archetypal, perfected pattern from which your world arose, it is made up of jungles and deserts, forests and vast plains, streams and lakes and great sparkling oceans, grand mountains and gently rolling hills.

Each soul will enter this realm in the environment that feels the most comforting and welcoming and familiar—the most like home. There they will be greeted by those of their individual cultures and cosmologies. They will be welcomed and nurtured and instructed by these beings. And when they are ready, they will visit other environments and commune with other beings they find there. (Fairchilde 57)VftAchanneled • modern • Fairchilde

S: Every spirit needs a period of adjustment. . . . So, while these spirits are going through the adjustment periods the council meets and we discuss what their situation is and what they need. And how we can best serve them to help them develop their karma NOTE: habits of thought in this new stage they are in. . . .

When they pass over to this side, they first perceive that which they are capable of handling. And usually, when it is possible, if some other spiritual entities that were connected with them in their most recent life are still on the spiritual plane, we have them there to help them across. . . . It is a matter of giving them time to adjust to this new situation of things. By that time the experiences on the physical plane are not quite so fresh on the memory so they can start thinking of things from the spiritual perspectives. (Cannon 198-199)BDLhypnosis • modern • Cannon

All necessary explanations are given to those who are disoriented. Those who do not realize that they are dead are here told of their true condition, and all efforts are made to refresh the energies and spirits. (Roberts 149)

In the sleep state, each of you have undergone—to some degree—the same kind of absence of consciousness from physical reality that you experience during death. . . .

You have passed over the threshold into these other existences many many times, so it will not be as unfamiliar to you as you may now suppose. (Roberts 121)SSchanneled • modern • Seth

Focus 27. Here is the site of what we may call the Reception Center or the Park, which is the hub of it. This is an artificial synthesis created by human minds, a way station designed to ease the trauma and shock of the transition out of physical reality. It takes on the form of various earth environments in order to be acceptable to the enormously wide variety of newcomers. (Monroe 249)UJOBEr • modern • Monroe

There is another department of industry, though, which is vitally necessary, and it is peculiar to the spirit world.

The percentage is low, deplorably low, of people who come into the spirit world with any knowledge at all of their new life and of the spirit world in general. All the countless souls without this knowledge have to be taken care of, and helped in their difficulties and perplexities. . . .

It is astonishing how many of them want to rush back to the earth-plane to try to tell those they have left behind of the great discovery they have made of the fact that they are alive and in another world!

In numbers of cases people require a long rest after their dissolution. They may be awake during the whole of this period of rest, and those in attendance have to be a storehouse of information. The attention of such souls is usually about equally divided between the spirit world and the earth world. (Borgia 168-169)LWUchanneled • modern • Benson

It is important for us to acquire knowledge of the spirit while we are in the flesh. The more knowledge we acquire here, the further and faster we will progress there. Because of lack of knowledge or belief, some spirits are virtual prisoners of the earth. (Eadie 84)EbtLNDEr • modern • Eadie

Frequently, an entity who is significant to us will be waiting a little in front of the others who want to be on hand as we come through the gateway. The size of welcoming parties not only changes for everyone after each life, but is drastically reduced to almost nothing for more advanced souls where spiritual comfort becomes less necessary. (Newton 34)

What type of after-death meeting we do experience appears to involve the particular style of our spiritual guide along with requisites of our individual character. (Newton 35)JoShypnosis • modern • Newton

You may or may not be greeted by friends or relatives immediately following death. This is a personal matter, as always. Overall, you may be far more interested in people you have known in past lives than those close to you in the present one. . . .

Your true feeling towards relatives that are dead will be known to you and to them. There is no hypocrisy. . . . Telepathy operates without distortion in this after-death period, so you must deal with the true relationships that exist between yourself and all relatives and friends who await you. (Roberts 121-122)SSchanneled • modern • Seth

If a soul has been traumatized by unfinished business, usually the first entity it sees right after death is its guide. These highly developed spiritual teachers are prepared to take the initial brunt of a soul’s frustration following an untimely death. . . .

Our guides do not encourage the complete working out of thought disorders at the spiritual gateway. . . .

Much of our initial readjustment depends upon the influence of these kindly entities toward our returning soul. (Newton 25)

The meetings with relations and friends are something that must be experienced in order to grasp the full significance and joy of reunion. Such meetings will only take place where there is mutual sympathy and affection. . . . These gatherings will continue for some while after the arrival of the new resident. It is natural that in the novelty both of surroundings and condition some time should be spent in a grand exchange of news, and in hearing of all that has transpired in the spirit lives of those who have “predeceased” us. (Borgia 171)LWUchanneled • modern • Benson

Dr. Peebles: Each and every soul who comes to the spirit side from the body is greeted by friends and family, a few or many. Each and every soul is greeted by a force of light. However, each and every soul has the freedom and the will to translate that as they choose. (Pendleton 102)TDAchanneled • modern • Pendleton

In many instances, however, these friends have progressed to other stages of activity, and often a guide will take the guise of a friend for a while, so that you will feel more confident. (Roberts 127)SSchanneled • modern • Seth

Many of our tasks involved helping through, or retrieving, after the physical death process. In most of these instances, we became what we were perceived to be: father, mother, departed friend, even some “heavenly being.” (Monroe 180)UJOBEr • modern • Monroe

A curious phenomenon about the spirit world is that important people in our lives are always ready to meet us at the gateway, even though they may already be living another life in a new body. (Newton 30)JoShypnosis • modern • Newton

All souls, regardless of experience, eventually arrive at a central port in the spirit world which I call the staging area. . . . Apparently, large numbers of returning souls are conveyed in a spiritual form of mass transit. . . .

Spirits are brought in, collected, and then projected out to their proper final destinations. . . . One of my clients described the staging area as resembling “the hub of a great wagon wheel, where we are transported from a center along the spokes to our designated places.”

My subjects say this region appears to them as having a large number of unacquainted spirits moving in and out of the hub in an efficient manner. . . . Each client considers their own route to and from this center to be the only one. . . .

They are dazzled by an eternal world spread out before them. . . .

When they look at the fully opened canopy around them, subjects will state that the spirit world appears to be of varied luminescence. . . . The gatherings of souls that clients see in the foreground in this amphitheater appear as myriads of sharp star lights all going in different directions. Some move fast while others drift. . . . The most outstanding characteristic of the spirit world is a continuous feeling of a powerful mental force directing everything in uncanny harmony. People say this is a place of pure thought. . . .

It is at this vantage point in their return that souls begin to anticipate meeting others who wait for them. A few of these companions may have already been seen at the gateway, but most have not. (Newton 71-72)

I enjoy hearing from subjects about their first images of the spirit world. People may see fields of wildflowers, castle towers rising in the distance, or rainbows under an open sky when returning to this place of adoration. These first ethereal Earth scenes of the spirit world don’t seem to change a great deal over a span of lives for the returning soul. . . . Once a subject in trance continues further into the spirit world to describe the functional aspects of spiritual life, their comments become more uniform. . . .

Regardless of their state of mind right after death, my subjects are full of exclamations about rediscovered marvels of the spirit world. Usually, this feeling is combined with euphoria that all their worldly cares have been left behind, especially physical pain. (Newton 24-25)JoShypnosis • modern • Newton

It was a place to calm down in after the trauma of physical death—a way station, for relaxation and decision as to what to do next. The Park! . . .

My feet were bare!

As I walked on, a gentle breeze touched my head and chest. I could feel! . . .

The birds—about half of them were species I had never seen before! . . .

Suddenly I knew what had happened—what was probably still taking place. This was a human creation! Many of those who walked this path created and added their own favorite bird or tree to the woods. They were alive—living creations, created by humans! . . .

Before me was the Park.

It was the same as when I had visited many years ago, with winding walks, benches, flowers and shrubbery, different-colored grass lawns, clusters of stately trees, small streams and fountains, and with a warm sun overhead among small cumulus clouds. The Park continued on a gently rolling terrain as far as I could see. . . .

NOTE: Monroe meets and begins speaking with Nevisse. Monroe:

“The places I have visited, where my friends were—they are simply extensions of here. . . .”

“That is so. But if they have a strong belief, they will follow that directive and go where that belief leads them. There will be others of the same belief waiting to help them. You let them go and leave them alone. That is where they belong. . . .

“The design here is only to provide a familiar surrounding to ease the anxiety.”

“This place, then. . . .?”

“Is a creation that is here and will be here whatever your beliefs. It will not disappear if you don’t believe it exists.”

“Who made it?”

“A human civilization many thousands of years ago.” (Monroe 237-239, 241-242)

[The Reception Center or the Park] is an artificial synthesis created by human minds, a way station designed to ease the trauma and shock of the transition out of physical reality. It takes on the form of various earth environments in order to be acceptable to the enormously wide variety of newcomers. (Monroe 249)UJOBEr • modern • Monroe

It seems as if the different sections of this organization ended in cross-roads. These cross-roads represented concentration-points from which human beings were collected into their different categories. Quantities of streets seemed to end up there, from which one could go towards other planes by means of ladders set up in different directions. (Yram 141)PAPOBEr • Yram

Acharya: There are buildings, both large and small, which seem to be what we would describe as mental hospitals. . . . The astral body . . . also includes within itself a mental vehicle, commonly referred to as the mind. A man can be troubled by his mind after death; remorse for hasty actions and words in his past life . . . cause him a certain amount of suffering. (Richelieu 128)ASJOBEr • modern (Theosophy) • Richelieu

Subject: There is another special place on the planes. Your physical equivalent would be like a hospital. It is for these souls that are very damaged, and we try to help them become better. . . . It’s a very slow process. Mostly advanced spirits work with these because it takes an inordinate amount of patience and knowledge. (Cannon 122-123)BDLhypnosis • modern • Cannon

There is no one after-death reality. . . . Each experience is different. Generally speaking, however, there are dimensions into which these individual experiences will fall. For example, there is an initial stage for those who are still focused strongly in physical reality, and for those who need a period of recuperation and rest. On this level there will be hospitals and rest homes. The patients do not yet realize that there is nothing wrong with them at all.

In some cases, the idea of illness is so strong that they have built their earthly years about this psychological center. They project ill conditions upon the new body as they did upon the old one. . . .

Many individuals do not need to pass through this particular period. . . . The hospitals and training centers . . . are often, in fact, maintained en masse by the guides. (Roberts 129)SSchanneled • modern • Seth

After people die of a long-term illness, I have often seen them resting, surrounded by white light for some period of time after death. They appear to be taken care of in some kind of hospital on the other side. (Brennan 68)HoLclairvoyant • modern • Brennan

Dr. Peebles: Some people come into the spirit side and immediately need to go to a hospital—hospital of the heart and of the soul—where they are touched by at least three other loving masterly spirits who merely touch them and hold them as a child to the breast and comfort them till that spirit puts the head up and says: “What is this? Who am I? Where am I? What am I to do?” (Pendleton 98)TDAchanneled • modern • Pendleton

Salter: “When wounded children and grownups arrive here they are bedded in tubs filled with healing water.” (Kubis and Macy 32)CBtLITC, OBEr • modern (Theosophy) • Kubis & Macy

[For] those souls who have been subverted by, or had complicity with, criminal abnormalities in a human body . . . spiritual guides deliberately remove these souls from further association with other entities for an indeterminate period. . . . The guides of these souls are intimately concerned with rehabilitation. (Newton 45)

Certain souls do undergo separation in the spirit world, and this happens at the time of their orientation with guides. . . . Souls whose influence was too weak to turn aside a human impulse to harm others will go into seclusion upon reentering the spirit world. These souls don’t appear to mix with other entities in the conventional manner for quite a while. . . .

Those beginner souls who are habitually associated with intensely negative human conduct in their first series of lives must endure individual spiritual isolation. Ultimately, they are placed together in their own group to intensify learning under close supervision. (Newton 49)

Those who have learned to understand and operate in the mechanics of the dream state will have great advantage. (Roberts 161)

Experiences with projection of consciousness and knowledge of the mobility of consciousness, are therefore very helpful as preparations for death. You can experience the after-death environment beforehand . . . and learn the conditions that will be encountered. . . .

They are generally far more intense and joyful than the reality you now know.

You will simply be learning to operate in a new environment in which different laws apply, and the laws are far less limiting than the physical ones with which you now operate. In other words, you must learn to understand and use new freedoms. (Roberts 120)SSchanneled • modern • Seth

Homecoming is a joyous interlude, especially following a physical life where there might not have been much . . . contact with our intimate soulmates. Most of my subjects tell me they are welcomed back with hugs, laughter and much humor, which I find to be the hallmark of life in the spirit world. The really effusive groups who have planned elaborate celebrations for the returning soul may suspend all their other activities. One subject of mine had this to say about his homecoming welcome:

Homecoming can take place in two types of settings. A few souls might briefly meet a returning soul at the gateway and then leave in favor of a guide who takes them through some preliminary orientation. More commonly, the welcoming committee waits until the soul actually returns to their spirit group. (Newton 4)DoShypnosis • modern • Newton

Although people in trance may use such words as “clumps” and “hives” to describe how their home spaces look from a distance, this view becomes more individualistic once they go into each cluster. Then the subjects’ spiritual surroundings are associated with towns, schools, and other living areas identified with earthly landmarks of security and pleasure. (Newton 82)JoShypnosis • modern • Newton

Further into the spirit world, my subjects will talk about seeing buildings and being in furnished rooms. . . . These scenes of Earth’s natural environment are intended to aid in the soul’s transition and adjustment from a physical death. (Newton 24)JoShypnosis • modern • Newton

After physical death our spirit continues to carry all the fond memories of earthly life. The poignancy of tasting food and drink, touching human bodies, the smell, sights and sounds of walking the deserts, climbing mountains and swimming in the seas of Earth remain with the soul. (Newton 290)

Soul groups range between three and twenty-five members, with the average having about fifteen. (Newton 4)DoShypnosis • modern • Newton

The souls represented in these cluster groups are intimate old friends who have about the same awareness level. . . .

When people in trance speak of being part of a soul cluster group, they are talking about a small primary unit of entities who have direct and frequent contact, such as we would see in a human family. Peer members have a sensitivity to each other which is far beyond our conception on Earth. . . .

Members of the same cluster group are closely united. . . . These tightly-knit clusters are often composed of like-minded souls with common objectives which they continually work out with each other. Usually they choose lives together as relatives and close friends during their incarnations on Earth. . . .

It is much more common for me to find a subject’s brother or sister from former lives in the same cluster group rather than souls who have been their parents. Parents can meet us at the gateway to the spirit world after a death on Earth, but we may not see much of their souls in the spirit world. . . . It is more a question of social learning between siblings who are contemporary in one time frame. . . . It is frequently our relations with spouses, brothers, sisters, and selected close friends over a whole lifetime that most influences personal growth. (Newton 87-88)

Although there is some evidence of paired friendships, I don’t hear about cliques, stars of attraction, or isolated souls within clusters. I am told souls do spend time alone in the silence of personal reflection when attached to a group. . . . Souls do learn much from solitude. (Newton 143)

Since the complete truth is known by all group members about each other in a telepathic world, humor is indispensable. . . . Humor is the basis upon which self-deception and hypocrisy are exposed. (Newton 128)

My subjects sometimes express concern that an important individual was not present in light form or did not communicate with them telepathically. Often this is a parent or spouse in the life just completed. By the end of the transition stage, the reason usually becomes evident. Frequently it has to do with embodiment. . . . One subject remarked, “As I come near my place, there is a monotone of many voices sounding the letter A, like Aaaaa, for my recognition, and I can see them all vibrating fast as warm, bright energy, and I know these are the disembodied ones right now.” (Newton 85)JoShypnosis • modern • Newton

Secondary groups of souls are arranged in the form of a community support group which is much less intimate with one another. Larger secondary groups of entities are made up of giant sets of primary clusters as lily pads in one pond. . . . I have never heard of a secondary group estimated at less than a thousand souls. . . . It is rare for me to find souls involved with each other in any meaningful way who are members of two different secondary groups, because the number of souls is so great it is not necessary. (Newton 87-88)JoShypnosis • modern • Newton

Without exception, souls who wish to contact each other, especially when on the move, do so by just thinking of the entity they want. Suddenly, the individual called will appear in the soul mind of the traveler. (Newton 72)

The separation of their group from others [is] similar to being in different classrooms in the same schoolhouse. (Newton 85)JoShypnosis • modern • Newton

• Primary clusters may split into smaller sub-groups for study, but are not separated from the integrated whole within a single cluster of souls.

• Rates of learning vary among peer group members. Certain souls will advance faster than others in a cluster group. Their physical energy leaves the cluster when they attain an intermediate level of development. These souls are then loosely formed into an “independent studies” work group with their old guides monitoring them, usually under one master guide. Thus, a new pod of entities graduating into Level III could be brought together from many clusters within one or more secondary groups.

• Although group size diminishes as souls advance, the intimate contact between peer group members is never lost. (Newton 105-106)

A client who had not yet graduated from his group but had begun the process of pulling away told me, “I am starting to feel a little cut off from my family. There are new souls around me that I have not worked with before.”

The integrity of a soul’s original cluster group remains intact in a timeless way. Regardless of who is graduating, they never lose their bond to old companions. Primary cluster groups began their existence together and remain closely associated through hundreds of incarnations. I have had souls who were with their primary groups for some 50,000 years before they were ready to move on to the intermediate levels, while a much smaller percentage have achieved this state of development within 5,000 years. Once reaching level III, I find that souls begin to rise much more rapidly into the advanced levels. . . .

With the attaining of level III there is a change in soul behavior. These souls have now begun to expand their vistas away from their primary groups. The advancing souls . . . are now so engrossed in their training it has become an all-consuming goal. These souls are fascinated by what they can do and want to become even more proficient. . . .

The assignments to new specialty groups are formed with other like-minded souls based upon a number of considerations. The three principal elements I am most aware of for soul specialty selection are talent, past performance and personal desire. . . .

These assemblages of more specialized souls are rather loosely knit at first. I have defined them as independent study groups. The training begins slowly on a periodic basis with different specialized teachers. This allows for an evaluation period for souls by their trainers. Souls who are testing the water may leave these specialty groups while other promising candidates can be added. . . . The instruction becomes more intense as these new groups demonstrate they can handle assignments. In these early stages, while souls are being weaned from their original groups, they still retain their regular guides and attend primary group functions. Independent study has a greater emphasis on self-direction by the soul in their tasks, which becomes even more pronounced as they develop into level IV and V proficiency. . . .

It is my belief a large majority of my clients are inclined toward teacher training to be guides. This is because they venerate their own guides, who have such a strong influence on their current development, and wish to emulate them. (Newton 320-323)

Here [in the Reception Center focus] they have the opportunity to be counseled as to the next step to take along the path to growth.

With regard to this next step, several options are available to the new arrivals, among them the following:

• reunion with loved ones who have previously made the transition;
• communication with those who are still alive in the physical state;
• renewal of contact and return to the Original Self (the I-There NOTE: reincarnating self);
• return to experience another Earth human life;
• meeting and discussion with those of the same belief, which may involve departure to that Belief System Territory;
• assuming temporarily the “retrieving” NOTE: rescue role;
• assuming physical life activity in other forms (nonhuman) at other sites (elsewhere in the universe);
• participating in studies and exploration of other phases of the Consciousness Continuum. (Monroe 250-251)UJOBEr • modern • Monroe

It would be a mistake to assume that reincarnating—returning to another physical body—was the only option open to them.

Walsch: “What are the other options?”

In truth, whatever they want them to be. . . .

Some souls feel that there is a lot more they would like to know, and so they find themselves going to a “school,” whereas other souls—what you call “old souls”—teach them. . . .

The answer to the question you are basically asking–can a soul return as an animal—is yes, of course. The real question is, would it? The answer is, probably not. . . .

Evolution proceeds one way. Upward. Ever upward. (Walsch 133-135)

Those whose only desire is to know the eternal truth of All That Is, to understand the great mysteries, to experience the grandest reality, do so.

Yes, there is a One Great Truth; there is a Final Reality. But you will always get what you choose, regardless of that reality—precisely because the reality is that you are a divine creature, divinely creating your reality even as you are experiencing it. . . .

Those who “die” in a state of such choosing, of such desiring, of such willingness and such knowing, move into the experience of the Oneness at once. . . .

In the time after your “death” you may choose to have every question you ever had answered—and open yourself to new questions you never dreamed existed. You may choose to experience Oneness with All That Is. And you will have a chance to decide what you wish to be, do, and have next.

Do you choose to return to your most recent body? Do you choose to experience life again in human form, but of another kind?

Do you choose to remain where you are in the “spirit world,” at the level you are then experiencing? (Walsch 76-77)CWG3channeled • modern • Walsch

Sandy (channeled): There is a time here when every soul chooses what is next for it. There are infinite choices. Will you reincarnate on planet Earth? Will you spend time serving as a guide for someone still in a body? Will you spend more time here learning in the Heaven realm? Will you journey to other realities? (Fairchilde 12)VftAchanneled • modern • Fairchilde

There are unlimited varieties of experience open to you after death, all possible, but some less probable than others, according to your development. Very generally now, there are three main areas. . . .

You may decide upon another reincarnation. You may decide to focus instead upon your past life, using it as the stuff of new experience, as mentioned previously creating variations of events as you have known them, making corrections as you choose. Or you may enter another system of probability entirely; and this is quite apart from a reincarnational existence. You will be leaving all thoughts of continuity of time behind you in such a case.

Now some individuals, some personalities, prefer a life organization bound about past, present, and future in a seemingly logical structure, and these persons usually choose reincarnation. Others naively prefer to experience events in an extraordinarily intuitive manner, with the organization being provided by the associative process. These will choose a system of probabilities for their next main endeavor.

Some simply find the physical system not to their liking, and in such a way take leave of it. This cannot be done, however, until the reincarnational cycle, once chosen, is completed, so the last choice exists for those who have developed their abilities through reincarnation as far as possible within that system.

Some, finished with reincarnation, may choose to reenter the cycle acting as teachers, and in such cases some recognition of higher identity is always present. Now there is an in-between stage of relative indecision, a midplane of existence NOTE: the mid-astral; a rest area, comparatively speaking, and it is from this area that most communication from relatives occurs. This is usually the level that is visited by the living in projections from the dream state.

Before the time of choosing, however, there is a period of self-examination, and your full “history” becomes available to you. You understand the nature of the entity NOTE: reincarnating self, and you are advised by other portions of that entity, more “advanced” than yourself. . . .

All efforts are made to refresh the energies and spirits. It is a time of study and comprehension. It is from this area that some disturbed personalities have those dreams of returning to the physical environment.

It is a place of commerce between systems, so to speak. Conditions and development are important, rather than the length an individual stays in this area. It is an intermediary step, but an important one. In your dreams you have been here. (Roberts 148-149)

Many will continue into other physical lives. Some will exist and develop their abilities in different systems of reality altogether and so for a time will remain in this “intermediary” state. (Roberts 120)

Then there is a period of self-examination, a rendering of accounts, so to speak, in which they are able to view their entire performance, their abilities and weak points and to decide whether or not they will return to physical existence. (Roberts 127)

You also make friends and acquaintances in these rest periods whom you meet again and again—and only, perhaps, during in-between existences. (Roberts 155-156)

When you have learned to your capacity in this in-between period, you are ready to progress. . . .

This in-between period can last for centuries. It can last only a few years. (Roberts 163-164)

The time of choosing may happen almost immediately, in your terms, or it may be put off for a much longer period while training is carried on. (Roberts 159)SSchanneled • modern • Seth

Subject: Sometimes you need to go back and think over the lessons you needed to learn in that life, and explore them to see what you did accomplish. Sometimes it is what you want to accomplish that causes you to go to school. Sometimes you just go directly into another life. . . .

If it is felt there will be too much carryover, then you would either come here to school and try to work it out or you would go to the place of rest. (Cannon 54)BDLhypnosis • modern • Cannon

I do know that some individuals in my position rush back to physical existence and some do not. I myself am more given to action behind the lines, to a study of the behind-the-scene workings than to center place on life’s stage. So I have thus far remained in this very favorable situation. (Roberts 158)AJoaAPchanneled • modern • James

For the average person who has attained even the smallest level of enlightment (sic), an immediate return to incarnation on the Earth would be unthinkable. The average person gravitates to the middle astral plane. Paramahansa Yogananda said that if a person has the slightest degree of a spiritual belief in life, his passin (sic) would be a pleasant one. . . . It is usaully (sic) only the lower impulses of Earth life that draw a soul back for immediate rebirth without some kind of review and assessment period. CAMwisdom • modern (Theosophy) • Stone

Dolores: I think some [spirits] are so wrapped up in the physical they think that is all there is. In those cases where they come back immediately they wouldn’t have had any chance to work on karmic relations or see their patterns. . . .

Subject: That’s true. They are usually the people who think their lives seem all messed up and confused and complain, “Why doesn’t anything ever go right?” It is because they came back disorganized. . . .

Now sometimes if a spirit just doesn’t seem to want to change, they are kept in a special place between lifetimes to help them grow and develop for the next incarnation. . . .

If this were not so, some would get locked into a vicious cycle and would never progress and that is not good. . . .

There they meet with others that have similar problems and with a spiritual guide. (Cannon 120-121)BDLhypnosis • modern • Cannon

Li (channeled): Some, too afraid to relinquish a corporeal form, become frantic to recapture their Earthly existence, and so reincarnate before they have had time to absorb the lessons of the life they have most recently left. Not only do these souls postpone by this choice the experience of indescribable freedom and infinite love that awaits them, they also create even greater difficulties and challenges for themselves by going back, when their spirits are ready to progress to the next level of learning and development. (Fairchilde 108-109)VftAchanneled • modern • Fairchilde

Some personalities do reincarnate before they are advised to, for many reasons. This is usually unfortunate in the short run, for the necessary planning has not taken place. But in the long run great lessons will still be learned from the “error.” (Roberts 151)SSchanneled • modern • Seth

In suicide cases involving healthy bodies . . . the soul is frequently sent back to a new life rather quickly, at their own request, to make up for lost time. (Newton 155)DoShypnosis • modern • Newton

The events of my own life appear open-ended to me; I see what I did, but also what I might have done. (Roberts 120)AJoaAPchanneled • modern • James

When I asked if it was possible to study future lives in the library I received this answer. “Yes, we can scan a variety of possibilities here on the timelines, but future events are very indeterminate and this is not the space where I would make any decisions about what is to come.” (Newton 168)DoShypnosis • modern • Newton

Souls take a portion of their energy, leaving the rest at the console, and enter the screens in one of two ways:

1. As observers moving as unseen ghosts through scenes on Earth with no influence on events. . . .

2. As participants where they will assume roles in the action of the scene, even to the extent of altering reality from the original. . . .

Events on any screen can be moved forward or backward. They can be placed into fast or slow motion or suspended for study. (Newton 163-164)DoShypnosis • modern • Newton

Now for those who choose to recombine, “mix and match,” events from the immediately past life. . . . The earth years will be experienced again, but not necessarily in continuity. The events may be used in any way the individual chooses; altered, played back the way they happened for contrast. . . . The actor can change his approach or the ending. . . .

The personality manipulates events consciously of course, and studies the various effects. The focus demanded is quite intensive. . . .

He realizes that [those who participate with him] are thought-forms, for example, and his own; but again, thought-forms do possess a certain reality and consciousness. . . .

They will grow in consciousness and continue their own lines of development on different levels. (Roberts 154-155)SSchanneled • modern • Seth

Perhaps your life span runs for seventy-seven years. After death you may . . . experience the events of those seventy-seven years at your leisure.. You may alter the events. . . .

If you find severe errors of judgement, you may then correct them. You may perfect, in other words, but you may not again enter into that frame of reference as a completely participating consciousness following, say, the historic trends of the time, joining into the mass-hallucinated existence that resulted from the applied consciousness of your self and your “contemporaries”.

Some choose this rather than reincarnating, or rather as a study before a new reincarnation. These people are often perfectionist at heart. This is a mental and psychic exercise, undertaken by many, demanding great concentration, and is no more hallucinatory than any existence. . . .

You may feel that you want to “relive” certain episodes of your life so that you can understand them better. . . . In ordinary living, you often imagine yourself behaving in a different manner than you did, or in your mind reexperiencing events in order to gain greater understanding from them. (Roberts 142-143)SSchanneled • modern • Seth

Unthur told me he cannot change his past by a second-time-around visitation. (Newton 169)DoShypnosis • modern • Newton

I can experience any season of my life in an expanded fashion, using a heightened memory that actively recreates events, giving me awareness of an event as I once experienced it—but expanded to include all those personal details that escaped me at the time, the subconsciously perceived events that couched the physical one. (Roberts 123)AJoaAPchanneled • modern • James

I can telescope the same season, experiencing, say, one given autumn which suddenly becomes a point of action in which the actions in all of my other experienced autumns are contained. (Roberts 123)AJoaAPchanneled • modern • James

Entering the field of probabilities can be compared to entering the reincarnational cycle. There will be a sustained focus of awareness and existence in an entirely different sort of reality. Powers latent but barely glimpsed within the multidimensional personality are drawn upon and used when such a choice is made. . . .

Here the personality must learn to group events in an entirely different way, and completely without any reliance upon the time structure as you know it.

In this one, as in no other reality, intellectual and intuitive abilities finally work so well together that there is little distinction between them. The self that decides upon reincarnational existence is the same self who chooses experience within the probable system. The structure of personality, however, within the system is quite different. The personality structures with which you are familiar are but one variety of the many forms of awareness available to you. (Roberts 153-154)SSchanneled • modern • Seth

There are also training centers. In these the nature of reality is explained in accordance with an individual’s ability to understand and perceive it. The familiar parables, for some, will be used at least initially, and then these individuals will be gradually weaned away from them. In these centers there are certain classes in which instruction is given for the benefit of those who chose to return to the physical environment.

They are taught . . . the methods that allow them to translate emotion and thought into physical actuality. There is no time lag, as there must be in the three-dimensional system, between the initiation of such thoughts and their materialization.

All of this occurs more or less at one level, though you must understand that I am simplifying the issues here to some extent. For example, some individuals do not undergo any such periods, but because of development and progress during their past lives, they are ready to pursue more ambitious programs. (Roberts 129-130)SSchanneled • modern • Seth

Subject: The learning and preparation you do here carries over in your subconscious and in your attitudes about whatever wisdom you are able to gain. (Cannon 120)BDLhypnosis • modern • Cannon

[Life creation training] exercises begin in group settings where souls find it easier to pool their energy with each other and their instructor. . . .

Souls are expected to individually work with the forces of creation by the time they are solidly established in Level III. . . . The formation of inanimate to animate objects from the simple to the complex is a long, slow process. Students are encouraged to create miniature planetary microhabitats for a given set of organisms which can adapt to certain environmental conditions. (Newton 167)

Subject: “When I started, my group formed a circle around Senwa (guide). Collectively, we had to practice so hard to harmonize our thoughts and fine-tune our ability to all focus on one thing with the same intensity. One time we were working on a tree leaf after Senwa demonstrated how it should appear in front of us. As we directed our beams of energy for texture, color, and shape we kept messing up. We weren’t unified, so a small part of the leaf did not have the proper veining and pigmentation. I am very serious and kind of a perfectionist in my studies, but Nemi (the group jokester) was deliberately alternating his energy the wrong way to screw up the experiment for laughs and because he was tired of the lesson. We finally got him to behave and completed the assignment.” (Newton 167)JoShypnosis • modern • Newton

Because many souls do become restless at times with their formal work, instructor souls often arrange for gatherings at the community centers to hear guest speakers. The visiting speakers at these functions give souls a break from their regular teachers, which allows for different perspectives with topics of general interest to the soul groups. . . .

Subject: “Our training is helped by roving guest speakers. They are different in approach and character from my own guide, and that’s helpful. There is one woman called Shalakin whom I adore. She comes to our center once in a while and I never miss her. Her particular skill is the ability to take any problem and quickly boil it down to the heart of the matter.” (Newton 289-290)DoShypnosis • modern • Newton

Case 21

Dr. N: Isn’t there another means by which your group is brought into harmony with each other with intelligent energy?

S: You mean from the cones? . . . The cones do assist us. . . . It’s shaped to go around us, you know. . . . It is cylindrical—very bright—it is above and all around us. The cone is small at the top and wide at the bottom, so it fits over all of us—like getting under a great white cap—we can float under the cone in order to use it. . . . The top funnels energy down as a waterfall in a spreading circle around all of us and allows us to really concentrate on our mental sameness as a group. . . . We can feel all our thoughts being expanded . . . then drawn up . . . and returned back . . . with more knowledge added. . . . It gives us more collective insight to work together. (Newton 137-138)JoShypnosis • modern • Newton

When in one way or another I am shown the vastness of reality, the following usually happens. . . . My own frustration fills me with an almost agonizing feeling of incompetence and ignorance. But suddenly a corner of my mind does shudder, shake itself, and become transparent in essence, as if a thousand veils that previously covered it have dissolved. . . .

Through my mind’s new small but cleared window an immense warm, but not blinding light shines. . . . I experience it as a living knowledgeable light that is part of the atmospheric presence mentioned earlier; and it imparts knowledge, or rather comprehension. . . . I am immeasurably strengthened, supported, and my earlier feelings of frustration and groping vanish. (Roberts 189)AJoaAPchanneled • modern • James

I have a lovely opportunity to enter the Golden Center of Wisdom for my own growth. If I choose the Wisdom Center, I will not be communicating with you in the same manner or as freely as we have in the past. . . .

[The Center of Wisdom] is such a glorious place, high on a hill, much removed from where I am now. The buildings look like sparkling alabaster, and at sundown a golden glow radiates out in all directions. The center is walled, but the gates are always open. . . .

Everyone here looks up to the center, like it was a Holy Shrine, and most of us hope someday to be there. What I have noticed is once someone leaves our community to go there, we don’t see them again. Like everything else in this world, it seems like it may be a portal, or doorway, to yet a Higher Plane. (Starnes 92-94)LFSchanneled • modern • James

Monroe: “What about those who simply want—or need—to return to what I have called their I-There NOTE: reincarnating self?” . . .

Nevisse: “That is the destination of most who depart from here. . . .

“The Park is but a starting point. You will be astounded when you see all of the little individual places that residents have created.”

“Are there rules?”

“Only one. No imposition of one will upon another.” (Monroe 242)UJOBEr • modern • Monroe